Recommended Reading.

Last night, the Evil Dr. Smith and I went out for dinner with my friend Alan and his new female companion Karli.  Alan is in the process of moving to Vancouver from Toronto, and has shown the foresight to line up an apartment and a girlfriend in a single visit.

Given that Alan is not a great fan of literature himself, I was pleased to discover that Karli is a reader. (She's also extremely good looking and apparently quite smart - I hope Alan's apartment is as nice.) As part of our conversation, we were discussing the trials and tribulations of long-distance moving, and I mentioned that my move to the West Coast was a little more expensive than Laurie's due to factors like my extensive library. When pressed, I confessed to my long term addiction to science fiction and fantasy.

As sometimes happens when people find out that I'm a geek, I was asked what science fiction novel I’d recommend - Karli had already explained that her literary interests are not tagged to a particular genre. 

I initially went with Dune, by Frank Herbert, which is a superb novel in spite of unfortunate adaptations to both movie and miniseries, but settled on Larry Niven’s Ringworld instead.

We finished dinner, we paid the bill, we shook hands and hugged and so forth, and went on our separate ways.  When I finally got home, I made a cup of tea, came into my study, sat down, stared at my books, and brooded for a while. 

Ringworld is not a bad recommendation when put on the spot over dinner. It deals with aliens, space travel, extended life, teleportation booths, and a plethora of other familiar SF tropes.  The massive scale of the Ringworld itself illustrates the sense of wonder and imagination which typifies the best of hard SF, and the adventures that Louis Wu and his motley crew experience there are thought-provoking, exciting, and entertaining.  It’s a clever book, and I think it’s easily accessible for non-fans.

All that being said, I feel that I’ve slighted any number of equally valid candidates for recommended reading: Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, or perhaps The Lathe of Heaven; The Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny*, (maybe The Dream Master); Downbelow Station, by C. J. Cherryh; Babel-17, or Nova, by Samuel R. Delany, Lord Valentine’s Castle, by Robert Silverberg; Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress; The Centauri Device, by M. John Harrison; Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan, Hyperion, by Dan Simmons; Neuromancer, by William Gibson - and I'll stop there with ten authors.

Other science fiction fans (including my sister) will read this list and immediately voice their objections.

"What about Stranger in a Strange Land?"

"There’s no Clarke!"

"There’s no Asimov!"

"Where's Douglas Adams!  Or Piers Anthony!"

"Peter Hamilton's really good!"

"What about Lovecraft?"

"How could you skip Harlan Ellison?"

And they would be completely correct - the books listed above are in no way intended to explore the complete range of science fiction, and I could double those names in two minutes.

Then what does that list represent? 

The authors I’ve listed above are the ones that captured me with their imagination, style and skill, in books that I've returned to again and again over the years.  It's a bit sloped toward the 80s, when I was really hitting my stride as a fan, but includes older and new fiction as well.  Some of them are not as high profile - I suspect that M. John Harrison is a new name to some fans reading this - and the books I've listed aren't always the best known for those authors.  But they are all exceptional examples of writing talent, regardless of their genre, and I would unhesitatingly recommend all of them in a heartbeat.

And, in conclusion, I have to apologize.  I've always said that I didn't want to do lists here, everyone does lists, and now I've done one.  In my defense, I held out for almost eight years, so I don't feel I've betrayed my principles by too much.

- Sid

* Both these authors are equally at home with fantasy or science fiction, but Karli’s original question was for a science fiction recommendation, so I’m restricting myself to SF.  Although, really, with Roger Zelazny it's sometimes hard to tell.