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

[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.)