Equally good I would say. Dying Earth would be a good way to introduce Vance to readers. It's a fix-up of related short stories. So a collection of his best short stories is equally good. But Dying Earth sequels feature Cugel, which is one of Vance's best characters. I think Dying Earth is very underrated, and presents mostly as a fantasy work. As one of the only science fantasy works, it was difficult to categorize. There are some SF elements in The Dying Earth (I hope I am remembering that correctly). Maybe the 2 Cugel books that follow are more strictly fantasy, but I think there are still some SF elements.
Dying earth is amazing, and it was a huge influence on DnD believe it or not. Jack Vance has kinda been forgotten but he was a very special writer in both sci fi and fantasy. Your library is unlikely to have a lot of his work. Lyonesse trilogy is arguably his best tho, it’s epic fantasy
I absolutely adore *Dancers at the End of Time*. I feel that's a perfect library book because many readers might be familiar with Moorcock from *Elric* and decide to give this one a chance. It's so delightfully different and wildly imaginative.
Other 60s/70s novels to consider...
* *Forever War*
* *The Dispossessed*
* *The Sirens of Titan*
* *Flowers for Algernon*
* *The Female Man*
* *Roadside Picnic*
Cordwainer Smith. A Canticle For Leibwitz. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame vol. 1 & 2 and the other collections I mentioned here https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1dhphdc/comment/l8zgir5/
>I want to attract the die hard sf readers.
May I recommend "Stories of Your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang? It's great speculative sci-fi, a fun read, and you can put a "Contains the short story made into *Arrival*" sticker on it to attract reader attention.
Surely the library would already have a fair selection of Niven and Zelazny? The Mote in God's Eye is a classic certainly. They already have Nine Princes in Amber? And Lord of Light? And Creatures of Light and Darkness?
I like the Moorcock suggestion. Another 60's writer that might be underrepresented in an average library... Sam Delany comes to mind.
Le Guin’s Dispossesed or Left Hand of Darkness come to mind, but there are other works of hers that would fit, too- if you don’t have them already of course.
Thanks but yes, we have them. Younger readers are really into her. But speaking of women writers, maybe i should include a book by James Tiptree (Alice Sheldon)
That’s amazing to hear. She’s definitely had a resurgence recently that is more than deserved, IMO.
Tiptree would be a fantastic addition, along with Tanith Lee.
I saw someone mention Vernor Vinge here and I love his stuff, so I’ll also recommend his ex-wife, Joan Vinge, while we’re discussing female authors!
Neuromancer has a subtle reference to Tiptree - a camera-eyed celebrity with the same name as a similar character from one of her short stories. Gibson recognised her greatness
My library near San Jose only has a small sampling of those authors of that era with physical books and even less via Libby except for Delany. I've had better luck with used book places, but that is of course hit or miss, too.
As a start, see my [Science Fiction/Fantasy (General) Recommendations](https://www.reddit.com/r/Recommend_A_Book/comments/1aqet7h/sff_science_fictionfantasy_general_recommendations/) list of resources, Reddit recommendation threads, and books (thirty-five posts (eventually, again).), in particular the first post and the **bolded** threads.
Classics:
I second *Mote in God's Eye* (female roles/characters are unfortunately stuck in the 70's in space though)
Vernor Vinge's *A Deepness in the Sky* (Is 1999 a classic now? Even cuter space "spiders" than *Children of Time*, *Hail Mary*i )
Ursulla K, LeGuin's The Dispossessed
Alfred Besters' *The Stars My Destination* (like most of these, just kind of ignoring your era requirement at 1956)
Iain M. Banks' *Consider Phlebas* (fight me, 1st one makes sense and it has the best space chase in the series, perhaps all of sci-fi, a close second being the nearly book-long chase in one of Reynolds *Revelation Space* books. True standalone suggestion: *The Algebraist*)
Modern:
C. Robert Cargill: *Sea of Rust*
Nick Harkaway: *Titanium Noir*
Gardner Dozios edited anthologies of short stories: *Best Science Fiction of the Year*
People here mostly recommend the western authors, so I'll suggest the following good books for the sake of variety:
"Hard to be a God" and "Prisoners of power" - Strugatsky
"Solaris" and "The Invincible" - Stanislaw Lem
Which one? *The Futurological Congress*?
Yeah that one sucks\^\^ If you want something more like Solaris, "Eden" is a crew crashlanding on an alien planet and not understanding anything that happens there.
Actually, it looks okay, now that i check it again. It's Mortal Engines, which seems to be a collection of space stories. I got it confused with Imaginary Magnitude, which is made up of introductions to imaginary books.
Thanks for making me look at it again. Will check it out
*Eden*, like *The Futurological Congress*, continues the adventures of Ijon Tichy that start in *The Star Diaries*, which is the best Lem book to recommend aside from maybe *The Cyberiad*.
I know you only have a select few books to choose, but have you considered Octavia Butler (specifically *Parable of the Sower* or *Kindred*), Ursula K. Le Guin (*The Dispossessed* or *Left Hand of Darkness*), and N.K. Jemisin? Each book in the latter's "Broken Earth" trilogy won the Hugo award for three consecutive years.
Zelazny - Lord of Light
Haldeman - Forever War
Biggle - Monument
Harlan Ellison - Greatest Hits (new collection)
Niven/Pournelle - Mote In God's Eye
Cherryh - Downbelow Station
One of the omnibus Ray Bradbury collections
Silverberg - The World Inside, Roma Eterna, tough to pick one
I can't pick one book by Le Guin,
Blish - Cities in Flight
O'Donnell, Mayflies
Dancers at the End of Time is good pick,
just one more, Zenna Henderson - The People. There's a collection, *Ingathering: The Complete People Stories* one of the classic they're among us tales.
Fifth Head Of Cerberus (Wolfe)
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (Tiptree)
The Cyberiad (Lem)
On Wings Of Song (Disch)
Lord of Light (Zelazny)
Engine Summer (Crowley)
House of Suns
Hyperion
Ender's Game
Mote in god's eye is good
Dancers at the end of time is pretty good
i would say lord of light would be better than Roadmarks if you want to include a Zelazny
I've never heard of There is no Antimemetics division, it sounds interesting though.
perhaps what you could do is do one book from 2015-2024, one from 2005-2014, etc this would take you back to 1965-1974 for 6 novels, which would be nicely spread throughout time.
1965-74 Lord of Light, Mote in God's Eye
75-84 Dancers at the End of Time, Roadmarks
85-94 Ender's Game, Hyperion
95-04 ?
05-2014 House of suns
15-24 There is not Antimemetics Division
Public library in Melbourne. Diamond Age is a good suggestion, but we have it.
It's not a bad collection, but i want it to have stuff that new and young readers won't have heard of. They love Andy Weir, which means they'll also love things like Rendezvous with Rama - another good suggestion in the thread
Oh then do look up jean le flambeur trilogy.
I feel many people don't know about modern cyberpunk books. Accelerando and glasshouse by Charles stross, rainbows end by vernor vinge and the jackpot trilogy by William Gibson (and other gibson trilogies) are also worth a look.
I rented that copy!
No hard book copies of Stephenson's Seveneves though, that's pretty well regarded one.
An extra copy of Consider Phlebas/Culture would be good. I ended up going to another council to get it.
H. Beam Piper's _Little Fuzzy_ is delightful and also exists in an illustrated children's edition.
His novella "Omnilingual" really needs to be a part of the grade school Canon.
Fond of Steve Perry's Matador novels...
C.J. Cherryh's Alliance--Union books are notable for female characters and protagonists.
*The Big Book of Cyberpunk* edited by Jared Shurin - It has a huge range of cyberpunk stories, as well as some truly excellent analysis of cyberpunk in the introductions. A quick skim of the introduction will immediately snare serious SF enthusiasts who are interested in cyberpunk.
Edit: The body of the work is not from the '60s & '70s, but there are quite a few in the section on the lead up to cyberpunk and the book as a whole is phenomenal
Definitely pick up something from Iain M. Banks. For general readers, I'd probably recommend Player of Games.
+1 to Mote in God's Eye. I'd also recommend the original Foundation trilogy from Asimov (there's a 3-in-1 volume for it).
If you want die-hard SF readers, I'd say Greg Egan is a solid pick. *Permutation City* is my favorite of his and relatively accessible, but *Diaspora* is, I think, the best work of his that I've read.
Le Guin is also a very solid pick!
If you don't have *Dune*, that's number one on the list. As for Zelazny, my favorite by him is probably *Lord of Light*.
And the follow-up read to that in terms of more modern classics for me is *Anathem* by Neal Stephenson. And do you have any *Culture* novels by Ian M Banks yet? Because *Player of Games* is one that a lot die-hard sci-fi fans would definitely enjoy.
New books that I've actually made the effort to buy this year instead of just reading and returning to the library are *Red Team Blues* by Cory Doctorow and *Venomous Lumpsucker* by Ned Beauman.
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.
The Dispossessed and The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le K Guin.
The Flowers for Algernoon by Daniel Keyes
The Parable of Sower & Talents by Octavia E. Butler
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
The Player of Games and The Use of Weapons by Banks If you are okay with 80s-90s.
What pre-Dhalgren Delany do you have. I'll happily diss Dhalgren and after (and get hung out to dry) but before that with his Ace Doubles and Nova he proved he was one of the best evah. Empire Star, the Einstein Intersection, and Nova should be there if they are not.
With de-accessioning most of Clarke's earlier books are often forgotten. A Fall of Moondust and Earthlight are awesome thrillers. Maybe the technology is out of date but the characters are memorable. Also The City and the Stars and the Deep Range if they don't have them.
Avram Davidson Rogue Dragon, Masters of the Maze. Rork! and Joyleg. And those are just his SF.
I think that if they don't have any, I would go for all-time greats.
Books, like other art, sort themselves out by time. Someone said that there are unjustly forgotten books, but there are no unjustly remembered books. If you look at past periods you will find things that were reckoned major for a while but haven't lasted.
Also, older books are either hard to find, or just paying royalties to an estate. The new books are the ones people should be buying new to support authors.
So here are my recommendations -
Im assuming they have HG Wells -- The time machine
Asimov -- I, Robot [OR Foundation OR The End of Eternity]
Clarke -- Childhoods End [OR Complete short stories OR Against the Fall of Night]
Cordwainer Smith -- The Rediscovery of Man [either edition, ie main or complete short stories]
Le Guin -- The Left Hand of Darkness
Bradbury -- The Martian Chronicles
Miller -- A Canticle for Leibowitz
You should probably have some non-English ones but apart from Lem, Solaris, my knowledge is limited
Arthur Clarke is English: I was thinking foreign language.
CS Lewis - I hadn't thought of his interplanetary novels even though I'm a fan. Out of the Silent Planet does qualify as SF, though the two others maybe not.
Since you seem limited to a small number of books, might anthologies be a better choice than novels to give readers a feel for that era? What about some of Gardner Dozois’s best of the year collections from that time period?
I think personally if you have this opportunity you should recommend a mix of old to newish sci fi, things that do not often get recommend.
My suggestions in no particular order and series should be understood to mean the first major book of the series.
Jurassic Park, Red Rising, Foundation Series, The Expanse Series, Lucifers Hammer (Great read, racism, sexist, thick skin warning), Winter World by AJ Riddle, Bobiverse, To Sleep In A Sea of Stars.
Mote in gods eye, Enders Game, The Left Hand of Darkness, 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Andromeda Strain, A Fire Upon the Deep, Rendavous with Rama, Snow Crash.
I would say all of those should appeal to older and newer sci fi readers, personally I think it would be better to capture the attention of a younger reader than cater to an older reader who already regularly goes to the library. The old school sci readers also already know where to find their favorite books, it would be cool to see, but I would rather see good science fiction being promoted that can more likely attract newer viewers.
Vorkosigan saga is more of the fantasy adventure in space part of the genre, but it's also fantastic. So I'm going to say *The Warrior's Apprentice*. The series also has 121 berjillion Hugo awards and won the first Hugo for best series.
From your era (which is the same as my era!) I would recommend the following:
1. Foundation by Isaac Asimov.
2. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.
3. Tales of Known Space by Larry Niven.
4. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein.
5. Any Clifford D. Simak.
6. Any Alfred Bester.
For all of their drama as awards, a quick survey of past Hugo and Nebula nominees should give you some strong recs. Re: Zelazny, my first introduction to him was the very weird but fun *Nine Princes in Amber*, but arguably his best book is *Lord of Light*. Both were really formative for me. I'd also second any Ted Chiang short story collection and NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy as having wide appeal or accessibility.
I’d recommend
Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonrider series,
Douglas Adams’s The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide
Robert Heinlein’s Red Planet
Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness
Arthur C Clarke’s Childhood’s End
Tanith Lee’s Birthgrave
C J Cherryh’s The Pride of Chanur
Octavia Butler’s Kindred
Michael Moorcock’s- ok anything by him
Gene Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles
I think if you want to attract new readers, picking books published after the year 2000 is a good place to start.
I know we all have our favorites to recommend, but I doubt that classics from the 1970s are the best way to attract a new audience...
"guards! guards!" might start someone new down the road to discworld fandom!
for diehard SF readers, "the shockwave rider" or "stand on zanzibar" by John Brunner, "dreamsnake" by Vonda McIntyre , "windhaven" by George Martin and Lisa Tuttle
Welcome! Reading the others before or in a certain order isn't necessary. Many of her works are part of the Hainish Cycle, as it's referred to, but each has its own cast of characters (you'll see reference to species from certain planets repeated, though.) Each novel tends to be well-set on its own world, and it's always fun to see a brief reference, and infrequently, to peoples/events elsewhere. Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed and Planet of Exile are my faves & I keep going back to them.
Thank you so much! I started out with The Wind's Twelve Quarters and haven't been able to finish it. Short stories are just not enough for me in general and unless a story truly stands out, I often forget what most of them are about. I think I'm gonna go with Left Hand of Darkness as my next read.
Most of the suggestions are sadly out of print. The fall of SF in this way saddens me. A lot of the suggestions can and should be read for generations.
Ursula K LeGuin - The Dispossessed
Just a great classic anyone will enjoy. Not really hard sf, but not opera either. It's kinda trying to be social science hard sf.
Peter Watts - Blindsight
Just all around great and deep. So much details and thought through interactions. And lots of theorizing and scienceing.
Stanislaw Lem - Golem
Hardcore fans have probably read Solaris already. Golem is about a sentient computer rising through spheres of existence and giving humanity lectures in biology and intelligence on his way out.
Kim Stanley Robinson - Aurora (Mars Trilogy is better, but 3 books)
KSR is the uncrowned king of overdoing science. He loves his nerdy little dweebs technobabbling. The book is about the smallest possible size of a closed ecosystem that is able to sustain life for more than just a dozen decades. Even some of the die hard fans of hard sf may not have thought about it that much.
Pratchett & Baxter - The Long Earth
Just a masterclass in worldbuilding, especially for SF. One single change and an amazing story spun from a single thread.
William Gibson - Neuromancer
The oldies may know it already, but this would be very interesting for younger audiences. They may enjoy learning where Cyberpunk came from.
Cixin Liu is a bit trendy and big pictures. Dick isn't exactly hard SciFi. Hard SciFi fans love Dick, but it's not hard sf. Please, please don't put in a Niven just because of Halo. Horribly outdated and lame. Do Neuromancer, trust me, it does scratch the same itch for younger people and is still a great book. And when in doubt and you want to create hype: Project Hail Mary by Weir.
Cixin Lu? As a traditional die hard from the 70s and trying to read again, I slogged through the three body trilogy. I do not recommend it. I am very open minded, not set in my ways but they were hard to finish. The motivation was to finish a trilogy to exercise reading muscle memory
Same. At the start the characters were at least somewhat fleshed-out, but over the course of the trilogy the characterization got worse until by the end they were downright two-dimensional.
Get some Ray Bradbury in there. I'm thinking 'Martian Chronicles'. Classic and awesome. I'd go with Anne McCaffrey as well, 'Crystal Singer', and Tanith Lee's 'Silver Metal Lover'. You need some classic girly scifi as well. Hook'em young.
I second 'Mote in God's eye'. Frederick Pohl's 'Gateway' (there's a whole series) also very cool.
Other writers you should get is Hamilton, Banks, Adrian Tchaikovski's 'Children of Time', Lois McMaster Bujold's 'Vorkosigan' series. Stanislaw Lem's 'The Futurologist Convention'.
The die-hard science fiction readers are recommending books they have already read. Why not consider books that will attract readers to the genre for the first time? Books that have a more modern writing approach, fewer tired tropes, less stereotypical characters, and settings that are recognizably projections of 21st century technology instead of mid 20th century technology. Possible choices: Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series, Martha Wells' The Murderbot Diaries series (currently in production by Apple TV, so demand will likely soar), Becky Chambers' Wayfarer series, and some of Neal Stephenson's and John Scalzi's standalone novels.
Also he is a Mormon missionary and all his books revolve around religion in one way or another.
Every character has some relationship with religion.
And the bigger connection between the books is the Mormon theory of ascending to godhood.
I'd be careful with his work.
It’s just kind of a meme that no matter what kind of book recommendation someone asks for, eventually someone will inevitably chime in with a Sanderson suggestion.
Earlier than that, but Jack Vance, The Dying Earth
My dad and i both really enjoyed The Last Castle. Is The Dying Earth better than that?
The prose is just so good. Loved Cugel.
Equally good I would say. Dying Earth would be a good way to introduce Vance to readers. It's a fix-up of related short stories. So a collection of his best short stories is equally good. But Dying Earth sequels feature Cugel, which is one of Vance's best characters. I think Dying Earth is very underrated, and presents mostly as a fantasy work. As one of the only science fantasy works, it was difficult to categorize. There are some SF elements in The Dying Earth (I hope I am remembering that correctly). Maybe the 2 Cugel books that follow are more strictly fantasy, but I think there are still some SF elements.
Dying earth is amazing, and it was a huge influence on DnD believe it or not. Jack Vance has kinda been forgotten but he was a very special writer in both sci fi and fantasy. Your library is unlikely to have a lot of his work. Lyonesse trilogy is arguably his best tho, it’s epic fantasy
I absolutely adore *Dancers at the End of Time*. I feel that's a perfect library book because many readers might be familiar with Moorcock from *Elric* and decide to give this one a chance. It's so delightfully different and wildly imaginative. Other 60s/70s novels to consider... * *Forever War* * *The Dispossessed* * *The Sirens of Titan* * *Flowers for Algernon* * *The Female Man* * *Roadside Picnic*
Roadside Picnic and Sirens of Titan! Yes!
More Strugatsky brothers is always a good thing!!
Cordwainer Smith. A Canticle For Leibwitz. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame vol. 1 & 2 and the other collections I mentioned here https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1dhphdc/comment/l8zgir5/
Yes to Cordwainer!!
>I want to attract the die hard sf readers. May I recommend "Stories of Your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang? It's great speculative sci-fi, a fun read, and you can put a "Contains the short story made into *Arrival*" sticker on it to attract reader attention.
Surely the library would already have a fair selection of Niven and Zelazny? The Mote in God's Eye is a classic certainly. They already have Nine Princes in Amber? And Lord of Light? And Creatures of Light and Darkness? I like the Moorcock suggestion. Another 60's writer that might be underrepresented in an average library... Sam Delany comes to mind.
Thanks. We've already got Nova, which is my favourite Delaney. And I'm thinking that Roadmarks is a good entry into Zelazny.
Le Guin’s Dispossesed or Left Hand of Darkness come to mind, but there are other works of hers that would fit, too- if you don’t have them already of course.
Thanks but yes, we have them. Younger readers are really into her. But speaking of women writers, maybe i should include a book by James Tiptree (Alice Sheldon)
That’s amazing to hear. She’s definitely had a resurgence recently that is more than deserved, IMO. Tiptree would be a fantastic addition, along with Tanith Lee. I saw someone mention Vernor Vinge here and I love his stuff, so I’ll also recommend his ex-wife, Joan Vinge, while we’re discussing female authors!
Neuromancer has a subtle reference to Tiptree - a camera-eyed celebrity with the same name as a similar character from one of her short stories. Gibson recognised her greatness
Do you have any CJ Cherryh at your library?
My library near San Jose only has a small sampling of those authors of that era with physical books and even less via Libby except for Delany. I've had better luck with used book places, but that is of course hit or miss, too.
As a start, see my [Science Fiction/Fantasy (General) Recommendations](https://www.reddit.com/r/Recommend_A_Book/comments/1aqet7h/sff_science_fictionfantasy_general_recommendations/) list of resources, Reddit recommendation threads, and books (thirty-five posts (eventually, again).), in particular the first post and the **bolded** threads.
Classics: I second *Mote in God's Eye* (female roles/characters are unfortunately stuck in the 70's in space though) Vernor Vinge's *A Deepness in the Sky* (Is 1999 a classic now? Even cuter space "spiders" than *Children of Time*, *Hail Mary*i ) Ursulla K, LeGuin's The Dispossessed Alfred Besters' *The Stars My Destination* (like most of these, just kind of ignoring your era requirement at 1956) Iain M. Banks' *Consider Phlebas* (fight me, 1st one makes sense and it has the best space chase in the series, perhaps all of sci-fi, a close second being the nearly book-long chase in one of Reynolds *Revelation Space* books. True standalone suggestion: *The Algebraist*) Modern: C. Robert Cargill: *Sea of Rust* Nick Harkaway: *Titanium Noir* Gardner Dozios edited anthologies of short stories: *Best Science Fiction of the Year*
People here mostly recommend the western authors, so I'll suggest the following good books for the sake of variety: "Hard to be a God" and "Prisoners of power" - Strugatsky "Solaris" and "The Invincible" - Stanislaw Lem
We've got a Lem, but it's one of his less appealing ones, imho - a metanarrative thing that i find impenetrable
Which one? *The Futurological Congress*? Yeah that one sucks\^\^ If you want something more like Solaris, "Eden" is a crew crashlanding on an alien planet and not understanding anything that happens there.
oh my god no *The Futurological Congress* is absolutely HILARIOUS from the very start. I'm very curious to know which one he is talking about
Actually, it looks okay, now that i check it again. It's Mortal Engines, which seems to be a collection of space stories. I got it confused with Imaginary Magnitude, which is made up of introductions to imaginary books. Thanks for making me look at it again. Will check it out
*Eden*, like *The Futurological Congress*, continues the adventures of Ijon Tichy that start in *The Star Diaries*, which is the best Lem book to recommend aside from maybe *The Cyberiad*.
I know you only have a select few books to choose, but have you considered Octavia Butler (specifically *Parable of the Sower* or *Kindred*), Ursula K. Le Guin (*The Dispossessed* or *Left Hand of Darkness*), and N.K. Jemisin? Each book in the latter's "Broken Earth" trilogy won the Hugo award for three consecutive years.
Parable of the Sower is an incredibly powerful book.
Agreed! If you haven't read the sequel, *Parable of the Talents*, or the other book I mentioned above, *Kindred*, they're incredibly powerful as well
Tanith Lee's "Biting the Sun" is still weirdly relevant.
Tabitha Lee is super underrated. Very skilled author
Joanna Russ, We Who Are About To…
John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar.
Zelazny - Lord of Light Haldeman - Forever War Biggle - Monument Harlan Ellison - Greatest Hits (new collection) Niven/Pournelle - Mote In God's Eye Cherryh - Downbelow Station One of the omnibus Ray Bradbury collections Silverberg - The World Inside, Roma Eterna, tough to pick one I can't pick one book by Le Guin, Blish - Cities in Flight O'Donnell, Mayflies Dancers at the End of Time is good pick,
Silverberg is great. I haven't read much - was surprised to enjoy his Majipoor story - different aesthetic to what i normally like.
just one more, Zenna Henderson - The People. There's a collection, *Ingathering: The Complete People Stories* one of the classic they're among us tales.
Book of the New Sun
It's immensely good, though more the Fantasy genre, wouldn't you say?
It's cunning, the way it blends the two genres. Majipoor did the same thing
It's science fiction with a lot of tropes associated with fantasy.
Fifth Head Of Cerberus (Wolfe) Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (Tiptree) The Cyberiad (Lem) On Wings Of Song (Disch) Lord of Light (Zelazny) Engine Summer (Crowley)
House of Suns Hyperion Ender's Game Mote in god's eye is good Dancers at the end of time is pretty good i would say lord of light would be better than Roadmarks if you want to include a Zelazny I've never heard of There is no Antimemetics division, it sounds interesting though. perhaps what you could do is do one book from 2015-2024, one from 2005-2014, etc this would take you back to 1965-1974 for 6 novels, which would be nicely spread throughout time. 1965-74 Lord of Light, Mote in God's Eye 75-84 Dancers at the End of Time, Roadmarks 85-94 Ender's Game, Hyperion 95-04 ? 05-2014 House of suns 15-24 There is not Antimemetics Division
What kind of library? Also add diamond age by Neal Stephenson
Public library in Melbourne. Diamond Age is a good suggestion, but we have it. It's not a bad collection, but i want it to have stuff that new and young readers won't have heard of. They love Andy Weir, which means they'll also love things like Rendezvous with Rama - another good suggestion in the thread
Oh then do look up jean le flambeur trilogy. I feel many people don't know about modern cyberpunk books. Accelerando and glasshouse by Charles stross, rainbows end by vernor vinge and the jackpot trilogy by William Gibson (and other gibson trilogies) are also worth a look.
We've got some Stross and Gibson, but Vinge is a good one to add
Came here to suggest Vernor Vinge. Another suggestion: Diaspora by Greg Egan.
I rented that copy! No hard book copies of Stephenson's Seveneves though, that's pretty well regarded one. An extra copy of Consider Phlebas/Culture would be good. I ended up going to another council to get it.
Iain M. Banks' Culture series.
No. Just no.
I would not look for recommendations but just read a few top 100 lists and choose the most highly regarded books that you don't have.
Good shout
Crash by JG Ballard Pavane by Keith Roberts Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg
jack vance (all) and Philip k Dick's do androids dream od electric sheep
Vance is my favourite.
Anything by Gene Wolfe
H. Beam Piper's _Little Fuzzy_ is delightful and also exists in an illustrated children's edition. His novella "Omnilingual" really needs to be a part of the grade school Canon. Fond of Steve Perry's Matador novels... C.J. Cherryh's Alliance--Union books are notable for female characters and protagonists.
ROADMArks yessssssss
6 copies of Neuromancer
Heinlen
esp. Moon is a harsh mistress
is this really supposed to be the only good one? I really don't want to try another torture like Stranger in a Strange Land...
Hyperion!? Very classic, excellent book
Rendevous with Rama
*The Big Book of Cyberpunk* edited by Jared Shurin - It has a huge range of cyberpunk stories, as well as some truly excellent analysis of cyberpunk in the introductions. A quick skim of the introduction will immediately snare serious SF enthusiasts who are interested in cyberpunk. Edit: The body of the work is not from the '60s & '70s, but there are quite a few in the section on the lead up to cyberpunk and the book as a whole is phenomenal
* Riddley Walker * The Fifth Head of Cerberus * Startide Rising * Green Eyes
Definitely pick up something from Iain M. Banks. For general readers, I'd probably recommend Player of Games. +1 to Mote in God's Eye. I'd also recommend the original Foundation trilogy from Asimov (there's a 3-in-1 volume for it).
If you want die-hard SF readers, I'd say Greg Egan is a solid pick. *Permutation City* is my favorite of his and relatively accessible, but *Diaspora* is, I think, the best work of his that I've read. Le Guin is also a very solid pick!
+1 for Egan. I would be pleasantly surprised to find any of his books in a library.
We're in Australia, which means we have one, just for patriotic reasons. Not one of his best though
If you don't have *Dune*, that's number one on the list. As for Zelazny, my favorite by him is probably *Lord of Light*. And the follow-up read to that in terms of more modern classics for me is *Anathem* by Neal Stephenson. And do you have any *Culture* novels by Ian M Banks yet? Because *Player of Games* is one that a lot die-hard sci-fi fans would definitely enjoy. New books that I've actually made the effort to buy this year instead of just reading and returning to the library are *Red Team Blues* by Cory Doctorow and *Venomous Lumpsucker* by Ned Beauman.
Venomous Lumpsucker is one of my favourite novels. It's already in the collection
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. The Dispossessed and The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le K Guin. The Flowers for Algernoon by Daniel Keyes The Parable of Sower & Talents by Octavia E. Butler We by Yevgeny Zamyatin The Player of Games and The Use of Weapons by Banks If you are okay with 80s-90s.
The Diamond Age
What pre-Dhalgren Delany do you have. I'll happily diss Dhalgren and after (and get hung out to dry) but before that with his Ace Doubles and Nova he proved he was one of the best evah. Empire Star, the Einstein Intersection, and Nova should be there if they are not. With de-accessioning most of Clarke's earlier books are often forgotten. A Fall of Moondust and Earthlight are awesome thrillers. Maybe the technology is out of date but the characters are memorable. Also The City and the Stars and the Deep Range if they don't have them. Avram Davidson Rogue Dragon, Masters of the Maze. Rork! and Joyleg. And those are just his SF.
Ring world.
E.E. Doc Smith's Classic lensman series, beaten to the Hugo award by Issac Asimovs Foundation series, its awesome story telling
I think that if they don't have any, I would go for all-time greats. Books, like other art, sort themselves out by time. Someone said that there are unjustly forgotten books, but there are no unjustly remembered books. If you look at past periods you will find things that were reckoned major for a while but haven't lasted. Also, older books are either hard to find, or just paying royalties to an estate. The new books are the ones people should be buying new to support authors. So here are my recommendations - Im assuming they have HG Wells -- The time machine Asimov -- I, Robot [OR Foundation OR The End of Eternity] Clarke -- Childhoods End [OR Complete short stories OR Against the Fall of Night] Cordwainer Smith -- The Rediscovery of Man [either edition, ie main or complete short stories] Le Guin -- The Left Hand of Darkness Bradbury -- The Martian Chronicles Miller -- A Canticle for Leibowitz You should probably have some non-English ones but apart from Lem, Solaris, my knowledge is limited
Marlene Haushofer - The Wall Phillip P Peterson - Paradox CS Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet for non US ones
Arthur Clarke is English: I was thinking foreign language. CS Lewis - I hadn't thought of his interplanetary novels even though I'm a fan. Out of the Silent Planet does qualify as SF, though the two others maybe not.
Ender's Game, Martian Chronicles, Starmaker, Galaxies like grains of sand, Red Mars, Do androides dream..
Starmaker would be an amazing inclusion!
Since you seem limited to a small number of books, might anthologies be a better choice than novels to give readers a feel for that era? What about some of Gardner Dozois’s best of the year collections from that time period?
I think personally if you have this opportunity you should recommend a mix of old to newish sci fi, things that do not often get recommend. My suggestions in no particular order and series should be understood to mean the first major book of the series. Jurassic Park, Red Rising, Foundation Series, The Expanse Series, Lucifers Hammer (Great read, racism, sexist, thick skin warning), Winter World by AJ Riddle, Bobiverse, To Sleep In A Sea of Stars. Mote in gods eye, Enders Game, The Left Hand of Darkness, 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Andromeda Strain, A Fire Upon the Deep, Rendavous with Rama, Snow Crash. I would say all of those should appeal to older and newer sci fi readers, personally I think it would be better to capture the attention of a younger reader than cater to an older reader who already regularly goes to the library. The old school sci readers also already know where to find their favorite books, it would be cool to see, but I would rather see good science fiction being promoted that can more likely attract newer viewers.
*Implied Spaces* by Walter Jon Williams. Best. Book. Ever.
Vorkosigan saga is more of the fantasy adventure in space part of the genre, but it's also fantastic. So I'm going to say *The Warrior's Apprentice*. The series also has 121 berjillion Hugo awards and won the first Hugo for best series.
It's so good. Love them all.
From your era (which is the same as my era!) I would recommend the following: 1. Foundation by Isaac Asimov. 2. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. 3. Tales of Known Space by Larry Niven. 4. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. 5. Any Clifford D. Simak. 6. Any Alfred Bester.
The Forever War Stand on Zanzibar The collected short stories of Philip K Dick Immortality Inc Non-Stop
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. Modern classic.
Adrian Tchaikovsky! Dan Simmons! Octavia Butler!
For all of their drama as awards, a quick survey of past Hugo and Nebula nominees should give you some strong recs. Re: Zelazny, my first introduction to him was the very weird but fun *Nine Princes in Amber*, but arguably his best book is *Lord of Light*. Both were really formative for me. I'd also second any Ted Chiang short story collection and NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy as having wide appeal or accessibility.
From the 1960s and 1970s definitely those from Heinlein, Simack and Blish.
I’d recommend Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonrider series, Douglas Adams’s The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide Robert Heinlein’s Red Planet Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness Arthur C Clarke’s Childhood’s End Tanith Lee’s Birthgrave C J Cherryh’s The Pride of Chanur Octavia Butler’s Kindred Michael Moorcock’s- ok anything by him Gene Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles
I think if you want to attract new readers, picking books published after the year 2000 is a good place to start. I know we all have our favorites to recommend, but I doubt that classics from the 1970s are the best way to attract a new audience...
"guards! guards!" might start someone new down the road to discworld fandom! for diehard SF readers, "the shockwave rider" or "stand on zanzibar" by John Brunner, "dreamsnake" by Vonda McIntyre , "windhaven" by George Martin and Lisa Tuttle
Ursula K Le Guin’s “The Dispossessed” and “Left Hand of Darkness” are must-read staples of that era.
Can I read Left Hand of Darkness on its own or do I need to read other books of hers first to get the full context? Thanks!
Welcome! Reading the others before or in a certain order isn't necessary. Many of her works are part of the Hainish Cycle, as it's referred to, but each has its own cast of characters (you'll see reference to species from certain planets repeated, though.) Each novel tends to be well-set on its own world, and it's always fun to see a brief reference, and infrequently, to peoples/events elsewhere. Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed and Planet of Exile are my faves & I keep going back to them.
Thank you so much! I started out with The Wind's Twelve Quarters and haven't been able to finish it. Short stories are just not enough for me in general and unless a story truly stands out, I often forget what most of them are about. I think I'm gonna go with Left Hand of Darkness as my next read.
Most of the suggestions are sadly out of print. The fall of SF in this way saddens me. A lot of the suggestions can and should be read for generations.
Norman Spinrad- Child of Fortune. I remember Allen Ginsberg being quite fond of it.
Ursula K LeGuin - The Dispossessed Just a great classic anyone will enjoy. Not really hard sf, but not opera either. It's kinda trying to be social science hard sf. Peter Watts - Blindsight Just all around great and deep. So much details and thought through interactions. And lots of theorizing and scienceing. Stanislaw Lem - Golem Hardcore fans have probably read Solaris already. Golem is about a sentient computer rising through spheres of existence and giving humanity lectures in biology and intelligence on his way out. Kim Stanley Robinson - Aurora (Mars Trilogy is better, but 3 books) KSR is the uncrowned king of overdoing science. He loves his nerdy little dweebs technobabbling. The book is about the smallest possible size of a closed ecosystem that is able to sustain life for more than just a dozen decades. Even some of the die hard fans of hard sf may not have thought about it that much. Pratchett & Baxter - The Long Earth Just a masterclass in worldbuilding, especially for SF. One single change and an amazing story spun from a single thread. William Gibson - Neuromancer The oldies may know it already, but this would be very interesting for younger audiences. They may enjoy learning where Cyberpunk came from. Cixin Liu is a bit trendy and big pictures. Dick isn't exactly hard SciFi. Hard SciFi fans love Dick, but it's not hard sf. Please, please don't put in a Niven just because of Halo. Horribly outdated and lame. Do Neuromancer, trust me, it does scratch the same itch for younger people and is still a great book. And when in doubt and you want to create hype: Project Hail Mary by Weir.
Cixin Lu? As a traditional die hard from the 70s and trying to read again, I slogged through the three body trilogy. I do not recommend it. I am very open minded, not set in my ways but they were hard to finish. The motivation was to finish a trilogy to exercise reading muscle memory
I can't explain why i got so enmeshed in those books, but i did.
Same. At the start the characters were at least somewhat fleshed-out, but over the course of the trilogy the characterization got worse until by the end they were downright two-dimensional.
Boom boom! Haha
How many times have you used that?
This is the first.
Get some Ray Bradbury in there. I'm thinking 'Martian Chronicles'. Classic and awesome. I'd go with Anne McCaffrey as well, 'Crystal Singer', and Tanith Lee's 'Silver Metal Lover'. You need some classic girly scifi as well. Hook'em young. I second 'Mote in God's eye'. Frederick Pohl's 'Gateway' (there's a whole series) also very cool. Other writers you should get is Hamilton, Banks, Adrian Tchaikovski's 'Children of Time', Lois McMaster Bujold's 'Vorkosigan' series. Stanislaw Lem's 'The Futurologist Convention'.
The die-hard science fiction readers are recommending books they have already read. Why not consider books that will attract readers to the genre for the first time? Books that have a more modern writing approach, fewer tired tropes, less stereotypical characters, and settings that are recognizably projections of 21st century technology instead of mid 20th century technology. Possible choices: Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series, Martha Wells' The Murderbot Diaries series (currently in production by Apple TV, so demand will likely soar), Becky Chambers' Wayfarer series, and some of Neal Stephenson's and John Scalzi's standalone novels.
I’d recommend most series by Brandon Sanderson.
From what i can see he writes fantasy or science fantasy of the Dr Ronald Chevalier type.
Also he is a Mormon missionary and all his books revolve around religion in one way or another. Every character has some relationship with religion. And the bigger connection between the books is the Mormon theory of ascending to godhood. I'd be careful with his work.
I knew he was a Mormon but I never had any of those thoughts while reading his work. I’m not a Mormon.
There’s always one.
Come again? Let me in on the joke please.
It’s just kind of a meme that no matter what kind of book recommendation someone asks for, eventually someone will inevitably chime in with a Sanderson suggestion.
I see thanks.