What are the most life-changing science fiction & fantasy books (or books about science fiction & fantasy) that you have read? Top five?
Replies
"The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" Heinlein's story of people fighting for agency... The friendship between Manuel and Mike (AKA Adam Selene) inspirational. The story of helping an entity grow into self awareness was life changing for me. A tasty fantasy. 50 years as a developer, still employed...
jul 23, 2025, 11:33 am • 1 1 • view
Earthsea (beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea) by the incomparable Ursula K. Le Guin is one of my most cherished stories Realm of the Elderlings (beginning with Assassin's Apprentice) by Robin Hobb makes me feels Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is a book I stop and think about regularly
jul 22, 2025, 7:51 pm • 5 1 • view
Piranasi mostly-happily haunts me as well 💖 I still need to read EarthSea & Discworld
jul 23, 2025, 7:58 pm • 1 1 • view
My dad and I (and now my brother) love talking about Discworld Redwall is the series that really got me into reading Books™. They were the first books that my dad ever read parallel to me, so we could discuss them. I was already a big reader at the time, but this was a huge milestone for me.
jul 22, 2025, 7:54 pm • 4 1 • view
And as a bonus, I'm not sure it changed my life, but I love The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch! It's the first book/series, as a "grown-up" (high schooler) I recommended to my dad that wasn't "young-adult", and we still both regularly reread the series.
jul 22, 2025, 7:56 pm • 1 1 • view
📌 Pinning this thread because that's my "to-read" list covered for the next several years...
jul 23, 2025, 10:22 am • 1 1 • view
What I am getting out of this is that I am in process of making a bookstore out of David's books, and only about 15% will fit in the store at any one time. So this helps me know what to foreground.
jul 23, 2025, 10:25 am • 3 0 • view
Good strategy! I made a conscious choice to dive back into SF a year or so ago, and decided to start with @nkjemisin.bsky.social who seemed to be, by consensus, at the very top tier of contemporary SF. The Broken Earth was just... staggering. Then she reposted something by @nicolaz.bsky.social
jul 23, 2025, 10:33 am • 1 1 • view
I'm also trying to make a point of seeking out indie sff writers. Have recently read novels by @obialik.bsky.social, @rdj1000.bsky.social, @septimusbrown.com, and @karenlucia.bsky.social in the last while, and enjoyed them all on their merits.
jul 23, 2025, 10:42 am • 3 1 • view
Thanks for reading, Fred!
jul 23, 2025, 2:04 pm • 0 0 • view
Happy to give you a shout-out. It occurred to me after the fact that it would be silly to name-check the "names," but not the indie authors who can use whatever exposure they get.
jul 23, 2025, 10:12 pm • 2 0 • view
It's much appreciated :)
jul 23, 2025, 11:51 pm • 0 0 • view
Thank you! I'm a big fan of Jemisin. You might also like Ann Leckie
jul 24, 2025, 11:39 pm • 1 0 • view
so I read Spear, and Hild, and Menewood, and (just recently) Ammonite. @scalzi.com was a fun follow here on Bluesky, so I've read and enjoyed most of his as well. Not impressive in the same ways as the ones I've already name-checked, but entertaining (and there's serious stuff under the hood).
jul 23, 2025, 10:38 am • 1 0 • view
I've read only Jemison's short fiction. (Doing Year's Bests cuts way down on your novel reading.)
jul 23, 2025, 10:36 am • 0 0 • view
Hmm. Most of my SF reading was early in life; I've only just circled back to it. Intro was Analog magazine, and juvenilia from Heinlein and Asimov. High-impact, in rough chronological order (of reading, not publishing): Foundation series: said that SF could tackle Big Ideas over Long Timelines. /
jul 23, 2025, 10:08 am • 0 1 • view
...same old social/political/cultural mistakes; or "how to keep the revolution going" (my takeaway, at any rate). Le Guin's the writer whose work spoke to me most powerfully, and shaped my thinking most. Fantasy... well, that's a whole other list and I still haven't had my coffee.
jul 23, 2025, 10:15 am • 1 1 • view
Dune: Added a level of complexity that was new to me at the time. Harlan Ellison (short stories): brought an intensity that I hadn't previously encountered. The Left Hand of Darkness: Blew my mind, had never considered gender previously. The Dispossessed: The difficulty of *not* repeating the /
jul 23, 2025, 10:12 am • 3 1 • view
The Fantasy Hall of Fame ed Silverberg & Greenberg introduced my 13 year old self to Howard, Moorcock, Leiber, Sturgeon Martian Chronicles Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep I am Legend Elric of Melniboné lead to my Moorcock interest & eventually New Worlds which inspired me to become an editor
jul 22, 2025, 6:15 pm • 4 1 • view
Well-edited reprint anthologies can be very powerful.
jul 22, 2025, 6:17 pm • 6 0 • view
For example, yours! Hieroglyph! Good listening too! hieroglyph.asu.edu
jul 23, 2025, 1:33 am • 1 1 • view
That was a mostly original anthology (we mostly commissioned the stories), but yes.
jul 23, 2025, 1:35 am • 2 0 • view
It helped me take positive interest in programming again. Also I associate it with my first drives to my mom's new house in the Catskills bc that's what I was listening to. She has a cochlear implant, two titanium shoulders, a rebuilt spine, etc. My nieces and nephews call her "The Bionic Nana."😂
jul 23, 2025, 1:44 am • 0 1 • view
Adventures in Time and Space, Healy/McComas, one of the first books I ever checked out of my local library.
jul 24, 2025, 5:38 am • 2 1 • view
Chronicles of Narnia Lord of the Rings Deerskin
jul 22, 2025, 6:48 pm • 1 1 • view
All Summer in a Day (Ray Bradbury)
jul 22, 2025, 6:49 pm • 1 1 • view
From my youth, and still great, everything by Diana Wynne Jones but particularly The Power of Three, and Fire and Hemlock. Gives a completely different spin to books like the Hobbit. Plus I like the way in Fire and Hemlock the MC is given a real life reading list that also applies to the reader
jul 23, 2025, 7:32 am • 7 1 • view
She & Patricia McKillip are my favorite (tho I admit, her harp series was too cryptic for me. Forests of Serre have the most glorious poetry-style & there’s one in a modern-timeline! With medieval magic 😂 it’s hilarious)
jul 23, 2025, 7:55 pm • 3 1 • view
I've never read McKillip for no very good reason! I'll give her a try!
jul 23, 2025, 8:37 pm • 1 1 • view
McKillip is amazing. You go along thinking you are reading one book, and at the end, you realize it was a different book entirely and your reorganize the whole narrative in your head.
jul 23, 2025, 9:08 pm • 3 1 • view
I love McKillip. Some writers clearly write in a flow state. McKillip uses words like a mosaicist picks bits of glass and chalcondery to make images that flicker and move as you approach and change your perspective.
jul 23, 2025, 9:11 pm • 4 1 • view
& A Wrinkle in Time by L'Engle, everything by Anne Mccaffrey, Sheri Tepper
jul 23, 2025, 7:39 am • 3 1 • view
Had he been around in my youth, I would have loved Garth Nix (still do). Thinking about this set, as a child I needed the very human side to SF and Fantasy ;-)
jul 23, 2025, 7:44 am • 2 1 • view
And since I still have one left, The Farthest Away Mountain by Lynne Reid Banks. Back then my reading was mostly dictated by what was in my local public library. You've made me ponder how much my later self was shaped by the selections of a librarian I never met
jul 23, 2025, 7:53 am • 4 1 • view
My book exposure was likewise strongly affected by the choices of the librarian at the Northeast Branch of the Seattle Public Library in the 70s.
jul 23, 2025, 7:56 am • 2 0 • view
Mine was the Billericay town library, Essex, England in the 70's, in case the now elderly librarian happens to be on BlueSky, which is not impossible since they were clearly the visionary type
jul 23, 2025, 8:02 am • 1 1 • view
There was a period when I went to my local library and checked out every book with the word "Magic" in the title. Libraries are the best (mine was Capitola Library, California)
jul 23, 2025, 8:07 am • 3 1 • view
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett - the right book at the right time, it’s hard to imagine who I’d be if I hadn’t read it Science Fiction Stories, ed Tom Boardman Jr (www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.c...) - the golden age of SF is around 12, and that’s when I read this (well, maybe a little younger 😉)
jul 22, 2025, 6:42 pm • 3 1 • view
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams - possibly the first book I read that showed me a realistic world with just a little twist (plus jokes) Afterwar, Lilith Saintcrow - reminded me to think beyond the news to what might be
jul 22, 2025, 6:42 pm • 1 1 • view
Wizard’s First Rule, Terry Goodkind - solidified every latent misgiving I had around libertarianism, and let me realise that I didn’t need to finish everything I read (literally life changing, and sanity saving 😉) First book I can remember throwing across the room in disgust - it made an impression!
jul 22, 2025, 6:44 pm • 1 1 • view
John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren Philip K. Dick - Ubik Patricia Anthony - Flanders (it's really not science fiction at all, but I include it because she was a science fiction writer) J G Ballard - The Unlimited Dream Company
jul 25, 2025, 6:19 am • 2 2 • view
Order based on when I read them: 1. C.S. Lewis - The Chronicles of Narnia 2. Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time 3. J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit 4. J.R.R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings. 5. Robert E. Howard - all the Conan books/collections 6. Isaac Asimov - The Foundation Trilogy & a ton more
jul 23, 2025, 12:22 pm • 4 1 • view
Lot of great books but frankly none life changing for me. Tao of Physics and maybe The Disposessed
jul 23, 2025, 10:57 pm • 0 1 • view
Roadside Picnic. It must have been the very first translated-SF that I read. Connecting it with Tarkovsky's film took me ages to mentally digest how adaptation really worked.
jul 23, 2025, 10:30 am • 7 1 • view
The Road
jul 22, 2025, 5:10 pm • 1 1 • view
The Hobbit, getting me into fantasy I, Robot (the Asimov collection) getting me into SF Zelazny's Amber Chronicles, making lifelong friends in the process in that shared fandom Darwin's Radio, by Greg Bear...my first real ARC and putting me on the path to reviewing and criticism
jul 23, 2025, 9:51 am • 2 1 • view
I regret having waited until my later years to read Amber when I could have enjoyed it as a youth!
jul 23, 2025, 1:45 pm • 0 1 • view
Doris Lessing's "The Memoirs of a Survivor" Nevil Shute's "On the Beach" (my favorite novel of all time) James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" Daphne du Maurier's "Rule Britannia" Aldous Huxley's "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan"
jul 22, 2025, 6:35 pm • 0 1 • view
Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler; Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein; It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis; 1984, George Orwell; Dune, Frank Herbert.
jul 22, 2025, 4:37 pm • 0 1 • view
You said "life changing", not necessarily "favorite" or "best", so: * Pretty sure Have Spacesuit, Will Travel helped make me an engineer. Read it at least 8 times by the time I turned 10. The chapter(s?) where he was fixing the suit he won were like catnip to me.
jul 23, 2025, 7:59 pm • 2 1 • view
* Wyrd Sisters, my first Discworld. "WHEN shall we three meet again?" "... I can do Thursday." 😆 * Ender's Game, which I read in one sitting, then re-read immediately at a bit slower pace. * Auel's The Valley Of Horses (arguably not sf/f, I guess, but it, uh, had an impact on 12-year-old me)
jul 23, 2025, 7:59 pm • 2 1 • view
* Richard Bach's Illusions; I think about it a lot Honorable mention to The Soul Of A New Machine, which is non-fiction, but also helped make me an engineer.
jul 23, 2025, 7:59 pm • 0 1 • view
Oh, and I forgot: Lucifer's Hammer, which several family members also read, and which gave us a family saying along the lines of "looks like hammerfall" when it was stormy out. (Which it was pretty often in Florida in the '80s.)
jul 23, 2025, 7:59 pm • 0 1 • view
That one was important to me bc there were elements of it that were compelling but the racist and reactionary themes became so grotesque so quickly that it caused me to take a step back and think more critically about the SF i liked generally & Niven in particular. He was headed for the Bad Place
jul 23, 2025, 8:15 pm • 1 0 • view
2nd Honorable Mention to Calvin And Hobbes, which I'm pretty sure contributed to me not wanting to be a parent. Somehow it didn't occur to me that real six-year-olds don't stay six forever. :)
jul 23, 2025, 8:02 pm • 2 1 • view
* Ringworld. Nessus the Puppeteer and Speaker-To-Animals are my go-to examples in mind when I think about sf fans that are also bigots and WTF is that about? You can agree that this thing with two freakin' heads is a person, but not this trans man of your own species? WTAF????
jul 23, 2025, 8:08 pm • 2 1 • view
A positive earlier example of Niven before his fall. Puppeteers are pretty dang alien aliens. Wouldn't say Known Space "changed my life" but it's core canon SF for me still
jul 23, 2025, 8:17 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm growing respect for Issac Asimov's Foundation series and I have always loved Octavia Butler's Wild Seed.
jul 22, 2025, 2:44 pm • 2 1 • view
📌
jul 23, 2025, 1:57 pm • 0 0 • view
ermmm dune vurt imajica oryx and crake the liveship traders (i’m cheating and having a trilogy)
jul 23, 2025, 1:55 pm • 0 1 • view
oh and earthsea, obviously
jul 23, 2025, 2:32 pm • 0 0 • view
archive.org/details/spac...
jul 22, 2025, 8:19 pm • 1 1 • view
I'd like to put in a word for Elizabeth Moon's "Remnant Population" and "The Speed of Dark" -- the first I gave to my mom who also loved it -- it's about an old woman who saves a planet with effective and empathetic communication -- and the latter I gave to my niece who has an autistic daughter.
jul 23, 2025, 8:02 pm • 1 1 • view
Venus on the Half-shell by Kilgore Trout 😜
jul 23, 2025, 1:36 am • 1 0 • view
Heinlein - The Cat Who Walked Through Walls Bujold - Barrayar Butler - Parable of the Sower Piper - Little Fuzzy (my gateway drug) Jemisin - Broken Earth Trilogy
jul 22, 2025, 5:50 pm • 2 1 • view
Maybe a follow-up question should be What were your gateway-drug SF & fantasy books.
jul 22, 2025, 5:57 pm • 2 0 • view
Fighting Fantasy/Choose Your Own Adventure, like The Warlock of Firetop Mountain 2000AD and Eagle comics And I kinda remember a series of stories about a kid’s school in space, but the only thing that’s stuck is a dessert they ate with a hot sweet filling wrapped in ice cream that didn’t melt.
jul 22, 2025, 6:50 pm • 1 1 • view
Five Children and It! And also Red Planet, I think. It was a long time ago.
jul 22, 2025, 7:45 pm • 0 1 • view
In JHS, "Stranger in a Strange Land" was of particular interest because it featured a few juicy scenes. 🤣 Def a gateway drug.
jul 23, 2025, 2:08 am • 0 1 • view
I am having trouble answering the original question, but I can pinpoint my gateway drugs, almost 60 years ago. At age 9, I discovered THE TIME TRADERS by Andre Norton in my school library, and when I finished the books we were supposed to read in language arts class, my teacher loaned me THE HOBBIT.
jul 22, 2025, 7:28 pm • 1 1 • view
Breed to Come was one of my first SF books in elementary school, which led directly to Christopher's Tripods trilogy. Could have listed either one of those.
jul 22, 2025, 9:44 pm • 4 1 • view
I remember the Tripods too, though a bit later. I also liked the Lucky Starr books.
jul 23, 2025, 2:18 am • 1 1 • view
Yes, Christopher’s books were important.
jul 22, 2025, 9:50 pm • 2 0 • view
I'm not sure I exactly had one because my house was immersed in science fiction. Which as it happens was Gene Wolfe's fault. In about 1947, Gene cleaned up his bedroom room (as ordered by his mother) and gave my dad a few bags of pulps, saying "Read these. They're better than comics."
jul 22, 2025, 6:00 pm • 7 0 • view
Someone else that likes THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS! It's my favorite late period Heinlein
jul 22, 2025, 6:43 pm • 2 1 • view
His Master's Voice - Lem Martian Time-Slip - Dick Book of the Long Sun - Wolfe Labyrinths - Borges Martian Chronicles - Bradbury
jul 25, 2025, 1:57 am • 0 1 • view
Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower William Horwood's Duncton Wood Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring Sheree Renée Thomas' Dark Matter Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I might change my mind later.
jul 22, 2025, 2:22 pm • 5 0 • view
www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-... This short story literally changed my life. I thought I was a selfish, entitled, cruel person (brainwashed by narcissistic parents) and this story taught me that it's my actions and behaviors that determine whether I'm a good person.
jul 23, 2025, 11:26 pm • 0 0 • view
Not a sci-fi or fantasy, but this is the second book that changed my life www.amazon.com/Adult-Childr...
jul 23, 2025, 11:27 pm • 0 0 • view
Combining this question and your "gateway drug" question: Fifty Short Science Fiction Tales (Asimov & Conklin, eds.) The Past Through Tomorrow (Robert A. Heinlein) The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol. 1 (Silverberg, ed.) Dangerous Visions (Ellison, ed.) The Best of the Nebulas (Bova, ed.)
jul 25, 2025, 11:46 am • 0 1 • view
Because my initial answer was all anthologies/collections, here's a version with all novels: A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle) Stand on Zanzibar (John Brunner) Job: A Comedy of Justice (Robert A. Heinlein) Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) Saturn's Children (Charles Stross)
jul 25, 2025, 11:53 am • 0 1 • view
Brunner: The Sheep Look Up Shockwave Rider Jagged Orbit (out of print?)
jul 27, 2025, 11:05 pm • 5 1 • view
Stunning books. Brunner is one of the writers Gibson points to anytime someone calls him a SF prophet
jul 27, 2025, 11:44 pm • 2 0 • view
I don't think _any_ of those count as "comfort reading", but they certainly shine a light where it's needed today.
jul 28, 2025, 12:23 am • 1 0 • view
I still haven’t read Sheep, but I read the other two not long after finishing Zanzibar for the first time, and I would like to reread Rider at some point because it was clearly ahead of its time.
jul 27, 2025, 11:07 pm • 2 1 • view
I think he’s terrific, also J G Ballard wrote a quartet of eco scifi i had em lost em
jul 27, 2025, 11:32 pm • 2 1 • view
Ballard is another icon of that New Wave era whose work stands up terrifyingly well considering how dark it is
jul 27, 2025, 11:45 pm • 3 1 • view
I found "The Jagged Orbit" to be unreadable. But "The Shockwave Rider" is a really fun novel.
jul 28, 2025, 1:00 am • 1 1 • view
"The Illustrated Man" by Ray Bradbury, "The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula K. Le Guin & "The City We Became" by N.K. Jemison.
jul 22, 2025, 2:37 pm • 3 1 • view
There was a George Orwell essay where he said the only book that changed his life was one which said if he went 3 days without milk and sugar in his tea he'd drink it black for the rest of his life. And he did
jul 23, 2025, 6:41 pm • 2 0 • view
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. That book *entirely* changed how I relate to my sense of smell. After I read it, it was like I’d never actually used it before.
jul 22, 2025, 3:06 pm • 3 1 • view
omg a fav. you’re correct, total game changer
jul 23, 2025, 2:43 pm • 1 0 • view
Monday after I finished it I remember sitting on the college shuttle in Santa Cruz It was rainy, and everyone was damp. And the bus… SMELLED closest I’d ever come to having a panic attack. I got off at one of the lower stops and walked my ass up the hill, marveling at everything I hadn’t noticed
jul 23, 2025, 2:50 pm • 2 0 • view
time to go live in a cave on a distant mountain top (i think about this once a week or so 😅😅)
jul 23, 2025, 2:55 pm • 1 0 • view
Hahahahaahahahahahaha oh man seriously I still can’t believe the movie got made. And they didn’t change the ending at all! Clown nun orgy and everything!
jul 23, 2025, 2:57 pm • 1 0 • view
they somehow got the tone of that movie so wrong tho. like… this is not a nice guy, guys.
jul 23, 2025, 2:58 pm • 1 0 • view
Yeah he’s a monster, and more than that he *hates* himself. That idea was real interesting, that he feels hollow and like he’s not real.
jul 23, 2025, 3:00 pm • 1 0 • view
The Diamond Age. Made me think about the relationships between a creator and their creation and the people who consume that creation, the idea that all art is essentially a social interaction between the creator and the individual experiencing it.
jul 22, 2025, 3:08 pm • 4 1 • view
👌👌
jul 23, 2025, 2:44 pm • 1 0 • view
Without thinking too much about it, in no particular order: Neuromancer, The Number of the Beast, The Ring of Ritornel, Mathenauts (the short story collection), The Dispossessed 🤗
jul 22, 2025, 2:29 pm • 4 1 • view
Mathenauts was life-changing for me in a different way, in that it is where my first published short story appeared.
jul 22, 2025, 2:30 pm • 5 0 • view
I have read that story *so* many times. I even bought Kaplansky's book, because of it. (Twice, actually. I had forgotten I already had done this, and only found out when I wanted to put it on the shelf 😁) I haven't read Fields and Rings, though, just looked up the quote 🙄
jul 22, 2025, 2:40 pm • 1 1 • view
Jack Womack's story "That Old School Tie" has a very similar female central character.
jul 22, 2025, 2:55 pm • 2 0 • view
By coincidence, I am listening to Lucy Kaplansky right now. She is his daughter.
jul 22, 2025, 2:50 pm • 1 0 • view
This makes me happy.
jul 22, 2025, 2:46 pm • 1 0 • view
The Ring of Ritornel! Harness brought the operatic to the space opera. I still prefer Paradox Men, but possibly only because I read it first....
jul 22, 2025, 4:59 pm • 1 1 • view
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke for me. It's filled with an intense attention to detail and has so much clever writing it left me in awe the first time I read it.
jul 22, 2025, 3:54 pm • 5 1 • view
Yes. I read vast amounts of hard SF as a kid because that was what my father, John Cramer, tended to buy. I read through large stacks of SF paperbacks without regard to author or title, remembering what I had red by the cover art. /1
jul 22, 2025, 4:03 pm • 4 0 • view
I remember being really upset when I found out that sometimes publishers changed the cover art when a book was reissued. How would I know whether or not I had read it already? /2
jul 22, 2025, 4:03 pm • 8 0 • view
A lot of Clarke & Blish were in the mix. The author I think I had read the most books by was Poul Anderson. I knew I had read all of them on the shelf. When I counted, there were more than 40. I had to learn in college to remember the title and author of the SF I read. /3
jul 22, 2025, 4:03 pm • 5 0 • view
Your comment reminds me that in the 1980's I actually read half a dozen stories by Howard Waldrop (including the entire novel Them Bones) without realizing they were all by the same person! The other five stories I encountered in magazines, either Omni or Asimov's SF.
jul 23, 2025, 9:57 am • 1 1 • view
Ha, early on I did that with a number of authors, by encountering their stories in an anthology at a young age and not making mental note of their names. Even authors I love, like Zelazny wound up hitting this phenomenon
jul 23, 2025, 9:59 am • 1 1 • view
One of my favorite examples of this was in one of my relatively rare (as a kid) forays into a 1970's anthology, The Best from If Vol. III. I recognized several authors in the collection - Fritz Leiber, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven - and enjoyed some of the stories by unfamiliar authors. 1/2
jul 23, 2025, 10:08 am • 0 1 • view
In particular the last story was fairly lighthearted in tone, but with a sting in the tail. I liked it, but forgot the title and author for over a decade. Turned out it was "Angel Fix" by Raccoona Sheldon, whom I might have recognized under her better-known byline James Tiptree Jr. 2/end
jul 23, 2025, 10:08 am • 0 1 • view
That deep soak in hard SF underlies the impulse I felt to reform hard SF from becoming a genre about Men Killing T rings with Big Machines, as it was becoming in the 80s. /4
jul 22, 2025, 4:05 pm • 3 0 • view
I read through the public kibrary SF shelves in that way when is was 12-15 years old, probably hundreds of cheap pulpy paperbacks, but classics too.
jul 24, 2025, 1:40 pm • 0 1 • view
Creating my own list is hard. John Fowles, The Magus: in high school I read it and re-read it, and discussed it in depth with friends. Gene Wolfe, Shadow of the Torturer. Wolfe was one of my father's childhood friends. Trying to learn how to write SF, I spent a lot of time taking that one apart. /1
jul 22, 2025, 2:18 pm • 18 0 • view
I should read The Magus again. I would have benefited from reading it in school or with friends. It is mind-bending, but I think I was reading it with too much focus on following the plot without absorbing the subtext, so it just came off as weird.
jul 22, 2025, 4:23 pm • 1 1 • view
Joanna Russ. I'm not really sure which one. The title that comes immediately to mind is We Who Are About To ... because it told me you could push back against SF narratives and change them. Samuel R. Delany, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, because it gave me key tools for thinking about science fiction. /2
jul 22, 2025, 2:18 pm • 15 0 • view
The Jewel-Hinged Jaw helped me as a young reader to understand what I liked about SF and Fantasy. And later to understand how O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books worked and how SFnal they are in form.
jul 23, 2025, 1:02 pm • 0 1 • view
Robert Aickman, Cold Hand in Mine & The Wine Dark Sea were key to my emerging aesthetic of both SF and fantasy. Tolkien, The Hobbit. Another book I spent a long time analyzing, especially the riddles in the dark chapter, to understand how it worked. /3
jul 22, 2025, 2:18 pm • 8 0 • view
Gwyneth Jones, Kairos, for what kinds of worlds SF could build. Jack Womack, Terraplane, for how worlds could be built at the sentence level. (I used to teach the opening page when I taught writing.) /4
jul 22, 2025, 2:18 pm • 7 1 • view
Bruce Sterling, Holy Fire, for what life after brain surgery could be like. (As someone who became very much a neophile after surgery, I identify with the protagonist.) I may add to the list as I think of more.
jul 22, 2025, 2:18 pm • 13 0 • view
I keep going back to Bruce Sterling's Heavy Weather bc we keep approaching his world of "Armada Storms." Neil Stephenson's Diamond Age accurately describes where income inequality and insane personal tech are taking us. The Algebraist the only Iain Banks book I still really like. Sooo weird.
jul 23, 2025, 1:19 am • 4 1 • view
Alastair Reynolds' "Pushing Ice" is one of the few Sci Fis I've read that passes a literary version of "The Bechdel Test" -- two female main characters not only talk to each other about something other than men, but have a dispute regarding high tech with unintended consequences, among other things.
jul 23, 2025, 1:53 am • 1 1 • view
I remember reading Sterling's Heavy Weather and John Barnes' Mother of Storms when they were new (both came out in 1994). At the time I preferred Barnes' more visionary take on global warming/climate change, but when rereading both years later I preferred Sterling's more down-to-earth approach.
jul 23, 2025, 10:18 am • 1 1 • view
A few additions: James Morrow, This is the Way the World Ends. I wrote a very long essay about it when we wrestle founding NYRSF and the essay helped me clarify what I wanted from science fiction. Also, for early influences, Zenna Henderson. Surprised no one has mentioned Henderson's The People.
jul 23, 2025, 7:43 pm • 8 1 • view
If I list the SF that has affected my life... well, it would become a biography. I also couldn't just stop at five. And thanks for mentioning Zenna Henderson's The People - that's one of the books I'd have to mention.
jul 23, 2025, 7:50 pm • 0 1 • view
Don't remember if I read Henderson's stories, but the TV movie made an impression. Shame that it's not available on disc.
jul 23, 2025, 8:33 pm • 0 1 • view
I have read far more science fiction in my life than any sane person should and burned out my brain doing to Year's Best volumes a year for a decade.
jul 22, 2025, 2:21 pm • 15 1 • view
The Amabel Williams-Ellis & Mably Owen "Out of this world" series of anthologies probably got this moose hooked at an early age, followed by Hugh Walters and Philip E. High, then the usual suspects: Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov. Today it's more like Pratchett, Bujold, Stross, Kritzer &Addison. 3:O)>
jul 28, 2025, 1:25 am • 0 1 • view
The most embarrassing book that had a huge impact on me at the time I read it was Bram Stoker's Jewel of Seven Stars which I read and reread in the 6th grade. Shortly thereafter, the King Tut exhibition came to town. /1
jul 22, 2025, 3:42 pm • 0 0 • view
I was deeply disappointed at the distance between the actuality of ancient Egypt and Stoker's portrayal. No 7-fingered Egyptian priestesses & murderous mummy cats who might well come back to like. I got over my disappointment & tried to learn hieroglyphics anyway. /2
jul 22, 2025, 3:42 pm • 1 0 • view
Similarly, a book that changed David Hartwell's life was Tom Swift & His Television Detector. It was, as I recall the story, the first science fiction he read. /3
jul 22, 2025, 3:42 pm • 2 0 • view
doing to=>doing two
jul 22, 2025, 2:25 pm • 0 0 • view
I cannot imagine being personally influenced by Wolfe! What an incredible & incredibly daunting mentor!
jul 23, 2025, 10:00 am • 2 0 • view
Gene Wolfe is how I got into the SF field. When I was in high school, my father wrote to Pocket Books to find out if the Gene Wolfe they were publishing was the same person as his childhood friend. The answer was Yes. Gene was to be a guest at Norwescon and suggested we meet him for lunch.
jul 23, 2025, 10:21 am • 7 0 • view
That was my first science fiction convention. I was may 15 or 16. A few years later when I was a freshman at the University of Washington, at Norwescon, I heard this amazing woman writer speak and she mention she was a UW professor. So I decided to take her class. That was Joanna Russ.
jul 23, 2025, 10:21 am • 5 0 • view
After I'd taken her classes, Joanna suggest that I go to Clarion West which was just restarting. She sent a postcard to an editor who was teaching that year, telling him she was sending him a student. That was David Hartwell.
jul 23, 2025, 10:21 am • 9 0 • view
Random connections that make our lives
jul 24, 2025, 1:17 am • 1 1 • view
In 1997 I married David Hartwell.
jul 24, 2025, 1:20 am • 2 0 • view
The Forever War-Joe Haldeman Childhood's End-Arthur C. Clarke The Foundation Trilogy-Isaac Asimov Cryptozoic!-Brian Aldiss Accelerando-Charles Stross Eon-Greg Bear Macroscope-Piers Anthony Stranger in a Strange Land-Robert A. Heinlein Dune-Frank Herbert
jul 24, 2025, 12:57 am • 3 1 • view
RINGWORLD Larry Niven - introduction to SF MYTHAGO WOOD Robert Holdstock - fantasy that wasn’t LotR derivative SHADOW OF THE TORTURER Gene Wolfe - world-building and powerful prose THE ADVERSARY Julian May - how to bring together all of the threads in a multi-volume story
jul 22, 2025, 5:57 pm • 4 1 • view
Gene Wolfe!!
jul 23, 2025, 7:20 pm • 1 1 • view
ANATHEM Neal Stephenson - multiverse done thoughtfully / what might happen in Trumpworld when science is finally driven underground
jul 22, 2025, 5:57 pm • 6 1 • view
Cryptonomicon
jul 23, 2025, 7:23 pm • 1 1 • view
The first half of Anathem was stunning world-building, but the second half fell apart for me. I had exactly the same reaction to Seveneves, too 😟
jul 23, 2025, 10:05 am • 4 2 • view
My reaction to most of Neal’s books. They can lose ateamnear the end. Crypto… does not, neother does Readem ( great sendup too )
jul 23, 2025, 10:27 pm • 0 0 • view
I got stuck halfway through Seveneves - need to try it again at some point. I seem to remember that it took more than one go to finish Anathem as well… I’m still not sure I fully understand the final section on the world ship…
jul 23, 2025, 3:54 pm • 0 1 • view
But the ending of SevenEves was so good!
jul 23, 2025, 6:45 pm • 0 0 • view
I never even got close 😄
jul 24, 2025, 2:39 am • 1 0 • view
Yeah, I skimmed the parts where he just couldn’t resist explaining the different machines…but the part where they meet with…I don’t want to ruin it for you but it’s worth it
jul 24, 2025, 3:28 am • 0 0 • view
Read Stephenson’s books from ‘88-‘15. 2 newer ones on a Tsunduko shelf. Anathem took several starts to finish. Seveneves felt like two stories.
jul 23, 2025, 10:47 am • 2 1 • view
Not necessarily the best, but meaningful in various ways: Robert Sheckley Status Civilization Susan Cooper Dark is Rising PKD A Scanner Darkly Barry Bayley Zen Gun Harry Harrison Stainless Steel Rat Bonus: KW Jeter Glass Hammer
jul 22, 2025, 4:10 pm • 9 3 • view
Scanner Darkly become more prescient every day
jul 23, 2025, 1:46 pm • 2 1 • view
Second batch, slightly deeper cuts Jack Womack Random Acts of Senseless Violence Russell M Griffin Timeservers Lafferty 900 Grandmothers Rebecca Ore Slow Funeral William Barton Acts of Conscience Bonus Science Fiction Eye zine
jul 22, 2025, 4:19 pm • 6 4 • view
Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll Like any list I make, this is subject to change on at least a daily basis.
jul 22, 2025, 2:17 pm • 7 1 • view
I didn't include a Powers in my list, but it would be LAST CALL
jul 22, 2025, 3:02 pm • 4 1 • view
Great choice, but Stress is the one I actually reread every few years.
jul 22, 2025, 3:15 pm • 1 1 • view
Hmm! Cobralingus and/or Needle in the Groove by Jeff Noon Understand by Ted Chiang Lords and Ladies by Pratchett The Compass Rose by Leguin Things by Peter Watts Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys
jul 25, 2025, 10:49 am • 1 0 • view
(Damn hard to keep this from being a *really long* laundry list, and I'll probably smack myself for forgetting something vital in an hour at most, but these changed me.)
jul 25, 2025, 10:51 am • 0 1 • view
It can get long. That's fine. What I am after is books that change you. My emerging aesthetic of our bookstore in progress is that it should be a bookstore that can change lives.
jul 25, 2025, 11:02 am • 1 0 • view
Oh, that sounds a place that I would love to visit.
jul 25, 2025, 11:07 am • 0 0 • view
-Earthsea trilogy (esp 1 & 3), Le Guin -Last Legends of Earth, Attanasio -Long Dark Teatime of the Soul & Hitchhikers series, Adams -Science in the Capital and Mars trilogies, Robinson -Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham -Singularity, Sleator -All Summer in a Day, Bradbury
jul 25, 2025, 10:18 am • 2 0 • view
At least, those are the ones that invade my thoughts regularly, for good or bad.
jul 25, 2025, 10:24 am • 2 1 • view
That's a great description of what a good book can do.
jul 25, 2025, 10:41 am • 1 0 • view
More Adventures of Rupert (Rupert Bear, when I was coming up to two years old) 50 Years of Ghost Stories when I was six Best Horror Stories when I was eleven (crucially including Melville’s Bartleby) Cry Horror (Lovecraft, when I was fourteen) Night’s Black Agents when I was sixteen
jul 23, 2025, 6:16 am • 2 2 • view
I like the fact you've gone right back to the start. Caused me to wonder if many folks's first exposure to fantasy was The Magic Faraway Tree ;-)
jul 23, 2025, 7:50 am • 2 1 • view
yes!
jul 23, 2025, 2:02 pm • 1 0 • view
One Rupert Bear tale in that book terrified me, and I find it shares quite a few elements with the likes of M. R. James.
jul 23, 2025, 1:05 pm • 4 1 • view
A 4th grade teacher read us The Hobbit. I wanted more, so I "acquired" the LOTR (age 9) & read them with a dictionary. It changed Everything. It made me want to read and write fantasy. It was a gateway to other spec fic. I've loved work by other authors, but these had the most profound impact.
jul 23, 2025, 2:39 am • 2 1 • view
Nice. I have such good memories of a sixth-grade teacher reading us Beowulf. (Not the poem, a novelization. But it was awesome.)
jul 23, 2025, 8:15 pm • 1 1 • view
A librarian in NY read it to us when I was in 3rd grade! That led to the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, Wrinkle in Time by L’Engle, Star Beast by Heinlein, and LOTS of Andre Norton!
jul 23, 2025, 6:50 pm • 4 1 • view
Parable of the Sower The Dispossessed Station Eleven The Fifth Season
jul 22, 2025, 5:28 pm • 12 1 • view
Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles George Orwell’s 1984 Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Marian Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon Arthur C Clarke’s 2001
jul 22, 2025, 6:03 pm • 1 1 • view
A second, very different list: A Wrinkle in Time and The Hobbit turned me into a passionate lifelong reader. Everything by Niven got me into hard SF, and eventually helped define my politics (by counterexample). Book of the Long Sun and Zone One showed me how beautifully written SFF could be.
jul 23, 2025, 9:47 am • 15 2 • view
Yes, A Wrinkle In Time got me addicted too. Loved the hard SF too, and your point about political philosophy is on target: I learned about friendship, commitment and care for fellow beings independent of origin or form.
jul 23, 2025, 11:42 am • 5 1 • view
Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles, which I understood at a young age to be a story of colonialism. Stephenson, Zodiac, which I read at just the right time to push me further into environmentalism. Robinson, Ministry for the Future, which I didn't necessarily enjoy but can't stop thinking about.
jul 23, 2025, 9:22 am • 7 1 • view
Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven, for lessons about creating the future. Atwood, the Oryx & Crake trilogy, for terrifying visions of possible futures. N.B. These were all critical to my understanding of the world, but my favorites would be a very different list!
jul 23, 2025, 9:32 am • 7 1 • view
- Stephen King, The Dead Zone - Martin Greenberg Ed. New Stories from the Twilight Zone - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein - Ursula K Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness - Octavia E Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories
jul 23, 2025, 8:54 am • 3 1 • view
The Book of the New Sun Little, Big The Lord of the Rings Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell The Dispossessed
jul 22, 2025, 12:58 pm • 7 1 • view
The SF story I probably think about the most is Learning To Be Me by Greg Egan. Also: Wrinkle in Time Childhood’s End Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Mr Boy
jul 22, 2025, 6:18 pm • 2 1 • view
Samuel Delany's AYE, AND GOMORRAH Octavia Butler's KINDRED Indra Das's THE DEVOURERS Michael Thomas Ford's LILY leaving the 5th spot rotating lol
jul 22, 2025, 12:56 pm • 1 1 • view
Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury Death's Master- Tannith Lee A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess Swords against Devilry - Fritz Leiber Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
jul 29, 2025, 2:03 am • 0 0 • view
In no particular order: 1) A Wrinkle in Time - L'Engle 2) The Forgotten Door/Escape to Witch Mountain - Key 3) Dangerous Visions - Ellison 4) Childhood's End - Clarke 5) Parable of the Sower/Parable of the Talents - Butler
jul 23, 2025, 8:31 am • 2 1 • view
I wonder how different my intellectual and political life would be if I'd read the Parable novels at a younger age; I didn't find them until about 40 (!). The same goes for Le Guin. In retrospect, the dominant and very male early SF (Asimov, Clarke, etc) were too narrow a diet for a growing brain.
jul 23, 2025, 9:57 am • 3 1 • view
I was lucky that I followed UKLG from Earthsea to her other novels & randomly found Butler and Delany to widen my view before getting out of high school. The SF I first fully imprinted on was Known Space and Dune, but those others were right behind em. I found Heinlein creepy & Asimov boring
jul 23, 2025, 3:26 pm • 0 1 • view
I know the younger me wasn't ready for Butler when I first discovered her. I was torn on a purchase of a new paperback, Kindred, or Niven's Ringworld Engineers. Larry won out that day. I cut my teeth on Asimov and Clarke, but also Silverberg and Andre Norton.
jul 23, 2025, 3:02 pm • 1 1 • view
Probably what made the way for me was pursuing a Degree in Literature, and finding CJ Cherryh and Margaret Atwood while in college.
jul 23, 2025, 3:05 pm • 2 1 • view
Off the top of my head: GOLDEN DAYS, Carolyn See THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, LeGuin THE FEMALE MAN, Joanna Russ DYING INSIDE, Silverberg SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, Vonnegut
jul 22, 2025, 11:53 pm • 3 1 • view
A bunch come to mind, but in truth 1 book: Dozois's 3rd Annual Best of the Year collection (stories from 1985). Got it from SFBC. I was too young to understand most of it, but wanted to, and that was key. Soon after, I met Jim Kelly and he signed his story for me, the 1st signed book I ever had.
jul 22, 2025, 4:27 pm • 3 1 • view
When I was an exchange student in Germany my senior year of high school (1979-1980), there was an English-language library that had a bunch of Year's Bests, I don't remember whose, which made quite an impression on me.
jul 22, 2025, 4:40 pm • 3 0 • view
I couldn't buy much in the way of English language books in Germany and my mother was taking advantage of that by only sending me Great Literature which she thought I ought to read instead of the constant diet of SF. So I was really starved for SF.
jul 22, 2025, 4:45 pm • 3 0 • view
There was a single spinner rack in a shop next to the train station that had UK-import paperbacks some of which were SF. But otherwise, I had to work really hard to get any.
jul 22, 2025, 4:45 pm • 1 0 • view
Kathryn Cramer, can I share this on Facebook?
jul 22, 2025, 3:06 pm • 1 0 • view
Yes.
jul 22, 2025, 3:07 pm • 2 0 • view
LORD OF THE RINGS,my real intro to fantasy PROTECTOR, really introduced me to hard SF THE ROLLING STONES, Heinlein's STRANGER didn't click, but STONES introduced me to his juveniles A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY, as much as A FIRE UPON UPON THE DEEP blew my mind, DEEPNESS is my favorite SF boom
jul 22, 2025, 2:50 pm • 3 1 • view
And that's only four, of course... Prachett's GOING POSTAL- I had given up fantasy, and didn't want to start a long series, but finally gave in and tried this one and it introduced me to Prachett
jul 22, 2025, 3:00 pm • 2 1 • view
Dangerous Visions - went on an Ellison/Delany spree after. Delany lasted. Tanith Lee - Birthgrave Gibson’s Neuromancer - of course Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson - it has spaceships. Lessing’s Shikasta - I know David Hartwell snorted at that one!
jul 23, 2025, 10:51 pm • 2 1 • view
Tehanu / Ursula LeGuin The Water Knife / Paolo Bacigalupi Vurt / Jeff Noon How High We Go In The Dark / Sequoia Nagamatsu Cat’s Cradle / Kurt Vonnegut
jul 25, 2025, 11:00 am • 2 1 • view
Gee, in the entire thread no one mentioned REPLAY by Ken Grimwood. I didn't see FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON either. Another obscure favorite of mine, Daniel Galouye's novelet, Descent into the Maelstrom
jul 24, 2025, 5:51 am • 1 1 • view
I had a difficult time cutting my list down to five, and both REPLAY (which I recommended on my panel at Worldcon last year, and to anyone who wants a gateway drug to sf) and FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (though I prefer the novella to the novel) were in the top ten.
jul 24, 2025, 8:09 am • 0 0 • view
You don't need to cut it. You can give the whole list. I merely specified 5 to make responding seem easy.
jul 24, 2025, 8:11 am • 1 0 • view
THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, by Ray Bradbury CATSEYE, by Andre Norton. (First sf novel I read that dealt with real-world problems like unemployment. Plus cats.) THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, by Oscar Wilde TIGER! TIGER!, by Alfred Bester THE LAST UNICORN, by Peter S. Beagle (May choose 5 more tomorrow)
jul 22, 2025, 4:44 pm • 2 1 • view
Dune. (trilogy) Frank Herbert The Cornelius Quartet Michael Moorcock Time Out of Joint Phillip K Dick The Magicians Nephew C.S. Lewis Alice (Wonderland & Looking Glass) Lewis Carroll
jul 23, 2025, 7:12 pm • 3 1 • view
Yeah. Alice Through the Looking Glass looms so large that I forgot to include it My relatives used to give me Disney Alice watches that came with Alice figurines. (I had more than one.) For my entire adult life, I have always lived in a place with at least one of those Alice figurines. /1
jul 23, 2025, 8:10 pm • 3 0 • view
Also, Through the Looking Glass was a huge influence on my dark fantasy In Small & Large Pieces (Eastgate Systems, 1995). /2
jul 23, 2025, 8:10 pm • 1 0 • view
If I could add one more it'd be Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
jul 23, 2025, 9:23 pm • 2 1 • view
I'm a bit snobby about Disney Alice. Though it has its own charm. Don't get me started on Tim Burton's version. One of my pet hates is people on social media posting a quote from Burton's film, attributing it to Carroll.
jul 23, 2025, 9:32 pm • 1 1 • view
Completely understandable, but I had fetishized the Alice figurines as a representation of self before I was old enough to know to look down on Disnefication.
jul 23, 2025, 10:01 pm • 1 0 • view
Burton's versions are abominations. I suggest actually reading the books.
jul 23, 2025, 10:31 pm • 1 0 • view
BTW if you want a really surreal and rather disturbing take on Alice, search out the 1967 BBC production. Directed by Jonathan Miller. No funny animals, all the characters are played as Victorian eccentrics. Alice has dark hair (like Alice Liddel) and the soundtrack is trippy sitar by Ravi Shankar.
jul 23, 2025, 9:32 pm • 0 1 • view