Suggested Book Titles
Updated October 10, 2009
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Reading this book was a enriching, rewarding experience for me. As with most books, it isn't for everyone. I was looking for a little lighter read, since I've been reviewing books on death and dying and the Holocaust. Silly me - but I am so glad I made the mistake of thinking this would be an escape from the ultra serious! This is definitely not a light read and in fact, it hits on many of the issues I've been exploring - the existence and function of God, the meaning of life, the use of suffering and healing, the delicacy and necessity of human relationships. The story switches between the year 2019 - the US has lost its primary position as a world leader to Japan, marketers search the streets looking for ghetto kids with intellectual skills to groom and sell as indentured servants - and the year 2060, when a Jesuit priest is under examination for sins he is assumed to have committed while on a mission to a New World - Rakhat a planet far away from here. We see Father Emilio Sandoz before the journey (2019) as he initiates this venture, traveling with characters so well written, I started to believe they were real. Dr. Anne and her husband, George; the recently freed indentured planner, Sofia; the young man who discovered the existence of the other world, Jimmy Quinn; D.W., their grumpy Jesuit leader. Two other characters are less developed, but make nice backdrop for this riveting story. The book was a little difficult to get into at the start, not because of the writing, but because of the promise of horrors to come. How could this priest, so filled with life in 2019, be so horribly disfigured (did I really want to read the gruesome details?) And how could he have ended up a prostitute, and then murdered a child? Note: These are not spoilers -- this is information freely given at the start of the story, a hook that pulls the reader in. To find out, the reader follows Sandoz' slow recovery, sees his bitterness and anger in his interaction with the community who is interrogating him in the year 2060, after he has been rescued and returned from Rakhat. Sandoz questions the intimate, passionate connection he'd had with God - and the reader is led to question some assumptions about God, quite similar to those raised by the Holocaust. (Isn't God supposed to deliver us from evil if we do all the right stuff?) A science fiction tale, a mystery, a spiritual quest, a sociological and anthropology exploration, this book would be an excellent choice for a group to read and discuss. It is also great for the inquisitive mind of the solo reader. As for me, I hated to put it down. I'm off to order the sequel, Children of God.

Good Omens by Neil Gaimen (Fantasy)
Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time... --
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
After reading this little horror you will toss your innocent geranium out the window. The triffids are gigantic plants, mysteriously arrived on earth, which take up their roots and walk, searching for men to kill. A terrible celestial incident, which permanently blinds the majority of people on earth, helps the belligerent blossoms in their work. William Mason, escaping blindness, teams up with a beautiful (sighted) girl and after mishaps and separations in a decaying and de-populated world starts a colony with other pioneers as the triffids lean wistfully against the fences. Fast, readable and triffid-ly chilling.

The John Varley Reader by John Varley (Anthology)
The independent stories in this collection are among the best Science Fiction has to offer: "Air Raid" is a time travel shocker that was later expanded into the fantastic, witty, fun novel Millennium, and a lackluster film of the same name.. "The Persistence of Vision," "Press Enter," and "The Pusher," are all multiple award winners. If you haven't yet read them, buy this book just for that reason. They are that good. These stories are also prime reasons why Varley is so highly regarded in the field. The five previously uncollected stories are all essential reading for Varley fans: "Just Another Perfect Day" is a tight exploration of short-term memory loss and how it relates to true love and the incomprehensible motives of alien invaders. It is followed by "Fading Suns and Dying Moons" which carries on the theme of incomprehensible aliens but with a sinister twist. "Good Intentions" is Varley's entry in the sell-your-soul-to-the-devil category. And "The Bellman" is an Eight Worlds story, featuring the character Anna-Louise Bach, written decades ago but that languished in limbo waiting for Harlan Ellison's long awaited collection "The Last Dangerous Visions."
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
Hugo Award Winner 2006
One night the stars go out. From that breathtaking "what if," Wilson (Blind Lake, etc.) builds an astonishingly successful mélange of SF thriller, growing-up saga, tender love story, father-son conflict, ecological parable and apocalyptic fable in prose that sings the music of the spheres. The narrative time oscillates effortlessly between Tyler Dupree's early adolescence and his near-future young manhood haunted by the impending death of the sun and the earth. Tyler's best friends, twins Diane and Jason Lawton, take two divergent paths: Diane into a troubling religious cult of the end, Jason into impassioned scientific research to discover the nature of the galactic Hypotheticals whose "Spin" suddenly sealed Earth in a "cosmic baggie," making one of its days equal to a hundred million years in the universe beyond. As convincing as Wilson's scientific hypothesizing is--biological, astrophysical, medical--he excels even more dramatically with the infinitely intricate, minutely nuanced relationships among Jason, Diane and Tyler, whose older self tries to save them both with medicines from Mars, terraformed through Jason's genius into an incubator for new humanity. This brilliant excursion into the deepest inner and farthest outer spaces offers doorways into new worlds--if only humankind strives and seeks and finds and will not yield compassion for our fellow beings.
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Spin is not merely a SF thriller. It’s also a coming-of-age tale, a love story, a literary triumph, and an ecological and apocalyptic warning. The award-winning Wilson excels at all aspects of his tale, from the human angle to the political, religious, biological, medical, and astrophysical theorizing. The first part elicited "jaw-dropping amazement" from critics; luckily, the pace slows over the remaining pages to recount the next few decades on Earth (Emerald City). If the plot involving the terraforming and colonization of Mars seems farfetched, put it in the context of Wilson’s deep characterization and convincing relationships, and you’ll be OK. After all, Spin is "a book about faith: especially our faith in ourselves"
Night Sky Mine by Melissa Scott
Recipient of two successive Lambda Awards for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Novel (for Trouble and Her Friends, 1994, and for Shadow Man, 1995), Scott here presents a well-developed future rife with cybertechnology, space travel, artificial habitats and asteroid mining. The primary cyber-innovations in this era are hammals, computer programs that function independently, devour each other, reproduce and mutate. Useful but dangerous, they are farmed, captured and altered by hypothecaries and others. The plot line evolves from the mysterious abandonment by its crew of an asteroid owned by the Night Sky Mine company. Cops Rangsey Justine and his male "contracted partner," Sein Tarasov, are drawn into the investigation, as is Kelly 2/1 Ista, found on a similarly abandoned mine and raised by the gypsy-like Travellers. Each character is charming yet fallible, expertly drawn; when the mystery occasionally thins or the action seems forced, they carry the story. Along their way, Scott uses them to raise challenging questions about friendship, responsibility, the nature of technology. Again, Scott explores the ramifications of virtual life through the very human eyes of her principals; this is most artful cyberpunk, told with heart.
Seeker by Jack McDevitt
Ideas abound in McDevitt's classy riff on the familiar lost-space-colony theme. In 2688, interstellar transports Seeker and Bremerhaven left a theocratic Orwellian Earth to found a dictator-free society, Margolia—and vanished. Nine thousand years later, with a flawed humanity spread over 100-odd worlds, Margolia and its ships have become Atlantis-type myths, but after a cup from Seeker falls into the hands of antiquarian Alex Benedict, the hero of McDevitt's Polaris (2004), Alex determines to win everlasting fame and vaster fortune by finding them. Female pilot Chase Kolpath, this book's narrator, gutsily tracks the ancient Seeker on a breathless trek across star systems and through an intriguing mystery plot, a bevy of fully realized characters, ingenious AI ships and avatars of long-departed personalities who offer advice and entertainment. The scientific interpolations are as convincing as the far-future planetscapes and human and alien societies, bolstering an irresistible tractor beam of heavy-duty action. This novel delivers everything it promises—with a galactic wallop.
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McDevitt's latest gripping novel of future history begins in the late twentieth century, when a technological breakthrough costs the lives of its discoverers. Then it jumps seven centuries forward, to the beginning of interstellar flight and some of the first refugees from Earth. Finally, it moves into the very far future and to the seeker of the title, one of several looking for inhabited worlds that are the results, however longterm, of events recorded earlier. McDevitt is now being compared, quite legitimately, to Arthur C. Clarke, and not only because he has a similar kind of grand vision of the human future among the stars. He also has characters with amiable, or not-so-amiable, quirks, who in the middle of deciphering the secrets of lost races take time to worry about where to get a good meal in the next town. One of these days McDevitt is going to receive an actual and well-deserved big award to go with his professional stature.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Hugo Award Winner 1962
Stranger in a Strange Land is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman and has no knowledge of Earth's cultures or religions. But he brings turmoil with him, as he is the legal heir to an enormous financial empire, not to mention de facto owner of the planet Mars. With the irascible popular author Jubal Harshaw to protect him, Michael explores human morality and the meanings of love. He founds his own church, preaching free love and disseminating the psychic talents taught him by the Martians. Ultimately, he confronts the fate reserved for all messiahs.
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In 1939 Heinlein published his first sf short story and became one of the most prolific and influential authors in the genre. Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) is an international best seller and a landmark in more ways than one: it opened the trade best sellers lists to sf writers, breaking down longstanding barriers that will never be seen again. At the same time Stranger became an emblem of the 1960s generation in its iconoclasm and free-love themes. Telling the story of an Earth baby raised by an existing, ancient Martian civilization, the novel often reads as if it were the "Playboy Philosophy" in dialog form. The man/ Martian comes to Earth and broadcasts his ideas by forming his own Church. Heinlein has been rightly criticized for presenting as facts his opinions, which state that organized religion is a sham, authority is generally stupid, young women are all the same, and the common individual is alternately an independent, Ayn Randian-producing genius and the dull-witted part of an ignorant and will-less mob. Yet the book is hard to put down; in its early pages it is a truly masterful sf story. Every library with a fiction collection should have it. Christopher Hurt reads with authority, nicely drawing the characters via barely perceptible changes in intonation, harshness, and pacing. Highly recommended.