Einstein's Dreams is easily in my top five fave books of all time.
Einstein's Dreams is easily in my top five fave books of all time.
Losing is like fertilizer: it stinks for a while, then you get used to it. (Tony, Hibbing)
It's in my top 7.Quoting bac0n (view post)
That's awesome that you love it, too. I don't think I've ever come across another person who loves it as much as I do.
4. To Marry Medusa (aka The Cosmic Rape) (1958) - Theodore Sturgeon
Most SF fans will call me crazy for placing this novel above Sturgeon's classic More Than Human. But, what can I say? I do like it more. This novel stunned me. It deals with a similar theme - a gestalt human - but it does so from a vastly different perspective.
Like Godbody, this novel is told from the point of view of a number of different protagonists, and Sturgeon expertly captures each of their personalities and thoughts. He really is a master of crafting distinct POV characters.
To Marry Medusa takes the concepts of an alien invasion, and wraps around this simple convention a vibrant exploration of humanity. At it's core are the themes important to Sturgeon: loss, loneliness, love, abuse, and passion. More so than any other genre author I have read, I get the sense that Sturgeon truly loved mankind, like it was his dream to see us evolve into something more. Even while he was writing about despicable characters doing nasty things to one another and themselves, he never comes across as being misanthropic. He was not pointing out these biological and social blemishes to show how us faulty we are, but, rather, he was showing us the directions in which we should aim our compassion, love, patience, and understanding. Sometimes it is hard for us to see the humanity under the grotesque surface, but Sturgeon could, and I believe that he wanted to help lift this veil so that we might experience something good and awesome.
3. The Best Short Stories of J.G. Ballard (1977)
Here it is. The best book of short stories I've ever read. This book blew my mind when I first read it. Ballard climbed inside my head and destroyed every notion of what I thought SF was.
The book is simply overflowing with amazing fiction:
The Concentration City
Chronopolis
The Voices of Time
The Subliminal Man
The Drowned Giant
The Assassination of JFK Considered as a Downhill Motor Race
Plan for the Assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy
Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan
The stories here move from examples of pure science fiction, into Ballard's experimental prose, and his fascination with time, modern urban environments and the media politician.
It blows my mind that the writer of Empire of the Sun and The Kindness of Women, two of my favorite mainstream novels, would also write some of the most hard-hitting, poignant, and expertly crafted SF ever written. But it's true. Whatever genre Ballard chose to write in, he did so the the skill of a master prose stylist.
For those of you wanting to discover Ballards best work, check this out:
It comes out in a couple of weeks.
It's only about $25, and it is awesome. Well, I've read many of the stories in it, so I'm sure the rest are just as awesome. It's 1216 pages of writing from one of the true masters of speculative fiction. It'll probably take the place of this entry.
The choice has been made....
2. The Stars My Destination (1956) - Alfred Bester
Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place,
The stars my destination.
This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying...but nobody thought so.
The Stars My Destination is punk-effing-rock. It's a primal scream of prose, written with verve, skill, style, and a desire to tear down established norms - it's controlled insanity. It gives the big middle finger to the science fiction genre, punches it in the face, curb stomps it, steals its car and drives away with its girlfriend.
The Stars My Destination possesses an edge sharp enough to slice through an atom. It's an unrelenting trek through the stars, and beyond, spearheaded by a man bursting with unbelievable energy and emotion. With these two novels (The Demolished Man, the other, a book I used to like more than this one), Alfred Bester helped to bridge the gaps between the pulps and the new wave; he was at the vanguard of literary science fiction, genre fiction that made outsiders pay attention.
The Stars My Destination benefits from this transitional period. It possesses a rip-roaring, hardboiled adventure yarn and probes deep into more experimental territories with the use of typographical manipulation and a nearly post-modern attitude. What's most astonishing is how dangerous it still is. This is a daring book, one that takes chances, and it is bolstered by its unwillingness to conform. For all that is said about the cyberpunk sub-genre, I find it a little telling that its most brave, interesting, and punk-rock example was written three decades before the term was even coined.
1. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) - Philip K. Dick
God promises eternal life. We can deliver it.
The brilliant novel captures everything that made PKD the true master of SF. It benefits from being pretty much right in the middle of his career, possessing the more action-packed elements of his earlier novels along with the more esoteric ideas from his later novels. It explores the world of drugs, synthetic life, gnosticism, religion, corporate espionage, and characters teetering on the edge of psychotic meltdown.
The less said about the plot, the better. It's a book that simply needs to be experienced. I recommend working up to this one with a couple of the previously mentioned PKD titles, because I think it is a book that benefits from having a little bit of PKD knowledge.
PKD's Stigmata and Einstein's Dreams are now on my radar. The latter looks especially interesting.
The Stars My Destination is a marvel. Just quality characters that make you constantly question your loyalty to them both in terms of how they relate to Foyle and how we as readers regard Foyle himself. It's a fascinating project to alienate us to Foyle's humanity with his central bigotry and (sexual) violence being what we first see, but if we go with that character arc it makes his growing ontological awareness that much more powerful. And once Bester starts experimenting with modernist modes of writing and drawing in the last third of the book it becomes far more interesting as an exploration of psychological development via prose itself. Masterful stuff. I'll try to get to the other two above this year sometime...
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
Many thanks for the many recommendations. There wasn't a book on here that I've read that I disagree with its placement, except perhaps Flowers for Algernon. I thought the book was rather mawkish.
Thanks for reading and enjoying!
I'm not sure which I like best, the short story or the expanded novel of Flowers. I think I need to reread them both, because it's been a long time since I've looked at them.
Just realized I forgot this entry...
Well, in case anyone was wondering:
51. Ed the Happy Clown - Chester Brown
A wonderful list, D.
I really need to catch up on a lot of these. Sci-fi literature is phenomenal, there are several books in the genre that have changed my life, or at least profoundly affected me.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Really intriguing list-- lots I haven't read! I need to make a list to check out.
...and the milk's in me.
My wife is in a book club, and I kept recommending it to her until she finally gave in and recommended it when it was her turn to pick the book. The group loved it. Yay is me!It's in my top 7.
That's awesome that you love it, too. I don't think I've ever come across another person who loves it as much as I do.
Losing is like fertilizer: it stinks for a while, then you get used to it. (Tony, Hibbing)
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