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

Heinlein's early stuff was good, try 'The Unpleasant Profession of Dr Jonathon ~Hoag', but he turned into a dirty old man, writing books where the nubile young female lead falls for the 50 year old, then went into wish fulfilment with Methusalah Smith or whatever his name was.

Bob Shaw did indeed write some good stuff, Bob Ballard too.

Sorry, I haven't read the backlog....
has anyone mentioned Margaret Atwood? I heard that she insists that it isn't - but The Handmaid's Tale is SF to me.

Yes, and so is Oryx and Crake - highly recommended.

I also don't think that Ursula le Guin dates at all, because what she writes about is less the "science" part of SF, more about the relationships between people. Bloody women SF writers eh!

RF
RF

Can anyone remember reading Jerome Bixby's short story "It's a good life. It was I think dramatised in one of the Twilight Zone films. Borderline SF/Horror

Great last lines of SF short stories:

Clarke: The nine billion names of God:

Look," whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.)

Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.

Or The Star by Clarke. But that would give away some of the plot.

The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula le Guinne
Philip K Dick - Not only a great writer of SF but the author of some of the best titles of SF books: The Galactic Pot Healer, The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, The zap gun, Flow my tears, the policeman said, Our friends from Frolix 8, Do androids dream of electric sheep? We can get it for you wholesale, Don't you wan't to at least pick up a book with one of those titles?

>>Yes, and so is Oryx and Crake - highly recommended<<

Thanks.

But why does she insist it's not sci-fi? Is it not literary enough?

Has this thread been through John Wyndham yet? Some of it isn't so good, but things like the Midwich Cuckoos was brilliantly written.

brilliantly written - unlike my last post. Sorry. Brain ache.

I don't think I've ever seen Atwood deny writing SF. At least, no more than Ballard does, and pervesely he went on to describe Empire of the Sun as SF just to p*ss of all the johnny-come-latelys who hopped on his bandwagon.

I think you'd be forgiven for not having read any Jim Blish other than that, Jim. He has fallen massively out of favour since his death. But if you are interested, try getting hold of a copy of 'Black Easter', his marvellous novel about the Apocalypse when the city if Hell appears in Death Valley. Also worth looking out for are 'A Case of Conscience' and the City in the Stars series, which were way ahead of there time. 'Doctor Mirabilis' is a fascinating book about Roger Bacon, monk and supposed alchemist which many say ids Blish's best work.

As for Golden Age SF that doesn't stand up, well, there's loads of it (probably as much if not more than there is 'new wave' which now looks hopelessly dated or silly. First of the block would have to be the quite talentless A. E. Vogt.

It's a Good Life can be found stull. Try finding copies of the Robert Silverberg SF Hall of Fame, volumes I and II. It contains not only 'It's a Good Life', but also the chilling 'All Mimsty were the Borogroves' and several other truly great short stories that were written too early to be considered for Hugos and Nebulas.

Of course, I've never been able to view 'It's good Life' the same since they based a Simpsons Halloween episode on it...

Blues-

From http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/handmaids_tale-author.asp

"Q: It's hard to pin down a genre for this novel. Is it science fiction?

A: No, it certainly isn't science fiction. Science fiction is filled with Martians and space travel to other planets, and things like that. That isn't this book at all. The Handmaid's Tale is speculative fiction in the genre of Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nineteen Eighty-Four was written not as science fiction but as an extrapolation of life in 1948. So, too, The Handmaid's Tale is a slight twist on the society we have now."

The difference between 'science-fiction' and 'speculative fiction' is a pedants one, and usually used by bores like Atwood who know nothing of which they speak. They little speech could have come straight out of the mouth of a bore like Kingsley Amis.

I apologise in any event because I was thinking of the much wittier, clevererer and less blind Doris Lessing.

Oh, I wasn't agreeing with her- it's not a term I would personally ever bother using.

Doris Lessing? Who she?

Lessing is a Canadian, I think . Her most well known work is a book called, if I remember rightly The Golden Notebook.

David Langford has a regular bit in his newsletter "Ansible" dedicated to authors who vehemently deny that their latest, blatantly sf novel is "not really sf". Atwood, Ishiguro, the list of names goes on and on of people who don't want to be associated with "talking squids in outer space" because that might get their books put on the shelf next to Terry Pratchett and other penurious nonentities instead of next to real talent like Tony Parsons...

SoRB

I've seen that- if you're not a Ansible subscriber, then I seem to recall he covered the issue in a SFX column recently.

Surely this is just a continuation of the work that his old mucker John Brosnan used to do in Starburst, along with his invaluably hilarious 'It's Only a Movie' column.

I still miss John Brosnan. Some of his SF wasn't half bad, and his Starburst columns were always great fun.

"if you're not a Ansible subscriber"

... then Google will take you to the Ansible archive, where you can read loads and loads of back issues. Recommended...

SoRB

I've read one Doris Lessing - but to my shame can't remember it at all. I'll have to dig it out.

Atwood has a point - but I agree with BS it is a pedantic one. I'll continue to think of her as SF - although I don't really feel the need to pigeonhole any sort of writing.

Anyway, back to Lessing. She was born in Persia (as it was):

"Doris Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Persia (now Iran) on October 22, 1919. Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)."

Now I come to think of it, I think the book I read was stories about Africa.

(taken from here http://lessing.redmood.com/biography.html