Sci-Fi Heads, please

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is a plea to all sci fi readers out there.

I love reading stories wherein people discover that Earth is not our ‘home’, that we’re some alien castoffs, or a great, long dead race with a forgotten past. Stories where mankind has lived and traveled the stars, and somehow we’ve forgotten it, by force or disaster. Stories where mankind still roams the stars, unknown to us ‘earthlings’ who’ve forgotten our heritage. Stories like that. They’re incredible if done right, and mindblowing of done great.

Please, suggest short and long fiction like this.

I’ve already read… uh. Yeah. Forgot it’s name. Carry on.

–Tim

2

I believe you’re thinking of “Star Wars” :smiley: Y’know, “a long time ago” when humans traveled the stars in a galaxy “far, far away”?

3

Those weren’t humans SPOOF… they just resembled us. Well, some of them did anyway.
Homer, if I read more (read: at all) I would be glad to help you. Too bad I cannot. I agree with you about the idea of humans coming from somewhere else. As long as it is done well, and not like that crappy Mission to Mars movie. There are many theories about humans originating on some other planet. What with Incas and ancient Egyptians and the pyramids and past advanced civilizations… Atlantis… it is plausable. I love to think about it sometimes. There is probably an awesome book on the subject, but until someone makes a badass movie about it, I will just have to see it in my own imagination. . .

4

Longtime SF reader here.

You might try these:

H Beam Pipers paratime stories. They’re set in a universe witha multitude of “earths” that people moved to after destroying their home planet. Some of the earths remember their origin and some don’t.

Larry Niven - Protector. Reveals out origins on the other side of the galaxy. Humans are really a larval stage and now our cousins want to get us back on track.

Try those at first. It’s a good start.

5

Kurt Vonnegut’s SIRENS OF TITAN

6

You might want to look up Zenna Henderson’s “The People” series. In that not EVERYONE comes from the stars, but some people do. There were two volumes of this published by the mid-70s, and I think they’ve since been collercted in one volume, possibly by NEFSA.

These stories were also the basis for a not-too-satisfying TV movie that starred William Shatner back in the 70s.

7

James P. Hogan’s “Inherit the Stars”

8

F.M. Busby’s “The Demu Trilogy” is a classic example. May be too pulp for some people’s tastes, however - though I think the first part of it, “To Cage A Man”, deserves membership in the sci-fi canon.

9

Barton:

Agree strongly with putting “Cage a Man” in the Canon. Aside from the short story “The Learning of Eeshta”, though, the rest of his Demu stuff falls FAR short of that first piece.

Does the Demu stuff belong here, though? IIRC there was nothing about humans being a “lost race”.

Oh, God. I just realized that “Battlestar Galactica” fits in this category.

Forget I ever said that.

10

Orson Scott Card… umm… 5 (?) book series, Memory of Earth. Didn’t think too much of the last one but the first couple are well worth reading.

In a similar, but odd, vein, The Genesis Quest, Donald Moffitt. Nice guy aliens re-create humans on a distant world from instructions in a message beamed into space…

11

“Inherit the Stars” is complete within itself, but to get the full effect, you need to read the sequels: “Gentle Giants of Ganymede” and “The Giants’ Star”. I believe all three are available in an omnibus edition.

12

First, a disclaimer: while many of these stories are terrific, there are inherent logical problems with suggesting humans aren’t originally from Earth. The strong morphological similarities of fossil hominid species to homo sapiens and our obvious genetic kinship to chimpanzees and other primates make the proposition dubious from the get-go. The better stories along these lines will attempt to address these problems.

That said, you may want to pick up David Brin’s “Uplift” books. They’re set hundreds of years in our future, when Earth has become part of an intergalactic community of hundreds of intelligent species.

It’s never stated explicitly that humans aren’t from Earth; in fact the premis is probably consistent with us being a terrestrial species.

But it’s widely assumed by most of the aliens that humans could never have become sentient beings on our own, and that some alien species came to Earth in the distant past and tinkered with our genes and “uplift” is into intelligence.

Naturally, none of the humans in the book believe this. It makes for an amusing story element whenever there’s human/alien interaction.

13

David Webers Dahak series (Mutineers’ Moon, Heirs of Empire…) Mankind is decended from a group of mutineers who revolted and fled from their ship, which happens to be rather…large. Good space opera.

14

Larry Niven played with the concept with “Protector”; which is also a subplot in “The Ringword Engineers.”

Ursula K. LeGuin’s “Hainish” novels (of which “The Left Hand of Darkness” is one) use the concept, though often in the background.

One of the better short fiction versions was “Men Without Bones” by Gerald Kersh. Hard to find, but worth the effort.

15

doesn’t quite fit the bill, but Asimov’s Foundation trilogy depicts humans across the galaxy with a forgotten past

16

Sidenote - there’s 7 Foundation books (I was only able to get through 1-6…7 (Forward the Foundation, IIRC) didn’t interest me.).

Then there’s the Empire novels, which form a prelude to Foundation.

By the 5th book of Foundation, they’d gotten tied in with his Robot books as well.

17

Since I’m downstairs now (right by the bookcase), and it’s no longer 3 am, I can provide a list of stuff I’ve already read so you’ll have a jumping off point.

I’ve own and have read:

Pyramids, by Pratchett (funny, obviously)
The Mote in God’s Eye by Niven and Pournelle (good)
Hugo Winners V. I, II, and III, edited by Asimov
Robots of Dawn, by Asimov
Mindbridge by Haldeman
The Elric Saga p. I and II, by Moorcock (really good, but fantasy)
The Complete Robot, by Asimov
Rama II, by Clarke and Lee
Starchild Trilogy by Pohl and Williamson
Sentinel by Clarke
2001, 2010, 2061, and 3001 by Clarke (favorite series so far)
Missing Man by MacLean (blah)
The Martian Chronicals by Bradbury
Galactic Empires v. I and II, edited by Aldiss (includes Lord of A Thousand Sons, by Anderson, Big Ancestor, by Wallace, and Star Plunderer, by Anderson)
Across the Sea of Suns by Beneford
The Ophiuchi Hotline by Varley
Eon by Bear
Orn by Anthony
Year’s Best Sci-Fi, sixth collection, edited by Dozois (not exactly Sci-Fi, I was kind of puzzled by this)
The Complete Book of Swords by Saberhagen (EXCELLENT!)
The Lost Swords, The First Triad by Saberhagen (also excellent. I wish I had the second and third triads)
and every single Conan book written.

I have but have not read:

Dune, by Herbert
Dune Messiah, Herbert
God Emperor of Dune, Herbert
Children of Dune, Herbert
Dune Encyclopedia, by McNelly
Dragonriders of Pern, by McCaffrey
DragonsDawn, by McCaffrey
The Harper Hall of Pern, by McCaffrey
Moreta: DragonLady of Pern by McCaffrey
Earthclan, by Brin
Three Hainish Novels by Le Guin
Four Lords of the Diamond by Chalker
The Ozark Trilogy by Elgin

I tried to read Dune, but ugh. I just couldn’t push my way through it. Loved the game, though. :wink:

–Tim

18

Okay, I’ve started reading Earthclan. I’m on page 133. It has a really great premise, but it’s like “Get on with the damn story, already!” sometimes.

I’ll probably read the Hainish book later.

–Tim

19

I’m surprised nobody’s brought this up yet…

Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard.

20

As I recall, in Larry Niven’s Known Spacestories, and the Man-Kzin Warsstories by other writers derived from them, a war in the very distant past had wiped out all sentient beings in the galaxy. Humans evolved from food yeast invented by one of the extinct races.