Is Phillip K. Dick a good pick? I like subjects on virtual reality and time travel. Know of any books related to these subjects? Also, which writers are anti-technology/ fearful of progress . . .? big thanks for any suggestions.
Well, for virtual reality, you have to go with William Gibson's Neuromancer and Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix. They pretty much define "cyberpunk." I liked most of the PKD that I read, and you get a pretty good anti-techology/dystopian vision in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Best time-travel book I know (though it may not really be about time travel) is by the recently-deceased Kurt Vonnegut, when Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time in Slaughterhouse Five
Good time-travel books (in addition to Slaughterhouse-Five): Octavia Butler, Kindred Connie Willis, Doomsday Book JR Dunn, Days of Cain plus all the classics, but I'm not one of those SF readers who think that you need to put in some kind of apprenticeship reading stuff from the 30s (or earlier) before you can enjoy more recent stuff. Good VR books (in addition to Doc's suggestions): Jeff Noon, Vurt hell, there's a ton of them. I dunno. The other thing is that Phil Dick wrote some great books and some real clunkers. My fave six PKD: VALIS Man in the High Castle Martian Time-Slip Ubik Do Androids Dream Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch Lots of people hate VALIS, but they're wrong Anyway, happy reading. Most great SF writers are at least ambivalent about various aspects of technological progress, since most great SF is about the effects of technological progress on people.
I'm working on getting this into our sophomore American lit. curriculum. I think it'd be high interest for our students.
On this world and the next 4 you might encounter, Philip K Dick is a great place to start! Including a lot of his novels listed above, I HIGHLY recommend reading several of his short story collections! Novels ( in addition to the ones irvine listed) Flow My Tears the Policeman Said A Scanner Darkly I am also a sucker for the Game Players of Titan (though not one of his best)
The Left Hand of Darkness - Le Guin Dune - Herbert Exiles Trilogy - Bova Foundation - Asimov The Dispossessed - Le Guin The Sprawl Trilogy - Gibson
ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card. I can't stress that enough. It's one of the greatest books ever written.
Ender's Game is a very good book, but I'm not sure I would count it as a great one. It's a good story, but the twist at the end is quite predictable. Speaker for the Dead is definitely better in my opinion and Xenocide is also very good. Children of the Mind is rubbish, but if you've read all three it's worth reading. Of the Bean series, only the first one is any good. The other three are poor. I've got to say as well that I didn't really rate the Foundation series. All the books are good, but far from the greatness often given to them. Ones that I would say are really worth reading Brave New World Dune Forever War Forever Peace Rendezvous with Rama Space Merchants The Penultimate Truth Timescape 2001 Dick can be quite hit and miss really. Some of it is brilliant and some is rubbish in my opinion
That's how I feel as well. Even my favorites of his (Electric Sheep, Cosmic Puppets) have moments/sequences/sections where all you can do as the reader is sit back and wonder what drugs he'd been taking when he wrote it, because apparently you're going to need to do some yourself if you want to understand exactly what he means.
You should also try some of the classic short fiction. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame (3 volumes - one of short stories and two of novellas) gets most of the great ones from the Golden Age. Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions brings you forward a few years. Heinlein's Future History stories are good, as are the juveniles. I wouldn't bother with much of his later fiction - after Moon is a Harsh Mistress or so. Sheri Tepper is anti-progress from an eco-feminist perspective. Often exasperating, but she's a damned fine writer. Just a few ideas off the top of my head. b.
You would, commie. Actually, the way he throws around the references makes you wonder if he was reading the High Times translation of the Bible. [result]Surrogate pain boxes that robots don't believe in? Jesus as a naked 13-year-old girl? Wha?[/result]
LOL Well, the Gnostics would probably be the hippies compared to the establishment back then. . Remember, he could go from Mars to the I Ching to the Nag Hammadi library to the musical tastes of Nazi's in one sentence.
[youtube]P6QBjOah82g[/youtube] oh yeah! I am not sure how much if anything will be added, but I would recommend and trying to see it on the big screen.
I don't know if you've read it but the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is all about drugs and their effects in comparison to religion. Not a classic in my opinion.
Not sure if you'd consider Cormac McCarthy's The Road to be sci-fi, but it's devastating and haunting. I can't get it out of my head.
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. Along similar lines to Dune, but at a more relatable scale for someone just getting into scifi. That being said, the Dune series is by far my favorite of all time.
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman and Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. Probably the two most pertinent Sci-fi books at the moment.
No one has mentioned Dan Simmons, but his Hyperion saga as well as his duet of Ilium and Olympus are some of the finest sci-fi novels I have ever read. the Hyperion stories combine his penchant for horror with a brilliant idea of inter-planetary travel and the notion of time. Ilium and Olympus are about a recreation of the Greek classics on Mars with one twist; a scholar who has been created to keep the accuracy of the story alive messes up how things are supposed to go, with "sexy results" [Homer]. Heinlein's "Job: A Comedy of Justice" is a thought-provoking one too. One of my favorite sci-fi books from my younger years (though certainly not a kid's book).
I've mentioned this in another thread about sci-fi. Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series, which starts with The Shadow of the Torturer, deals with these themes directly and indirectly. It's set at the end of the Earth's solar system's life cycle, when the main ruling structures have decayed back into something like feudalism (although there is a massive totalitarian regime that dominates half the planet), but they have residual elements of previous, more active, eras of space travel embedded in them. There is a planet wide struggle going on between (at least) two vaguely defined factions, with the key issue seemingly being how to re-establish some kind of stability for the planet and its societies. The basic plot is picaresque, inasmuch as it follows the journeys of Severian, a young apprentice in a guild of torturers used by the feudal rulers to control certain elements of the population. He breaks the rules of his guild and is sent out into the world early in the first book, and finds himself drawing the attention of the major players interested in the sun's fate. The question technology and its role in human affairs is embedded throughout the series and it's handled with greater complexity and nuance and in a way that's more satisfying even than, say, Dune. The writing is pretty dense and, rather like Dick, the plot developments are sometimes implied rather than clearly elucidated.
I'm adding his series to my list. Thank you for the description, it helps when choosing what to read.
Time The Cat Who Walks Through Walls - Heinlein The Time Machine - H.G. Wells General SF Ray Bradbury Martian Chronicles Arthur C Clarke Childhood's End Rendezvous with Rama Short stories Heinlein Starship Troopers - Ignore the movie(s), they were complete crap. This book is brilliant, and scathing. Stranger in a Strange Land - Social Commentary at its best Larry Niven Ringworld Vonnegut Sirens of Titan H.G. Wells Anything you can get your hands on A bit goofy Cybernetic Samurai