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Although this site is devoted to detective fiction, that doesn’t mean
that I started out in that genre. In fact my earliest reading was
Science Fiction, which I read through grade school in the 60s and high-
school and early college in the 70s. Watching Battlestar
Galactica lately got me to thinking about some of the significant
fiction that I had read in the Sci-Fi genre, what you may call part of
the groundwork for my writing across the years.
So I thought I would post some novels which stand out in my mind as
among the best of all time. I should mention that this list cuts off
relatively early — I basically quit reading Sci-Fi about 1980 and
started exploring other genres. So you will find nothing in the way of
new stuff on the list.
1. Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation. Isaac
Asimov.
This is an incredible trilogy. It pulls you in from the get-go, and the
plot is just so perfectly laid out across the series that I really don’t
think any other Sci-Fi writer ever matched it.
2. Tales From the White Hart, Arthur C. Clarke.
This is actually a collection of short stories. You may wonder why what
with all of Clark’s other excellent work why I picked this one. The
answer is simply that I liked the collection of tales very much.
3. The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury.
This is basically a novel that consists of inter-locking short stories.
It is just wonderfully imagined and beautifully written.
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein.
This book became such a cult classic in the late 60s counterculture that
it is hard to imagine that is was written in 1961. The phrase, “to grok”
something became rather a cool phrase to use for a while. It was also
the most erotic book I had ever read up to that point.
5. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny.
This is kind of a strange book — essentially science fiction but with
elements of Hindu mythology thrown in. I thought it was a great read,
definitely out of the mainstream.
6. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursla Le Guin
This book gave me a new sense of what writing was about. It’s much more
charcter centered than plot centered. My favorite Le Guin is
actually one of her short stories — “The Ones That Walk Away from
Omelas.” I highly recommend that one, it teaches us a very good lesson.
7. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Just an amazing story. That’s pretty much it.
8. Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, Phillip K. Dick
This was the first novel I ever read by this mind-bending author. Let’s
just say I ran through the others very quickly.
9. October the First is Too Late, Fred Hoyle.
This is I think my favorite Sci-Fi book of them all. It has an unusual
view of history — a view that matches my own. Which is perhaps why I
like it so much. Besides, you just have to love a novel in which a 20th
century composer ends up playing a piano duel in Ancient Greece with the
god Apollo who is actually a person from ten-thousand years in the
future.
Besides that, it contains my all-time favorite line from a Sci-Fi novel:
“I might be up against the god himself. But even the gods, I thought,
could learn something from human misery.”
10. Dune, Frank Herbert
Dune is actually a series, but I will always think of it as an
individual novel unto itself. I read the Successors of Dune, you might
call them, but I really didn’t like them much.
There is no doubt that Dune is a classic, one of the best of all
time. Its almost ecological portrayal of the planet Arakis is the
central thread of the book and pretty much blew everyone away compared
to other Sci-Fi that had been written up to that point. I should mention
too that Dune was rejected by 20 different publishers before it
finally found a taker. Which just goes to show ‘ya
The movie version of the book has the famous Navigator Guild mantra, which is cool: “It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It
is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire
stains, stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in
motion.”
There are a couple of movie versions. The 1984 version has a great cast and this kinda steampunk thing going for it. It also has Alicia Witt as the Bene Gesserit child-witch Alia — just in case you
didn’t notice, a little trivia there. And she’s just downright scary in it.
Alicia Witt as Alia.
“He IS the Kwisatz Haderach!”
As a young man I also read a substantial amount of science fiction myself. I think I read it all – at least all to be found at the local library on the dedicated scifi shelves.My all times favourite author in the genre was, and is, Ray Bradbury. I think he was the only one who made that particular mixture of scifi, fairy tale and long-sunny-dusty-summer-sunday-afternoon mood.Also Arthur C Clarke was important to me – because of the emphasize on science in his tales. Here in Denmark these books were published together with all the other scifi writer´s stories in series of pulp-issues. The publisher had all sorts of contesting going on together with the books – like the contest where the winner would be granted a trip to the moon "with the first, ordinary departure available" – as it said on the bookcover.Quite fascinating for a very young man. Now I wonder if the winner of the contest is still alive?
I was thinking after I did this post that the Sci-Fi that was known to me was in English only, and how much else there had to be in other languages. The only translations I have really seen are from the Russian, which they started doing a bit after Glasnost. I would be interested to know what Danish writers you had/have.I would imagine that no one is going to end oup using that Moon trip. Things lately have been falling a "bit behind schedule." Hard to believe that Clark's 2001 was six years ago already, and very little of it has panned out. Maybe a few things in communictions, or computer technology, but in terms of space travel I don't even think we have the Space Station done yet. And in any case it's not nearly the sophisticated hub that the movie shows.It seems that we were a bit too optimistic.
Danish SciFi writers I have read: (incomplete list)Jan Venzel Nielsen, His Own Thoughts:Hundred years from now it is possible to live on in your own clones. A scientist has enough of that and escapes to a colony with simple living but is stalked by his own clone.Johan Springborg, The Hall of Brains:The world´s population – except for a few – are reduced to brains connected in a virtual network where an imaginary life goes on. One day a technical error occurs. Matrix-like novel.Niels E. Nielsen, The Dreamer of Avalon:A tale of the times after the final climate-collapse where Earth is habitable only in a narrow zone at Equator.Diana Juncher, What if?:Short stories mostly about time-travel paradoxesThese are the ones I remember having read in Danish, top of mind. I have read probably more than a hundred in English, though.I don´t know if any of the Danish ones have been translated to English.
That's great, Allan, thanks. I'll leave this up here so that others can reference it.The Neisen one sounds particularly interesting.
I also loved the Foundation series, and really enjoy Ray Bradbury's work too. Also read copious amounts of Arthur C. Clarke. But the sci-fi author who probably meant the most to me was John Wyndham, particularly The Day of The Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos, not least because the setting of these stories – middle-class England – was immediately identifiable to me.Today, my favorite is probably H.G. Wells!
Wells, of course. Kinda forgot that one. Your English novelist are rather obsucre to me. I'll have to add them to Allan's Danish novelsits!Thatnks for stopping by again, Mr. M.