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Sci Fi Literature 101?
ohlaadee asks: "My niece (she's 13) wants to start reading science fiction. I do too. I gave us both Asimov's _The Foundation_ for Christmas. We'll read it together. I suppose we could spend the rest of our lives just reading Asimov, but I'm wondering what books and movies you folks would come up with? What does the /. recommended Science Fiction 101 list include?"
Favorites that I find I can re-read, all on
...
my SF "must read"
Foundation - Azimov, already mentioned
Dune - Frank Herbert
(later parts of series less and less interesting
for these)
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Protector, Tales of Known Space - Larry Niven
Permutation City, Axiomatic - Greg Egan
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress -
the Robert Heinlein I enjoy
Downbelow Station - CJ Cherryh
Consider Phlebas, Excession - Ian M Banks
... and then personal faves
Icerigger, The Tar-Ayim Krang, Nor Crystal Tears -
Allen Dean Foster
Dragonflight, The Ship Who Sang, Crystal Singer -
Anne Mcaffry - (notice how the first of each
of her sequences is worthwhile?)
"I went to see the pool of wisdom but it was empty. Someone has drained the pool of wisdom." - Todd Jones
- The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein
- Ringworld by Larry Niven
- Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
- A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
- The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke
- The Humanoids by Jack Williamson
- Heart of the Comet by Gregory Benford and David Brin
- Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward
- The Giants Novels (trilogy) by James P. Hogan
- Voyagers by Ben Bova
- Blood Music by David Brin
Sorry that I don't have time to write any details about these!Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
72656B636148206C72655020726568746F6E41207473754A
Mainly classics; by date of publication. Not all are fit for 13-years old people.
The links are to detailed reviews of the linked books.
- Tal Cohen
Lem's wordplay is utterly fantastic -- and Kandel's job of conveying that in English is indescribably awesome. :)
...
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Poul Anderson. In particular I remember reading Trader to the Stars when I was a kid and loving it. Of course, just about anything with his name on the cover is worthwhile.
There's also A. E. van Vogt: Slan, The Players of Null-A, The Darkness on Diamondia, and The War Against the Rull. (The Rull are really, REALLY scary when you think about them... ST 20|IN 20 [telepathic]|WI 25 [collective entity]|DX 25 [8 appendages IIRC]|CO 20|CH -5 [coercive abilities + pure ugliness] ... up to 6 attacks/round, +2 to hit, damagewise they can rip the meat off your body bare-handed -- er, tentacled.)
Other faves:
Zontar The Mindless,
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
With that in mind, I'll mention a few that I think may be appropriate for a younger reader, and then mention a few that she may want to investigate as she gets older, or if she proves to be a precocious reader. I should note that some of these books have serious literary value, while others are genre "fluff" that I would include in any (more) complete overview of "science fiction".
Books for now:
Out of the Silent Planet - C.S. Lewis
Crystal Singer - Anne McCaffrey
To Ride Pegasus - Anne McCaffrey
Shockwave Rider - John Brunner
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle
His Master's Voice - Stanislaw Lem
Engine Summer - John Crowley
Impossible Things - Connie Willis (short story collection)
The Bloody Sun - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
Battlefield Earth - L. Ron Hubbard
Moonflash - Patricia McKillip
1984 - George Orwell
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Tiger, Tiger - Alfred Bester
The Trial - Franz Kafka
Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
Doorways in the Sand - Roger Zelazny
The Postman - David Brin
The Andromeda Strain - Michael Crichton
Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
Books for later:
Replay - Ken Grimwood (explicit sex)
The Gap series - Stephen Donaldson (rape, torture, violence)
To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis (plot complexity)
Split Infinity - Piers Anthony (explicit sex)
Glimmering - Elizabeth Hand (complexity)
The Books of the New Sun - Gene Wolf (complexity)
Beauty - Sheri Tepper (rape)
Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner (complexity)
The Sheep Look Up - John Brunner (complexity)
A Fire in the Sun - George Alec Effinger (sex, drugs)
Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand - Delaney (sex, complexity)
Hyperion - Dan Simmons (sex, violence, complexity)
Both lists are woefully incomplete, but I'm sure that within a few hours there will be hundreds more messages naming books it would have taken me hours to recall. Besides, after you and your daugher read a dozen or so books off the many lists that have been posted here, you'll have a better idea of what you like and what you don't, as well as a better idea of where to look.
Good luck!
Although probably not be very suitable for a thirteen year old, it's a must read for the rest of you.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
My thought on the Hitchhikers Guide is that it makes fun of a lot of common themes and specific ideas in science fiction, so you will get more out of it after you've read your way around the genre.
Just picking it up as one of your first science fiction novels would be kind of like moving in from a very foreign country (no American TV... if such places still exist) and watching Simpsons: it would still be kind of funny, but not nearly as much as if you recognized all the pop-culture references.
Warning, these books are based off of reading level, not content. Books may contain violence, sex, lots of gay people, or christianity.
A wrinkle in time. by Madeleine L'Engle
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - (Note: get a copy of The AQnnotated Alice by Martin Gardner
The hobbit. by J.R.R. Tolkien
Anything by Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Alan Dean Foster, or Piers Anthony
Darkover (any of the books) by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Orsen Scott Card
The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.
A decent collection of Science fiction, mostly suitable for children
Also, Please attend the Worldcon, this year it's in Chicago followed by Philadelphia, PA, then San José. We have a lot of things for you and your children.
of course, our little one is only 6 months old. Mostly he's an excuse to reread Harold and the Purple Crayon
I aplogogise for any redundancies. This list took awhile to compile and find the links, especially as the co-author was breastfeeding at the time...
-----
No Zen is good zen
Dune
-study of aristocracy, religious engineering and the creation of a messiah, rejection of computers in favor of the development of human potential resulting in continued relevance of human traits, race memory (though now discredited, it is still a fascinating idea), consequences of reliance on performance-enhancing drugs, the potential failures of perfect "prediction" of the future, the dangers of breeding humans
The Dosadi Experiment
-an incredible system of adaptive law, development of societies under pressure, the dangers of psychological experiments, underlying nature of human interactions stripped of pretext and niceties, the nature of bureaucracy, the illusion of democracy, sideline on manipulation through addictions, interesting ideas about controlling runaway progress
Starship Troopers
-jump engines, powered armor, a military-based limited democracy, a tribute to the infantryman of past and future, and a simple biologically motivated clash of intelligent species
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
-an anatomy of a revolution, the unexpected emergence of an AI, rational anarchism and the redeeming traits of criminals, realistic lunar colonization
Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars (3 books)
-despite the naive politics and silly interpersonal plots, the random details create an incredibly rich and plausible potential future that is extremely relevant to our time
A 13-year-old mind is mature enough to handle any reading material. In fact, the more time a person has to be exposed to wildly varied viewpoints, the better they will be able to deal with them. As for graphic sex, all it will do is teach them not to giggle at a younger age.
Expose a 13-year-old to Marx and they'll think their way out of it before they do anything stupid. Restrict their access until they reach 18 and you might have a revolutionary on your hands.
Try this: read "1984", "Brave New World", then "Make Us Happy" in that order. There is a clear progression that is absolutely hilarious.
I've been reading SF since 1958, when I was six. I started with A.E. Van Vogt's "Voyage of the Space Beagle," a book upon which some sort of TV series was based many years later. I remember the book clearly - and far more fondly than Star Trek, which was a pallid thing by comparison.
By age eight I was a major Heinlein fan, to the point where my great fictional childhood role model was "Kettle Belly" Baldwin. (My "real life" role model was a friend of my grandmother's named Ray Bradbury, who put the idea into my head that I might one day be able to earn a living as a writer.)
Back to topic at hand:
My offbeat SF reading suggestions are Mark Twain's "Letters from the Earth," "Adam's Diary," "Eve's Diary," and "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven." These works are often packaged into a single volume, and are all worth reading not only on their own merits but also because they are where RAH got many of the pithy quotes he put into the mouths of characters like Lazarus Long, Prof. Bernardo de la Paz, Jubal Harsaw, Hugo Piniero, Sgt. Zim, and the other "wise but tough father" figures he used in almost all of his books and stories.
Yes, Heinlein plagiarized Clemmens. Frequently. I don't mind, but I think it's nice to know the original source wherever possible.
Indeed, much of the "theology" in "Stranger in a Strange Land" and later Heinlein books is somewhat derivitive of Twain's satires on Christian behavior. I often got the feeling that Heinlein had read Twain's beautifully ironic short story, "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleysburg," even more times than I had.
Some other Twain SF recommendations:
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
- Tales for Good Old Boys and Girls
- Tom Sawyer, Aeronaut
These books may not be suitable for TV-raised teeners. 19th century writers tended to move slowly by today's standards. But they're excellent works and well worth the time of an adult who wants to delve into "science fiction" that was written long before Hugo Gernsback coined the term in the 30s.
- Robin
Everyone else on the Internet has chimed in; I might as well, too.
:-)
:-) Cheers!
Must Reads
Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury. They still pack more ideas into a small space then any truck-full of cyberpunk.
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit should be read as young as possible, as kids can enjoy that sort of story much better then adults. Later on, they can try out The Lord of the Rings, but that requires some work to appreciate it fully, so go easy early on.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Quite simply one of the best books I've ever read.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Follow up with the sequels if you like (you will).
Personal Favorites
The Dragonriders of Pern series, by Anne McCaffrey. A pleasant mix of sci-fi and fantasy, with excellent characterization in relatively light reading. And you'll fall in love with the dragons, too.
Larry Niven. One of my favorite authors, his stories pack an education in the human condition and physics into the same space. I recommend his two short story collections, N-Space and Playgrounds of the Mind. If you prefer something longer, Ringworld is great. I also recommend The Mote in God's Eye, an excellent First Contact novel, and as Robert A. Heinlein (yes, him) said, "Possibly the best science fiction novel I have ever read."
C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia is an excellent series of fantasy, in the classic tradition of the fairy-tale. If the reader hasn't lost that childlike sense of wonder, they are excellent books. (There is also some Christian allegory if you like that sort of thing, but you don't have to get that part if you don't want to.)
I'm going to stop now, before I list my entire library.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
The Eye of Argon
Go read it. You are guaranteed to regret it.
I've noticed a number of references as to the age of the girl in question and why this book wouldn't be right for a 13 year-old or would be too complicated and above their level to comprehend. Think however, back to when you read most of these books for the first time. Most likely you were around her age if not younger and understood them perfectly. As for the books deemed inappropriate due to age we really ought not to determine what is or is not appropriate for a 13 year-old. Don't delude yourself into thinking that you never read that sort of thing at that age or that she wouldn't already know of them by now. The only thing we can have to gain by pretending otherwise is a delay in teaching her to be an adult and act like one in a mature and dignified manner. Give children and teenagers the ability to make their own decisions and you just might be surprised.
Eric Frank Russel's _Wasp_ - the one book I never lend anymore - and of which I have three copies after the one I DID lend was "lost" and I couldn't find it again for ten years. Also by Russel: _The Space Willies_, _And Then There Were None_
Russel and Ian Flemming worked together in the British Department of Dirty Tricks during WW II. This is the think tank that designed the spy techniques and equipment, along with the same for escape from prison camps. (I think they were also responsible for the British Home Guard manual - the difinitive text on guerilla warfare in a modern occupied city.) After the war they both became fiction authors and used their experience in their stories. Flemming went straight to spy fiction, modeling "M" in the James Bond series after himself. Russel did Science Fiction, with a heavy socio-political bent. But some a few of his works draw directly on his war experience, _Wasp_ the most of all. It's his unimplemented plan to drop a saboteur into WW II Japan, recast into an interplanetary war (with the Japanese secret police only lightly disguised...)
_And Then There Were None_ - one third of the collection _The Great Explosion_ - is the origin of MYOB and TANSTAAFL, and dear to the hearts of Pacifists and Anarchists everywhere. The three stories in the collection show how three different hypothetical cultures successfully resist an expansionist empire.
_The Space Willies_ is a hilarious romp where a lone man wins an interstellar war between two multi-species empires. From a prison camp. By making a joke, and then refusing to admit it was a joke. (_Hogan's Heroes_ is a pale shadow.)
Try to get the originally published versions of _The Space Willies_ and _Wasp_. Russel had (or was?) an excelent editor, and the modern reprints of the unedited manuscripts show it. The unedited _Wasp_ is only slightly awkward and still excelent, but _The Space Willies_ was edited down to a half-Ace-Double from a novel, and improved significantly by the tightening, pacing, chaff removal, and even the title change - from _Next of Kin_.
Leinster does fine yarns with with moral and social as well as technical concepts playing key roles, and does them with a vocabulary that makes them accessable to a child (if occasionally annoying an adult). His "Med Ship" series in particular is an excelent introduction to "Golden Age" Science Fiction.
Also from the Golden Age: George O. Smith. Read his _Venus Equilateral_ collection and you'll want to resurrect vacuum tube technology and hunt down the discoveries that got lost when it was abandoned for silicon. (Then go do a web search on "Farnsworth AND Fusion"... B-) ) Or try _Highways in Hiding_ / _The Space Plague_ for a marvelous superman/chase/conspiracy story set in a future where two Psi powers are commonplace and an accepted part of the background! (How do you do secrecy when about half the population are telepaths, and most of the other half clarivoyant? Poker is interesting... B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Robert A. Heinlein: Door Into Summer, Tunnel in the Sky, Starman Jones, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Red Planet (Willis!), Space Cadet, Rocketship Galileo, Time for the Stars, The Star Beast, Between Planets, Citizen of the Galaxy, The Rolling Stones (fantastic bio of the band), Farnham's Freehold, Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love. Oh, okay, ANYTHING by Heinlein. He arguably had the most influence on the SF genre of anyone, and for the better, too.
Isaac Asimov: the 'Lucky Starr' books (very Heinlein-ish), I, Robot
Arthur C. Clarke: Islands in the Sky (very Heinlein-ish), Childhood's End, City and the Stars, Rendezvous with Rama
Raymond Z. Gallun - The Planetstrappers (rare but very good and VERY Heinlein-ish)
James Blish - Welcome to Mars (same comments as above)
Anne McAffrey - The Pern books (especially the Harper Hall trilogy, and 'White Dragon'), The Ship Who Sang (& sequels), To Ride Pegasus (& sequels), The Rowan (& sequels), Coelura
Mercedes Lackey - Arrows of the Queen (& sequels), Magic's Pawn, Born to Run (& sequels with and without other authors), The Oathbound (I & II)
Andre Norton - the 'Solar Queen' books
James Schmitz - Witches of Karres (a total classic! hard to find), the Telzey Amberdon books
Joan D. Vinge - Psion & Cat's Paw
Robert Lynn Asprin - the 'Myth' books - very funny
Piers Anthony - the Xanth books and the Apprentice Adept books
Harry Harrison - the Stainless Steel Rat books, The Daleth Effect
Joe Haldeman - The Forever War
James White - the Sector General books
F Paul Wilson - Healer
EE "Doc" Smith - the Skylark series, the Lensman series, Subspace Explorer & Encounter, Spacehounds of IPC, the Vortex Blaster
Edgar Rice Burroughs - the John Carter of Mars books, the Venus books
Poul Anderson - the 'Flandry' books
Joel Rosenberg - Guardians of the Flame series
Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy & the next 2 books - skip the rest
Robert Silverberg - Across a Billion Years
Steven Brust - the Vlad Taltos books - great stuff
Elizabeth Moon - the Deed of Paksenarrion books, also some good recent SF novels
David Eddings - The Belgariad, the Malloreon, the Elenium, and anything related to any of these. Great characters.
Marcia J. Bennett - if you can find anything by her like Shadow Singer, Beyond the Draak's Teeth,
or Seeking the Dream Brother
Ann Maxwell - the Fire Dancer books - hard to find but worth it
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
Orson Scott Card - the Ender books
Frederik Pohl - the Heechee books
C. J. Cherryh - Merchanter's Luck
L. Ron Hubbard - Battlefield Earth
Roger Zelazny - the Amber books
David Brin - The Practice Effect
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World (mmmmm...soma)
That's all I can think of right now. There's LOTS more...
I'll probably read the book one of these days - I've liked the other Heinlein I've read - but it really isn't relevant to this discussion. A film can be perfectly good on its own despite being a travesty of an adaptation. For example - I liked Blade Runner. But read the original and you realise how bad it is as a rendering of that story. Now, that doesn't diminish the quality of Blade Runner as a film, it merely makes it a poor retelling of the original story.
You appear to regard the film as an example for us to follow, too: perhaps unfortunate, given the level of debate as to exactly what Heinlein actually meant. Never mind.
You may not have enjoyed the film, but that doens't mean it wasn't entertaining. Equally, while it's not a nice thing to do (assuming it's true - I've not heard this said elsewhere), the quality of the movie is not affected by the truthfulness or otherwise of his dealings with the estate.
You didn't like this film. Too bad - there's plenty of films I don't like either. I'm remarkably picky. But I did like it, along with several friends, some rather well read in SF.
Not having read Plato's republic doesn't help here, but...
That strikes me as far too broad a generalisation. I can see what you're getting at but that doesn't make it any truer.
Some good political SF will be taking the form of a fictional exploration of alternatives, sure. But I've always enjoyed the what if? side of SF, and that then provides possibilities you haven't got there. What if we could demonstrate sentience of other races - how would their rights now be defined? What if we were in a Star Trek-style environment and were having to shape a system of interaction between groups who have no common roots and very few common values?
Political SF can take many forms. I don't dispute you've identified a major form, but there's more to it than that by a long way.
Bottom line: you like the book but not the film, I like the film but haven't read the book. I'm told by others the film isn't an especially close rendering of the book but I don't care. It stands on its own two feet, both as entertainment and thought-provoking SF. Whether it provokes the same thoughts as the original is only relevant in the context of comparison with the original, and to refuse to look at it in any other light is monumentally short-sighted.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
No, it is. It's very true.
The movie may have had some merit if it was a standalone, without all the stupid classroom scenes, bad morality angles, and nazi-esque settings. It sunk far below just a cheap action flick with T&A by not only not getting the ideas, but mocking them, and by doing so, showing that the director is Nazi obsessed.
The director, I don't know what he was smoking, decided that anything different to the USA is a facist state with nazi overtones. Instead of presenting the same questions to the characters, letting people watch them decide what's important enough to make them risk their lives, the director simply shows the whole society as war-obsessed nuts.
Where did the scene with the soldiers handing the kids the guns come from? The nazi uniforms? All creations of the moron directing it.
If the deep thoughts aren't appropriate for a movie, then rip them out and leave the action, but don't distort them, twisting them to preach instead of to ask. That's the worst possible at all levels.
And then they bring to stupid love triangle into it, like it's impossible to have a movie without someone falling in love. And they end it with a ST:TNG-ism straight from Deanna Troy "I feel fear" "Its afraid!"
My friend sums up ST the movie as "based on the back cover of a book written by R.A.H." I would take that one step farther and add "interpretted poorly, loosely based, and maliciously directed" to that.
Paul Verhoeven's Dutch. As in from the Netherlands. I think the chance of him refusing to accept anything other than the US as valid is rather low.
Anyway, on with the post.
Erm...
T&A? OK... I don't dispute that there's nudity in the film (I'm not blind) but T&A sort of implies it's gratuitous. Now, think back to the two scenes concered. The showers and Johny and Dizzy in the tent. Would you have objected to the shower scene at all if it were all male? No, probably not - there's plenty of similar scenes in other films. And a big point in this film is that gender barriers just aren't there. Pilots tend to be female, but that's because they're better. Now, the main reason we don't see this most of the time is that there's a collective hangup about mixed nudity. I'm not saying that's bad, but why is single-sex nudity acceptable but mixed isn't? It's a perfectly sensible scene, helping to establish the parameters for the society.
Now, think back to the tent scene. Do we see every last sordid detail in slow motion? No. It's just another part of the story and a fairly understandable one, under the circumstances. I wouldn't describe it as gratuitous.
No...
If you remember, Johnny's parents were rather opposed to the whole thing. What we saw was a standard society - BUT one where military service had been decided was necessary for voting rights. I wouldn't go for that idea myself but I can see why others would, especially in that situation.
Look at when Johnny's about to leave the military. He stay in after his parents are killed. He'd originally decided it was worth it to try and keep Carmen, but changed his mind. He then changed it back again, presumably desiring revenge against the bugs.
We are seeing why the individuals concerned are choosing this course of action over another. For goodness' sakes, we even get them discussing their motives with each other! In the main, they're not psychopaths. They simply accept that military service has its perks in their society and feel that it's worth it. Describing the whole society in this film as war-obsessed nuts is simply inaccurate and unsupportable.
You may not like those elements, but we're not discussing how accurate an adaptation the film is here, we're discussing whether it's any good.
In this society, I agree soldiers handing kids guns is a little tasteless. But this is speculative social SF and we're not talking about this society. The military are an accepted, everyday part of life in this society. In that context, how is this any different from (for example) sitting kids in a police car and letting them try on helmets? The fact that they're guns is irrelevant - the soldier is just another part of this society and the gun is his tool.
Nazi uniforms though? I don't dispute Carl's uniform was a little suspect, but anyone else's? No, not really. And given that he was pretty much at the top by the time he started wearing that trenchcoat, he could choose what he wanted to a degree.
Oh, come off it. This film isn't preaching.
You may well perceive criticism, but how can you support that? You can't, it isn't there. It may come across as critical but at no point are they even indirectly criticised as a society. It's merely that our framework for the film generates implied criticism. Show the film to another society and I suspect the reaction could be different.
There's then the questing of how the original was intended... I've heard it argued with fair conviction both ways, so to use this against the film as an adaptation strikes me as odd.
Your point being?
They ended on a victory, showing the humans taking out their commander. Entirely sensible and in keeping with the style throughout.
I can see that you don't like the film and that's fine, we're all entitled to our opinion. But you seem to be letting your dislike of the film cloud your judgment excessively here. Stand back, stop thinking of the original as tightly as you seem to be and look at it again. It's a lot better than you give it credit for.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!