Ten important novels every aspiring SF writer should read

jjdebenedictis · Oct 8, 2015

When I read these sorts of lists, my complaint is not usually with the choices so much as the fact I don't see the worth in reading stuff that was out of fashion decades before I was born (and I am solidly middle-aged now) in order to prepare me for writing in the genre today.

Personally, I'd be telling people to read old William Gibson to get an applicable grounding in science fiction, because we have gotten so far beyond what the old masters envisioned. We're living what they called science fiction (she says, with ease, to potentially thousands of people spread across the globe). You can read their works for the historical interest, but I don't think they offer many practical lessons for writers anymore beyond the fact that some of them were really great writers. Their ideas, their approach--these are often obsolete.

I mean, how big is that computer you're typing on? Heinlein envisioned that sucker would be room-sized and belong to a university or corporation. How big is that flash drive sitting by your desk? Gibson figured that would be the size of a milk carton. So Gibson's predictions are an order of magnitude closer to correct; start with Gibson if you're looking to write science fiction today.

zanzjan · Oct 8, 2015

Gotta say, I'd find these lists less tedious if they were called something like "Ten novels I found useful to me as an aspiring SF writer". because otherwise it's just trying to declare one's own biases and limitations as some sorta globally applicable benchmark.

That aside, one book (not novel, you'll note) *I* think incredibly useful is Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics". Whether or not one finds the word 'comics' a turnoff, there's an *incredible* amount of info in that book relevant to all (most?) forms of narrative.

jjdebenedictis · Oct 8, 2015

zanzjan said:
That aside, one book (not novel, you'll note) *I* think incredibly useful is Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics". Whether or not one finds the word 'comics' a turnoff, there's an *incredible* amount of info in that book relevant to all (most?) forms of narrative.

I'd read dat (and probably will, now you've recommended it).

And in that vein, Robert McKee's Story was incredibly useful to me, even though it's about screenwriting, not novel writing.

Latina Bunny · Oct 8, 2015

Meh. I'm over people telling me what I HAVE to read in order to be considered "well read" or whatever.

When it comes to my reading habits, I pick up books that interest me, regardless of genre (except horror or suspense/mystery/thriller) and age range or whether it's a "classic" or not.

I also grew up reading more children's fantasy and some scifi. I'm finding I'd rather read children's books, like Tamora Pierce, some Diane Duane, and Animorphs, etc than some recommended adult sff literature, lol.

I don't have time or patience to slog through supposed classics I have to read in order to be considered having the proper "literary roots". I'm over being assigned reading materials like in school, lol.

zanzjan said:
Gotta say, I'd find these lists less tedious if they were called something like "Ten novels I found useful to me as an aspiring SF writer". because otherwise it's just trying to declare one's own biases and limitations as some sorta globally applicable benchmark.

That aside, one book (not novel, you'll note) *I* think incredibly useful is Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics". Whether or not one finds the word 'comics' a turnoff, there's an *incredible* amount of info in that book relevant to all (most?) forms of narrative.

I love, love, love those informational books of his! Very interesting.

OJCade · Oct 8, 2015

blacbird said:
After London, Ricihard Jefferies. The first real post-apocalypse novel I can think of.

After London was 1885. This was substantially after - you guessed it - Mary Shelley, with her during-and-post-apocalypse novel The Last Man in 1826.

blacbird · Oct 8, 2015

First, I proposed "ten" novels. Every list-maker loves the number ten. I didn't pretend to call it the "ten most important" novels. Of course there are many others. Shelley's novel is extremely important as a literary event, and not only for the history of SF.

Second, I posed Wells's first novel as the touchstone of "modern" SF, for two reasons. Wells essentially coined the term "science fiction" by referring to his early works as "scientific romances". He began his writing career just when scientific inquiry was really booming, and was heavily influenced by it. And his novel was a sensation with the public, that inspired a lot of newer writers.

I didn't include Verne primarily because I see him as more of an imaginative exotic adventure writer than an SF writer. He certainly was influential, though i find his work (in translation, of course) more quaint and dated than I do the work of Wells. Scientifically, it was full of real absurdities, such as shooting people to the moon using a giant cannon, or having them plucked off the earth by a comet to sail away blithely uninjured into space. Wells sometimes invoked physical impossibilities, of course, but did so in ways for which the suspension of disbelief seems easier.

Third, the vast majority of early important works that feed the SF genre history are, like it or not, by "white guys", who are now, of course, "dead". I can't do anything about either of those conditions.

Fourth, I posted the thread precisely to get other suggestions, which are being given, and appreciated.

Fifth, I still think these are ten novels just about every budding SF writer would benefit from reading.

caw

Addendum: OJCade is correct about Shelley's Last Man. I knew about it, though I've never read it. Now I will.

kuwisdelu · Oct 8, 2015

blacbird said:
Third, the vast majority of early important works that feed the SF genre history are, like it or not, by "white guys", who are now, of course, "dead". I can't do anything about either of those conditions.

If you're strictly speaking of novels, then you're probably right of course. If we're talking about storytelling in general, I would disagree. I would say most cultures have stories that can be considered sci-fi, going back to the beginning of oral history.

To an extent, I admit this certainly depends on how one defines "science fiction". For many people, it seems to be about futuristic science and technology. I'm more interested in the story archetypes, such as alien worlds, time travel, etc., and exploring these concepts.

My question was serious and (I think) potentially interesting: who or what exactly constitutes one's literary roots? If what you're writing ends up in a certain genre, does that automatically make that genre's early English novel writers your "literary roots"?

It seems to me one's literary roots would come from one's influences. If my influences are not traditional science fiction, why would my literary roots be the classics of traditional science fiction?

Fourth, I posted the thread precisely to get other suggestions, which are being given, and appreciated.

Fair enough. I think the question of what makes one's literary roots is a more interesting discussion, personally.

eyeblink · Oct 8, 2015

EMaree said:
Oh wow, I just looked it up...

(Source)

Considering how Handmaid's Tale-y the world is getting, I can't exactly disagree with her. But I'm afraid she's still firmly a sci-fi writer in my mind.

PeteMC said:
Yeah, I'd have to agree with you - I think there's an element of trying to avoid the "genre ghetto" going on there.

I think there are quotes more recent than that one that have established she is aware of SF and has read it (though not so much recent SF) and that she has written it. She's also good friends with Ursula Le Guin. It's probably fairest to say that she writes in several genres, SF being one of them.

I don't think this is quite the same thing as someone like Martin Amis coming up with a SF trope (time running backwards) in Time's Arrow that people like Philip Dick and Brian Aldiss had used before him, and priding himself on his originality - and in this case getting himself on the Booker shortlist. (The only time he ever has, which is surprising given his prominence in UK litfic circles twenty-plus years ago. It may be that he has a fine talent for putting people's backs up.)

Kazuo Ishiguro, on the other hand, is quite happy with Never Let Me Go being regarded as SF and went to the Clarke Award ceremony when that novel was shortlisted. In a way, you do wonder if that novel would have sold as well, would have been filmed, and is now being taught in schools, if it had been published as genre SF? Would Susanna Clarke done as well with Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell if it had been marketed as genre fantasy - and she's in no doubt that it's fantasy?

blacbird · Oct 8, 2015

kuwisdelu said:
If you're strictly speaking of novels, then you're probably right of course.

Which, exactly, I was, and said so in the thread title.

kuwisdelu said:
If we're talking about storytelling in general,

Which I was not, and is entirely another discussion.

kuwisdelu said:
I would say most cultures have stories that can be considered sci-fi, going back to the beginning of oral history.

Sure. We could go back to Gilgamesh. But that wasn't what I wanted to discuss.

kuwisdelu said:
To an extent, I admit this certainly depends on how one defines "science fiction". For many people, it seems to be about futuristic science and technology. I'm more interested in the story archetypes, such as alien worlds, time travel, etc., and exploring these concepts.

My question was serious and (I think) potentially interesting: who or what exactly constitutes one's literary roots? If what you're writing ends up in a certain genre, does that automatically make that genre's early English novel writers your "literary roots"?

It seems to me one's literary roots would come from one's influences. If my influences are not traditional science fiction, why would my literary roots be the classics of traditional science fiction?

Fair enough. I think the question of what makes one's literary roots is a more interesting discussion, personally.

So do I. But that's entirely another thread topic, not why I started this one. I'm not real sure why people have taken this thread into the deeper territory it was never intended to sail on.

caw

SillyLittleTwit · Oct 9, 2015

Shelley does need to be there, probably at the expense of either Lewis or Merritt.

I'd put Wells over Verne for the reason that the former was more interested in the social effects of technology than the technology itself, which arguably makes him much more relevant in the long term. Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea really only work these days as adventure novels. Wells' SF Big Four (The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, and The Island of Doctor Moreau) by contrast involve perennial what-ifs and social commentary.

With Stapledon, I'd replace Star Maker with Last and First Men. I'd also be tempted to find a way of getting A Canticle for Leibowitz on the list.

kennyc · Oct 9, 2015

blacbird said:
First, I proposed "ten" novels. Every list-maker loves the number ten. I didn't pretend to call it the "ten most important" novels. Of course there are many others. Shelley's novel is extremely important as a literary event, and not only for the history of SF.
......
Fourth, I posted the thread precisely to get other suggestions, which are being given, and appreciated.
....
caw

Here's my Top 10 SF list:
(with a cherry on top - i.e. an extra thrown in for good measure)

Top 10 SF:
In no particular order after the first two.

Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany
Foundation Trilogy - Issac Asimov
Dune - Frank Herbert
City - Clifford D. Simak
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Ringworld - Larry Niven
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. LeGuin
The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood
Time Enough for Love - Robert A. Heinlein

Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban

kennyc · Oct 9, 2015

I think if you want to get a feel for this history of the genre as well as some great reads you need to read:

Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

Lillith1991 · Oct 9, 2015

blacbird said:
Second, I posed Wells's first novel as the touchstone of "modern" SF, for two reasons. Wells essentially coined the term "science fiction" by referring to his early works as "scientific romances". He began his writing career just when scientific inquiry was really booming, and was heavily influenced by it. And his novel was a sensation with the public, that inspired a lot of newer writers.

No he didn't. Scientific Romances were a popular and well known genre of Victorian Era literature before Wells came along. He's just the guy that's the most remembered for calling his work that by modern audiences.

All these facts you're stating are nothing but opinions, ones easily discredited. Yes there was a push closer to modern science in the 1880's and 1890's, but these things are cyclical and those scientists owe their progress to people like Darwin and others openening up new avenues of scientific study. Add to that the fact AC Doyle was inspired to write Sherlock's scientific process by this and things such as The Lost World, it was hardly the given you seem to think that Wells would've been inspired to write Time Machine instead of something else. Time Machine is a happy accident of fate and at its heart an adventure story like Verne's SF work is.

RedRajah · Oct 9, 2015

This is what I had to read for my science fiction class back in '97.

"I, Robot"
"The Puppet Masters"
"The Left Hand of Darkness"
"Childshood End"
"I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream"
"Born of Man & Woman"
"The Cold Equations"
"Nightfall" (the short story, not the novel)

We also saw "Metropolis" and the original "The Day The Earth Stood Still"

kennyc · Oct 9, 2015

Lillith1991 said:
No he didn't. Scientific Romances were a popular and well known genre of Victorian Era literature before Wells came along. He's just the guy that's the most remembered for calling his work that by modern audiences.

All these facts you're stating are nothing but opinions, ones easily discredited. Yes there was a push closer to modern science in the 1880's and 1890's, but these things are cyclical and those scientists owe their progress to people like Darwin and others openening up new avenues of scientific study. Add to that the fact AC Doyle was inspired to write Sherlock's scientific process by this and things such as The Lost World, it was hardly the given you seem to think that Wells would've been inspired to write Time Machine instead of something else. Time Machine is a happy accident of fate and at its heart an adventure story like Verne's SF work is.

Yep.... Gernsbach according to wiki first used it and referred to some of those authors..

...Hugo Gernsback, who was one of the first in using the term "science fiction", described his vision of the genre: "By 'scientifiction' I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story—a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision."[SUP][5]...[/SUP]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction

kennyc · Oct 9, 2015

RedRajah said:
This is what I had to read for my science fiction class back in '97.

"I, Robot"
"The Puppet Masters"
"The Left Hand of Darkness"
"Childshood End"
"I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream"
"Born of Man & Woman"
"The Cold Equations"
"Nightfall" (the short story, not the novel)

We also saw "Metropolis" and the original "The Day The Earth Stood Still"

Yep, that's 10 if you count the movies. :hooray:

Good stuff too.

RichardGarfinkle · Oct 9, 2015

kuwisdelu said:
If you're strictly speaking of novels, then you're probably right of course. If we're talking about storytelling in general, I would disagree. I would say most cultures have stories that can be considered sci-fi, going back to the beginning of oral history.

To an extent, I admit this certainly depends on how one defines "science fiction". For many people, it seems to be about futuristic science and technology. I'm more interested in the story archetypes, such as alien worlds, time travel, etc., and exploring these concepts.

My question was serious and (I think) potentially interesting: who or what exactly constitutes one's literary roots? If what you're writing ends up in a certain genre, does that automatically make that genre's early English novel writers your "literary roots"?

It seems to me one's literary roots would come from one's influences. If my influences are not traditional science fiction, why would my literary roots be the classics of traditional science fiction?

There is also the question of the literary roots of ones audience. When I was a kid SFF fans could all be expected to be familiar with a particular group of authors and books. So someone writing SFF knew what the audience could be expected to know about / expect and what would need to be explained. It was also possible to write stories that were explicit reactions to that common literary heritage (e.g. Asimov's robots being a reaction against Frankenstein, Moorcock's Elric being the anti-Conan etc).

There were also people writing SFF for a more mainstream audience. Those did not rely on the common knowledge of the SFF . Michael Crichton and Kurt Vonnegut come to mind.

Nowadays both of these audiences are far less homogeneous and therefore it is possible to write for many different strains of literary influences. On the other hand a great deal of what had been SFF-audience specific ideas are now mainstreamed, largely thanks to movies. So, the branching traditions also have more that is shared.

Which I think boils down to the idea that a list of 10 necessary books no longer works (as it might have fifty years ago) even if ones only concern is what the audience knows.

Amadan · Oct 9, 2015

eyeblink said:
I think there are quotes more recent than that one that have established she is aware of SF and has read it (though not so much recent SF) and that she has written it. She's also good friends with Ursula Le Guin. It's probably fairest to say that she writes in several genres, SF being one of them.

Yeah, she made one comment about writing "speculative fiction" and SF fans have been harping on her about for years. In fairness, she did come off sounding really pretentious.

I don't think this is quite the same thing as someone like Martin Amis coming up with a SF trope (time running backwards) in Time's Arrow that people like Philip Dick and Brian Aldiss had used before him, and priding himself on his originality - and in this case getting himself on the Booker shortlist. (The only time he ever has, which is surprising given his prominence in UK litfic circles twenty-plus years ago. It may be that he has a fine talent for putting people's backs up.)

Or Cormac McCarthy getting on Oprah for inventing the post-apocalytic novel.

Kazuo Ishiguro, on the other hand, is quite happy with Never Let Me Go being regarded as SF and went to the Clarke Award ceremony when that novel was shortlisted. In a way, you do wonder if that novel would have sold as well, would have been filmed, and is now being taught in schools, if it had been published as genre SF? Would Susanna Clarke done as well with Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell if it had been marketed as genre fantasy - and she's in no doubt that it's fantasy?

In fairness, Never Let Me Go is barely science fiction - the SF premise is just a MacGuffin to enable the metaphor Ishiguro wanted to write about.

Latina Bunny · Oct 9, 2015

blacbird said:
So do I. But that's entirely another thread topic, not why I started this one. I'm not real sure why people have taken this thread into the deeper territory it was never intended to sail on.

caw

Well, I think your (what I think is somewhat somewhat rude or snobbish) comment about how many authors/people today are "lacking in literary roots" (and missing "important" stuff) lends itself to a topic about what's considered the proper "literary roots".

I guess it means we're hack writers if we don't have such "literary roots"? Sorry I wasn't psychic as a child to know what proper novels to read in order to be a good genre writer or whatever.

Blinkk · Oct 9, 2015

I have my favorite sci-fi books, but I realized after reading this thread I don't really know the history of the sci-fi genre. There's been a lot of good discussion here about it. I'm enjoying learning from you guys.

I read much more fantasy than sci-fi so I'm probably not as well versed as I should be in sci-fi. Nonetheless, I picked up Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe last month and fell in love. Anyone else thinks it deserves an honorable mention?

blacbird · Oct 9, 2015

Jesus Christ, people, all I did was post a list of ten older novels I recommend as background reading for the historical context of SF. I've been borderline accused of racism, sexism, chauvinism, jingoism, ignorance and halitosis.

Fuck it. I'll start no more threads, here or elsewhere.

caw

kennyc · Oct 9, 2015

Now, now. As you can tell it is an important topic that is of interest. Everyone has their own perspective on it.
It's all good.

zanzjan · Oct 9, 2015

This thread is taking a vacation for Reasons.

OTOH, I think it's a good conversation, and I'd like to see the discussion continue on the topic of books we as writers found useful or inspiring in our work. If no one else gets ambitious and starts such a thread by the time I get home from work tonight, I'll try to reboot this in new form.

Ten important novels every aspiring SF writer should read

jjdebenedictis

is watching you via her avatar

zanzjan

killin' all teh werds

jjdebenedictis

is watching you via her avatar

Latina Bunny

Lover of Contemporary/Fantasy Romance (she/her)

OJCade

blacbird

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

eyeblink

Barbara says hi

blacbird

SillyLittleTwit

Assistant Deputy Backup

kennyc

kennyc

Lillith1991

The Hobbit-Vulcan hybrid

RedRajah

Special Snowflake? No. Hailstone

kennyc

kennyc

RichardGarfinkle

Nurture Phoenixes

Amadan

Latina Bunny

Lover of Contemporary/Fantasy Romance (she/her)

Blinkk

Searching for dragons

blacbird

kennyc

zanzjan

killin' all teh werds