By James Davis Nicoll: Side project. I am going to recruit some young people I know to read and react to a selection of SF’s canon, the classics people my age are sure people their age should have read. It’s inspired by this Facebook comment by Adam-Troy Castro:
Nobody discovers a lifelong love of science fiction through Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein anymore, and directing newbies toward the work of those masters is a destructive thing, because the spark won’t happen. You might as well advise them to seek out Cordwainer Smith or Alan E. Nourse — fine tertiary avenues of investigation, even now, but not anything that’s going to set anybody’s heart afire, not from the standing start. Won’t happen.
So my question to your commentariat is: which dozen works should I pick.
They should be considered core works. I’ve arbitrarily selected 1980 as the cutoff date: it is mid way between us now and WWII.
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Maybe I am just to old, at 41, to understand the young people with their smart phones and the twitter. But when I was growing up I read a lot of books that were 50 or 100 or more years older then I was and I liked it. Of course I might not be the best example since I styled myself as the last Roman until I was 13 years old.
The Technicolor Time Machine, Harry Harrison
Still damn good.
The Mote in God’s Eye – Niven & Pournelle
The Ophiuchi Hotline – John Varley
Forever War – Joe Haldeman
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
A good short story collection, with some innovative ideas (at the time) is
The Persistence of Vision – John Varley
Seconding Peter J’s recommendation of John Christopher’s “Death of Grass” . It’s a thoughtful and surprisingly early entry into the bleak postapocalyptic genre.
(Christopher’s tripods trilogy is also an excellent intro to SF.)
John Christopher’s Tripods series.
For those willing to take on somewhat baroque language, Peake’s Ghormenghast books (hey, the last one is definitely sf and not fantasy).
Some of Joan Aiken’s Wolves Chronicles alternate histories have anacronistic technology, so perhaps those, too. Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory could work, too.
Really, I think there’s a lot of fabulous post-1980 work that would have greater appeal. There’s been a lot of really great children’s and YA genre work since then. Even Interstellar Pig was from the mid-80s.
I got heavily into Vance in my teens. I don’t know if I could pull a specific reccomendation out of that, though. Maybe the Demon Princes series.
I always have trouble with recommending to abstract people.
Do they care about politics? The Dispossessed
Are they past caring about politics? Vonnegut
YA? Earthsea
Big Alien Worlds? Majipoor Chronicles
Ponies? Pern
Brother Cadfael? Deryni
Not fake medieval, real medieval? Tolkien
Gaiman? Lud-in-the-Mist
Fun & some drinks? Tom Robbins
In love? The Left Hand of Darkness
Fifthing everyone else’s recs of SF Hall of Fame & Again, Dangerous Visions.
Also, I’m confused about how Heinlein’s gender politics are problematic (they are) and The Stars my Destination isn’t.
Le Guin, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters. As a kid, I recall finding it easier to sample stories before embarking on a novel – and this collection gives you many different flavors of Le Guin, has Omelas in it, and I’ve noticed it’s back in print.
Here in 9407, I’m glad to say that Le Guin is still remembered, possibly because she eventually did get that Nobel people had been muttering about for years…
I reserve my ire for the author, who sabotaged Podkayne before she even began:
William Gibson observed once that “Neuromancer” doesn’t work for younger readers because they wonder why no one seems to have a cell phone.
Lots of older SF stories have plot points that depend on characters lacking information because:
1) No one has a cell phone, so they can’t just call or text to keep one another updated.
2) Wikipedia doesn’t exist, so they can’t just look stuff up.
3) Robot probes don’t exist, so they can’t know what’s on a planet until a human crew goes there in person.
4) Computers don’t exist, so key calculations have to be done by hand.
Lots of stories that I enjoyed as a kid fail utterly today. (It’s astonishing how many of Heinlein, Anderson, and Clarke’s stories depended on the protagonist’s ignorance of something.) It’s hard to suspend disbelief enough to believe in a future human civilization that built a star drive but never managed any of the four technologies above.
Another problem is that the average quality of writing in modern novels is much higher. Books written on typewriters were hard to edit, but today, editing is easy, and modern novels are polished to a fare-thee-well. This has made it easier for more people to try their hand at writing, which means the best of today are very well-written indeed. (Speaking strictly of the writing, not the concepts.)
Add in the cultural changes everyone else has been talking about, and it’s tough. There are exceptions–“Nightfall” by Isaac Asimov is just as strong as it ever was–but not so many as people imagine.
So before you recommend that great story you enjoyed so much as a kid, you should try rereading it. You’re likely to discover that the magic has gone away–and not just for youthful readers.
Even when they have robot probes, characters are often oddly averse to using them. And there’s another issue, which is the well known scientific principle that the faster the rocket, the worse the sensors. Apparently. Stuff we would determine using telescopes, people in novels have to determine by flying up to the target and licking it.
Watching mystery writers struggle with the implications of cell phones, smart phones and the internet for their standard plots has been interesting.
I learned to stop recommending works to kids until I had reread, rewatched, or relistened to them after a few object lessons from the suck fairy.
On the one hand, I have reacquainted myself with some very fine things.
On the other, I have come to realize how little discernment or awareness I had as a youngster.
On a third hand (because why not) I have also come to some understanding that acclaim is not the same thing as quality, that many good things have flaws, and that every era has its blind spots including ours, so one may take lessons from past errors with humility.
I’d also go with works by Norton, especially for younger readers. For the 13-18 set, I’ll add my voice to those suggesting Le Guin. The Dispossessed was a revelation at that age: a childhood without any rules except mutual aid? Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light and Damnation Alley stood out for me back then too.
But, since I remember the time before cell phones, my opinion may be corrupted by a childhood of transistor radios and two-channel tv.
Jayn:
Not to mention “Things” and “The Masters,” which aside from the Orsinian stories are probably my favorite short fiction by Le Guin. I second this recommendation.
The ones that I’ve used for classics for my nieces and nephews outside of things like Tolkien tend towards the following:
Dune – action fantasy story grafted on climate and resource politics.
Tunnel in the Sky – Heinlein’s ‘desert island’ story holds up a lot better than some of his other stuff.
The Deathbird Stories – Ellison’s work, especially here, will seem familiar for the works it inspired.
Pern/Wizard of Earthsea – if they’re younger. I’ve found Pern especially does well with younger girls, who all want their own dragon to kick ass with.
Star Songs of an Old Primate – Tiptree’s work was advanced and will still appeal, I think.
Moon is a Harsh Mistress – ages well, especially for younger men. May lead to Rand, so apply with caution.
Ender’s Game – still accessible, easy for a younger reader to empathize and insert themselves into the story.
I know it isn’t SF, but let me toss in that The Last Unicorn still works.
@James Davis Nicoll My brother has been writing a legal thriller, and he has a scene where his client’s 14-year-old shows the lawyer hero a gold coin in a cardboard coin holder with some mysterious letters written on it. In his book, the lawyer takes the kid to a coin store where they get the coin identified.
I told him that the kid will have already tried typing the mysterious letters into Google and choosing “image search.” I challenged him to do the same.
He wrote back “Damn Google!”
It really is amazing how many plots (in all genres) revolve around character ignorance. Going forward, I think successful stories will either have to use contrived settings (e.g. set the story in the 1980s) or else be much more sophisticated. One can always hope for the latter.
Heinlein’s juveniles never did anything for me. Books from 1980 and before that did do it for me:
Dragonsong/Dragonsinger/Dragondrums
The Lucky Starr books
A Wizard of Earthsea/The Tombs of Atuan/The Farthest Shore
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy/The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Spaceling (by Doris Piserchia, one of those female authors who seems to have been well-known in her time but forgotten as soon as she stopped writing)
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and subsequent books (Joan Aiken, ditto)
Journey to the Center of the Earth
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Additional books I believe I’d have gotten along with if I encountered them at that age:
The Martian Chronicles
The Cockatrice Boys
Anything by Ursula K. Le Guin
Off the top of my head…
Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
Definitely agree with the choice of The Dispossessed
something by Samuel Delany
Heinlein, Starship Troopers
early Octavia Butler, either the early Patternist series or Kindred slips in the time frame
Thomas Disch Camp Concentration
I was thinking that the audience reading SmD are going to be divided into two groups: the majority, who ate going to be going “Ugh, this society doesn’t make any sense, and is really sick”, and the Gamergate/4Chan/MRA crowd, that’s going to go “Oh yeah, THAT’S the future for me!
Likewise…
Lord of Light: you mean the novel where the main female characters are a) a brothel madam, and b) a REALLY unfortunate description of a psycho-lesbian who really wants to be a man?
Ringworld: you mean the novel where the female characters are basically only there to have sex with the male hero? The one with the woman shoo does mind control with her addictive sex techniques? Maybe if your young person is one of those college guys who mutter about how women have all the power. Otherwise…
Put the two together, and The Star Beast becomes an amusing five-page short story.
*Take a photo.*
*Google Image Search*
“Hey! Lummox is an alien princess!”
I’d say Doorways in the Sand had a similar problem, but this is evidently a universe where the items on the interstellar kula ring don’t come with basic instructions.
Now I’ve gone back to see what I might have forgotten to suggest and see we’re talking college age. Argh, cross out everything, restart.
The non-Harper-Hall-trilogy Pern novels
The first Amber series (second is good too, but it’s post-1980)
The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings
Probably still most of the Le Guin recommendations
Probably still The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
…hmm, that’s all I can come up with for now. I was reading mostly ’80s and ’90s works when I was in college.
Is this meant to be just science fiction? That’s what I was assuming. Because my list for sci-fi + fantasy would be quite different from the one I posted.
Two anthologies:
Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One
Tomorrow’s Children
Dune
Enchantress from the Stars (for younger teens)
The Ship Who Sang
Dragonsong/Dragonsinger
Are H.G. Wells and Jules Verne straying too far? If not, I’d recommend The Time Machine (or almost any of the early Wells) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Frankenstein, as well, and probably Orwell’s 1984.
@greg Neuromancer feels really dated when I read it now.
1. Second Variety is a good intro.
2. I’d forgotten about Chocky. It used to be a standard in UK schools but I haven’t read it in eons.
Peace Is My Middle Name suggested Lathe of Heaven, which is a great way of ticking of Le Guin and P.K.Dick in one hit.
I also had a look to see what the older (and less voracious reader) of my two own YAs had read that fit the criteria:
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
The Lord of the Rings
Animal Farm
Earthsea Trilogy (read and recently re-read for an English essay)
+1 for “Dune”.
Older works have an additional disadvantage when competing for eyeballs with contemporary works. Older works often come across as dated, because they are. For James’ reading list of canonical SF, the works should be classic *and* timeless. Dune fits because it’s not only a classic, it has in-universe reasons for limiting technology which helps it avoid the “dated” problem.
As somebody once said, “this is science fiction, we can have as manyhands as we like.”
I have problems recommending “I loved this when I was your age” books to kids n general, but you all seem to be bringing the authors/titles I’d think. Except . . . had anyone mentioned Zenna Henderson yet?
The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin
I like it when folks explain their recommendations. In that spirit…
Childhood’s End. Partly because I think it’s got one of the most perfectly emotionally perfect endings ever – tragedy? no, but hopeful? only in a sense. And because, like Neuromancer, it’s got this fascinating mix of extrapolations that hit and ones that miss.
Three Hearts And Three Lions, for anyone who enjoys fantasy in computer games and such, since it’s such an important source they’ll not have heard of, likely.
The Long Tomorrow. Post-apocalyptic is a hardy perennial in both print and computer games, but it tends to involve the emergency of genuine barbarism. Brackett took it in quite a different direction, and I think fans of Fallout and such are likely to find it fresh and interesting.
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. So much of Tiptree’s work remains vivid and fresh. If i had to pick just a few…”The Girl Who Was Plugged In”, “The Screwfly Solution”, “The Women Men Don’t See”, “Love Is The Plan The Plan Is Death”.
Clifford Simak’s WAY STATION. and CITY.
Closer to the current time, David Brin’s EARTH. At least the internet is there.
I tried getting my son to read LORD OF THE RINGS. He was repelled by someone named Tom Bombadiddle.(whatever). The Jar Jar Binks of fantasy.
Peter J said;
“…we can have as manyhands as we like.”
Manyhands… wasn’t that the name of the famous electrician from down in the city? Tall guy, long black braid, I think he was at least part amerind…?
—–
Bruce Baugh: I’d suggest that in light of the skiffy channel’s upcoming miniseries, maybe give Childhood’s End a miss? There’s a solid chance of it landing in either ‘starship-troopers-misleading-adaptation’ land, or else in ‘I-just-saw-it-on-TV-so-now-the-ending’s-ruined’ land. Maybe ‘Fall of Night’ instead – Alvin’s position as ‘only kid on the planet’ should be easy for readers of this list to grok, since they’ve been doing so much reading of old books…
LordMelvin: Maybe some Clarke short stories, instead, then.
As for Ender’s Game…
I bounced really hard off of it as a kid. When I reread it as an adult, I realized how sexist it is, which is probably why I disliked it as a kid. The idea that women evolved in such a way as to make them generally unfit for the school is irksome and that those who do make it are not normal females, well, it doesn’t necessarily make me want to recommend the book to girls or boys (who, to be frank, really do benefit from reading texts in which girls are considered to be just as important as boys are). /crankiness
Ursula Le Guin: Rocannon’s World
Samuel Delany: The Jewels of Aptor
Roger Zelazny: This Immortal
Piers Anthony: Macroscope
Joan D Vinge: The Outcasts of Heaven Belt
H G Wells: The Time Machine
Gene Wolfe: The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Poul Anderson: The Corridors of Time
Arthur C Clarke: Childhood’s End
Robert Heinlein: Starship Troopers
Isaac Asimov: The Stars, Like Dust
Keith Roberts:The Furies
(Some of these have stood the test of time better than others. And tomorrow I’d have a completely different list.)
Possibly Downbelow Station, as I think the difficulty in getting into C. J. Cherryh is a constant no matter what decade.
Merchanter’s Luck might be a better choice, as seen from here in 3251. (Published in 1982.)
Also, the Chanur books.
I should have unpacked my recommendations a bit. I especially wanted to advance the short stories “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” by Ellison, the short story version of “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, and “The Veldt” by Bradbury, which I think are transcendant works — and the respective collections they are in have several other great short stories to carry the volume.
Flowers for Algernon (the novel) is already in some high school curricula, so I wouldn’t worry about that one – although when my daughter brought it home, I told her she ought to read the novelette version someday.
In general I would recommend novellas and novelettes to start out with, if they could be easily located; for example:
Niven, “Rammer,” “The Fourth Profession,” “Flash Crowd”
Silverberg, “Hawksbill Station”
Vance, “Rumfuddle”
Varley, “Blue Champagne,” “Press Enter #” (the latter might read as a period piece, but it still works just fine)
Sturgeon, “Hurricane Trio”
Dick, “Second Variety”
Heinlein, “Universe”
A number of people have suggested Ringworld, and it does have the distinct advantage that the opening works extremely well and has done so for (gulp) 45 years. No prior knowledge is needed. As for the perhaps unrealistic treatment of the two female (humanoid) characters who have any dialogue, (i) they are each shown to be entirely new sorts of women, one bred for luck (her own, as it turns out) and the other a native; and (ii) given that Earth is rotating in the wrong direction – at least in the first Ballantine edition, the only one I’ve ever owned* – this isn’t our universe at all, so such women are excusable for that reason alone.
*I do also have a German edition from the mid-’70s that translates Niven’s corrected version, where Louis starts out in Munich instead of Greenwich, but erroneously transposes the fraction of a minute required to travel a light year in a quantum hyperdrive II-equipped ship: “five-fourths of a minute” becomes the even faster “vier Fünftel einer Minute.”
Dex:
I re-read it just a few months ago and – no. It does not hold up at all. The whole beginning is a slag that have been outdated. You have people travelling to to other planets using portals – on ox charts. It was more than irritating. So no, if I bounce of it (who used to like it very much), I doubt that youths of today will like it.
Possibly Downbelow Station, as I think the difficulty in getting into C. J. Cherryh is a constant no matter what decade.
If we are including Dune, I would suggest Cherry’s Faded Sun series, as the two stories taken together would seem to offer some interesting discussion.
Out of curiosity, how old are these young people, and what kind of exposure have they already had?
“The difficulty of getting into C.J. Cherryh”?
The only difficulty I’ve ever had with Cherryh is getting out alive; getting in is no problem. She’s been scaring the bejesus out of me since Gate of Ivrel (1976?).
Suggestions to start with The Faded Sun or Chanur books are good ones. Downbelow or Cyteen are pretty high mountains to climb on a first attempt.
ObGenerationGap:
The Beloit College Mindset List might be useful as a reminder of the likely life-experiences & worldviews of James’ intended readers of these canonical works.
My favourite Wyndam is The Crysalids. It had the advantage of not being as bleak as much of his other works.
For Heinlein give them the short story collection The Green Hills of Earth. This showcases what a complex thinker he was and why it is a mistake to pidgion-hole him.
As older readers I agree with everyone who recommended LeGin’s The Dispossessed or Left Hand of Darkness
Issac Asimov: Nine Tomorrows. Another short story collection, but this has some of my favourites in it including The Ugly Little Boy and The Last Question.. Bicentennial Man and Other Stories also has some good shorts, but I don’t think the “lesser” stories are as good as those in Nine Tomorrows.
Okay, here’s something from before 1980 that grabbed me hard during my college years and has never let go: The Cyberiad. It might only work on computer science majors, though.
Asimov’s Nightfall and Pebble in the Sky
Gordon Dickson’s Dorsai
and due solely to the fact that I still remember it fifty some years after reading it:
Tom Godwin’s Space Prison
Seconding Rose Embolism’s critiques of the roles of women in some of these suggestions. And I have no idea why Ringworld not being “our” Universe in any way mitigates the problem that there are no relatable women characters, either.
I honestly don’t think you can present a survey of SF classics without stepping on the sexism rake; the best you can do is a acknowledge the problem and deliberately work to include counter-examples, like Tiptree, Russ, and Octavia Butler.
Then presumably I get to judge the men, who are clearly meant to be akin to those of this universe, very harshly for sleeping with them. I don’t believe cardboard cutouts can give meaningful consent, after all.
(Also, it’s just weird how the protagonist whines about how desperately unfair it is that the puppeteer has a sexy voice. Deeply. Weird. I read it at fifteen and went “Dude. What is your damage?” The universe doesn’t revolve around your wang, dude, and you devoting paragraphs of TANJing about it makes you look like that saddest little sad boy on Reddit sobbing that the phone sex operators might be wearing sweat pants.)
All that said, I’ll second Brin’s Sundiver, which is still a pretty solid alien mystery and gets the Uplift universe rolling.