I'd include The Female Man in any list of important/influential SF.
I have reread the Foundation series as an adult, but not recently. There's a lot more tell than show, but there's also a grand sweep of ideas.
You know, with the exception of one deadly and unpredictable midget, this girl is the smallest cargo I've ever had to transport. Yet by far the most troublesome. Does that seem right to you?
Early ,'Objects In Space'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Ginger - Dec 21, 2011 8:45:20 am PST #17118 of 28493
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
Toddson - Dec 21, 2011 8:57:34 am PST #17119 of 28493
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is one of the scariest things I've ever read.
Strega - Dec 21, 2011 9:03:33 am PST #17120 of 28493
Yeah, I read some of Asimov's short stories; that was enough. The ideas are fun and I certainly understand his importance. But that's not enough to interest me in a novel, much less a series.
The Cold Equations always makes me think of Sheckley's The Cruel Equations. (Although it's actually about the Laws of Robotics.) Anyway, Sheckley's great and very funny.
erikaj - Dec 21, 2011 9:04:29 am PST #17121 of 28493
"already on the kiss-cam with Karl Marx"-
I think because we know it happened to real women(including Gilman herself) I don't like Asimov either, but I'm not really an SF person.
Atropa - Dec 21, 2011 9:16:34 am PST #17122 of 28493
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
(Hell, I might as well say, "All Bradbury short stories."
YES. Especially "Homecoming". t obvious bias is obvious
Connie Neil - Dec 21, 2011 9:22:08 am PST #17123 of 28493
brillig
Simak's Goblin Reservation is good. Damn, why are half of my books in the garage behind the decrepit Mustang II!
Ginger - Dec 21, 2011 9:22:14 am PST #17124 of 28493
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
More...
- Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower
- Vernor Vinge, True Names (The Deepness books are really good, but True Names is the most influential)
- Connie Willis, Doomsday Book (I love all of Connie Willis, but many people don't.)
- Jack Vance, The Dying Earth
- Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination
- Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle, The Game Players of Titan, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar
- Frank Herbert, Dune, Dune Messiah
- William Gibson, Neuromancer (and most of the rest, but Neuromancer really marked a sea change in the genre)
- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (and the rest, but True Names, Neuromancer and Snow Crash were the cyberpunk books that shaped cyberspace)
Ginger - Dec 21, 2011 9:25:04 am PST #17125 of 28493
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
I love Clifford Simak, who seems to have fallen along the wayside. Except for some clunky early and late books, I love them all, particularly Goblin Reservation and Way Station.
Connie Neil - Dec 21, 2011 9:27:18 am PST #17126 of 28493
brillig
I love recommendation posts, it gives me lists of things to track down--and old stuff is often available online!
Fred Pete - Dec 21, 2011 9:30:41 am PST #17127 of 28493
Ann, that's a ferret.
I read The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress in -- high school, I think. I remember being fascinated by the mechanics of how to create a society on the moon. The story itself was good but not spectacular. Very much a "literature of ideas" story, and the idea alone was just enough to sustain one novel. A different writer (I vote for Resnick) could probably have turned the idea into a series, but not Heinlein.