After my dismissal of most science fiction as poorly written, I thought it would be fair to list some of my favorite science fiction books, those that are carefully crafted and, generally, feature a compelling story.
Science fiction is my favorite genre. (And when I say science fiction, I also mean fantasy, though fantasy writing is almost always worse than science fiction writing.) If I were to list my ten favorite books, most of them would be science fiction.
Here are my favorite science fiction and fantasy novels:
Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park (1990)
"Behind the foliage, beyond the fence, he saw a thick body with a pebbled, grainy surface like the bark of a tree. But it wasn't a tree…He continued to look higher, sweeping the goggles upward —"
"He saw the huge head of the tyrannosaurus. Just standing there, looking over the fence at the two Land Cruisers. The lightning flashed again, and the big animal rolled its head and bellowed in the glaring light. Then darkness, and silence again, and the pounding of the rain."
From Anatomy of Wonder:
A wealthy industrialist bankrolls an attempt to recreate dinosaurs using Cray computers, the latest in gene sequencing technology, and DNA recovered from prehistoric insects trapped in amber. Succeeding, he builds a glorified theme park to house them but, just as the park is about to open, things begin to go wrong and the dinosaurs break loose. Although somewhat predictable, the novel is tremendous fun. It's also much more intelligent than viewers of the Spielberg film might be led to believe.Written for film? Perhaps. No real style? Perhaps not. It doesn't matter. Crichton's simple language may not seem like much, but this man spent hours revising his copy in order to get it to flow so smoothly. His books grab the reader, compel her to read "just one more page" and then "just one more page" after that. Crichton is a master story-teller (even if he does tell the same story again and again).
Fredric Brown's The Lights in the Sky are Stars (1953)
"I'd been intending to stay a few more days but, that afternoon, something changed my mind. It was the sight of myself in the mirror in my brother Bill's bathroom. Stark naked, dripping wet, standing on one leg because I have only one leg to stand on, water running noisily out of the tub behind me, I decided to leave that very night."
From Anatomy of Wonder (older second edition):
Mature story, rich in characterization for the science fiction of its day, of the efforts to reopen space exploration with a flight to Jupiter over the objections of "conservationists". Senator Ellen Gallagher gives her life for the project, while her lover, Max Andrews, once denied space travel due to an accident, fights the beureaucracy and alcoholism to see the project through and to go on the voyage. The rocket goes, but Max doesn't. A powerful, poignant plea for spaceflight and a study of a man obsessed by it.A great paean to space travel, The Lights in the Sky are Stars tells the story of one man's quest to journey into space, a man who is not what he claims to be. This is a positive, uplifting book, a bit light perhaps, but I admire it nonetheless.
Stanislaw Lem's Solaris (1961)
"In the empty corridor I stood for a moment in front of the closed door. I noticed a strip of plaster carelessly stuck on one of the panels. Pencilled on it was the word "Man!" At the sight of this faintly scribbled word, I had a sudden longing to return to Snow for company; but I thought better of it."
From Anatomy of Wonder:
Written in Polish in 1961, this novel combines profound philosophical speculation with the structure of traditional action-adventures SF, embodied in a clear, vivid writing style that somehow survives two translation [note: this was translated from Polish to French to English]. A planet under study by Earth scientists for many decades is swathed in a world-girdling ocean, which, the scientists have realized after initial skepticism, is one immense sentient organism. For purposes of its own (never disclosed), this ocean "reads" the deepest memories of the four men housed at Station Solaris and sends each a double — "Phantom" — of a woman in his past; in the case of the viewpoint character his estranged and since deceased wife, Rheya. But the phantom Rheya thinks she is the real Rheya. And the mysterious world-ocean, constantly flinging up strange shapes that defy the savants' efforts at classification, may be the first, infantile phase of an emerging "imperfect God." A major work by any measure.A great novel. It operates on numerous levels. For example, the phantoms always bring to mind the abortion debate, though that was never Lem's intent. Both movie adaptations are sadly lacking.
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (1950)
"It was a pleasure to burn."
From Anatomy of Wonder:
Firemen no longer put out fires; they start them, for the purpose of burning books. The title refers to the temperature at which paper will catch fire. The hero, a fireman but a closet reader, eventually joins an underground of itinerants who have committed the literary classics to memory and recite them orally. The much-admired film made from the novel, by making the firemen into brutal, black-uniformed Nazi types, missed a point made by Bradbury early on: that hostility to books and ideas was generated by ordinary people, not simply imposed upon them by government.A masterpiece. It wasn't at all what I had expected, and I'm glad for that.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars (1993) and the fist part of its sequel, Green Mars (1994)
"And so we came here. But what they didn't realize was that by the time we got to Mars, we would be so changed by the voyage out that nothing we had been told to do mattered anymore. It wasn't like submarining or settling the Wild West—it was an entirely new experience, and as the flight of the Ares went on, the Earth finally became so distant that it was nothing but a blue star among all the others, its voices so delayed that they seemed to come from a previous century. We were on our own; and so we became fundamentally different beings."
From Anatomy of Wonder:
This novel, the first of a trilogy, is, without a doubt, the most detailed and impressive portrayal of the exploration and colonization of another planet ever published. Robinson is in complete control of his materials, whether he is describing the engineering difficulties involved in the building of a large-scale underground habitat or the political wheeling and dealing involved in placating a wide range of political, religious, ethnic, and commercial interests, all of which want a slice of the Martian pie. The novel features a large cast of well-developed characters, breath-taking descriptions of the Martian landscape, and a sophisticated understanding of the complex interplay between technology and politics. Red Mars may be the finest hard-science fiction novel of the last decade.One of my favorite books, Red Mars is filled with Big Science (colonizing Mars, terraforming Mars, constructing a space elevator, longevity drugs, global warming on Earth), and, more importantly, filled with Big Ideas (science vs. religion, the nature and role of government, humankind's place in the world (any world), the fundamental basis of economy).
My favorite notion: on Mars, each person is allocated 3/4 of a birthright. Thus, a couple is allowed to have 1-1/2 children. That extra halves can be bought or sold on the open market. So, if Kris and I choose not to have children, we can sell our 1-1/2 birthrights to somebody who wants them. A brilliant stab at the problem of overpopulation.
Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds (1984)
"My surname is Lu and my personal name is Yu, but I am not to be confused with the eminent author of The Classic of Tea. My family is quite undistinguished, and since I am the tenth of my father's sons and rather strong I am usually referred to as Number Ten Ox."
When I first learned of this book I went to its Amazon page and, in awe, paged through dozens and dozens of five-star reviews. No four-star reviews, no three-star reviews. Every review gave it five stars. What can I say? It's a good book, filled with a sense of wonder and an Asian flare that I find irresistible.
George Orwell's 1984 (1949)
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him."
"The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a colored poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a meter wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black mustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working., and at present the electric current was off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine, and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran."
From Anatomy of Wonder:
One of the greatest novels of the 20th century, which anti-SF critics still insist is not science fiction. Although British in flavor, this is a universal future projection of the totalitarian state: its nature, purposes, and prospects. Plotted like a suspenseful pulp thriller, but with characters with whom the reader empathizes, it carries one along to its last ironic line. And it should be read that way, freshly, even though a substantial cottage industry of criticism has grown up around it like the suburbs at the base of a lofty mountain. The fact that the actually year 1984 came and found not a Big Brother watching in London but an indulgent and inattentive Old Uncle in Washington does not diminish the importance of its warning; eternal vigilance, well before the event, is still the price of liberty.A haunting novel, timely as ever. If you cannot see the parallels between the present U.S. government and the regime in Oceania, then you aren't paying attention.
Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
"I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: light that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive."
From Anatomy of Wonder:
Humans on the world of Winter are hermaphrodite, able to develop male or female sexual characteristics during periodic phases of fertility. An envoy from the galactic community becomes embroiled in local politics and is forced by his experiences to reconsider his attitudes toward human relationships. Serious, meticulous, and well written, this book has been much discussed and praised because of its timely analytic interest in sexual politics.This isn't a book about sexual politics; this is a book about friendship, and about survival in a hostile environment. A bit slow at times, but once you've adapted to LeGuin's style, it's a brilliant read.
Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed (1974)
"There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, and idea of a boundary. But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing in the world more important than this wall."
From Anatomy of Wonder:
This story contrasts the poverty-stricken world of Anarres, whose political order is anarchist and egalitarian, with its rich neighbor Urras, from whose capitalist and competitive system the settlers of Anarres initially fled. A physicist who must travel from one world to the other serves as a self-conscious and anxious viewpoint character. A dense and very careful work, arguably the best example of how science fiction can be used for serious discussion of moral and political issues. The quality of writing is also outstanding.My thoughts: The Disposessed is my favorite science fiction novel; it's a work of art. LeGuin's writing is fine, indeed, but here she excels at conveying the barrenness of Annarres, the wastefulness of Urras, the main character's conflicting desires to experience both worlds. This novel feature moments of haunting beauty and moments of profound insight. If it weren't for Cold Mountain, this would be my favorite book.
Frank Herbert's Dune (1965)
"In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul."
From Anatomy of Wonder:
"The first of a six-volume bestselling series is the story of a selectively bred messiah who acquires paranormal powers by the use of the spice that is the main product of the desert planet Arrakis, and uses these powers to prepare for th ecological renewal of the world. Politics and metaphysics are tightly bound into a remarkably detailed and coherent pattern; an imaginative tour de force. The series as a whole is overinflated, the later revisitations of the theme being prompted more by market success than the discovery of new things to do with it. The series demonstrates how a good science fiction writer's ability to build a coherent and convincing hypothetical world can serve the purpose of making philosophical and sociological questions concrete; the series thus becomes a massive thought experiment in social philosophy, and is more considerable as such than Asimov's Foundation series.How can one compare Dune to Foundation? The latter is fluff, light candy with one meaty idea (psychohistory) teased to death. The former is filled with a dense, foreboding universe and littered with concepts as interesting as psychohistory (some of them just throwaway ideas!), my favorite of which is the Butlerian Jihad during which humans eliminated, supposedly, computers, replacing the machines with mentats, rigidly disciplined men who operate as living computers.
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (mid-1950s)
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
How many of you could recite the paragraph with me aloud from memory? And what can I say about Tolkien's work that hasn't already been said? Middle Earth has been a part of my world for more than twenty-five years (since third grade!), and it will be a part of my world until the day I die. No wonder the films fail to live up to my expectations…
I'm also partial to science fiction short stories. Unfortunately, the quality of short story anthologies is uneven, and whether or not you will like an anthology depends largely on how well the collected stories manage to mesh with your personal tastes.
Of the anthologies I've read, my favorite is The 1979 World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha. (Sorry: no link. This is a hard-to-find book.)
Among the stories here are:
- "Come to the Party" by Frank Herbert and F.M. Busby
- "In Alien Flesh" by Gregory Benford
- "SQ" by Ursula Leguin
- John Varley's beautiful "The Persistence of Vision"
- The heartwrenching "We Who Stole the Dream" by James Tiptree, Jr.
Though I've read many science fiction and fantasy novels, there are many important works that I've missed. Dana, for example, has read much more extensively in the genre than I probably will my entire life. He can probably name many other books worthy of note.
I should point out some science fiction (and fantasy) novels I've read and disliked, though people whose opinions I respect think highly of them.
Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow received glowing praise across the internet when it was released in 1997. Reviewers found the book profound, and touted its powerful ending. Never one to fight the herd, I bought the book and read it in an evening. Russell's writing is very clean, but I found the story something of a let-down. It seems so obvious. And the powerful ending never materialized. I was left asking, "Is that all there is?"
Vernor Vinge's A Fire upon the Deep and William Gibson's Neuromancer are both popular and influential pieces of science fiction. I can't get past the first twenty pages of Neuromancer, though I've tried many times; it just doesn't grab me. (Once upon a time I could not get past the first ten pages of Dune, and now it's one of my favorites.)
I've read A Fire Upon the Deep, however, and loved parts of it: the sentient trees, the Usenet-based infrastructure, etc. However, I found one whole section of the novel uninteresting, though it's the section most people love: Vinge imagines a planetary race of dog-like creatures which share a packmind, a collective conciousness created when a group of the animals come together. It's an interesting concept, but not enough to sustain half the book. At least not for me. I prefer its sequel, A Deepness in the Sky, with the realistic space-travel and the cold planet orbiting a pulsar, and the planet's fantastic aliens.
Finally, I can't stomach the work of fantasy author Terry Pratchett. Pratchett is hugely popular, especially in England, and many of my friends think he's the bees knees. I find his stories dull, his humor juvenile. But that's just me. Most people love the guy, and you may want to give him a shot, too, if silly fantasy is your bag.
What are your favorite science fiction and fantasy books, and why?
On this day at foldedspace.org
2005 — One Night at the Sleep Clinic I spent last night at the sleep clinic, a dozen dozen wires running from my head to an instrument panel.
2004 — City of God We watched City of God tonight. For some reason it reminded me of something I saw earlier this week: a driver arguing with his passenger — in sign language!
2002 — 'Tis If you read and enjoyed Angela's Ashes you will likely also enjoy 'Tis. Give it a chance, be patient with the first hundred pages.
Oh, lordy.
First, Terry Pratchett is deeper than you are giving him credit for. You aren't getting to the meat under the stylistic veneer.
Second, Dune is clever, but terribly written, IMHO. Good ideas, mediocre writing.
Third, I cannot abide Crichton. Ick.
Fourth, I have managed to avoid Kim Stanley Robinson almost completely, but I'm not sure how or why. So no comment.
Otherwise, I'd largely agree with you, both in specific works cited, and expanding things to other writing by the same authors.
To them, I would add pretty much the entire corpus of Jack Vance and the rest of Stanislaw Lem's work. For my money, these two authors are among the best working in SF, if not the best. Not every story will resonate with everyone, but IMHO you're never wasting your time by picking up either.
Beyond that, things get murkier and my own quirky taste starts to intrude more in my recommendations.
I take almost neverending delight in James P. Blaylock's earlier work (The Elfin Ship, The Paper Grail, and the various chronicles of the greatest scientist of the Victorian Era, Langdon St. Ives, for example.).
John Varley is also a personal favorite. Steel Beach, The Golden Globe, and Red Thunder are all works that resonated strongly with me (although undoubtedly Red Thunder did so primarily because my early reading was steeped in golden age Heinlein and the travails of Alvin Fernald and the Mad Scientists Club).
I prefer H. G. Wells writing to that of Verne, which is a bit ironic, as Wells wrote more from a 'science fantasy' perspective -- his ideas were more fantastical and frequently dealt far more with humanistic and social topics than the more engineering focused Verne. I heartily recommend First Men in the Moon, The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Man who could work Miracles (I might have that last title wrong -- I read most of my Wells from a couple of enormous omnibus volumes and paid little attention to story titles).
Amongst the golden agers, aside from those mentioned previously, I'd plug Kutner, Simak, and Cornbluth. I suppose Niven isn't technically golden age, and Known Space is a bit dated now, but I still quite like Protector and Ringworld. I think Heinlein's 'young adults' stuff is far better than his 'adult' books (as typified by Stranger in a Strange Land). Red Planet, Podkayne of Mars, and my personal favorite Space Cadet.
JD mentioned Asimov dismissively above. At one time I was a staunch Asimovian apologist. No longer. However, I do still have a great amount of respect for him as a person, and I think JD is quite unfair in his overall assessment of his work. I believe his short stories to be generally superior to his novels, however. Of the latter, I think his first, The Caves of Steel, is probably his finest, being as it is a well-crafted commentary on the plight of the Blacks in American society during the 1950s and 60s. The immediate sequel, The Naked Sun is eerily predictive of some social trends modern telecommunication and transportation are starting to present us with.
Also, I have to mention Foundation. I find it interesting that JD finds Dune better than Foundation, but I suppose there's no accounting for taste. I find Foundation to be superior on several levels, and more interesting and well written, but that's just me. I'm a bit of a fan of the 'Galactic Empire' sub-genre. I would like to add that Donald Kingsbury has managed to add, sort of unofficially, to the Foundation Mythos with the fantastic Psychohistorical Crisis (more info here).
One of Asimov's lacks is that, although he had a scientific background, it was in Chemistry. He took the central ideas of Psychohistory as far as he could (and perhaps rather more exhaustively than was strictly productive from a content and imaginative perspective), but that's not as far as they could be taken. Donald Kingsbury is a mathematician, and manages to greatly expand on many important themes that Asimov missed. It's quite well written, to boot.
I could go on for hours. I'll close by adding endorsements for some of David Brin's work (Startide Rising is probably my favorite), the work of Kage Baker (the most fantastic Time Travel series I've ever read), John Crowley (Little, Big and Great Work of Time, specifically), Ian M. Banks' Culture books (Player of Games and Look to Windward are probably my favorites, but they're all good), and, finally, Gene Wolfe. The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories is a good survey of his shorter work.
Oh, and Terry Bisson. Can't forget Terry Bisson. And Kelly Link! Stranger Things Happen is excellent. Oh, and E. E. Doc Smith's Lensman series is excellent, too, although it can seem quaint to modern readers.
I think I mentioned I could go on forever, didn't I? I think I did. :) I'd better stop now, or I never will...