Character-based and psychological science fiction

A lot of the people on this board seem very knowledgeable about science fiction, so I thought I’d ask this here. I’m looking for recommendations of a certain type of science fiction. I think it’s what used to be called “soft” s.f., books which focus on the psychology of people when faced with technology, apocalyptic disasters, etc, rather than being about scientific speculation or abstract political theorizing. Books which use science and the extreme situations it creates as a backdrop for human drama.

I like some science fiction, but I prefer books that are based around strongly-defined characters (not just brave heroes or the anonymous trendies of William Gibson books) going through extreme circumstances. In s.f., I’ve found a few authors who I really like: e.g. Robert Silverberg, whose stories are always about complex fully-realised human beings in bizarre straits, and most of J. G. Ballard, particularly those stories that focus on psychology and social collapse (High-Rise, etc.), although he’s less interested in conventional novelistic character construction.

I also like more mainstream books with fantastical qualities like Douglas Coupland’s Girlfriend in a Coma and Thomas Pynchon, but nothing in the line of twee mysticism, magic realism, or faeries. A somewhat hard and pessimistic tone would be good, and no Ayn Rand style philosophy. “Hard” science fiction like Asimov, Arthur C Clarke or Greg Bear which focuses purely on technology doesn’t interest; I’m equally unkeen on thrillers and adventure stories.

Can anyone suggest either recent or more classic books or authors that might fit with the above interests - psychologically complex, intelligent, literate (not always the same thing) and maybe even moving?

I believe George R.R. Martin’s “Tuf Voyaging” might fit your bill. It’s a novella and series of short stories about a man named Haviland Tuf and the monster starship he, uh, acquires, which essentially gives him Godlike powers.

You’ll probably like anything by Ursula K. LeGuin. Her books are generally not only “character-centric,” but also “culture-centric,” making her worlds fully realized. Maybe because her father was Alfred Kroeber, one of the founders of American anthropology.

Nine Lives

Vaster Than Empires And More Slow

The Left Hand Of Darkness

The Stars Below

A great deal of LeGuin’s stuff is either focused on the characters psyches or driven by them.

By the way, refusal, it sounds like you and I share the same tastes somewhat. I like what I call “adult” science fiction more than “comic book” science fiction. I know you specifically mentioned that you don’t care for most fantasy, but have you tried Stephen R. Donaldson’s “White Gold” series? Very complex, dense, and multi-layered. Also, “somewhat hard and pessimistic” certainly describes the protagonist, who is a leper.

Reading the OP made me think of Phillip K. Dick.

The Gateway series (Poul Anderson?) and the Ender series (Orson Scott Card) are very character-driven, and quite good.

Heinlein’s later stuff is wonderful philosophy, and good storytelling. The Number of the Beast involves four very strong personalities in some VERY unusual circumstances. Some people think Heinlein’s too preachy, but I loved his stuff.

I have to take exception to your comment that hard science fiction focuses purely on technology. All stories must be about people, or they are boring. All successful authors understand this.

Nangleator, I loved Heinlein’s stuff, too, but I always thought his characters were rather two diminensional. I also thought a lot of his books were preachy in an Ayn Rand sort of way (not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that), specifically what refusal said s/he wasn’t interested in.

Ah. Not familiar with her work.

A vote for Sherri S. Tepper, who I adore.

Try Raising the Stones (an oldie that Amazon doesn’t mention, probably out of print) or Family Tree (the only book by her at Amazon, but an excellent one).

At last a recommendation for science fiction books I feel I can answer without slathering my contempt for the previous choices all over the thread. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sob.

All right. First, here’s the easy way out, the listing of all past winners of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards.

Are you looking for novelists or also short story writers? Because there’s been an amazing influx of fascinating new short fiction writers who haven’t written novels yet, or aren’t known for them. Some are on the Nebula link - Kelly Link, Ted Chiang - some are - Ray Vukcevich, Andy Duncan, Jeff VanderMeer.

There are also those whose novels are interesting, but whose short stories are better, like Michael Swanwick and James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel and Carol Emshwiller.

This issue of the literary journal Conjunctions: 39, The New Wave Fabulists, edited by Peter Straub, collects many of these writers into one handy place with excellent results.

Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon is actually mainstream, but with an sf sensibility and is unbelievably good. His Snow Crash is more Gibsonesque.

Bruce Sterling writes the most imaginative futures with the best social commentary. His short fiction is also excellent.

You mention Douglas Coupland. His Microserfs is the best evocation of what used to be thought of as the science fictional future, but is a true mainstream novel.

Michael Bishop, Terry Bisson, Robert Charles Wilson, Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Geoff Ryman and Nancy Kress all write complex, character-driven sf.

Ken Grimwood just died, which reminds me that his Replay is a character classic.

Lisa Goldstein, Charles deLint, and especially John Crowley write fantasy that is wonderfully literate and untainted by the Tolkien sickness. Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale is the mainstream version of such fantasies.

And yes, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is true fantasy, true social commentary, true parody, and truly the funniest sustained series in the history of the field.

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is a word-drunk mainstream novel about India and children who are super-powered mutants.

Of the classics, the early work of Tom Disch, Samuel Delany and Roger Zelazny are musts if you like Silverberg. Kate Wilhelm, Gene Wolfe, and Harlan Ellison are wonderful short story writers.

And I was lucky enough to have Ursula LeGuin as a teacher at the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, so I worship her as a person as well as a writer.

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here, knowing I’m leaving out many. This is a golden age for the kind of writing you’re looking for, but the names are not well-known for the most part. You have to search out the small presses because the big-name publishers are too busy churning out space warfare and pastoral fantasies and media tie-ins.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Sob.

Wow. I am surprised no one has mentioned Octavia E. Butler yet. Her Xenogenesis trilogy - Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago - sound exactly like what you are describing, Refusal. Uses a sci-fi context to explore characters in a fully-fleshed out way, covers. Fascinating works, incredibly well-written (she has been awared a MacArthur “genius” grant) and accessible. And many of her other works are great, too. Try the Parable books (Parable of the Sower? Parable of the Talents? I can remember which order they go in) for a well-written, character-driven look at a post-apocalyptic world…

Lois McMaster Bujold. Don’t let the horribly ugly covers put you off–Baen is infamous for them. Her books are far more than the space opera they make them seem to be.

Melissa Scott’s Dreamships and the kind-of sequel, Dreaming Metal, deal in part with that same old moral conundrum of science fiction: AI that becomes sentient. Her novel “Shadow Man” deals with sexuality and gender in a future where humanity has been effectually divided into 6 sexes. It’s been compared to LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness

Another example of soft SF is Mary Gentle’s Golden Witchbreed, and the sequel, Ancient Light, which deal with the old colonization problem… again, similar to Ursula LeGuin. I’ve never been able to get into her writing, so I’ve found substitutes.

Sheri S. Tepper does have some good stuff out there - although some of her stuff I hate reading (You get more stuff on Amazon if you use Sheri rather than Sherri). Most recently I read The Fresco, that I picked up at my local used book store - it was fantastic, and I’d sort of fallen away from science fiction in favor of fantasy.

Thanks for the numerous suggestions everyone. Now to decide where to start. I’ve read some of Le Guin’s juvenile fiction many years ago which was very good, so maybe I’ve grown up enough for her adult work. Lots and lots of other names mentioned: Sheri S. Tepper certainly seems to be highly recommended here and on Amazon. Possibly good places to start. And Exapno Mapcase’s list is certainly full of interesting names.

Kim Stanley Robinson (The Mars Trilogy and Icehenge seem interesting) and Harlan Ellison (his short stories) are also names I’ve heard a bit about but not ever sampled. I should probably try Phillip K Dick, since I think he pretty much counts as Classic American Literature these days and I’ve so far failed to read anything by him.

Now all I need is some time and peace and quiet to actually do some reading.

Frank Herbert’s The White Plague will probably fit your bill, since it heavily focuses on not only the Irish psyche, but male mentalities toward women. Also by him, Destination: Void, major focus of that book is understanding the parameters of sentience and intelligence.

Thanks, Lsura – it didn’t occur to me I was misspelling her name! :smack:

I’m going to print out this thread, too – a lot of names of people I’ve read (Le Guin, Butler, Card) and several I haven’t – thanks for your detailed list, Exapno!

Interesting how many women are on this list, eh?

the apocryphal Mass Transference Device carries many similarities to Ursula K. LeGuin’s Always Coming Home (an author frequently mentioned on this thread). In the dearth of evol psy fi that is current day science fiction, it should satiate. It’s online in pdf form just search, or you can buy a hardcopy online as well, for the cost of printing. The book was made to be free, very strange.

On the apocryphal note, I should also mention John Twelve Hawks’ books. The author is unknown, which is interesting in itself, but his books, like The Traveler, deal with individual decision-making in a future of all-knowing authorities; surely this leads to some psychological creativity.

Probably the best SF I’ve read this decade is Mary Russell’s The Sparrow. It’s absolutely character-driven, except when it’s culture-driven. Heartbreaking and beautiful and complex and a real work of art.

Spin is also very, very good, and manages to balance some hard SF with some well-developed characters.

I always love me some China Mieville, and recommend most things by him; the two I’d recommend for this thread would be The City and the City, which is so genre-bending that to name its genre might be to spoil it; and Embassytown, a space opera of sorts with a fairly interesting main character.

Finally, I’m reading the semi-SF book Angelmakers right now, and every page of it fills me with delight. The grandson of a clockmaker and son of a gangster tries to live his life in peace, unsuccessfully. It’s tremendous.

You might like Jacqueline Lichtenberg’s *Sime-Gen *series. It’s about a postapocalyptic society where humankind has been split into two parts, the Simes, who need an energy called selyn to survive, and the Gens, who produce it. The stories are about how the two “larities” learn to live together (Simes almost always kill Gens when they take selyn, which they need approximately monthly–the discovery of “channels” who can take selyn without killing the Gen and dispense it to other Simes is a big part of the series). There are currently 12 books which were written from the '70s to now, and all are (I believe) available as ebooks. They span everything from frontier times to space travel, and focus on the interactions between characters and the problems they face.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg was one of the first Star Trek mega-fans and was involved in the very first Star Trek convention. Her sci-fi roots go deep. And she’s also a very cool person, very involved with fandom (her own and others).