What are the Best SF Novels of the 1970s?
Andrew Wheeler
For those of you who came in late, forgot, or have just been ignoring
me, I'm a Senior Editor at the Science Fiction Book Club in the USA,
which celebrated its 50th birthday in March of 2003. I'd thought it
would be neat to have a series of books to commemorate that, and so,
with the help and input of people in this group (and others), I put
together an 8-book "Science Fiction Book Club 50th Anniversary
Collection," including some great books of the '50s.
Since that was pretty popular with the club members, a year later I did
the same thing (again shamelessly asking for suggestions here) for the
'60s. And now I'm starting to make plans for 2005, when I'd like to do a
third series, with eight novels from the 1970s.
I hope, like last time, that this thread will blossom into various
on-topic discussions of skiffy stuff, so I don't want to artificially
limit anybody -- so lists of ten books, or lists of all one author, or
anything else will be fun to read. But, if you'd like to play along,
these are the things I need to take into account:
1) I'm trying to cover the gamut of SF, so I don't want to repeat
authors used earlier if possible. (For example, there may well end up
being a second Heinlein, Asimov or Clarke book in this decade -- each of
them has at least one solid candidate -- but I don't think there would
be room for all three.)
2) While the club does do a lot of omnibus editions, this series is
mostly slim books (the exception to date is _Stand on Zanzibar_), and
has been entirely things that were actual books of the era (with some
slight cheating as to dates).
3) Some obvious possibilities are already available in the SFBC, or
have been recently available, and so won't end up in this series for
logistical reasons. (I weasel out of a lot of suggestions this way.)
4) Related to #1, above, I'm hoping to cover as many sub-categories and
movements as I can. I'd also like to have more books by women and
fantasy works -- so far there's only been one of each.
5) I'm using the years 1970-1979 for this exercise, but three of the
'60s books already cheated a bit, so I may do so again.
Anyway, those are the things *I* have to worry about. Those of you who
want to reply can follow or ignore them as you will.
As usual, I have a tentative preliminary list of books I'm thinking of,
so I'll post that in a couple of days, and see how closely it fits in
with everyone else's suggestions.
And, in case anyone cares, the books from the first two series were (in
series order):
the 1950s:
Robert A. Heinlein, _The Door Into Summer_
Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth, _The Space Merchants_
Arthur C. Clarke, _The City and The Stars_
Poul Anderson, _Three Hearts and Three Lions_
Clifford D. Simak, _City_
Frank Herbert, _Under Pressure_
Isaac Asimov, _The End of Eternity_
Alfred Bester, _The Stars My Destination_
the 1960s:
Philip Jose Farmer, _To Your Scattered Bodies Go_
Cordwainer Smith, _Norstrilia_
Philip K. Dick, _The Man in the High Castle_
Roger Zelazny, _The Dream Master_
John Brunner, _Stand On Zanzibar_
Walter M. Miller, Jr., _A Canticle for Leibowitz_
Ursula K. Le Guin, _The Left Hand of Darkness_
Alexei Panshin, _Rite of Passage_
--
Andrew Wheeler
"There's a conflict," he said. "There's a conflict between land and
people. The people have to go. They've come all the way out here to make
mining claims, to do automobile body work, to gamble, to take pictures,
to not have to do laundry, to own a mini-bike, to have their own CB
radios and air conditioning, good plumbing for sure, and to sell
Time-Life books and to work in a deli, to have some chili every morning
and maybe, maybe to own their own gas stations again and take drugs and
have some crazy sex, but above all, above all to have a fair shake, to
get a piece of the rock and a slice of the pie and to spit out the
window of your car and not have the wind blow it back in your face."
- The Call of the West
James Nicoll
>have been recently available, and so won't end up in this series for
>logistical reasons. (I weasel out of a lot of suggestions this way.)
Hmmm.
Randomly:
Ringworld: Niven Not my favourite LN but popular.
The Mote in God's Eye: NP Complete. This or RW, I think.
The Ophuichi Hotline: Varley.
Something by Russ? Don't know enough to comment.
When did Tanith Lee do _Don't Bite the Sun_ and _Drinking
Sapphire Wine_?
For some reason, people liked _Whiny Leprosy Guy_, Or, heh heh,
there's always Shanara.
The Snow Queen? Was that '79 or '80?
The Club's done my favourite Anderson. Hmmm. I wonder how
_There Will Be Time_ looks now?
Actually, come to think of it wasn't _Dragon and the George_
from the 1970s?
_Wild Seed_. That one is a must.
Gotta go look at the stacks, I think.
--
"The keywords for tonight are Caution and Flammability."
JFK, _Bubba Ho Tep_
John Pelan
Well, for usual odd choices...
Barry N. Malzberg - Herovit's World
Robert Silverberg - The Book of Skulls
Clifford D. Simak - A Choice of Gods
Christopher Priest - The Inverted World
John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up
Wilson Tucker - The Year of the Quiet Sun
D.G. Compton - Chronocules
Arthur C. Clarke - The Fountains of Paradise
Joe Haldeman - The Forever War
Fourth Mansiions - R.A. Lafferty
There you go...
Cheers,
John Pelan
Richard Horton
Crowley.
It is a) slim, b) actual SF, c) actually from the 70s, d)
underappreciated, and e) a great book.
Other choices:
_The Dispossessed_, by Ursula K. LeGuin*
_The Fifth Head of Cerberus_, by Gene Wolfe*
_The Forever War_, by Joe Haldeman
_Doorways in the Sand_, by Roger Zelazny (yes, it's featherlight, but
lots of fun)
_JEM_, by Frederik Pohl
_The Alteration_, by Kingsley Amis
_A Dream of Wessex_ aka _The Perfect Lover_, by Christopher Priest
(*OK, these are essential too!)
Alternates:
_The Mote in God's Eye_, Niven and Pournelle
_Floating Worlds_, Holland
_Michaelmas_, Budrys
_The Birthgrave_, Lee
_Maske: Thaery_, Vance (or any of several other Vance novels)
_The Fountains of Paradise_, Clarke (in my opinion, his best novel)
Something by Cherryh -- the problem is, some are parts of trilogies,
the others are a bit minor -- still, I liked _Hunter of Worlds_ and
_Brothers of Earth_
Something by Tiptree or Varley might be desirable, but I don't think
either of them were at their best as novelists (I dislike _Titan_ et.
al. by Varley, and I think _The Ophiuchi Hotline_ minor; on the other
hand, Tiptree's _Up the Walls of the World_ may well be worthy of
reexamination)
Maybe a representative Malzberg, like _Beyond Apollo_
_And Chaos Died_, by Joanna Russ (but please not _The Female Man_)
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
Doom & Gloom Dave
> In article <40D0F32D...@optonline.com>,
> Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>> It's that time of year again.
>>
>> 3) Some obvious possibilities are already available in the SFBC, or
>> have been recently available, and so won't end up in this series for
>> logistical reasons. (I weasel out of a lot of suggestions this way.)
>
>
Beautiful!
Already available in two omnibuses though which I'm now tempted to go
relabel the Chronicles of Whiny Leprosy Guy.
David Dyer-Bennet
> 5) I'm using the years 1970-1979 for this exercise, but three of the
> '60s books already cheated a bit, so I may do so again.
Well.
I'm ignoring trying to think about what's likely to be unavailable,
since I don't really know, and I haven't bothered to check what SFBC
already has in print, sorry. More interested in the question of
what's good than the precise question you really asked.
_The Mote in God's Eye_ (Niven, 1974) of course. The backup position
would have to be _Ringworld_, I guess. Although there are a couple of
collections possible, _All the Myriad Ways_ (1971) or _Inconstant Moon_
(1973).
_Nine Princes in Amber_ (Zelazny, 1970). But _Doorways in the Sand_
(Zelazny, 1975) if Amber is unavailable.
_The Dragon and the George_ (Dickson, 1976). It's light, but it's
*good* light.
_Time Enough For Love_ (Heinlein, 1973). The only really good late
Heinlein. (which doesn't mean I think it's without flaws).
_Sturgeon Is Alive and Well_ (Sturgeon, 1971). Not a novel, but it
really needs to be in print. Or there are several other collections
to choose from, or you could do a new one based on stories from that
period. I presume this won't really work, oh well.
_Tau Zero_, Poul Anderson (1970). Or _Tales of the Flying Mountains_
(collection, 1970), or _Operation Chaos_ (1971), or _A Midsummer
Tempest_ (1974).
_The Shockwave Rider_, John Brunner (1975)
_City_, Clifford D. Simak (1973)
_The Forever War_, Joe Haldeman (1975)
_The Gods Themselves_, Isaac Asimov (1973). Isaac's most outstanding
novel, I think, taking him far beyond his usual levels of
characterization.
_The Heritage of Hastur_, Marion Zimmer Bradley (1975). Middle of a
series, which could be a disadvantage :-).
I'm sure many people will suggest one or more of Silverberg's novels
from this period, but I hated them.
I imagine I'm forgetting things even I would think were very important
works from the period, but I seem to be running down, so I'll leave it
at this. I note the last half of the decade is not very well
represented, but that isn't because I worked through a chronological
listing.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
David Bilek
>It's that time of year again.
>
>For those of you who came in late, forgot, or have just been ignoring
>me, I'm a Senior Editor at the Science Fiction Book Club in the USA,
>which celebrated its 50th birthday in March of 2003. I'd thought it
>would be neat to have a series of books to commemorate that, and so,
>with the help and input of people in this group (and others), I put
>together an 8-book "Science Fiction Book Club 50th Anniversary
>Collection," including some great books of the '50s.
>
>Since that was pretty popular with the club members, a year later I did
>the same thing (again shamelessly asking for suggestions here) for the
>'60s. And now I'm starting to make plans for 2005, when I'd like to do a
>third series, with eight novels from the 1970s.
(I don't know what is already available from SBC so I may make
suggestions that you can't use for that reason).
_The Forever War_ by Haldeman is an absolute must. Classic novel,
relatively slim, has become even more relevant with recent world
events.
_The Mote in God's Eye_. Niven and Pournelle. 'Nuff said. If you
don't use this one, I'd use _Ringworld_. But I hate _Ringworld_, so
use this.
Something by Silverberg. I'd use _Dying Inside_ which is *the* SF
character study. But it may not appeal to your audience since I get
the impression that a lot of SFBC members are not exactly fans of more
literary work. But you want the best novels of the 70's, not the best
novels of the 70's written down to the lowest common denominator, so
I'm sticking with _Dying Inside_.
I note that both _The Snow Queen_ and _Lord Valentine's Caste_ were
published in 1980. Maybe you could cheat and use _LVC_ instead of
_Dying Inside_ if you have to. _LVC_ strikes me as more of a 70's
than an 80's kind of book.
_The Dispossed_ by Le Guin. Archetype of an axe-grinding political SF
novel. I don't like it much but it's a damn important book. I know
you already used _The Left Hand of Darkness_, but this one is at least
as important.
_Gateway_ by Pohl. Not much to say about this one. Should be obvious
why I'd select it.
_Lord Foul's Bane_ by Donaldson. 1977 saw this one *and* _The Sword
of Shannara_, which kicked off the fantasy doorstop plague. But
_Shannara_ is garbage, and _LFB_ is not.
-David
David Ball
<acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
Here's a few possibilities:
How about some James White. The sector general books were great!!!
Anne McCaffrey, _The White Dragon_, _Dragonsong_, _Dragonsinger_
Poul Anderson, _Tau Zero_
David Gerrold, _When Harlie Was One_
Jacqueline Lichtenberg, _House Of Zoer_ and _Unto Zoer Forever_
Larry Niven, _Tales Of Known Space_
Hal Clement, _Star Light_
Frederik Pohl, _Gateway_
James P. Hogan, _Inherit The Stars_, _The Gentle Giants Of Ganymede_,
_The Two Faces of Tomorrow_
Vonda N. McIntyre, _DreamSnake_
Gregory Benford, _Jupiter Project_
Jeffrey A. Carver, _Star Rigger's Way_
Philip K. Dick, _Our Friends from Frolix 8_
Joe Haldeman, _The Forever War_
John Varley, _The Ophiuchi Hotline_
-- David
Ethan Merritt
Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>The one essential book, seems to me, is _Engine Summer_, by John
>Crowley.
>
>It is a) slim, b) actual SF, c) actually from the 70s, d)
>underappreciated, and e) a great book.
Great suggestion. Seconded.
>Something by Cherryh -- the problem is, some are parts of trilogies,
>the others are a bit minor -- still, I liked _Hunter of Worlds_ and
>_Brothers of Earth_
_Hunter of Worlds_ remains one of my favorite Cherryh novels.
I'd consider it as a contender. I didn't like _BoE_.
David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>
>_Time Enough For Love_ (Heinlein, 1973). The only really good late
>Heinlein. (which doesn't mean I think it's without flaws).
There is no such thing as "really good late Heinlein".
>_The Shockwave Rider_, John Brunner (1975)
Very good suggestion.
>_City_, Clifford D. Simak (1973)
Er, aren't you about a generation off on that one?
_City_ the story was 1944, and _City_ the collection
was published in 1952.
>_The Gods Themselves_, Isaac Asimov (1973). Isaac's most outstanding
>novel, I think, taking him far beyond his usual levels of
>characterization.
I happen to agree with you, but we may be in a minority.
I'll throw in:
_A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows_ Poul Anderson (1970)
_Patternmaster_ Octavia Butler (1972)
_The Wizard of Anharitte_ Colin Kapp (1973)
_The Game Players of Zan_ M A Foster (1977)
_Juniper Time_ Kate Wilhelm (1979)
--
Ethan A Merritt
Damien R. Sullivan
>>Something by Cherryh -- the problem is, some are parts of trilogies,
>>the others are a bit minor -- still, I liked _Hunter of Worlds_ and
>>_Brothers of Earth_
>
>_Hunter of Worlds_ remains one of my favorite Cherryh novels.
>I'd consider it as a contender. I didn't like _BoE_.
Voyager in Night is also thin, and I like it. I have no idea about Cherryh
dates, though.
-xx- Damien X-)
how...@brazee.net
On 16-Jun-2004, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> The Snow Queen? Was that '79 or '80?
I moved to Colorado in 1980 and it was after that when she won the Hugo at
Denver for that book.
David Tate
>
> Since that was pretty popular with the club members, a year later I did
> the same thing (again shamelessly asking for suggestions here) for the
> '60s. And now I'm starting to make plans for 2005, when I'd like to do a
> third series, with eight novels from the 1970s.
Crap, _The Phoenix and the Mirror_ was 1969, and it's now too late.
Damn damn damn. No possibility of cheating on the date, I take it?
OK, moving on...
_Watership Down_, Richard Adams -- not negotiable that it belongs at
the top of the list, though of course your editorial constraints and
priorities may make it an inappropriate choice, for all I know.
_Alastor_, Jack Vance -- I think these are consistently better than
_Maske:Thaery_, and indeed among Vance's best science fiction, but the
awkward lengths make them far less well-known than they deserve.
_The Gods Themselves_, Isaac Asimov (me three)
_The Lathe of Heaven_, Ursula K. Le Guin (over _The Dispossessed_)
_The Forever War_, Joe Haldeman
_The Mote in God's Eye_, Niven & Pournelle
_The Forgotten Beasts of Eld_, Patricia McKillip
_Gateway_, Fredrick Pohl
_The Crystal Cave_, Mary Stewart
_Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said_, Philip K. Dick
_Cyberiad_ or _The Futurological Congress_, Stanislaw Lem
_Slapstick_, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
David Tate
Nancy Lebovitz
David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>
>_Sturgeon Is Alive and Well_ (Sturgeon, 1971). Not a novel, but it
>really needs to be in print. Or there are several other collections
>to choose from, or you could do a new one based on stories from that
>period. I presume this won't really work, oh well.
The complete short fiction of Theodore Sturgeon has been coming out,
volume by volume, I think they're up to number nine.
I don't know whether that's an adequate substitute for reprinting
classic anthologies. It would be massively cool if SFBC were to
pick up the complete short fiction series, but I also don't know whether
it would make any sense for them to do it.
--
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
"I went to Iraq and all I got was this lousy gas price"
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> said
I ignored them .. well, most of them. Hopefully I pulled the right dates
out of the database.
Author Name(s) Book Title
Date
Schmitz - James H. The Telzey Toy and Other Stories *
1970
Niven - Larry Ringworld
1970
Bass - T. J. Half Past Human
1971
Davis - Gerry & Pedler - Kit Mutant 59 the Plastic Eater **
1971
Clarke - Arthur C. Rendezvous with Rama
1973
Anthony - Piers Var the Stick (or Battle Circle in
general)***1973
Niven - Larry & Pournelle - Jerry The Mote in God's Eye
1974
Cowper - Richard The Road to Corlay
1975
Heinlein - Robert A. The Past Through Tomorrow Vol.1
1977
Niven - Larry & Pournelle - Jerry Lucifer's Hammer
1977
Anthony - Piers Cluster ***
1977
Cherryh - Carolyn Janice The Faded Sun -
Kesrith/Kutath/Shonjir 1978+
* reprinted recently I know.
** A personal favourite. OK, the title is ghastly. The books reads much
better!!
*** Yeah well, =some= Piers Anthony ought probably be on the list, given
his popularity and I figure these are his least bad works (almost good
in places).
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Outgoing Msgs are Turing Tested,and indistinguishable from human typing.
Randy Money
You already have Pohl in the '50s, but I don't see how you can avoid
_Gateway_, and I think you've already reissued the first Thomas Covenant
chronicles. So, besides those,
Joe Haldeman's _The Forever War_
Thomas Disch's _On Wings of Song_
Edgar Pangborn's _Good Neighbors and Other Strangers_ or _Still I
Persist in Wondering_ (story collections, and I know those go over like
lead waterwings)
I also agree with David Tate's suggestions of Adams' _Watership Down_
and Vonnegut's _Slapstick_.
Randy M.
Ron Henry
Samuel Delany, Dhalgren
Samuel Delany, Triton
Stanislaw Lem, Solaris
Ursula LeGuin, The Dispossessed
Ursula LeGuin, Earthsea Trilogy (2nd and 3rd books anyhow)
Joe Haldeman, The Forever War
Frederik Pohl, Gateway
Frederik Pohl, Man Plus
Michael Bishop, Transfigurations
Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama
Thomas Disch, 334
Thomas Disch, On Wings of Song
Joanna Russ, The Female Man
Larry Niven, A World Out of Time
Larry Niven, Ringworld
Christopher Priest, The Inverted World
Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber
Cordwainer Smith, Norstrilia
Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment
Gene Wolfe, The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Gregory Benford, In the Ocean of Night
Robert Silverberg, Dying Inside
John Varley, The Ophiuchi Hotline
Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly
John Brunner, Shockwave Rider
Philip Jose Farmer, To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
Barry Malzberg, Beyond Apollo
Ian Watson, The Embedding
James Tiptree, Jr., Up the Walls of the World
Vonda McIntyre, Dreamsnake
John Crowley, Engine Summer
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Ron Henry
Bertandamy
The Mote in God's Eye
The Sheep Look Up
Nova (Delaney)
Triton (Delaney)
Ringworld
His Masters Voice (Lem; I'm not certain that this is 70s)
Interesting post!
Matt Ruff
>
> 2) While the club does do a lot of omnibus editions, this series is
> mostly slim books
I guess that rules out _Gravity's Rainbow,_ then, huh?
John Crowley's _Engine Summer_ is the right size, though.
-- M. Ruff
Konrad Gaertner
>
> 2) While the club does do a lot of omnibus editions, this series is
> mostly slim books (the exception to date is _Stand on Zanzibar_), and
> has been entirely things that were actual books of the era (with some
> slight cheating as to dates).
That might become a problem when you get into the 80's and 90's.
> 4) Related to #1, above, I'm hoping to cover as many sub-categories and
> movements as I can. I'd also like to have more books by women and
> fantasy works -- so far there's only been one of each.
Part of that is because fantasy wasn't a major marketing category
until 1977 (_Sword of Shanara_ and _Lord Foul's Bane_).
My list:
Anthony, _A Spell for Chameleon_
Asimov, _The Gods Themselves_ (my favorite science fiction novel)
Asprin, _Another Fine Myth_
Clarke, _Rendezvous With Rama_
Tolkien, _The Silmarillion_
Is there a good novelization of "Star Wars"? If not, maybe see
how much it'd cost to publish the script.
--KG
Nancy Lebovitz
Ron Henry <ronh...@blahblahblah.clarityconnectcom> wrote:
>In no particular order:
>
>Ursula LeGuin, Earthsea Trilogy (2nd and 3rd books anyhow)
>Cordwainer Smith, Norstrilia
At last, a few that I remember with fondness (ok, _The Ophiuchi Hotline_
was on a few previous lists). I was beginning to wonder if 70s sf was
really so bleak that there wasn't anything I liked from it.
Nancy Lebovitz
Bertandamy <berta...@aol.com> wrote:
>Nova (Delaney)
And I'll second that one.
Randy Money
Another title came to mind as I thought about fantasy: _The Face in the
Frost_ by John Bellairs.
Also, wrong time frame for first publication, but right time frame for
most of the contents: _Her Smoke Rose Up Forever_ by James Tiptree, Jr.
Randy M.
Peter D. Tillman
<http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?C._J._Cherryh>
Hmm, she didn't really hit her stride til the 80's. IMO anyway.
Allow me to make a preemptive CJC "Best of 80's" reco:
_Merchanter's Luck_ (82). Still my favorite, especially for new Cherryh
readers, as it's (reasonably) self-contained, straightforward, and
short. And very, very good.
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Peter D. Tillman
> It's that time of year again.
OK, I spent a few minutes thumbing through the Locus awards database
<http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/index.html>
-- which confirmed my offhand impression, that past the obvious greats:
Ophiuchi Hotline, Mote, Gateway
--you quickly get into the also-rans, and then the also-losers. I
couldn't really come up with ten I'd be keen to recommend. Poor decade
for enduring SF, imo.
Also-rans: Le Guin's The Disposessed. Hmm, near-great?? Not read lately.
Vance, Maske: Thaery (76) Good, solid Vance, but for SFBC??
The Year of the Quiet Sun, Wilson Tucker (70):
Very good, but dated.
Decade-stretchers, great to near-great:
Butler, Wild Seed (80) --her best yet, and probably ever. Great.
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin (69) -- pioneering,
influential, still a pretty good read. Won major awards in 1970. Hmm,
near-great???
My 0.02.
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
David Ball
Lebovitz) wrote:
>In article <20040617104121...@mb-m05.aol.com>,
>Bertandamy <berta...@aol.com> wrote:
>>Nova (Delaney)
>
>And I'll second that one.
Is that the one where the guy has the image of the nova burned into
his vision?
BTW, wasn't that 1968 ?
-- David
David Ball
<til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote:
>Hmm, she didn't really hit her stride til the 80's. IMO anyway.
>
>Allow me to make a preemptive CJC "Best of 80's" reco:
>
>_Merchanter's Luck_ (82). Still my favorite, especially for new Cherryh
>readers, as it's (reasonably) self-contained, straightforward, and
>short. And very, very good.
Seconded!!! One of my all time favorite books, along with the Chanur
series which was also 80's.
Afaik, the books of hers which were written in the 70s are:
Brothers of Earth (ยฉ1976)
Hunter of Worlds (ยฉ1977)
Hestia (ยฉ1979)
from the Morgaine Series
# 1 Gate of Ivrel (ยฉ1976)
# 2 Well of Shiuan (ยฉ1978)
# 3 Fires of Azeroth (ยฉ1979)
-- David
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person David Ball <davidbem...@yahoo.com.nospam> said
My database says:
Gate of Ivrel 1976
Brothers of Earth 1976
Hunter of Worlds 1977
Kesrith 1978
Well of Shiuan 1978
Shonjir 1978
Hestia 1979
Kutath 1979
Fires of Azeroth 1979
Of which I'd probably pick the 'Faded Sun' set as my favourite.
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
>
>
> I'm sure many people will suggest one or more of Silverberg's novels
> from this period, but I hated them.
Which is my cue to suggest either "Dying Inside", or
"Downward to the Earth". I'm not sure about "A time
of Changes".
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
Karen Lofstrom
I've read it five times.
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
----------------------------------------------------------
Um, mee too, add me to the list, please send me the n3kk1d
jp3gs of the 5hr0ud 0v tur1n. -- wednsday
David Dyer-Bennet
>>_City_, Clifford D. Simak (1973)
>
> Er, aren't you about a generation off on that one?
> _City_ the story was 1944, and _City_ the collection
> was published in 1952.
Ah. ISFDB has lied to me, then.
David Dyer-Bennet
> How about some James White. The sector general books were great!!!
Great idea. But which one, from the 1970s?
> Anne McCaffrey, _The White Dragon_, _Dragonsong_, _Dragonsinger_
Not White Dragon. The other two, fine.
> David Gerrold, _When Harlie Was One_
Oh, good idea.
> Jacqueline Lichtenberg, _House Of Zoer_ and _Unto Zoer Forever_
Serious ick.
> James P. Hogan, _Inherit The Stars_, _The Gentle Giants Of Ganymede_,
> _The Two Faces of Tomorrow_
Oh, excellent. Yes, those should be represented.
David Dyer-Bennet
> _Watership Down_, Richard Adams -- not negotiable that it belongs at
> the top of the list, though of course your editorial constraints and
> priorities may make it an inappropriate choice, for all I know.
I wasn't doing fantasy. If you want to include fantasy, then this is
a must-have.
> _The Gods Themselves_, Isaac Asimov (me three)
Yaaay!
Knight37
> It's that time of year again.
[snip]
The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Ringworld - Larry Niven
Gateway - Frederick Pohl
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
David Dyer-Bennet
> Anthony - Piers Var the Stick (or Battle Circle in
> general)***1973
Ooh, good idea. But actually I'd prefer _Cluster_. The last and best
of his pre-hack works.
Knight37
news:m2acz2d...@gw.dd-b.net:
> _The Mote in God's Eye_ (Niven, 1974) of course. The backup position
> would have to be _Ringworld_, I guess. Although there are a couple of
> collections possible, _All the Myriad Ways_ (1971) or _Inconstant
> Moon_ (1973).
I put Mote and Ringworld down.
> _Nine Princes in Amber_ (Zelazny, 1970). But _Doorways in the Sand_
> (Zelazny, 1975) if Amber is unavailable.
I don't know why I didn't put this down, loved the Amber books.
> _Time Enough For Love_ (Heinlein, 1973). The only really good late
> Heinlein. (which doesn't mean I think it's without flaws).
I would put this one down also.
Knight37
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> writes:
>
>>
>
>>
>> I'm sure many people will suggest one or more of Silverberg's novels
>> from this period, but I hated them.
>
> Which is my cue to suggest either "Dying Inside", or
> "Downward to the Earth". I'm not sure about "A time
> of Changes".
Or The Book Of Skulls. Hated every single one of them.
David Dyer-Bennet
I'd pick _Hunter of Worlds_, which was first-rate. It was the first
Faded Sun book that caused me to stop reading Cherryh for good.
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
> wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu writes:
>
> > David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> writes:
> >
> >>
> >
> >>
> >> I'm sure many people will suggest one or more of Silverberg's novels
> >> from this period, but I hated them.
> >
> > Which is my cue to suggest either "Dying Inside", or
> > "Downward to the Earth". I'm not sure about "A time
> > of Changes".
>
> Or The Book Of Skulls.
This, plus "To Live Again", "Tower of Glass", and others
didn't get to the level of the above, for me.
I'm not sure either how I should rate "The Stochastic Man"
or "Shadrach in the Furnace". To me they seemed to have
all the Silverberg elements, but didn't quite work.
"The Second Trip" was the only Silverberg from this time
that I recall positively disliking. Some I've never
read ("World's Fair 1992". Story collection?)
Hated every single one of them.
So I understood. I have to admire your persistence in
finishing so many of them. OTOH I threw Anthony's first
Cluster novel away from me with extreme force.
Out of curiosity, did you like any of Silverberg's
earlier work, "Hawksbill Station", for example?
Or any of his later work?
Craig Richardson
wrote:
>David Ball <davidbem...@yahoo.com.nospam> writes:
>
>> How about some James White. The sector general books were great!!!
>
>Great idea. But which one, from the 1970s?
Forced to choose, I'd say _Ambulance Ship_ (1979) over _Major
Operation_ (1971). The prime decade for the series was IMO 1983-1992.
--Craig
--
Craig Richardson (Homepage <http://crichard-tacoma.home.att.net>)
"when you move into a new energy source you have to assume there's going
to be some environmental impact,"
-- Jeremy Rifkin renounces the Precautionary Principle
Nancy Lebovitz
David Ball <davidbem...@yahoo.com.nospam> wrote:
>On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 16:02:42 GMT, na...@unix5.netaxs.com (Nancy
>Lebovitz) wrote:
>
>>In article <20040617104121...@mb-m05.aol.com>,
>>Bertandamy <berta...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>Nova (Delaney)
>>
>>And I'll second that one.
>
>Is that the one where the guy has the image of the nova burned into
>his vision?
IIRC, it was generalized visual overload rather than a particular
image.
>BTW, wasn't that 1968 ?
<google> Yes. The SFBC edition was 1970. </google>
Tiro Verus
Nancy Leibowits<na...@unix54.netaxs.com> reminisced with a certain dismay:
>I was beginning to wonder if 70s sf was
> really so bleak that there wasn't anything I liked from it.
The later 1970s were a _great_ time to start reading SF, though.
There were what seemed like an unlimited supply of paperback collections
introducing all the great authors (from DAW and del Rey IIRC) Some
of the best retropsective anthologies came out in the 1970s (some
of which I didn't see until the 1980s, in various libraries), e.g.
Brian Aldiss _ Galactic Empires _ ( 2 vols.)
" " _ Space Opera _
Isaac Asimov (?) _ Before the Golden Age _
None of which are novels, hence none qualify for the list under
discussion. A new reader got a much better overview of all of SF
then than I think one would get now, without much more effort.
I do agree with Nancy to the extent that few of my "first choice"
novels or short story collections were published in the 1970s, other
than _ Ringworld _ and _ Engine Summer _. I _think_ Charles Sheffield's
first stories came out then, but I'm not sure.
Tiro Verus
In article <gW7Ac.70$TL6...@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com>> Richard Horton
<rrho...@prodigy.net> reminded the world at large and rasfw in particular:
>_The_ _one_ _essential_ book, seems to me, is _Engine Summer_, by John
>Crowley (emphasis added tv)
>It is a) slim, b) actual SF, c) actually from the 70s, d)
>underappreciated, and e) a great book.
I agree, and normally I'm more of a Hal Clement fan (_ Star Light _
is great too.)
Andrew Wheeler
>
> mer...@attbi.com (Ethan Merritt) writes:
>
> >>_City_, Clifford D. Simak (1973)
> >
> > Er, aren't you about a generation off on that one?
> > _City_ the story was 1944, and _City_ the collection
> > was published in 1952.
>
> Ah. ISFDB has lied to me, then.
There was an edition of _City_ around that time with a new story added
-- Simak wrote "Epilog" for the Campbell-memorial anthology _Astounding_
(edited by Harry Harrison). The anthology was published in 1973, so it's
reasonable that new editions of _City_ from around that time would have
that story added.
"Epilog" seems to have dropped back out of _City_ in the intervening
decades, though.
--
Andrew Wheeler
"There's a conflict," he said. "There's a conflict between land and
people. The people have to go. They've come all the way out here to make
mining claims, to do automobile body work, to gamble, to take pictures,
to not have to do laundry, to own a mini-bike, to have their own CB
radios and air conditioning, good plumbing for sure, and to sell
Time-Life books and to work in a deli, to have some chili every morning
and maybe, maybe to own their own gas stations again and take drugs and
have some crazy sex, but above all, above all to have a fair shake, to
get a piece of the rock and a slice of the pie and to spit out the
window of your car and not have the wind blow it back in your face."
- The Call of the West
Konrad Gaertner
>
> Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote in
> news:40D0F32D...@optonline.com:
>
> > It's that time of year again.
>
That qualifies? <checks bookshelf> Cool, add that to my list too.
(Another one that gets credit for science fiction and fantasy.)
--KG
Andrew Wheeler
>
> (I don't know what is already available from SBC so I may make
> suggestions that you can't use for that reason).
>
> Something by Silverberg. I'd use _Dying Inside_ which is *the* SF
> character study. But it may not appeal to your audience since I get
> the impression that a lot of SFBC members are not exactly fans of more
> literary work. But you want the best novels of the 70's, not the best
> novels of the 70's written down to the lowest common denominator, so
> I'm sticking with _Dying Inside_.
We've got _Dying_ already, in an omnibus called _Other Dimensions_ with
three other Silverbob novels from that period.
> I note that both _The Snow Queen_ and _Lord Valentine's Caste_ were
> published in 1980. Maybe you could cheat and use _LVC_ instead of
> _Dying Inside_ if you have to. _LVC_ strikes me as more of a 70's
> than an 80's kind of book.
And we did a big 3-in-1 of the Valentine series a few years back, to
yawns from the members. (Maybe because it was too big and expensive, but
I thought it was a neat package, with a great Ron Walotsky cover.)
> _Lord Foul's Bane_ by Donaldson. 1977 saw this one *and* _The Sword
> of Shannara_, which kicked off the fantasy doorstop plague. But
> _Shannara_ is garbage, and _LFB_ is not.
As another poster has mentioned, we've got two big omnibuses of
collected Whiny Leper already. <grin>
Andrew Wheeler
>
> Here's a few possibilities:
>
> How about some James White. The sector general books were great!!!
We've got all but the last one already available in a clutch of
omnibuses (though, to give credit where due, Tor put together most of
them originally).
> Anne McCaffrey, _The White Dragon_, _Dragonsong_, _Dragonsinger_
Got 'em all, in omnibuses that have been in print about 30 years now.
<snip>
> Frederik Pohl, _Gateway_
Did it a couple of years ago, and *nobody* bought it. Not sure why,
actually. It's still one of Pohl's best novels, and that's saying a lot.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> In article <m2acz2d...@gw.dd-b.net>,
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> >
> >_Sturgeon Is Alive and Well_ (Sturgeon, 1971). Not a novel, but it
> >really needs to be in print. Or there are several other collections
> >to choose from, or you could do a new one based on stories from that
> >period. I presume this won't really work, oh well.
>
> The complete short fiction of Theodore Sturgeon has been coming out,
> volume by volume, I think they're up to number nine.
>
> I don't know whether that's an adequate substitute for reprinting
> classic anthologies. It would be massively cool if SFBC were to
> pick up the complete short fiction series, but I also don't know whether
> it would make any sense for them to do it.
We do books one at a time, so a nine-book series is pretty much an
insurmountable obstacle (especially if we can't stick them together into
omnibuses). And short fiction doesn't really sell that well, either. It
would be a nice thing to do, but I can't see a way that wouldn't lose a
lot of money.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote in message news:<40D0F32D...@optonline.com>...
> >
> > Since that was pretty popular with the club members, a year later I did
> > the same thing (again shamelessly asking for suggestions here) for the
> > '60s. And now I'm starting to make plans for 2005, when I'd like to do a
> > third series, with eight novels from the 1970s.
>
> Crap, _The Phoenix and the Mirror_ was 1969, and it's now too late.
> Damn damn damn. No possibility of cheating on the date, I take it?
Well, we've cheated before, so it's not impossible. On the other hand, I
have to admit to having a blind spot for Davidson, so it's not likely.
(If I do books I know won't sell, I make sure they're ones I love.)
> OK, moving on...
>
> _Watership Down_, Richard Adams -- not negotiable that it belongs at
> the top of the list, though of course your editorial constraints and
> priorities may make it an inappropriate choice, for all I know.
Good news/bad news -- it won't be in this series, but because it's
already coming up in the club as part of a *different* series
(PageTurners, a vaguely defined collection of good and/or classic books
with readers' guides in the back) put together by a sister club.
> _Alastor_, Jack Vance -- I think these are consistently better than
> _Maske:Thaery_, and indeed among Vance's best science fiction, but the
> awkward lengths make them far less well-known than they deserve.
Hm. Tor already has them in one volume, so it wouldn't *exactly* be
cheating. On the other hand, I'm hoping to do a _Ports of Call_/_Lurulu_
omnibus at the end of this year, and I really doubt I can get away with
two Vance books in a year.
> _The Forgotten Beasts of Eld_, Patricia McKillip
I actually already have this one on my "don't forget about these old
books" shelf, but hadn't thought about it for this series.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> Heinlein - Robert A. The Past Through Tomorrow Vol.1
> 1977
This is, I think, a reprint of half of the mid-60's brick-like hardcover
that itself collected almost all of the stories from four shorter
Heinlein books from the '50s that themselves collected stories from his
first burst of productivity around 1940. So it would be really
stretching to call it a '70s book.
And, anyway, we've already got the full _Past Through Tomorrow_ in the club.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> Andrew Wheeler wrote:
> >
> > 2) While the club does do a lot of omnibus editions, this series is
> > mostly slim books
>
> I guess that rules out _Gravity's Rainbow,_ then, huh?
Not necessarily; I am ruling out omnibuses, but not books that are just
fat to begin with. However, realistically, I don't think the
rights-holders would sell it to me, and I don't think the members would
buy it from me.
> John Crowley's _Engine Summer_ is the right size, though.
A lot of support for Crowley in this group, I see.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> Andrew Wheeler wrote:
> >
> > 2) While the club does do a lot of omnibus editions, this series is
> > has been entirely things that were actual books of the era (with some
> > slight cheating as to dates).
>
> That might become a problem when you get into the 80's and 90's.
I think I was unclear: I don't really mind long books, but I don't
intend to do omnibuses.
I think I was also unclear about whether this was strictly novels (you
didn't bring this up, but others did). We've already done one unabashed
fix-up in _City_, and I could see doing other short-story collections.
(One is on my personal short-list.) But I don't expect to do
multi-author anthologies in this series, since they don't seem to fit as well.
> > 4) Related to #1, above, I'm hoping to cover as many sub-categories and
> > movements as I can. I'd also like to have more books by women and
> > fantasy works -- so far there's only been one of each.
>
> Part of that is because fantasy wasn't a major marketing category
> until 1977 (_Sword of Shanara_ and _Lord Foul's Bane_).
Well, but there were plenty of fantasy books, of all different kinds,
before that. I seem to have mostly missed them for this series so far, though.
> My list:
>
> Anthony, _A Spell for Chameleon_
> Asimov, _The Gods Themselves_ (my favorite science fiction novel)
> Asprin, _Another Fine Myth_
> Clarke, _Rendezvous With Rama_
> Tolkien, _The Silmarillion_
Already got it.
> Is there a good novelization of "Star Wars"? If not, maybe see
> how much it'd cost to publish the script.
I won't speak to "good," since I've never read it, but A-l-a-n- D-e-a-n-
F-o-s-t-e-r- George Lucas novelized the first movie, and we do have an
omnibus of that along with the novelizations of _Empire_ and _Jedi_.
David Bilek
>Matt Ruff wrote:
>>
>> Andrew Wheeler wrote:
>> >
>> > 2) While the club does do a lot of omnibus editions, this series is
>> > mostly slim books
>>
>> I guess that rules out _Gravity's Rainbow,_ then, huh?
>
>Not necessarily; I am ruling out omnibuses, but not books that are just
>fat to begin with. However, realistically, I don't think the
>rights-holders would sell it to me, and I don't think the members would
>buy it from me.
>
>> John Crowley's _Engine Summer_ is the right size, though.
>
>A lot of support for Crowley in this group, I see.
Very diplomatic of you. From what you've said about what does and
does not sell to SFBC members, I'm guessing Crowley would sell rather
fewer copies than the unabridged US Tax Code.
-David
artyw
> The one essential book, seems to me, is _Engine Summer_, by John
> Crowley.
>
> It is a) slim, b) actual SF, c) actually from the 70s, d)
> underappreciated, and e) a great book.
Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness certainly meets qualifications a and c.
The others may be somewhat debatable, but what the hell, I'll vote for
it.
Ethan Merritt
Ron Henry <ronh...@blahblahblah.clarityconnectcom> wrote:
>In no particular order:
>
>Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment
Darn. I didn't think of that one.
That goes right to the top of my list.
The best book Herbert ever wrote.
>James Tiptree, Jr., Up the Walls of the World
This was an important book, but I have my doubts
how popular it would be the second time around.
--
Ethan A Merritt
Anthony Nance
>me, I'm a Senior Editor at the Science Fiction Book Club in the USA,
>which celebrated its 50th birthday in March of 2003. I'd thought it
>would be neat to have a series of books to commemorate that, and so,
>with the help and input of people in this group (and others), I put
>together an 8-book "Science Fiction Book Club 50th Anniversary
>Collection," including some great books of the '50s.
>
>Since that was pretty popular with the club members, a year later I did
>the same thing (again shamelessly asking for suggestions here) for the
>'60s. And now I'm starting to make plans for 2005, when I'd like to do a
>third series, with eight novels from the 1970s.
>
>on-topic discussions of skiffy stuff, so I don't want to artificially
>limit anybody -- so lists of ten books, or lists of all one author, or
>anything else will be fun to read. But, if you'd like to play along,
>these are the things I need to take into account:
>
> 1) I'm trying to cover the gamut of SF, so I don't want to repeat
>authors used earlier if possible. (For example, there may well end up
>being a second Heinlein, Asimov or Clarke book in this decade -- each of
>them has at least one solid candidate -- but I don't think there would
>be room for all three.)
>
> 2) While the club does do a lot of omnibus editions, this series is
>has been entirely things that were actual books of the era (with some
>slight cheating as to dates).
>
>have been recently available, and so won't end up in this series for
>logistical reasons. (I weasel out of a lot of suggestions this way.)
>
> 4) Related to #1, above, I'm hoping to cover as many sub-categories and
>movements as I can. I'd also like to have more books by women and
>fantasy works -- so far there's only been one of each.
>
>'60s books already cheated a bit, so I may do so again.
Having read 1) - 5), and ruling out the rest of the thread (and I think
I caught most of it), I'm left suggesting things that are good/respected,
but which probably shouldn't make the cut. Still, in the interest of not
letting good works become forgotten, and on the off chance that something
catches your fancy:
Keith Laumer - Dinosaur Beach
Christopher Priest - The Inverted World
Tom Reamy - Blind Voices
Brian Stableford - Realms of Tartarus
A&B Strugatski - Roadside Picnic
Tony
Richard Horton
>_Alastor_, Jack Vance -- I think these are consistently better than
>_Maske:Thaery_, and indeed among Vance's best science fiction, but the
>awkward lengths make them far less well-known than they deserve.
I have no argument with the Alastor books -- I didn't want to pick
just one, so I went with the singleton _Maske: Thaery_. I see that
Andrew has mentioned the Tor omnibus -- that wouldn't be bad ...
_Emphyrio_ would be a good choice but it's 1969.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
David Ball
<acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>It's that time of year again.
OK, In an attempt to help this effort, I created a report of all the
SF and Fantasy books published in the 1970s that are in our database.
You can view the report at
http://www.booksnbytes.com/Reports/SFFAuthors1970s.html
Sorry for the very basic formatting. I created the report from Access.
I'm sure there are some books that aren't in the database but I hope
this helps.
-- David
Richard Horton
<acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>> Frederik Pohl, _Gateway_
>
>Did it a couple of years ago, and *nobody* bought it. Not sure why,
>actually. It's still one of Pohl's best novels, and that's saying a lot.
That's why I suggested _JEM_!
(Well, it's not why, but I have to say I prefer _JEM_ among all Pohl's
novels, _Gateway_'s rep notwithstanding.)
Richard Horton
Lebovitz) wrote:
>In article <20040617104121...@mb-m05.aol.com>,
>Bertandamy <berta...@aol.com> wrote:
>>Nova (Delaney)
>
>And I'll second that one.
It's from 1968 I think -- or else it would have been second behind
_Engine Summer_ on my list.
Doom & Gloom Dave
<snip>
>
> *** Yeah well, =some= Piers Anthony ought probably be on the list,
> given
> his popularity and I figure these are his least bad works (almost good
> in places).
When was Macroscope? Oh 1969. I did like Battle Circle, however it is all
moot. I believe Piers will not allow SFBC to sell his books.
Anthony Nance
Anthony Nance <na...@math.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
>In article <40D0F32D...@optonline.com>,
>Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>>It's that time of year again.
>>
>
>
>I caught most of it), I'm left suggesting things that are good/respected,
>but which probably shouldn't make the cut. Still, in the interest of not
>letting good works become forgotten, and on the off chance that something
>catches your fancy:
>
>Keith Laumer - Dinosaur Beach
>Christopher Priest - The Inverted World
>Tom Reamy - Blind Voices
>Brian Stableford - Realms of Tartarus
>A&B Strugatski - Roadside Picnic
Bad form following my own post, but three things come to mind:
1) Bob Shaw - Orbitsville and Wreath of Stars
2) Probably too "young", but: Dahl? Ende?
3) I now see that others mentioned Priest's novel.
Tony
David Tate
> Randy Money wrote:
> > Hi, Andrew.
> >
> > You already have Pohl in the '50s, but I don't see how you can avoid
> > _Gateway_, and I think you've already reissued the first Thomas Covenant
> > chronicles. So, besides those,
> >
> > Joe Haldeman's _The Forever War_
> > Thomas Disch's _On Wings of Song_
> > Edgar Pangborn's _Good Neighbors and Other Strangers_ or _Still I
> > Persist in Wondering_ (story collections, and I know those go over like
> > lead waterwings)
> >
> > I also agree with David Tate's suggestions of Adams' _Watership Down_
> > and Vonnegut's _Slapstick_.
>
> Another title came to mind as I thought about fantasy: _The Face in the
> Frost_ by John Bellairs.
I also thought of that one, but my paperback copy says copyright 1969.
If we can have 1969, I'd rather have Avram Davidson's _The Phoenix
and the Mirror_, but _The Face in the Frost_ would get honorable
mention.
David Tate
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> writes:
> So I understood. I have to admire your persistence in
> finishing so many of them. OTOH I threw Anthony's first
> Cluster novel away from me with extreme force.
Dear me. Well, I've never reread it, so who knows?
> Out of curiosity, did you like any of Silverberg's
> earlier work, "Hawksbill Station", for example?
> Or any of his later work?
Let's see; _Lord Valentine's Castle_. Best Jack Vance novel in years
:-). _Up the Line_. And I probably had moderately positive views on
a number of earlier works that I don't remember in detail.
The ones I hated were books about dull things and boring people,
wasting interesting ideas and good writing, mostly. I tend to hate
that kind of book, as opposed to merely being bored.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
David Dyer-Bennet
> On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 14:20:33 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> wrote:
>
>>David Ball <davidbem...@yahoo.com.nospam> writes:
>>
>>> How about some James White. The sector general books were great!!!
>>
>>Great idea. But which one, from the 1970s?
>
> Forced to choose, I'd say _Ambulance Ship_ (1979) over _Major
> Operation_ (1971). The prime decade for the series was IMO 1983-1992.
I never really felt the later works came up to _Hospital Station_.
David Dyer-Bennet
> Matt Ruff wrote:
>> John Crowley's _Engine Summer_ is the right size, though.
>
> A lot of support for Crowley in this group, I see.
I've only read _Little, Big_. Gorgeous prose, kept me reading, but I
remember very little detail and haven't gone back to Crowley yet.
Tom
>
> want to reply can follow or ignore them as you will.
>
> As usual, I have a tentative preliminary list of books I'm thinking of,
> so I'll post that in a couple of days, and see how closely it fits in
> with everyone else's suggestions.
>
> And, in case anyone cares, the books from the first two series were (in
> series order):
>
> the 1950s:
> Robert A. Heinlein, _The Door Into Summer_
> Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth, _The Space Merchants_
> Arthur C. Clarke, _The City and The Stars_
> Poul Anderson, _Three Hearts and Three Lions_
> Clifford D. Simak, _City_
> Frank Herbert, _Under Pressure_
> Isaac Asimov, _The End of Eternity_
> Alfred Bester, _The Stars My Destination_
>
> the 1960s:
> Philip Jose Farmer, _To Your Scattered Bodies Go_
> Cordwainer Smith, _Norstrilia_
> Philip K. Dick, _The Man in the High Castle_
> Roger Zelazny, _The Dream Master_
> John Brunner, _Stand On Zanzibar_
> Walter M. Miller, Jr., _A Canticle for Leibowitz_
> Ursula K. Le Guin, _The Left Hand of Darkness_
> Alexei Panshin, _Rite of Passage_
>
> --
> Andrew Wheeler
> "There's a conflict," he said. "There's a conflict between land and
> people. The people have to go. They've come all the way out here to make
> mining claims, to do automobile body work, to gamble, to take pictures,
> to not have to do laundry, to own a mini-bike, to have their own CB
> radios and air conditioning, good plumbing for sure, and to sell
> Time-Life books and to work in a deli, to have some chili every morning
> and maybe, maybe to own their own gas stations again and take drugs and
> have some crazy sex, but above all, above all to have a fair shake, to
> get a piece of the rock and a slice of the pie and to spit out the
> window of your car and not have the wind blow it back in your face."
> - The Call of the West
The Best of Leigh Brackett and the Best of Edmond Hamilton
Tom
Craig Richardson
wrote:
>Craig Richardson <crichar...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
>> On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 14:20:33 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>David Ball <davidbem...@yahoo.com.nospam> writes:
>>>
>>>> How about some James White. The sector general books were great!!!
>>>
>>>Great idea. But which one, from the 1970s?
>>
>> Forced to choose, I'd say _Ambulance Ship_ (1979) over _Major
>> Operation_ (1971). The prime decade for the series was IMO 1983-1992.
>
>I never really felt the later works came up to _Hospital Station_.
In many ways, that's true. A big problem for me is that, early on,
Conway pushed many of the same buttons as the Whiny Leper. I mean, I
know /why/ he did (and wish White had had a chance to develop that
aspect of the society further), and he did get better when he got some
maturity, but he's a real jerk in _Hospital Station_, and I prefer not
to deal with him.
--Craig
--
Craig Richardson (Homepage <http://crichard-tacoma.home.att.net>)
"when you move into a new energy source you have to assume there's going
to be some environmental impact,"
-- Jeremy Rifkin renounces the Precautionary Principle
Orit
other people's responses, so I'll just list my favorites from that decade:
_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, Douglas Adams
_Watership Down_, Richard Adams
_A Spell for Chameleon_, Piers Anthony
_The Gods Themselves_, Isaac Asimov
_Cities in Flight_, James Blish
some _Darkover_ books by Marion Zimmer Bradley (can't remember right now
which stand well on their own)
_A Planet Called Treason_, Orson Scott Card (although he rewrote it as
_Treason_ in 1988, so probably wouldn't allow the 1979 version to be
republished)
_The Faded Sun_ trilogy, C. J. Cherryh
_Shogun_, James Clavell (whaddaya mean it's not SF? Isn't it about the
Pilot of a human ship crashing on an alien planet?)
_The Compleat Enchanter_, L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt
_Tactics of Mistake_, Gordon R. Dickson
_The Door Into Fire_, Diane Duane
_The Princess Bride_, William Goldman
_The Stainless Steel Rat {'s Revenge, Saves the World, Wants You!}_,
Harry Harrison
_Holding Wonder_, Zenna Henderson
the "Earthsea" trilogy, Ursula K. Le Guin
some of the "Swords" (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser) books, Fritz Leiber
_House of Zeor_, Jacqueline Lichtenberg
the "Harper Hall" trilogy, Anne McCaffrey (_Dragonsong_, _Dragonsinger_,
_Dragondrums_)
_Dreamsnake_, Vonda N. McIntyre
_Riddlemaster of Hed_, _Heir of Sea and Fire_, _Harpist in the Wind_,
Patricia McKillip
Larry Niven, oh, just about everything he wrote in that decade. I know
everybody is recommending either _Ringworld_ or _Mote in God's Eye_,
both excellent books, but I'd like to remind everybody of _Flight of the
Horse_, _The Magic Goes Away_, _The Flying Sorcerers_, _Inferno_,
_Protector_, _The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton_, and the short-story
collections _All the Myriad Ways_, _Inconstant Moon_ and _Convergent
Series_. This was a *good* decade for Niven, and he absolutely must be
represented in any "best of the 70s" series. IMHO.
Andre Norton should be represented, although I read her so long ago I
can't recommend any specific titles.
_Interview with the Vampire_, Anne Rice (not really a favorite of mine,
but an Important Book of the 70s, I feel)
_Callahan's Crosstime Saloon_, Spider Robinson
_The Same to You, Doubled_, Robert Sheckley
the "Alastor" books by Jack Vance
_Cloudcry_, Sydney J. van Scyoc (although maybe it's better to wait for
the 80s and reprint her _Darkchild/Bluesong/Starsilk_ trilogy)
_Nine Princes in Amber_, Roger Zelazny
Orit
David Johnston
<acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>It's that time of year again.
>
>For those of you who came in late, forgot, or have just been ignoring
>me, I'm a Senior Editor at the Science Fiction Book Club in the USA,
>which celebrated its 50th birthday in March of 2003. I'd thought it
>would be neat to have a series of books to commemorate that, and so,
>with the help and input of people in this group (and others), I put
>together an 8-book "Science Fiction Book Club 50th Anniversary
>Collection," including some great books of the '50s.
>
>Since that was pretty popular with the club members, a year later I did
>the same thing (again shamelessly asking for suggestions here) for the
>'60s. And now I'm starting to make plans for 2005, when I'd like to do a
>third series, with eight novels from the 1970s.
You know, for some reason I have the vague impression that the 1970s
were a horrific desert for science fiction and fantasy.
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person Doom & Gloom Dave <dwh...@hotmail.com> said
Well, if that's true, he's an even bigger @$$hole than I suspected (from
reading his author's notes a few times) then.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Outgoing Msgs are Turing Tested,and indistinguishable from human typing.
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> said
>GSV Three Minds in a Can wrote:
>>
>> Heinlein - Robert A. The Past Through Tomorrow Vol.1
>> 1977
>
>This is, I think, a reprint of half of the mid-60's brick-like hardcover
>that itself collected almost all of the stories from four shorter
>Heinlein books from the '50s that themselves collected stories from his
>first burst of productivity around 1940. So it would be really
>stretching to call it a '70s book.
You are quite correct - that's the danger of asking the database
'highest rated books with first publication 197x'. OK, toss that one out
then.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Nancy Lebovitz
Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>>
>> The complete short fiction of Theodore Sturgeon has been coming out,
>> volume by volume, I think they're up to number nine.
>>
>> I don't know whether that's an adequate substitute for reprinting
>> classic anthologies. It would be massively cool if SFBC were to
>> pick up the complete short fiction series, but I also don't know whether
>> it would make any sense for them to do it.
>
>We do books one at a time, so a nine-book series is pretty much an
>insurmountable obstacle (especially if we can't stick them together into
>omnibuses). And short fiction doesn't really sell that well, either. It
>would be a nice thing to do, but I can't see a way that wouldn't lose a
>lot of money.
I think it's planned for 10 books.
I don't have a feeling for wordcount, but if all the Amber books could
be done as one volume, then I assume the series could at least be
done as pairs, and maybe knocked down to only 2 or 3 books. Still,
as you say, the project doesn't exactly make commercial sense.
Give the Flynn effect another couple of decades.....
Seriously, I've been wondering whether serious non-fiction about popular
fiction selling in a mass market sort of way is evidence that the Flynn
effect (people have been doing better on IQ tests for a long time) is
making a perceptible difference.
--
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
"I went to Iraq and all I got was this lousy gas price"
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
Nancy Lebovitz
_Our Lady of Darkness_ is SF, just not science fiction. Or at least,
I *hope* it's fantasy. If you live in a universe where it isn't,
I'm not visiting.
I agree that it belongs on a list of best sf of the 70s.
From memory: "Go out, little book, and break backs."
Nancy Lebovitz
Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>>
>> Crap, _The Phoenix and the Mirror_ was 1969, and it's now too late.
>> Damn damn damn. No possibility of cheating on the date, I take it?
>
>Well, we've cheated before, so it's not impossible. On the other hand, I
>have to admit to having a blind spot for Davidson, so it's not likely.
>(If I do books I know won't sell, I make sure they're ones I love.)
Have you read _The Phoenix and the Mirror_? It's the only Davidson
novel I like. It's got more plot and less bibble-bibble-bibble than
most Davidson.
potemkin9
My '70s choices:
ยป A. E. van Vogt/ The Battle of Forever (1971) (far future story;
compares favorably with his Golden Age classics -- recomplicated plot,
win-win ending)
ยป Michael Moorcock/ An Alien Heat (1972) (one of Mike's own faves)
ยป Barrington J. Bayley/ The Garments of Caean (1976) (great, funny,
and hard to find unabridged; also: The Fall Of Chronopolis (1974) and
The Soul Of The Robot (1974/6) made it a good decade for Barry.)
ยป Philip K. Dick/ A Scanner Darkly (1977)
----------------
I haven't yet read Engine Summer or Forever War...
I did recently read a 2001 novelette from scifi.com (The Discharge) by
Christopher Priest, who was unknown to me, but the qualilty of the
writing impressed me enough to pick up his omnibus consisting of The
Space Machine (1976) and A Dream of Wessex (1977), which I am looking
forward to reading soon.
And for the hell of it, here's a half dozen '70s novels that I had
anticipated, but found disappointing (we can't all have good taste):
Clarke, Arthur C./ Rendezvous with Rama (1973)
Harrison, M. John/ The Centauri Device (1974)
Silverberg/ The Stochastic Man (1975)
Watson/ The Embedding (1975)
Donaldson/ Lord Foul's Bane (1977)
Sheckley/ Compton Divided (1978)
--
potemkin9
Randy Money
Okay. I checked a library and saw the earliest listing as '78.
Shouldn't have taken that for granted, I guess. I will get to the
Davidson, I will, I will, I will, I just don't know when. But what I'd
really like is to see _Her Smoke Rose Up Forever_ reissued.
Randy M.
David Tate
> _The Princess Bride_, William Goldman
Wow, I can't believe I missed that one. Absolutely.
David Tate
Bill Snyder
Lebovitz) wrote:
>In article <40D24002...@optonline.com>,
>Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Crap, _The Phoenix and the Mirror_ was 1969, and it's now too late.
>>> Damn damn damn. No possibility of cheating on the date, I take it?
>>
>>Well, we've cheated before, so it's not impossible. On the other hand, I
>>have to admit to having a blind spot for Davidson, so it's not likely.
>>(If I do books I know won't sell, I make sure they're ones I love.)
>
>Have you read _The Phoenix and the Mirror_? It's the only Davidson
>novel I like. It's got more plot and less bibble-bibble-bibble than
>most Davidson.
Ever read _The Island Under the Earth_?
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Brian Siano
> Something by Silverberg. I'd use _Dying Inside_ which is *the* SF
> character study. But it may not appeal to your audience since I get
> the impression that a lot of SFBC members are not exactly fans of more
> literary work. But you want the best novels of the 70's, not the best
> novels of the 70's written down to the lowest common denominator, so
> I'm sticking with _Dying Inside_.
I cannot agree more. _Dying Inside_ was one of Silverberg's finest, and
I'd gove it the nod over his other 1970's novels. A truly great novel,
and it's an exemplar of the period as well. In fact, I'd say that if
you're teaching a course, this one's as indispensable as _Stand on
Zanzibar_ or _The Forever War_.
I'd also suggest either _Deathbird Stories_ or _Strange Wine_ by Harlan
Ellison. Okay, they're anthologies of short stories, but both of these
were watersheds for one of the field's best writers. _Deathbird Stories_
has a unifying theme, but _Strange Wine_ (with stories such as
"Croatoan" and "The New York Review of Bird") is more reflective of its
time.
Maybe _Make Room, Make Room!_ by Harry Harrison, to reflect the 1970's
interest in ecology?
Feminist SF doesn't get much better than _The Female Man_ by Joanna Russ.
David Tate
> I think I was also unclear about whether this was strictly novels (you
> didn't bring this up, but others did). We've already done one unabashed
> fix-up in _City_, and I could see doing other short-story collections.
> (One is on my personal short-list.)
In that case, let me strongly nominate
_San Diego Lightfoot Sue, and Other Stories_, Tom Reamy.
It's quintessentially '70s writing, it's excellent, and it's basically
the entire body of memorable work by that particular author. All of
the stories are from the period in question, and so far as I know it
hasn't been published by anyone else since the '83 Ace paperback.
I would also encourage the inclusion of a James Tiptree, Jr.
collection of some sort. It could be any of the period collections
(of which _Warm Worlds, and Otherwise_ is probably the strongest), or
the later collection _Her Smoke Rose Up Forever_ (which features
entirely(?) stories from the '70s), or a new anthology of her best
'70s work. In any case, it wouldn't have been the '70s without her
work, and it was some of the best ever produced in the field.
I think forgetting Reamy would be unfortunate. I think leaving out
Tiptree would leave a gaping hole in the coverage of what '70s SF was
all about.
David Tate
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
> wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu writes:
>
> > David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> writes:
> > So I understood. I have to admire your persistence in
> > finishing so many of them. OTOH I threw Anthony's first
> > Cluster novel away from me with extreme force.
>
> Dear me. Well, I've never reread it, so who knows?
And I've never given it a second try, something I
usually do. Perhaps Anthony's later career discouraged
me.
>
> > Out of curiosity, did you like any of Silverberg's
> > earlier work, "Hawksbill Station", for example?
> > Or any of his later work?
>
> Let's see; _Lord Valentine's Castle_. Best Jack Vance novel in years
> :-).
I liked LVC very much. And I see the Vance connection but
somehow, despite the great detail, it never quite seemed
to have the depth of Vance's creations.
_Up the Line_.
That was a fun book.
And I probably had moderately positive views on
> a number of earlier works that I don't remember in detail.
I'm guessing "The Time Hoppers" and "The Man in the Maze".
>
> The ones I hated were books about dull things and boring people,
> wasting interesting ideas and good writing, mostly.
That's particularly unfortunate as his prose style grew
better (in my opinion, anyway), as he began to focus
on the kinds of subjects/people that you don't like.
Has anyone mentioned Leiber's works on this thread?
I'd suggest:
A Spectre is Haunting Texas
Our lady of Darkness.
Neither, perhaps, in the top ten of the decade, but
they're good novels. Much better, IMO, than many
that have been suggested for the top ten.
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
> Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote in message news:<gW7Ac.70$TL6...@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com>...
> > The one essential book, seems to me, is _Engine Summer_, by John
> > Crowley.
> >
> > It is a) slim, b) actual SF, c) actually from the 70s, d)
> > underappreciated, and e) a great book.
>
> Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness certainly meets qualifications a and c.
> The others may be somewhat debatable, but what the hell, I'll vote for
> it.
I agree as to b, d (heck, I just underappreciated it in
a post a few minutes ago - don't know what I was thinking),
and e.
A fine book.
Nancy Lebovitz
It didn't make much impression, but maybe I should give it another
chance.
Nancy Lebovitz
potemkin9 <nnsc...@sneakemail.com> wrote:
>
>ยป Barrington J. Bayley/ The Garments of Caean (1976) (great, funny,
>and hard to find unabridged; also: The Fall Of Chronopolis (1974) and
>The Soul Of The Robot (1974/6) made it a good decade for Barry.)
Definitely _The Garments of Caen_--weird, satirical, and ingenious.
I don't remember details from _The Fall of Chronopolis_, just the
Freas cover, but I liked it and might reread it some year.
IIRC, _The Soul of the Robot_ was weak.
Still, they could work as an omnibus.
>And for the hell of it, here's a half dozen '70s novels that I had
>anticipated, but found disappointing (we can't all have good taste):
>Clarke, Arthur C./ Rendezvous with Rama (1973)
>Harrison, M. John/ The Centauri Device (1974)
>Silverberg/ The Stochastic Man (1975)
>Watson/ The Embedding (1975)
>Donaldson/ Lord Foul's Bane (1977)
>Sheckley/ Compton Divided (1978)
That last wasn't nearly as good as the short story it was expanded from.
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> writes:
>> The ones I hated were books about dull things and boring people,
>> wasting interesting ideas and good writing, mostly.
>
> That's particularly unfortunate as his prose style grew
> better (in my opinion, anyway), as he began to focus
> on the kinds of subjects/people that you don't like.
Some authors that happens to.
Happened to Delany; he went from one of my very favorite authors to
somebody I've basically stopped reading in one book (Dhalgren, of
course). I did read _Triton_, which was considerably better, but not
enough to really draw me back.
> Has anyone mentioned Leiber's works on this thread?
> I'd suggest:
>
> A Spectre is Haunting Texas
>
> Our lady of Darkness.
>
> Neither, perhaps, in the top ten of the decade, but
> they're good novels. Much better, IMO, than many
> that have been suggested for the top ten.
I think I've seen some mentions; in any case, I'd second either of
those.
Michael Stemper
>David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> writes:
>> >> I'm sure many people will suggest one or more of Silverberg's novels
>> >> from this period, but I hated them.
> Some I've never
> read ("World's Fair 1992". Story collection?)
Nope. Sequel to _Regan's Planet_.
--
Michael F. Stemper
Project Support
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him talk like Mr. Ed
by rubbing peanut butter on his gums.
Michael Stemper
>Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> writes:
>> Matt Ruff wrote:
>>> John Crowley's _Engine Summer_ is the right size, though.
>>
>> A lot of support for Crowley in this group, I see.
>
>I've only read _Little, Big_.
I tried it, based on all of the raves that I read here. Couldn't get
more than about fifty-sixty pages into it. Nothing happened; nothing
looked like it was going to happen.
Mileage obviously varies.
--
Michael F. Stemper
Michael Stemper
>I don't know what's available elsewhere, and I've probably missed some
>other people's responses, so I'll just list my favorites from that decade:
>_Watership Down_, Richard Adams
This is the second or third nomination for this book that I've seen. Is
it really SF? If I remember correctly, it's basically an adventure story
about some rabbits, told from their point of view.
But, they don't do anything unrabbitly, unless you count crossing
a stream on a piece of driftwood. Okay, *having* a point of view
is unrabbitly, but that didn't play a part in the story, that was
just a device that allowed the story to be told.
Bill Reich
> It's that time of year again.
>
> me, I'm a Senior Editor at the Science Fiction Book Club in the USA,
> which celebrated its 50th birthday in March of 2003. I'd thought it
> would be neat to have a series of books to commemorate that, and so,
> with the help and input of people in this group (and others), I put
> together an 8-book "Science Fiction Book Club 50th Anniversary
> Collection," including some great books of the '50s.
>
> Since that was pretty popular with the club members, a year later I did
> the same thing (again shamelessly asking for suggestions here) for the
> '60s. And now I'm starting to make plans for 2005, when I'd like to do a
> third series, with eight novels from the 1970s.
>
Tau Zero, Dispossessed, Time Enough for Love, Ophiuchi Hotline,
Forever War, Dying Inside, King Chondos' Ride (the only obscure one,
part of a two-book series by Paul Edwin Zimmer) Job
Will in New Haven
Randy Money
> In article <fcd1f4e4.04061...@posting.google.com>,
> artyw <art...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote in message news:<gW7Ac.70$TL6...@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com>...
> >> The one essential book, seems to me, is _Engine Summer_, by John
> >> Crowley.
> >>
> >> It is a) slim, b) actual SF, c) actually from the 70s, d)
> >> underappreciated, and e) a great book.
> >
> >Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness certainly meets qualifications a and c.
> >The others may be somewhat debatable, but what the hell, I'll vote for
> >it.
>
> _Our Lady of Darkness_ is SF, just not science fiction. Or at least,
> I *hope* it's fantasy. If you live in a universe where it isn't,
> I'm not visiting.
>
> I agree that it belongs on a list of best sf of the 70s.
>
> From memory: "Go out, little book, and break backs."
[*Sound of flat of palm smacking flat of forehead*]
I can't believe I didn't think to add this to my list since I've been
considering rereading it after I finish the novel I'm reading now.
Geez.
Randy M.
James Nicoll
Not from the POV of someone discovering SF in the 1970s.
One of the great things about the 1970s is that short fiction
was still where a lot of authors cut their teeth. We had the Ben Bova
Analog, the Jim Baen Galaxy and later Destinies, Charlie Ryan's Galileo,
Ferman's F&SF and Scither's Asimov's. This was a time -when- -Analog-
-didn't- -always- -suck-.
But I missed _Worlds of If_, except for one antho that I liked
but somehow lost.
Another great thing about SF in the 1970s was a sudden, dramatic
influx of female writers, from Butler to Vinge. Many have retired, left
for mystery or fallen into shadow by doing Trek books, but there were a
-lot- of good new authors who happened to be women in the 1970s.
Also, the wave of brain-eating that swept SF only started kicking
in in a big way towards the end of the decade.
--
"The keywords for tonight are Caution and Flammability."
Elvis, _Bubba Ho Tep_
David Dyer-Bennet
> In article <cauauq$5nr$1...@news2.netvision.net.il>, Orit writes:
>>I don't know what's available elsewhere, and I've probably missed some
>>other people's responses, so I'll just list my favorites from that decade:
>
>>_Watership Down_, Richard Adams
>
> This is the second or third nomination for this book that I've seen. Is
> it really SF? If I remember correctly, it's basically an adventure story
> about some rabbits, told from their point of view.
>
> But, they don't do anything unrabbitly, unless you count crossing
> a stream on a piece of driftwood. Okay, *having* a point of view
> is unrabbitly, but that didn't play a part in the story, that was
> just a device that allowed the story to be told.
Well, there's a made-up society that we're learning about. It seems
just as much SF (speculative fiction, for this pupose) as any other
fantasy.
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person Michael Stemper <mste...@siemens-emis.com> said
>In article <m2hdt9e...@gw.dd-b.net>, David Dyer-Bennet writes:
>>Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> writes:
>>> Matt Ruff wrote:
>
>>>> John Crowley's _Engine Summer_ is the right size, though.
>>>
>>> A lot of support for Crowley in this group, I see.
>>
>>I've only read _Little, Big_.
>
>I tried it, based on all of the raves that I read here. Couldn't get
>more than about fifty-sixty pages into it. Nothing happened; nothing
>looked like it was going to happen.
Nothing =does= happen, but it doesn't happen with very nice prose and a
cute (if somewhat obvious) twist at the end.
I thought that for Crowley it was a masterpiece of plotting and
characterisation .. but hey, I'd just read _The Deep_ and _Beasts_. Even
so it wouldn't make my 'great books of the 70s' list (it didn't. 8>.).
If I had recommended it, nice Mr Wheeler isn't dumb enough to select it,
and even if he did, I doubt many of his customers would keep it, even if
he was to slip it into their postboxes before they had a chance to
object.
GSV Three Minds in a Can
>>I don't know what's available elsewhere, and I've probably missed some
>>other people's responses, so I'll just list my favorites from that decade:
>
>>_Watership Down_, Richard Adams
>
>This is the second or third nomination for this book that I've seen. Is
>it really SF? If I remember correctly, it's basically an adventure story
>about some rabbits, told from their point of view.
>
>But, they don't do anything unrabbitly, unless you count crossing
>a stream on a piece of driftwood. Okay, *having* a point of view
>is unrabbitly, but that didn't play a part in the story, that was
>just a device that allowed the story to be told.
Well, =I= have it shelved under 'Fantasy' (along with _Duncton Wood_,
_The Wind in the Willows_, etc.). But you're right - there =is= no
clearly defined line between _The Hobbit_ and _Born Free_. Draw your own
boundary, and damn the taxonomists.
David Tate
> Bitstring <OKtAc.98076$0X2.4...@twister.tampabay.rr.com>, from the
> wonderful person Doom & Gloom Dave <dwh...@hotmail.com> said
> >
> >moot. I believe Piers will not allow SFBC to sell his books.
Are you seriously suggesting that Piers Anthony thinks there is a
marketing channel that his work is too good for?
*boggle*
> Well, if that's true, he's an even bigger @$$hole than I suspected (from
> reading his author's notes a few times) then.
I'm not sure it's humanly possible to be a bigger @$$hole than Piers
Anthony seems to be when you read his author's notes.
David Tate
Peter D. Tillman
Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 00:57:53 GMT, Andrew Wheeler
> <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>
> >> Frederik Pohl, _Gateway_
> >
> >Did it a couple of years ago, and *nobody* bought it. Not sure why,
> >actually. It's still one of Pohl's best novels, and that's saying a lot.
>
> That's why I suggested _JEM_!
>
> (Well, it's not why, but I have to say I prefer _JEM_ among all Pohl's
> novels, _Gateway_'s rep notwithstanding.)
Well, mileage may vary. I tried to reread JEM recently, in part because
Rich has sung it's praises, and set it aside after a few chapters.
Well-written, yeah, but *seriously* bleak, and with characters you'd
like to see die. Messily. Painfully.
Gateway is, despite the bleak backstory, a much more positive book, and
the Heechee stuff is just flat cool. Anyway, my favorite Pohl novel.
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Doom & Gloom Dave
comparison. At least the author notes I read of his up until I read Bio and
quit him forever.
Bill Miller
ten that I liked quite a bit. Of course, that was my Golden Age...
Rendezvous With Rama
The Fountains Of Paradise
Gateway
The Face
The Ophiuchi Hotline
Ringworld
Monument
Tau Zero
The Mote in God's Eye
Doorways in the Sand
--
Bill Miller
"Remember Thor Five!"
http://home.houston.rr.com/wbmiller3
Bill Miller
>
>
> Not from the POV of someone discovering SF in the 1970s.
>
> One of the great things about the 1970s is that short fiction
> was still where a lot of authors cut their teeth. We had the Ben Bova
> Analog, the Jim Baen Galaxy and later Destinies, Charlie Ryan's Galileo,
> Ferman's F&SF and Scither's Asimov's. This was a time -when- -Analog-
> -didn't- -always- -suck-.
>
> But I missed _Worlds of If_, except for one antho that I liked
> but somehow lost.
>
> Another great thing about SF in the 1970s was a sudden, dramatic
> influx of female writers, from Butler to Vinge. Many have retired, left
> for mystery or fallen into shadow by doing Trek books, but there were a
> -lot- of good new authors who happened to be women in the 1970s.
>
> Also, the wave of brain-eating that swept SF only started kicking
> in in a big way towards the end of the decade.
AOL! Just look at the list of works from Anderson, Niven, and Clarke
during those years.
Doug
without this one.
_Shockwave Rider_ by John Brunner -- influential? You betcha! Good?
Yeah baby!
_Midnight at the Well of Souls_ by Jack Chalker -- big, fun, big fun.
_The Ophiuchi Hotline_ by John Varley -- anything by JV is worthy.
_Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang_ by Kate Wilhelm -- the title alone
is awesome, but so's the book.
_Tau Zero_ by Poul Anderson -- slim and sharp, like a stiletto.
_Inherit the Stars_ by James P. Hogan -- really like this one,
especially the ending. Or _The Two Faces of Tomorrow_.
_Wild Seed_ by Octavia Butler -- it might have been a 1980 book, but
that means it was written in the 70s, right? It's just so cool.