I remember that one! The vignette about how Kirk became the only Star Fleet captain ever to surrender in the face of the enemy - that was classic!
The Vampire: The Masquerade Clan Novel set. (all 13) And the Blood Curse Trilogy by Gherbod Flemming are my favorite books that no one has read. I also like First and Only the Gaunt’s Ghost novel. Check it out if you are a sci-fi fan.
Three by Robert Charles Wilson:
Bridge of Years - Down on his luck man goes back to his hometown to rebuild his life and discovers a tunnel in his basement that leads to New York City of 1962.
The Harvest - Alien entity offers all of humanity the chance for immortality. One in 10,000 refuse, because the price is too high. This would make a great movie, but would end up ruined.
Mysterium - Small town is ripped from this time/space and placed in a world where things turned out quite a bit differently.
I wouldn’t say that any of the following are “books that no one else has heard about.”
Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart
The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles Finney
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
Replay by Ken Grimwood
Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad
The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
Towing Jehovah by James Morrow
Little, Big by John Crowley
Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
These all strike me as moderately well-known books. Most of the science fiction/fantasy fans I know have heard of most of these books and have read a few of them. Most of the rest of the books mentioned so far are lesser-known books, perhaps, but hardly unknown. Anyway, this is the least known of my favoite science fiction books:
The Tin Men by Michael Frayn
These are the least known of my favorite fantasy books:
Stepping from the Shadows by Patricia McKillip
Silverlock by John Myers Myers
Whew! We are talking fast company here. My thanks to Fenris. I have The Butterfly Kid’s sequel, Unicorn Girl by Michael Kurland, but have yet to track down Waters’ The Probability Pad.
BTW, Michael Kurland went on to fill some mighty big fantasy shoes with the publication of two Lord Darcy novels after the death of Randall Garrett. IMHO he did a fine job.
I would have put in Mr. Garrett but my understanding of the OP was to concentrate on those less heard of. I certainly hope the Lord Darcy fans are legion.
Kurland also works in the detective/mystery vein. Here’s a link that even has his picture:
http://www.nwlink.com/~massucco/Visiting-Authors/Kurland.html
Fantasy
Hunter’s Oath and Hunter’s Death by Michelle West
Steal the Dragon by Patricia Briggs
College of Magics, I forget the author and I don’t know where I put the book.
Science Fiction
Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, Carpe Diem (collected into one volume: Partners in Necessity) and Plan B by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee
Why is it the only one of her books I find is the Unicorn one. The Books of Paradys and the Lords of the Flat Earth (four books in each series) are the most well written, erotic, mind blowing fantasy Ive ever encountered.
ever written in the genre, so for us true fans it is hard to find something that “no one has ever heard of.” So, I’ll offer only lesser known works.
“Forbidden Planet” by W. J. Stuart (pseudonym for… I can’t remember):
The finest “novelization” ever. I believe it was actually released prior to the film. If you loved the movie, please read this. It expands considerably on the plot and ideas of the film, and the characterizations (especially Doc Ostrow) are many times superior. Best of all, it all but deletes the inane shenanigans of “Cookie.” Except for his classic “tin cans” speech).
“Man of Many Minds” by E. Everett Evans: Great cheesy piece of crap that I just love.
Most novels by L. P. Davies.
“Ivory” by Mike Resnick: Star- spanning space operatic search for legendary tusks. Gotta love it.
“Ancient Shores” by Jack McDevitt: Ancient alien boat dock (and “doorway to the stars”) is found buried under some farmer’s field in the midwest. Gave this 37-year-old that good ol’ 10-year-old sense of wonder that SF (at least IMHO) is supposed to, but rarely does these days.
Great choices. Anybody read the short fiction of Dale Bailey? He’s a friend, so I was just wondering if anbody out there read him besides me and his immediate family.
Sir
In fact, I just finished reading that not but about a half hour ago. A despondent man is shipwrecked and winds up in adventures on an island inhabited by characters from literature. A great book and definitely worth seeking out.
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“Man of Many Minds” by E. Everett Evans: Great cheesy piece of crap that I just love.
[QUOTE]
I remember that one.
The Mongo series by Goerge Chesbro. Gotta love that dwarf detective/ex-circus headliner/ex-college professor.
In the U.S. there is an appalling ignorance of science fiction that was not originally written in English. I suppose almost everyone has heard of Karel Capek (who coined the word “robot”), but not enough Americans have actually read his works. I recommend Apocryphal Tales for a start.
Stanislaw Lem unknown? As far as foreign SF authors who did not write in English, he’s probably the second most famous (Verne being #1).
I read one of the sequels to ‘The Bridge of Birds’ - ‘The Story of the Stone’.
I read ‘Denners Wreck’, it was one of the SF Book Club choices. I liked it quite a bit.
‘Imajica’ is one of my favorite Clive Barker books.
Hmm, my nomination? Well, this one is so unknown I can’t even recall the title…it was an extremely funny ‘Yound Adult’ book where this nerd makes friends with a weird kid who claims to be from another planet. They go on a number of weird adventures, and by reading portions of some ancient tome backwards figure out how to unlock some kind of psychokinetic powers, which they use for all kinds of mayhem. I also seem to recall they went to Atlantis - it was very tongue-in-cheek and I loved it, but it was one I borrowed from a library and it’s been about 14 years since I read it, I think. If anyone can recall the title, I’d greatly appreciate it…I think a hot dog stand was important, too…
I found it!!! ‘Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars’ is what it was called, I guess I had good taste because it has an average rating of five stars at Amazon.com. It is also out of print and hard to find. Sigh.
Carol Stevermer. Excellent book too. She also wrote one called Sorcery and Cecilia with Patricia Wrede, which is a lot of fun, but unfortunately a collector’s item and extremely hard to find.
Fenris
Oh! I haven’t reread this one in a couple of years! It’s ssoooo bad! Evans is desperatly trying to mix a Heinlein juvie, an Andre Norton juvie and “Doc” Smith in this book.
(paraphrase)
“Golly sir, I’m only a raw recruit. Even if I do have vast psychic powers, I’m only a kid. But if you want me to try to infiltrate the Galactic Pirates, well, I’ll do my best!”
Thanks for reminder!
Fenris
Hmmm, Parke Godwin doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention. “Firelord” is easily my favorite Arthurian novel (“Mists of Avalon” is a close second). The sequel, “Beloved Exile” is told from the point of view of Guinevere after Arthur’s death. He also wrote a wonderful Robin Hood novel called “Sherwood” with a sequel “Robin and the King,” set post-Battle of Hastings, Norman invasion. He wrote a novel about Harold the Great called “Lord of Sunset” which I also loved. Not to mention his St. Patrick epic, “The Last Rainbow” and the Beowulf re-telling “The Tower of Beowulf.”
Anybody read his post-apocalypse novels written with Marvin Kaye? This is a trilogy and through diligence I have found the first 2 books used and have not been able to locate the third. These are: “Masters of Solitude,” “Wintermind” and “A Cold Blue Light.” The third is nowhere to be found. Anybody have a copy for sale? It took me years to find “Wintermind.”
I also don’t see much fanfare for Leo Frankowski’s “Cross Time Engineer” books. These are basically a retelling of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” set in 12th century Poland in the years before the Mongol invasion. I loved these books.
Good choice, but have you read “Weaveworld?” In my opinion “Weaveworld” is a far superior novel and easily my favorite Barker, but I’m not so sure that either of these count as “unknown.”
Yep, I push that one here all the time. By turns funny and dramatic, with a wonderful illustration of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
One of my favorites is Code of the Lifemaker, by, er, I don’t remember. Wait–AMazon tells me it’s by James Patrick Hogan. Concerns the discovery of a functioning society of self-replicating robotic beings on Titan, the results of the crash of an alien factory thousands of years ago.
Almost anything by Jules Verne, or H.G. Wells. Most people only know of three novels or so by each. If you go into a bookstore you can find 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. You can find The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, and The Island of Dr. Moreau. But both men wrote a hell of a lot more than that. I’ve been collecting their work for years. It’s WAY underappreciated.
Verne:
The Floating City – (Titanic, without the ship sinking)
Tribulations of a Chinaman – (technophile oriental is the hero. He uses a Survival Suit)
The Blockade Runners – Naval Adventure during the civil War
The Purchase of the North Pole – rarely-mentioned second sequel to “From the Earth to the Moon”
For the Flag – Verne’s other submarine novel. In this one the sub fires guided missiles (!)
Michael Strogoff, Courier for the Czar – great twist ending
Carpathian Castle – first use ever of technology to fake “ghost” effects. (THink “scooby-doo” situations). The bad guy even uses a television!
City in the Sahara/The Barsac Mission – first use of a radio to call for help
and so on…
Wells:
The World Set Free – first work ever to use “atomic bomb”. Was reportedly a big influence on Leo Szilard, who DID invent the a-bomb.
Star-begotten – cosmic ray exposure starts a race of mutants
In the Days of the Comet – passage of the earth through the tail of a comet (a la Halley’s in 1910) causes odd effects.
Actually, Capek’s “RUR” is pretty uninteresting and is quite dull. His “War With The Newts,” however, is one of the best satires ever written, especially the second section.
I, too, loved Frayn’s “The Tin Men,” especially the sections about the author trying to write his first novel. You might also want to rent the movie they made from his play “Noises Off.” Though I disagree that “Replay” or even “Bug Jack Barron” are all that well known. Only the hard core fans have ever heard of either, and few have read them.
A few others that come to mind:
Fritz Leiber’s “The Wanderer” (one of the first and best disaster novels) and “The Big Time.”
“Blind Voices” by Tom Reamy (and his short story collection, “San Diego Lightfoot Sue”).
“Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang” by Kate Wilheim – best novel about clones. I also liked her “Margaret and I,” partly because of its unique point of view (first person omniscient).
“Dying Inside” by Robert Silverberg. Probably his best novel, but it seems to be unknown to newer fans.
“Expecting Someone Taller” and “Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?” by Tom Holt – If you like Terry Pratchett, you’ll like these.
“Tea With the Black Dragon” by R. A. MacEvoy. Delightful fantasy novel. I’ve also enjoyed her other stuff like the Damiano Trilogy, “The Book of Kells” and “Twisting the Rope.”
“When Gravity Fails” by George Alec Effinger. Cyberpunk in a Muslim society.
“Orphan of Creation” by Roger MacBride Allen. Fine book about the discovery of a living neanderthal. One of the very few SF novels with totally accurate science.
“Desolation Road” by Ian Macdonald – Magic realism, much like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (which you should also read).
“Voyage to the Red Planet” by Terry Bisson. Delightful and charming hard science novel about the trip to Mars on the good ship Mary Poppins