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Beginnings of Science Fiction

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Re: Beginnings of Science Fiction

#21

Post by snowwrestler »

baddox wrote: post #5
lotsofmangos wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to rate Mary Shelley as the earliest sci-fi author. Not just for 'Frankenstein', but also for 'The Last Man'. I would strongly recommend tackling Issac Asimov's 'Foundation' series as one of the all time classics. Another pretty early one to take a look at is 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It was the first book banned by the USSR and was the inspiration for Orwell's 1984.

The Foundation series is certainly on my list. I have been giving series lower priority, simply because I want to go breadth-first, but I'm not confident this is a reasonable strategy, especially since I could just read the first entry and decide from there how to proceed. I had not heard of We, but I will look into it.

Some iconic science fiction books that can stand alone:

    Asimov: The Gods Themselves
    Clarke: Childhood's End, Rendezvous with Rama
    Herbert: Dune, Whipping Star
    Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451
    Bester: The Demolished Man, The Stars My Destination (also called "Tiger, Tiger")
    Niven: Ringworld
    Niven and Pournelle: The Mote in God's Eye, Footfall
    Gibson: Neuromancer
    Stephenson: Snow Crash, The Diamond Age
    Bear: The Forge of God, Eon
    Sagan: Contact
    van Vogt: The Voyage of the Space Beagle
    Lem: Solaris
    Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale
    LeGuin: The Left Hand of Darkness
    Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet
Some of these are the beginnings of series or have sequels, or exist in a larger continuum of stories. But each can be read and appreciated on their own. If you find one you really like, it's not hard to see if there are more in a series or sequel.

Edit: formatting

Re: Beginnings of Science Fiction

#22

Post by MaysonL »

kabdib wrote: post #7
baddox wrote: post #2

(Science fiction, not San Francisco.) Having never really experienced the genre much, I have recently been trying to assemble (and eventually read) a list of influential and quintessential science fiction books, and while my informal research into the beginnings of sci-fi as an identifiable genre led me to earlier authors like Verne and Wells, I had never heard of this fellow or this magazine. By the way, if one want…

When I was 12 or 13 I discovered E E "Doc" Smith, John W Campbell and Philip Nowlan. I'd been reading more contemporary authors like Heinlein and Andre Norton, and the sheer "noise" of these older books were astonishing. What teenage boy doesn't like antimatter planets being flung at Boskonian space pirate outposts, or spaceships powered by solidified light? For a while I loved them. I still have fond memories of Smi…

Who Goes There?, as well as Twilight and Night, all published by Campbell under the Don Stuart pseudonym, still work for me.

Re: Beginnings of Science Fiction

#23

Post by MaysonL »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #4
baddox wrote: post #2

(Science fiction, not San Francisco.) Having never really experienced the genre much, I have recently been trying to assemble (and eventually read) a list of influential and quintessential science fiction books, and while my informal research into the beginnings of sci-fi as an identifiable genre led me to earlier authors like Verne and Wells, I had never heard of this fellow or this magazine. By the way, if one want…

I tend to rate Mary Shelley as the earliest sci-fi author. Not just for 'Frankenstein', but also for 'The Last Man'. I would strongly recommend tackling Issac Asimov's 'Foundation' series as one of the all time classics. Another pretty early one to take a look at is 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It was the first book banned by the USSR and was the inspiration for Orwell's 1984.

If you like Asimov's Foundation series, you should look up Donald Kingsbury's Psychohistorical Crisis.

Re: Beginnings of Science Fiction

#24

Post by Animats »

"Ralph 124C 41+" is awful. After that, Gernsback published SF of others, rather than his own, and as a publisher did much to launch SF as a genre.

Before SF, there were "Edisonades", the classic being "Edison's Conquest of Mars". That's a milestone in science fiction. It's one of the first space travel stories, and it's reasonably plausible given scientific knowledge at the time.

Heinlein is not from the "beginnings" era. Heinlein is from the "golden age" of SF, when a space-oriented future looked not only technically possible but close. Watch "Destination Moon". Most of Heinlein's better works predate the discovery that Mars barely has an atmosphere and Venus is well above the boiling point of water. Planetary colonization within the solar system looked possible back then.

Re: Beginnings of Science Fiction

#25

Post by Animats »

"Ralph 124C 41+" is awful. After that, Gernsback published SF of others, rather than his own, and as a publisher did much to launch SF as a genre.

Before SF, there were "Edisonades", the classic being "Edison's Conquest of Mars". That's a milestone in science fiction. It's one of the first space travel stories, and it's reasonably plausible given scientific knowledge at the time.

Heinlein is not from the "beginnings" era. Heinlein is from the "golden age" of SF, when a space-oriented future looked not only technically possible but close. Watch "Destination Moon". Most of Heinlein's better works predate the discovery that Mars barely has an atmosphere and Venus is well above the boiling point of water. Planetary colonization within the solar system looked possible back then.

Re: Beginnings of Science Fiction

#26

Post by tjradcliffe »

bane wrote: post #18

If you're interested in Sci-Fi, especially some of the older stuff, there's an unbelievable treasure trove of books, short stories, scanned magazines, old radio dramas and books on tape all for free at archive.org. Finding stuff there is a mess though, but even just a search for "science fiction" is like falling into a dragon's hoard of genre pieces.

Also lots of free stuff at Project Gutenberg, including a bunch of Astoundings (which I believe is what Amazing Stories became?): http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Science_Fiction_%28Bookshelf%2...

Re: Beginnings of Science Fiction

#27

Post by angersock »

bpodgursky wrote: post #20
jeffpetes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big Heinlein Fan. I strongly recommend you read his other big famous works, "Starship Troopers" and "Stranger in a Strange Land." After that you can dig deeper into his bibliography, but I'd consider those three to be essential reading. I recently finished "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and I loved it. Makes me curious to read other sci fi from the Soviet world.

Imo forever war is amazing, but stranger in a strange land devolves into bizarre fantasy. I'd strongly recommend the former if you're more interested in hard sci fi and the implications of real accurate (ish) relativistic travel.

Seconding this... Forever War is probably some of the most readable, non-America-Fuck-Yeah military sci-fi I've read--another good one is Armor.

If you want more military sci-fi, check out the Hammer's Slammers series by David Drake (tank company in spaaaaaace, but not the stupid Bolo stuff); he also had one anthology that was very nearly solid cyberpunk surveillance dystopia, Lacy and His Friends.

Re: Beginnings of Science Fiction

#28

Post by fractallyte »

jeffpetes wrote: post #16
baddox wrote: post #2

(Science fiction, not San Francisco.) Having never really experienced the genre much, I have recently been trying to assemble (and eventually read) a list of influential and quintessential science fiction books, and while my informal research into the beginnings of sci-fi as an identifiable genre led me to earlier authors like Verne and Wells, I had never heard of this fellow or this magazine. By the way, if one want…

I'm a big Heinlein Fan. I strongly recommend you read his other big famous works, "Starship Troopers" and "Stranger in a Strange Land." After that you can dig deeper into his bibliography, but I'd consider those three to be essential reading. I recently finished "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and I loved it. Makes me curious to read other sci fi from the Soviet world.

Look for Macmillan's Best of Soviet Science Fiction series, published in the early 1980s. It's a mix of novels and short story collections. For shorts, I particularly recommend World's Spring, New Soviet Science Fiction, and Ballad of the Stars.

A long time ago, I read that Asimov's short story 'Nightfall' was considered the finest short SF of all time, but I respectfully disagree. Nine Minutes, by Genrikh Altov, is that story for me. Link: http://www.altshuller.ru/world/eng/science-fiction4.asp

Also - a truly awesome novel - 'Self Discovery', by Vladimir Savchenko (also in the Macmillan series). (Link: http://lib.ru/RUFANT/SAWCHENKO/savchenko_selfdiscovery_ok-en...) It has one of the most compelling, and fascinating, descriptions of AI I've ever come across. As Theodore Sturgeon writes in the introduction, 'described with such realism that one is tempted to apply for a grant, build it, and check it out.'

Re: Beginnings of Science Fiction

#29

Post by Animats »

Animats wrote: post #24

"Ralph 124C 41+" is awful. After that, Gernsback published SF of others, rather than his own, and as a publisher did much to launch SF as a genre. Before SF, there were "Edisonades", the classic being "Edison's Conquest of Mars". That's a milestone in science fiction. It's one of the first space travel stories, and it's reasonably plausible given scientific knowledge at the time. Heinlein is not from the "beginnings"…

(Sorry about posting that twice. Hacker News was reporting gateway timeouts.)

Re: Beginnings of Science Fiction

#30

Post by angersock »

baddox wrote: post #2

(Science fiction, not San Francisco.) Having never really experienced the genre much, I have recently been trying to assemble (and eventually read) a list of influential and quintessential science fiction books, and while my informal research into the beginnings of sci-fi as an identifiable genre led me to earlier authors like Verne and Wells, I had never heard of this fellow or this magazine. By the way, if one want…

So, because I haven't seen it mentioned, go check out anything by Harlan Ellison. I will strongly suggest the Shatterday or Stalking the Nightmare anthologies. Those stories have some fucking teeth.

Science fiction (or speculative fiction, if you're feeling highbrow) is probably one form where I still regularly buy "Year Best " anthologies...it's a form that is benefited heavily from short stories, because scifi is about the ideas, not so much the characters. Good science fiction has both, of course, but must have good ideas--lots of stories happen that have decent character development but the ideas stink.

I also would strongly recommend the Pump Six anthology by Paolo Bacigalupi; it's biopunk, I suppose, but pretty solid and plays well with the ideas of being past Peak Energy.

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