shvarz

Я когда-то клялся, что Грега Беара больше читать не буду. Но наткнулся в библиотеке на аудиоверсию его самой известной книги и не смог удержаться. Впрочем, в этот раз я его не читал, а слушал, так что формально клятву я не нарушил :)

В книжке речь идет о связи между ретровирусами и эволюцией человека, что невольно подстегнуло мой интерес. К тому же основные места действия - UW и NIH - мне тоже хорошо знакомы. Ну и наконец, главные герои - ученые.

Большинство рецензий на эту книгу хвалят ее за то, что в ней очень хорошо описан научный метод, ученые и необходимые для понимания сюжета научные факты. Это действительно так - Беар очень живо рассказывает о таких вещах, как ретровирусы, эндогенные ретроэлементы, белки, мутации, гены. При этом он не слишком упрощает и не делает жутких ляпов - все описано вполне корректно.

Дальше писать без спойлеров не могу, поэтому на всякий случай убираю под кат. Но если вы прислушаетесь к моей рекоммендации и читать эту книгу не будете, то смело читайте этот пост дальше. Особенно биологам будет интересно.( дальше )

Сделал для собственных целей список фантастов и их лучших произведений.  Собираюсь брать его с собой в книжные магазины/библиотеку, как удобную памятку.  Сделаю на него закладочку и постараюсь более-менее регулярно обновлять (раз в полгода?). Последнее обновление 15 сентября 2008.

Я намеренно концентрировался на англоязычных писателях-фантастах, исключая чистое фэнтези и/или хоррор.  Авторы, работающие в нескольких жанрах, принимаются. Формат простой: авторы идут по алфавиту, первым упоминается самое важное произведение, затем небольшой комментарий (если есть) и список "для дальнейшего чтения". Зеленым цветом помечены мои личные рекомендации. Красным цветом помечено то, что мне не очень понравилось, однако показалось достаточно важным, чтобы быть занесенным в список.

Рекомендации по улучшению/расширению списка принимаются и приветствуются.

ADAMS, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) springboarded from the popular radio and television series into a series of best-selling comic send-ups of SF and society for this British author.

ALDISS, Brian. The Helliconia trilogy. The Long Afternoon of Earth (1962). A fantastic story of a future when Earth has a tropical climate, plants grow wild, animal life is strange, and spider webs reach to the moon. The Dark Light Years (1964); Barefoot in the Head (1969), Frankenstein Unbound 1973). Non-Stop (1958), the mother of all generation starship stories. Greybeard (1964)

AMIS, Kingsley.  The Alteration (1976)  Tale of a would-be eunich in a world where the Spanish Armada conquered England. Great alternates history story.

ANDERSON, Poul. Tau Zero (1971). A starship malfunctions and is sent on out-of-galaxy trip at ever increasing speed.  Anderson is prolific and most of his books are relevant, very hard-core SF, yet they seem to lack the emotional development of characters. Of particular interest: Brain Wave (1954); The War of the Wing Men (1958); The High Crusade (1960), and Harvest of Stars (1993).
ANTHONY, Piers. Macroscope (1969). Although best known for his best-selling Xanth series (starting with A Spell for Chameleon (1977)), Anthony has written some unusual SF such as his Battle Circle trilogy (1978) and his Of Man and Manta (1986)

ASIMOV, Isaac. The Foundation Trilogy (1951). A long-awaited sequel Foundation's Edge became a bestseller in 1982, as did all of his 1980s novels binding together his Foundation and his Robot universes. Asimov is a central writer in the SF canon, and this trilogy is a central work in the SF myth of man's empire in space. All of Asimov's SF is worth reading, but particularly I, Robot (1950), his first robot stories, which established the three laws of robotics; The Caves of Steel (1954), his first detective novel, and its sequels The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn, which became a bestseller in 1983; The End of Eternity (1955); and The Gods Themselves (1972).

ASPRIN, Robert. Mostly known for his semi-fantasy Myth series, starting with Another Fine Myth (1978), he also wrote a very unusual novel The Bug Wars (1979), written from the perspective of an insect-like warrior with truly alien psychology.

BALLARD, James. The Crystal World (1966). A strange, introspective novel in which a region of Africa is affected by a condition in which living things are changed to crystal. Ballard's style is unique and one either loves him or hates him.  Ballard was a major figure in the British New Worlds, new-wave fiction that emerged in the 1960s. Other books of interest: The Drowned World (1962); Love and Napalm: Export USA also titled The Atrocity Exhibition, (1970); and his autobiographical novel about growing up in a Shanghai internment camp, Empire of the Sun (1984) that was filmed by Steven Spielberg.

BATCHELOR, John Calvin. The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica (1983)   Very unusual book. Meditative style, little action. Huge exodus of people from socially disintegrating Europe and the following humanitarian crysis.

BAXTER, Stephen. This British hard-SF writer won the 1996 Campbell Award for The Time Ships, a sequel to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. Also of note: Titan (1997), in which near-future NASA in danger of being closed forever chooses a manned trip to Titan as its last push in space exploration.

BENFORD, Gregory. Timescape (1980) - using his background as a research physicist and astronomer Benford explores the time-travel idea and shows how it does not have to result in a paradox. While a solid attempt at literature, book has characters that lack distinction and the time-paradox is resolved by a fairly old idea. Benford has written a number of other novels of interest, particularly his four-volume series about a world-shattering battle between organic and inorganic intelligence at the heart of the galaxy, Great Sky River (1987), Tides of Light (1989), Furious Gulf (1994), and Sailing Bright Eternity (1995), to which one might add his earlier Nigel Walmsley novels, In the Ocean of Night (1977) and Across the Sea of Suns (1984).

BESTER, Alfred. The Demolished Man (1953). Flamboyant novel of murder in a world where telepathy is common. The Stars My Destination also titled Tiger! Tiger!, (1957) is another major novel, the Count of Monte Cristo in a world of teleportation. For his important short fiction, Starlight (1976).

BISHOP, Michael. No Enemy But Time (1982). In a literate treatment of a novel kind of time travel, a unusual young black man lives with humanity's habiline ancestors and brings his child into the present. Other works of interest: Ancient of Days (1985) and Brittle Innings (1994).

BLISH, James. A Case of Conscience (1958). A Jesuit priest in an extraplanetary contact team reaches a crisis of conscience when it seems that the inhabitants of a utopian planet are living in a state of grace without God. Other books of interest: Cities in Flight (1955, 1957, 1958, 1962) - a colection of works about discovery of antigravity and consequent spread of human culture through universe. Very uneven going from poor to brilliant, but worth reading for the sake of SF history. The Seedling Stars (1957).

BOVA, Ben. Kinsman (1979) and Millennium (1976).

BRACKETT, Leigh.  The Long Tomorrow (1955)  Two searchers after technology in a Luddite pastoral world that follows a nuclear catastrophe.

BRADBURY, Ray. The Martian Chronicles (1950). Emotion-packed short stories based around a fantasy Mars. Bradbury is science-fiction's lyric talent. Other books of interest: The Illustrated Man (1951), Fahrenheit 451 (1953); his collected stories in The October Country (1955) and others; and Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962).

BRADLEY, Marion Zimmer. The Planet Savers (1962) and The Sword of Aldones (1962) launched the popular Darkover series that developed its own fandom. Bradley also has written non-Darkover novels such as the best-selling Arthurian novel The Mists of Avalon (1983).

BRIN, David. Startide Rising (1984). A carefully thought-out space epic by a physicist about a youthful humanity helped by mutated dolphins and apes in a galaxy dominated by older alien races. The Uplift War (1987) and Brightness Reef (1995) are set in the same universe. Other novels of interest: The Postman (1985), Earth (1990).

BRODERICK, Damien.  The Dreaming Dragons (1980).  Wonderfully arcane story of an Australian aborigine who finds an alien artifact in Ayers Rock.

BROWN, Fredric. What Mad Universe (1949). Hard-boiled mystery writer Fred Brown was also a talented sf writer, particularly at the shorter lengths. This is his amusing parallel-world story about the imagination of a science-fiction fan. Other books of interest: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1953); and Martians, Go Home (1955).

BRUNNER, John. Stand on Zanzibar (1969). A long novel about overpopulation in the near future, whose style was influenced by John Dos Passos. Other books of interest: The Jagged Orbit (1969), racial prejudice; The Sheep Look Up (1972), pollution; The Shockwave Rider (1975), future shock; The Crucible of Time (1983).

BUDRYSS, Algis.  Rogue Moon (1960).  Psychological novel about Earthers investigating a deadly alien maze on the Dark Side of the Moon. One of the first really modern, modern sci fi books. Michaelmas (1976)

BURGESS, Anthony. Clockwork Orange (1962). Classic dystopian future England and the adventures of a vicious gangleader, and how society deals with him, oh my brothers.

BUTLER, Octavia E. Xenogenesis (1989) is a compilation of her Xenogenesis series about a human-breeding program by aliens, which echoes feminist and racist concerns, as does her earlier Patternist series typified by Wild Seed (1980). Parable of the Talents  (1999); Speech Sounds (1983); Blood Child (1984).

BURROUGHS, Edgar Rice. A Princess of Mars, (1912). The archetypal mother-of-all heroic fantasy novel.  The writing is poor, the plot is predictable, yet this is a must-read for any sf fan. Burroughs is a prolific writer, best known for his Tarzan stories, but best liked by fantasy and sf readers for his eleven-volume Martian series and his seven-volume Pellucidar series; this is the first and possibly the best of the Martian series.

CADIGAN, Pat. Synners (1989), Fools (1994); currently considered the "Queen of Cyberpunk." Patterns (1988) was her first major collection of short works, and Mindplayers (1987) was her breakout novel.

CAMPBELL, John W. The Best of John W. Campbell (1976). Influential, longtime editor of Astounding/Analog, Campbell began as a writer of space epics and then turned to writing the more subtle psychological, philosophical stories collected here.

CAPEK, Karel. R.U.R. (1921). The initials stand for Rossum’s Universal Robots; the play created the word "robot" and was the first of the great robot stories. The Czech dramatist also wrote: War with The Newts (1937), social commentary on pre-WWII world and on many other things; Krakatit (1925); The Absolute at Large (1927).

CARD, Orson Scott. Ender's Game (1985) and Speaker for the Dead (1986).  Ender's Shadow (1999) is also pretty strong, but the rest of the Ender's series is for fans only. A prolific author, Card also has created several more series, including his Tales of Alvin Maker and his Homecoming sequence. Other books of interest: Lost Boys (1992), Hart's Hope (1983), Magic Street (2005).

CARTER, Angela.  Heroes and Villains (1969).  A story of a post-nuclear war world and the struggle between civilization and barbarism.

CHARNAS, Suzy McKee. Walk to the End of the World (1974) was one of the early post-holocaust feminist dystopias,  Harrowing feminist parable of gender horror. A very tough book.  Motherlines (1978), a feminist utopia. Boobs (1989).

CHERRYH, C. J. Downbelow Station (1982). This former high school Latin teacher writes about carefully designed future civilizations and alien societies, as well as fantasy novels, such as her Rusalka trilogy.

CHRISTOPHER, John.  The Death of Grass (1956).  A virus kills all the grasses in the world and most of its food. A grim story.

CLARKE, Arthur C. Childhood's End (1953). A visionary, eschatological novel about Earth's children changing into pure mentality and joining the Overmind. Clarke is one of the three best-known contemporary science-fiction writers of his time the other two were Asimov and Heinlein) and worth reading in any of his three moods: extrapolative, poetic, philosophical. Other important books: The City and the Stars (1956); Rendezvous with Rama (1974); The Fountains of Paradise (1979); and the novelization of the Stanley Kubrick film A Space Odyssey (1968).

CLEMENT, Hal. Mission of Gravity (1954). A very hard-core science novel about a human stuck on a planet on which the gravity is several hundred times that on Earth, diminishing to only two or three times Earth's gravity at the equator, and his resque by caterpillar-like natives. Clement is too hard-core to my taste, lacking in literary aspects, but his influance on the jenre has been profound. Other books of interest: Needle (1950); Iceworld (1953).

COLLIER, John.  His Monkey Wife (1930)

CROWLEY, John.  Engine Summer 1979)  An often beautiful story of the world After the Big One, told by an storyteller.

DE CAMP, L. Sprague. Lest Darkness Fall (1941). A contemporary man thrown back in time to 6th century Rome tries to stave off the Dark Ages by introducing modern technology and organization. The Complete Enchanter (1975), whose parts date back to 1940 and 1941, written with Fletcher Pratt, contains amusing fantasies about modern man transported to mythological worlds. De Camp also has worked extensively in the heroic fantasy tradition of Conan and in his own heroic fantasy worlds.

DEL REY, Lester.  More known as an editor, Del Rey wrote many innovative short stories in 30-60s. For I am a Jealous People (1954) and Vengeance is mine! (1964) deserve special attention.

DELANY, Samuel R. The Einstein Intersection (1967). This world of Einsteinian laws has intersected another universe with different rules, and alien creatures with human attributes interact with human myths and legends. Delany is a literary writer of what might be called meta-science fiction. Other books of interest: Babel-17 (1966); Dhalgren (1975); Triton (1976); and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984), the first of a series.

DENTON, Bradley. Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede (1991).  A writer primarily known for his short fiction.

DICK, Philip K. The Man in the High Castle (1963). The United States has lost World War II, and Japan and Germany have divided it up, except for the Rocky Mountain states, where a novelist is writing a book in which the United States won the war; one of the best of the alternate-history novels. Dick, who died in 1982, was a prolific author whose books, all of interest, dealt often with the nature of reality: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968); Ubik (1969); Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974); and Valis (1981).

DICKSON, Gordon R. Three to Dorsai (1975). Dickson, a prolific author of science fiction on various themes, is involved in writing a multi-volume series chronicling an evolutionary development in the human race; these are the three novels in this Childe Cycle dating back to 1959.

DISCH, Thomas M. On Wings of Song (1979) this author of experimental stories and novels such as Camp Concentration (1967) and The Asian Shore (1970), which is collected in Getting into Death and Other Stories (1976). 334 (1972)

DOYLE, Arthur Conan.  The Lost World (1912). Mostly famous for his Sherlock Holmes stories, Doyle wrote some interesting hardcore science fiction. This is a surprisingly well-written and often humorous book about a place in Amazon forest, where dinosaurs have survived.

EGAN, Greg. Permutation City (1994).

ELLISON, Harlan, ed. Dangerous Visions (1967). This anthology and its sequel Again, Dangerous Visions (1972) were showcases of personal, style-conscious fiction sometimes identified with the "new wave." This also describes the provocative short fiction of Ellison himself, which has been collected in a number of volumes, such as Deathbird Stories (1975) and Angry Candy (1988). I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream (1967)

EMSHWILLER, Carol. Carmen Dog (1990), a humorous feminist novel that inspired Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler to create the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award.

FARMER, Philip José. To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1972). The first novel in Farmer's Riverworld series, in which all past human beings are revived to find themselves living along the banks of a long river. Farmer deliberately challenged each and every taboo in sf, thus paving the road for the whole generation of New Wave writers. He is extremely prolific, sacrificing quality for quantity, but the first book in each series is usually worth reading.  Other books of interest: The Unreasoning Mask (1981), The Lovers (1961) and most of his early short stories from 1950-1960s, such as Riders of the Purple Wage (1967).

FINNEY, Jack. The Body Snatchers (1955). Two parallel world novels by this mainstream writer for the slick magazines are The Woodrow Wilson Dime (1968) and Time and Again (1970).

FRANK, Pat.  Alas, Babylon (1959).   Morally ambiguous tale of the aftermath of a nuclear war. Holocaust as transcendence.

GIBSON, William. Neuromancer (1984) launched, but did not name, the "cyberpunk" movement. The trilogy continued with Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988). His early stories, including the story that inspired the film Johnny Mnemonic, were collected in Burning Chrome (1986).

GOLDING, William.  The Inheritors (1954).  A reappraisal of our assumptions, portraying Neanderthal society as rich and humane, until destroyed by the murderous Modern Men.

GRAY, Alasdair. Lanark (1981)

GUNN, James. The Listeners (1972). The difficulties and successes in a century-long project to listen for messages from the stars. Other books of interest: The Joy Makers, (1961); The Immortals (1962); Kampus (1977); The Dreamers (1981).

HAGGARD, H. Rider. She (1887). One of the earliest and best of the lost-race novels that were almost a genre in themselves in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

HALDEMAN, Joe. The Forever War (1976). An episodic novel of a centuries-long war between aliens and humans fought in space, with ships going faster-than-light and compressing subjective time. A very ambitious and grandeur novel, yet (as many sf writers) Haldeman can't handle the human side of the story. All My Sins Remembered (1977) - shorter and more precise in its delivery is worth reading. The Hemingway Hoax (1990).

HAND, Elizabeth. Last Summer at Mars Hill (1995). Probably her highest-regarded book-length work is the series that began with Winterlong (1990).

HARNESS, Charles L.  The Paradox Men (1953)  Superior tale of the paradoxes of time travel. Amazing conceptualization.

HARRISON, Harry. The Deathworld Trilogy (1960, 1964, 1968). Harrison is a prolific author of satire, humor, adventure, and naturalistic extrapolation such as Make Room, Make Room, (1966)  His satirical works include The Stainless Steel Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero series. The Eden trilogy, beginning with West of Eden (1984) describes a world in which dinosaurs did not become extinct, but instead developed intelligence and a different kind of science and civilization.

HARRISON, John.  The Centauri Device (1974).  Satirical but action packed story of a nasty future Earth and the loser Spacemen is carrying alien DNA and dealing with space Anarchists and...

HEINLEIN, Robert A. The Past Through Tomorrow (1967); this collection of early "Future History" stories still is a favorite of many readers. Many consider Starship Troopers (1959) to be Heinlein's finest work of philosophical SF. Perhaps the most influential figure in modern science fiction, Heinlein has excelled in many fields of SF, including juvenile personal favorite: Have Spacesuit--Will Travel, (1958) and sexual-religious themes Stranger in a Strange Land, (1962), as well as straightforward adventure The Puppet Masters, (1952); Glory Road, (1963).

HERBERT, Frank. Dune (1966). This long novel of imperial intrigue and ecology on a desert world, organized around a messiah theme, shaped an audience for its many sequels. Other books of interest: The Dragon in the Sea (1956); The Santaroga Barrier (1968).

HOBAN, Russell. Riddley Walker (1980) Great story of a post-nuclear war barbarized England, as the narratot tells the Story of His Life won a Campbell Award for this mostly mainstream writer's inventive account of a post-holocaust England.

HUXLEY, Aldous. Brave New World (1932). A classic anti-utopia about people created on an assembly-line and their organized and controlled lives. While the book is very poorly written, it is still a must-read, as it voices many-many SF ideas that were later developed by other authors.

KEYES, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon (1960). This study of a mentally retarded man who becomes a genius through an operation and then regresses to his previous condition.

KNIGHT, Damon, ed. The Best of Damon Knight (1976). Knight may be best known as a pioneer critic who became an anthologist and editor, particularly of the original anthology Orbit, but he was the author of great short fiction. Recent novels include his CV utopian trilogy and Why Do Birds? (1992).

KORNBLUTH, C. M. The Best of C. M. Kornbluth (1976). Kornbluth died in his thirties after a promising beginning as a collaborator with Judith Merril under the name of Cyril Judd and Frederik Pohl The Space Merchants, (1953), and others, and on his own The Syndic, (1953); Not This August, (1955). He was particularly effective at the shorter lengths.

KRESS, Nancy. Beggars in Spain (1992).

KUTTNER, Henry. Fury (1950). An angry man pushes humanity out of the comfortable underwater Keeps on Venus onto the ravening land. Kuttner and his wife, C. L. Moore, herself a distinguished science-fiction author, collaborated under a variety of pen names, which included Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O'Donnell. They were particularly effective at the shorter lengths, as illustrated in The Best of Henry Kuttner (1975) and The Best of C. L. Moore both (1975). Robots Have no Tails (1952)

LAFFERTY, R.A. An extremely unusual author, famous for its original and masterful stories.  Old Foot Forgot (1970) and The Hole in the Corner (1967) deserve special attention.

LE GUIN, Ursula K. Le Guin is a master of building unusual socities and worlds. Most of her best works are collected in Hainish cycle, most notably The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995), and The Dispossessed (1974).  The Left Hand of Darkness is an effective, multi-leveled novel about human contact with a wintry world where the natives are neuter most of the month and may then be either sex and both a mother and a father, and its psychological and sociological effects. She is also famous for her outstanding fantasy Earthsea trilogy. 

LEIBER, Fritz. Conjure Wife (1953). Leiber was a long-time author of science fiction and fantasy, and is particularly noted for his heroic fantasy about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; this is unheroic fantasy involving a wife who learns that witchcraft is being practiced on a quiet college campus and learning to do it herself in self-defense. Other books of interest: The Big Time (1958); The Wanderer (1965).

LINDSAY, David. A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)

LONDON, Jack. Before Adam (1905). One of the best of the prehistoric-man novels. Other books of interest: The Scarlet Plague (1915); The Star Rover (1915).

LOVECRAFT, H. P. The Shadow over Innsmouth (1936). A short novel that introduces the reader, like the unsuspecting narrator, to the horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos that Lovecraft and his followers celebrated in dozens of short stories. This piece is available in The Dunwich Horror and Others.

MALZBERG, Barry. Beyond Apollo (1973), a novel about an astronaut's attempt to understand what happened on a disastrous expedition to Venus.  This prolific author has used SF motifs to produce a number of brooding, skillfully written, sometimes satirical stories and novels, including Herovit's World (1973), Guernica Night (1974), and Galaxies (1975).

MARTIN, George R. R. Sandkings (1981) is a collection of Martin's short stories that includes his Hugo-winning novelette. He is at his best in the shorter lengths. Now a screenwriter and Hollywood story editor, Martin had moved toward the mainstream with novels such as Fevre Dreams (1983) and The Armageddon Rag (1985).

MERRILL, Judith. That Oonly a Mother, (1948).  Merrill helped form the "New wave" in sf through her best-of-the-year anthologies.  Other books of interest: Outpost Mars (1952) and Gunner Cade (1952)

MERRITT, A. The Moon Pool (1919). A lost-race novel about an epic struggle between good and evil in a cavern beneath the South Pacific once occupied by the moon, told in Merritt's lush, romantic prose. Other books of interest: The Ship of Ishtar (1926); The Face in the Abyss (1931); Dwellers in the Mirage (1932).

MILLER, Walter M., Jr. Canticle for Leibowitz (1961). After an atomic war, a monastic order preserves blueprints and technological artifacts, and civilization is rebuilt over 1,800 years.

MOORCOCK, Michael. Gloriana: or the Unfulfill'd Queen: Being a Romance (1978). This author is better known for his Elric of Melniboné heroic fantasies and his postmodern commentaries on contemporary society, and as the New Worlds editor who helped create the New Wave. The Final Programme (1968)

MOORE, Ward. Bring the Jubilee (1955). An outstanding alternate-history novel in which the South has won the Civil War.

MURPHYY, Pat. The Falling Woman (1986), Rachel in Love (1986).

NIVEN, Larry. Ringworld (1971). A crew made up of three different races sets out to discover and explore a gigantic world fashioned into a ring around its sun by vanished master engineers. Other books of interest: The Mote in God's Eye with Jerry Pournelle (1974), and later collaborations, as well as collections of his Known Space stories, Neutron Star and Tales of Known Space.

NORTON, Andre. Star Man's Son (1952). The first of a long series of romantic juveniles popular with young readers and adults as well. Norton is even better known for her fantasy novels, particularly her Witch World sequence. Judgment on Janus (1963)

ORWELL, George. Nineteen Eighty-four (1949). A famous anti-utopian novel about total psychological and political control, even of history and language, in the near future now the past.

PANGBORN, Edgar. A Mirror for Observers (1954)   Martians are secretly observing Earth, and messing around. A good vs. evil morality story, almost pretentious in its attempt to come to terms with human nature.

PANSHIN, Alexei. Rite of Passage (1968). A girl comes of age aboard a self-sufficient spaceship and in its specialized community.

PIERCY, Marge.  Woman on the Edge of Time (1976)  Woman wrongly committed to a mental hospital is haunted by a ghost of the Utopian Future.

PIPER, H. Beam. Fuzzies series started with Little Fuzzy (1962).  Space Viking (1963)

POHL, Frederik. The Space Merchants with Cyril Kornbluth (1953). The advertising agencies, with the aid of the multinational corporations, run the world in this dystopian novel of overpopulation, pollution, and scarce resources. Pohl has collaborated frequently but is a rewarding author on his own, particularly at the shorter lengths. Other books of interest: The Age of the Pussyfoot (1970); The Best of Frederik Pohl (1975); Man Plus (1975); Gateway (1977); Jem (1979); The Years of the City (1984).

POURNELLE, Jerry. The Mote in God's Eye (1974) was Pournelle's first collaboration with Larry Niven and a best seller, as was their Lucifer's Hammer (1977). Pournelle, on his own, has written a number of combat SF novels and edited a variety of anthologies.

POWERS, Tim.  The Anubis Gates (1983)

PRATCHETT, Terry. The Colour of Magic (1983) is the first novel in a best-selling Discworld series of fantasies by this British author.

PRIEST, Christopher. The Glamour (1984) confirmed the transition of a British writer of speculative fiction such as The Inverted World (1974)  Interesting and complex story of a Place where Time and Distance are, well, confused.  A Dream of Wessex (1977) into the mainstream with its consideration of hard-to-notice people who perfect an ability to become invisible. A recent novel of distinction is The Separation.

REYNOLDS, Mack. Looking Backwards, From the Year 2000 (1973).  Interesting re-doing of Bellamy's 1888 classic Looking Backward.

ROBERTS, Keith.  Pavane 1968)  A fascinating world in which the Catholic Church dominates

ROBINSON, Kim Stanley. Red Mars (1992) and the rest of the Mars trilogy tells a realistic and tale of Mars colonization. Robinson is rare mix of a well-educated scientist, writing hardcore sci-fi, and a great novelist, spending a lot of time on character development. Orange County "trilogy" The Wild Shore (1984), The Gold Coast (1988), and Pacific Edge (1990).

ROBINSON, Frank. The Glass Inferno (1975) was the first of Robinson's best-selling disaster novels with the late Thomas N. Scortia. Robinson's earlier solo novel was The Power (1956).

ROBINSON, Spider. Stardance (1979), with Jeanne Robinson was followed by Starseed (1991) and Starmind (1995). He also is known for his Callahan's Crosstime Saloon stories.

RUSS, Joanna. The Female Man (1976) may be the basic feminist SF statement by one of the most eloquent of its proponents. Her stories have been collected in The Zanzibar Cat (1983) and Extraordinary People (1984). She won the Hugo for the novella "Souls," and the Nebula for the short story "When It Changed."

SARGENT, Pamela. Venus of Dreams (1986) launched her terraforming of Venus series. Her feminist "utopia" The Shore of Women (1986) was well received and her feminist anthologies Women of Wonder (1975, 1976, 1978, 1995) are essential reading; the latest editions are Women of Wonder: The Classic Years, which reprint the first three volumes; and Women of Wonder: The Contemporary Years.

SCARBOROUGH, Elizabeth Ann. The Healer's War (1989).

SHAW, Robert.  Orbitsville (1975)  Spacers discover a Dyson Sphere. Sort of a thinking man's Ringworld.  The palace of Eternity (1969),   the "poet's world" must go to interstellar war

SHECKLEY, Robert. Untouched by Human Hands, (1954). Sheckley is a brilliant, innovative writer of short, often satirical, science fiction. Other story collections Pilgrimage to Earth (1957); Store of Infinity, (1960); Is That What People Do?, (1984) also are recommended. Novels include Mindswap (1966), Dimension of Miracles (1968), and Options (1975).   Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1963)

SHEFFIELD, Charles. Brother to Dragons (1992), about economic breakdown and population control, won the Campbell Award for this space scientist. He has written hard SF speculations such as The Web Between the Worlds (1982) and his Heritage Universe series beginning with Summertide (1990).

SHELLEY, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein (1818). The classic tale of the monster and his creator. Shelley also wrote The Last Man (1826), one of the first of the "last man on Earth" stories.

SHEPARD, Lucius. Green Eyes, Shepard's first novel, but Shepard's strength may lie in the shorter forms such as his pieced-together look at a near-future Central American conflict, Life During Wartime (1987), and fabulations such as The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter (1988).

SHIEL, M. P. The Purple Cloud (1901). This is a low-keyed end-of-the-world story about three survivors of poisonous gases that pour from the ground.  Shiel was a turn-of-the-century author who wrote cautionary tales such as The Yellow Danger (1899) and The Lord of the Sea (1901). 

SILVERBERG, Robert. Dying Inside (1972). A telepath has found his gift both a source of power and curse; now he finds it slowly fading. Other books of interest: The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, editor, 1970; Nightwings (1969); Tower of Glass (1970); Lord Valentine's Castle (1980). Downward to the Earth (1970)

SIMAK, Clifford. City (1953). A civilization of intelligent dogs has inherited Earth from man A visionary novel well ahead of its time deals with many themes tha will dominate sci-fi 20-40 years later (robots, uplift, parallel worlds, evolution of humans, etc.). Other books of interest: Time and Again (1951); Way Station (1964); A Choice of Gods (1972); The Marathon Photograph and Other Stories (1986). Ring around the Sun (1953)

SIMMONS, Dan. Hyperion (1989) tells six loosely connected stories set in the well-described future world. Its sequel The Fall of Hyperion (1990) brings the stories together in fast-paced multiple point-of-view narrative.  Other books of interest: Endymion (1996) and The Rise of Endymion (1997) continue the Hyperion saga. Ilium (2003) and Olympos (2005)  bring together stories of Homer, Nabokov, Shakespeare and many others. Song of Cali (1985),  LoveDeath (1993), Carrion Comfort (1989), Children of the Night (1992) are fantasy/horror books. Darwin's Blade (2000), and The Crook Factory (1999)

SLADEK, John.  The Roderick Books (1980).  3 Epic rationalized fantasy of the Dying Earth in the far, far distant future. A visionary work.

SLONCZEWSKI, Joan. A Door into Ocean (1986). This professor of biology informs her novels with her knowledge about genetics and her Quaker beliefs.

SMITH, Cordwainer. Norstrilia (1975).  Far, far future wherein are the Underpeople and the Lords of the Instrumentality. Complex, complicated, unique, and great.  Under this pseudonym, Paul Linebarger wrote colorfully fantastic fables of the future gathered in The Best of Cordwainer Smith (1975) and The Instrumentality of Mankind (1979). The rediscovery of Man (1988)

SMITH, Edward E. Gray Lensman (1951). E. E. Smith, Ph.D., called Doc Smith by a generation of fans, wrote great, sprawling space epics; this is a good sample involving a galactic battle between good and evil. There are five more volumes in the Lensman series, four novels in the Skylark series.

SPINRAD, Norman. Bug Jack Barron (1969) was Spinrad's first big success about a television talk-show host who uncovers a plot to provide immortality to the powerful by the deaths of black children. Other books of interest: The Iron Dream (1972); The Void Captain's Tale (1983); Child of Fortune (1985).

STABLEFORD, Brian.  The Walking Shadow (1979)   Time jumpers travel to the End of Time, to a world owned by an gigantic idiot vegatable mass. Grim.

STAPLEDON, Olaf. Last and First Men (1931). An English philosopher describes the next two billion years in the future of mankind--or seventeen different kinds of men, from First to Last. The Star Maker (1937), is even more visionary, traversing the whole universe and the whole history of creation; Odd John (1935), on the other hand, is an intimate description of the birth and development of a superman, and one of the best.

STERLING, Bruce. Islands in the Net (1988), is a cyberpunk novel by one of its major figures and publicists, who edited the definitive cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades (1986). He and Gibson collaborated on The Difference Engine (1990), which has been called "steampunk." Holy Fire (1996)

STEWART, George R. Earth Abides (1951). Many non-science-fiction writers have written ineptly when they ventured into the field; a few have done well. This careful narrative of survival after a worldwide plague has decimated humanity and destroyed most of civilization is excellent. 

STEPHENSON, Neal. Snow Crash (1992), The Diamond Age (1995).

STURGEON, Theodore. More Than Human (1954). An unusual treatment of superman as a Gestalt of six human outcasts with unusual abilities, written in Sturgeon's sensitive, stylish prose. Sturgeon was even better as a writer of short fiction. Many earlier collections exist of which The Worlds of Theodore Sturgeon (1972) and Sturgeon Is Alive and Well... (1971) are representative. Venus Plus X (1960)

SWANWICK, Michael. Stations of the Tidee (1991), an SF novel that resembles fantasy. It was followed by The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), a fantasy novel with SF elements.

TENN, William. The Wooden Star (1968) and other Tenn collections bring together the wondrous stories of this magical author whose real name is Philip Klass.

TEPPER, Sheri S. The Gate to Women's Country (1988) marked Tepper's breakthrough into feminist and critical awareness. Since then she has produced a series of strikingly original novels including the Marjorie Westriding trilogy Grass (1989), Raising the Stones (1990), and Sideshow (1992). She has written many fantasy novels including the fabulations Beauty (1991) and A Plague of Angels (1993).

TIPTREE, James Jr. Crown of Stars (1988), among a number of Tiptree's story collections, collects most of her great stories. Tiptree was a pseudonym for the late Alice Sheldon. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever includes her Hugo-winning stories Up the Walls of the Worldd (1978) and Brightness Falls from the Air (1985).

TUCKER, Wilson. The Long Loud Silence (1952). A novel of survival after a disastrous biological war. Other books of interest: The Year of the Quiet Sun (1970).

VANCE, Jack. The Dragon Masters (1963). Far-out fantasy in the far-distant future. Other books of interest: The Dying Earth (1950); The Languages of Pao (1958); several series.

VAN VOGT, A. E. The World of Null-A (1948). Van Vogt was the great action-adventure writer of the 1940s who dealt with great powers and undiscovered science as if they were magic and he was writing myth; this one deals with teleportation and a superman trying to discover his powers and the nature of a galactic conspiracy. The Pawns of Null-A (1956) is one of the first of two sequels. Other books of interest: Slan (1946); The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950); The War Against the Rull (1959).

VARLEY, John. The Persistence of Vision (1978). Varley was recognized as a star almost immediately, and this collection includes his Nebula and Hugo award-winning title story. Other books of interest: The Barbie Murders (1980); The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977); his Titan trilogy Steel Beach (1992).

VINGE, Joan. The Snow Queen (1981), based upon Hans Christian Anderson and Robert Graves's The White Goddess; sequels were World's End (1984) and The Summer Queen (1991). A Fire Upon the Deep (1992). In Heaven Chronicles (1978, 1980) she describes a civilization near remote star on the brink of extinction after civil war that destroyed the main planet.

VINGE, Vernor. A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) shared a Hugo with Willis's Doomsday Book with its portrayal of a galaxy dominated by artificial intelligences. Other books of interest by this professor of mathematics: True Names (1981), Across Realtime (1988).

VONNEGUT, Kurt, Jr. The Sirens of Titan (1959). Early Vonnegut, when he still was considered a science-fiction writer, but perhaps his best--about a search for meaning in the universe.  Millionaire spaceman flies into a synclastic infundibulum, and has a series of wacky adventures that cannot be adequately summarized; it must be read.  Other books of interest: Player Piano (1952); Cat's Cradle (1963); Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).

WALLACE, David Foster.  Infinite Jest (1996)

WATTS, Peter. Blindsight (2008)

WATSON, Ian. The Embedding (1973).  Complex, sometimes anthropological first contact story. Lots of issues. Watson's first novel, about the influence of language on perceptions of reality, is still one of his best. He has continued to produce effective novels and short stories such as those collected in The Very Slow Time Machine (1979). Miracle Visitors (1977)

WELLS, H. G. The War of the Worlds (1898). The classic Wells novel about invasion from Mars. All Well's early science fiction before 1902 is important, particularly The Time Machine (1895); The Invisible Man (1897); When the Sleeper Wakes (1899); and The First Men in the Moon (1901). His short stories also are excellent and less known.

WILHELM, Kate. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976). A post-catastrophe novel about an isolated group that tries to survive through cloning. Her short fiction is collected in such books as The Downstairs Room and Other Speculative Fiction (1968) and The Infinity Box (1975). Juniper Time (1979)

WILLIAMSON, Jack. The Humanoids (1959). The perfect mechanical servants destroy human incentive and are battled by a strange group with unusual talents. His career, spanning eight decades, has produced novels ranging from The Legion of Space (1934, 1936, 1939) to Beachhead (1992).

WILLIS, Connie. Lincoln's Dreams (1987). Doomsday Book (1992). Willis has won many awards for her short fiction.

WOLFE, Bernard. Limbo (1952)

WOLFE, Gene. The Book of the New Sun tetralogy, beginning with The Shadow of the Torturer (1980). Four long novels with a fifth added later, that are really one very long novel, about the wanderings of a young torturer through a strange future world. Other books of interest: a new Long Sun series began with Nightside the Long Sun (1993). The fifth Head of Cerberus (1972).

WOLVERTON, Dave. On My Way to Paradise (1989). Latin-American outlaws are hired by a japanese corporation to fight a war on a distant planet, which leads to the clash of cultures and the soul-searching by the main hero. Serpent Catch (1991)

WYNDHAM, John. The Day of the Triffids (1951). John Beynon Harris assumed the pen name of John Wyndham and re-created the typically English small-scale narrative of a worldwide catastrophe, in this case universal blindness combined with carnivorous, mobile plants. Other books of interest: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) and The Chrysalids.

ZAMIATIN, Eugene. We (1924). A novel of a regimented Russian future by a Russian influenced by Wells.

ZEBROWSKI, George. Macrolife (1979). A Stapledonian novel about starfaring in space habitats as the proper form of human existence. Other novels of interest: Stranger Suns (1991), The Killing Star (1994) with Charles Pellegrino.

ZELAZNY, Roger. Lord of Light (1968). A group of humans on a colony planet use advanced technology to give themselves immortality and godlike powers in a guise of Hindu gods, until one of them leads a revolt. Other books of interest: This Immortal (1966); The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth and Other Stories (1974). Zelazny is probably better known for his Amber novel series that began with Nine Princes in Amber (1970), but his SF was special.

Отдельное спасибо:
Basic Science fiction library
The absolutely weird bookshelf
Classics of Science Fiction
SF Site
Dan Simmon's Forum
Listmania
Hugo and Nebula awards
Fantastic Fiction

Меня также заинтересовало то, что общество, описанное Дишем в "334", имеет много общего с обществом, описанным Фармером в "Riders of the Purple Wage" - этакий welfare state, с мощной бюрократией, опиумом для народа (у Диша - в буквальном смысле слова), аполитчным населением, раскрепощенной сексуальностью, но жестким контролем рождаемости. Подумалось, что, наверно, витало тогда в воздухе что-то такое...

Оказывается действительно витало. В 1964 году группа видных общественных и научных деятелей отправила президенту США (тогда им был Линдон Джонсон) меморандум, озаглавленный "Triple Revolution". Кому интересно - почитайте, забавное произведение.
( Вкратце речь в нем шла вот о чем )

Перечитывая Фармера добрался до коротеньких рассказов и новелл. Они намного лучше, чем длинные романы. "Riders of the Purple Wage" (1967) - вообще одно из лучших произведений написанных за всю историю фантастики. За одну эту коротенькую новеллу Фармера можно внести в десяток лучших писателей-фантастов XX века. Совершенно непонятно, как у "Riders of the Purple Wage" и "Lord of Trees" мог быть один автор!? Может его инопланетяне подменили? Она настолько хороша, что за прошедшие 40 лет ничуть не устарела. Даже наоборот - сейчас уже так остро и ярко не пишут, примером чему - любой из сборников "The Years Best Science Fiction" Дозоиса за последние 10 лет.

Если я вас заинтриговал, то можете убедиться во всем вышесказанном сами, нажав вот здесь.  Но заранее предупреждаю - требуется очень продвинутый английский, потому что там сплошная игра слов.  По этой же причине бесполезно пытаться читать это произведение в переводе, так что я даже и ссылки не дам, это будут "Битлз" в исполнении Рабиновича.

( И еще интересно )

Читаю купленную стопку книг Фармера. Продолжаю поражаться ужасному языку и неаккуратности повествования, но при этом очень забавно отслеживать развитие sci-fi идей. Фармер действительно стоял у истоков фантастики. В "Dark is the Sun" (с)1979 он одним из первых использует идею о том, что люди со временем помогут полу-разумным животным (вроде дельфинов и шимпанзе) эволюционировать до своего уровня. А в "Feast Unknown" (с)1969 он вообще становится родоначальником чуть ли не целого жанра.

Забавно и то, что в то время (1960-1970) можно было выезжать на интересных идеях при полном отсутствии литературного таланта. В том же 1969 году вышли "Заповедник Гоблинов" Саймака, "Стоя на Занзибаре" Браннера, "Нова" Дилени, "Мечтают ли андроиды..." Дика.

Как я уже упоминал, книжки этого писателя мне очень симпатичны, несмотря на явное отсутствие литературного таланта у их автора. Мне несколько трудно было объяснить, откуда у меня такая привязанность (ясно откуда, читал их в 16-18 лет) и еще труднее, что именно мне в них нравится.
Но вот перечитал две книжки из сериала "The World of Tiers" и решил записать несколько мыслей.
( длинно, но интересно, даже если Вы не читали этого автора )

"- Вы оба должны прекратить эту распрю, - сказал он. - Нам поручено следить за порядком во Вселенной и устанавливать мир на тех планетах, которые мы посещаем.
- Так я и думал, - с удовлетворением произнес Мигель. - Вы из los Estados Unidos. Знаем мы вас! Сначала установите мир, а потом нашу нефть и драгоценные металлы захватите."
(c)Г. Каттнер, 1953

сюда

Вот тут Урсула ле Гуин рассказывает о том, как менеджеры из Sci-Fi channel искорежили и запихали в рамки стандартного ТВ-фэнтези ее замечательную книжку "Волшебник Земноморья". А потом еще имели наглость публично утверждать, что они очень старались "передать дух книги и идеи автора".

Очень хорошая иллюстрация к тому, как в Голливуде делают "экранизации" и кто принимает творческие решения в процессе.

Помнится когда я еще смотрел "Sci-Fi" channel, меня тогда еще поразила убогость их репертуара. Хороших фильмов там вообще почти не показывали, сериалы были довольно убогие и старые. Из новых самыми ходовыми были "Зина" с "Геркулесом". Я уж не говорю о программах, где какой-то мужик беседовал с душами умерших. Поэтому когда я услышал, что они сняли минисериал по Фармеровскому "Миру Реки", то несколько насторожился. Правда они его так и не показали. Может оно и к лучшему.