Fun, light-hearted and enjoyable === Terry Pratchett. Strata and the Dark Side of the Sun if you’re looking specifically for Sci-fi. But if you haven’t read the Diskworld series, I envy you! I’d give anything to re-live the sheer ecstasy of reading Pratchett for the first time.
Already mentioned: H2G2 (ditto, would love to be able to read it again for the first time); Ender’s game and sequels; Rama (maybe more thought-provoking than light reading though); basically any Clarke book; basically any Stephenson book.
Another not-quite Sci-fi I’ll put out there is Stross’ Laundry files series: the love child of BOFH and Lovecraft, a really fun read with quite a few hat tips to IT.
Lots of good stuff in this thread, but for fun and light-hearted (which lots of people are ignoring), Terry Pratchett takes the cake. I probably read over 50 books a year, and TP is one of the best authors I have ever had the pleasure of reading.
I keep trying to get into terry pratchett, but maybe I started with the wrong book.
Can you recommend the first book for someone coming from a mid-to-hard scifi? Something that stands on it's own, is funny, and does not need prior knowledge of his work.
Well, if you want stand-alone + sci-fi, try "the Dark Side of the Sun".
Otherwise, you can pick up any first book from one of the Discworld story arks. Personally, I'd go with "Wyrd Sisters" (witches story ark) and the City Watch story ark. Although the first book in that series is "Guards! Guards!", I'd recommend starting with the Second book, "Men at Arms", which is more representative of the rest of the series, and just more fun AFAIC.
Personally I found the witches arc the slowest to get in to. It's too long ago to remember why I found that, but they sat unfinished. I've read them all several times now, and enjoy them, but only after I'd thoroughly got into the rest of Discworld.
The City Watch sub-series is my favourite with the Death arc a close second. laurentl already made recommendation on City Watch, if you want to try the Death arc Mort is the first.
Already mentioned: H2G2 (ditto, would love to be able to read it again for the first time); Ender’s game and sequels; Rama (maybe more thought-provoking than light reading though); basically any Clarke book; basically any Stephenson book.
Another not-quite Sci-fi I’ll put out there is Stross’ Laundry files series: the love child of BOFH and Lovecraft, a really fun read with quite a few hat tips to IT.