The Basics

PeteMC

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I'm sure Lovecraft and Poe should both feature for something, I'm just not entirely sure what.
 

JustSarah

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If someone were writing Epic Science Fiction (epic used in the same way as epic fantasy), would Frank Hubert's Dune be a recommended read?
 

Smiling Ted

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If someone were writing Epic Science Fiction (epic used in the same way as epic fantasy), would Frank Hubert's Dune be a recommended read?

I would recommend it, certainly - along with A Deepness in the Sky, the Foundation trilogy, Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space books and Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars. But this list isn't about genres; it's about concepts. You might try this thread for more suggestions; also search the forum for "space opera."
 

CChampeau

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Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem fits well under "elevated animals", "mind control" and "dystopia". Nominated for a Nebula award in 1994. One of the weirdest darn stories I ever read. It's a hard-boiled detective novel set in a dismal future where menial jobs are performed by "evolved" animals, which have become about as smart as a young child and can talk. Dark, funny, scary, shocking, weird...yeah, it has all those in spades. You could kind of tell it was the author's first novel, but hell. I enjoyed it and it serves two or three of the categories well.

ETA: This book is in no way seminal - I just couldn't resist mentioning it when I saw the "Elevated animals" category and this novella fit so perfectly ^_^;
 
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MidnightMused

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A fantasy category that is so common it shows up everywhere, but is more required there: Group of unique/misfits with a variety of magic abilities on quest. I think one I saw subverted the trope and had too much goodness after the good guys won made a new doom. Tolkein to CRPGs and Dragonlance are all over this.

Another fantasy and SF common one (often done badly) was crossover from our time and space to the fantastic. MZB House Between Worlds, or the doctor in the save the whales-Trek movie in the original timeline.
 

Maxinquaye

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I would argue that Wilson Tucker's "The Long Loud Silence" should be in the dystopia section. It's one of those "most influential books you've never heard about". It hasn't been in print, as far as I know, since 1993, but is totally worth the read. It's like the Kraftwerk of the dystopia genre in that it set the tone for later writing, but isn't that known outside niche readerships.
 

benbradley

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Looking back over this thread (since it was bumped), I found this post, but the Wikipedia link is now a disambiguation page:
Does anyone know any books that involve an omniverse? Here's a link just in case (it's wikipedia, but what the heck. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omniverse

BTW: I ask because my WIP is in an Omniverse. I haven't found anything that features an omniverse so I feel like I'm reinventing the wheel. Granted I don't mind reinventing the wheel, I just want something to go by.

based of that example, mine is just barely an omniverse.

Here's how the page appeared at some time before that post:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100420081649/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omniverse

And here's how it appeared later, at archive.org's next saving of the page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20111106122721/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omniverse

And the multiverse article linked to from the current entry is also "interesting:"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
 

Zyr87

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Looking over the list, I think you can add Jennifer Government to Franchise Government/Anarchy, as practically everything in its universe is privatized and there are two competing groups of corporations essentially (the government is a small organization struggling for funding and part of neither corporate group). It's a damn good read, as well.
 

Smiling Ted

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Thanks for the input, Zyr. I didn't include Jennifer Government (2003) because it comes too late. The fundamental concepts at play in it can already be found in Vernor Vinge's The Ungoverned (1985) and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992). The loyalty programs appeared in the 1950s in the works of Fred Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth (The Space Merchants). (In fact, for anyone interested in SF as satire, I heartily recommend C.M. Kornbluth.)
 
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dickson

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Over at the Science Fiction Writers of America, they call it "re-inventing the wheel." Here's what they say:


First Contact
Between humans and aliens.

The Mote in God’s Eye, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
"A Martian Odyssey," Stanley G. Weinbaum
“First Contact,” Murray Leinster
"The Helping Hand," Poul Anderson
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
2001, A Space Odyssey, film, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, film, Steven Spielberg
The Day the Earth Stood Still, film, 1951, Robert Wise, Harry Bates, Edmund North
ET, film, Steven Spielberg
The Man Who Fell to Earth, film, Walter Tevis, Nicolas Roeg
Solaris, Stanislaw Lem
Contact, Carl Sagan
Similarly:
A Signal From Space, Will Eisner (graphic novel)
His Master's Voice, Stanislaw Lem
The Hercules Text, Jack McDevitt

I would like to add to this list Needle, Hal Clement
 

Brikkin

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This is a great idea. Kind of goes against the whole Gatekeeper concept of a genre, replacing it with a checklist. I've read about half of these fantasy ones, maybe a quarter of the scifi ones, and a smidge of the others. And that's a lot of books. Always nice to be able to come back here to look for more classics :)
 

The Black Prince

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Brilliant thread. I read sci-fi voraciously throughout my teens and twenties but kinda went off it. I'm pleased to note how many of the books above I've read, but who knows what I've missed in the last 20 years? Which is suddenly important because I've suddenly written a sci-fi novel (almost finished) and I don't think it quite falls into any of the categories above.

I haven't read the entire thread but I wonder if there is a category missing - much typified by Andre Norton's work - rediscovery of ancient alien ruins and technology. Books such as The Beast Master; The Zero Stone; Uncharted Stars are great stories.

Also, for the uplifted animals category, Breed to Come is brilliant.

Has there been much mention of Vonnegut? Existential satire for Player Piano; Sirens of Titan; Slaughterhouse Five.
 
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Kalsik

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There is a way to take into account other works without having to read all these titles cover to cover/see end to end.
Summaries, snippets, but more or less finding a way to get an abridged but informative insight into each story's interpretations and features.
I approach it the same way I approached my degree, I looked into those who'd studied works already [secondary], and then I look out specific sources I feel would be the best to dive deeper into [primary].
 

AlanHeise

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The list of stories about certain subject could be a big help to writers not to rehash ideas. But most SF books deal with a vision of how to go towards someplace new, or not to go in certain directions that society is heading. My book is also along these lines of pointing where we are going wrong in our society now, and also where we should be heading toward in moving our society forward in the future. I want a better society going forward with a new path and hopefully a better way forward. I am using my book to point out the harm that comes from looking at everything materialistically. I am also using my book to point out that we are mainly here to grow and learn spiritually. Most music wording is to cry out about the harm in our society and ways to do better for our future. Good SF books can do the same thing about crying out and pointing to a better way of living for our future. Most books are about the human condition, human actions, and consequences. SF is just setting these things in a different setting which can make them more interesting with imagination.
 

HWigton

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I'm glad I stumbled on this list too, I'm actually surprised there's not a sticky for must read/should read books here in the SFF corner, there's books out there that even people who don't regularly read in the SFF genre have picked up at some point, and know the basic concepts of their plots. It might help avoid the dreaded "oh, this new book is just like (insert famous book), but not as good" reviews. Not saying that a rehashing of (insert famous book) wouldn't be brilliant, mind you--some of those oldie but goodies have not aged well, and could use some modernization for sure. I'm not a sensitive person by nature, and love me some Heinlein any day, but I have a hard time getting through any Niven book because of the way he wrote his female characters, if he wrote them at all. At least you could tell Heinlein really, really liked women...I'm not sure Niven did at all.

I'd also like to add CJ Cherryh onto the list for intraspecies diplomacy with her Foreigner series. I usually steer away from political-type stuff, but she makes it so interesting, and filled with emotion and alien culture, that once I got hooked into the first book, I couldn't put them down. They stressed me out so much though, with how the pettiness inherent within humanity really comes to the forefront. It got so close to our own reality during the last year I had to stop for a while.
 

AZombie

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Great list!

(The links need to be updated, most of them are dead).
 

Kimseal

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When will I learn to see if I'm reading a necro thread. This one though seems timeless and I'm glad I saw it.
Necro thread! Never heard that phrase before but love it.

It's a good thread though. Very important for short SFF too. It's really hard to sell anything pro if you don't know where the genre's been.
 

dickson

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I’m glad to have found this thread. Again. Many times while reading The List I got a warm fuzzy at seeing a title I remember fondly from my misspent youth, or in some cases, middle age (when not later still). Guess I’m not so ill- read as I feared!

Others have noted how many of the classics have aged poorly, Lovecraft being a good example. That’s no reason not to read them, Lovecraft included. It helps to know where we’ve been.

Best of all, The List has shown me many things I need to read! When I can take out time from writing…

May this thread never become necro!
 
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