I'm looking for sf/f book recommendations

[thewayne]

I have a friend who apparently wants to get more into SF/F, and possibly into conventions, and I'm going to build a reading list for her. Fortunately we have two great used bookstores here and one fair one, so getting ahold of older SF shouldn't be a prob.

Yes, there are numerous lists online, I wanted it from my friends. :-)

Some that I'm going to recommend are:
Asimov: I, Robot
Harrison: the Stainless Steel Rat trilogy
Heinlein: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Pratchett: the first Discworld trilogy
Zelazny: The Last Defender of Camelot
(Yes, I obviously have pretty old taste in books)

There was a Heinlein collection of short stories that I'm trying to remember, I know it had By His Bootstraps and The Man Who Traveled In Elephants, was that The Past Through Tomorrow? Did it have The Roads Must Roll?

Her main exposure is Star Wars/Star Trek/Battlestar Gallactica, so I'm trying to expand her horizons.

Come to think of it, Scalzi's Old Man's War would be a good addition.

Comments

[deborak]

You don't give nearly enough info about this person for me to rec anything. You say she's been "exposed" to SW/ST/BSG but are those her favorites? If so, what tropes about them does she like? The character archetypes, the adventure, the nifty spaceships?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately we didn't have time to discuss it extensively, so I can't offer anything more. That's why I'm casting my net kinda wide. I would hazard a guess that characters and strange events would rate high.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

"I know it had By His Bootstraps and The Man Who Traveled In Elephants"

By His Bootstraps is in The Menace From Earth; The Man Who Traveled in Elephants is in The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag. The latter also has All You Zombies so perhaps that's the one you're thinking of.

I'd be careful about recommending the Harrison because I've discovered that my tolerance for pseudo-noir with slight misogyny has dropped as I've gotten older. It depends on what your friend likes.

L.E. Modesitt has some very good science fiction (I find it superior to his fantasy.) Try Archform: Beauty, Flash, or Gravity Dreams.
Stephen Baxter's short story collection Vacuum Diagrams is pretty good.
C.J. Cherryh's Chanur cycle is another good one.
Lois McMaster Bujold. How could you forget her? (Multiple) Hugo winner.
Connie Willis. Another Hugo winner.
James Schmitz, back in print with horrible covers from Baen.
H. Beam Piper.
Timothy Zahn.

I think that's a good sampling. Anybody I didn't put a title with is catch as catch can; go for any you can get your hands on and it will be good.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Chanur would definitely be a good one, which also brings Frederick Pohl's Heechee to mind. And yes, my wife would probably flay me if I didn't recommend Vorkosigan. ;-)

Good comment on the Harrison. It's been probably 15 years since I last read it, and I know my tastes have changed, hopefully matured, in that time.

And I think you're right about Hoag, I had forgotten about All You Zombies.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Do androids dream of electric sheep is a good one. No other things come to mind right now.

[quasar273.livejournal.com]

Be careful about recommending too many of the old-school male chauvinists to a new female fan -- it can be a real turnoff if you haven't practiced looking beyond it yet. Sometimes it's a turnoff even then.

Bujold, Cherryh and Willis are all good suggestions. Also keep Ursula LeGuin, Andre Norton, Elizabeth Moon, and Melissa Scott in mind. For good "introductory" books by some of those authors, I suggest Falling Free by Bujold (standalone in case the list of books in the Vorkosigan series is too intimidating -- frankly I don't think that series has an ideal first book), Pride of Chanur or Downbelow Station by Cherryh, maybe Domesday Book by Willis (or To Say Nothing of the Dog if this friend has a weird sense of humor), Left Hand of Darkness or Lathe of Heaven by LeGuin. For Norton, Moon, and Scott I kinda prefer their fantasy and don't have a strong science fiction rec, but they do have some selections to choose from.

[zentraedi-shep.livejournal.com]

How about the good ols SF classics like War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells or some not so known titles by Jules Verne (A Floating City, Robur the Conqueror and its sequel Master of the World, The Green Ray)? I admit that they fall into the Steampunk genre from our modern pov, but they are still great novels.
Also, how about some Cyberpunk like Neuromancer or some novels by Philip K. Dick?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Excellent suggestions, Shep! I was considering Dick. Unfortunately, he's kind of hard to find here. You can find Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep everywhere, but not a lot else. I finally bought a collection of short stories so that I could get a broader feel for him. They're beginning to bundle his stuff into collections, but a lot of the individual titles are pretty rare.

There was a hidden second purpose to my asking for this, and that was to look for some add'l SF that I would enjoy! I've heard of those other Verne titles, but never read them. I'll check them out.

[zentraedi-shep.livejournal.com]

Jules Verne was a very productive writer (cf. Wikipedia entry on him). You should be able to get most of his novels in all major bookstores. Some of them might be unavailable, but there's always a chance to find a .pdf here or there...

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Also a lot of material on Project Gutenberg....

[vaudy.livejournal.com]

I read far more fantasy that hard sf, so I'm not sure what I can recommend. Asimov's Foundation was pretty good, and I probably should get around to reading the rest of the series.

I consistently enjoy Anne McCaffrey (Pern, specifically the Harper Hall trilogy, was my gateway drug into sf); I haven't read Restoree since I was about twelve, so it may not actually be as good as I remember, but it might be a nice balance to some of the other authors you've already mentioned since McCaffrey wrote it to satirize the misogyny in a lot of classic sf. Maybe in the morning my brain will work, and I can think of something else.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Thanks for mentioning McCaffrey, that spurs me to remember Ship Who Sang and Crystal Singer!

I was just thinking about Foundation the other day, future history and all that.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

I've read Restoree more recently— it's not the world's deepest book, and it's very tied to its time, but you're right, it is pretty fun as a bit of satire.

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

There's lots of good stuff by Larry Niven that's worth adding on there. He's got several books of short stories that would make for good introduction to his work. In addition, Lucifer's Hammer and the Ringworld works are definite must-reads for any sci-fi fan's collection. The one thing that can get a little intimidating about Niven is that he's actually very careful with the science to make sure that it's as accurate as possible. I'd hope you'd be willing to post the final results, as I'm always up for more recommendations of good works like that.

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

Aigh! How could I forget Michael Moorcock, especially the Elric series? It's pretty dark, but it's also very well done fantasy work. Same with almost all of his Eternal Champion stories and books.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Ringworld, yeah, that should be on the list. Lucifer's Hammer? I don't recall reading that one. I probably did, it might have not left a lasting impression. Seems like I liked Footfall.

Elric -- man, it's been 20+ years since I read that!

If you like real science in your fiction, check our Saturn Rukh by Robert L. Forward. The guy is EXTREMELY credentialed and writes very good science. The book is about being living in Saturn's atmosphere and exploring it and communicating with them, it's pretty cool. However, his dialog sometimes gets a bit plodding, I think he needed a better editor on this book.

Yeah, when I get a bigger list together, I'll definitely post it. I want to go through my lists and see what else to pull out of it

I think I'll just have to put a disclaimer on it that may contain rampant misogynism. ;-)

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

Lucifer's Hammer was one of those armageddon, how-will-we-survive kind of books, with the basis being a comet hitting the planet and people having to try to live in the world that's left. I wouldn't be surprised if it was source material for the couple of movies that came out a few years ago about dealing with those kinds of eventualities.

Thanks for the recommendation. When life quiets down a bit (hopefully in the next couple months) I'll definitely have to check it out.

It does unfortunately seem to be that a lot of sci-fi writers have some misogynistic tendencies. I guess there's always limitations somewhere.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's always inherent misogyny in many cases, I think it's probably two things. First, everyone is a product of their times. A lot of these writers were born much earlier in the century where chauvanism and misogyny was more accepted, you were expected to make allowances for the "gentler sex". Second, we write what we know, and we write ourselves in an ideal fashion. If we're a male writer, we're more likely to write stronger male characters. I think the best women writers write better female characters, but they also temper their male characters and make them more human.

A very simplified partial explanation, but I think there's some truth in it.

John Scalzi wrote a book recently in his Old Man's War series (which I HIGHLY recommend) which is basically a re-telling of the previous book, written from the POV of the young adopted daughter of the two main characters. Every chapter he wrote he gave to his wife, and he re-wrote it until she was content that it had the correct tone for coming from a girl's perspective. I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

(umm, that's "beings living in Saturn's atmosphere", hopefully you caught that.)

[nausicaa1.livejournal.com]

Neil Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" and "Snow Crash" for starters
"A Canticle for Leibowitz" - Walter Michael Miller
"Ender's Game" - Orson Scott Card
"Darwin's Radio" - Greg Bear
"Childhood's End" - Arthur C. Clarke
"Hitchhiker's Guide" - Douglas Adams
"Brave New World" - Huxley
"The Handmaid's Tale" - Atwood
"Out of the Silent Planet" series - CS Lewis
"The Postman" - David Brin
"The Time Traveler's Wife" - Niffenegger

Yeah, there are some basics in my short list but sometimes people overlook the obvious.

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

Definite agreement with the Stephenson and Adams. I can't believe I forgot the Hitchhiker's Series!

[silveradept]

I think most of my recommendations have been picked out. There's also LeGuin's Hainish novels, including The Dispossessed and the Left Hand of Darkness. Just a lot of stuff available. P.K. Dick is definitely worth checking out, too.