STAR HERO Reading List

[Susano]

Although I doubt you'd be interested, I still have to recommend the manga Planetes, which is A) extremely accurate in it's depiction of space and physics, and B) is the story of garbage men in orbit. Oh, and the sequence with Fee trying to get a smoke is hilarious (terrorists groups keep blowing stuff up on her.)

[L. Marcus]

Planetes seconded. Very good Hard SF.

[The Main Man]

Speaking of Planetes, what about Sci-Fi in film and television? I won't post anything until there's confirmation though.

That said, here's a few that I thought of:

1984 by George Orwell
Brave New World by Alduous Huxley
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Harry Turtledove in general, but I especially recommend Guns of the South
Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr.
...
...
Hurm... gotta recharge...

[Cancer]

Of Robert Silverberg's early stuff, The Man in the Maze and Nightwings both have interesting concepts for possible roleplaying campaigns; these are from about 1970. His later Majipoor stories (the first is Lord Valentine's Castle also look like a rich source for a quasi-fantasy quasi-sci-fi world.

You need to read a collection of Keith Laumer's Bolo stories (most of them shorts), which is nearly definitive in establishing the "War Machine" subgenre. However, I very strongly recommend also reading Colin Kapp's Gottlos, where the war machine is human- or formerly-human operated; I have its original publication in a 1969 Analog magazine, and I am not sure about republication in collection. The latter is supposed to be a core ignition point for the Ogre tabletop game.

Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity, published about the time I was born, is absolutely top-flight as some of the hardest of old-style hard science fiction. I would go so far as to say, in fact, that this defines that subgenre at the absolute extreme of its characteristics, with an absolute minimum of speculative tech and science.

You have Brin's Uplift War listed; I heartily recommend Brin's Startide Rising with it, with its extended use of characters less human-like and, IMO, a more entertaining story (though there's more galactic politics background in Uplift War).

If you can find it (and you'll probably have to get it from bound magazine volumes), the short story Zozzl by Jackson Burrows is wonderfully provocative for ideas about psionics, in particular domesticatible animals.

Roger Zelazny's Doorways in the Sand is a very interesting "near-now" sci-fi story. His Lord of Light blurs the line between fantasy and sci-fi -- probably more fantasy than sci-fi, actually -- but IMO it's perhaps his best piece, fans of the Amber series notwithstanding.

Clifford Simak's Cemetery World, another future-Earth vision of unusual depth.

James H Schmitz's The Demon Breed (a horrible title; it was originally published as The Tuvela) is a very strong idea source for human-inhabited water worlds. It fits in the same universe as his Telzey stories but the book stands alone and apart from the rest.

For a dystopian near-now sci-fi world based on global population manipulation by drugs, Stanislaw Lem's Futurological Congress is worth a read.

[Yansuf]

You need to read a collection of Keith Laumer's Bolo stories (most of them shorts), which is nearly definitive in establishing the "War Machine" subgenre.

James H Schmitz's The Demon Breed (a horrible title; it was originally published as The Tuvela) is a very strong idea source for human-inhabited water worlds. It fits in the same universe as his Telzey stories but the book stands alone and apart from the rest.

I agree about Bolo.
I have always thought that The Tuvela was one of Schmitz's better novels, it is important also because we finnaly find out a key point about the Federation of the Hub. (Of course, it is a sequel to an earlier short story; both are in the Baen Reprint Anthology.)

Hal Clement's Needle is an essential classic.

Clarke's "Islands in the Sky is probably the first tale of life on a space station. And the Commander tells the story of the first mission to Mercury.

Venus Equilateral by George O. Smith is classic; even if later discoveries made it obsolete.

[Tom]

For lighter sci-fi, Phil Foglio's 'Buck Godot' graphic novels. 'Zap Gun for Hire' is a series of shorts, but 'PSmIth' and 'The Gualimaufry' are both enjoyable and fairly quick (the time consuming part can be looking for the sight-gags). I believe they're available to read online as well...

[Susano]

For lighter sci-fi, Phil Foglio's 'Buck Godot' graphic novels. 'Zap Gun for Hire' is a series of shorts, but 'PSmIth' and 'The Gualimaufry' are both enjoyable and fairly quick (the time consuming part can be looking for the sight-gags). I believe they're available to read online as well...

Here: http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buck.html

[Peregrine]

Niven and Pournelle did The Mote in God's Eye, which is an essential classic. Also their "Footfall" is one of the best "Alien Invasion" novels in SF.
Individually Pournells's "Co-dominion" stories are classics; and Niven's "Known Universe" (where the Kzinti come from, indeed the first Kzinti story is classic) helped create several of the SF tropes we take for granted.

I'd also add Niven and Pournelle's Oath of Fealty. While entirely Earthbound, and with not a lot of "future tech" to be seen, it is an outstanding sociological study of possible future social changes that might be seen in near-future enclosed societies (i.e. space colonies, sublight non-sleeper interstellar colonies, etc.)

[The Main Man]

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
A post-apocalypse and the first novel to propose scientific explanations for vampires.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

A dystopia that I forgot to mention earlier.

[The Main Man]

A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison

The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson


The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (more fantasy than Sci-Fi, but I dare you to read it)

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (also more Fantasy than Sci-Fi, and I double dog dare you)

[Xavier Onassiss]

OK, folx, now that FH is nearly done it's time to switch to Science Fiction reading -- the "research" for next summer's new Star Hero. Since my library and tastes run more to Fantasy than SF, I thought I'd solicit fans' opinions for novels/stories I should read.

So... what's not on that list that you'd recommend? I am more inclined to look at "old classics" than "hot new things," but feel free to suggest whatever you like.

Some of the "hot new things" on our shelves will eventually become "old classics" -- Charles Stross has been mentioned and should definitely be on the short-list for classic authors of the 21st century. Iain Banks as well. While I'm pretty sure about those two, I can only hope that Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series also falls in this category. Time will tell, but in the meantime, I recommend it highly.

Stross has covered several other SF sub-genres: I'd recommend any of these.
Halting State -- near future post-cyberpunk.
Iron Sunrise -- post-singularity hard SF
The Atrocity Archives -- an 'office-space' comedy / Cthulhu horror / Bond spy-thriller mash-up. One of his best!

[dmjalund]

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (more fantasy than Sci-Fi, but I dare you to read it)

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (also more Fantasy than Sci-Fi, and I double dog dare you)

Isn't Ayn Rand a member of the Legion of Superheroes?

[Sundog]

Of new syuff, I'd add The Sky People and In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, by SM Stirling, both fine alternate-history Space Operas, in a universe where someone has terraformed Venus, and Mars is habitable - and inhabited by a much older civilization than our own.

[Lawnmower Boy]

So here’s what I see that could be added to your list. I’ve bulked up my random collection by reviewing the list of Hugo and Nebula Awards. If a winner isn’t on the list, it is because either I don’t get the author, I disapprove, or I haven’t read them yet. I’ve tried to hold down the reading by omitting books that are heavy going, when I could. Yes, it is a disgrace to have LeGuin and Delaney represented by slight, earlier books, but I’d like to see Star Hero at some fairly near date, which won’t happen if you decide to read and appreciate Dahgren and Left Hand of Darkness first. For that reason I ended up dropping James Tiptree off the list entirely. Also missing are near-future, post-apocalyptic and Earthbound novels, which means that Connie Willis and Kate Wilhelm aren’t included, although I snuck John Brunner on. Also, Vonda McIntyre ends up being singled out for a book that I haven’t read, instead of her Star Trek novels, which I have.

Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry
Brian Aldiss, Hothouse
Gregory Benford, In the Ocean of Night
James Blish, A Case of Conscience
John Brunner, the “Galactic Consumer Reports” shorts, collected in one or the other of his anthologies
Hal Clement, Mission of Gravity
Samuel R. Delaney, Babel-17
David Gerrold, Dealing With Dragons
Joe Haldeman, The Forever War
Robert Heinlein, Have Space Suit, Will Travel
Lee Killough, The Doppleganger Gambit
C. M. Kornbluth and Frederick Pohl, Search the Sky
Ursula K. LeGuin, Planet of Exiles and City of Illusion
Richard Lupoff, Space War Blues
George R. R. Martin, Dying of the Light
C. C. Macapp, Recall Not Earth
Ian MacDonald, Desolation Road
Vonda McIntyre, The Moon and the Sun
H. Beam Piper, Fuzzy
Frederick Pohl, Gateway
Mike Resnick, Santiago
Kim Stanley Robinson, Icehenge
Bob Shaw, Who Goes Here?
James H. Schmitz, Witches of Karres
Cordwainer Smith, Norstrilia
S. P. Somtow, [Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul], Mallworld
Charles Stross, “A Colder War”
Sheri S. Tepper, Grass
A. E. Van Vogt, World of Null-A
John Varley, The Ophiuchi Connection
Joan D. Vinge, The Snow Queen
Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky
Walter Jon Williams, Dread Empire’s Fall: The Praxis
Roger Zelazny, Doorways in the Sand

[Nevenall]

Add some of Lois McMaster-Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan Saga... (well, she only won a *few* nebula/hugo awards for them)

I second (and third) this recommendation.