I’ve been hooked on sci-fi and fantasy since I was thirteen years old! I found myself alone in a house, parents divorced, sister living with mom, with literally nothing to do. I was already a Star Trek fan, having watched that on our black and white TV, first run, in 1967. So I picked up a book that happened to be sci-fi and the escape from reality began. I would place myself in the lead role secretly, in all these books. When I later decided to write stories of my own after retiring from work in the real world, I always kept these favorites and the way they made me feel in mind. I try to write in the same classic style.
Dune is world building science fiction in its most raw form. I tend to gravitate towards character building per se. This was not the case with Dune. I picked up this book back in the ’70s at a time when I was all alone, away from home, and looking for a good sci-fi novel to wrap myself up in for a while. Wow! Dune is world building done right. Yet, in the midst of all these worlds at war with each other, their different languages and cultures, you get introduced to this young man, the underdog of the story. You can’t help but root for him as the story of a harsh planet and the rest of the universe against him unfolds. I still have my 1965 first edition!
Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was Dune: winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and widely considered one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.
Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person's lifespan to making interstellar travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world of Arrakis.
Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
Edgar Rice Burroughs was one of the old masters of science fiction. I started reading his books at a young age. I would go back and forth from fantasy to sci-fi. This book, later made into a movie, follows yet another underdog hero mysteriously sent to Mars during the American Civil War to find himself in the middle of another kind of battle, this time with superhuman strength and the ability to leap great distances due to the light gravity of Mars. This book is character building at its best by one of the grandfathers of science fiction.
Rediscover the adventure-pulp classic that gave the world its first great interplanetary romance-now featuring an introduction by Junot Diaz
In the spring of 1866, John Carter, a former Confederate captain prospecting for gold in the Arizona hills, slips into a cave and is overcome by mysterious vapors. He awakes to find himself naked, alone, and forty-eight million miles from Earth-a castaway on the dying planet Mars. Taken prisoner by the Tharks, a fierce nomadic tribe of six-limbed, olive-green giants, he wins respect as a cunning and able warrior, who by grace of Mars's weak gravity possesses the agility of a…
I tend to read by authors more than by genre. In the late 70s I picked up a tattered thin paperback with a fantastic cover by Zalazny and decided to give it a try. Little did I know there were several more books in this series written between 1970 and 1991. I couldn’t put it down! Yes, there is Corwin, another tortured hero who often fails, but the worlds he is drawn into are fascinating. This book, and you can get the complete series called the Great Book of Amber, is a combination of sci-fi and fantasy. For me, a lover of both, it was perfect!
One of the most revered names in sf and fantasy, the incomparable Roger Zelazny was honored with numerous prizes—including six Hugo and three Nebula Awards—over the course of his legendary career. Among his more than fifty books, arguably Zelazny’s most popular literary creations were his extraordinary Amber novels.
Now officially licensed by the Zelazny estate, the first book in this legendary series is now finally available electronically.
Carl Corey wakes up in a secluded New York hospital with amnesia. He escapes and investigates, discovering the truth, piece by piece: he is really Prince Corwin, of Amber, the one true world…
The Stars My Destination is, in my humble opinion, the absolute best stand-alone science fiction novel. Originally published as Tiger! Tiger! in 1956, this book – I don’t know why it has never been made into a movie? – is about the brute of a simple spaceman, Gully Foyle, who is completely transformed by the end of the book. You will follow Foyle and his lust for revenge from nobody to cunning calculating anti-hero wanted by everyone who is anyone, until his end revenge. Alfred Bester was another grandfather of sci-fi who writes in a traveling style catered to the common reader and because of this, I read every book he ever wrote. But I reread this book every few years.
Gully Foyle, Mechanic's Mate 3rd Class, is the only survivor on his drifting, wrecked spaceship. When another space vessel, the Vorga, ignores his distress flares and sails by, Gully Foyle becomes a man obsessed with revenge. He endures 170 days alone in deep space before finding refuge on the Sargasso Asteroid and then returning to Earth to track down the crew and owners of the Vorga. But, as he works out his murderous grudge, Gully Foyle also uncovers a secret of momentous proportions...
If you are a science fiction fan like me, you cannot forget about the short stories by all the greats that started it all, spawned larger works: Books and movies. Two things drew me to this book and the later volumes. First, it had all my favorite authors in it. Second, they were fairly short reads and you could finish one at a time, in one sitting. All the grandaddies are in here: Alfred Bester, Roger Zalazny, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and a dozen others! These are fantastic old stories of new worlds, ray guns, steampunk, and weird aliens. You cannot call yourself a true sci-fi fan till you read these.
The definitive collection of the best in science fiction stories between 1929-1964.
This book contains twenty-six of the greatest science fiction stories ever written. They represent the considered verdict of the Science Fiction Writers of America, those who have shaped the genre and who know, more intimately than anyone else, what the criteria for excellence in the field should be. The authors chosen for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame are the men and women who have shaped the body and heart of modern science fiction; their brilliantly imaginative creations continue to inspire and astound new generations of writers and…
23rd Century Federation Marshal Max Pappus is in trouble - and he knows it. Shot down and injured on the hostile planet of Xango-3, he would have to save himself.
With the help of his trusted ship's AI computer and a small tribe of friendly Xangreeos - and driven by the lust for revenge, he repairs his ship and leaves, but not before falling in love. Will Max Pappus get his revenge? Will he return for the girl? Max Pappus sets out on a trek that takes him to other worlds - putting him and his comrades at odds with several races until what end may come…
I once saw a play at the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Theatre. A play about Sor Juana. It was a good play, but it felt like something was missing like jalapenos left out of enchiladas. The play kept nudging me to look further to find Sor Juana, and so for the next five years, I did so. I read and read more. I listened for her voice, and that is where I heard her life come alive. This isn’t the only possibility for Sor Juana’s life; it is just the one I heard.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, this brilliant 17th century nun flew through Mexico City on the breeze of poetry and philosophy. She met with princes of the Church, and with the royalty of Spain and Mexico. Then she met a stunning, powerful woman with lavender eyes, la Vicereine Maria Louisa, and her life changed forever. As her fame grew, she dared to challenge the diabolical Archbishop once too often, and he threw her in front of the Inquisition, where she stood, alone.
Sor Juana's work is studied still today, and justifiably so. Scholars study her months on end; mystics…
This astonishingly brilliant 17th century poet and dramatist, this nun, flew through Mexico City on wings of inspiration. Having no dowry, she chose the life of a nun so that she might learn, so that she might write, so that she might meet the most fascinating people of the western world. She accomplished all of that, and more.
One day a woman with violet eyes, eyes the color of passion flowers, entered her life. It was the new Vicereine, Maria Luisa. As the two most powerful women in Mexico City, the bond between them crossed politics and wound them in…
