10 Accessible Science Fiction Books
By John DeNardo |
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011 at
11:29 am
The second post in my 6-part series of How to Start Reading Science Fiction has been posted at the Kirkus blog. This one offers up a list of 10 Accessible Science Fiction Books.
Head on over and offer up your own suggestions!
Related posts:
- Science Fiction for People Who Hate Science Fiction
- The Most Expensive Science Fiction & Fantasy Books Sold by AbeBooks in 2006
- Call For Action! Help Us Spead the Word About Science Fiction and Fantasy!
- The SF Signal Podcast (Episode 029): An Interview with Tobias Buckell + Are Fantasy Stories More Accessible Than Science Fiction Stories?
- Jim Baen’s Top 10 Science Fiction Books
Filed under: Books
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The Road is not science fiction. Though it is a good book. The cause of the disaster is never explained or even talked about because it’s not important. The book is about a father and his son. The setting could have been represented by any disaster.
I do not think accessibility has to start with novels. I think a current anthology like The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction(Gordan Hollinger et all) might be a better choice.
@Sean: >>”The setting could have been represented by any disaster..”
True, but it’s not the disaster that makes it sf, it’s the setting (collapse of society, no soaicla order) that makes it post-apocalyptic. Not that I’m one to quibble over definitions, if it’s not sf to you, then that’s OK.
@Honey: I don’t disagree, but I tried to limit myself to novels. I’ll cover short fiction in a lter installment. (And I have no idea how I’ll stay within my qord limit — too much good stuff!)
Is River of Gods really accessible? I heard it was challenging.
@Tam: I’d say it’s a good choice for someone looking for something Literary-with-a-capital-L.
Oh, Literary. Now I know what you mean: http://www.davidlubar.com/litfic.html 
Hah! Funny. :)
Interesting article although I am a bit dubious about your choices.
Alfred Besters The Stars my Destination is a great novel, but i would hardly call it accessible… I found it to be a difficult but rewarding read.
I haven’t read River of the Gods but its a book that I have read good things about, but like Tam I have heard its a tough read.
The only books that I have read on this list apart from Stars are Enders Game and The Children of men and both deserve a mention on this list in my opinion, both are gripping easy to understand and thought provoking which makes them great books that I would (and do) recomend to people who are curious about scifi and wanting to explore the genre.
For my list I would have to put H.G.Wells war of the Worlds on the list as a slightly more adventerous ‘accessible sf novel’. Its a quick and easy read, the story is gripping and given the fact its well over a century old it still remarkably fresh and the science in it works remarkably well (if you ignore the fact its aliens from Mars). I love to get people to read this book because everyone I have given it to really enjoys it and also tend to be shocked that it is so old… and as its one of the great grand daddies of the genre its a good way to show people that shey shouldn’t be scared of ‘old scifi’.
I also recomend the Gregg Mandel novels by Peter F. Hamilton as it introduces them not just to a great author (and good door stop scifi in the nightdawn trilogy – bokks that can be off putting simply because of their size) but they are a great set of books that explore near future scifi, a number of scifi technologies and does so in an intelligent and generally well thought out manner. My other choice in this role is Richard K Morgan’s Altered Carbon, although the graphic nature of his writing means its not a good recomendation for all… but still its a deeply engaging novel that tells a great yarn that revolves around a clearly marked science fiction technology that is given a thoughtful look.
Another novel that I have a large soft spot for is Palace by Katherine Kerr and Mark Kreighbaum, a lovely stand alone novel set in a ‘far future off world colony’ that is beautifully written with a deeply engaging stroy behind it.
The other suggestion I have is Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels, particularly if the person I am trying to enlighten is a fantasy fan because as the series goes on it turns from a fantasy world into a science fiction one… with dragons. The quality across the series is a bit patchy but its always readable and as long as you give a warning I find that people have no problems.
P.S. another series of books that I would recomend is the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanely Robinson.. it is a ominious looking trilogy and the concpets in it are high but its the only science fiction trilogy that my entire family has read and all stated that they enjoyed… and I didn’t even recomend it to them my sister picked it up when she broke her leg as a teen – because the first book was lying around and she was bored and she got them all to read them all…
I’m not sure what your personal definition of “accessible” is, but it doesn’t match mine – or the one in the dictionary – with many on the list.
Notice how many of these you describe as “dark” or dystopian? Is that how we want to define SF these days? Certainly a lot of newer works in the genre meet that description, but that shrugs aside the decades of older works. I was under the impression this was about the “classic” SF experience to get new readers into the genre with the background to see what was, (as it was, not PC’d, please note K.W. Newton) so that reader could then move on to more recent works.
Thus I’d have expected to see works by the likes of Poul Anderson, James Blish, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Jack Vance. Certainly Brin’s Uplift books, and Larry Niven’s Known Space works should have a place here.
P.S. – I would have left this comment at Kirkus, but it requires logging in to F-book. That’s a game I choose not to play, and it’s nonsensical that such a requirement exists, in my opinion.
Accessibility is a tricky definition. I wanted to cover books that I believed to be enjoyable by those who don’t normally tread the waters. Yeah, a loose definition, but it does offer a starting point. Of course, other definitions will vary…as will any individual title that you recommend for a specific reader. That is, one size does not fit all. I also didn’t want to limit to only older books; many new readers aren’t interested in a historical perspective (though for those that do, a later installment will cover that). I was trying to offer a high-quality mix, but yeah, it does lean heavy on dark themes. I offer other choices in a “deleted scene” in one of my comments at the post. So…all that said, I’d love to see your list!
[I've given Kirkus feedback about the Facebook-only comment system. They tell me they are working on it.]