Classic Authors Must Read

[Lizanell]

I'm interested in what classic science fiction the list thinks you should read to really have a grounding in the genre. Is their a particular book or books that you consider to be the 'grand daddy' of science fiction? (For example many people consider LOTR and the Narnia books to be the 'grand daddy' books of Fantasy) I know that Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov are widely accepted as the Big 3 of sci-fi, but which books specifically?

[Stephen]

Seth wrote: "Well, how far back do you want to go?

Many consider that Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is the first SF novel, using science to tell a story that might have featured more of a supernatural motif.
..."

You're forgetting Jules Verne , old boy....

If Shelley be the Hera, he be the Zeus....;-)



Stephen H. Turner
The Last Voyage of the Cassiopeia
Almagest: The Adventures of MarsShield
3700
The Avedon Question

[Tayla36]

Try this link:

http://home.comcast.net/~netaylor1/cl...

"In his Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (1995), John Clute devotes a chapter to "Classic Titles" and remarks that "these titles have gained the status of classics through awards, critical acclaim, or sheer long-term popularity." The titles were published from 1818 (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein) to 1994 (the work of Octavia Butler, Brian Aldiss, Iain Banks and Michael Bishop.) Each of the books listed below are briefly discussed by Clute in his book. By the way, Clute's book won the 1996 Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction Book."

[Stephen]

Seth wrote: "I left him for you to mention."

:-D



Stephen H. Turner

[Bill]

I consider Philip Wylie, Edwin Balmer's When Worlds Collide and After Worlds Collide published in 1934 to be classic Hard SF. Their science is still good today.

Also not mentioned is Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451

I would consider the "Golden Age of Science Fiction", with works that have been around long enough to really be classics, to be novels published from about 1930 to about 1960. Authors from this period include:

Poul Anderson
Isaac Asimov
Alfred Bester
James Blish
Nelson S. Bond
Leigh Brackett
Ray Bradbury
Fredric Brown
Bertram Chandler
John Christopher
Arthur C. Clarke
Hal Clement
L. Sprague de Camp
Lester del Rey
Philip K. Dick
Philip José Farmer
Robert A. Heinlein
Frank Herbert
C. M. Kornbluth
Henry Kuttner
Fritz Leiber
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
C. L. Moore
Chad Oliver
Frederik Pohl
Ross Rocklynne
Eric Frank Russell
Robert Silverberg
Clifford D. Simak
E. E. "Doc" Smith
Theodore Sturgeon
William Tenn
A. E. van Vogt
Jack Vance
John Wyndham

[Mir]

James Tiptree
Andre Norton
Samuel Delany
Ben Bova

[Greyweather]

I ripped this list off from William Lexner, but I think it's a good one.

Asimov, Isaac: The Gods Themselves 1972
Ballard, J.G.: High Rise 1975
Bester, Alfred: The Stars My Destination 1956
Blish, James: Cities in Flight 1955-1962
Bradbury, Ray: The Martian Chronicles 1950
Bradbury, Ray: Fahrenheit 451 1953
Brunner, John: Stand on Zanzibar 1968
Card, Orson Scott: Ender's Game 1985
Clarke, Arthur C.: Rendezvous With Rama 1972
Clarke, Arthur C.: Childhood's End 1953
Clarke, Arthur C.: The Fountains of Paradise 1979
Dick, Philip K.: The Man In The High Castle 1962
Ellison, Harlan: Dangerous Visions 1967
Gibson, William: Neuromancer 1984
Grimwood, Ken: Replay 1987
Haldeman, Joe: The Forever War 1975
Heinlein, Robert A.: Starship Troopers 1959
Heinlein, Robert A.: Stranger In a Strange Land 1961
Heinlein, Robert A.: Have Spacesuit -- Will Travel 1958
Herbert, Frank: Dune 1965
Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World 1931
Keyes, Daniel: Flowers For Algernon 1966
LeGuin, Ursula K.: The Dispossesed 1974
LeGuin, Ursula K.: The Left Hand of Darkness 1969
Lem, Stanislaw: Solaris 1961
Matheson, Richard: I Am Legend 1954
Miller Jr., Walter M.: A Canticle For Leibowitz 1960
Niven, Larry: Ringworld 1970
Orwell, George: 1984 1949
Pohl, Frederick: Gateway 1977
Pohl, Frederick and Kornbluth, C.M: The Space Merchants 1953
Priest, Christopher: The Glamour 1985
Russ, Joanna: The Female Man 1975
Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein 1818
Silverberg, Robert: The Book of Skulls 1972
Silverberg, Robert: Dying Inside 1972
Simak, Clifford D.: City 1952
Stapeldon, Olaf: Odd John 1935
Stephenson, Neal: Snow Crash 1992
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1886
Stewart, George R.: Earth Abides 1949
Sturgeon, Theodore: More Than Human 1953
Tiptree Jr., James: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever 1990
Vance, Jack: The Languages of Pao 1958
Verne, Jules: Journey To The Centre of the Earth 1864
Vonnegut, Kurt: Cat's Cradle 1963
Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaughter-House Five 1969
Wells, H.G.: The Time Machine 1895
Wolfe, Gene: The Book of The New Sun 1980-1983
Wyndham, John: The Day of The Triffids 1951
Wyndham, John: The Midwich Cuckoos 1957
Zelazny, Roger: Lord of Light 1967

[Michael]

I know there are a lot of different lists, but at least here's my essentials list.

Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series

Isaac Asimov
- The Gods Themselves
- I, Robot
- Foundation
- The Robots of Dawn
- Robot Dreams (collection of Short Fiction)
- The Future in Question / Space Mail*
*Typically, these are bound together in a Asimov Science Fiction Treasury for real cheap. It's not all Asimov, but you will get a good taste for some of the other authors of the time period.

Ray Bradbury
- Farenheit 451
- The Martian Chronicles

Ben Bova
- Mars
- Titan

Greg Bear
- Eon, Eternity, Legacy (Be prepared, they are hard reads)

Orson Scott Card
- Ender's Game
- The Speaker for the Dead Trilogy (Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind*)
- Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant*
*Typically, the last book of the series closes out the story and doesn't really raise any important issues. However, they are almost essential to round out the series and put closure to the overall plot arc.

Arthur C. Clarke
-2001: A Space Odyssey (Odyssey Series)
-Childhood's End
-The Rama Series
-The Hammer of God (You will find this to be a popular title)

Philip K. Dick
-Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner)

Frank Herbert
-Dune
-Dune Messiah
-Children of Dune (I will warn you, if you go on in the series beyond Children of Dune, you will find it very confusing)
-The Dosadi Experiment

Robert Heinlein
-Stranger in a Strange Land
-Starship Troopers
-The Cat Who Walks Through Walls*
*There is a Robert Heinlein Signature Collection, which covers the major characters of Heinlein's universe. I would recommend you read all of them as some appear in his "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" book.

Daniel Keys
-Flowers for Algernon (originally a work of short fiction)

Ursula K. LeGuin
-The Disposessed
-The Left Hand of Darkness

George Orwell
-1984
-Animal Farm

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
-Fraknenstein

Robert Louis Stevenson
-The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Jules Verne
-Journey to the Center of the Earth
-20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

H.G. Wells
-The Time Machine
-The Invisible Man
-War of the Worlds
-The Island of Dr. Moreau

Robert Charles Wilson
-Spin

[Lizanell]

Thanks for all these great list! Keep 'em comin!

[Mawgojzeta]

What about
Edgar Rice Burroughs?

His very first book was
A Princess of Mars (and was actually written before Tarzan, I believe). He continued to write sci-fi at least into the 60s.

[Stephen]

Mawgojzeta wrote: "What about
Edgar Rice Burroughs?

His very first book was
A Princess of Mars (and was actually written before Tarzan, I believe). He continued to write sci-fi at leas..."

Not to mention Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague De Camp, eh wot?

Stephen H. Turner
The Last Voyage of the Cassiopeia

[Greyweather]

Stephen wrote: "Not to mention Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague De Camp, eh wot?"

Well I don't know about de Camp, but Howard only wrote one sci-fi book,Almuric, right?

[Stephen]

The "Conan" and "Kull" books could also marginally be cosidered at least fantasy....yes?

And let's not forget Roger Zelaszny. (De Camp continued the Howard ouvre after he died...)

[Rindis]

There's been plenty of good titles thrown around already, but I'll chip in. First, there's some good advice in the ancient thread:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/4...

Greyweather's "stolen" list is very good, I have only one problem with it so far: Ringworld. I like Larry Niven, and it is generally considered to be a classic, I really think it's a fairly poor book on top of some really neat ideas (in my opinion, he was not ready to write a novel in 1970). I recommend looking up pretty much any of his short story collections, or A World Out of Time , which is my favorite novel by him.

H. Beam Piper is a lesser-known light of '50s SF who deserves better. His (deservedly) best known book is Little Fuzzy , though any of his novels are very good.

Combined with the above, it will give you a decent grounding in where SF has been. There are any number of collections of 'classic' SF stories, which I would suggest looking up, as 20th century SF came out of the magazines and short stories, and reading novels will actually give a distorted view. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1: 1939 , which is very good.

[David]

Stephen wrote: "The "Conan" and "Kull" books could also marginally be cosidered at least fantasy....yes?

Marginally? They are fantasy...

[Stephen]

David wrote: "Stephen wrote: "The "Conan" and "Kull" books could also marginally be cosidered at least fantasy....yes?

Marginally? They are fantasy..."

Vell?! Is das nicht at least ein BRANCH of sci-fi these days?

Photo

[Mawgojzeta]

There is also We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (published 1927 and I believe written in 1924, but could be off on that).

[Stephen]

Then there's R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots by Karel Capek...one of the great granddaddies of ALL sci-fi stories!

Photo

[Lizanell]

Stephen wrote: "David wrote: "Stephen wrote: "The "Conan" and "Kull" books could also marginally be cosidered at least fantasy....yes?

Marginally? They are fantasy..."

Vell?! Is das nicht at least ein BRANCH..."

Personally, I read both, but I would call them two very different sub genres of speculative fiction. (although I suppose you could argue that ALL fiction is speculative fiction, even if it's based on fact, it still includes some speculation)

At any rate, I would not consider fantasy to be a branch of science fiction....which is what the above seems to be saying (although I could be misreading him)

As for Conan the Barbarian and the Kull books, I'm not familiar enough with either to say where exactly they fit.

[Stephen]

Then why do you always, repeat, ALWAYS find sci-fi and fantasy in PRECISELY the same sections of every book store on the Lord's green Earth??

Steve

[Greyweather]

Because they are both sub-groups of speculative fiction and there is a great deal of overlap between the audiences.

Knitting and origami books are found in the same section of the bookstore but that doesn't make one the branch of the other.

Also, the OP explicitly asked about sci-fi classics in contrast to fantasy.

[Stephen]

Greyweather wrote: "Because they are both sub-groups of speculative fiction and there is a great deal of overlap between the audiences.

Knitting and origami books are found in the same section of the bookstore but th..."

Well, excuuuuuuse meeeeee! (I'm just a wild and crazy typist!)

[Coralie]

Lizanell wrote: "Stephen wrote: "David wrote: "Stephen wrote: "The "Conan" and "Kull" books could also marginally be cosidered at least fantasy....yes?

Marginally? They are fantasy..."

Vell?! Is das nicht at leas..."

You don't. It drives me up the wall to have to go from one side of a local bookshop to the other when I am not certain whether they classify a particular book as Science Fiction or Fantasy.

[Anthony]

Stephen wrote: "Then why do you always, repeat, ALWAYS find sci-fi and fantasy in PRECISELY the same sections of every book store on the Lord's green Earth??
Steve"

I would like to see so-called hard sci-fi as a separate section, but given the average low level of science literacy in America, few booksellers likely could extract that genre from the rest of sci-fi. And then how would one categorize that "rest of sci-fi"? Need a taxonomy of sci-fi, and knowledgeable taxonomists at the author, publisher, and bookseller levels to pin on the labels.

Anthony

[Stephen]

Anthony wrote: "Stephen wrote: "Then why do you always, repeat, ALWAYS find sci-fi and fantasy in PRECISELY the same sections of every book store on the Lord's green Earth??
Steve"

I would like to see so-called h..."

Well, psh-SHAW!! "Taxonomy", huh? Actually, considering that sci-fi authors come from all walks of life, (most aren't scientists,) that might be a little hard!

Steve

[Anthony]

Stephen wrote: "Anthony wrote: "Stephen wrote: "Then why do you always, repeat, ALWAYS find sci-fi and fantasy in PRECISELY the same sections of every book store on the Lord's green Earth??
Steve"


Steve, you seem to want separate shelving of sci-fi and fantasy. I want separate shelving of hard sci-fi in the sci-fi category. A "little hard" work, not so bad. (No pun intended by you, I think, and not by me.)

[Anthony]

Coralie wrote: It drives me up the wall to have to go from one side of a local bookshop to the other when I am not certain whether they classify a particular book as Science Fiction or Fantasy.

Keep a list of sci-fi vs. fantasy compiled from online reviews. Keep list on your smartphone.

[Stephen]

Anthony wrote: "Stephen wrote: "Anthony wrote: "Stephen wrote: "Then why do you always, repeat, ALWAYS find sci-fi and fantasy in PRECISELY the same sections of every book store on the Lord's green Earth??
Steve"..."

Hey, give me a LITTLE credit, there, dude!

I haven't used puns THAT bad since I watched "Mr. Peabody" as a kid....! ;-)

[Stephen]

Coralie wrote: "Lizanell wrote: "Stephen wrote: "David wrote: "Stephen wrote: "The "Conan" and "Kull" books could also marginally be cosidered at least fantasy....yes?

Marginally? They are fantasy..."

Vell?! Is ..."

Hey, at least they're starting to separate sci-fi from HORROR!! THAT used to REALLY get on my wick!

I mean, how many horror masterpieces are there, as opposed to sci-fi...? Huh?

Steve

[Lizanell]

I think this thread has been hijacked and driven in a completely different direction, which has already been discussed in ANOTHER thread....
Lumping Science Fiction and Fantasy-why?

[Lizanell]

As the OP, I'd like to request we return to the original topic...which may have been exhausted already. Anyone have more to add about what they consider CLASSIC Sci-Fi?

[Greyweather]

Let's see, who have we missed?

There's Ward Moore, who's novel Bring the Jubilee was the first to explore an alternate history in which the Confederacy won the American Civil War.

There is Thomas M. Disch, whose various dark portends into the future, such as 334 and Camp Concentration are not to be overlooked.

[Stephen]

How about "The Midwich Cuckoos" by John Wyndham aka "Childhood's End, Pt. II"....?

[Lizanell]

Greyweather, you remind me of a curiosity questions. Anyone know if there has ever been a novel or short story where Lincoln was not assassinated?

[Greyweather]

Yes, several of each.
http://www.uchronia.net/bib.cgi/searc...

[Rindis]

Bring the Jubilee is pretty good.

Another little-known author to mention is Anthony Boucher (active in the '30s and '40s), and if you can find The Compleat Boucher: The Complete Short Science Fiction and Fantasy of Anthony Boucher , I highly recommend it. It's mostly a mix of contemporary fantasy and horror, but there is also a good amount of SF in there. Also, in addition to some writing, a fair amount of his career was as an editor for SF magzines.

Also, E.E. "Doc" Smith needs to be mentioned. Wildly popular in his time, and well known of today... his writing style has not aged well, but there's some grand action-adventure space opera there. I recommend Spacehounds of IPC as one of his most enjoyable.

[Phoenixfalls]

So I'm coming very late to the party, but one author that I can't spot a mention of yet that I consider a "grand daddy" of science fiction is Gordon R. Dickson -- and Wikipedia at least agrees with me enough that they say his Childe Cycle (well, at least the Dorsai novels) is a "pivotal early work of military SF." ;)

And you can find another neat list here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Maste...
A UK publishing house put together a series of reprints called the SF Masterworks which includes a ton of the stuff already mentioned plus a few others (Cordwainer Smith, M. John Harrison, Brian W. Aldiss, etc.). . . I'm working on slowly getting these guys for my library, since I haven't read most of them myself. . . :)

[Simon]

Yes, the SF Masterworks series is a very good introduction and pointer to many of the SF classics although it does have a few quirks. Way too many Phillip K Dick for instance and some great authors curiously ommitted altogether (Asimov for instance). But generally, you can't go far wrong with that list.

[Bryan]

The Center For The Study of Science Fiction and SFWA recommend the following must have list for libraries wanting a science fiction/fantasy collection:

http://www2.ku.edu/~sfcenter/sflib.htm

[Marc]

I don't have most of the books on that list. I wonder how many are written by SFWA members.

[Phoenixfalls]

You know, I'm quite happy with that list. It feels right -- the major works all appear to be there, old and new award winners are well represented, and they actually included a lot of the female and non-Caucasian authors I usually find left off of these sort of lists and get upset about. ;)

It definitely skews a little older (which means a lot of this stuff isn't in bookstores), but I kind of like that too -- the books have mostly already stood the test of time, and the only new stuff is stuff that's winning awards and so can reasonably be expected to stand up better than most anyway.

[Bryan]

Phoenixfalls wrote: "You know, I'm quite happy with that list. It feels right -- the major works all appear to be there, old and new award winners are well represented, and they actually included a lot of the female an..."

I liked it too. And I went out and found a ton of them in a used bookstore. Still looking. Amazing what you can find though.