Okay, I’ve worked long days and late nights pretty much all week and I need to shove some of the law out of my head for the weekend. The kids have soccer Jamboree tomorrow, and that should help. But I’m thinking I’m going to set aside all the political books sitting by my bed, and grab a cheap science fiction. Haven’t read one in a while.
So, we’ve discussed the 10 best science fiction films. Well, my science fiction choices were dated even when I was a kid, because I pretty much read what my father had. Mostly Asimov, Clarke, Bradley – what is referred to as “hard science fiction.” My choices are probably thus skewed generationally, even before my own when Alan Dean Foster and Phillip K. Dick were popular. I don’t even know what’s out now.
My choices:
1. Nightfall and other Stories by Isaac Asimov (Nightfall may be the best sci fi short story ever written, but some of the other stories play out in my mind to this day 30 years later)
2. The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Leguin
3. Foundation (series), by Asimov (kind of lost its focus in the later books, but the concept of “psychohistory” may have been what drew me to socialism as a teenager)
4. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur Clarke
5. Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (politically one of the most sophisticated science fiction stories I’ve read – also very interesting discussion of ecological ethics, even where life isn’t involved)
6. The Caves of Steele, Asimov
7. Dragon’s Egg, Robert Forward (concept somewhat borrowed from Mission of Gravity, by Hal Clement which deserves an honorable mention).
8. The Dispossessed, by Ursula Leguin
9. The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury (he turned 90 a few days ago)
10. Tau Zero, Poul Anderson
No, Heinlein didn’t make it onto my list, though Stranger in a Strange Land and a few others deserve honorable mentions. Nor Larry Niven, mostly because I never got around to reading much of his stuff.
Sagan’s Contact almost made it. As good as the movie is, the book, his only fiction, takes you places the movie just can’t go.
Okay, going from wired to tired – off to read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Maybe it’ll make it onto my list.
Addendum: By the way, are novels like 1984 and Brave New World science fiction? Why or why not? You don’t find them there in the bookstores. What about Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time?
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August 28, 2010 at 7:36 am
TM
Pretty good list. I would have to say just about anything written by Arthur C.
deserves to be on any ‘top’ list. Rather prolific man, and couldnt write a bad story if he wanted to.
August 28, 2010 at 8:15 am
dheimstadt
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is my favorite Heinlein. And I hope the reason Dune isn’t mentioned (Not even the SiFi ch films?!) is because you consider it fantasy.
August 28, 2010 at 8:58 am
Mitch
OK, not a book, but my all-time favorite sci fi story ever, and it’s online:
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TheyMade.shtml
August 28, 2010 at 9:32 am
Eric Kirk
Dianna – this is bound to be controversial, but I’m not a big fan of Dune. I do find some of the ecological concepts interesting, but the sociology puts me off.
There are two types of science fiction. There’s utopianism which assumes that human social organization continues to evolve and proposes and speculates as to future models of democracy or other means of collective decision making and administration. On the other hand there is the view that social organization is fixed by human nature and for some reason it is assumed that Europe of the middle ages exemplifies that which is the most “natural” social organization. So in contrast to the Mars trilogy or Foundation where the authors explore new politics, economies, and potential forms of organizing, you have stories about kings, princesses, counts, dukes, etc. with Machiavellian intrigue, trying to liquidize and outmaneuver each other with feints and facile manipulations, etc. I find the latter boring, unless it’s in a movie where I don’t have to invest the same level of time and effort.
Frank Herbert’s nonfiction was much more interesting, particularly his ecological insights. I read the first Dune and left it at that.
August 28, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Ernie's Place
Eric
I’m also a dune fan, the plot is frickin’ complicated, but it’s basically a messiah story.
“Farnham’s Freehold”, is a Robert A. Heinlein book that was released in 1964. It was a great and very pertinent book at the time. We were still under a nuclear threat from the Soviet Union, we were in the middle of sticky race relations, and science fiction was a very popular medium. And, Of course sex was popular back then…
Heinlein’s book was filled with the things of the sixties. The lead character, Farmham, had built a nuclear fallout shelter. In the midst of being ridiculed about his shelter, a nuclear attack happened. Farmham, his drunken wife, his daughter, his daughters sorority sister, his son, and the family’s black servant all move to the fallout shelter. Farnham becomes romantically involved with the sorority sister. After they have sex, a huge, and very close, nuclear explosion happened. The explosion moves them into a future time.
They try to see if they can get out of the shelter. Upon emerging, they find themselves in the future. The future is controlled by “Negroids”. The Negroids castrate white men and use them as slaves. The white women are used for sex. Some say that Heinlein was being racist by exploiting the Black man stereotype, others say he was simply turning the tables around and comparing it to black slavery. You be the judge.
Farnham’s daughter announces that she is pregnant. (from pre-fallout shelter romance) She later dies in childbirth. The baby dies a day later. Sorority Sister also announces that she is pregnant, but doesn’t reveal that Farmham is the father. The black servant is able to keep the Farmhams safe from harm by negotiating with their Negroid captors.
Farnham and the sorority sister are sent back to the past by the technically advanced Negroids. They arrive just before the explosion. They escape in the girls car. She notices that the car now has a stick shift instead of an automatic transmission. They know that things have changed and will never be the same.
De rigueur reading in the sixties.
August 28, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Joe Blow
I’m really reluctant to chime in here, since I would really hate for any of you to think that I read science fiction. I don’t see any mention of the Star Wars Saga. I guess you thought that was too childish? But, then again, like most, the message in the story passed right over, or should I say, right through most. That story affected people in fundamental ways they have no idea. Now to Ernie’s epiphany regarding Heinlein’s book “Farnham’s Freehold.” Have you taken a real good look at American society today? Things really have changed today and I wonder if anyone sees it?
August 28, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Jendocino
Hi Eric! I’m happy to see that you’ve found something to help get your mind off your troubles. I was looking around for a thread to comment on, but the chatter on your earlier posts had kind of moved on to conversations that were somewhat, ahem, off topic. Despite your best efforts to keep things on track, by the way.
Your list is fantastic, and since I’m no sci-fi expert, I wouldn’t presume to alter it in any way. I will suggest a science fiction writer from the West that I really like named Zenna Henderson. She wrote a book of short stories called “The Anything Box” that still kind of blows me away when I read it. Her writing might lack a certain degree of sophistication, but then, don’t we all? She makes up for it with a wonderfully creepy sensibility, so I still think it’s a good read. I hope you’re having a peaceful weekend!
August 28, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Plain Jane
I’ve never been much of a science fiction reader, but enjoyed Methuselah’s Children and The Handmaid’s Tale.
August 28, 2010 at 5:53 pm
mresquan
Sirens Of Titan should be somewhere on the list.
August 28, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Kym Kemp
I know it is a young adult novel but Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is my all time favorite Sci Fi book. The Handmaid’s Tale and The Fifth Sacred Thing are also right up there. Short Story by Ursula K. LeGuin –The City of Omelas is right up there.
August 28, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Bunny
Wow Mitch, that’s a great short story. I just never thought about it that way.
August 28, 2010 at 8:11 pm
moviedad
A great science fiction book was: “Xenogenesis” It was a first contact story with these beings called: “Oullies” or something like that. They became the go-betweens for human sexual reproduction by having the natural ability to increase the pleasure by a hundredfold. This led to the creation of new kinds of beings. Really cool.
“Jem” was another one. And what was the series with: “Priest-Kings” Remember the story? They were huge praying-mantis type beings with a very complicated plot that took two or three books to get to them.
I think it depends on where you are in your life when you read different books; that gives them their power.
All the Rama books are great.
I don’t get: “Dianetics” but I liked: “Battlefield Earth.”
August 28, 2010 at 8:13 pm
panamory
Are we talking about *personal* favorites, or books that are objectively great? Here’s my intersection of the two, I think. I’d have to include the classics as well; “literary” science fiction is still science fiction.
1/ The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Dark near-future dystopian where the Christian Taliban right has taken political power by coup, blacks are shot, gays are hung, women are owned and treated as breed stock.
2/ Woman on the Edge of Time, by Marge Piecy. Time traveler? Insane woman? Hard to tell, but a fascinating comparison of utopic and dystopic scenarios. I actually think her writing is a bit thin sometimes yet I find myself thinking about this book all the time.
3/ Ecotopia, Ecotopia Rising, etc. Near-future green utopia where Nor Cal, Washington, and Oregon succeed from the USA. The characters and plot are sometimes cheesy but the author really looks hard at some social/behavior norms like work, play, health, healing, political and social engagement, housing, and so on. Very human-centric, very much gets you out of your own blind spots.
4/ 1984, by George Fucking Orwell. This book is… well… *Orwellian,* yo. There’s a reason why Orwell’s name is synonymous with dark and twisted.
5/ Brave New World, A. Huxley. Fucking awesome. I need to reread this actually. Every time I see a Wii or Playstation the work “Centrifugal Bumblepuppy” repeats in my head over and over and over.
>>”Strange,” mused the Director, as they turned away, “strange to think that even in Our Ford’s day most games were played without more apparatus than a ball or two and a few sticks and perhaps a bit of netting. imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It’s madness. Nowadays the Controllers won’t approve of any new game unless it can be shown that it requires at least as much apparatus as the most complicated of existing games.”<<
6/ The Man in the High Castle, by Phillip K Dick. Like Dick I am often unable to ascertain if I exist in *this* world, or in a world just like this one though unimaginably more cruel. So much by Dick is great and disturbing as well.
7/ Red Mars series, by Kim Stanley Robinson. Actually, every book by Robinson is amazing. Try the "Science in the Capitol" series which starts with D.C being flooded by a global-warming induced megastorm, and covers topics such as geoengineering, buddhism, ego, and sanity. Zodiac: An Eco Thriller was pretty hot, as was Antarctica, and The Years of Rice and Salt was just sublime.
8/ Anything and everything by Ian M Banks. He ranks as a great social-issue SF writer, easily in the league of Le Guin. Check out The Player of Games for a very Left Hand of Darkness kind of book, and then some.
9/ Caryatids, by Neal Stephenson. Near-future Earth after global economic and environmental collapse. Governments essentially cease to exists — except China, of course — and the blighted world is primarily run by two social networking groups, one based on a sort of European Green Socialism/Anarchism and the other based on California-style Green Capitalism and cult of celebrity. Also check out his Cryptonomicon series, a sort of historical/contemporary SciFi. Best SciFi I read last year.
10/ Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, and especially Always Coming Home, by Ursula LeGuin. Everything in the Hainish universe, really. There's some great thoughts on humanity, love, race, gender, war, and consciousness there. I just re-read the Dispossessed.
I'd also have to say everything by Vonnegut is great. There's a ton of other greats that have to be mentioned; A Canticle for Lebowitz, The City and the Stars, Shockwave Rider, A Wrinkle in Time, the City of Gold and Lead trilogy, Flowers for Algernon, Frankenstein, Stand on Zanzibar, to name a few. A Stranger in a Strange Land was inarguably influencial on our culture, yet I can't say it's still a personal favorite.
August 28, 2010 at 8:17 pm
R. Scott LaMorte
Odd. WordPressed displayed me as my user name instead of my full name. ^^^
August 28, 2010 at 8:36 pm
K at the bookstore
Interesting discussion. I think, Eric, there are more than two kinds of sci fi–consider the distopian novels (post various ends of the world scenarios). And at my shop we mix fantasy (more popular by far these days than the hardwired sci fi) with the science fiction. True, a lot of the fantasy tends to the realm of historic fiction in a non historic period. And there are dragons (Tea with the Black Dragon is a wonderful book). And other odd things.
I’d put Fahrenheit 451 up on the list, maybe even above the Martian Chronicles.
Piercy’s Woman at the Edge of time is usual shelved with her other novels; we place it in both lit and in sci fi when we have more than one copy. Atwoods distopias are filed in literature, but a case could be made for putting those in sci fi. Lessing’s wonderful Shikasta series was damned as being mere science fiction when the volumes were published; usually filed in lit, but she’d probably be happy to have those placed anywhere at all. Callenbach’s Ecotopia, Starhawks…oh, what is the name of her end of the world novel–the Fifth Sacred Thing…also usually placed in contemporary fiction.
I’ll have to think about my favorites–I know there are many not on your list.
August 28, 2010 at 8:41 pm
K at the bookstore
Oh, definitely Dick’s Man in the High Castle!! panamory posted as I was slowly typing (R. Scott??)
August 28, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Eric Kirk
Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books that isn’t classified as science fiction despite the fact that it was written by a science fiction writer. I suspect that books about the future which are “literature” rather than “science fiction” are simply those novels which are liked by someone who does not want to be viewed as someone who likes science fiction. Kind of like “graphic novels” as opposed to comic books.
Kathy, I think you’re right that dystopian novels should be separated from what I described, though again. my distinction was about views of human nature as something static or dynamic. I like dystopians, particularly all the low budget movies of the 70s, but they do get tedious.
I’ve never actually read Ecotopia. Tried several times. Just couldn’t get into it. Maybe I’ll try again sometime.
panamory – I think you hit on a point about Woman on the Edge of Time. It might not really be science fiction since you aren’t certain whether the trips to the future are real, or just constructions of her mind. You can ask the same question about Vanilla Sky.
And yes, there is nothing like the Mars trilogy. I love the whole “Earth First” irony.
August 28, 2010 at 9:59 pm
bob
Thanks for sharing your list. It seems just a start, expanded on already by your many quick readers. I echo your Asimov bias, but there are soooo many.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick’s oeuvre begat Blade Runner. Howzabout Fred Saberhagen’s amazing time traveling Berserkers(many stories, short and long), which begat the Terminator and perhaps in an odd way, our Governator. And HG Wells, Jules Verne, Kurt Vonnegut, Keith Laumer on the sci fi humor side, Bob Silverberg, EE Smith, Lester Del Rey, Frank Herbert, Ted Sturgeon or all those various authors who penned the Tom Swift and Tom Swift Junior kid sci fi. Rod Serling. And the comic books! Oh the comic books! Superman, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Fantastic Four … Hey, your #1 sci fi novel is a collection of short stories.
Dozens more authors and their works deserve mention here as well, these are just my first random musings.
ps YES, Heinlein. And if you’re going to mention Poul Anderson, let’s not forget the Time Patrol stories.
August 28, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Eric Kirk
bob – Asimov hasn’t been treated well by movies. Both attempts at Nightfall were pathetic. It’s like they just didn’t get the story or even the premise. I Robot was okay, but inappropriately turned the concept into an action flick sans the moral gray areas. The Bicentenial Man was okay as well.
I hope they never try to put Foundation to film, but I’ve thought that a version of Caves of Steel done by someone like Brian Singer or Shymalen could be excellent. Low budget, and done like a noire mystery.
HG Wells is probably rolling in his grave at the cold war corruption of War of the Worlds, and someday someone will recognize the anti-colonial point of the story and do it right. That being said, I loved the cold war version, and the latest one – for pure entertainment purposes.
August 29, 2010 at 7:48 am
Not A Native
Thanks Eric, this jogged my memory and I’ve picked up a copy of the Martian Chronicles, a favorite in my youth.
August 29, 2010 at 10:27 am
Hrolf Kraki
Poul Anderson was a bit of a right winger Eric. I’m surprised to see him on your list. Maybe that’s why you misspelled the title.
Tau Zero is not his best work though. You should read Third World War or Solution Unsatisfactory.
August 29, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Eric Kirk
He and Heinlein had an affinity. They were somewhat libertarian, and Anderson was one of those people who longed for the era of vikings and “honest” savagery over the wimpiness and feminine influences of modern society (from his perspective). He did write his own dystopia about a Soviet takeover of the world, which I never got around to reading.
You’re right though. Tau Zero, not Tao Zero. I loved the book for its cosmology, not the politics.
In real life he was quite shrill in attacking Arthur C. Clarke as a “foreigner” who had no right to chime in against the Space Missile Defense program of the 80s. He later apologized for it.
August 29, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Chewbacca
Splendor of the Mind’s Eye by Alan Dean Foster. Where Star Wars should have gone.
August 29, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Anonymous
Not really Science fiction, or Fantasy… but its in its own unique niche. HBO is making it into a television series with Sean Bean. “Game of Thrones” off the “Song of Ice and Fire” series. Recommend you read it before the series airs.
http://winter-is-coming.net/
August 29, 2010 at 11:41 pm
Solex
It’s called Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, not what you said, and no, Star Wars was just fine on the path it’s creator set out for it. Even Foster wouldn’t be so arrogant as you assume him to be to change it to something else.
As for the last comment you made, I have something to show you that will cure you of your ‘found wisdom’:
Why I Love The Phantom Menace:A Defense of the Unjustly Maligned Overture to the Star Wars Saga
August 30, 2010 at 10:00 am
Michel S.
Octavia Butler has been at the top of my list since C.R & HSU included Parable of the Sower as their Book of The Year in 2008. A dystopian novel about a black women’s road journey from southern CA to southern Humboldt. The novel’s sequel Parable of The Talents takes place mostly in Humboldt, is very violent (gave my wife nightmares), and is also a wonderful read. I would highly recommend any Octavia Butler novel. She is one of the most highly regarded African-American women sci-fi writers and passed away in 2006. Her Patternist series is also wonderful reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler
I would also recommend (which I accomplished earlier this year) to read Asimov’s Robot, Empire and Foundation novels in order. Over the years Asimov linked them all together, and it only takes a few months of heavy reading (14 boos total unless you start searching out the writers who have since continued the series with the blessing of the asimov estate)…
August 30, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Anonymous
Science fiction about Southern Humboldt? That sounds like fun.
August 30, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Eric Kirk
I love the robot novels, which explore the concept of artificial intelligence and the soul. It inspired the whole Data plot thread in Star Trek as well as a number of other stories dedicated to the question of whether artificial intelligence could become so complex that it should be regarded as sentient.
Caves of Steele was the best, and the sequel the second best. To be honest, I kind of lost interest in the later Robot/Foundation merger stories as they focused too much on a few characters and not enough on the concept.
It’s funny to note the difference in writing styles and social politics from the novels of the 50s and those of the 80s and 90s. The latter books had women in powerful positions, but none in the older books. He was asked about that and smiled wryly saying that the women were in power in the older books, but the plot threads just didn’t happen to take you to them.
The first Asimov story I ever read played with sexual politics by proposing a race of aliens with three sexes, the rationals, the emotionals, and the parentals. They were beings of energy who merged to become a solid unisexual being which would give birth to energy beings. I believe the story was entitled The Gods Themselves, and the beings were in a universe dying down due to entropy and were looking to capture energy from other universes to revive their own.
August 30, 2010 at 8:28 pm
R. Scott LaMorte
Panamory = R. Scott, they are both me. =)
Octovia Butler’s works were pretty good, true. Yet I am not sure they chance my life in any meaningful way, so I am not sure they make my “best of” list. I think Butler portrays the most realistic massive economic collapse end of world scenario and the aftermath, far more realistic than Starhawks.
On the other hand, Stone Junction by Humboldt’s very own Jim Dodge is also arguably Science Fiction, or at least Magical Realism. I’d put in in my Best Of list; it’s in my top 5 favorite books of any genre. And yes, it’s also set partially in Humboldt, in the Yolo Bolly Wilderness specifically, as well as a pot farm in Mendo, radical household in Berkeley, Nevada deserts, New Orleans housebout, and many other interesting locals. =)
Asimov is amazing… no pun intended! And yet I don’t often think of his books anymore. I can’t say they stuck with me. The movies based on his books are the worst SF adaptations ever, barring only De Laurentiis’s cover of Dune. Dune and Firestarter are the only two movies I had to walk out on they were so terrible.
Lately I am exploring Vernor Vinge… some amazing books there, and some very dated.
August 30, 2010 at 8:28 pm
R. Scott LaMorte
Anyone up for organizing a SciFi meet & great or bookswap?
August 30, 2010 at 9:04 pm
bob
okay
September 2, 2010 at 11:15 pm
otheRscott
Yo Speedpod – Neal Stephenson didn’t write Caryatids; that’s Bruce Sterling. And speaking of, if y’all haven’t read Anathema, put that on your list; Stephenson did write that, and it’s very good.
That whole thing about what writers affected you the most – check which ones you were reading as a teenager. The first strokes cut the deepest. Thus, yeah, Heinlein made a huge impression, though today I think he’s an asshole and not a particularly compelling writer. But also John Brunner (Sheep Look Up, Stand on Zanzibar – there’s your proto-EF!) and Stanislaw Lem (who taught that science fiction is about the crazy world we live in, and that robots R us).
And this is not original to me, but the whole “what’s sf?” question gets pretty silly in light of, say, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, or Jonathan Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude, or Atwood and Dodge the other examples already mentioned. LeGuin says lit snobs can’t bear to think Real Writers do sf, so anything Real Writers write is not sf. Fuck ‘em. I’ll put Jim Dodge against any Philip Roth (but oops, he was last seen doing alternate history too).
There’s a stimulating ‘great start’ list up at Wired recently. They and you both missed some names that just can’t be left off a Greatest list – Ian Banks, for one, and Gene Wolfe, for the next half-dozen. (If you have not read Latro in the Mist/ Soldier of Sidon, you have your orders. No it’s not sf. Yes, it’s great writing, a great story, a new window into the great darkness that is the human experience.)
In addition to Octavia Butler and Vernor Vinge already mentioned, I’d throw in Ken MacLeod (esp for those who gobbled up KSR’s Mars Trilogy – you geeks, you); Richard K Morgan (The Steel Remains for LaMorte for sure, Altered Carbon and the other Takeshi Kovacs for all you noir / action fans); Neal Asher (for Spatterjay and Ian Cormac’s Polity); Alastair Reynolds ’cause what’s the use of reading sf if you can’t get a great space opera once in a while… and, okay, Charles Stross, at least Saturn’s Children for you robot-lovers (Eric).
Best new writer has got to be Paulo Bacigalupi. (Windup Girl and Shipbreaker are both outstanding. Check what his story collection – Pump Six – is getting on Amazon – $100 for a used hardback?)
And yes, I’m up to trade books, though I usually like to get them back. Hopefully H has brought some freshies back from Seattle…
September 2, 2010 at 11:23 pm
otheRscott
oh and re Ray Bradbury’s birthday, make sure the kids are asleep before you go to YouTube to see his present – “F**k me Ray Bradbury”. Hilarious.