I want to gather together a small collection of Sci Fi novels, I have read sci fi much of my life but fit fully at least recently and I don't have quite the disposition towards novels generally as I did when I started reading them. For me sci fi is not about science but it is about a projection of the future and what i love about is the fabulous. It has much in common with fantasy but it starts with our modern sensibility and moves from there, I see it as best when it tries to mend our broken sensibilities. I also like my sci fi at around 200 pages, I am thoroughly put off by these 500 page and more modern sci fi novels, you should be able to read them in a day and I'm a slow reader, I'll put the long books down and never return to them, to me it shows a lack of concision in the writer and a lack of respect for the reader.
But I do think there are periods in art and for sci fi I'd say it is mainly from the 1950s to early 1980s, with of course some outliers.
So there are some things I know.
I like Clifford D Simak, his work embodies a lot of what I love in Sci Fi, there are alien encounters, transformations of our humanity and generally he has a really likeable sensibility, he represents good human fellowship, acceptance, a pastoral element and an embrace of the fabulous. I 'd be happy to get all his novels. In recent times I have read Time is the Simplest Thing and Way Station and they are both fabulous novels.
A E Van Vogt, he doesn't have the same likeable sensibility, but he still embodies sci fi for me, he doesn't have a high literary appreciation, but this is sci fi and his novels are wonderfully crazy romps, again they do represent transformations and his very first novel from the late 1940s Slan has to be regarded as a classic.
Andre Norton I haven't read widely but her novel Star Born made a significant impression on me, again she has a pastoral element, harmony with nature, telepathy and changes developments of humanity.
J G Ballard I read quite widely but now I wouldn't want to re read most of his novels with the possible exceptions of his more fabulous works like The Crystal World and the Unlimited Dream Company and maybe the short story collection Myths of the Near Future.
Barrington Bayley with his fabulous alchemical underpinning I found attractive I must re read Star Winds and possibly all of his novels.
Michael Moorcock mainly a fantasy writer and I am not that attracted to his work now, but maybe I should have the first Jerry Cornelius novel the Final Programme, a bit of the spirit of the 1960s lies there.
Ursula K Leguin - I think always coming home put me off her work, it seemed narratively diffuse. But I love her earthsea books, fantasy rather than sci fi but think I should read Left Hand of Darkness & the Word for World is Forest.
Edgar Rice Burroughs - I do feel a warm spot in my heart for his Mars books
Philip K. Dick I read quite a bit of, I feel like I should have at least 3 of his books, I have do androids dream of electric sheep, the other two maybe Clans of the Alphane Moon & maybe Eye in the Sky. I prefer more optimistic writers but he just feels essential to the genre and is wonderfully inventive.
I suspect there will be occasional books by
Lester del Rey (1915–1992)
Henry Kuttner (1915–1958)
Fritz Leiber (1910–1992)
Murray Leinster (1896–1975)
C. L. Moore (1911–1987)
Frederik Pohl (1919–2013)
Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985)
Jack Vance (1916–2013)
Jack Williamson (1908–2006)
Poul Anderson (1926–2001)
C. M. Kornbluth (1923–1958)
Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1923–1996)
Robert Silverberg (1935–)
I need to pinpoint a set of novels from these writers and maybe a few more. I just made a trip to a local 2nd hand bookshop and was disappointed to see that the classic era writers had receded from their shelves.
