I loved *Shades of Grey *but it’s not easy going if you’re not familiar with Fforde’s style and of course it’s the first book in a trilogy so much is yet to be resolved. I’d hit them with The Eyre Affair instead; even though it too is the first of a series it’s sufficiently self-contained and more user-friendly.
I highly recommend The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. It takes place on another planet, but there’s a decent chance of sneaking it through, since it’s largely about the implications of a society where your innermost thoughts are constantly being broadcast for everyone to hear. It’s the first of a trilogy, and the second and third books are incredible.
How about “Inferno” by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle? It’s almost like reading Dante’s Inferno, sort of.
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I can see that - I forget that I’m a huge language nerd compared to most people, and stuff like that just tends to slide under my radar. I read Riddley Walker when I was in high-school, and recently in a grad school class, people were talking about this super-interesting english-set post-apocalyptic book with all this weird language and they thought the idea was neat, but just couldn’t get into it because the language was so hard, and I was thinking - “wow, that sounds like the plot of Riddley Walker, maybe they’ll like *it *instead of that hard one!” :smack: It *was *Riddley Walker they were talking about. I just totally didn’t notice/remember that the language was so difficult.
I’ll second Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland, and also throw out there Jose Saramago’s Baltasar and Blimunda. Both excellent writers with mainstream reputations, but both have fantastical or SF elements (which is what I think of by the term stealth SF).
Michael Chabon was also mentioned - The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay is my favorite of his.
And there’s always Midnight’s Children (Rushdie’s masterpiece).
I would tentatively suggest Ender’s Game, which I think is a great gateway science fiction book, although personally I get bogged down in the socio-political screeds. They’re not a very big part of the book though, and if you skip them, you still get the story.
A more recent title that I LOVED was Eifelheim, which is about a spaceship full of aliens that crash-lands outside of a small German village, in the Middle Ages. Some of the villagers are afraid of them, a few are fascinated by them, including the village priest. The characters in this are amazing, and a lot of the story is what is revealed about the day-to-day lives of the villagers as they are affected by the arrival of a bunch of aliens.
George Alec Effinger’s **When Gravity Fails. ** (The title is from a Dylan song!) Basically a hardboiled detective novel set in future-Baghdad. Some really interesting explorations of identity, with lots of seedy lowlifes, drugs, good dames, bad dames, drugs, transsexuals, brain implants, all against the unfamiliar-to-most Islamic milieu…it’s awesome.
Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be good for the book club. But I wanted to recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it, dammit.
Connie Willis would definitely be fun. I loved The Doomsday Book, but I know that some people hate it. Bellwether is wonderful, but a book club might find it too lightweight. How about Remake or Lincoln’s Dreams?
Tor.com has a regular feature called Genre in the Mainstream which chronicles…well, mainstream literature that involves some degree of sci-fi/fantasy.
Among other things, they’ve suggested A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan which was excellent. Among other things, it features an entire chapter written in Powerpoint. It’s better than it sounds. (It’s also the only one they’ve highlighted that I’ve read so far, which is why I mention it specifically.)
I am a huge, huge fan of Tepper in general, and this book in particular…but I don’t think that it’s a starter SF book. For one thing, it’s been described as an ecofeminist dystopia. For another, Tepper’s style is to introduce the society and customs gradually, showing and not telling, and I think that most people who don’t read a lot of SF might not pick up on essential parts of the story on the first reading. And the last thing…I think that this will make a lot of people extremely uncomfortable, if they read it all the way through. Again, I think this is a great book, but it’s definitely a niche book.
To get back to suggestions, how about John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War?
+1 on the first two of the Connie Willis books.
My book club has the same issue and this was my choice to help them get over it.
It… did not go well.
I’m reading this thread and keeping notes, hoping I can get them on board!
Second this.
Third - Beggars in Spain would be a good choice as would be Kress’ more recent Steal Across the Sky. Charles Stross’ The Family Trade might work too (though it’s very much the first of a series).
If you want a short alt-history short story that kicks every kind of ass, read “Summer in Paris, Light From the Sky” by Ken Scholes. Available for free download, it’s about a human rights activist form the 50s named Adolf Hitler.
I read that series - it was very good, I agree. I don’t know if the sci-fi is “stealthy” enough, but I think the books would make for great discussions.
Interesting!
Ooh, one more, if you’re okay with fantasy: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It’s written ostentatiously in the style of Jane Austen or Patrick O’Brian, set in Regency England, and follows the careers of the two titular characters, England’s finest wizards. It’s very funny and mannered. Also it was a Big Release about half a dozen years ago, so some of the folks in the group may have been wanting to read it.
Thanks everybody! I suggested Yiddish Policeman’s Union and *Never Let Me Go *and see if either of them get chosen. I knew Dopers would know.
Now excuse me while I go search out almost every book mentioned and read them.
Add to your list “The Light of Other Days”. It’s a great book for discussion as it posses a scenario that forever changes all societies everywhere. I’ve lent it to people who didn’t like Sci Fi and it was well received.