h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Would you like to contribute?

As there seem to be some empty shelves may I suggest some new additions.

My favourite sci-fi writer at the moment is Iain M. Banks. His series of 'Culture' novels posit future civilisations at peace, war and all stages inbetween. Banks's prose is very dark but gleams with wit and humour. Unlike most 'series' of books (e.g. Frank Herbert's sprawling Dune series), you can dip in and read any of them in any order as they are set hundreds of years apart and all feature new characters and situations. Contrary to that, my advice is to start with the first book "Consider Phlebas" and keep reading.
Iain Banks also writes superb 'straight' fiction like the TV dramatised "The Crow Road", the warped "Wasp Factory" and the bizarre dream landscape of "The Bridge".

I imagine it would be a good idea to file copies of "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" here as well as in Humour! Very good series of books but can't quite remember who wrote it, can anyone help refresh my memory?

Lastly, George Orwell's "1984" cannot be beaten as a nightmarish dystopian vision of a 'parallel' future. The way that the society destroys the 'ordinary' and unheroic Winston Smith is told grippingly page after page as his world collapses around him. The adoption of 'NewSpeak' (a language like English but with all the 'dangerous' rebellious words excised) by the society leads to a life where you can be arrested merely for thinking differently. A famous Apple Mac ad in the '80s was based on 1984's world of conformity and their current campaign is 'Think Different'. But I digress; this book gets more relevant with age.

Another good science fiction writer is Julian May. Her Galactic Milieu trilogy is excellent.

But what about Orson Scott Card eh ??? I don't mean those books on Alvin he did, I mean Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead(there were two more but they are good at best).
Not to forget Mr. Laurence VanCott Niven...

I like AE van Vogt. Hard to find his books, try second hand shops, but full of interesting stories that parody modern life in a lot of ways.

I have almost all of them(A.E. van Vogt's books I mean). The one I really like a lot is Voyage of the SpaceBeagle. It's JUST like StarTrek only over 10 years before S.T. was written.

By the way ; another fantastic father of SF was Eric Frank Russel, anyone who hasn't read WASP yet has missed out on SF. That sounds arrogant so read it so you can contradict me

Hey, maybe you can help us then. The Worlds of Null A. We (as in my partner and I) believe there are three books in the Null A series but we only have two (that one and The Pawns of Null A). Is there a third, what is it and is it still in print?

The book K-PAX by Gene Brewer is one of the most fascinating and different SF books I have read in quite a while. It's all about a guy in a mental institution who convinces his doctor that he's a tourist from outer space. Apparently faster than light travel is all done with mirrors...

Hi Smurf,

The Null-A books are :

The world of Null-A
The players of Null-A
The pawns of Null-A

In that order. Sorry I only have a comlete version in dutch but I usually find my books(even these) at Amazon.com. I used to shop at FutureFantasy.com but they seem to have disappeared.

BFN,

TM.

Ta very much.

BTW, the best short story - IMNSHO - is Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. It was written in the fifties and he never wrote any SF before or after this story. I'm used to a lot of SF in all forms but that story really got to me somehow 'cause it's more about people than it is about spaceships and the likes but it still qualifies as SF(only just mind you).

Synopsis : a mouse is made much more intelligent by conducting an experiment on it and ofcourse they want to try it out on a human being. For that they take the janitor who is quite retarded etcetera etcetera(remember LawMower Man ? Almost the same thing). The main part of the story consists of entries in the diary of the janitor and the part where it gets really heavy is when the experiment doesn't really work out as it was supposed to.
And forget about superbeings it's nothing like that at all...

Recommended reading for anyone who has gone beyond Mad magazine and their Beano-collection.

TM.

I loved these books, multicoloured land, that was the first wasn't it? Didn't know Julian was a woman though, is that right?

"The Many-Coloured Land"

And yes, Julian May is a woman, and it's also her real name, apparently.

Has anyone read her new ones? Perseus Spur was one. How do they compare with the Galactic Milieu book (which I loved)?

Of course - many coloured land that's it. I am a trifle distracted today. Can't think why If they are as good I would certainly like to read them too.

The Many Coloured Land is the first book of the saga of exiles a
four book set. The Galactic Mileu ones are a set of prequel books
showing events that happened after the Intervention (yet another
of the books). The whole set up does go round in a big circle so
you could start anywhere and end up back where you started.
A friend though recommends to start at Intervention, then do the
Galactic Mileu stuff (Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat)
and then go into the saga of exiles (Many Coloured Land, Golden Torc,
Non-Born King and The Adersary)

That's the chronological way of reading them, but actually you might be better off reading them in the order they were written - the four 'exile' books, then Intervention, then the Galactic Milieu trilogy.

Although doing it this way means you know the ultimate fate of the main characters in the prequels, that doesn't really matter - it just amplifies the great sense of tragedy the prequel books have.

I'll never forget the end of one of the GM books - the second, I think. The first two books had centred around the mystery of who the central villain actually is (a Phantom Menace if you will), and the identity is revealed in the very last sentence of the second book, almost as a throwaway - designed to make you scream because you'll have to wait ages for the last book. It's one time where I was glad I hadn't glanced at the last page (as I occasionally have done).

The Galactic Mileu set is where I have got up to then. I have read Jack the Bodiless, but should probably read it again because it was such a long time ago. I waited for the next in the series, but it seemed to take such a long time to come out that I forgot to get it and then lost track of the series. Right next holiday's reading material sorted out. Thanks all..

Ah, yes, Larry Niven indeed. And what of Jerry Pournelle?

No SF collection would be complete without at least some of the works of Dr Asimov, and probably Robert Heinlein - thogh maybe not E E "Doc" Smith as that is fairly exclusively space-opera and a bit of an acquired taste.

John W Cambell, "Who Goes There" (filmed - rather indifferently -as "The Thing") and his Analog anthologies.

And an absolute requirement on my desert island would be the complete works of the great Harry Harrison: the Stainless Steel Rat books, works of genius all; The Technicolour Time Machine (where else can you find out what "vremeotron" means?); A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!; the fabulous Bill, The Galactic Hero; the Deathworld series and too many others to name.



For the younger reader, John Christopher's Tripods trilogy.

Oh, and you have to have a copy of Karel Capek's "Rossum's Universal Robots," for obvious reasons.

I wouldn't dismiss E.E. 'Doc' Smith. I've just finished re-reading the Skylark series, and it really is great fun in a highly anachronistic way. Sexist, slightly racist, completely dismissive of all known laws of physics, but still enourmously charming, and unbeatable in their sense of increasing scale.

Of course, my view is undoubtedly coloured by my having read them first as a teenager, but 'Doc' is nevertheless an important writer in SF history, and if you get the opportunity to read his books, especially the 'Lensman' series which was recently republished over here, you should take it. You'll have fun.