I'm not currently in a mood for making lists,
so this list may not grow for some time. Most fiction i would have to re-read before i could really evaluate it or recommend it, but these are the things
that i remember being good.
This page last altered on 8 August 1995.
- Arkadii & Boris Strugatskii -- No self-respecting
SF lover should be without these. (Last names may have a 'y'
in place of 'ii' in
your local card catalogue. Too many SF authors have aliens that are just
humans with a different sort of body. Come here when you want alien aliens.
- Definitely maybe:
a manuscript discovered under unusual circumstances ;
translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis; introduction
by Theodore Sturgeon.
- Roadside Picnic ;
translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis; introduction
by Theodore Sturgeon.
- Samuel R. Delany -- My favorite SF author. If you want to start
heavy, try Dhalgren ; light, try Neveryóna ;
real, try The Motion of Light in Water ; early (generally less
obscure & more adventure-oriented than later writings), try The
Einstein Intersection ; etc.
- The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science
Fiction Writing in the East Village 1957-1965
- The jewel-hinged jaw: notes on the language of science
fiction
- The Einstein Intersection
- Dhalgren
- Neveryóna, or, The Tale of Signs and Cities
- Tales of Nevèrÿon
- Flight from Nevèrÿon
- The Bridge of Lost Desire
- Triton
- Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand -- so when is
the second half going to come out ?!?!?!?!
- Empire : a Visual Novel
- The Towers of Toron
- City of a Thousand Suns
- The Fall of the Towers
- Babel-17
- Nova
- the Ballad of Beta 2
- Mervyne Peake -- he died much too soon. Titus Groan starts slow,
so it may take you a few hundred pages or so before you realize you are a
complete addict. Best names in any fiction i know of (Titus Groan,
Lord Sepulchrave, Fuchsia, Cutflower, Dr. Prunesquallor, Sourdust, ...).
Good vocabulary building exercise too.
- Titus Groan
- Gormenghast
- Titus Alone
- misc poetry...
- Ray Bradbury
- Martian Chronicles
- Something Wicked this Way Comes
- The Illustrated Man
- Philip K. Dick
- Martian Time slip
- Eye in the Sky
- A Scanner Darkly
- Dr. Bloodmoney
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (BladeRunner)
- Flow my Tears the Policeman Said
- Radio Free Albemuth
- The Man in the High Castle
- The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
- Time Out of Joint
- Ubik
- Valis
- John Brunner
- Stand on Zanzibar
- The Traveler in Black
- Kim Stanley Robinson
- Madeline L'Engle
- A Wrinkle in Time
- A Wind in the Door
- A Swiftly Tilting Planet
- Ursula Le Guin
- A Wizard of Earth sea
- The Farthest Shore
- The Tombs of Atuan
- The Wind's Twelve Quarters
- The Compass Rose
- Always Coming Home
- City of Illusion
- the Dispossessed
- the Lathe of Heaven
- the Left Hand of Darkness
- J.R.R.Tolkien
- The Hobbit
- Lord of the Rings
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Cat's Cradle
- The Sirens of Titan
- Slaughterhouse Five
- H.G. Wells
- Robert Anton Wilson -- one of my favorite authors
- Cosmic Trigger I
- Cosmic Trigger II
- Illuminatus! (with Robert Shea)
- Leviathan
- The Golden Apple
- The Eye in the Pyramid
- Historical Illuminatus series. As good as
Illuminatus! , but different. Maybe
he'll even finish the story some day.
- Masks of the Illuminati
- Schrödinger's Cat trilogy
- Sydney J. Van Scyoc
- Darkchild. Don't get the rest of the series.
- John Varley
- Titan
- Wizard
- Demon
- Millenium
- Charles Dickens
- William Kennedy
- Gertrude Stein -- A goddess. Who needs drugs? Just read
Bee Time Vine from cover to cover. I loved "Patriarchal Poetry",
and hated "Lifting Belly". I hate the phrase "lifting belly", which
appears 444 times in the poem. I counted.
- Bee Time Vine : Volume 3 of the Yale Unpublished
Gertrude Stein. If you can't find that, get:
- The Yale Gertrude Stein
- Ida
- The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas -- read this
instead if her real writing hurts you.
- ...
- Richard Adams -- Anyone who doesn't like this book is invited to
silflay hraka
- Gore Vidal
- The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
- James Lovelock -- seems as clear and logical as evolution to me,
generally speaking.
- Richard Bach
- Jonathan Livingston Seagull
- Douglas Adams
- Life, the Universe and Everything -- goes downhill
after this book.
- Isaac Asimov
- Piers Anthony -- The first book any any series of his may have
original ideas. I stopped reading his stuff because i got sick of reading
sophomoric slobberings over big breasts in every single book. Fantasy lite.
- Macroscope
- On a Pale Horse
- Phthor
- Refugee (Bio of a Space Tyrant)
- Alfred Bester
- Arthur C. Clarke
- 2001: a Space Odyssey
- 2010: Odyssey Two
- Childhood's End
- J.L. Chalker
- Midnight at the Well of Souls
- Gods of the Well of Souls
- Quest for the Well of Souls
- Shadow of the Well of Souls
- The Return of Nathan Brazil
- Twilight at the Well of Souls
- Exiles at the Well of Souls
- Lilith: a Snake in the Grass
- Cerberus: a Wolf in the Fold
- Charon: a Dragon at the Gate
- Medusa: a Tiger by the Tail
- Gordon Dickson
- Dorsai! (whole series: Childe Cycle)
- Soldier, Ask Not
- The Final Encyclopedia
- The Tactics of Mistake
- ...
- Stephen Donaldson
- Lord Foul's Bane (series)
- Philip J. Farmer
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go (series, except for the
last one maybe)
- The Unreasoning Mask ( i think he wrote this...)
- ...
- Raymond E. Feist
- Aldous Huxley
- Frank Herbert
- Chapterhouse: Dune
- Dune
- Dune Messiah
- Children of Dune
- God Emperor of Dune
- Heretics of Dune
- The Dosadi Experiment
- Harry Harrison
- The Stainless Steel Rat (series)
- A Stainless Steel Rat is Born
- Deathworld
- Robert A. Heinlein
- Friday
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- Russel Hoban
- Zenna Henderson -- Too many people haven't read her. A favorite
when i was a kid.
- Holding Wonder
- Pilgrimage: the book of the people
- The Anything Box
- The People: No Different Flesh
- Stephen King -- I don't like horror, but he's a good writer. His
books always seem to have serious issues that are being explored.
- C.S. Lewis
- Out of the Silent Planet
- Perelandra
- That Hideous Strength
- Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
- Inferno
- The Mote in God's Eye
- Larry Niven
- Clifford Simak
- Mary Shelley
- Robert Silverberg -- These were very high on my list once. Don't
know what i'd think about them today. He's written other books that i really
detest.
- Lord Valentine 's Castle
- Majipoor chronicles
- Valentine Pontifex
- Theodore Sturgeon
- A.E. Van Vogt
- Roger Zelazny
- Original Amber series
- Lord of Light (Just the first half -- tear out and
throw away the second half)