Recommended by
Jeremy Faulkner
Jeremy Faulkner
I would like to recommend some of the best sf that I have ever read. These books are action-packed and keep you reading way into the late hours. Many of these won Hugo Awards or Nebulas. Here are my five favorites.
| Novels | Comments |
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David Brin
| This 1983 novel by Brin helped set the pace for sf in the early '80s. It captured both the Hugo and the Nebula as well as my interest. Brilliantly planned, its main characters were not human but dolphins who were protrayed excellently. Startide Rising was very, very complex, containing numerous frame stories. The dolphins' beautiful poetic language added class to the story. Brin impressed me with his convincing alien cultures and I felt as if I was aboard the Streaker myself. |
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Arthur C. Clarke
| Here, Clarke presented us with yet another superb story. I thoroughly enjoyed this one. In a future in which scientists discover that the sun will go nova before the Fourth Millennia, we are forced to accept our fate and die with the planet. Technology, though, provides an escape for homo sapiens. Spaceships are sent to colonize planets with frozen embryos and other artificial means. Then, in the last years before the catastrophe, a scientist discovers an easy, efficent method of faster-than-light travel. A giant ship is built and loaded with a million people. Upon arriving at a waterworld named Thalassa they aren't welcomed with open arms. The colonists already there are living in an utopia and are afraid they will lose it. This contact, strangely similar to the European invasion of the Western Hemisphere, will be felt by the Lassans for generations. |
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Robert A. Heinlein
| In a very energetic story way ahead of its time, Heinlein introduced us to the people of Luna, the moon. For years they have been oppressed and controlled by Terra, but now they have had enough. A young man from Terra, a brillant young woman, and an artificial intelligence lead the Lunas to victory by using the earth's own gravity against it. It won a Hugo and was one of Heinlein's greatest novels. |
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Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes
| These three authors have provided a fast-paced but easy to follow storyline. The planet Avalon is the site of Earth's first interstellar colony. At first it seems perfect to the colonists. But, things are always quiet before the storm. It seems that Avalon is home to a large, intelligent predator. When one kills a few colonists, they decide to drive them to extinction on the small island they have to share. Similar to the poaching of the wolf in the Western United States, the colonists make a fatal mistake. They completely wreck the island's ecosystem after ignorantly attempting to kill off the "grendels" before studying them. The colony suffers like fabled Heorot, and it is almost lost. Only when an outcast takes the place of Beowulf can the survivors hope for victory against the bloodthirsty beasts. |
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Robert Silverberg
| This novel also featured a water-covered world. The people of Hydros are castaways, once they land they can never leave. Hydros is the home of several intelligent species. The Gillies have tolerated humans for years but after several "swimmers", a sea otter-like species, are found dead, the Gillies cast the hundred-odd colonists off their artifical islands. When no other island will take them in, they gather in ships reminiscentant of the grand clippers of the Nineteenth Century and set sail for the mythical continent Face of the Waters. Along their voyage they face many trials and tribulations. It seems as if the whole planet is against them. What they discover at the Face is strange yet intriguing. The Face of the Waters boasts a powerful finale. |
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