Michele's comments

Michele's comments from the Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library group.

Note: Michele is no longer a member of this group.

Hi Cynthia --

For fantasy, I definitely recommend Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books -- I think there are four or five plus some short stories -- and anything by Guy Gavriel Kay except Ysabel (a sad disappointment). For "urban fantasy" I suggest Charles de Lint.

For SF classics, Stephen's given you some great ones. I'd add Isaac Asimov's Foundation series as well as his short stories, also Ted Chiang's collection, Stories of Your Life and Others. For cheesy "space opera" fun it's hard to beat Piers Anthony's Cluster series.

Actually, if you go back to the beginning of this thread and read through, there have been a ton of good suggestions :)

While not specifically about the *travels* of a bard, Anne McCaffrey's books about the Harper Hall of Pern are wonderful. They include Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums, and The Masterharper of Pern.

Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo is about three high school boys. I second the Andre Norton suggestion; he might find Jules Verne a little hard going though due to the older style of writing. You might also try Harry Harrison's Blast Off: Science Fiction for Boys anthology. It's no longer in print but try www.abebooks.com or biblio.com .

Did somebody already recommend Eoin Colfer's books about the boy arch-criminal, Artemis Fowl? Also the Mushroom Planet books (The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet, etc) are great and I think they're still in print, if not try abe or biblio as above.

Also, if you haven't yet, talk to your local children's librarian. It's actually part of their job to give reader recommendations and they're often very knowledgeable!

Jeez, this is tough!

Best sci-fi (defined as those that I go back and re-read regularly) would include This Star Shall Abide by Sylvia Louise Engdahl, Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall by Sheri S. Tepper.

Best short story collection without a question: Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. Both the writing and the stories are original, thought-provoking, top-notch.

Best fantasy -- well, we'll take Tolkien as a given, obviously :) Beyond that, I'd include Riddle of Stars by Patricia McKillip, The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay, and pretty much anything by Charles de Lint.

Worst sci-fi (defined as books I think should be burnt in public and never allowed near young children) -- probably the one I just finished: Elom. The horrific experience is still fresh in my mind. Bad juvenile writing liberally sprinkled with anachronistic language and terminology (it's set in a stone age -- think Clan of the Cave Bear -- yet they say things like, "OK" and "I'm gonna do this" and "goofy"). Long pages of "He looked at her. She gazed at him. He choked back tears and half-smiled." Primitive characters suddenly are told (a) their god is not a god but an alien called the Multiped and (b) they came from a different planet. Are they distraught at the demolition of their entire world-view? Nah, they just say, "Oh, okay" and proceed to swoon over each others secondary sexual characteristics. I found out later that the author is a former senator; maybe that's how it got published. In the acknowledgement he thanks his editor. He should have punched her.

Oh, and also any Dune books not written by Frank Herbert.

Worst fantasy: any and all of the "McFantasy" chains, including Dragonlance. Utter crap, even the ones by big-name authors. Anything by that guy who wrote Sword of Shannara.

(Hmm, my post apparently vanished, trying again...)

Tad Williams' "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" trilogy beginning with The Dragonbone Chair is excellent high fantasy and not too derivative (Sword of Shannara is OK, but IMHO it has very little original in it, being almost entirely recycled Tolkien, and not even well-recycled at that, like all too much fantasy out there. The appetite for quality fantasy these days clearly exceeds the supply!!).

Also a second "woot" for the Guy Gavriel Kay books, especially his first trilogy beginning with The Summer Tree.

For some "lighter" fantasy you might try E. Nesbit -- Half Magic and Magic by the Lake are quite fun reads (YA).

Another pair of definitions I've heard is that "hard" sci-fi has science (real or extrapolated or invented, but consistent) at the core of the story -- it's a critical part of the tale. "Soft" sci-fi focuses on the interactions between characters. So for example Sheri Tepper's novels, although pretty much always set on other planets and with alien species well and thoroughly and consistently worked out, I'd put as "soft" sci-fi, because the main story isn't how they got to the planet or what kind of space suit they need, but rather how the main characters think, feel, interact; often the central conflict turns on something universal to thinking beings (love, faith, gender roles, etc). The issues in hard sci-fi are more often technical rather than social.

The terms hard and soft may have come from the sciences -- engineering, physics, biology are generally classed as "hard sciences" while sociology, psychology, etc are classed as "soft sciences."

Check out Planet Narnia -- a very cool exploration of the themes behind the books.

I liked it better without all the plethora of subtopic folders as well, or maybe at least we could have fewer of them...how is "suggestions" (where people ask for suggestions) different from "questions" (where people often as for suggestions), and the last one "discussions" -- well, these are ALL discussions, aren't they? Perhaps we could pare it down a bit...

What pushes me to read...

1) A recommendation from someone whose tastes are similar to mine

2) A good review from another author whose works I like

3) A truly original aspect to the writing -- for example, Garth Nix's use of bells for his necromancer, or any of Ted Chiang's short stories with their odd takes on seemingly commonplace things.

3) I pick it up, read the first page or two and a random page in the middle, and writing pulls me in. Not necessarily what's going on (though that helps), but the prose itself needs to be cliche-free, technically at least competent if not downright elegant, good strong vocabulary. My husband and I have had many a good debate on whether we would rather read a good story done by a mediocre writer, or a ho-hum story by a terrific writer. Pretty much every time we vote for the latter. The former can suck you in because you want to know what happens next, but it's like slogging through mud to get there and you feel kind of yukky when you're done :)

(BTW, none of the links to your book work...)

Guess I was thinking of the gender confusion aspect...it's been a long time since I read it!

Betsy - could it be The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin?

Simone - just looked at your profile and every one of your favorite books is also a fave of mine (especially Pride and Prejudice). I am also just now starting Elantris. What good taste we have :)

BTW, people often "blame" Tolkien for the trilogy approach, but that was actually his publisher's fault. Tolkien wrote the thing as one epic book but his publisher didn't think people would buy something that big and made him split it up. (What would they have thought of Stephen King LOL?!?)

"I do have to point out that Ysabel is also not strictly speaking a stand-alone novel...."

I'd disagree here. Yes, there's one crossover character, but you need not know anything about them to understand/enjoy this book, so I'd call it standalone. I'd also call it one of Kay's weakest efforts; I was immensely disappointed in it. Very thin. Hope his next one is better.

For standalone fantasy though I think Patricia McKillip is great (all hers are standalone apart from the Riddle of Stars trilogy), also Sheri Tepper (again, all of hers are standalone, so far as I know). Just re-read Gibbon's Decline and Fall and was amazed again at how terrific a book it is.

I assume by "hard sci-fi" you mean FSF in which the science is a main component of the story; here are a few thoughts:

For hard sci fi, it's hard to beat the Grand Old Men (Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Clifford Simak, etc) so if you haven't yet dived into them I would at least try.

For more recent hard sci fi I think Neil Stephenson (I don't think any one has mentioned him yet) -- The Diamond Age, Snow Crash in particular. Then you might like the four-book epic that starts with City of Golden Shadows (the others are River of Blue Fire, Mountain of Black Glass, Sea of Silver Light). It drags a bit in the third book but the technology is pretty cool, it all takes place in a huge virtual world but what happens there actually affects the "real" world. By Tad Williams.

Mike Resnick's stuff is also good though he's a little uneven I think. Santiago -- the first one, haven't read the sequel -- is great as is The Dark Lady.

Also Tim Powers - his Dinner at Deviant's Palace is great and Last Call is pretty good too

FYI, Wikipedia has a great list of women sf/f authors here. .

Michele

Yes, to Tad Williams trilogy of Memory Sorrow and Thorn. If you don't mind YA I would tackle the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander (The Book of Three, Taran Wanderer, etc) as well as Susan Cooper's series that starts with The Dark is Rising (she always gets classed as YA but I just reread the series recently at the ripe old age of 42 and can vouch for it still being fabulous). Also, not Arthurian but definitely excellent fantasy is Garth Nix's Lirael,Sabriel, and Abhorsen.

And of course for swords and magic and Arthuriana I firmly believe nothing beats Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar trilogy (starts with The Summer Tree. Kay worked with Tolkien's son on The Silmarillion; the Fionavar books are as grounded in "real" mythology but far more lively and contemporary than LOTR.

(Jeez, I hope I got all these links to books and authors correct!)

Michele

My two favorite Andre Norton's, which I rarely hear anyone talk about, are Dread Companion and Breed to Come. Dread Companion is an updated retelling of the old old story about straying through into another realm, e.g. entering the fairy hill, and finding when you come out that things are not the way you recall. Breed to Come is about intelligent evolved cats. Very cool.

She's not much for depth or complex plots, I have to say, but her books are good fast reads and always entertaining.

If cyberpunk encopasses books on the theme of "your consciousness can be reduced to digital data...[and] you can be backed up, downloaded, copied etc" then I strongly recommend Tad Williams series that starts with "City of Golden Shadows" -- that definitely qualifies. Talk about huge conglomerates and seriously heavy-duty VR!! There are four good-size books and you do have to read them all to get the whole story; dragged a bit here and there but worth the slog through the slow patches.

Also, check out a real oddball of a book I read last month (just published so genre not dead!) called "The Raw Shark Texts." No huge conglomerates involved but it's all about what's out there swimming in the digital sea, so to speak. Or maybe literally.

Caryn said:
> What about Mary Doria Russell? The Sparrow was one of the most intense books I've ever read (I'm still working up the courage to read the sequel).


Oh, the sequel!! I was afraid to read it only because I couldn't believe that she could go anywhere but down after the first one -- so layered, so complex, so intellectually demanding and yet so heart-wrenching. But she does, she does! And it's a real true sequel, you find out a lot more about the characters and what happens to them. Go get it and read it :)