:rolleyes: feels bad he mistook Narile’s gender
also feels bad he left out so many good authors
agrees with RealityChuck on the obscure but excellent Replay
wonders whether he could be the mime of 2000
What, no Silverbrg? He’s one of the best. Try to get your hands on “Nightwings” - it’s incredible.
Don’t forget Niven and Pournelle’s “The Mote In God’s Eye” and it’s counterpart, “Footfall”. Both are classics.
The definitive P.J.Farmer is, in my opinion, the “Maker of Worlds” series. Fascinating stuff.
You should also read Julian May, especially her Pliocene Saga. The most all-encopassing look on psychic phenomena ever written.
And thanks to everyone who mentioned Zelazney. he is, hands down, the best.
A few other novels that should be mentioned (but I forgot):
“Dune” by Frank Herber (don’t bother with the various sequels, though – all are wretched).
“Dying Inside” by Robert Silverberg
“Towing Jehovah” by James Morrow (of course, this depends on your definition of SF – but all of Morrow’s books are superb).
“Dinner at Deviant’s Palace” by Tim Powers (actually, this isn’t quite as good as his best novels – try “The Anubis Gates” or “Last Call” – but they are fantasy, not SF).
“Startide Rising” by David Brin
“Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang” by Kate Wilhelm
“Beggars in Spain” by Nancy Kress
“Stand on Zanzibar” by John Brunner
“The Big Time” by Fritz Lieber
Gene Wolfe’s “Book of the New Sun” tetrology (The Shadow of the Torturer (1980), The Claw of the Conciliator (1981), The Sword of the Lictor (1981), and The Citadel of the Autarch (1982))
APB9999:
I’ve got to disagree with you on 2001. I like it, and it arguably i “defining” in the sense that he’s best known for it. But it is the utcome of the Clarke/Kubrick amalgam that produced the movie version. Without that, larke would never have produced the novel 2001 as it appeared.
I think that a lot of people would select “Childhood’s End” as the canonical Clarke work. I have to admit that I didn’t much like that one, however.
Clarke himself, when asked about his favorite, cited “Songs of Distant Earth”. “Everythin I want to say is in that one,” he’s supposed to have said.
Given my druthers, I’d nominate “Rendezvous with Rama”
I definitely second Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun (Shadow/Claw, Sword/Citadel). Although they haven’t been around long enough to have the kind of influence wielded by, say, Heinlein’s works, they are truly groundbreaking and are high on my favorites list. They have definite literary value.
MR
RealityChuck:
I’m really curious about your inclusion of this one, Chuck. I’ve read Towing Jehovah, and love it, but I can’t think of any definition of SF that includes it. I’d like to hear yours. I would say it’s clearly fantasy.
Are you sure you understand the purpose of this thread? We’re not just picking good books; the OP is looking for definitive examples of the major tropes and themes of the genre. Even if you can justify putting Towing Jehovah within science fiction, what type of SF is it the definitive example of?
If you assume that God truly exists, then “Towing Jehovah” is science fiction.
The book is definitive of various SF books dealing with science and God/religious belief. I can think of, say, Nancy Kress’s “Trinity” (which is definitely SF), Blish’s “A Case of Conscience,” and Michael Moorcock’s “Behold the Man”
Lots of good stuff mentioned so far, but I think I’ll take APB9999’s idea and list the syllabus for the course I’d teach.
Assumptions: one semester at a reasonably good school (i.e., you can expect the students to read one longish book a week), on the university level. I’m assuming a 15-week course, and that I’m just covering genre SF (i.e., post-Gernsback and mostly US).
Week 1: Introduction, etc. Start in on short fiction.
Week 2: Short fiction of the '40s and '50s. Depending on what’s in print, I’d use Silverberg’s The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1 or Healy & McComas’s Adventures in Time and Space or maybe one or more of James Gunn’s The Road to Science Fiction series.
Necessary texts:
“Fondly Farenheit” by Alfred Bester
“And He Built a Crooked House” and/or “All You Zombies” by Robert A. Heinlein
“A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum
“Microcosmic God” and/or “The Man Who Lost the Sea” by Theodore Sturgeon
“Scanners Live in Vain” by Cordwainer Smith
“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin
Week 3: The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
Week 4: The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov
Week 5: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Week 6: Short Fiction No. 2: The '60s and '70s. Possibly using Dangerous Visions or Again, Dangerous Visions (both edited by Harlan Ellison) as a starting point.
Necessary texts:
“Aye, and Gomorrah” by Samuel R. Delany
one or more short J.G. Ballard pieces, perhaps “The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race”
one or more early Roger Zelazny stories, most likely “A Rose for Ecclesiastes”
“Inconstant Moon” by Larry Niven
“The Deathbird” by Harlan Ellison (though there are several other, equally good choices from this author)
“The Fifth Head or Cerberus” or “The Death of Doctor Island” by Gene Wolfe
“The Man Who Walked Home” by James Tiptree, Jr.
one or more John Varley stories, probably “The Persistence of Vision”
Week 7: Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein and The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Week 8: Dune by Frank Herbert
Week 9: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
Week 10: The Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed by Ursula K. le Guin
Week 11: Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke and Ringworld by Larry Niven
Week 12: Gateway by Frederik Pohl (or possibly Man Plus, also by Pohl)
Week 13: Startide Rising by David Brin and/or Ender’s War by Orson Scott Card
Week 14: Neuromancer by William Gibson and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Week 15: Short fiction No. 3: the '80s and '90s. There’s no one book that could cover this; it would have to be a Kinko’s-style packet.
Necessary texts:
“Sandkings” by George R.R. Martin
one or more stories by Lucius Shepard, probably “Fire Zone Emerald”
“Swarm” by Bruce Sterling
one or more stories by Greg Egan, including “Luminous” and/or “Oceanic”
something by Connie Willis, possibly “Fire Watch” or “The Last of the Winnebagos”
something by Greg Bear, probably “Blood Music”
And then the final exam. I can see varying the list from year-to-year (maybe swapping in Childhood’s End or 2001 for the Clarke selection, adding an early Heinlein novel, varying the short story selection, etc), but this is what I’d use as a framework to present the post-war history of (mostly American) SF.
(If I had a whole year, I’d start with theory – using Brian Aldiss’s Trillion year Spree – and take the first four weeks or so to do the 19th century, starting with Frankenstein and moving up through Poe and the various other proto-SF writers to Verne and Wells.)