Last year, my parents’ church (I myself am not religious) hired two married co-ministers, and my parents have become very close to them (helped them out with the move, etc.). I like them very much, but feel especially close to the husband, Robert. I’ve gone out to dinner a few times with them, that sort of thing. Robert really enjoys talking sci-fi with me, because I think I’m the only other flaming nerd he really knows. He’s read some of the most common stuff, and seen probably more movies than I have, but doesn’t have a deep knowledge of the literature.
So, my mom tells me that Robert has been admitted into an out-of-state inpatient facility for depression (in other words, it must be REALLY bad.) I’m going to write him a nice letter and I was thinking he might appreciate me telling him about my bout of depression at the end of college. However, he’s probably sick as fucking hell of hearing about people and their damned depression, so if he’s allowed packages I thought I’d send him a book or two.
The thing is, the books I mentioned to him a few months ago that I thought he’d really, really be interested in would all make a depressed person hang themselves with their shoelaces. I mean, any pastor with an interest in speculative fiction needs to read A Canticle for Leibowitz, and I actually went out to pick up a copy before I remembered the actual experience of reading that book and realized that that’s the absolute wrong thing to send to a person in that position.
So, what I need from you guys is some suggestions for books that I haven’t read or haven’t thought of that are:
1.) really smart and that I like a lot
2.) either classic or contemporary, but I think Big Idea fiction is best
3.) don’t make you want to throw yourself out a window
4.) pastor appropriate (I mean, we aren’t Baptists, he reads Stephen King and such, but just FYI)
5.) and this is important - not books that are just important classic sci-fi, books that are actually GOOD.
And I seriously don’t think a lot of those Great Classics of Science Fiction are any good at all. Let me give you a list of examples:
Classic Genre Fiction That Isn’t Actually Very Good:
Ringworld
Foundation
Childhood’s End
Classic Genre Fiction That Is Really Good:
The Stars My Destination
Cordwainer Smith
Gateway (but no sequels)
About Half of Ray Bradbury
Roger Zelazny When He Isn’t Feeling Self-Indulgent
(Sorry, I don’t like Lord of Light, which would otherwise be a good choice)
Genre Fiction New And Old That Is Really Good (and that I really want this guy to read) But Too Depressing:
The Sparrow
A Canticle for Leibowitz
I Am Legend
1984
Flowers for Algernon, for god’s sake
The Doomsday Book
I can’t remember enough about “The Left Hand of Darkness” to remember if it’s depressing, but I kind of remember crying over it, so it probably is. I’d send “Dune”, but he may already have read that - I’m looking more for the sort of thing a surface reader wouldn’t have gotten that’s some of the best literary sci-fi has to offer, and I’m drawing a blank. (I know he’s read Orson Scott Card.) So I guess I’m looking for stuff that isn’t really obvious, so I can assume he hasn’t read it, but stuff that’s really good and not fluffy and that I know he’d like in any frame of mind but stuff that’s appropriate for somebody in the kind of emotional trouble where you go out of state and in-patient.
I know that’s a scattered list-y kind of OP, but I was hoping you guys could suggest stuff I’ve read that I’m not thinking of or stuff that’s awesome that I haven’t read. (I’d be tempted to send him something fun like Honor Harrington, but all the books he and I have talked about have been the meaty kind you can really talk about, particularly preacherly speaking. On the other hand, maybe that isn’t what he needs right now. At any rate: advise.)