SF for the Non-SF Fan

[Red Celt]

I don't know if cyberpunk counts as 'proper' science fiction, but I'd recommend you try William Gibson (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, or just his Burning Chrome short story anthology.

You might also enjoy stuff by Norman Spinrar, like Bug Jack Barron or Little Heroes.

Unfortunately, William Gibson's work - whilst formerly ahead of his time - would now be seen as somewhat dated, when the idea of neuro-jacking (etc) is a smidgen on the passé side. Or perhaps not. It's certainly worthy of anyone's attention.

[Tero]

Do NOT read Clockwork Angels. Derived from recent Rush album.

Pratchett book that comes closest to SF: Thief of Time.

[Coito ergo sum]

What can you recommend? I loathe the kind of SF that is an endless litany of technical descriptions and suchlike.

Right now I'm interested in reading Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! Other suggestions?

Isaac Asimov is where to start. He prided himself on being non-technical in his prose. He was big on scientists learning how to put scientific concepts into words that people could understand. To that end, start with his Robot series of short stories. I am a big fan of his Foundation Trilogy novels. They are easy to read and fun, although they are dated -- classic SF from the 40s and 50s.

I think, incidentally, that you would really like the series of short stories Asimov wrote called "Tales of the Black Widowers." They are not sci-fi at all, but I only mention it because I bet you would like them. It's a set of mystery stories that involve the same characters who belong to a club called the Black Widowers that meet once a month and are confronted with a mystery. All the characters are based on Asimov's sci-fi writer friends who were all part of a club called the Trap Door Spiders that met periodically in Manhattan restaurants.

As far as other Sci Fi -- go with the "must reads."

Asimov above -- get any set of his short stories -- I like Nightfall, The Gods Themselves, and other shorts. Novels to read are, as noted above, Foundation Trilogy, and then the Empire Novels (Pebble in the Sky, The Stars Like Dust, and the Currents of Space), and the Robot stories.

Heinlein -- Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers

Philip K. Dick -- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Flow My Tears-The Policeman Said, Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, Dr. Bloodmoney.

Richard Matheson -- I Am Legend

Frank Herbert -- Dune.

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle -- The Mote in God's Eye, and Lucifer's Hammer. oh, and Inferno (about a sci-fi writer's journey through Dante's hell).

Aldous Huxly -- A Brave New World

Walter Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz

Vonnegut -- Slaughterhouse Five (on the cusp of sci-fi - mainly a satire)

Arthur C. Clarke - 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Martian Chronicles, Childhood's End.

Doug Adams -- Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange

HG Wells - The Time Macine and War of the Worlds

Jules Verne - 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and From the Earth to the Moon.

Mark Twain -- A Connecticut Yankee in -King Arthur's Court (time travel)

Carl Sagan, Contact.

Edgar Rice Burroughs - A Princess of Mars (and if interested, the rest of the Barsoom series)

[Coito ergo sum]

Oh, and while not a known classic,

Piers Anthony has a series called Incarnations of Immortality. The first book is On a Pale Horse, about a guy who is about to commit suicide but he kills Death. As a result, he has to assume the role of the Grim Reaper.

Oh, and one of my all time favorites is Inferno, where a sci-fi author dies and wakes up in the vestibule to Hell. He meets a guide there, like Virgil in Dante's Inferno, and they travel through the various levels of Hell.

[Bella Fortuna]

Have read some Heinlein, Matheson, Adams, Huxley, Wells, and Twain.

Funny (weird, not funny ha-ha) how many of the titles suggested in this thread are ones my ex-husband had.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Have read some Heinlein, Matheson, Adams, Huxley, Wells, and Twain.

Funny (weird, not funny ha-ha) how many of the titles suggested in this thread are ones my ex-husband had.

Why Bad People Read Good Books, by John Shermer.

[Red Celt]

Have read some Heinlein, Matheson, Adams, Huxley, Wells, and Twain.

Funny (weird, not funny ha-ha) how many of the titles suggested in this thread are ones my ex-husband had.

Not weird. I think we can safely say that (at some point in the past) he had very good taste.

[Coito ergo sum]

Have read some Heinlein, Matheson, Adams, Huxley, Wells, and Twain.

Funny (weird, not funny ha-ha) how many of the titles suggested in this thread are ones my ex-husband had.

Seriously, though -- I bet this would be a good introduction to Asimov for you:



Grab that from your library, and I bet you'll get into the stories. Then you'll want to read some other Asimov, and get into his sci-fi.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Bella, read the Zelazny's first when you get the disk. He's spooky good. H. Beam Piper is warm and fuzzy.

[Bella Fortuna]

Have read some Heinlein, Matheson, Adams, Huxley, Wells, and Twain.

Funny (weird, not funny ha-ha) how many of the titles suggested in this thread are ones my ex-husband had.

Not weird. I think we can safely say that (at some point in the past) he had very good taste.

[rachelbean]

So, I just read through the last four pages of thus thread wondering when you were going to get back to talking about San Francisco. Then I read the title once more and figured it out

[Bella Fortuna]

So, I just read through the last four pages of thus thread wondering when you were going to get back to talking about San Francisco. Then I read the title once more and figured it out

I'm a total SF fan in that sense!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Let's play spot-the-tourist.

"I'm going to S.F. this weekend."

"I'm going to Frisco this weekend."

[rachelbean]

Let's play spot-the-tourist.

"I'm going to S.F. this weekend."

"I'm going to Frisco this weekend."

I lived there for two years and the only people I heard call it frisco were from so or central cali

[Bella Fortuna]

Yes, no one who lives there or around there calls it that. "Frisco" is a sure sign of THE OUTSIDER!

Mostly, people within a 2-hour radius just call it "the city."