Books

Science Fiction books you really ought to read! (In no particular order).
Stories that have First Contact as the prime driving theme are marked with 
asterisks,*, (Because they're the most interesting!).

Ben Bova:

Mars
Return to Mars
Venus
Jupiter
Saturn
Colony
Moonrise
Moonwar

Orson Scott Card:

Ender *

Ender's Game
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind
Ender's Shadow
Shadow of the Hegemon
Shadow Puppets
Shadow of the Giant 


Homecoming *

Memory of Earth
Call of Earth
Ships of Earth
Earthfall
Earthborn

Stephen Baxter

Evolution
Moon Seed
Titan

Isaac Asimov

Nemesis *
I, Robot

Greg Bear

Darwin's Radio
Darwin's Children

Gregory Benford

The Martian Race

Richard Paul Russo

Unto Leviathan

George Orwell

Animal Farm
1984

Arthur C. Clarke

2001: A Space Odyssey *
2010: Odyssey Two *
Rendezvous with Rama *
Rama II *

Frank Herbert

Dune

Ken MacLeod

Learning the World **