Sci-fi must read, beginners

MMerle said:
What's the big Ursula k. Le Guin, Hobbit?
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Yeah: what Matthew said. Released here in the UK a couple of months ago. Gollancz are in the process of re-releasing Ursula's books as omnibuses (omnibii?) at the moment.

Have found a couple of others in the Hobbit vaults now that I'm rooting around a bit - Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys, a couple of Arthur C Clarke's (Fountains of Paradise & Rendezvous with Rama) and a few Philip K Dick. Never a big fan of his novels, mind, which is why there are so many missing in these editions. Now feeling that I have to fill the gaps in, for completed-ness!

But as was said in the earlier post, IMO they're not a bad place to start, if not quite to everyone's tastes.
 
Hobbit said:
One day I will get a full set...)
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Ah, the lure of having a complete set. I know it well. Some years before the current Masterworks series Gollancz had another, smaller, collection called the VGSF Classics ( http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?2350 ). Also a very good introduction to SF, btw, with a few overlaps with the current Masterworks collection. I eagerly bought each of them as they were released but for some unremembered reason never bought No. 2, Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human, and then, by the time I realised that I needed it to fill the collection, it was too late and I was unable to find a copy anywhere for love nor money (this was back in the days before the internet gave you access to a thousand second-hand bookshops around the world).

For years that collection sat on my self and all I could see when I looked at it was the glaring hole where #2 should have been. Sure, I eventually acquired a copy of More Than Human but it was a different publisher with a different cover and somehow just wasn't the same.
 
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Hobbit said:
Yeah: what Matthew said. Released here in the UK a couple of months ago. Gollancz are in the process of re-releasing Ursula's books as omnibuses (omnibii?) at the moment.

Have found a couple of others in the Hobbit vaults now that I'm rooting around a bit - Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys, a couple of Arthur C Clarke's (Fountains of Paradise & Rendezvous with Rama) and a few Philip K Dick. Never a big fan of his novels, mind, which is why there are so many missing in these editions. Now feeling that I have to fill the gaps in, for completed-ness!

But as was said in the earlier post, IMO they're not a bad place to start, if not quite to everyone's tastes.
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Yes, definitely agree on that front. And you can get a taste of a wide variety of sub-genres from the list, which is helpful. Found some of my favourites through SF Masterworks, e.g. Mockingbird, which would likely still be out of print without them.

I'd start with the earlier releases, since the big milestone books tend to be there. I have to vigorously disagree with ArtNJ that an "older" book like Forever War is not still relevant or enjoyable. Older is relative, of course, don't most of us read things MUCH older and still enjoy them?!

Edited to add: looking at the lists - the newer releases have a better cross-section of sub genres including contemporary space opera, cyber punk along with older classics, so maybe those would be the best place to start.
 
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MMerle said:
Older is relative, of course, don't most of us read things MUCH older and still enjoy them?!
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Increasingly less and less, I'm afraid. There is so much new stuff (not that I'm complaining!) that the old stuff becomes increasingly forgotten.

Personally I do like a lot of the old stuff, even with its faults, most of which I can forgive. I know people who dislike Asimov's Foundation and whilst I understand Art's take on The Forever War, I still think its great. But 'of a certain time', as it were.

Relating this to the original post, any of these are worth a try: but I'll be surprised if you'd like them all. (See previous comment about my aversion to PKD novels...)
 
Hobbit said:
Never a big fan of his novels, mind, which is why there are so many missing in these editions.
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Agreed. The preponderance of Dick, especially his later work, is perhaps my own greatest gripe with the Masterworks. I appreciate that Gollancz are limited to those novels that they can obtain publication rights to but , really, they couldn't find anything better than VALIS?
 
Hobbit said:
Increasingly less and less, I'm afraid. There is so much new stuff (not that I'm complaining!) that the old stuff becomes increasingly forgotten.

Personally I do like a lot of the old stuff, even with its faults, most of which I can forgive. I know people who dislike Asimov's Foundation and whilst I understand Art's take on The Forever War, I still think its great. But 'of a certain time', as it were.

Relating this to the original post, any of these are worth a try: but I'll be surprised if you'd like them all. (See previous comment about my aversion to PKD novels...)
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I suppose that's partly what I like about reading older books: enjoying them as stories, and enjoying the way they articulate their historical moment. Some books obviously do one thing better than another, and sometimes what it is that they do best changes over time. It's much harder to see with contemporary books how they are representative of our historical moment.

And still, we all have different personal taste...I don't really like Asimov, but I'm not sure it has much to do with whether his books are any good at either storytelling or as examples of certain cultural preoccupations, and probably much more to do with what I personally find interesting to read about. But, relating back to the OP again: that's part of why the SF Masterworks series is a good place to start, because it can help you figure out what you like and don't like without too much floundering around in the dark.
 
Jim diGriz said:
Agreed. The preponderance of Dick, especially his later work, is perhaps my own greatest gripe with the Masterworks. I appreciate that Gollancz are limited to those novels that they can obtain publication rights to but , really, they couldn't find anything better than VALIS?
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Yeah, I sympathize with that gripe. I suppose they pick partly for cultural significance as well as either literary or popular merit...which is why Dick is so overrepresented.
 
Jim diGriz said:
The preponderance of Dick, especially his later work, is perhaps my own greatest gripe with the Masterworks. I appreciate that Gollancz are limited to those novels that they can obtain publication rights to but , really, they couldn't find anything better than VALIS
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They are popular, and if Gollancz did not have rights then I guess none of Dick's work would be seen in the UK. I accept that there are plenty of other authors though that I'd like to see in that list. I know (having talked to staff at Gollancz) that there are books they'd love to add but have no rights to.

Other authors I'd like to see there? Hmm. John Wyndham, perhaps other John Brunner, Cyril Kornbluth... any other suggestions?
 
Hobbit said:
They are popular, and if Gollancz did not have rights then I guess none of Dick's work would be seen in the UK. I accept that there are plenty of other authors though that I'd like to see in that list. I know (having talked to staff at Gollancz) that there are books they'd love to add but have no rights to.

Other authors I'd like to see there? Hmm. John Wyndham, perhaps other John Brunner, Cyril Kornbluth... any other suggestions?
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No Disch on there, right? For sure I would like to see him. And more Vance and Pohl. CJ Cherryh, Octavia Butler and more women in general would be good.
 
The other thing that the older lists are quite short on is female SF writers. It would be remiss of me not to mention that there should be a few more of those added: CJ Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold... :)

Later edit: I see posts have crossed over in the meantime. Great minds think alike, M!
 
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psikeyhackr said:
This is a difficult question because science, science fiction and society have changed since I discovered SF literature. But no matter what, cybernetics has become part of society and "society" must decide where to go with it.

So for the current zeitgeist: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
90s flashback Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
70s flashback: The Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P. Hogan
http://www.sfreviews.net/2faces.html
50s flashback: The Door into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

I have read each of them multiple times.

Who is "society"?

psik
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No 1980's flashback? It could not have been that bad of a decade. :)
 
FullOnIdle said:
I have long been a fan of sci-fi in movies and tv shows, but just recently started reading sci-fi classics. But they are so many, and so many different themes.

Can you give me some advices, on when to start? I'm looking for the main books of the different themes of sci-fi, cyberpunk, space opera, dystopia, etc..
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They're extremely dated, but Heinlein was the hook for me. His CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY and STARSHIP TROOPERS got me hooked for life. I've reread both of them many times.

In fact I was rereading CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY for the third time back in the summer of 1962 when I decided that someday I wanted to write Science Fiction.

NAMASTE

C.E. Gee aka Chuck

http://www.kinzuakid.blogspot.com
 
MMerle said:
No Disch on there, right? For sure I would like to see him.
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I am reading a book by him right now, The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World. I think his commentary on Tom Godwin's The Cold Equations is really dumb. But his discussion of the growth of SF financially in movies is interesting.

psik
 
Joining late to the discussion but below are some names of writers not thus far mentioned who have made impressed me with stories that made me question (and in many cases revise) my own belief system over the years:
Robert Silverberg
Dan Simmons
Douglas Adams
Robert Reed
Mike Resnick
Mary Doria Russell
Harlan Ellison (though I suspect he is an acquired taste)
Of those mentioned in previous posts, my earliest readings included EE. (Doc) Smith, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Larry Niven. Wish I had been able to keep my copies of those books and all the others. Each introduced me to ideas, notions, and whimsy that have made my life a pleasure.
Highly envious of Hobbit's collection. However, TLWSHLWM would not stand for a collection of all the books I've read.
 
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