Reading Recommendations: Novels, Anthologies, & Nonfiction
Novels
	The Last Legends of Earth	A. A. Attanasio
	This novel has everything in it: evil aliens, time travel, human resurrection, superscience, multi-world cultures. Sometimes the characters may seem a little cardboard, but the imagination of the author, the twisting plot, and the cool story arcs keep the pages turning. Read it for the sheer grandeur of it.
	Brightness Reef (Book #1)	David Brin
	Infinity's Shore (Book #2)	David Brin
	Heaven's Reach (Book #3)	David Brin
	In these three novels, David Brin continues to explore his well-known Uplift universe. Brin creates likable characters, both alien and human, and he manages to maintain the tension through each book. If there is one flaw in this trilogy, it is that the first two books don't stand alone. One must read all three in succession to grasp the story arcs and major conflicts.
	Clay's Ark	Octavia E. Butler
	The premise of this novel is not a new one: an astronaut crash lands in a remote part of the United States, bringing with him an alien virus that could transform the human race. What Butler does with this tried and true scenario is both fascinating and unique. Be careful reading this novel, because the real horror isn't the alien virus. The real horror is humankind's own cruelty to and lack of empathy for ourselves.
	Parable of the Talents	Octavia E. Butler
	Butler received a Nebula Award for this novel, and it's not surprising. Told from two different points of view,Olamina and her daughter, it is a complex story of regret and forgiveness, of hope and despair, of prejudice and political scape-goating, of reaching for the stars and the sacrifices required, both individually and collectively, if the human race is to attain them.
	Wild Seed	Octavia E. Butler
	One of the Patternmaster series of novels, Wild Seed is the story of a woman who has fantastic powers, one of them to take the form of any living thing she touches. What does she desire most? To raise her family, to protect her loved ones, to live normally in a normal world. But with great power comes great responsibility and sometimes even greater pain.
	Foreigner (Book #1)	C. J. Cherryh
	Invader (Book #2)	C. J. Cherryh
	Inheritor (Book #3)	C. J. Cherryh
	Some consider Cherryh's Cyteen trilogy her best work to date, but this First Contact series is just as laudable. On a world where humans are the aliens, Cherryh creates a culture where personal loyalty defines national alliances, registered assassination is a political tool, and the human concept of love has no counterpart.
	Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand	Samuel R. Delany
	A true delight and probably one of Delany's lesser known works. As quirky as Dhalgren but not as surreal or as heavy, this novel explores the complex issues of gender, sexuality, and cultural breakdown in a far future world. Though Delany never quite resolves some of the plot lines, he does create a fascinating world filled with multi-species families, galaxy-spanning religions, and cool technologies.
	Sarah Canary	Karen Joy Fowler
	What do an immigrant Chinese, an escapee from an insane asylum, a suffragette, and a con artist have in common? They are all caught up in the mystery of Sarah Canary, an enigmatic woman who speaks no known language and leads them on a wild chase through the Pacific Northwest of 1873. This novel--sometimes poignant, often times humorous, but always surprising--is the epitome Fowler's work.
	The Sweetheart Season	Karen Joy Fowler
	Fowler's work defies categorization. Fantasy, mainstream, magical realism--whatever you want to call it, you must admit that it's wonderfully written. In The Sweetheart Season, Fowler tells the story of a small American town circa 1940. But this town is anything but ordinary. Local legends infuse the story with a fantastical quality. How she combines the elements of girl's baseball, cooking, geography, and local politics into a magical tale is a wonder to read.
	Crimson Spear: The Blood of Cú Chulainn	Gregory Frost
	This volume is actually two previously published books, Tain and Remscela, released under the current title. Frost recreates Irish lore, reworks the Ulster Cycle of Celtic mythology, and brings to life an unusual cast of characters. His exacting research into the myths of ancient Ireland infuse this book with a realism that is admirable. But don't think this book is a dry discourse on ancient Celtic legends--there is enough humor and tragedy, laughter and tears, in this book to keep the stories very human.
	Ammonite	Nicola Griffith
	Ammonite was Griffith's first published science fiction novel and received both a Lambda Literary Award and a Tiptrees Award. No small feat for a newcomer. In this book, she explores a world where a native virus kills most of the human population of its original colonists--100% of the men and many of the women. The world is quarantined, and those colonists left on the planet must create a new society and learn how to live in harmony with the virus if they want to survive.
	Slow River	Nicola Griffith
	This novel was a multiple award-winner for Griffith, and it's an engrossing tale from the first chapter. Griffith knows how to create real characters, characters who do bad things to each other, who steal, lie, and use each other bodies for pleasure and profit. But she does it in such a way that the reader can't help but understand them. Sifting in some intriguing SF elements and a convoluted plot, Griffith creates a novel of suspense. Kidnapping, incest, corporate politics and disfunctional family dynamics are just a few of the themes explored in this novel.
	Brown Girl in the Ring	Nalo Hopkinson
	Hopkinson won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest with this novel, and it is obvious why. Creating a Toronto, Canada of the near future, Hopkinson envisions a surreal urban nightmare of a place. Caribbean folklore, high tech medical practices, and political intrigue add to this strange world where both souls and body parts can be stolen. A unique and thrilling first novel from one of the most distinctive voices in today's speculative fiction genre.
	Midnight Robber	Nalo Hopkinson
	Hopkinson has done it again. In Midnight Robber, she creates a future universe where high tech science and Caribbean culture meld, where voodoun and artificial intelligences exist harmoniously. But she doesn't stop there--Hopkinson also casts a keen eye on a society's definitions of family and personal sovereignty, crime and punishment, incest and survivor guilt. You might not like what she has to say on these topics--her examination may cut a little too close to the bone--but you can't ignore her well-crafted voice.
	Divine Endurance (Book #1)	Gwyneth Jones
	Flowerdust (Book #2)	Gwyneth Jones
	Divine Endurance is one of Jones earliest works of fiction, but it's one of her best. The setting is somewhere in Southeast Asia. Jones extrapolates a future Earth where only the remnants of a great technology exist and they are reserved for the very few. But this book isn't about those people, it's about the people who survive and flourish in spite of their lost heritage. The second book, Flowerdust continues the saga of the characters introduced in the first one. Though the first book is self-contained, the second benefits from the reading of the first one.
	The Left Hand of Darkness	Ursula K. LeGuin
	What can be said about one of the most acclaimed novels in the genre of science fiction? A sociological study of how concepts of gender can influence a society. A psychological study of how complete immersion in an alien culture can change one's perceptions of self. A political study of how power and influence can be used in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways to manipulate and control information. A bittersweet love story. This novel is all this and much, much more. Read it.
	China Mountain Zhang	Maureen F. McHugh
	McHugh is an expert at the Anti-SF novel. She doesn't create characters who are working to change the world. She creates characters working in a changing world. Slowly and with great empathy, McHugh creates the lives of everyday people trying to cope on the margins of society. Imagining a time when China is the dominant political power and Mars is gradually being colonized, McHugh describes the distantly connected lives of people who live, love, play, work, and sometimes succeed--amid great hardship--through necessity and their own ingenuity. You know these characters well. They are us.
	Mission Child	Maureen F. McHugh
	Again, McHugh concentrates on the everyday individual and brings to life the character of Janna/Jann, a woman who struggles with her sense of self and her place in the changing world that she lives. McHugh explores the themes of disrupted traditions and cultural fusion, of ecology and the unexpected affects of technology, of survivor guilt and forgiveness. Her ability to draw the reader into her characters, to focus so intensely on the person rather than the action, is frightening-- almost as if McHugh has not merely created Janna's life on paper but has actually lived it.
	The Annunciate	Severna Park
	Park can write one helluva novel, that's for sure. The Annunciate is set in the far future where humanity has split into three separate groups: Meshed, Jacked, and Jackless. Park combines slick technology, a fantastic setting, and some very flawed but sympathetic characters to create one unusual and exciting universe.
	Mockingbird	Sean Stewart
	Stewart is probably one of the most creative voices in speculative fiction today. In Mockingbird, he presents us with the story of Antoinette Beauchamp, a woman whose inheritance from her dead mother includes a huge IRS bill, a house in New Orleans, magical spirits called riders, and a family secret. Antoinette isn't your usual heroine. She's witty, caustic, ill-mannered, gracious, childish, mature--she's as complex as the magical spirits that "ride" her.
	The Night Watch	Sean Stewart
	Sean Stewart is a master at mixing fantasy and near-future extrapolation. In The Night Watch he envisions a future Vancouver and Edmondton transformed by magic and technology. This novel has magical forests, high-tech weapons, ghosts, and even angels (though not the smarmy New Age type.)
	Resurrection Man	Sean Stewart
	In this novel, Stewart brings to life an alternate history where magic had entered the world and changed things forever. What is most interesting about Resurrection Man is how Stewart lays out his ecology of the fantastic, giving it to us piece by piece, and showing how if affects both the private lives of one family and the society in which they live.
	Grass	Sheri S. Tepper
	Tepper's later novels could be said to devolve into a feminist polemic, but Grass is a much more subtle work of fiction. In Grass, Tepper creates a world where an aristocracy of humans seem to live harmoniously along side an alien native population. Unfortunately, there is a terrible disease sweeping through the galaxy, decimating the human species, and for some unexplained reason, the world of Grass may hold the key to a cure.
	Steel Beach	John Varley
	Steel Beaches is set in the same future universe as Varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline. Decades before, the human species was kicked off the Earth by impassive aliens and left to build a society on the Moon and other harsh envronments in the Solar system. And what a society they've built--eternal youth, whimsical playgrounds modeled after Earth's remembered past, all-pervasive artificial intelligences. But in this comfy world of excess, why are people killing themselves? Read Steel Beaches and find out.
	Titan (Gaia Trilogy #1)	John Varley
	Wizard (Gaia Trilogy #2)	John Varley
	Demon (Gaia Trilogy #3)	John Varley
	These three books compose Varley's Gaia trilogy. Varley creates wonderful heroines: fiesty, egotistical, humorous, stubborn, and sympathetic. Even the grand Gaia herself, an alien deity thousands of years old, is elegantly drawn. This trilogy is a wonderful romp through a fascinating world. It's The Wizard of Oz and The Canterbury Tales combined with a dash of The Godfather thrown in for spice.
Anthologies
	Not of Woman Born	Constance Ash, Editor
	This is an interesting collection of short stories that contemplate the issue of reproductive alternatives. Some of the stories are set in the near future, others in the far future, but all of them are insightful extrapolations. Included in this book are works by Walter Jon Williams, Sage Walker, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and Richard Parks.
	Tangents	Greg Bear
	This collection includes eight previously published stories, one original story, ranging from hard SF to surreal urban fantasy, and one unpublished essay commissioned by Omni magazine but never printed. Among the stories are "Blood Music", "Sleepside Story", and "Tangents".
	Nebula Awards Showcase 2000	Gregory Benford & Michael Kandel, Ed.
	Any collection of award-winning stories is worth a long and slow read. This collection, from the 1999 Nebula Awards® presented by the SFWA®, is as solid as they come. If there is one flaw in this anthology, it is that too much space is devoted to essays on the science fiction field rather than the finalist stories themselves. Considering that some of the finalists may never see print again, it seems a shame to usurp their place in favor of a few specious essays whose entertainment value is short-lived at best.
	Blood Child: And Other Stories	Octavia E. Butler
	Butler isn't known for her short fiction. She even confesses that most of her ideas are too large to be contained in anything but a novel, but when she does try her hand at shorter works, she succeeds admirably. There are only five stories and two essays in this slim volume, but it still makes for a wonderful collection.
	The Year's Best Science Fiction: # 16	Gardner Dozois, Ed.
	In this hefty volume, Dozois brings together what he considers the best short stories published in 1998. Writers such as Cory Doctorow, Greg Egan, Tanith Lee, Ted Chiang, Robert Reed, and Liz Williams among others have contributed some very wonderful works.
	Black Glass	Karen Joy Fowler
	This anthology, a handpicked collection of Fowler's short fictions, is disturbing, funny, satiric, and stunning. Fowler plays with common issues about gender, politics, etc in such a deft and sly manner that the reader is fooled into thinking that Fowler is merely telling a story. Not so. Fowler definitely has something to say and what it is may surprise you. "Black Glass", "The Elizabeth Complex", and "Lieserl" are included in this book.
	Last Summer at Mars Hill	Elizabeth Hand
	This is Hand's first collection of short fiction. Though she seems to have left the short story form behind in recent years, these stories demonstrate from the beginning that Hand would become a strong voice in the field of speculative fiction. "Last Summer at Mars Hill" and "Snow on Sugar Mountain" are reprinted in this book.
	The Science Fiction Century	David G. Hartwell, Ed.
	Editor David Hartwell has compiled a huge collection of science fiction stories, all culled from the best that the 20th century had to offer. Some of the names are familiar--Kress, Zelazny, van Vogt, Crowley, Wells, Blish. Others like Jeschke and Wisniewski may not be. A collection of stories worthy of any devoted SF reader's bookshelf.
	Starlight 1	Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Ed.
	This book by Nielsen Hayden, the first of the Starlight anthology series, took the science fiction genre by storm when it was first released. Many of the stories contained within were either nominated for or won some of the most prestigious awards in the science fiction genre. An achievement of stellar proportion.
	Intersections: A Sycamore Hill Anthology	John Kessel, Richard Butner, & Mark Van Name, Ed.
	This is an interesting anthology of stories produced during the Sycamore Hill Writer's Workshop, a by-invitation-only group of science fiction & fantasy writers who get together once a year to critique each other's work. This book contains original works by Maureen F. McHugh, Gregory Frost, Nancy Kress, John Kessel, just to name a few. The written critiques and author's comments at the end of each story are reason enough to read this book.
	Red as Blood: Tales from the Sisters Grimmer	Tanith Lee
	Lee knows her fairy tales, and she knows how to twist them until they crack like chicken bones. What you find inside may delight or disturb you. Either way, you'll never look at Snow White the same way again.
	Four Ways to Forgiveness	Ursula K. LeGuin
	On the surface, this collection of four novellas appears to be the tales of four different people on a world from LeGuin's Hainish universe. But it is much more than that. Each story is related to the other, each builds on the previous one, detailing from four characters' viewpoints the monumental changes a slave-based society goes through as it moves beyond its old traditions. Though each story stands on its own merit, to get the full impact of this work, you should read the entire collection from the first story to the last.
	Unconquered Countries	Geoff Ryman
	This is a collection of four novellas written by Geoff Ryman. I can't begin to describe the power of the author's voice or the creativity of his stories. "O Happy Day!" and "Unconquered Country" are included in this book. Read this book. Then read it again.
	Lovedeath	Dan Simmons
	Dan Simmons is probably best known for his Hyperion series of novels, but this collection of four separate novellas shows his mastery of short fiction. In many ways, the novella is considered an ugly stepchild of the publishing world. Too long to be a short story and too short to be a novel, writers find it difficult to write and even more difficult to sell. In this book, Simmons demonstrates the value and artistry of the form.
	Firewatch	Connie Willis
	Connie Willis is a true master of the short story form. She can work in any medium, from slapstick to high drama, and always creates interesting characters. This anthology includes many great pieces from the early years of her career. Among them are "Firewatch", "A Letter From the Clearys", and "All My Darling Daughters".
	Impossible Things	Connie Willis
	Another great collection from one of science fiction's best story tellers. This anthology includes "The Last of the Winnebagos", "Even the Queen", and "At the Rialto".
Nonfiction
	Writing Poetry	Barbara Drake
	This is is the second edition of Drake's original book first published in 1983. She has made some modifications, but she has kept her intent pure, which was to write a text that students of poetry "would choose to have in his or her survival kit if stranded on a desert island." This book covers such diverse topics as voice, surrealism, found poetry, the craft of revision, metaphor and simile, publishing, and the advantages of keeping a journal.
	Black Holes and Baby Universes	Stephen Hawking
	Stephen Hawking is one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of the 20th century, perhaps even the 21st. Unlike his previous book, A Brief History of Time this one is a collection of essays he has written during his career. In these essays, we learn about both the theories and the man behind the theories--from his childhood in north London to the quantum mechanics of black holes.
	Steering the Craft	Ursula K. LeGuin
	This is a slim volume on the craft of writing, but looks can be deceiving. LeGuin has packed a mere 172 pages with examples, exercises, and essays that could keep a college creative writing class busy for years. And she does it all with an elegant style and a dry wit.
	A Proper Garden: On Perennials in the Border	Elisabeth Sheldon
	And what is a gardening book doing in a list of reading recommendations? Any gardener who can write the line, "The second thing I have against daylilies is that as their gorgeous trumpets fade they hang like wet socks ..." is a superb writer too. Sheldon writes with wit and wisdom about her sometimes disasterous attempts to create a "proper" border garden in the very un-English North American climate. Even if you don't know (and don't care about) the difference between a true hardy geranium and a pelargonium, this book is worthy of your attention.
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