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Ask Slashdot: Good, Forgotten Fantasy & Science Fiction Novels?
jjp9999 writes "I've been looking for some good reading material, and have been delving into the realms of some great, but nearly forgotten authors — finding the likes of Lord Dunsany (The King of Elfland's Daughter) and E.R. Eddison (The Worm Ouroboros). I wanted to ask the community here: do you know of any other great fantasy or science fiction books that time has forgotten?"
c j cherryh -Downbelow Series, Chanur's Pride, etc
I liked the lensman series back in the day, but in retrospect they seem a little fascist
I'm just sayin'
EE 'Doc' Smith, the Classic Lensman Series.
I don't know if it fits the criteria of 'forgotten' but Philip Jose Farmer - River World, World of Tiers, and many other great novels - would have to be the amount the best SF of all time.
http://www.amazon.com/Dragonworld-Byron-Preiss/dp/0671039075
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Silent_Planet
That Hideous Strength. It's obscure - obscure for a reason; it combines dystopian sci-fi with Christian allegory and British academic politics, so there's not a large natural audience. But it's culturally significant as one of George Orwell's inspirations for 1984, and Orwell himself thought reasonably well of it ("by the standards of books today", at least). It's also an interesting little moment before the atomic bomb but still within the realm of dystopian WWII-inspired science fiction.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Well World series
and many others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_L._Chalker
He only published a few books, but "Bridge of Birds" (and its follow ups) is a wonderful mixture of Chinese folklore, Indiana Jones, and Sherlock Holmes.
Especially the stories of Elric of Melnibone / Stormbringer series -- very good fantasy series.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Black Easter by James Blish
A Canticle for Liebowitz by Miller
Non Robot/Foundation Asimov
Dueling Machine Ben Bova
Any of the earlier Pern books
Friday by Heinlein - still one of my favorites
Morgaine books by Cherryh
John Campbell
The collections put together in the 60's and 50's are outstanding - and you can usually pick them up for a quarter at a book store.
"An epic tale of freedom and slavery, love and war, and the potential futures of humankind tells of a twenty-first century California clan caught between two clashing worlds, one based on tolerance, the other on repression."
The description does not do it justice... this is a post-apocalyptic fiction at its finest, addressing the dividing forces of our society and looking at the possibilities presented by our political structures, values, technologies and attitude towards nature and magic.
It is awesome, intense, sexy and rewarding.
And most of his work is available via Gutenberg.
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.
Not quite forgotten, but I keep running into people who haven't heard of the series. Great read, really; it's a strangely wonderful blend of Tolkienesque high fantasy and dark smarminess.
Bridge of Birds.
"To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
Way Station
City
Time and Again
Time is the Simplest Thing
Leo Frankowski
Cross Time Engineer series is good.
Love aldus huxley--- Brave new world.... funny how much of his visions have come to pass!!
Some classics:
Mervyn Peake - Gormenghast (and sequels). HARD to get into, but rewarding if you understand that they are very experimental.
F.M.Busby - The Demu Trilogy. Nothing ground-breaking, but it is well written escapist fiction.
James Blish - Cities in Flight. Ditto the previous.
John Crowley - Little, Big. Please please please DO read this. It is the single best book in the English language. Each chapter is like a gem. Another of his books "Engine Summer" is also jaw-droppingly lovely and has a "reveal" at the end that makes M.Night Shamylam seem like a moron. You WILL weep unashamedly. His later stuff is hard to digest, but worth the read if you stick with it.
Lin Carter - The Martian books (The Valley Where Time Stood Still, The City Outside the World, Down to a Sunless Sea, and The Man Who Loved Mars). Thinking man's pulp fiction.
James H. Schmitz - The Witches of Karres. So fun to read. It's a novelization of a series of short stories (or it reads that way, anyway) concerning a trio of underage witches and the space captain they "adopt" and whose life they make miserable but in a good way.
Apologies for spelling/grammar/mispronunciation/
Bulfinch's Mythology contains the roots of much of the modern 'fantasy' universes. But Bulfinch's is itself a collection of more ancient texts.
In other words, why go back 50 years, when you could go back 1500?
William Hope Hodgson's "The Night Land" deserves a read. Inspiration for Lovecraft, among others.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Most notably A Land out of Time and the epic Ringworld.
Not sure these count as forgotten, but definitely worth reading:
The Heechee saga by Frederick Pohl sci-fi
The Parafaith War by LE Modesitt Jr.sci-fi
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem sci-fi
Hyperion by Dan Simmons sci-fi
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut sci-fi
Some newer works:
The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks fantasy
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch fantasy
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss fantasy
All of the early Robert Heinlein are fun. Lots of great stuff out there.
-c
Taking a browse through Project Gutenberg's whole Science Fiction bookshelf would probably be worth your time. That's where I picked up some of my first science fiction novels, and I particularly enjoyed H. Beam Piper's Federation series.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
Frank Herbert's Dune is amazing. There is a reason there have been multiple attempts to make it into film. However none of them come close to the books.
Eric Frank Russell, Fredric Brown, Keith Laumer (Retief in particular), Jame Tiptree Jr, H. Beam Piper. Basically plunder all the free ebook sites for classic/pulp - there's a lot of good stuff there and I even quite like the not so good :-)
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
The Age of the Pussyfoot - Fred Pohl
This book was waaaaay ahead of its time. A wonderful short novel from the 1960's that is still a great read. Pohl pretty consistently produces good books. 'Black Star Rising', 'The World at the End of Time', the Gateway series (although hardly obscure) and a whole lot of others.
Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban
A post-apocalyptic novel. Excellent. Would help to have some local knowledge of English culture.
Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg
This book does not get enough recognition.
The Lilith's Brood series - Octavia Butler
Three novels about the integration of the human race by aliens after a nuclear war. Marvelous.
I got into reading Vance's books when I was in high school. A few years ago a friend asked a similar question and i gave him one of Vance's short story anthologies. In 28 pages Vance had a more complete and engrossing story than some authors have in 200 pages.
His stories range from straight out fantasy to classic science fiction, from short stories to multiple book sagas. Plenty of stuff to keep you going for the summer and probably the winter too.
Any of the Wing Commander novels are a great light read especially if you are into heroic characters and fleet actions. The entire book series is great reading for any fan of space opera.
Sorted from cheapest, restricting results to books rated 4 stars or higher
Look at Gutenberg.org for Edgar Rice Burroughs. He wrote the Tarzan novels and also John Carter of Mars. Dated but fun to read.
Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro
The fantasy books by Virginia author James Branch Cabell were in vogue at one time but seem mostly forgotten now.
there's a re-publication of some of the most amazing sci-fi books, which to be honest take a little getting used to: the sci-fi masterworks series. "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny is a particularly beautiful tale. then there's Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men" which is just breathtaking in its scope and prescience: i found it particularly funny that the foreword by Stephen Baxter said "Stapledon got everything right except of course for the bits about the United States" when in fact he was right on the nose, having predicted the fall of the League of Nations, the rise of the United Nations, the detonation of the Atomic Bomb and more.
then there's "The End of Eternity" by Isaac Asimov, which was the book written very early on that explains the background of the entire Asimov "Foundation" series. this book was noteworthy for its use of the word "Computer" as a title, like "Professor", to refer to one with the highly responsible task of "Performing Computations" - in this case, the job of working out the "minimum necessary change" to alter the future in order to keep it on track.
i have a challenge for you, jjp9999. read *all* of asimov's books, including the ones written at the behest of the asimov estate, in a timespan where you will actually remember details from one book to the next. "robby the robot", which he wrote in conjunction with his wife. the early "robot" books which describe susan calvin's experiences - she screams "LIAR!!" at one robot, as it dies. remember to include the one written by greg bear, "forward the foundation" i think it is, as well as the "New Law" Robots, and pay attention also to Giskard's role. i think you will find the sheer scope of asimov's vision as he paints a picture which develops over - and beyond - the span of his life - to be absolutely stunning. but it does take patience: some of the isaac bailey series are quite methodical, being detective novels, and can be somewhat... well, tedious isn't the right word. you just have to be patient: it's worth it.
then there's a couple of books which even i've forgotten the name of the authors. one of them very much reminds me of that new sci-fi series with the lead character from "The Librarian Series"... i remember the book because humanity was fighting against a much superior race of "invaders". when humanity "won", they left... but the parting words were something to the effect of "we are leaving because you are not worthy". and there was another - again, alien invaders, where the premise of the book was that just by learning the *language* of the invaders actually changed human DNA - or allowed it to change - to enhance and augment the person's intelligence... and physiology... into one of the aliens. both of these books were well written, and i've just spoiled the plot for anyone wishing to read either of them, but i would really appreciate someone letting me know who the authors are if they know either of these books, because i'd quite like to read them again.
I finally got off my ass and registered for the World Science Fiction Convention last year and read the nominees for best novel so i could vote for the Hugo awards. In doing so i read two novels that i might never have picked up otherwise, and was tipped me off to a third one that was actually by one of my favorite authors under a pseudonym. (I presume i eventually would have stumbled across that one one way or another.)
The realization that i hadn't heard of three of those books before and might never have read them caused me to go back and review the complete list of Hugo awards and Nebula awards for best novel.
There are a lot of old favorites on there, but there are also a lot of other books that i know of but never gotten around to reading and a lot more that i've never even heard of, especially for the earlier years. Unless you're a lot more knowledgeable than me you've probably never heard of a lot of them either. All the books in those lists were considered one of the best books that year either by the fans or the writers, and a lot of them probably still hold up well today. I've now got a plan, or at least a desire, to try and start working through those older books a few at a time. (Though how i'm going to manage that when i can't even keep up with all the _new_ books coming out i don't know.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I would recommend "The Book of Swords" series by Fred Saberhagen. Such great books.
Anything by Roger Zelazny. His most extensive set of novellas were the Amber series-- five books, if I recall, eventually published in two volumes-- but he had a number of really lovely independent stories, including My Name is Legion, This Immortal, and Jack of Shadows. It's been a good twenty years since I went through my Zelazny phase, but few things would make me happier even now than discovering something else written by him.
The Description of a New World, Called The Burning-World by Lady Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. Late 1500s. Very strange early SF, semi-autobiographical. Requires tolerance for Elizabethan English, though it's easier than Shakespeare since it's prose not poetry. Author also composed poems about pixies responsible for moving atoms around.
The Three Impostor: and Other Stories, by Arthur Machen. Very Lovecraftian, except that it predates Lovecraft.
Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling. Not read as much as his other stories these days; basically a tour of English/European history from a decidedly British perspective, courtesy of tour guide Puck.
The Days of Chivalry,or, The Legend of Croque-Mitaine; original in French by Ernest Louis Victor Jules L'Epine; free (VERY free) translation by Thomas Hood the Younger, late 1890s. 177 illustrations by Gustave Doré. Originally a children's book, this heavily allegorical book follows the adventures of Mitaine, female squire to the legendary French knight Sir Roland. Would never hand this to a child now. Illustrations of impalements. Thoroughly racist, sexist, and every other kind of -ist you can think of. Shows illustration of Mohammed getting his teeth punched out by Roland (!!). Despite all that, fun in a horrifying kind of way. Reading this helped me understand how World War I came about. If this is the kind of thing they were raising their kids on, no wonder they killed millions of each other.
A Gift Upon the Shore by M. K. Wren -- two women struggle to preserve knowledge in post-apocalyptic Oregon. SF only by membership in post-apocalyptic sub-genre, but beautifully written.
Interesting question. Will keep eye on discussion. Note to self: must take refresher course on personal pronouns.
A couple that aren't usually thought of as sci-fi but would be if they were publiished today: "Utopia" by Thomas More, and Swift's "Gulliver's Travels". As far as more modern books go, one of my favorites, for it's great plotting and incredibly prescient imagining of an information web, is "Shockwave Rider", by John Brunner.
Everything possible to be believ'd is an Image of Truth - Wm. Blake
I'd love to find more of his stuff.
Look for "The Weapon Shops of Isher".
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Certainly not forgotten, but currently underrepresented in print and best-of lists.
There have been some ginormous (non-Ellison) anthologies at my local library recently that look like they have been compiled by real scifi scholars. This one, for instance:
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Opera-Renaissance-Kathryn-Cramer/dp/0765306182/ref=cm_lmf_img_13
As a young teen I was mesmerized by the books. Hope the big screen can do it justice.
First and Last Men, and Starmaker. Olaf Stapleton is interesting.
And then there is the weird stuff, I suggest William Hope Hodgeson. Boats of the Glenn Carrig is pretty strange. Nightland is a work of genius, but also pretty much unreadable. It is probably worth reading the early Nightland part of it just for the atmosphere though. The House of Silence is CREEPY.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
"Lud-in-the-Mist" by Hope Mirlees is a fantasy novel written in the 1920's that fell out of circulation but has been reprinted, so I guess it has been "rediscovered" and is not necessarily obscure these days.
Religion is poison to rationality, and we lose sight of that at our own peril. -- Lurker2288
Farmer's Riverworld series is a classic. I don't know if you'd call it forgotten, per se, since BBC made a movie out of it a few years back, but it's a really neat combination of sci-fi and stone age technologies in an afterlife setting for humanity on a distant planet. =)
hmmm, was this topic started by Amazon? They can only do well from this in any event. Who else has already added items to their cart based on recommendations here? I am up to six so far.
tales of Pirx the Pilot among many others -Solaris (esp the movies) is not a good representation of the poetry and honesty of his work
-I'm just sayin'
It's sad, but look for early works of any of these three as they're largely forgotten.
Keep an eye out for:
Asimov, "The Foundation Trilogy", "The Caves of Steel" and "The Naked Sun"
Clarke, "Childhood's End", "Tales of the White Hart" (short stories), "A Fall of Moondust"
Heinlein, "Have Spacesuit, will travel" (kids book, but still good), "Orphans of the sky", "The Puppet Masters", "Farmer in the Sky"
Wow, getting nostalgic and thinking about re-reading many of these.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I think the movie was so bad, and had so little in common with the book, that most people would like to forget.
But Perelandra ... well, it isn't really sci-fi or fantasy, except as a really thin veneer of that on top of some religious ruminations on matters such as: the creation of man, the Garden of Eden, the problem of Evil, and spiritual warfare. It is of some interest to the reader who is interested in Christian thought (either as a Christian or an outsider interested in how Christians think about things), but aside from some clever floating islands, its offerings to the genre of science fiction (or fantasy for that matter) are sorely limited. It has more in common with the likes of The Screwtape Letters than science fiction proper.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I really enjoyed a really strange novel called I, Zombie by "Curt Selby". According to this link, this was actually a pen name for Doris Piserchia.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1257369.I_Zombie
I think you will enjoy it more if you don't read any spoilers. I'll just say it's told first-person by a narrator with a truly strange point of view, and some truly strange things happen.
This isn't even forgotten, because I don't think it was ever well-known. But I enjoyed the heck out of it, and perhaps you will too.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Kind of obscure as in you won;t find them on any top 25 best sellers but quite well written and worth the effort. Actually there is no effort as these stories are like smoking grass: Easily inhaled, held onto, feels exhilarating, and afterward you feel as if you've experienced something.
John Varley
Titan, Demon, Wizard - Three great futuristic tales of a large, sentient, organic space station out in our solar system. Probably my favorite blend of Sci-fi and fantasy in one setting.
The Ophiuchi Hotline - What if the internet was really a signal from another galaxy? One of the best of the "eight worlds" novels. (Just an opinion)
"The Pusher" - Short story published in Blue Campaign and other places. This is a story that makes you feel dirty but so worth the read.
Roger Zelazny
Chronicles of Amber - Great stuff. Alternate worlds controlled by an elite bloodline. Fun family politics. 5 books each of which are short and can be read in a single setting.
John Steakly
Armor - This is an exciting read and will wear you out and make you feel the physical exhaustion of the characters. As Steakly said this book is the action in starship troopers. Orson Scott Card mentions it in his introduction in one of his books. I forget which one. If you do read this. Don;t stop after part one. You'll want to: Don't.
Vampire$ - This is what a vampire novel should be. People working for the Vatican to slay vampires for fun and profit. The book rocks, but Damn, the John Carpenter movie version in the 80's sucks ass. Don;t ever watch it.
Finally,
Steven Brust
Jhereg - This and all of the 11(?) other books follow an human assassin, Vlad Taltos, that kills "elves." It involves the fantasy elements of gods, sorcery, witchcraft, elves, etc in a world as dark and gritty as you want and as rich as Tolkein. Why these books haven;t "hit the big time," I have no clue.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
There's gold in them there hills.
I'd run out of authors I knew much about, so I picked up Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War" and enjoyed it. Then I noticed the '1' on the spine and that it was part of a series. Kept me busy for ages...
Of particular note (IMHO) was the Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith, though in this instance I'd recommend tracking down the complete works (under the same title) instead of the Sci Fi Masterworks version.
Wasp by Eric Frank Russell is about a human dropped onto an enemy alien’s planet to cause as much confusion and destruction as possible to destabilize the occupying force in advance of a human assault. It’s a great ‘war novel’ about, essentially, spy stuff and what would now likely be called terrorism. Eric Frank Russell is generally ignored now, in fact, and does not deserve to be.
How can you use my intestines as a gift? -Actual Hong Kong subtitle.
His output was very limited, and all set in a unified future history. It is available in two books; The Rediscovery of Man a collection of short stories, and Norstilla, a novel. His work is very unusual, so a short description does not do it justice. As Wikipedia says "Linebarger's stories are unusual, sometimes being written in narrative styles closer to traditional Chinese stories than to most English-language fiction." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith.
You can read some of his work on line. I suggest
Scanners Live in Vain" http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/1416521461/1416521461___5.htm
Game of Rat and Dragon http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29614
Why is Snark Required?
Read Emergence, if you can find a copy. A genius eleven year old girl and her pet macaw travel a post-apocalyptic America. The writing style is hard to get used to -- a lot like Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" -- but after a few pages your brain starts filling in the missing words. (The in-story explanation is that it's her personal diary written in Pitman shorthand.)
Unfortunately, the sequel "Tracking" is only available as a bootleg right now, (check torrents). It was serialized in a now-unavailable sequence of Analog magazines. If you can find "Tracking", it's also worth reading.
Palmer seems to have done a lot of research for the books. He makes some mistakes regarding firearms that grated on me, but the rest seemed correct.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man
Any of the old DragonLance novels from about 20+ years ago are wonderful.
I spent many a long hour reading plenty of those fantasy fiction books, and as much as I hate to admit it, some of the stories were so vivid and compelling that they brought a tear to my eye during the tragic finale here or there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dragonlance_novels
The Chronicles
+ Dragons of Autumn Twilight
+ Dragons of Winter Night
+ Dragons of Spring Dawning
+ Dragons of Summer Flame
Legends
+ Time of the Twins
+ War of the Twins
+ Test of the Twins
Lost Histories
+ The Kagonesti (A Story of the Wild Elves)
+ The Irda (Children of the Stars)
+ The Dargonesti
+ Land of the Minotaurs
+ The Gully Dwarves
+ The Dragons
Meetings Sextet
+ Kindred Spirits
+ Wanderlust
+ Dark Heart
+ The Oath and the Measure
+ Steel and Stone
+ The Companions
Preludes
+ Kendermore
+ Brothers Majere
+ Darkness and Light --- This one was HILARIOUS! I hadn't laughed my arse off whilst reading before I came across this book.
Anything with Elminster in it, anything with Drizz't Do'Urden and the Avatar series (NOT the movie) are also strongly recommended.
I seem to recall coming across a bittorrent of some poorly-scanned versions of these books but I can't say for sure if it is still around.
Randall Garrett is now best remembered for his Lord Darcy stories (which are great; if you haven't read them, check them out). But one of the best things he ever wrote was a novel called Unwise Child.
There are action scenes, there are geeky science-fiction ideas, there is a bit of sleuthing. The main character is "Mike the Angel", a genius who designs spaceship engines and likes to build gadgets. There's a robot named "Snookums" who... knows too much about hydrogen. There is an overall logic to the plot that isn't obvious as you are reading but makes sense when you reach the end. There is a love interest, a lady scientist who is every bit as brilliant as Mike but in a completely different field. And there is a bunch of lovely writing and snappy dialog, as smart people banter with each other. I think I have re-read this novel over a dozen times, and I'm not done with it yet.
And lucky you, it is one of the works that is actually in the public domain. (It was written when the author had to renew a copyright after a fixed term to keep the copyright, and Garrett never renewed it.) So go and grab your copy here:
http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1957/unwise-child
You might also find a paperback edition published under the name Starship Death. Since the book was public domain, there was nothing stopping anyone from publishing it under a different title, and someone did.
P.S. If you haven't read the Lord Darcy stories, you can get them in ebook form (any format you like, and with no DRM) from Baen. The stories are collected in a single omnibus volume simply called Lord Darcy and it includes every story Garrett wrote. They are detective stories, set in an alternate-history Earth where magic was developed instead of the science we have; much of Europe and all of North and South America are united into the "Anglo-French Empire" and the rival superpower, the Polish Empire, is often causing trouble. The best stories work both as detective stories and as a glimpse into another world. You can read the first two stories as a preview; if your tastes are anything like mine, you will want to buy the book after you read these.
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200207/0743435486.htm
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Public domain and should be on Gutenberg:
Lindsay's - _A Voyage to Arcturus_
William Morris - _The Wood Beyond the World_
A.E. Merritt - _Dwellers in the Mirage_
Still in copyright
Susan Cooper - Dark is Rising Pentalogy (Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark Is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, Silver on the Tree) --- ignore the movie
Megan Lindholm -_Cloven Hooves_ --- amazingly moving urban fantasy
Linda Haldeman - _Star of the Sea_, _Lastborn of Elvinwood_
Dale Estey - _A Lost Tale_
Saunders Anne Laubenthal - _Excalibur_ --- Arthurian myth in Mobile Alabama
R.A. MacAvoy - _Tea with the Black Dragon_ --- worth it for the Knuth reference if nothing else. Wish the sequel was better.
Seconding
Jack Vance _Lyonesse Trilogy_ (Suldrun's Garden, The Green Pearl, Madouc) --- read aloud to a loved one if possible.If Vance were European he would've won a Nobel prize
Barry Hughart --- there's a free initial version of the first book which demonstrates the importance of meaning to a book
Cherryh --- Alliance Union books are fabulous w/ realistic space combat and no hand-wavium save for FTL. Morgaine books are excellent. Dreamstone is heartbreaking.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
the "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" are fantastically complex works deeply influenced by Joseph Conrad (who Donaldson is a scholar of) and also by the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.
These books are Nondual Tolkien, and in a sense are also a deconstruction of Tolkien.
These are difficult works, written in a high style with outsize and anachronistic vocabulary. But they are the only modern fantasy novels that are on the same high level as Tolkien or Mervyn Peake.
The 'hero' of these High Fantasies is a diseased leper who is also a rapist. Read them and be amazed if you can get past the odd writing style.
Great writers, wrote the best Star Trek episodes and Ellison also did some Outer Limits episodes. Demon with a Glass Hand maybe the best made for TV SciFi episode ever.
Ralph 124c41 arguably the first modern sci fi novel.
Six volumes of collected stories and poetry by Roger Zelazny.
You are bound to bump into something you haven't read before OR find a new facet to the things you've read already as each story is followed by a section explaining the references he used.
As for actual "new" stuff by Zelazny, there's this.
And you may find this amusing as well.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If you don't mind some communism apology in some stories, Soviet SF has some great works, although finding English translations might be hard.
See the works of the Strugatsky brothers, in particular.
Dilbert RSS feed
One of the best series I have ever read and I've been reading SciFi for 35 years.
Intervention (sometimes two books as Surveillance & MetaConcert)
Jack the Bodiless
Diamond Mask
Magnificat
The Many Colored Land
The Golden Torc
The Nonborn King
The Adversary
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
Read this a long time ago and just recently figured out what the title was.. not sure where you would find it though. Full of Unix puns.
John Sladek wrote a hilarious parody of Asimov's take on robots. Tik-Tok is a menial servant bot who is driven to psychosis as he passes from one owner to another and all are venal or neurotic. Tik-Tok eventually winds up a genocidal misanthrope who learned all too well from humanity. He basically becomes a robot version of Alex from Clockwork Orange. He is just as sardonic and devastingly original in his revenge on humanity.
http://www.amazon.com/Tik-Tok-John-Sladek/dp/0575072350
i liked child of fortune and little heroes. star trek fans ought to note that he also wrote the episode 'wolf in the fold'.
spinrad's novels are generally set in decadent societies and feature lots of drug use.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
I would highly recommend Julian May's Intervention, Saga of Pliocene Exile, and Galactic Milieu from the 80s-90s. These interrelated series stretch from the far past to our space-faring future and combine science fiction, technology, and fantasy into one grand vision. Intervention is my favorite and works very well as a stand alone novel... Ah, Oncle Rogi...
My other recommendation would be Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis (aka Lilith's Brood) from the late 80s, a series of novels with an interesting take on the future of humanity and what it means to be human. A bit less Sci-Fi, but also highly recommended, is her powerful Parable series from the 90s (Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents). In it she explores issues of race, freedom, religion, violence, and more through extrapolating a dark but all too possible vision of the future based on current trends in American society.
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"Lord Foul's Bane" exposed me to understanding uncommon emotions in middle school I could connect with instead of the English lit exposure of the time. If you have not read the first series take vacation time and brew a lot of tea or hot chocolate for intense read.
Rendevous with RAMA
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com
I highly recommend the Stainless Steel Rat series from Harry Harrison.
I'm currently reading the third Deathworld book, which is good, but not quite as good at the Rat books.
And I'd also recommend that you ask for the books people recommend at your library. Most of 'em have reserve funds to get books if they're not already in the system, which means that you can get your library to start filling out their SciFi section, so maybe other people will read them too.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The Black Company by Glen Cook.
I posted above in this thread, but YES read this novel (Lyonesse but in the Integral Edition the preferred title is Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden). Highly recommended. This is my favorite fantasy novel of all time, and I've bought multiple editions of it (paperback, trade paperback, various hardcovers, etc).
The Green Pearl is my favorite novel, regardless of genre.
Kind of odd that I would like the second book in a trilogy, since that's usually the weak link.
Madouc was good too, but he seemed to rush to wrap up all the loose ends. Still well worth reading, though.
(For those who don't know, the titles above are the three books in Vance's Lyonesse trilogy.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Do you approve of Planned Parenthood? Its founder was big on eugenics - that's why she founded PP.
Depends on what you mean by "eugenics"-- the word has changed a little in connotation since the 1930s.
Sanger was an advocate of parenthood by choice, and opposed to anybody who wanted to make decisions on childbearing for other people. So, if you think of eugenics as meaning forced sterilization and involuntary contraception, no, she was fiercely opposed to that.
She did, however, believe that availability of contraception would mean that poor people would have fewer children, and that this would benefit both society and the gene pool (and, for that matter, benefit the poor people themselves, who would split their wealth a smaller number of ways). This was considered eugenics at the time.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Dig up some old short story anthologies. Lots of gems not seen elsewhere. Even if you end up reading a mediocre story, there's always a great one a few dozen pages later. Authors you'll never hear of. Some who only wrote a couple stories.
Several stories still stick with me decades later. Wish I could find those books again.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Robert E Howard and all the original Conan books are pretty good (well, if you like the old stuff, which it seems you do!). Maybe you were looking for something more obscure, though.
Make sure that the Howard books you read are actually by Robert E. Howard, though. Avoid anything by some other author continuing the series, or by "Robert E. Howard and xxx," or "Inspired by Robert E. Howard," or "completed by YY based on an unfinished story by Howard".
With that said, the Howard books do have a bit of the '30s feel to them, but if you like that style, they're the original.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
In the U.S., John Wyndham is rarely mentioned these days, yet each book that I've read has been a monument. The Midwich Cuckoos. The Day of the Triffids.
If you're looking for gentle and humorous adventure, try the three books in Alexei Panshin's Thurb pentology.
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Lord of Light
the Amber books.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Umm... that would be Heir of Sea and Fire, and I second the recommendation. Patricia A. McKillip is one of the very few female authors that I actually like (don't blame me - I have really tried to read many female authors, but almost all fail for my taste). If you do like McKillip, you'll probably also enjoy Ursula K. Le Guin. The Wizard of Earthsea stuff is really good, and most of her other stuff is worth reading, too.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
If you like short stories try to find a copy of any of the "Best sci fi writers of" paperbacks, especially the 60s and 70s. While many of the authors may be folks you've never heard of a lot of the choices that went into those books were picked by the greats like Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, so they tend to reflect those authors favorite themes. Those picked by Bradbury were often futuristic, Heinlein with moral/social issues wrapped in a sci/fi cloak, frankly nearly all of those paperbacks were quite good. The also had a "Best horror writers of" and "Best fantasy writers of" and all were great. They aren't easy to find but you'd be surprised how many treasure troves of out of print books there is out there in places like estate sales, flea markets, yard sales, some truly great books if you can find them.
The only one which I can still remember by name is "Old Friend of the family", sorry i can't remember the author but its been 20 years. Great gothic style horror about an old Romanian whose granddaughter is brutalized by a gang so she calls in a "very old favor"...a debt owed by a vampire to their family for over 800 years. Great story.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Finder, Bone Dance and Falcon, by Emma Bull. Three completely different novels, all fantastic. She's still writing, but you asked for old stuff.
M.A. Foster did a series about a transhuman species called the Ler that I found really haunting and freaky back in the day.
The Witches of Karres, by James Schmitz (a couple of fairly decent sequels have been written, but the original is unmatched).
The Last Planet, by Andre Norton.
The Chronicles of the Deryni, by Katherine Kurtz.
The Family Tree, by Sheri Tepper (this is one of her best books, so even if you've read others and didn't like them that much, I still recommend this one).
The Musashi Flex series, by Steve Perry (and anything else by Steve Perry, for that matter).
Scott Westerfeld's The Risen Empire, which it pains me to refer to as an oldie, which has one of the most insanely great and physically realistic space battle scenes _ever_.
Silk Roads and Shadows, by Susan Schwartz (she gets the Buddhism mostly wrong, but it's still a great book).
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (who put a spaceport in Hamtramck and explained how to pronounce it) and The Demolished Man, also by Alfred Bester.
All The Myriad Ways (the short story collection) by Larry Niven.
I've been going back and reading all the early books by Lord Dunsany. I really recommend "A Dreamer's Tales" and "Tales of Wonder." They're both collections of short stories, but well worth reading. His prose if really unique and colorful, and the themes go down roads I don't think I've ready any or author delving into. I recently finished "The King of Elfland's Daughter" and I'm in the process of reading "The Charwoman's Shadow," which are full novels and well worth reading.
The House on the Borderland, by William Hope Hodgson
(admired by Lovecraft and cited in Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature")
Sheckley is one of my favourite sci-fi authors. "The Status Civilization" is a classic, but I'd recommend pretty much all the stories written in the 50s/60s. He's also written franchise novels in the late 90s, but I haven't read them, and I doubt that the sorts of story constraints involved would make for memorable sci-fi.
and opposed to anybody who wanted to make decisions on childbearing for other people.
"We who advocate Birth Control... lay all our emphasis upon stopping not only the reproduction of the unfit but upon stopping all reproduction when there is not economic means of providing proper care for those who are born in health. While I personally believe in the sterilization of the feeble-minded, the insane and syphilitic, I have not been able to discover that these measures are more than superficial deterrents when applied to the constantly growing stream of the unfit Eugenics without Birth Control seems to us a house builded upon the sands. It is at the mercy of the rising stream of the unfit"
- Margaret Sanger, “Birth Control and Racial Betterment,” Feb 1919.
"I believe that now, immediately, there should be national sterilization for certain dysgenic types of our population who are being encouraged to breed and would die out were the government not feeding them.”
- Margaret Sanger, 1950
I'm glad I'm not the only one where Silverlock sprang to mind instantly when seeing this post. This is book is a trip and a half. Great fantasy anchored in some of the best literature written in the last 4000 years! Well written and wonderful denouncement of rampant cynicism applicable today (the book was written in 1949).
I'll shamelessly add another book written not long after in the late 1950s: A Canticle for Leibowitz. A classic of American literature, rich in texture, dark without being depressing; an achievement since the author, Miller, suffered from it and eventually committed suicide. But he does show that he still had hope at that point in time. He suffered what we would now call post traumatic stress disorder from his time flying in bomber missions in WWII. The bombing of the abbey in Italy did a number on him.
And for the politically incorrect, whatever happened to the Gor series by Norman. I guess a series of books where women where kept as sex slaves fell out of favour. Imagine that. They should have been kept in the B&D section of the book store at least. :)
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides
Post-apocalyptic, but it's a very interesting take on it.
Hard to find, but worth the hunt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud
Also, I'd like to put in a good word for James Tiptree, Jr. (real name: Alice Sheldon, nee Bradley).
And I second that. Her collection of short stories, 10,000 Light Years from Home, is one of the few books I'd keep if I had to downsize my collection. Great variety of ideas in that one volume.
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
Old Friend of the family by Fred Saberhagen and it's Dracula told from the vampire's point of view. Seems the human records have it all wrong . . . Very much recommended.
Also by Donaldson: The Gap series.
It's a very harsh story (even more than the Covenant series). Many people dislike it for that reason.
WWTTD?
'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin is an excellent dystopian book that is said to have inspired Orwell. There are incredible non english SciFi novels out there but many top 100 lists and english readers seem to be ignorant and miss out on them albeit they are definitley worth the read. Also read Stanisaw Lem, his books are hilarious ('The Futurological Congress') and philosophical ('Solaris').
Two classics, one SF the other Fantasy.
The Timeliner Trilogy - Richard C. Meredith
The Keys to Paradise - Robert E. Vardeman
Several of the best early SF stories I've read are from the French author JH Rosny Aine. Some are now available in English : http://sfscope.com/2012/02/wesleyan-bringing-jh-rosny-ain.html The narrative and topics are amazingly modern for a book almost one century old. This books features several stories : -The Death of the Earth : an apocalyptic last-man story in a agonizing Earth -"The Xipehuz" is a prehistoric tale in which the human species battles strange geometric alien life forms. Definitely wirth a try.
Compiled as Ingathering: The Complete People Stories. Just . . . excellent.
"The Patterns of Chaos" and "The Chaos Weapon", both out of print and hard to come by. I've read them over 20 years ago so I recall my impressions from when I was much younger but still.
Black Company is very good but never leave out Dread Empire
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.