Science Fiction

I don't think of myself as really being a Science Fiction reading, but when I think about it, there are books which can be classified in the science fiction genre which I have read and have enjoyed so I don't know if I can really say I don't read Sci-Fi but I do think I am very trepidatious about the Sci-Fi genre, and have certain assumptions and prejudices about it. When I think of Sci-Fi I think of Star Trek, which just isn't really my thing.

I have always had more of a preference for Fantasy over Sci-Fi. I find exploring worlds molded after the past more interesting to read than venturing into the future. I like mythological creatures better than extra-terrestrial ones, and I like magic better than fancy high-tech.

But I do love Dystopian Fiction which is a Sci-Fi sub-genre, I am a fan of the works of H.G. Wells, and even though I know she denies being considered Sci-Fi, I like Atwood's works.

I have recently started reading the Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Guin and so far I am enjoying it.

So as I do begin to dip my toes into this pool, I am interested in recommendations for Science Fiction works for someone who is uncertain about the genre.

I don't want anything too "hard core" for lack of a better word.

I do tend to gravitate towards Futuristic type stuff and I like Post-Apocalyptic situations and settings.

The best recommendation I can give you, a book that I absolutely loved... The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, by Neal Stephenson. Technically speaking it's Science Fiction, a bit post-cyberpunk/steampunkish but not overly so... but actually reads more like a gritty fantasy tale.

And btw, don't feel bad about not being into Star Trek.
Between Star Trek and Star Wars, and all the crap spinoffs of video games, the SF genre has been dying a slow death. In general SF doesn't get much respect from the literary world, and in most cases in doesn't deserve any respect.

Hope that helps.

I wouldn't have called dystopian fiction a sub-genre of science fiction. Mostly dystopian fiction deals with political issues so I'd consider this a political genre.

What science fiction does really well is explore real world issues in an environment which seems removed, and so can reveal a kind of 'truth' by presenting an unfamiliar setting. This is something the TV series Battlestar Galactica (recent version - very, very good) achieves extremely well. It also helps to explore scientific ideas and has been the source of a number of scientific developments like geosynchronous orbits and the three laws of robotics.

I expect that you would enjoy the work of China Mieville, whose work is probably best classified as cyberpunk. J G Ballard is also good, particularly The Drowned World which predicts global warming and its outcomes. There is also Crash which is (literally) auto-erotic, in which he explores humanity's relationship with the machine in a quite...graphic way.

In the more 'hardcore' science fiction books like To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer and The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are good for bridging the gap between soft and hard science fiction. Both are interesting and enjoyable, particularly Mote. The work of Philip K Dick is also more borderline. Asimov's robot stories are interesting. I've heard good things about Ursula K LeGuin, but haven't read her work yet. I also understand that Anne McCaffrey is pretty good though she swings between fantasy and science fiction in her work.

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Originally Posted by TheFifthElement

In the more 'hardcore' science fiction books like To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer and The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are good for bridging the gap between soft and hard science fiction. Both are interesting and enjoyable, particularly Mote. The work of Philip K Dick is also more borderline. Asimov's robot stories are interesting. I've heard good things about Ursula K LeGuin, but haven't read her work yet. I also understand that Anne McCaffrey is pretty good though she swings between fantasy and science fiction in her work.

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I read that book about twenty-five years ago. I thought it was very good. The other books they co-wrote were pretty good too. I was surprised my step-mother liked Lucifer's Hammer, while a family friend picked up and read The Legacy of Heorot. Larry Niven was better at the science. His Ring World books were good, but sometimes I found his characters and plots a bit flip.

I am wary of science fiction books which are really only covers for alternative histories or fantasy. In one instance, a civilization has landed on a planet centuries ago, some terrible war or disaster occurred which reset their civilization back to the Iron Age, and now they are re-living Medieval Europe. In the other instance, the fall out from a nuclear war has caused groups of people to mutate into races resembling elves, dwarfs, orcs and such like. Then there are some sci-fi books in which the protagonist just flits from planet to planet, shooting up his adversaries with his lazer cannon. I am a bit sniffy about science fiction books that do not contain any science.

I read William Gibson's Neuromancer several years ago, which was one of the first examples of the cyberpunk sub-genre. I decided I did like this genre because I could not follow who was doing what to whom. It might have been better written as a graphic novel.

I am mulling over reading some historical science fiction, in particular H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. I listened to a radio series about science fiction in which the presenter's hypothesis was that in writing science fiction, authors were really expressing anxieties about their own times. I read Jack London's People of the Abyss a few months ago, in which London describes the conditions of the East End of London in 1903. He describes how misshapen and brutish many of them appeared to be. At the time thinkers such as Herbert Spencer were applying Darwin's theory of evolution to human beings, and were worried the human species would degenerate because the stupid and brutish were out-breeding the educated and refined. The Time Machine is an extrapolation of these anxieties. It might also include some criticism of the class divides and the unequal distribution of wealth. Socialism was in the air. In The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, the Robert Owen character regularly complains about how much money the upper and middle classes receive for doing relatively easy or unimportant tasks, while the workers were forced to sweat for starvation wages.

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Originally Posted by TheFifthElement

What science fiction does really well is explore real world issues in an environment which seems removed, and so can reveal a kind of 'truth' by presenting an unfamiliar setting. This is something the TV series Battlestar Galactica (recent version - very, very good) achieves extremely well. It also helps to explore scientific ideas and has been the source of a number of scientific developments like geosynchronous orbits and the three laws of robotics.

I expect that you would enjoy the work of China Mieville, whose work is probably best classified as cyberpunk. J G Ballard is also good, particularly The Drowned World which predicts global warming and its outcomes. There is also Crash which is (literally) auto-erotic, in which he explores humanity's relationship with the machine in a quite...graphic way.

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I think the exploration of current ideas is defnately one of sci fi's strengths, though I HG Wells linked this too closely in The Time Machine to the evolution of the working masses. It ended up being not very relevant to the extent that the two films had to radically alter the causes of the development of the Morlock's to reflect more relevant trends - Nuclear war and environmental damage respectively.

Iain M Banks' book "Surface Detail" explores the concept of heaven, hell, the end justifying the means and punishment very well within the context of virtual worlds.

You might look at the works of G. C. Edmondson, Roger Zelanzy, and C. M. Kornbluth. Zelazny mostly wrote Fantasy, so his Science Fiction isn't far from that. Kornbluth wrote social and political comment novels; try to find "Not This August" and "Marching Morons"; his short sdstory "The Little Black Bag" is very famous, but Kornbluth died some years ago, so his works are not frequently published any more. Edmondson did not bless the world with many books, but "The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream", "To Sail the Century Sea", "The Aluminum Man", and others were great, and I mean truly great. I wouldn't be surprised if "The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream" won't be regarded as the greatest novel of the 20th century in the future; I'll have to wait and see.

Arthur C. Clarke said, "If someone does not like Science Fiction, there is something wrong with them".

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Originally Posted by PeterL

You might look at the works of G. C. Edmondson, Roger Zelanzy, and C. M. Kornbluth. Zelazny mostly wrote Fantasy, so his Science Fiction isn't far from that. Kornbluth wrote social and political comment novels; try to find "Not This August" and "Marching Morons"; his short sdstory "The Little Black Bag" is very famous, but Kornbluth died some years ago, so his works are not frequently published any more. Edmondson did not bless the world with many books, but "The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream", "To Sail the Century Sea", "The Aluminum Man", and others were great, and I mean truly great. I wouldn't be surprised if "The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream" won't be regarded as the greatest novel of the 20th century in the future; I'll have to wait and see.

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I've been a Science Fiction reader all my adult life and have never read any Kornbluth.
Maybe I will soon be thanking you for your recommendations?
I shall look for the Aluminium Man as well.

Thank you everyone so far for the great response, I will have to start looking up some of these books and no doubt I will soon have compiled myself yet another list of books to read, which is one of the things I love about this group.

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Originally Posted by TheFifthElement

I wouldn't have called dystopian fiction a sub-genre of science fiction. Mostly dystopian fiction deals with political issues so I'd consider this a political genre.

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I think that Dystopia is pretty widely associated with being linked to the Sci-Fi genre, it you look up Sci-Fi genres, Dystopia fiction is usually listed as being a sub-genre as Sci-Fi.

Though I can understand why someone may not agree with that classification many of the Dystorpian books I have read do have Science Fiction elements to them and are usually set in a futuristic setting and deal with advanced technology.


I really enjoyed The City and The City by China Mieville and am curious to read more works of Mieville's but not sure where to start next, can you give some good recommendations?

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

Iain M Banks' book "Surface Detail" explores the concept of heaven, hell, the end justifying the means and punishment very well within the context of virtual worlds.

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I have a couple of Iain M Banks books that are a part of his Culture series. Does it matter what order these books are read in?

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

I have a couple of Iain M Banks books that are a part of his Culture series. Does it matter what order these books are read in?

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They're standalone, but it probably wouldn't hurt to start with the first two (Consider Phlebas & The Player of Games) as an introduction. Those two sold me completely on the series.

You might like Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's novel Lucifer's Hammer, which is a post-apocalyptic novel following the survivors of a massive comet impact upon Earth. And while it isn't sci-fi, The Stand by Stephen King is excellent.

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Originally Posted by Calidore

They're standalone, but it probably wouldn't hurt to start with the first two (Consider Phlebas & The Player of Games) as an introduction. Those two sold me completely on the series.

You might like Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's novel Lucifer's Hammer, which is a post-apocalyptic novel following the survivors of a massive comet impact upon Earth. And while it isn't sci-fi, The Stand by Stephen King is excellent.

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Thank you for the info. I loved The Stand.

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

I think that Dystopia is pretty widely associated with being linked to the Sci-Fi genre, it you look up Sci-Fi genres, Dystopia fiction is usually listed as being a sub-genre as Sci-Fi.

Though I can understand why someone may not agree with that classification many of the Dystorpian books I have read do have Science Fiction elements to them and are usually set in a futuristic setting and deal with advanced technology.

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Dystopian themed stories fall into what's called "Alternate History", and that is usually considered Science Fiction. A perfect example is Nineteen Eighty-Four. No real wizbang technology in 1984, people and places are familiar, the setting is in the future (when Orwell wrote it) but beyond that it's a cautionary tale of 'what-ifs'.

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

I have a couple of Iain M Banks books that are a part of his Culture series. Does it matter what order these books are read in?

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If you're not really-really-really into SF you may want to think twice about Iain Banks and his Culture books.
They're very hardcore SF and in a narrative style that isn't for everybody. I've read Surface Detail and The Hydrogen Sonata and at times was lost. You sort of have to just let the story wash over you sometimes, and not expect everything to make sense.