04-03-2016 | #31 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 567
Quotes: 0
|
Re: Science Fiction Recommendations
Regarding this thread generally, the problem with asking for "science fiction recommendations" is that the field is so vast that there are loads of books that could be recommended and everyone's tastes are different. Maybe some more specific requirements are needed. | |||||||||||
7 Thanks From: | ChildofOldLeech (04-03-2016), Doctor Dugald Eldritch (04-05-2016), miguel1984 (04-03-2016), MTC (04-03-2016), Piranesi (04-04-2016), qcrisp (04-03-2016), Speaking Mute (03-18-2017) |
04-03-2016 | #32 | |||||||||||
Mystic
Threadstarter
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 214
Quotes: 0
|
Re: Science Fiction Recommendations
To be honest I really appreciate the eclectic range of recommendations, even if it leads in many directions at once.
As to "more specific requirements" I guess I am mainly interested in pessimist sf, horror sf and dystopian fiction. This is what I feel speaks most directly to me. To my knowledge Thomas Ligotti has only written a single sf story - "The Nightmare Network" - which I have no problems seeing in continuation of the above. | |||||||||||
Thanks From: | miguel1984 (04-03-2016) |
04-03-2016 | #33 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 1,307
Quotes: 0
|
Re: Science Fiction Recommendations
I've read a few of the stories in Vermilion Sands (some were included in other Ballard collections), but I've never read the whole book, even though it is short and I own a copy. Ballard's early stories were very good, but I've always preferred the intense works he wrote just a few years later: "The Terminal Beach," "The Voices of Time," The Crystal World, and some others.
I'm glad I read Dhalgren when I was a teenager. I think in many ways it's a young person's book. (Delany was still fairly young when he wrote it.) It is very long, but its reputation for modernist difficulty is somewhat overblown. There are occasional short passages that require careful reading, and pages with an additional column of interpolated text, but most of it is very readable narrative. I looked at it again recently, and aside from a few arresting passages and memorable episodes, I'm not sure I would think as highly of it now as I once did. I don't think it's "trash," though, or a book that only a reader who is being "gulled" would continue reading; those comments are too harsh and probably just indicate a basic lack of sympathy with what Delany was doing in that novel. Barry N. Malzberg's Galaxies is metafiction, but I wouldn't say it's outside of genre. It is meta-(genre-)science fiction. Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To... is evidently pessimistic and antinatalist. I haven't read it but plan to. | |||||||||||
7 Thanks From: | bendk (04-06-2016), ChildofOldLeech (04-03-2016), Doctor Dugald Eldritch (04-05-2016), miguel1984 (04-03-2016), MTC (04-04-2016), Piranesi (04-04-2016), xylokopos (04-04-2016) |
04-04-2016 | #34 | |||||||||||
Chymist
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 338
Quotes: 0
|
Re: Science Fiction Recommendations
It might interest some of you here that John Gray's Soul of the Marionette includes a reasonably lengthy treatment of Stanislav Lem and Philip Dick as writers working within a Gnostic framework regarding evil, divinity and free will. Also, Zamyatin and Krzhizhanovsky. I have a soft spot for the following three novels: REH, Almuric Verne, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea Asimov, The End of Eternity*. *that's the one where the protagonist time-travels to the past and leaves messages for the future by placing classified ads in newspapers or magazines, right? Or is that storyline from another one of his books? PS. Many thanks to Malone and gveranon for recommending A Canticle for Leibowitz (bought it on Saturday) and We Who Are About To... (guess what I am getting next Saturday) | |||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
4 Thanks From: |
04-04-2016 | #35 |
Guest
Posts: n/a
Quotes:
|
Re: Science Fiction Recommendations
I haven't read it myself but I've heard nothing but good about David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus.
|
5 Thanks From: | ChildofOldLeech (04-04-2016), Doctor Dugald Eldritch (04-05-2016), miguel1984 (04-05-2016), MTC (04-04-2016), xylokopos (04-06-2016) |
04-04-2016 | #36 | |||||||||||
Mystic
Threadstarter
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 214
Quotes: 0
|
Re: Science Fiction Recommendations
xylokopos, I'll be sure to take a closer look at John Gray's book. I've actually been meaning to since I read that review of yours some while ago. Gray's book also seems to include a reading of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic which I've been interested in because of its connection to Tarkovsky's film Stalker.
Also if any of you find time to read We Who Are About To... I'd very much like to hear what you think of it. David Lindsay's Arcturus I read some years ago. I can't seem to remember much of it now, but I think it's perhaps closer to fantasy than sf? (even though it does involve some kind of time travel). Anyway a great book. | |||||||||||
4 Thanks From: | ChildofOldLeech (04-04-2016), Doctor Dugald Eldritch (04-05-2016), miguel1984 (04-05-2016), xylokopos (04-06-2016) |
04-04-2016 | #37 | |||||||||||
Mystic
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 138
Quotes: 0
|
Re: Science Fiction Recommendations
Some early science-fiction stories:
Lucian: Vera historia – a whirlwind transports a manned ship to the Moon from where all earthly actions look comically and ridiculous: seen from above, that’s how we appear. Voltaire: “Micromégas” – a gigantic being from Sirius visits our planet. Like Lucian’s story, very funny and true. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein... – the first real scientific novel. Multiple possible readings... Jules Verne: De la terre a la Lune – very entertaining and funny but perhaps a bit too long? Stevenson: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – “The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. (...) I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a mill race in my fancy ... an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul.” Twain: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – wherein a Connecticut Yankee is transported back in time. Extremely entertaining and poisonous (“there are times when one would like to hang the whole human race and finish the farce”), yet not wholly misanthropic. Bierce: “Moxon’s Master” – “’Are you serious? - do you really believe that a machine thinks?’” Like the monster created by Dr Frankenstein, this robot or automaton may be seen as a golem, a theme treated with Bierce’s usual superior prose and philosophical finesse. | |||||||||||
6 Thanks From: | bendk (04-06-2016), Doctor Dugald Eldritch (04-05-2016), miguel1984 (04-05-2016), MTC (04-05-2016), Nirvana In Karma (04-04-2016), xylokopos (04-06-2016) |
04-05-2016 | #38 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 580
Quotes: 0
|
Re: Science Fiction Recommendations
I enjoyed The Dancers at the End of Time. And his Michael Kane novels set on Mars were pulpy fun. | |||||||||||
The Mask Behind the Face, Pendragon Press 2005
Shards of Dreams, Double Dragon eBooks 2004 Spare Parts, Rainfall Books 2003 Stuart Young\''s blog: http://stuartyoungwriter.blogspot.co.uk/ |
||||||||||||
4 Thanks From: |
04-09-2016 | #39 | |||||||||||
Acolyte
Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 95
Quotes: 0
|
Re: Science Fiction Recommendations
There's different types of science fiction, so I'll suggest stuff which might appeal to fans of horror/weird fiction:
_The Jaguar Hunter_ by Lucius Shepard. Its a collection of mostly science fiction stories, and has a horrific element. Shepard, like Ballard, was a superb prose stylist. The Jaguar Hunter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia _The Day of the Triffids_ by John Wyndham. The conflict in the story is between a mostly blinded humanity and mobile killer plants. The Day of the Triffids - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It occurred to me recently that some alternate history/parallel universe stories can by classed as horror. An alternate timeline might be more horrible than our own, or might be horrible in a different way. Such stories I liked: "In the Arcade" by Lisa Tuttle "The Lincoln Train" by Maureen F. McHugh "A Threshold Hypothesis" by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy | |||||||||||
4 Thanks From: | ChildofOldLeech (04-09-2016), MTC (04-15-2016), Nirvana In Karma (04-25-2016), xylokopos (04-09-2016) |
12-01-2016 | #40 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 2,536
Quotes: 0
|
Re: Science Fiction Recommendations
Aquarium Drunkard Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Fiction
I enjoyed this list. It's got fantasy and other stuff in there too. | |||||||||||
My gallery...
http://robertadamgilmour.blogspot.com |
||||||||||||
2 Thanks From: | ChildofOldLeech (12-01-2016), miguel1984 (12-02-2016) |
Bookmarks |
Tags |
fiction, recommendations, science |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
I'm looking for good, well written, contemporary science fiction | Karnos | Off Topic | 39 | 06-14-2020 02:45 PM |
New To Weird Fiction - Recommendations? | craigobau | General Discussion | 18 | 08-30-2017 11:00 AM |
Identify science fiction film clip. | Knygathin | Film | 2 | 04-05-2017 02:55 PM |
Recommendations for weird fiction | symbolique | Other Authors | 22 | 12-05-2011 04:42 AM |
Naked Girls Reading Science Fiction | Ligeia | Off Topic | 1 | 02-16-2010 12:07 PM |