# Good science fiction and fantasy lit vs. the bad stuff **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 31, 2004, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fiction-and-fantasy-lit-vs-the-bad-stuff/282434 "2004-12-31T16:19:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fiction-and-fantasy-lit-vs-the-bad-stuff/282434/61 "2005-01-04T14:23:11Z")
Kallessa writes: \> . . . I will admit that the wife of the late, great Jim Morrison is better at selling \> herself than at writing . . . And one of the ways in which she has sold herself is by calling herself Morrison’s wife. She was Morrison’s girlfriend, having a romantic relationship with him while he continued to live with and be romantically involved with his legal wife. This is what some people call having an affair with him or being his mistress. His wife tolerated her just as she tolerated Morrison’s dalliances with groupies. Only in Kennealy-Morrison’s eyes did the ceremony she and Morrison went through create a marriage. It was his wife who went off with Morrison to Paris where he soon died, not Kennealy-Morrison. I’m not condemning anyone here for their actions except Morrison himself, who I think was a jerk, but this is distorting the common definition of “wife.” ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fiction-and-fantasy-lit-vs-the-bad-stuff/282434/62 "2005-01-04T14:34:18Z")
I think with fantasy writers, there’s a very easy way to tell the good from the bad: the very best fantasy writers either do a vivid recreation of an little-known mythology, or reinvent existing mythologies, or invent entirely new ones (often using elements from existing mythologies. Cases in point: H.P. Lovecraft, whose Cthulhu mythos was so powerful and well-realized that it’s well on its way to becoming a sub-genre, and was pretty much an entirely new mythology. Tim Powers, who uses existing mythologies but reinvents them so completely and so powerfully that it’s like entering an alternate reality (frex, his reimagination of the Green Man mythos in Last Call). Or John Crowley, whose “Little, Big” is a completely fresh take on the faerie mythology, making it somehow mundane for the people involved in it even as they live in a world in which no one believes in them. And John Norman, who reimagined the standard sword and sandal fantasy as an extended bondage and dominance fantasy. OTOH, if you find yourself reading a book cover about a young prince who either firghts with or befriends a dragon and must find a treasure/rescue a princess in the course of a magical journey, in 99 cases out of a hundred, you can safely put the book down and be on your way, knowing that you have missed nothing, or almost nothing. Frankly, once you’ve read Lord of the Rings and Princess Bride, you’ve got all of those stories covered. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fiction-and-fantasy-lit-vs-the-bad-stuff/282434/63 "2005-01-04T15:15:18Z")
I’m a bit shocked that I haven’t seen a mention of anything by Iain M. Banks yet. His SF novels (he also writes non-SF fiction) are a well-blended mixture of swashbuckling fantasy and hard SF, and Banks both writes complex, vivid characters that are carefully drawn according to the various alien cultures that spawned them (even the spaceships have interesting AI personalities), and provides a cinematic scope to the huge settings on which the stories play out. His strongest SF books, IMO, are _Consider Phlebas_, _Use of Weapons_ (both concern a pan-galactic civilization known as The Culture), _Against a Dark background_\* and _Feersum Endjinn_. Again IMO, I’d tend to avoid _Excession_ and _Inversions_ as they seem rather flat compared to the others. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fiction-and-fantasy-lit-vs-the-bad-stuff/282434/64 "2005-01-04T21:57:57Z")
First of all, a few people have already mentioned **Geoge R R Martin** , but I must repeat him. His **A Song of Ice and Fire** is the best fantasy I’ve ever read, bar none. Sadly, book 4 seems like it will NEVER come out. Sheesh. I also recommend Vernor Vinge and Neal Stephenson. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fiction-and-fantasy-lit-vs-the-bad-stuff/282434/65 "2005-01-04T22:42:38Z")
Another thing to watch for is a series called the Tor SF Doubles. This was a set of paperbacks published between 1988 and 1991 - they should still be fairly common in used book stores. Each book contained two science fiction (or occasionally fantasy) novellas. Many classics were included. 1. A Meeting with Medusa - Arthur C. Clarke / Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson 2. Hardfought - Greg Bear / Cascade Point - Timothy Zahn 3. Born with the Dead - Robert Silverberg / The Saliva Tree - Brian Aldiss 4. Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo - John Varley / The Star Pit - Samuel R. Delany 5. No Truce with Kings - Poul Anderson / Ship of Shadows - Fritz Leiber 6. Enemy Mine - Barry B. Longyear / Another Orphan - John Kessel 7. Screwtop - Vonda N. McIntyre / The Girl Who Was Plugged in - James Tiptree, Jr. 8. The Nemesis from Terra - Leigh Brackett / Battle for the Stars - Edmond Hamilton 9. The Ugly Little Boy - Isaac Asimov/ The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff - Theodore Sturgeon 10. Sailing to Byzantium - Robert Silverberg / Seven American Nights - Gene Wolfe 11. Houston, Houston, Do You Read? - James Tiptree, Jr. / Souls - Joanna Russ 12. He Who Shapes - Roger Zelazny / The Infinity Box - Kate Wilhelm 13. The Blind Geometer - Kim Stanley Robinson / The New Atlantis - Ursula K. Le Guin 14. The Saturn Game - Poul Anderson / Iceborn - Greg Benford and Paul A. Carter 15. The Last Castle - Jack Vance / Nightwings - Robert Silverberg 16. The Color of Neanderthal Eyes - James Tiptree, Jr. / And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees - Michael Bishop 17. Divide and Rule - L. Sprague de Camp / The Sword of Rhiannon - Leigh Brackett 18. In Another Country - Robert Silverberg / Vintage Season - C. L. Moore 19. Ill Met in Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber / The Fair at Emain Macha - Charles de Lint 20. The Pugnacious Peacemaker - Harry Turtledove / The Wheels of IF - L. Sprague de Camp 21. Home is the Hangman - Roger Zelazny / We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line - Samuel R. Delany 22. Thieves’ Carnival - Karen Haber / The Jewel of Bas - Leigh Brackett 23. Riding the Torch - Norman Spinrad / Tin Soldier - Joan Vinge 24. Elegy for Angels and Dogs - Walter Jon Williams / The Graveyard Heart - Roger Zelazny 25. Fugue State - John M. Ford / The Death of Dr. Island - Gene Wolfe 26. Press Enter\_ - John Varley / Hawksbill Station - Robert Silverberg 27. Eye for Eye - Orson Scott Card / The Tunesmith - Lloyd Biggle, Jr. 28. A Short, Sharp Shock - Kim Stanley Robinson / The Dragon Masters - Jack Vance 29. Nanoware Time - Ian Watson / The Persistence of Vision - John Varley 30. The Longest Voyage - Poul Anderson / Slow Lightning - Steve Popkes 31. Naked to the Stars - Gordon R. Dickson / The Alien Way - Gordon R. Dickson 32. Run for the Stars - Harlan Ellison / Echoes of Thunder - Jack Dann & Jack C. Haldeman 33. Bwana - Mike Resnick / Bully - Mike Resnick 34. Rule Golden - Damon Knight / Double Meaning - Damon Knight 35. Silent Thunder - Dean Ing / Universe - Robert A. Heinlein 36. Conjure Wife - Fritz Leiber / Our Lady of Darkness - Fritz Leiber ---
**Author:** ![Boldface\_Type](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@Boldface\_Type](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boldface_Type)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fiction-and-fantasy-lit-vs-the-bad-stuff/282434/66 "2005-01-04T23:49:19Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > I’m a bit shocked that I haven’t seen a mention of anything by Iain M. Banks yet. > > His strongest SF books, IMO, are _Consider Phlebas_, _Use of Weapons_ (both concern a pan-galactic civilization known as The Culture), _Against a Dark background_\* and _Feersum Endjinn_. Again IMO, I’d tend to avoid _Excession_ and _Inversions_ as they seem rather flat compared to the others. I also agree that IMB is worth a look, and I agree with the _Feersum Endjinn_ and _Consider Phlebas_ recommendations. Mind you, I actually liked _Excession_ too, though I wouldn’t start there. The book seems to assume the reader is familiar with Banks’ Culture, and this can make things hard to wade through at times. _Inversions_ is a bit crappy (Banks’ worst?) at least in part because it looks like a straightforward - and fairly mundane - fantasy book, unless you’ve read enough IMB books to pick up on some mildy hidden references (to the Culture, natch). Even if you pick up these references, the book is by no means the Bee’s Bollocks. Greg Bear can be worth a look. I would avoid _Darwin’s Children_ - it is rather disjointed, and I found his idea of the future of evolution a bit silly (So, we’ll all grow vomeronasal organs and gain mobile, technocolour freckles, you say? Sign me up!). Worse, he seems to have a bit of a God Crisis half way through which adds a some more jolly stupidities as God is found lurking in the bore of a brain scanner. I like his hard SF though. _Hardfought_ is the standout for me. _Blood Music_ also cracks along nicely until near the end, when it all gets a bit wobbly. There is a collection of his shorter works available (oddly enough it’s called something like _The Collected Works of Greg Bear_) and this is well worth grabbing. _War With the Newts_ by Karel Capek is superb and cynical tome that stands up tremendously, despite being written about 70 years ago. Ballard wrote a lot of SF in his earlier years, and this ranges from the good to the good for compost only. I do like his cynical views of human nature, though this is more evident in his non-SF books. ---
**Author:** ![EsotericEnigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e274bd/32.png) [@EsotericEnigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EsotericEnigma)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fiction-and-fantasy-lit-vs-the-bad-stuff/282434/67 "2005-01-05T05:41:02Z")
I don’t have time to read the entire thread, so I apologize if this has been said already. The best science fiction in my opinion are the foundation series by Isaac Asimov and the Ender series by Orson Scott Card. The Ender series begins with the novel Enders Game and then branches into two separate sequel series, including Enders Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, and Shadow puppets in one branch and Speaker for the Dead (among others that I’ve forgotten the titles for) in the other. Avoid most other Orson Scott Card science fiction books. I enjoyed very few of them, and there are tons out there that aren’t worth reading. Among fantasy my favorite series is the Renshai trilogy by Mickey Zucker Reichart. It begins with “Last of the Renshai” and includes “The Western Wizard” and “Child of Thunder.” There is really no fantasy work that compares to this series for pure enjoyment in my opinion, including Tolkein. Oh, I almost forgot the Alvin Maker series for fantasy, too. They are fantasy style, I guess, but in a post-American Revolution setting. These are also by Orson Scott Card, but I wouldn’t suggest reading these until you’ve read the others I’ve mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fiction-and-fantasy-lit-vs-the-bad-stuff/282434/68 "2005-01-05T07:46:24Z")
I don’t remember when I first read Asimov or Clarke. But I remember exactly when I read my first Heinlein novel. It made a huge impact on me. I read another 10 novels in the next 15 days, and didn’t stop reading until I’d finished every Heinlein book published. But I started with the ‘juveniles’ and worked my way through his adult fiction from earliest to newest. That’s definitely the way to read Heinlein. Pick up one of: \*The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Double Star The Door Into Summer Have Space Suit - Will Travel Tunnel in the Sky Farmer in the Sky Red Planet The Star Beast The Puppet Masters Time for the Stars Citizen of the Galaxy The Rolling Stones \* And I highly recomment his short story anthologies, “The Past Through Tomorrow” parts 1 and 2. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fiction-and-fantasy-lit-vs-the-bad-stuff/282434.md?page=3)