Crowdsourcing request – SF books for newbies
Posted on 2014-05-27 by esr

I’ve had a request recently that I put together a list of good books to get people started towards becoming knowledgeable readers of SF.

I know the inner logic, conventions, and history of SF extremely well – I trust that this is manifest in the reviews I write. I believe I’m excellently qualified to curate such a list and explain why each entry belongs in it.

What I am not sure of is that, through over-familiarity with the field, I won’t miss obvious candidates. So I’m going to crowdsource the nominations. Please leave title/author info in a comment; optionally, add a sentence or two about why you think it belongs. More than one suggestion per comment is OK.

Here are some guidelines:

* Do not propose books simply because you think they are matchless classics: many matchless classics are advanced material not suitable for newbies. (This might be another list)

* Do not propose books simply because they are historically important; much historically important SF is a harder-than-necessary slog for the new reader. (This too might be another list.)

* Not interested in fantasy unless it’s the sort of hard fantasy that appeals to SF fans. If you don’t understand this category, don’t try recommending fantasy at all.

* Do not propose anti-SF – that is, books marketed as SF that are deliberately hostile to the genre’s traditions. (This lets out almost all “New Wave” and its present-day descendants.)

* Must be in print. Best if it’s available as a low-cost e-book, to reduce barriers to entry.

* Juvenile and YA fiction is not excluded but examples worthy of this list should be rewarding for adults as well.

Let the mayhem begin.
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319 thoughts on “Crowdsourcing request – SF books for newbies”

    Joe Wooten on 2014-05-27 at 17:41:28 said:

    Damn near everything Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, and A.C. Clarke have written. Mostly hard SF, minimal swords/sorcerers crapola. Greg Bear, Hal Bennett, Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, and David Brin are also good ones.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 17:45:28 said:

    >Damn near everything Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, and A.C. Clarke have written.

    Not a useful answer. Pick individual good titles for newbies.
    Milhouse on 2014-05-27 at 17:46:42 said:

    Tau Zero, Poul Anderson. This is “time dilation for dummies”. The clearest explanation I’ve ever seen of time dilation, including the formula for calculating it yourself, without assuming you have any background.

    Space Cadet, Heinlein, mainly because this is the book that hooked me on SF. More seriously, perhaps, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, for introducing many new concepts that are now taken for granted in SF, and, well, just because.

    Fountains of Paradise, Clarke, because beanstalks are now a standard item in SF, that nobody bothers explaining, and this is the book that explained it to us all.

    Maybe Dragon’s Egg, Robert Forward, as an example of just how hard SF can get, and how weird hard SF can get.
    TriggerFinger on 2014-05-27 at 17:51:27 said:

    Daniel Keys Moran has an underappreciated series of classics that are easy for readers new to sf to absorb. The Long Run is a good starting point that stands alone. (Used to be hard to find, but now available in ebook form).

    Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky is complex and masterful, but also accessible to new readers of sf. (A Fire Upon The Deep, while arguably more significant, is less accessible).

    Heinlein, obviously, but I like to use the “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” as a good starting point.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 17:53:40 said:

    >Maybe Dragon’s Egg, Robert Forward, as an example of just how hard SF can get, and how weird hard SF can get.

    I think this is a good example of great stuff that is not suited for newbies.

    Your others are all good candidates, except I’ve already decided the top Heinlein slot belongs to Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. If I decide he gets multiple slots, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is the next candidate up.
    DVK on 2014-05-27 at 18:01:07 said:

    If you are willing to include AltHist, then Flint’s “1632″ (even the first book, and mention the sequels in Ring of Fire series).

    For military, “Apocalypse Troll” by Weber. Or Honor Harrington.

    For more social bent, “Death Birds” by Sheckley. Or hell, anything by him.

    For those who know about or like Mythology, “Pyramid Scheme” by Flint.
    Lester Caine on 2014-05-27 at 18:05:42 said:

    I’m looking at two shelves of books that cover the works of Anne McCaffrey. A number of the series probably come to far into the fantasy classification, but most have at least a grounding in possible science development. The Pern books make up a substantial amount of reading, but the smaller series particularly those done in collaboration with other authors make good ‘light’ reading.
    The Crystal SInger and it’s sequels are one such series, and The Planet Pirates collaboration is a second. Most are still available in paperback, but can also be found electronically so I have them all on the tablet as well.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-27 at 18:06:03 said:

    Anyone have information about what books have hooked new people on science fiction? Or is that not quite what you’re looking for?

    Meanwhile, I’ll put in a good word for what I think are Heinlein’s two best juveniles– Have Spacesuit, Will Travel and The Star Beast. And for his non-juveniles, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

    I want to include some Bujold, but was unsure about which book(s)– Bujold makes some suggestions about entry points about the Vorkosigan books., and I’d go with The Warrior’s Apprentice.

    And some Sheckley– any major anthology of his short fiction would do. This would bring two things to the experience: the idea that there was a time when short stories were a dominant form, and the idea of extremely playful science fiction.

    I’ll toss Old Man’s War in for discussion. I hated the book for its oversimplified world-building, but Scalzi intended it as a book to introduce people to science fiction, and a lot of people like it.

    What do you mean by “knowledgeable readers of sf”? What do you want people to know?
    db48x on 2014-05-27 at 18:06:44 said:

    I nominate Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game.
    Dgarsys on 2014-05-27 at 18:12:25 said:

    IMO “Moon” has far too much literary (I tell non-SF readers that the language usage is “clockwork orange-like”) language games, though I cherish the copy I have.

    I fully Agree with “Have Space Suit” as that and “Citizen of the Galaxy” are my two faves by him.

    While I love the classics, outside of Heinlein, many of them fall flat to people used to standard reading with more characterization. For that matter, many but the most iconic have shuffled off my shelf over the years because they don’t hold up well.

    Hmmm – “Hard Magic” by Correia. Fun, noir-detective superhero story. Treats the “magic” system as semi-scientifically caused, and with consistent logic.

    If people like Clancy thrillers, then either “On Basilisk Station” or, where I started “Honor Among Enemies”

    Dune, Mote in Gods Eye, etc. I’d toss out as too weighty, Oath of Fealty may come close.

    Mike Flynn’s “firestar” books. Not his spiral arm series – same language issues as MiaHM

    Alan Dean Foster – The Tar Ayim Krang and Orphan Star from the Flinx books, or “Nor crystal Tears”
    Linn Stanton on 2014-05-27 at 18:13:22 said:

    It may be a bit dated by now, but back in college I had good luck hooking people with John Brunner’s Shockwave Rider
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 18:14:16 said:

    >Anyone have information about what books have hooked new people on science fiction? Or is that not quite what you’re looking for?

    That’s an important subset of what I’m looking for. The rest would be “now I’m hooked, what should I read next to learn my way around”.

    >I’d go with The Warrior’s Apprentice.

    So would I. That was already on my list.

    >What do you mean by “knowledgeable readers of sf”? What do you want people to know?

    First: how to read the advanced stuff – like, say, Greg Egan or Robert Forward – without feeling disoriented. Second: a knowledgeable reader should be able to put new books in genre context and recognize what is original versus what merely repeats established tropes.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 18:17:06 said:

    >It may be a bit dated by now, but back in college I had good luck hooking people with John Brunner’s Shockwave Rider

    Already on my list.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 18:22:25 said:

    >Hmmm – “Hard Magic” by Correia.

    Good thinking. I think this is a worthy example of the sort of thing that may belong on an SF-for-newbies list even though it is by no means a classic of the genre. (Yet. Might look that way in fifteen years, depending.)
    Jeremy Firth on 2014-05-27 at 18:26:23 said:

    Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Easy read with great concepts and the dangers of an overreaching government.

    A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. I read this when I was 9 years old, and I still remember the explanation for time travel from this book.
    Dgarsys on 2014-05-27 at 18:27:29 said:

    > I think this is a worthy example of the sort of thing that may belong on an SF-for-newbies list even though it is by no means a classic of the genre. (Yet. Might look that way in fifteen years, depending.)

    In a sense though, Correia and several other Baen authors take pride in returning to old school attitudes about people, vice the new-wave crap. It may not be a classic, but it’s good storytelling, it’s popular, and it holds up as a consistent exploration of “what if” and consequences while echoing some of the older “evolution of mankind” stories.
    SBP on 2014-05-27 at 18:28:01 said:

    The Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey.

    It’s contemporary, well-written, provides a fresh take on the post-apocalyptic genre, and has sold a ton of copies (an indication that it has wide appeal and accessibility).
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 18:28:32 said:

    >I fully Agree with “Have Space Suit” as that and “Citizen of the Galaxy” are my two faves by him.

    Citizen of the Galaxy is a very strong candidate, actually. For this list, possible stronger than The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, now I think about it.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-27 at 18:29:32 said:

    The problem with Forward and some Egan is that they require at least interest in science, and sometimes a good bit of background knowledge.
    Paul Sand on 2014-05-27 at 18:31:52 said:

    When I read esr’s post, the title that first came to mind was Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. Now, reading through the comments, I see it’s a common love. Time to read it again, I think for the dozenth time…

    I also have fond memories of Sleeping Planet, by William R. Burkett Jr. I see you can get a Kindle version for $3.99.
    Wilson Bodine on 2014-05-27 at 18:33:57 said:

    Red Thunder by John Varley. Good read, didn’t know it was young adult until I finished.
    Dune, Frank Herbert
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-27 at 18:42:20 said:

    Others have mentioned my favorites (though, personally, I’d put The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress over Citizen of the Galaxy; because the former is a better introduction to the breadth of SF thought).

    Niven, though, belongs on the list. The question is, which one?

    As much as I love Ringworld, I’m not sure it’s not too steep a hill for the introductory SF reader. Known Space deserves representation here, but I can’t come up with a candidate volume.

    As an alternative, how about the Draco’s Tavern collection?
    Jeff Read on 2014-05-27 at 18:53:44 said:

    If you’re gonna start out with RAH, I might suggest Have Space Suit — Will Travel as a first Heinlein work. It’s a juvenile, but I read it as an adult and found it more accessible and engaging than many of his later works.
    Jeff Read on 2014-05-27 at 18:57:56 said:

        Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky is complex and masterful, but also accessible to new readers of sf. (A Fire Upon The Deep, while arguably more significant, is less accessible).

    Intro to Vinge should start with True Names. Short, breezy read but with deep content, and the setting will be easily recognizable to anyone steeped in “cyberpunk” imagery or even anyone who’s played Second Life or a MMORPG.
    Joel C. Salomon on 2014-05-27 at 18:58:04 said:

    The Star Beast was the first SF book I ever read, when I was a bit young for it (eight or so). A few years later I got my hands on Have Spacesuit, Will Travel and I was hooked.

    A lot of the tropes of SF were established in short fiction, and some of those stories have aged very well. My parents had a collection of The Best of … books and I quickly found that if I didn’t like one story it was just a few pages till the next, and that one would often be better.

    Lester del Rey’s Helen O’Loy was one of the earliest short stories I remember reading, and is still one of my favorites. It’s not nearly as revolutionary now—the trope of a robot with emotions has become popular since its first introduction in this story—but that just makes it more approachable.

    (I have recently learned of people within the SF community who immensely dislike Helen O’Loy. I follow Tolkien’s lead: I don’t hold this against them; but I do take this as evidence that I am highly unlikely to enjoy the kinds of books they do like.)
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-27 at 18:59:04 said:

    I’m very fond of most of Citizen of the Galaxy, but the last chunk about the proxy fight never did much for me.

    I just registered the title– presumably the point is that being a citizen is about taking responsibility rather than what a government defines.
    Paul Brinkley on 2014-05-27 at 19:01:58 said:

    Lucifer’s Hammer for a meteor impact story that seems to define that micro-genre.

    I, Robot. As I said in the previous review thread, one of the good things about the Golden Age writers is that they were trying to make the genre appeal to everyone back then, and these were the best of that bunch. (In general, I’d also recommend short stories to new readers over novels – thus, of Heinlein’s works, I’d recommend The Past Through Tomorrow over anything else.)

    Not that novels are bad. Other possibilities, given their popularity and current applicability:
    Snow Crash
    Jurassic Park

    Eric, I will belly laugh if this hasn’t occurred to you (even if you ruled it out), but how about Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality?
    BobW on 2014-05-27 at 19:02:05 said:

    Is Tunnel in the Sky on your list of Heinlein books?

    I second the motion for Arthur C. Clarke’s Fountains of Paradise.

    Does William Gibson fit your criteria? I like Count Zero better than Neuromancer from his Sprawl trilogy, but it needs the setup from Neuromancer to make the fact that it’s not fantasy obvious.
    Daniel Speyer on 2014-05-27 at 19:03:21 said:

    For Vinge, I suggest the True Names and Other Dangers collection, especially the first two stories: Run, Bookworm, Run and True Names. Those introduce all the transhumanist/singulatarian tropes on the assumption that the audience hadn’t heard of them (mostly because these stories invented the genre).
    PapayaSF on 2014-05-27 at 19:04:36 said:

    A World Fantasy Award-winner that I think deserves inclusion: Replay by Ken Grimwood. What would it be like to relive 25 years of your adult life over again, and again, and again? And what if you are not the only person this is happening to?

    One could easily classify it as slipstream SF. It’s an excellent book that you cannot read without re-evaluating your life, and perfect for newbies because it has the mind-stretching aspects of SF without the often off-putting heavy science and technology aspect.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-27 at 19:12:48 said:

    I’d recommend Childhood’s End over The Fountains of Paradise because I like the former quite a bit and was bored by the latter.

    How about Tuf Voyaging?

    Also, I’ll put in a good word for Delany’s Nova.

    More generally, something people would need to learn is to read like a science fiction reader– taking small details seriously as giving clues about the world. I’m not sure what books are the best for teaching that.
    Joel C. Salomon on 2014-05-27 at 19:14:09 said:

    I’d disagree; slipstream is probably the worst kind of SF for newcomers to the genre. The part of SF/F that’s hardest to “get” isn’t the “heavy science and technology”—gadget-wise, we live in a science-fiction world! The difficult adjustment is the thing that is shared between SF & Fantasy: the world-building. (Harry Potter doesn’t count; Rowling used pop-culture magic tropes and Hallowe’en, not Fantasy tropes.) And slipstream plays with world-building in a way that can only be appreciated by someone who’s already cut their teeth on SF/F.
    Jorge Dujan on 2014-05-27 at 19:14:11 said:

    I thank you all for doing this. FWIW, I – one of the newbies this forthcoming list is aimed at – have read I, Robot and Clarke’s Expedition to Earth and found both collections accessible and enjoyable.
    Joel C. Salomon on 2014-05-27 at 19:15:00 said:

    (That’s PapayaSF on 2014-05-27 at 19:04:36 I’m disagreeing with.)
    John Cunningham on 2014-05-27 at 19:16:38 said:

    Niven and Pournelle, Lucifer’s Hammer and Footfall. Have Space Suit is a great intro, of course, I think I read it for the first time at age 7, and I re-read it every couple of years.
    Ed Poor on 2014-05-27 at 19:27:10 said:

    It’s not clear if you consider cyberpunk as “anti-SF”, but if not then either Neuromancer or Snow Crash belongs on the list. I’d vote for Have Spacesuit, Will Travel over <The Moon is a Harsh Mistress if this were a vote, by the way; it’s a better introductory work.
    Paul Brinkley on 2014-05-27 at 19:28:01 said:

    I’m glad Philip K. Dick came up on your G+ thread and that you ruled him out – it validated the same concern that I had (that I had neglected to mention earlier); most of his work, while good, is too weird. Even the appeal of Blade Runner strikes me as not enough to justify Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to a newcomer’s list.

    I’d also shy away from stressing the reader’s capacity to absorb world building. (I’d be surprised if Anathem made anyone’s list.)

    The best SF could have sensitive dependence on the newcomer’s other interests. Mystery buffs might take a shine to Elijah Bailey novels, or perhaps Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Veterans might best receive Starship Troopers.

    And again, I’d also recommend certain non-fiction to newcomers to get them into the mindset. (Ideally, I suppose the best SF would come with its own non-fiction passages.)
    Jeremy Bowers on 2014-05-27 at 19:35:35 said:

    For Niven, I might suggest N-Space or Playgrounds of the Mind, because the wide-ranging sampling in such a concise format is sort of nice.

    On that note, 50 Short Science Fiction Tales is quite nice; again, bite-sized but punchy introductions to a lot of classic science-fiction ideas.

    I don’t want to make it sound like I’d build the whole list out of anthologies, of course, I’m just filling in a gap I perceive here. I’ve gotten a lot of great science fiction out of 1960/1970s era anthologies. (And you get author’s names to follow up on.)
    Jeremy Bowers on 2014-05-27 at 19:38:46 said:

    Sorry, my specific choice of anthology fails the in-print test. My apologies. I am not sure if there is a modern iteration of that idea that is in print, nor am I sure what in-print anthology would be appropriate.
    PapayaSF on 2014-05-27 at 20:01:30 said:

    @Joel C. Salomon: I understand your point, but Replay would not be hard for newbies. In a sense it’s the movie Groundhog Day with a cycle of decades instead of a day, and everybody with a room-temperature IQ or better “gets” Groundhog Day. It’s a book I would not hesitate to recommend to anyone capable of reading any mundane novel.
    Borepatch on 2014-05-27 at 20:02:36 said:

    I second Nancy’s suggestion of George R. R. Martin’s Tuff Voyaging. This might be a gateway drug for people who don’t read SF but like Game Of Thrones. And Tuff is clearly SF.

    I would also suggest Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon because the stories are good and they are quite accessible.

    For young readers, how about Lester Del Rey’s The Runaway Robot? I read that in (IIRC 4th grade), and both my kids read it around that same age. It’s Juvenile Space Opera, and that’s actually quite a good combination.
    Joel Martin on 2014-05-27 at 20:04:48 said:

    I might start with Daemon and Freedom by Daniel Suarez. The writing is accessible and fast paced (quite cinematic in style). Daemon starts off as almost a murder mystery set in modern day but introduces a number of sci-fi themes and ideas as the novels progress.

    For history buffs, Asimov’s Foundation series could serve as a decent gateway to sci-fi.

    I’ll add my vote for Ender’s Game and A Wrinkle in Time, especially for introducing a younger audience.
    Borepatch on 2014-05-27 at 20:07:09 said:

    And there’s a ton of these books on Amazon, even if they’re not (easily) in print. The Runaway Robot seems to be (Amazon says they have new copies for big $$$) but there are lots of used volumes for small money. So I’m bending your rule, but with a plausible justification.
    Ian on 2014-05-27 at 20:31:19 said:

    If your goal is to hook newbies, I think looking to books from the 1970s and earlier is a mistake. While they’re timeless classics to people who grew up with it, the vast majority of writers failed to predict the computer tech revolution and as a result the lack of future tech based on present-day computer & communications tech makes stories from that era feel very dated. For one particularly egregious example, there’s a Niven story that has people flying single-person spaceships around the orbit of Neptune (IIRC) who are calculating their orbital trajectories by hand with slide rules!

    I like to recommend Peter F. Hamilton to people, either the Night’s Dawn series or the Pandora’s Star/Judas Unchained duology.
    Remy on 2014-05-27 at 20:56:24 said:

    I’ve successfully introduced people to SF with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and Snow Crash.
    Jeff Read on 2014-05-27 at 20:58:07 said:

    As someone who has read SF but not an avid reader, I quite liked Anathem. And yet, it was “hurled with great force” by much more voracious readers than I.
    Bruce on 2014-05-27 at 21:06:09 said:

    >’How about Tuf Voyaging? ‘. Yes. People who like space opera will like it.
    Ditto The Mote in God’s Eye. Anything by Andre Norton.

    Lucifer’s Hammer for people who’d like John D Macdonald’s Condominium, or Tom Wolfe.

    Ringworld. A newbie who is going to love SF will love it by the first paragraph, others will know they aren’t going to love SF, by the first paragraph. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, same principle.

    Mirrorshades. If you are going to love cyberpunk, it’s still the best collection.

    Anything long by Ursula le Guin for EngLit/pop sosh majors. The Word for World is Forest otherwise.

    “Houston, Houston, do you read?” for feminists who might like real SF. David Drake’s RCN series for feminists who might like space opera. The rest of James Tiptree for feminists who won’t like SF, but you respect them. Sheri Tepper for feminists who hit their heads when small. Or NK Jemison.

    Larry Correia is doing the best action stories around now. I liked Monster Hunter International better than the Hard Magic series, but both are good. For people who like ‘other stories boys will like’. David Drake’s early stuff for guys in prison, or the military, or smart history majors, or actual Latiners..

    “Red Nails” and other actual Robert E Howard Conan.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 21:10:05 said:

    >As someone who has read SF but not an avid reader, I quite liked Anathem.

    So did I. It’s out – too advanced for this list.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 21:12:39 said:

    >If your goal is to hook newbies, I think looking to books from the 1970s and earlier is a mistake.

    I understand the argument but don’t agree. The failure to predict the computer tech revolution is irrelevant to a lot of the best pre-1970 classics and introductory works. I will try to avoid slide-rules-around-Neptune stories.
    Matthew Dixon Cowles on 2014-05-27 at 21:14:02 said:

    I agree with Dune, David Weber’s On Basilisk Station, Snow Crash, and Ender’s Game. I would add S. M. Stirling’s Island in the Sea of Time.

    BTW, thanks for bringing the reviews back.
    trying2b-amused on 2014-05-27 at 21:15:37 said:

    Not entirely according to the rules, since they are (very) short stories, by a complete unknown (the quite recently late George Potter, R.I.P) but if they, to slightly paraphrase one of my favorites (who probably doesn’t belong on the list, either) don’t “catch at the heart, snag in the soul like a fishook”, you’re wasting your time reading SF. Available free on the web:

    Roberta (RAH gets reincarnated as, well, you’ll just have to hit the link)
    http://www.billstclair.com/blog/gloryroad/roberta.html

    A Map of Mankind (Part essay, part fiction, all transcendental)
    http://www.billstclair.com/blog/gloryroad/map.html
    Mr Non-Entity on 2014-05-27 at 21:17:02 said:

    “Tuf Voyaging”, GRR Martin. Also, “Dying of the Light” comes across almost as fantasy, but its not. Also very romantic in its way. For more horrific SF, “Fevre Dream”. Extremely accessible SF historical, and frighteningly believable.

    “Red Planet” RA Heinlein. A juvenile, but excellent read, introduces us to the Martians of “Stranger In A Strange Land”.

    Larry Niven’s “Neutron Star” compilation.
    Deep Lurker on 2014-05-27 at 21:18:05 said:

    RAH is someone I respect as an author, but I could never warm to his stories.

    My first thought was H Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy (but not the Scalzi reboot)

    Also Bujold’s Borders of Infinity collection. Or possibly her Falling Free

    The early “Honor Harrington” books by David Weber, for those who go for Tom Clancy style technothrillers and/or for CS Forester’s “Hornblower” books.

    The Best of Isaac Asimov is a good-for-newbies collection IMHO, as well as a “best of”
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 21:20:37 said:

    >“Red Planet” RA Heinlein. A juvenile, but excellent read, introduces us to the Martians of “Stranger In A Strange Land”.

    I’m pretty sure it’s not actually the same continuity. Similar, though.
    Deep Lurker on 2014-05-27 at 21:21:33 said:

    One more thought: If a Roger Zelazny story is wanted for the list, I’d recommend Lord of Light
    PapayaSF on 2014-05-27 at 21:22:46 said:

    I am quite partial to the short stories of Cordwainer Smith. Their strangeness holds up well, despite their age.
    Jonathan Nacionales on 2014-05-27 at 21:23:36 said:

    Dune and Lord of Light.

    Religion is part of the human experience; so, a fare treatment of them is important to me in any work of art. These are probably the most believable books about how advanced science and religion would play out.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 21:25:20 said:

    >One more thought: If a Roger Zelazny story is wanted for the list, I’d recommend Lord of Light

    I think Creatures of Light and Darkness is more accessible.
    db48x on 2014-05-27 at 21:26:52 said:

    I think the Mote in God’s Eye is actually a good choice. It does use the Galactic Empire and Space Battleship tropes there at the beginning, but then it veers off course and starts introducing strange and wonderful new things…
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 21:27:37 said:

    >For history buffs, Asimov’s Foundation series could serve as a decent gateway to sci-fi.

    A classic – but for this purpose too slow and talky and with weak characterization.
    Deep Lurker on 2014-05-27 at 21:29:50 said:

    > I think Creatures of Light and Darkness is more accessible. [than Lord of Light]

    Odd. I found it less accessable.
    db48x on 2014-05-27 at 21:30:50 said:

    Speaking of Galactic Empires, Aasimov’s Foundation is probably a good place to start.
    spiralofhope on 2014-05-27 at 21:32:13 said:

    May I add a further challenge? A constraint to the list.

    Given a person:
    - of reasonable literacy
    - of better than average scientific understanding
    - with reasonable funding to buy books

    If they were to give a list of SF books a year, what books and in what order would be recommended?

    –

    This very concept is what I was contemplating emailing esr directly about, to gain some insight into his personal views on what makes good SF. However, I wasn’t sure if either it had already been written or if I would be a nuisance asking for it.

    –

    I’m also very very interested in this “hard fantasy” concept. I’ll do some research to learn more about that notion.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 21:32:39 said:

    >I’d also shy away from stressing the reader’s capacity to absorb world building. (I’d be surprised if Anathem made anyone’s list.)

    Quite right. A goal of this list is to set the reader on a trajectory that will prepare him or her to enjoy worldbuiding-centered idea-as-hero SF a la Anathem, but immediately slugging the newb with a heavy dose of it is counterindicated.
    aczarnowski on 2014-05-27 at 21:37:37 said:

    Cyberpunk needs an representative. I remember Snow Crash more fondly than Neuromancer.

    Short stories are a what hooked me. Doctorow’s 0wnz0red has good modern hooks. Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles for the 50′s ROCKET! ness of it.

    Crichton’s Sphere for its inner darkness at the bottom of the ocean.
    Paul Brinkley on 2014-05-27 at 21:39:43 said:

    Out of curiosity, I went searching for a pre-existing list, and came across this.

    http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/SF-Lit/SF-Lit-syllabus.htm

    It also has a reading list. This is more of a “history of” list, I think, rather than one meant to focus on the modern essence of the genre. But it may nevertheless contain worthy titles to the best of my knowledge, so the list may be at least worth a skim.
    Paul Brinkley on 2014-05-27 at 21:42:17 said:

    I had considered Sphere as well, but I personally think it’s too much at once (in a Philip K. Dick way), which is why I suggested the more accessible Jurassic Park.
    Paul Brinkley on 2014-05-27 at 21:43:34 said:

    Harumph – just revisited my book shelf and realized I had completely forgotten Carl Sagan’s Contact. Shame on me.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-27 at 21:44:13 said:

    I started reading “Roberta”– the first sentence seemed Heinleinian, and got my hopes up. As for the rest of what I read, it wasn’t quite hitting the tone, and I think it’s it’s dependent for its interest on being a Heinlein junkie.

    I agree that _Lord of Light_ is more appealing than _Creatures of Light and Darkness_– the latter struck me as Zelazny clearing scraps out of his filing cabinet. It was composed of interesting bits which didn’t hang together.

    Other Zelazny: _Isle of the Dead_ and _Jack of Shadows_.

    I think of “Wang’s Carpets” by Egan as probably accessible.
    dtsund on 2014-05-27 at 21:44:34 said:

    How about The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter?
    kjj on 2014-05-27 at 22:01:57 said:

    The Stars my Destination, followed by The Demolished Man.

    Tik-tok.

    Christopher’s Tripod books. YA, but still quite readable for me, even though I’m a number of decades beyond my youth.

    Childhood’s End, The Fountains of Paradise, 2001 (and the series), Rendezvous with Rama (but not the series). No particular order. Hard to go wrong with old Clarke books.

    Crichton had some gems. I’d probably go with The Terminal Man first, and follow it with The Andromeda Strain, then Sphere in a distant third place.

    Gerrold has some good stuff, particularly when you overlap with military/strategy interests. Voyage of the Star Wolf to pick one.

    No introduction can be complete without Stanislaw Lem. Solaris is good, but you’d probably have better results grabbing one of his collections of short stories. Tales of Pirx the Pilot or Cyberiad.

    Steele has some good books. Orbital Decay is my favorite. Sadly, it seemed completely plausible 20 years ago, but utter fantasy today.

    From Stephenson, Zodiac. I think just about everyone but me would recommend Snow Crash first, or maybe Cryptonomicon.

    The Demon Princes.

    Vinge. Any Vinge. Marooned in Realtime is a good murder mystery, which science fiction authors traditionally are not great with. Hard to say if Deepness in the Sky or A Fire Upon the Deep would be better for a beginner. Rainbow’s End gets better every time I read it, which is not a good property for this list, but I think it may have more to do with my expectations the first time I read it. (Anyone else experience this?)

    War of the Worlds. The Time Machine.

    This list was mostly in alphabetical order because I was reading down my fiction shelves. You may have noticed Sladek up at the top, which is because my three favorites are The Stars my Destination, Tik-Tok, and Ender’s Game. I skipped over a bunch (like Ender’s Game, Asimov, Gibson, Heinlein, etc) because other people have/will mention them.

    Some of the books I picked, particularly from authors with a bunch of good stuff, were picked because I read them when I was young, and so I know of at least one person (me) that got into science fiction through them.

    Is this intended to be a self-service list, or an aid for people guiding others? Clarke, in particular would be very different in those two contexts. For self service, I’d go with Childhood’s End, 2001, Rendezvous with Rama. For a guided tour, I’d add maybe a half dozen others with the understanding that the guide would pick a few based on the interests of the pupil.
    Troutwaxer on 2014-05-27 at 22:02:55 said:

    I’d second the “Neutron Star.” I’d also suggest “Protector.” Obviously the “Robot” stories by Asimov should be included (you’ve probably already got them on the list.) I’d strongly advocate for a couple of early Ellison Stories; “A Boy and His Dog” and/or “I Have No Mouth” would be good. From Varley, “Press Enter,” “Blue Champagne” or “Titan,” “Wizard” and “Demon” would be good.

    I’m not sure I’d pick a single Heinlein – any of several Juveniles, chosen to taste would be a good idea, but trying to pick one in particular is very difficult. “Stranger” may be too advanced. For Military SciFi, I think “Starship Troopers” is the Ur-Document; as much as I enjoyed “Honor of the Queen” (I’ve literally read the paperback to destruction) it’s not the same kind of historical document as “Starship Troopers.”

    Zelazney’s “Isle of the Dead” involves several interesting themes. I’m inclined to recommend “Lord of Light” but it might be too advanced and it is easily mistake for fantasy.

    I can’t remember the author, but “A Bucket of Air” is an important part of the canon. If I think of more I’ll post another
    Max E. on 2014-05-27 at 22:05:47 said:

    As a SF newbie, I very much enjoyed Brin’s _Uplift_ series. (Well, the ones I read, anyway.) I also enjoyed _A Fire Upon the Deep_, which contradicts earlier suggestions that it’s inaccessible to outsiders.
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-27 at 22:16:04 said:

    Of the Known Space series, Protector is probably the most accessible. Not sure if it’s accessible enough.

    Wish I could remember the title of the short story with Beowulf Shaeffer and Elephant discovering what made a particular planet strange, the hard way…

    “Have you noticed in me a tendency to use profanity for emphasis?”
    “No.”
    “It’s goddamned radioactive out there.”
    Franklin on 2014-05-27 at 22:20:51 said:

    As the aforementioned newbie I want to express my gratitude to ESR and everyone else for doing this. I will be following this and subsequent threads closely.
    Cathy on 2014-05-27 at 22:22:47 said:

    _Ringworld_ is a good novel of world-building that is still very accessible to newbies. You don’t need any science or SF background to “get” it.

    A good anthology of Arthur Clarke’s early short stories (not novels), something like “Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke”. These are very readable today.

    _Caves of Steel_. It’s a great mystery, therefore accessible to anyone who understands mysteries, and it may be easier to picture the world shown than a far-flung galactic empire or post-Singularity world. But it also shows how the science and technological rules define the plot and its resolution.

    Varley’s _Red Thunder_. A good example of a modern novel that presses exactly the buttons that classic SF readers always had. Doesn’t matter that it’s YA.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-27 at 22:24:08 said:

    I just reread Leiber’s “A Pail of Air”, and it’s spectacular. It seems like there should be games in that setting. Are there?

    I wouldn’t imply that Tuf Voyaging is anything like Game of Thrones. People will just be disappointed.
    SBP on 2014-05-27 at 22:30:18 said:

    “Wish I could remember the title of the short story with Beowulf Shaeffer and Elephant”

    Flatlander.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 22:43:53 said:

    >No introduction can be complete without Stanislaw Lem.

    I disagree. I like (some of) Lem, but he is not an SF writer – he’s a fabulist who uses SF tropes, like George Lucas but at more distance from the genre. He’s not anti-SF exactly, but he absolutely does not belong on a list for beginners. He’s advanced material, along with parodies and deconstructions of genre SF.
    Sam Shipman on 2014-05-27 at 22:45:54 said:

    Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
    1984 – George Orwell
    Wasp – Eric Frank Russell
    The Caves of Steel – Isaac Asimov
    The Naked Sun – Isaac Asimov
    The Marching Morons – C. M. Kornbluth
    Steven Ehrbar on 2014-05-27 at 23:04:12 said:

    Troutwaxer, I assume you mean Lieber’s “A Pail of Air”?
    Max E. on 2014-05-27 at 23:04:33 said:

    It occurs to me that the _Hitchhikers’ Guide_ series is not actually too obvious, because there’s no such thing as too obvious here.
    jsk on 2014-05-27 at 23:09:01 said:

    As much as I personally loved both “A Fire Upon the Deep” and “A Deepness in the Sky,” I think they want the appropriate groundwork laid first. They are both conceptually dense; “Fire” works best if you already grok trans-humanism, and from a beginner’s perspective “Deepness” can be better replaced with the more explicitly-stated themes of “The Mote in God’s Eye.”
    Terry on 2014-05-27 at 23:27:00 said:

    Can we recommend only books?

    http://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com

    Keyword: “knowledgeable” readers of SF… if you want ppl to get [into] Niven or Heinlein hard SF, KSP is an excellent way to get knowledgeable!
    Troutwaxer on 2014-05-27 at 23:28:42 said:

    Troutwaxer, I assume you mean Lieber’s “A Pail of Air”?

    Yep! That’s it! I haven’t read the story for years, so the name escaped me (just a little.)

    …advanced material, along with parodies and deconstructions of genre SF.

    This is why I don’t think that Snow Crash belongs on the list. Without a proper familiarity with Cyberpunk tropes it won’t be nearly as much fun. “Johnny Mnemonic” might be a good place to start. On the subject of Lem, I’m a little torn. Some of the Trurl and Klapaucius stories are good introductory material, and “The Invincible” is a very good book. On the other hand, “The Futurological Congress” or the Ijon Tichi stories are definitely advanced material.
    Terry on 2014-05-27 at 23:30:35 said:

    >Sam “Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes”

    True dat: I can’t remember which grade of elementary school made me read it (the short story that is; the novel gets a little racy.)
    Paul Brinkley on 2014-05-27 at 23:37:15 said:

    I really wonder if Kerbal will do it. I tried the demo, and ended up frustrated from trying to attach a third rocket to my three-rocket design and having it ending up crooked because of the UI. It also felt *too* sandbox-y, like I was thrown into a complete set of parts with infinite budget and told to build anything, rather than learning about one fuel type / drive type / mission type at a time. (I hear they’re working on a “career” sequence, but it’s still in beta.) My personal inclination now is to wait for the game to mature a bit more, even if it raises the price. (Or try again, enjoy the game more, and perhaps try to help with the game if they have a forum for that.)

    That said, to tie this back to the main topic, I do think some extracurricular material is worth recommending as a supplement to the list. That’s why I recommended Asimov’s non-fiction Adding a Dimension in the other thread. And Kerbal would definitely qualify IMO as non-SF material that would still get newcomers into the proper frame of mind. In fact, so would Feynman’s famous cargo cult science speech.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 23:38:15 said:

    >This is why I don’t think that Snow Crash belongs on the list. Without a proper familiarity with Cyberpunk tropes it won’t be nearly as much fun.

    I’ll have to reread it to check, but I think the only required cyberpunk tropes have seeped into pop culture enough that new readers will know them from video games and TV.
    Arkadiy Belousov on 2014-05-27 at 23:40:02 said:

    While Lem’s “Solaris” may not work for a beginner’s list, I think “The Invincible” will work just fine.
    Paul Brinkley on 2014-05-27 at 23:45:48 said:

    I also think Snow Crash would work fine, though I understand Troutwaxer’s concern. I simply don’t think it’s too trope-heavy to be offputting. The part of it IMO that would hurt its case would be the scenes in cyberspace, which I didn’t find plausible enough, along with the whole Sumerian language subplot.

    Meanwhile, for discussion: I considered suggesting Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, because I found the future tech fascinating, but OTOH I found the plot itself to be rather boring.
    esr on 2014-05-27 at 23:46:12 said:

    >It occurs to me that the _Hitchhikers’ Guide_ series is not actually too obvious

    Unfit for the list. It’s parodic anti-SF, not SF.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-27 at 23:56:31 said:

    “Flowers for Algernon” and “The Marching Morons” are an interesting pairing.
    PS on 2014-05-28 at 00:02:29 said:

    The Looking Glass Series by John Ringo and The Dahak Trilogy by David Weber are pretty accessible with some hard science. Ringo co-authored The Looking Glass series with Dr. Travis Taylor (from Rocket City Rednecks).
    Jon Brase on 2014-05-28 at 00:06:45 said:

    @esr:
    > he’s a fabulist who uses SF tropes, like George Lucas but at more distance from the genre.

    From this quote, plus the fact that you’re asking for books, I take it you’d reject the original Star Wars trilogy as the kind of gateway drug you’re looking for?

    It’s hard for me to think of anything else: Star Wars *was* my introduction to sci-fi, most of the written sci-fi I read early on was targeted at children, and thus probably not age-appropriate for the audience you’re thinking of (plus I’m having trouble remembering specific titles at 15-20 years remove), and when I got into adult SF I dived into the deep end. I’d certainly recommend Star Wars for anybody who’s been living under a rock for long enough not to have seen it.
    kjj on 2014-05-28 at 00:27:36 said:

    esr on 2014-05-27 at 22:43:53 said:

    >>No introduction can be complete without Stanislaw Lem.

    >I disagree. I like (some of) Lem, but he is not an SF writer – he’s a fabulist who uses SF tropes, like George Lucas but at more distance from the genre. He’s not anti-SF exactly, but he absolutely does not belong on a list for beginners. He’s advanced material, along with parodies and deconstructions of genre SF.

    —–

    While I agree with parts of that, in general, I think you may want to take another look at Solaris in particular. If the idea is to show off the breadth of the literature without getting the reader bogged down, that is.

    One of the biggest problems in science fiction is that all of the aliens are humans with bumps on their foreheads. The classic example is Klingons, who had literal bumps on their heads. But it is more than just literal, Klingon culture was a deliberate parody of human culture, which amounts to little more than a metaphorical forehead bump.

    Scale up a bit, and you cover 99% of science fiction aliens. Star Wars and Star Trek aliens all fit this mold, and even many Dr. Who aliens are just a question of degree. A few more steps and you have wild animals, Alien/Aliens, Jurassic Park, etc. Endless examples cover a very tiny part of the human/not-human spectrum. Gibson’s AIs; the demons in Childhood’s End; the builders of Rama; buggers; Vinge’s spiders and tines, and the transcendent powers in the Beyond; Asimov’s Erythro. Even the moties are recognizably human, even though great care was taken to make their biological and cultural bumps quite large indeed.

    (And before anyone says it, Erythro was a teenage girl in a planet’s body, and while Vinge said that the powers in the deep beyond were incomprehensible, whenever we saw them at work, they acted totally human, seeking power or vengeance or whatever.)

    The alien in Solaris, however, is quite alien, way off on the other end of the spectrum. Not exactly alone out there, but not in a crowd. If you want to show off the breadth of science fiction, covering the spectrum of alienness isn’t a bad way to do it. I haven’t read it in a few years, but I recall it being quite readable.

    (Side note on the science fiction/not-science fiction spread. Literature is for telling stories, mostly about, and always for, people. Any science fiction story could be translated into a mundane, historic, or fantasy setting, and most of them would then stop being science fiction. Does that make them not-science fiction today? I hope not, because that would cut the genre down to like 10 books, with the rest being something like “Period Drama, Future”. Beyond that cut, it gets very subjective. )
    Milhouse on 2014-05-28 at 00:29:36 said:

    Star Wars is definitely not SF.
    Mark on 2014-05-28 at 00:36:41 said:

    My two cents:

    Tunnel in the Sky (Heinlein, but the aforementioned Have Spacesuit would be my second pick)
    The Caves of Steel (Asimov, my intro to SF, though maybe I, Robot would work better)
    Retief! (Laumer, lots of short, fun, accessible stories that get at some core SF concepts)
    The Warrior’s Apprentice (Bujold, it’s a shame the best Vor books are so far down the line, but it starts here (or maybe Shards of Honor for completists))
    Old Man’s War (Scalzi, @Nancy Lebovitz is dead on, and I’ve had luck with this one too)
    Conqueror’s trilogy (Zahn, perhaps not an “important” choice, but breezy fun space opera popcorn reading that would totally suck in the Star Wars crowd – I considered the Thrawn trilogy too, but that’s less SF than this.)

    I’ve never had luck with introducing Stephenson to people, full stop. I know a few who liked Snow Crash, but I’ve also known several that were turned off by the style (lots of info dumps, and while I have no problem with the ending, I know several people who hated it) and didn’t get that Stephenson was sorta making fun of cyberpunk. I love it to death and have always thought of it as a good intro, but maybe the person who suggested Zodiac was right (it is probably Stephenson’s most accessible novel, save Reamde, which isn’t SF).
    ww on 2014-05-28 at 00:50:39 said:

    If you’re reserving a slot for Stephenson, I’d suggest “The Diamond Age”. More accessible than ‘Anathem’ and more representative of what Stephenson is all about than ‘Snow Crash’
    Winter on 2014-05-28 at 00:57:25 said:

    The Martian way by Asimov

    Classic. Has everything including a colonie on Mars. No aliens.
    Asimov did not know about water on Mars though.
    SBP on 2014-05-28 at 01:01:15 said:

    Another recent book: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It would be especially good as a gateway drug for a gamer.

    I agree that Stephenson is not for everyone, though I personally believe that he is on well on his way to becoming the finest SF writer of the 21st Century.

    Yeah, I know he started writing back in the 80s, but IMO he started writing 21st Century SF beginning with Snowcrash in 1992 (what? He’s an SF writer. Of course he could write a 21st Century book in 1992). His earlier stuff was good, but still in a 20th Century narrative mode.
    Troutwaxer on 2014-05-28 at 01:01:28 said:

    Going back a little further into science fiction’s history, I’d like to see a story by Lovecraft; “Call of Cthulhu” or “Mountains of Madness.” I suspect that without Lovecraft, stuff like Brin’s Uplift series either doesn’t happen or has a very different feel. I also notice that nobody has mentioned Wells or Verne, but Eric probably has them on the list already.

    “Cities in Flight?”

    “MIssion of Gravity” is an interesting exercise in world building, but might be too advanced. I definitely second “Mote” and “Dune,” neither of which seem too advanced to me. Dune is about resource wars, and anyone who can successfully read some of the stories listed above will have no problem with that theme – it will carry them through the technical stuff. “Mote” seems essential to me – it’s pretty much the best first-contact story ever.

    One more Zelazny to consider – “The Dream Master.”
    Troutwaxer on 2014-05-28 at 01:04:13 said:

    Oooh! Someone above mentioned “Diamond Age.” That’s the right Stephenson for this list IMHO.
    v. m. smith on 2014-05-28 at 01:07:52 said:

    Babel-17 by Delaney for language theory and explanation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that your language shapes your thought processes. Nova was also good – I always wanted a “sensory syrinx”, but it probably wouldn’t have given me musical talent.

    Norton’s “Lord of Thunder” is the juvenile that got me started many, many years ago. Sequel is “Beastmaster” – not at all like the crappy movie of the same name.

    Heinlein’s Starship Troopers will be a complete surprise for anyone who has seen the movie, especially the powered armor part. Citizen of the Galaxy was always hard for me to understand – especially the ending dream sequence – basically I was not satisfied. Stranger in a Strange Land is not necessarily for beginners. Moon is a Harsh Mistress is good, but the language quirks throw some people.

    Leo Frankowski’s Cross-time Engineer series is good, but Lest Darkness Fall by DeCamp is earlier and has a GREAT cover!

    Dean Ing’s Pulling Through is a good nuclear war apocalypse story, as is Pat Frank’s “Alas, Babylon”

    Fallen Angels by Niven and Pournelle has lots of “in” jokes, so maybe not the best beginners book, but Footfall and Jannisaries are good, Lucifer’s Hammer is good but dated.

    The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith
    Farnham’s Freehold and Puppet Masters – Heinlein
    Armor – John Steakley “What price perfect armor, against an implacable foe?”
    Warrior’s Apprentice – Bujold
    An Oblique Approach and With the Lightnings – Drake
    any of the Retief stories by Laumer
    Hunting Party or Once a Hero or Trading in Danger by Moon
    Dorsai series by Dickson.

    Swords Against Darkness and sequels by Leiber, to add a bit of fantasy to the list.
    szg on 2014-05-28 at 01:11:20 said:

    Isaac Asimov – Pebble in the Sky
    Winter on 2014-05-28 at 03:59:48 said:

    These are nice introductions for the young. These are all quite old, but I do not read much SF lately. I do not like most fantasy (except Terry Pratchett), and most of the modern stuff is too dark for me. And I hate zombies.

    Wasp Eric Frank Russel
    Is more a spy story, but also a gentle introduction to SF.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_%28novel%29

    Neutron Star is a collection of science fiction short stories by Larry Niven
    Has it all, physics, aliens, space travel
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_Star_%28short_story_collection%29

    Memoirs of a Spacewoman, Naomi Mitchison
    A female hero. The title says it all
    https://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/memoirs-of-a-spacewoman-naomi-mitchison/

    The three cornered wheel Poul Anderson (in The Trouble Twisters)
    A mathematical puzzle: Make a wheel that is not round
    http://mporcius.blogspot.nl/2013/11/the-trouble-twisters-by-poul-anderson.html

    Deathworld 1-3 by Harry Harrison
    This was one of the inspirations used for the plot of the movie Avatar

    The stainless steel rat by Harry Harrison
    also
    The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues
    The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell
    Winter on 2014-05-28 at 04:06:40 said:

    And just for fun, I have an Anime/Manga Fantasy “intro”:

    The series Oh! My goddess by K?suke Fujishima
    The story starts when Keiichi Morisato accidentally calls the Goddess Technical Help Line.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_My_Goddess!

    You can find the anime versions at (visit link at your own risk):
    http://kissanime.com/Anime/Oh-My-Goddess
    (Subtitled, also good for learning Japanese ;-) )
    Dirkjan Ochtman on 2014-05-28 at 04:07:06 said:

    I think Asimov’s Caves of Steel is a really great introduction to his style, and pretty accessible. Not sure on novel versus story collection, maybe some of both makes sense? I also really liked the End of Eternity.

    I don’t see any Stross in here so far. How about Accelerando? I think it starts out as pretty accessible and then turns out kind of warped in the end, which might make for a useful learning curve. It’s also freely available on the internets, so that’s nice.

    And, some Doctorow? Also easily accessible due to large parts of his oeuvre being CC-licensed. For a novel, I’d recommend Eastern Standard Tribe. For stories, Overclocked might be good.

    I also liked The Terminal Experiment by Sawyer, though it’s maybe not as “good”.

    And, for something quite different, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Niffenegger? Don’t discount it based on the movie…
    Jakub Narebski on 2014-05-28 at 04:54:58 said:

    For an old classic, “The Day of the Triffids” by John Wyndham aged quite well.

    Perhaps “The Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula Le Guin…
    Richard lewis on 2014-05-28 at 05:06:30 said:

    If you are collating a jargon file as well, I would like to nominate the term incluing. Jo Walton coined it to explain SF reading protocols. I had cross referenced it to point for style: read science fiction. See http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/01/sf-reading-protocols.
    Winter on 2014-05-28 at 05:12:25 said:

    “The Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula Le Guin

    Everything by Ursula Le Guin is good. But maybe not everything is for newbies?
    Shenpen on 2014-05-28 at 05:48:29 said:

    Peter F. Hamilton – Pandora’s Star.

    I like it how it finally manages to break with the tired old spaceship fetish, all the books that just put an Age of Sail in space. Hamulton just runs trains to other planets through portals. Cool and novel idea. Although spaceships play a role later, in a war. I also like how he is capable for making aliens neither too similar to humans, nor too unrelatably unlike-everything-else but basically uses a good, understandable “hive-mind like ants” model.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 05:55:52 said:

    >From this quote, plus the fact that you’re asking for books, I take it you’d reject the original Star Wars trilogy as the kind of gateway drug you’re looking for?

    Yes. Besides, who is going to ask for an intro to SF and not have seen it already? :-)
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 05:57:26 said:

    >Another recent book: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It would be especially good as a gateway drug for a gamer.

    Excellent suggestion!
    Shenpen on 2014-05-28 at 06:02:08 said:

    Asimov’s Foundation series as a classic? It is so boring that it almost turned me off the genre when I was a child. It is largely about putting two ideas (psychohistory, non-violent diplomacy) into the most possible words.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 06:35:02 said:

    >If you are collating a jargon file as well, I would like to nominate the term incluing.

    The term “incluing” is good, but I think I did a better job of analyzing the process it’s part of in SF Words and Prototype Worlds.
    Jakub Narebski on 2014-05-28 at 06:43:36 said:

    * Alfred Bester The Stars Are My Destination
    * Clifford D. Simak Time Is the Simplest Thing
    * Gordon R. Dickson The Forever Man
    * Larry Niven Flatlander or Crashlander

    * David Drake and Eric Flint Belisarius series (alt. hist.)
    * Melissa Scott Five-Twelfths of Heaven (Roads of Heaven series,alt. SF)

    Short stories/novelettes:
    * Isaac Asimov The Bicentenntial Man (Three Law of Robotics)
    * Octavia Butler Bloodchild (in Don Wollheim Presents anthology, human stranded in planet of non-humanish aliens)
    Kurt B on 2014-05-28 at 06:46:24 said:

    Lucifer’s Hammer, or The Hammer Of God by Clarke

    The Shockwave Rider

    Any Asimov Short Story Collection, maybe one including The C Shute

    Verne’s 20.000 Leagues

    2001, or The Sentinel

    Ensign Flandry, or A Circus Of Hells

    Cachalot by A. D. Foster

    The Voyage Of The Space Beagle or The Weapon Shops Of Isher

    Probability Broach

    The Dorsai Series

    The Mote In God’s Eye
    Jakub Narebski on 2014-05-28 at 07:06:33 said:

    Lois McMaster Bujold Falling Free, if only for the Leo Graf lecture on engineering…
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-28 at 07:12:48 said:

    I’m anti-recommending The Crosstime Engineer series. It’s pro-rape. Long about the third or fourth book, a woman who has a crush on the main character, and has been turning down a secondary character “for no reason” is raped by him, and the author is in favor. I’ve been told it was with the connivance of her friends, but I haven’t checked back to confirm that.

    If you want a story about a modern person improving the past, I recommend Lest Darkness Fall.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 07:14:56 said:

    >I’m anti-recommending The Crosstime Engineer series. It’s pro-rape.

    I agree. Those books are vile, although Frankowski successfully hides the nastiness for a while.

    >If you want a story about a modern person improving the past, I recommend Lest Darkness Fall.

    Excellent recommendation.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-28 at 07:28:31 said:

    I’m exceedingly fond of Falling Free, but for some reason a lot of Bujold fans think it’s one of her weaker books. I have no idea how people who aren’t familiar with sf would take it.

    And yes, the lecture about ethics and engineering is brilliant. Here’s Bujold talking about the background for it, with an excerpt.
    James D. Noyes on 2014-05-28 at 07:34:15 said:

    For a beginner… I’d say John Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War”. Enough familiar tropes to be Sci-Fi, Fairly short, not overly challenging. The writing is pretty engaging.

    Another decent intro could be Peter Watts’ “Starfish”.

    I’ll also pile on for “The Mote in God’s Eye”.

    Nomination (off topic) for the *worst* book ever published is “The Feral Cell” by Richard Bowes. I used to offer a $5 bounty for anyone who could finish it. Only had to pay it once, to my Dad, who has never fogiven me for that lost afternoon.
    ams on 2014-05-28 at 08:11:40 said:

    Niel Stephenson
    Snow Crash – fun cyberpunk
    Cryptonomicon – fun near-future stuff
    Anathem – Mathematicians save their world, ending gets a bit Tegmarkian (Did they? Or did they just perspective shift to a world where they did save it?)

    Heinlein
    Citizen of the Galaxy

    The Time Traders

    Poul Anderson
    The Trouble Twisters
    Robert Conley on 2014-05-28 at 08:13:03 said:

    H Beam Piper’s Space Viking
    Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy

    I read these when I was 11 or 12 swiping them from my older Brother’s library much to his ire. I think any novice reader can handle them.

    Robert Forward’s Dragonfly is good straightforward read.
    Turtledove’s Guns of the South rises above his usual fare and holds it own against the classic.

    Also thanks for reviewing Darkling Sea, that was a very good book. It been a while since I found a hard SF book like that.
    ams on 2014-05-28 at 08:13:57 said:

    Larry Niven – Protector – has some very detailed alien psychology
    Joseph W. on 2014-05-28 at 08:59:32 said:

    Stephen R. Donaldson’s Gap series. The first book — The Real Story — is a great stand-alone if you don’t want to hit the newcomer with all six at once.
    Greg on 2014-05-28 at 08:59:49 said:

    Here’s an offbeat suggestion, for something to maybe get you into the right mindset. It’s an essay not a work of fiction, but it deals with various tropes in a hard sf way. It’s also hilarious. ‘Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex’. It’s available online.

    http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html

    When I started reading, the accessible authors that eased me in were Asimov and Laumer (odd combo, I know). Asimov (not just the Foundation books) does tend to be a little talky, slow and with weak characterization, but he’s not bewildering to new readers. My recommendation would be any of the Galactic Empire novels, before Foundation. (‘Currents of Space’, ‘Stars like Dust’, ‘Pebble in the Sky’).

    And it may be slightly off topic, but Asimov’s non-fiction deserves a special mention. He’s produced a number of brilliant essays on science-related subjects that have hooked many a young person on the sciences. ‘Asimov on Physics’ is an excellent example.

    For Laumer any of the Retief books should serve. Baen has also recently reissued a number of collections of his work, edited/curated by Eric Flint, that are very good and any should serve for this purpose. Also in particular I’d recommend ‘Knight of Delusions’. (I don’t think it’s in print but you can get as many used copies as you want through Amazon.) It also includes 2 bonus stories, one of which (‘The Last Command’) was the first sf I ever read, at age 8 – I understood it just fine.
    Joseph W. on 2014-05-28 at 09:14:18 said:

    Also, if short stories make good “gateways,” the collection Sandkings by George R.R. Martin. Especially the title story, and “The Way of Cross and Dragon.”
    Joe Wooten on 2014-05-28 at 09:21:54 said:

    Not a useful answer. Pick individual good titles for newbies.
    I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue…..

    How about the Larry Niven short story anthology that includes Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex
    Tau Zero or Three Cornered Wheel by Poul Anderson
    Space Viking by Bean Piper
    Sean C. on 2014-05-28 at 09:59:13 said:

    Part of the trouble is “who is your newbie?” The newbies in my life range from the not-really-recreational-reader jock kid to fantasy-loving-pre-teen to pokemon-gifted-nerd-boy.

    So yeah. For the Percy Jackson pre-teen I enthusiastically second the earlier recommendation of Anne McCaffrey, particularly the Harper Hall trilogy as a place to start. They’re a nice bridge between fantasy and sci-fi, and they put the practical feminism of Sci Fi right up front and in your face.

    For the jock kid I’d point them towards Robert Asprin’s Phule series for the comedy and action.

    For the pokemon-gifted-nerd-boy, straight to Asimov short stories, I Robot and Robot Dreams. All the advanced concepts and coherent sci fi world in easy bite size chunks.

    In the end, I would very much recommend breaking down a curated list by newbie classification.
    Daniel Franke on 2014-05-28 at 10:02:30 said:

    esr writes:

        > For history buffs, Asimov’s Foundation series could serve as a decent gateway to sci-fi.

        A classic – but for this purpose too slow and talky and with weak characterization.

    If this is the case then I think you need to specify what range of temperament and maybe IQ you’re targeting with this list. I read the Foundation series as a young teenager — it was either my first-ever SF, or close to it — and devoured the whole seven-book series in the space of three weeks.

    Also, while you’re clearly correct about HHGG being parodic anti-SF, I don’t think you really need to versed in SF to appreciate it. The original HHGG trilogy primarily makes fun of everyday culture. The SF tropes that it riffs on are ones that should be familiar to anyone who’s seen a few Star Trek episodes. (OTOH, Mostly Harmless and the Dirk Gently books do call for a bit more SFnal maturity).
    Chuck on 2014-05-28 at 10:03:59 said:

    The Demon Breed, James H. Schmitz, Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement.
    db48x on 2014-05-28 at 10:07:11 said:

    From Bester I think The Demolished Man is a better place to start than The Stars My Destination, but both are great.
    Jeremy B. on 2014-05-28 at 10:10:01 said:

    This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
    One of the purer examples of the utopia as dystopia trope that I’ve come across and an enjoyable and accessible read as well.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 10:21:19 said:

    >If this is the case then I think you need to specify what range of temperament and maybe IQ you’re targeting with this list. I read the Foundation series as a young teenager — it was either my first-ever SF, or close to it — and devoured the whole seven-book series in the space of three weeks.

    Yes, but you’re mildly autistic so I find this completely unsurprising. Trust me that it’s a poorer fit for non-autists, even very bright ones – Shenpen nailed that problem in an earlier comment. I say this despite revering it as a classic myself.

    As to your more general question: my goal is to target teenagers and younger adults in the 115+ IQ range (lower than that the odds they’ll be able to connect with real SF at all seem slim). I want to tune the list so it’s got something for everyone in that bucket, with more specific cues in the descriptions.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 10:23:05 said:

    >From Bester I think The Demolished Man is a better place to start than The Stars My Destination

    I disagree, but consider this a question on which reasonable people can differ.
    Dominic Dibble on 2014-05-28 at 10:24:12 said:

    Joe Haldeman – either “The Forever War” or the bleak but brilliant “All My Sins Remembered”

    Also second Alfred Bester’s “The Stars My Destination”.

    A E Van Vogt “The Voyage of the Space Beagle”

    Frederick Pohl “Gateway”

    James S A Corey “Leviathan Wakes”
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 10:26:30 said:

    >The Demon Breed, James H. Schmitz

    The Witches of Karres is already on. If I were going to replace it, it would be with Baen’s Telzey Amberdon omnibus.

    >Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement.

    Too advanced for this list.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 10:28:40 said:

    >Also, if short stories make good “gateways,” the collection Sandkings by George R.R. Martin. Especially the title story, and “The Way of Cross and Dragon.”

    Brilliant stuff, but dubious as intro material – as others have pointed out, Tuf Voyaging would suit better.
    Dominic Dibble on 2014-05-28 at 10:35:49 said:

    James Blish “Cities in Flight”

    John Brunner “Stand on Zanzibar” (or is this too New Wave for you?)
    Dominic Dibble on 2014-05-28 at 10:38:03 said:

    Oh, and surely some classic space opera from EE Doc Smith?
    RubeRad on 2014-05-28 at 10:46:37 said:

    I am by no means a SF guru, but I have read a fair bit, so I’ll take a stab:

    I heartily add my vote for Ender’s Game (but, like Dune, it can be problematic to continue the series; the Dune series drops drastically in quality, sequels to Ender’s Game necessarily moves in a very different direction (Ender can’t stay a boy forever); then again, there is Ender’s Shadow).

    I also add a hearty vote for Mote in God’s Eye; and following up with Gripping Hand will not disappoint.

    I’ll toss in one more title because I haven’t seen it listed here yet: Tim Powers’ Anubis Gates, assuming this crowd will allow that it is actually SF; even though it is set in the past, not the future, and there is egyptian magic (which would tend more towards a fantasy label), there is also time travel, and most importantly, it’s a cracking good yarn, so many threads woven so expertly together. (I’ve started to read more of Powers’ stuff, but so far I am sad to report that Stress of Her Regard is no Anubis…)
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 10:50:47 said:

    >Oh, and surely some classic space opera from EE Doc Smith?

    Not for newbies, too dated. Goes on the “historical significance” list.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 10:52:07 said:

    >James Blish “Cities in Flight”

    Considering. I’m fond of it but it may be too dated now.

    >John Brunner “Stand on Zanzibar” (or is this too New Wave for you?)

    Shockwave Rider is already on.
    PJ on 2014-05-28 at 10:59:22 said:

    For Vinge, you might also consider _The Peace War_ as fairly accessible.

    Also, I think any of H. Beam Piper’s Fuzzy stuff is pretty good; Scalzi’s rewrite isn’t bad either, actually.
    Chuck on 2014-05-28 at 11:00:29 said:

    Spacial Delivery, Gordon Dickson.
    PJ on 2014-05-28 at 11:01:39 said:

    And if you want to a representative thought experiment, Halperin’s _The Truth Machine_ is a reasonably simple one.

    And like the man’s politics or not, many many people have been hooked by _Ender’s Game_. I also like _Pastwatch_, but I have notoriously catholic tastes in SF.
    Greg on 2014-05-28 at 11:07:14 said:

    I feel compelled to recommend ‘No Truce with Kings’, though it doesn’t seem to be in print in any form. Lots of collections that contain it available on Amazon, though. (Is that good enough?)
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-28 at 11:12:02 said:

    If you’re going for only one per author, I suggest having some recommendations for people who want more by that author.

    I liked the Foundation trilogy quite a bit when I was a kid. For what it’s worth, I’ve wondered whether I’m on the spectrum, but everyone I’ve mentioned it to thinks I’m not.

    How about Clement’s Needle?

    Also, I’d consider Simak’s City.

    Contemporary YA: Westerfeld’s Uglies.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 11:17:43 said:

    >And like the man’s politics or not, many many people have been hooked by _Ender’s Game_.

    Card’s politics don’t bother me. The fact that he obsesses about morality while being incapable of moral reasoning does. I’ve disliked him ever since the first _Alvin Maker_ book, in which this was a particularly serious and plot-relevant failing.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 11:18:29 said:

    >How about Clement’s Needle?

    Already on the list.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 11:26:03 said:

    >And if you want to a representative thought experiment, Halperin’s _The Truth Machine_ is a reasonably simple one.

    Let’s see. An idea-as-hero story in which plot is rudimentary and full of authorial contrivances, characterization is basically nonexistent, and the prose at best serviceable. None of these outright prevent it from being worthy SF, but it’s a near perfect example of what not to give a newbie.
    Jim Hurlburt on 2014-05-28 at 11:35:01 said:

    Probably counts as hard fantasy — Wen Spencer’s Tinker and sequels. Wood Sprites was a serious disappointment, but the other three are very good. Certainly in a similar vein as ‘Methods of rationality’ with much better story telling.

    On the slide rules around Neptune, my 11-13 year old daughter read ‘Skylark’ thirty years or so ago. She was greatly incensed that they were navigating with slide rules. Doc Smith is still very good in his way, but not what I would use as an entry drug. On that note, the first quarter or third of ‘Tinker’ is available on Baen as a sample. They have the entry drug concept down pat.
    Jim
    Mike E on 2014-05-28 at 11:37:01 said:

    I, Robot and The Mote In God’s Eye were read and re-read by my middleschooler.

    I’ll +1 the slightly obscure recommendation above for Daniel Keys Moran’s The Long Run. Might be more appropriate for teens; reminds me a bit of Stephenson with less technical world building (probably not a minus for this objective) and more vivid (even over-the-top, but again that’s fine for this purpose) characters.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 11:39:55 said:

    >For what it’s worth, I’ve wondered whether I’m on the spectrum, but everyone I’ve mentioned it to thinks I’m not.

    No, you’re just really bright. This can and often does produce a set of interests/capabilities that resemble autism without the social-interaction deficits. (And yeah, this is me, too.)

    I have a personal theory that whatever neurotypical brain wiring autists are missing has the side effect of suppressing analytical and pattern-matching intelligence, or perhaps non-autists are just too emotionally distracted by social-status games to use what they have fully. I think this effect is masked by the co-morbidity of autism with other kinds of MBD (minimal-brain-damage disorders) that damage intelligence.
    RohanV on 2014-05-28 at 11:43:22 said:

    1984 – George Orwell
    Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

    Classic dystopias, which are a pretty popular genre these days.

    For introducing new people–in addition to classics–you may want to consider more modern authors who write lighter novels. For example, Julie E Czernada writes very accessible novels with a focus on biology (very interesting aliens).

    For people who like history, Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Connie Willis are excellent, and again, very accessible.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-28 at 11:44:07 said:

    I don’t think it’s just that I’m really bright. I think I started with low-normal social skills and an emotionally abusive upbringing. This can produce something that looks a little like autism.
    Alsadius on 2014-05-28 at 11:52:55 said:

    You’ve mentioned “already on the list” a few times – can we see the list beta?

    Nothing comes to mind that hasn’t already been listed, but I’ll give a +1 to The Warrior’s Apprentice, War of the Worlds, Lest Darkness Fall, 1632 if you want more than one back-in-time story, and Ender’s Game.

    I’ll also throw a -1 at Anathem – I’m a fan of sci-fi, been reading it for decades, and Anathem has been sitting half-read on my table for months. I keep meaning to get to it, because it seems like there’s probably a real story there, but I can never actually convince myself to pick it up. Snow Crash is the only Stephenson choice worth considering – I like Cryptonomicon, but it’s a completely mundane book, so not appropriate for a sci-fi newbies list(sci-fi mentality without any actual science fiction is on another list). Also, David Weber, for all that he’s a guilty pleasure, is simply too bad a writer for me to enthusiastically recommend him to newbies. His plotting and worldbuilding is definitely good, and the fact that you can get his books for free legitimately is a strong positive, but too many of your target market are the sort of people who’d get fed up with an author for ham-fisted writing before they get to the plot. I’m all for finding someone from the Baen Free Library, but I think you can do better.
    Vince Seifert on 2014-05-28 at 11:56:48 said:

    Most of the suggestions I would have made are listed already, except…

    One of the writers who first drew me in (in the 60s) was Andre Norton. Due to nostalgia, most of her work might be esteemed more highly by those of my generation than by new readers, but one stands out for me: “Galactic Derelict”. Alienated young man falls in with gang of scientist-adventurers which is shanghaied to other suns by an alien spacecraft. Sequel to “Time Traders”, mentioned above, but doesn’t rely on it.

    However, what I really wanted to mention was that I think her mantle has been inherited by C J Cherryh, whose SF understands physics but is more interested in archaeology and anthropology. She’s written better books, but the “gateway” for Cherryh might be “The Pride of Chanur”: a lone human far from home is captured/rescued/adopted by the crew of an alien freighter that really weren’t seeking adventure. The nonhumans – hani, mahendo’sat, kif, stsho, and even the tc’a, chi, and knnn – and the relationships between their cultures in Compact Space – are compelling, I find. And if you like it, there’s more; “Pride” was written as a stand-alone, but 4 sequels followed it.
    Alsadius on 2014-05-28 at 11:57:33 said:

    Oh, if you’re willing to take hard fantasy, I’ll put a good word in for Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson. Doubly amusing because his plan is to advance that world to a sci-fi setting(over several hundred years) while keeping the same magic system intact.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 12:04:05 said:

    >You’ve mentioned “already on the list” a few times – can we see the list beta?

    Have Spacesuit, Will Travel (Robert Heinlein).

    Startide Rising (David Brin)

    The Mote In God’s Eye (Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle)

    The Shockwave Rider (John Brunner)

    The Warrior’s Apprentice (Lois McMaster Bujold)

    Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon (Spider Robinson)

    Little Fuzzy (H. Beam Piper)

    Ready Player One (Ernest Cline)

    Wasp (Eric Frank Russell)

    Mistborn (Brandon Sanderson)

    Needle (Hal Clement)

    Lest Darkness Fall

    The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester)

    The Stainless Steel Rat (Harry Harrison)

    Mistborn (Brandon Sanderson)
    Shenpen on 2014-05-28 at 12:13:54 said:

    @ESR

    Interesting, I have always thought I am on the spectrum, and I think I dislike Foundation because of it, not despite it. Because it has a lot of social interaction which people on the spectrum just find boring, while it is incredibly thrifty about describing places, things, events, which are often more interesting for people on the spectrum. I.e. we get very, very little about about the geography, technology, or economy of Terminus and isn’t that what people on the spectrum tend to like?

    Alvin Maker – explain please, as I have an entirely different reason for disliking those books (although I love the romantic rural life and the way they speak is just amazingly cute, did late 18th century Americans really talk like that?): it is the whole creepy superpower thing. It is creepy exactly the same way how a human government gives incredibly lot of power to some teenagers in Ender’s Game. The same way some mysterious force – probably god – invests a kid with a superpower for his own, who knows what purposes. In both cases there is a general lack of checks on that power, both that of the investor and investee. This is what is creepy. Card comes accross like the kind of person who would be OK with electing some guy as an absolute dictator because just what could go wrong? I am way less libertarian than you and don’t even hate his religion (as he obviously believes ultimately god checks all power), yet this Caesarism is just too much for me. I wish Alvin had less of a superpower and was not born with it but acquire it somehow accidentally so that there is no mysterious power in the background with the intent of turning some men supermen for who knows what purpose.
    Lambert on 2014-05-28 at 12:32:19 said:

    It has been pointed out earlier that Phillip K. Dick’s work is too weird. I wish to become better aquainted with science fiction (I may well find this list very useful.) and have read a little of his work (My Gran is a fan of his.). As a benchmark of weirdness, approximately in which percentile is ‘Man in the High Castle’? He seems to have built a wonderful world but then kind of forgot to make a proper plot to go with it.
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-28 at 12:45:40 said:

    That looks like quite a good list. The Stainless Steel Rat is a very pleasant surprise: a quick, fun read with more than a little SF to it.
    iajrz on 2014-05-28 at 12:48:12 said:

    Jules Verne first hooked me up with sci fi. From the Earth to the Moon is a good choice. 20,000 Leagues would be a nice option. I think those are nice pre-20th century sci fi examples.
    K Welch on 2014-05-28 at 12:49:00 said:

    I’d start off with the Hunger Games, and then move on to anything by China Mieville, M. John Harrison, William Gibson, or Ian M. Banks.
    Hugues on 2014-05-28 at 13:00:13 said:

    > Mistborn (Brandon Sanderson)

    I considered mentioning it but I wasn’t quite sure it would fit the “hard-fantasy” criteria.

    Beyond old classics, The Martian by Andy Weir would be my first recommendation.
    RubeRad on 2014-05-28 at 13:05:33 said:

    So jazzed to see the beta list, looking very much forward to the annotated list when available. I’ve got a new reading list already!

    A question; many here have mentioned reading and rereading this or that book when they were kids — is the point of this list for helping parents/teachers to introduce children/students to sci-fi, or is it for helping adults to introduce adult friends to sci-fi?

    In particular, I’d be curious to know whether it is in scope to have anything like IMDB factual parental advisory information about books on the list. As a parent (and probably towards the prudish end of the spectrum compared to this libertarian-heavy crowd), I’d want to steer my kids away from vulgarity and sex (more my pre-teens than my young teen); I imagine others might have similar concerns about violence or drugs, etc.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-28 at 13:09:25 said:

    Lambert, I think “too weird” isn’t quite precise enough. If I understand Eric correctly, the point is for the characters to be living in a rationally comprehensible world. By that measure, Childhood’s End probably doesn’t qualify, even though it certainly feels like science fiction.

    It’s been a while since I’ve read much Dick, but The Man in the High Castle seemed a little drab to me. Ubik was the weirdest Dick novel I finished reading.

    One more for the list: The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein.
    PJ on 2014-05-28 at 13:10:47 said:

    Anne McCaffrey’s still not on the list, so how about one of her Ship series? They’re fairly accessible and more obviously straight-SF than Pern or her Talents series.

    I’m trying to think if there’s anything Rudy Rucker’s done that might make the cut, but I suspect they’re all a bit far out for this list.

    Gerrold’s _The Man Who Folded Himself_ is definitely a classic, but potentially a bit complex to start with.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 13:35:01 said:

    >I’d start off with the Hunger Games, and then move on to anything by China Mieville, M. John Harrison, William Gibson, or Ian M. Banks.

    No Mieville, I loathe him and his work. I’d like to include a Culture novel, but am unsure which is most accessible. Which M. John Harrison would you suggest?
    Ken on 2014-05-28 at 13:35:58 said:

    Bug report: Mistborn is on the list twice.
    Said Achmiz on 2014-05-28 at 13:37:54 said:

    What got me into SF was Alexander Belyayev, but I don’t know if he’s been translated into English and some of his works might seen a bit too overtly Communism-heavy to a modern reader.

    Failing that, I will recommend the authors that have (only fairly recently) gotten my mother into SF: the Strugatsky brothers. For a first book, how about Roadside Picnic? There are a number of English translations, some of them quite decent; and the book certainly doesn’t rely on knowledge of many sf tropes, being written outside the Western sf canon and all.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 13:41:15 said:

    >Alvin Maker – explain please, as I have an entirely different reason for disliking those books (although I love the romantic rural life and the way they speak is just amazingly cute, did late 18th century Americans really talk like that?)

    Yes, they did.

    There was a key early scene where Alvin does something mildly bad – crisping some insects, I think – and is later afflicted with terrible remorse over the pain he inflicted. An authority figure asks what lesson he has learned. The lesson he should have drawn was to avoid inflicting unnecessary harm, or avoid disproportionate force. The lesson Card has him draw is that he should never use his powers for his own benefit.

    That was so stupid and wrong it made my teeth grind. I’ve been unable to stomach Card since.
    Daniel Weber on 2014-05-28 at 13:42:43 said:

    >my goal is to target teenagers and younger adults in the 115+ IQ range
    If that’s the case, I’d recommend one of Charles Stross’s “The Laundry Files”, though I’m not sure whether _The_Atrocity_Archives_ or _The_Jennifer_Morgue_ would be better. The latter would probably be better, as James Bond is an archetype that has been well-worked into pop culture.
    Or, maybe _Halting_State_, though the second person can be hard to deal with. The world building in the _Halting_State_ series is very close to home, especially for the age group you are targeting. In fact, I’m pretty sure that that matches the age group /he/ targets. His writing (at least, in this series) isn’t about the future that scientists and engineers imagine resulting from futuristic inventions, it is the future that my age group sees coming.
    In addition, Cory Doctorow is a good one to have, for the same reasons as Charles Stross. I’d recommend _Little_Brother_, as I have yet to read his other works (Lack of time, not lack of desire!). _Little_Brother_ also has a good intro to encryption, which is /really/ /important/ in today’s society. Heck, the protagonist is even part of your target audience!
    What these books lack in fictional science, I believe they make up in relevance, especially to the audience you are targeting.

    Now, onto more classical science fiction!
    I read the Foundation trilogy as a kid, but I was probably already immersed enough in SFnal culture. ‘Twas interesting rereading them and picking up on all of the paleofuture that I missed the first time. Like people said above about _Starship_Troopers_, _I,_Robot_ is a big surprise to those that saw the movie, but I still think it is one of the better works of Asimov for introducing people, as much of our discourse on robots (Increasingly a prospect of everyday interaction!) started with the three laws.

    I also recommend throwing something of David Brin onto the list. To me, _Sundiver_ seems the most self-contained of the Uplift series, and the world building is closer to home than some of his other books like _The_Practice_Effect_ or _Kiln_People_. On the other hand, short story anthologies have a lot of breadth to them, and the short story “Lungfish” from the anthology _The_River_of_Time_ has stuck with me despite the many years since I first read it. (And I don’t have all that many years to look back on, either!)

    I’d be recommending _The_Moon_Is_A_Harsh_Mistress_ except that everyone seems to be insisting that _Have_Spacesuit,_Will_Travel_ is better, which means my reading list just got bigger.

    I will second a recommendation floated up above to include at least one of {_Island_in_the_Sea_of_Time_; _Dies_the_Fire_; _1632_}. _Dies_the_Fire_ is probably the best to include, for it doesn’t involve nearly as much historical background information, and what it does have is generally clearly explained by the characters that do know it and see the application to the characters that don’t. _1632_ would be my next choice because the time and place it takes place in is very recognizably Europe, complete with the major actors that we know today (ish), which is much more relatable than Europe during the time of the Trojan War.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 13:42:51 said:

    >Anne McCaffrey’s still not on the list, so how about one of her Ship series?

    Thanks for the reminder, I had already intended to add The Ship Who Sang.
    Said Achmiz on 2014-05-28 at 13:48:28 said:

    > I’d like to include a Culture novel, but am unsure which is most accessible.

    My first was Player of Games, and I’d say it makes a good intro.
    Mr Non-Entity on 2014-05-28 at 13:50:41 said:

    “Cities in Flight”, if only to introduce the young reader to James Blish.

    “Flowers for Algernon” is an essential of the Humanism wave; less about the speculative science and more about what it does for/to us.

    “The Marching Morons” because of its _accuracy of prediction_ if for no other reason.

    “Lord of Light” as an example of when Zelazny knew which rules to break. Any collection of GRR Martin’s short stories from way back in the day, especially if the include his Corpse Handler mystery shorts. That man could scare the pants off a department store mannequin.

    The re issue of Zenna Henderson’s “People” stories. These are still seminal to so much of recent teen/YA tv SF, probably these would be well received.
    K Welch on 2014-05-28 at 13:58:01 said:

    I’d suggest Harrison’s “Light”, the first of the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 13:58:24 said:

    >If I understand Eric correctly, the point is for the characters to be living in a rationally comprehensible world.

    You do understand me correctly. On the other hand, I don’t think that criterion excludes Childhood’s End. It’a pretty clear that the transcended beings understand the universe rationally, even if humans don’t.
    phlinn on 2014-05-28 at 13:59:47 said:

    I’m just going to list a few of my favorites. I don’t trust my ability to judge what sorts of things would interest other people. I’m more into fantasy than sci-fi, so some of my suggestions have definite fantastic elements. OTOH, if we exclude psychic abilities, Known Space is out. Some of these are duplicated above. No more than one item listed per author, but if it’s the start of a series I’d probably suggest the whole series.

    John Steakley, Armor

    Julian May, The Many Colored Land

    John Scalzi, Old Man’s War

    RAH, Moon is a Harsh Mistress

    Phillip Jose Farmer, Dayworld

    Robert Aspirin, Phule’s Company – iffy, and an exception to the series rule. But i really liked it

    Larry Niven, The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton – I preferred Ringworld personally, but this seems like a better intro to known space. It’s been a while, so I could be misrembering.

    Lawrence Watt-Evans, They Cyborg and the Sorcerers – I prefer his fantasy novels, but I quite liked this book. Easily one of my favorite authors in general.

    Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber – Ok, ok. Not sci-fi. But it doesn’t seem much more out there than the other Zelazny suggestions above.

    I’ll post more if they occur to me. An awful lot of the fantasy novels I like are at most firm, not hard.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 13:59:48 said:

    >A question; many here have mentioned reading and rereading this or that book when they were kids — is the point of this list for helping parents/teachers to introduce children/students to sci-fi, or is it for helping adults to introduce adult friends to sci-fi?

    I’m trying to cover both. Thus, the list included juveniles that can be read for pleasure by adults, and adult fiction accessible to bright kids.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 14:00:43 said:

    >Beyond old classics, The Martian by Andy Weir would be my first recommendation.

    A friend whose judgment I trust has strongly recommended it, but I haven’t read it yet.
    spiralofhope on 2014-05-28 at 14:02:47 said:

    (strange, I see no ability to reply to a particular comment)

    > v. m. smith on 2014-05-28 at 01:07:52 said:
    >
    > Babel-17 by Delaney for language theory and explanation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that your language shapes your thought processes.

    I think it’s best to avoid books where science significant to the story is provably wrong.

    That hypothesis was disproved some time ago, but has lingered around because it sounds cool. It’s only recently has had a couple of things which slightly support it.

    –

    This list concept makes me think about introduction to SF in a different way. Novels are a curious relic, and while this quaint “reading” notion is good, it might also be well-served to lace several media together.

    Short stories are easy to “get around to”. Their lack of intimidation helps bring a person into reading.

    Audio books, while rather expensive, are very accessible. I would strongly consider these a gateway drug to reading novels.

    Films are another gateway drug, especially when the film is good and it is written from a book which is even better.

    The idea of having a few short stories, then an audio book, then a novel, then a film, etc.. then again but two novels.. might be quite pleasant.

    For this list, I would also pay attention to standalone books vs series, avoiding any series until late in the list.. if it’s being presented in some sort of reading order.

    Also, some advice on how a person should judge a particular book or books in general, so they know when it’s ok for them to dislike a book, set it down and move on. I think people torture themselves with some books, especially the rather opaque “classics” because of their perception of how good the books are “supposed” to be. It’s still very possible for this curated list to have the occasional entry which isn’t good for particular reader. A reader should be helped to come to terms with what they do and don’t like.
    phlinn on 2014-05-28 at 14:03:34 said:

    Hmm…. I overlooked the “in print” issue. I didn’t check on my list, so i apologize if that excludes them. I think some of them at least could be found at a used book store, which also helps by virtue of being relatively cheap. :)
    Dgarsys on 2014-05-28 at 14:17:31 said:

    @Daniel Weber
    > I’d be recommending _The_Moon_Is_A_Harsh_Mistress_ except that everyone seems to be insisting that _Have_Spacesuit,_Will_Travel_ is better, which means my reading list just got bigger.

    I don’t think it’s so much that “Have Spacesuit” is a “better” novel than MiaHM, but that, for the purposes of the list, Spacesuit is a better intro to SciFi without making someone wade through the language games of Moon.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 14:23:38 said:

    >Spacesuit is a better intro to SciFi without making someone wade through the language games of Moon.

    +1
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-28 at 14:32:29 said:

    “Spacesuit is a better intro to SciFi without making someone wade through the language games of Moon.”

    Ja da, cobber.
    TriggerFinger on 2014-05-28 at 14:34:49 said:

    Couple additional comments:

    I recommend The Steerswoman in general as well, but with the caveat that it may not be good for new non-sf readers. So much of that series is about trying to figure out what’s actually going on that someone who isn’t used to trying to figure out the rules of a new world may not get the point.

    A couple people have recommended The Demolished Man. If I am remembering the right book, any reader new to sf would bounce off that book very, very hard. I bought both it and The Stars My Destination at the same time, as an sf reader with probably a decade of genre experience, and made the mistake of reading The Demolished Man first. I was interested in it because of the Babylon 5 connection. Even though I thought tDM was interesting, it was so annoying to read that I have never read tSmD. (Someday, I will pick it up — but not today).

    I will also throw out A Step Further Out by Jerry Pournelle. It’s not science fiction so much as a collection of ideas for science fiction that could be applied to the real world as well. It covers a lot of basic concepts and puts them in context as plausible “this could really happen if we wanted it to” rather than magic tech.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-28 at 14:41:09 said:

    I’ll vote for The Atrocity Archives– it introduces the ideas, it’s a strong novel, and I’m very fond of the essay about spy fiction and horror fiction.

    Brin: I count Sundiver as a very ordinary novel, while Startide Rising was unique and delightful. Historical note: I think it was one of the last “humans are superior to aliens” novels, though I suppose Turtledove’s Worldwar novels also count.

    I thought strong Sapir-Worf was disproven, but weak Sapir-Worf (language shapes what’s easy to think, but doesn’t control thought) was still sound.
    TriggerFinger on 2014-05-28 at 14:41:52 said:

    Regarding Julian May — the best starting point is “Intervention”. If you don’t start there, the later parts of the Pliocene period are going to be pretty much incomprehensible.
    Troutwaxer on 2014-05-28 at 14:43:06 said:

    I’ve never been able to get into The Culture novels, probably because they seem to sit half-way between warmed-over Vinge and warmed over Star Trek, with the ocassional warmed-over plot twist. Meh. Just meh. I think they get recommended because they check a lot of boxes, but the end result doesn’t satisfy. A “lesser” novel like “Honor of the Queen” only checks one box, but it kicks that box’s ass all over the page. (I’m not particularly pushing David Weber here – he’s not in the same league as many of the other authors we’ve discussed* – but at least he checked that box with panache, style, and a certain pleasent sincerity!)

    * Just to go against the “military sci fi trope,” 2001 has the same effect – a limited number of boxes checked, but done really, really well!

    Eric, if you want a book that addresses some of the weaknesses in the military sci-fi genres, Stross’s “Singularity Sky” is a lot of fun, though it might qualify as “too advanced.”
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 14:58:40 said:

    >Eric, if you want a book that addresses some of the weaknesses in the military sci-fi genres, Stross’s “Singularity Sky” is a lot of fun, though it might qualify as “too advanced.”

    Stross presented some tough choices. Accelerando is currently on the list; The Atrocity Archives was a contender.
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-28 at 15:01:23 said:

    I’m not so sure about Accelerando. The story gets seriously weirder as it goes along.
    Jamie on 2014-05-28 at 15:03:53 said:

    I think one problem with some suggested books for younger readers is that deeper meanings aren’t clear with out a decent grasp of the Cold War. Even with that, the meanings might not pop out or resonate if you didn’t live through some of it.

    That said, books I haven’t seen mentioned (and I only skimmed – don’t have time to carefully read this thread) are:
    - The Forever War – short, pithy and a good military SF novel
    - This Is Not A Game – it will perhaps be dated in a few years, but should have good hooks for the youngin’s and is well plotted and competently written
    - as for a Banks novel, I didn’t really like Player of Games, but it has been a long time, so maybe I should give it another chance. My vote would be Excession.

    As much as I enjoy him, I can’t recommend Stross. Until recently, the plotting has been broken in just about everything, and lately he’s been doing work that counts as SF if you squint hard, but only just.

    Same for Egan; either too challenging, mechanically written, or requiring too much math/physics for someone who didn’t study them. The only exception there I can think of might be Distress, but that one didn’t grab me.

    Ditto Baxter – some of that has a plot only in the loosest sense.
    Milhouse on 2014-05-28 at 15:10:43 said:

    Nomination (off topic) for the *worst* book ever published is “The Feral Cell” by Richard Bowes.

    My nomination is Ether Ore, by H. C. Turk. I couldn’t get past about page 30.
    jimf on 2014-05-28 at 15:19:57 said:

    Door Into Summer – Heinlein
    Way Station – Simak
    Ringworld – Niven
    Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Heinlein
    Cities in Flight – Blish (for fans of space opera…Star Wars, etc)
    db48x on 2014-05-28 at 15:26:00 said:

    The Magic Goes Away by Larry Niven might be a good one too. It starts out as an anything-goes fantasy novel, but then one of the wizards does a very simple experiment.

    I see someone else has already mentioned The Martian. I read that recently and really enjoyed it. Perhaps a bit light on characterization, but then there’s just the one character for most of the book; you don’t get much chance to see how different people react to the same situation.
    Greg on 2014-05-28 at 15:32:18 said:

    >Stross presented some tough choices. Accelerando is currently on the list; The Atrocity Archives was a contender.

    I found Atrocity Archives a much more interesting and compelling book. The concept is interesting, the detail touches delightful and well-informed, the characters… well I actually cared about their fates.

    Accelerando was more like someone had a bright idea but wasn’t competent enough to finish it. I get the idea Stross actually has no conception of what economics involves. Though it does have a suspect esr-analog in it, so it’s got that going for it. Though the only character in it I wasn’t actually hoping to perish, was, iirc, the cat.
    db48x on 2014-05-28 at 15:32:32 said:

    > I’m not so sure about Accelerando. The story gets seriously weirder as it goes along.

    Weirdness isn’t a problem (see The Stars My Destination. The goal is to find books that have a rational basis inside the story and that introduce SF concepts in such a way that when the next book you read references them you’ll understand what the author meant; it has to build up that shared library of concepts that other books can draw on. Accelerando is a great choice on both counts. It has some really great characters in it too.
    Lambert on 2014-05-28 at 15:32:45 said:

    @esr:
    I see your list has come out, but it does not seem to be visible on the website. The link from the email update gives a 404.
    Sam Shipman on 2014-05-28 at 15:33:56 said:

    For a good Gerrold, I’d recommend When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One, Release 2.0.
    Deep Lurker on 2014-05-28 at 15:43:23 said:

    I want to suggest adding a caution to the list, along the lines of “You shouldn’t expect to like everything on the list; if you find you dislike one of these works (or even hate it intensely) it doesn’t necessarily mean that science fiction isn’t for you. It might well mean only that the particuar work wasn’t to your taste.”

    In my own case, I never could warm to Heinlein’s works, and while I love Bujold’s Vorkosigan series in general, I was very nearly put off from it because I tried to start with The Warriors Apprentice – that book put Bujold on my “These authors are not for me” list for years.
    Jakub Narebski on 2014-05-28 at 15:48:31 said:

    > I thought strong Sapir-Worf was disproven, but weak Sapir-Worf (language shapes what’s easy to think, but doesn’t control thought) was still sound.

    I remember some article in Scientific American (but don’t remember the title, or even the year), where there was determined that culture that uses “north of” / “south of” instead of “left of” / “right of” has a better orientation in the field.
    phlinn on 2014-05-28 at 15:49:47 said:

    “Regarding Julian May — the best starting point is ‘Intervention’. If you don’t start there, the later parts of the Pliocene period are going to be pretty much incomprehensible.”

    Oddly, Intervention was published 3 years after the saga of the Pliocene Epoch finished. I didn’t have any problems understanding it without reading “Intervention” first.
    Jakub Narebski on 2014-05-28 at 15:51:44 said:

    I think that Roger Zelazny Damnation Alley or Doorways in the Sand might be more accessible for new SF reader.
    Thomas Blankenhorn on 2014-05-28 at 15:55:15 said:

    How about an anthology like Asimov (Ed): The Hugo Winners? While technically not in print, copies are so abundant on used-book websites that they just as well might be. And I think the short stories and novelettes in it are uniquely suitable for newbies because they all are:

    1) representative of what the sci-fi community values in stories, as proven by its vote,
    2) hard science fiction or (in later years) hardish fantasy,
    3) short: newbies who dislike one story can move on to the next until something sticks,
    4) explained in short introductions by Isaac Asimov, the best communicator with the muggle world that Science Fiction ever had.
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-28 at 15:57:01 said:

    The Forever War is about as anti-SF as I can come up with. That’s to be expected, as it was written explicitly as an anti-war response to Starship Troopers.
    ironchefoklahoma on 2014-05-28 at 15:58:17 said:

    I’d agree with @spiralofhope on using short stories as a gateway. How about the SFWA Hall of Fame Volume I?

    Helen O’Loy — Lester del Rey
    The Roads Must Roll — Robert A. Heinlein
    Microcosmic God — Theodore Sturgeon
    Nightfall — Isaac Asimov
    The Weapon Shop — A. E. van Vogt
    Mimsy Were the Borogoves — Lewis Padgett
    Huddling Place — Clifford D. Simak
    Arena — Fredric Brown
    First Contact — Murray Leinster
    That Only a Mother — Judith Merril
    Scanners Live in Vain — Cordwainer Smith
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 16:08:01 said:

    >The Forever War is about as anti-SF as I can come up with. That’s to be expected, as it was written explicitly as an anti-war response to Starship Troopers.

    I strongly disagree. First, The Forever War is not renderred any less SFnal by the mere fact that it has politics opposed to another SF work. Second, it is a matter of record that RAH liked that reply.
    Matt Knecht on 2014-05-28 at 16:10:12 said:

    +1 for any of the ARM/Gil Hamilton stories by Niven. I think the police procedural aspect will be very familiar for anyone who has watched much TV in the last 20 years, making them more accessible than the “big idea travelogue” that is Ringworld. Also his short story collections, already mentioned by others above.

    For military, I like Pournelle’s “Prince of Mercenaries” Falkenberg books as earlier examples. Honor Harrington and Lieutenant Leary might be better for a younger audience – Pournelle is a little too Kipling for people that have never heard of Kipling. Hammer’s Slammers for folks with a military background – though I know our host doesn’t care for that phase of Drake’s writing. I think the modern Ringo/Kratman military stuff tends to express its politics a little too overtly to be good general-purpose military SF for beginners, unless you’re sure they already subscribe to those viewpoints.

    Zelazny’s SF is problematic for newbies, in my opinion. It’s easier to appreciate him via his fantasy. Amber was important to me when I was younger. Once you develop an appreciation for his style, the SF works better. If I had to pick one Zelazny to put on the beginners list, probably “Doorways in the Sand” or “My Name is Legion” – which turns out to be topical in a way, this last year or so. If we were making a different “gateway to Zelazny” list, I would suggest “Night in the Lonesome October” first, then Amber, then maybe “Lord of Light” and “Isle of the Dead.”

    I’m also not sure that *any* of Banks’ Culture novels belong on a SF Beginners list. If I had to pick one, I think… “Look to Windward.” It’s been awhile, but I recall it being a little less relentlessly dark as some of the others.

    +1 for “Have Spacesuit,” “Citizen of the Galaxy” and “Red Planet” – they were my first Heinlein stories and have stuck with me for many years. Maybe “The Puppet Masters” also on the beginners list. I think “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” and “Starship Troopers” are Step 2 for Heinlein, after one or more of the above.

    Most of the Norton juveniles are also fantasy – many are Star Warsian fantasy in a sci-fi future setting – but in the SF area “Star Rangers” has stuck with me for many years as well.

    I didn’t discover H. Beam Piper until later, but I think “Little Fuzzy” and some of the “Space Viking” stories definitely fit here, if they’re not too dated. The Paratime stories tend to have a little more culturally dated material in them, IIRC so maybe not best for newbies.

    I also vote up Clarke’s “Fountains of Paradise.” It has its flaws, but the point someone made earlier about it being the first “Big Idea” novel about beanstalks is well taken. Heinlein’s “Orphans of the Sky” might fit that bill as well, as an early generation ship novel.

    There was a lot of Alan Nourse on my public library bookshelves when I was in grade school and I devoured it all, but no one talks about him any more. I particularly remember “The Universe Between” and a collection called “Psi-High” or something like that.

    I question “Startide Rising” on a beginner’s list for the same sort of world-building reasons that disqualify Anathem and others – the portions of the story told from the various dolphin points of view are pretty outré for those not already familiar with storytelling from an “alien” point of view. On the other hand, you have to break into that sort of thing somewhere with SF – anybody have any better ideas? Who else has done extensive treatment of alien perspectives besides Vinge?
    Thomas Blankenhorn on 2014-05-28 at 16:14:00 said:

    As to information about what gets people hooked on Science fiction, I can only offer myself as one data point: When I was 14, I got hooked through The Hugo Winners. Around 19 or 20, I got unhooked because Science Fiction lost a competition for my bandwidth to real science and real anthropology.

    Decades later, I got re-hooked at age 42 by Charlie Stross: The Family Trade. Obviously I wasn’t a newbie anymore by then, but I would recommend it for newbies nevertheless. That’s because The Family Trade can be read on two levels: parallel-universe fantasy or hard science fiction where the pertinent science is development economics. At least one of the levels is likely to hook hookable minds.
    Bruno on 2014-05-28 at 16:16:10 said:

    I would add ‘ Rendezvous with Rama’, by Arthur C. Clarke. On its face, its lack of characterization or even much plot should exclude it from a list for newbies; but it is such a perfect (and short) example of sense-of-wonder, more-questions-than-answers hard SF that I think a smart newbie might just get it. Also, the ‘ hard’ part is not too difficult or weird for non-technical people (i.e., it is not Snow Crash).

    Starting with something the reads too mainstream may induce the reader to look only for the standard metrics of literary merit, and miss the features and qualities that make SF unique. Thus, reading RwR might smooth the learning curve a bit.
    Mark on 2014-05-28 at 16:18:31 said:

    I’ve not read half of the beta list. Not sure what that means, except that I’m much more interested in reading them now.

    I was unimpressed with The Ship Who Sang, something about its episodic nature really turned me off.

    Ready Player One is a great addition and will totally snag video game fans (or even folks of a certain age)

    Accelerando is one of about 5 books I haven’t finished in my life. It’s another disjointed book and it seemed less accessible than some of Stross’ other stuff (not that I’ve read a ton). I was a much bigger fan of Neptune’s Brood, even if its politics aren’t really my bag (Stross sure doesn’t seem to like money very much). The Atrocity Archives sounded more like Lovecraftian Horror mixed with spy thriller and bureaucracy satire than SF, but I haven’t read it…

    I can’t imagine Philip K Dick being a good intro to SF…

    I’m happy that a couple other folks thought Retief! deserves a place on the list. Alas, no other Zahn fans here:p
    PapayaSF on 2014-05-28 at 16:19:41 said:

    I second Rendezvous with Rama, and express despair that nobody has seconded my nomination of Replay. It’s a great book, and something that non-SF readers should appreciate.
    TriggerFinger on 2014-05-28 at 16:27:12 said:

    phlinn on Julian May: Yes, I know the original publication order. I stand by my comment. (Perhaps I would think differently if had started with the Plioence era; but by chance, I started with Intervention, and following [spoiler]‘s timeline forward, then backward, and then resuming forward makes the most sense for me).

    In fact, when I first read the series, only Intervention/Metaconcert and the Pliocene books were available. I distinctly remember getting to the point in the Pliocene when the Rebels show up and being flabbergasted at these people who came out of nowhere and derailed the whole plot.

    I second the inclusion of Rendezvous with Rama.
    Jakub Narebski on 2014-05-28 at 16:36:39 said:

    Eric, I don’t envy you curating and collating responses into (short) list.

    BTW. would you put said list on http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/ under “Science Fiction” section?
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-28 at 16:39:41 said:

    I still think The Forever War doesn’t qualify because it explicitly violates one of your conditions, namely not opposing traditional SF ideas. I’m mildly surprised that RAH liked it, though.

    Ernie Cline sent me an autographed copy of Ready Player One after Penguicon. I’ve been waiting for an opportune moment to read it (namely, when I can read it in conditions that do not include a likelihood of damage to the book itself).

    I like the Gil Hamilton stories. Niven had to work hard to make them fit both the conventions of SF and the conventions of detective fiction (notably, it is possible to beat Hamilton to the solution of each crime, and Niven talked in one book about how he had to include enough information to permit the reader to do so). I’m not sure that doesn’t make it a bit too much work for a newbie reader, though.
    Deep Lurker on 2014-05-28 at 16:40:56 said:

    I’ll toss in my own call, along with @spiralofhope and @ironchefoklahoma for including more short-story collections.

    The Science Fiction Hall of Fame collections (vol 1 and vol 2) were devoured by me as a teenager, but I hesitated to mention them due to their being on the old side. OTOH, one could do worse, and some of the stories really are “newbie friendly,” along with reminding people that SF has been dealing with certain issues for “longer than you think.”

    A number of authors strike me as being much more “newbie friendly” in their short stories than in their novels. (Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Laumer, Vinge…)

    In particular, I wouldn’t put any of Vinge’s novels on a newbie list, but his “True Names and Other Dangers” collection definitely belongs. Or would if it weren’t out of print. Given that it’s a Baen Book and a blindingly obvious candidate for an e-book re-release, there must be some issue blocking its republication that I’m not aware of.
    Joel C. Salomon on 2014-05-28 at 16:41:21 said:

    Clarke’s 2001 and Rendezvous with Rama suffer from the same problem The Matrix does: once you’ve endured the sequels, it’s hard to remember how great the first installment was.
    C. on 2014-05-28 at 16:53:04 said:

    Player of Games would be a good intro to SF.

    It’s not overly long it’s centered around an interesting idea and it’s compulsive read. Also well written.

    Also perhaps Starfish, by Peter Watts. It’s pretty dark, but it’s full of ideas and information, but mostly presented in a way that’s easy to comprehend.
    Jamie on 2014-05-28 at 17:02:04 said:

    Wait, it was Ready Player One I was thinking of, not This Is Not A Game. I tend to confuse them even though they aren’t that similar; they have a bit of the same flavor, and I read them around the same time.

    I also don’t get why picking a fight with a Canon author means Forever War isn’t SF, but reasonable people and all that.
    Chas on 2014-05-28 at 17:13:07 said:

    For fairly light classics that are cross overs between clear SciFi and Fantasy, what about Poul Anderson’s Operation Luna/Operation Chaos and Harry Turtledove’s The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump?
    Chris Claremont’s First Flight series might draw some interesting cross overs, since he is much better known for his graphic novels.

    ck
    Rick on 2014-05-28 at 17:19:13 said:

    Some other suggestions:
    “Midworld” Alan Dean Foster – for world building and the culture clash and twist at the end.
    “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” – Everybody knows the basics, but going back to the original is interesting.
    “Hellspark” – Janet Kagan – Language and how it affects culture but more up to date than Babel-17
    “Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1″ – Lots of classic short stories: “A Martian Oddyssey”, “Arena”, “First Contact”, “The Nine Billion Names of God”
    Volume 2 has other classics: “The Marching Morons”, “The Witches of Karres”, and “The Moon Moth”
    “Another Fine Myth” – Robert Asprin
    “Agent of Change” – Miller and Lee
    “Nostrilia” – Cordwainer Smith
    Christian Rekkedal on 2014-05-28 at 17:24:12 said:

    Too late to pipe in?

    ” a list of good books to get people started towards becoming knowledgeable readers of SF”

    A liste is fine, but to make converts you have to assess the target and make suggestions accordingly. I have succeeded and missed miserably with the same bok in my lifelong missionary activties. Many of my favourites would not be on the list, and some books I don’t particularly love would be.

    I would group my candidates for such a list thusly:

    * Sense of wonder:

    Cordwainer Smith: Norstrilia and then all the short stories
    Bradbury: Dandelion wine
    Silverberg: Nightwings
    Wells: The time machine

    * The literate;

    Howey: Wool
    Leiber: A spectre is haunting Texas or The big time
    Simmons: Hyperion

    * The meta-literate:

    Maltzberg: Galaxies (or maybe not)

    * Fun and action:

    Hamilton: Night dawn trilogy
    Varley: Millennium
    Naam: Nexus

    * The historian:

    Moore: Bring the jubileee
    Roberts: Pavane

    * Fun only:

    Laumer: Most of the Retief books
    Harrison: Most of the SSR books
    Leiber: The golden eggheads

    Tech literate:

    Bear: Blood music
    Vinge: Rainbows end (edge?)

    Occupy wall street:

    Zamyatin: We
    Le Guin: The word for world is forest

    Well, that got long, but much more than half the titles above have actually made converts for me, and that is the point.

    My two øre
    Shenpen on 2014-05-28 at 17:28:04 said:

    @ESR #Alvin Maker

    It was about sending insects to enact a childish revenge on his sisters for an equally childish harm – but your general idea is right: he used his power to harm others, and then made a jump to not use it to benefit himself. That was a huge zero-sum fallacy – that benefiting yourself somehow automatically harms others. The only reason I was not pissed off by it is that I see this as a common error of Christians and learned to tolerate it. It’s just their particular and tendentious type of mistake.

    But – the kind of “creepy unchecked power invested into an individual” stuff I mentioned didn’t bother you?
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 17:32:45 said:

    >I still think The Forever War doesn’t qualify because it explicitly violates one of your conditions, namely not opposing traditional SF ideas.

    Then you grossly misunderstood what I was driving at. The defining characteristic of anti-SF isn’t that it inverts any particular trope or idea from the history of the genre, but rather that it sets itself against the assumption of rational knowability and the corresponding emotional experience of discovery and understanding (“sense of wonder”).

    What Haldeman did was write an attempted rebuttal to Heinlein that stood squarely within SF canon, both in its assumption of rational knowability and its respectful use of genre tropes like FTL and aliens.
    Sean C. on 2014-05-28 at 17:34:57 said:

    Just going to throw out I, Robot and Robot Dreams again, in case they got missed the first time.

    You can hand the teenager the book, and say “Here, read ‘The Machine That Won The War’. It’s 5 pages long.” and then they go off and read the whole book.
    db48x on 2014-05-28 at 17:36:18 said:

    I keep remembering more books by Niven. Destiny’s Road is a good one. The biology seemed a bit iffy to me, but putting that aside, the world building was pretty simple with just one big difference from Earth.

    The Flying Magician has perhaps too many in-jokes, but there’s plenty of them that everyone will get some of them. It really strongly pushes the idea of repeatable scientific inquiry as distinct from scientific language and jargon. Plus it’s a really hilarious story.
    Shenpen on 2014-05-28 at 17:40:18 said:

    I have a some appreciation for a Hungarian writer called Peter Zsoldos who basically invented the idea of a Civilization computer game around 1970 or so: astronaut gets stranded on Bronze Age planet, coaches them up. Realizes that advanced tech without advanced philosophy / laws / etc. leads to just particularly spectacular ways of looting and killing each other. Oops. I assume this is not actually a terribly original idea (sort of obvious : which sci-fi fan did NOT want to write a Civilization game type novel?), and this guy was unfortunately never translated to English. Anyway, are there any English or translated to English works with a similar theme? I simply find this theme both educative and interesting.

    No, Tunnel To The Skye does not qualify. They are modern people, just the circumstances are not. In these Civ type novels the locals are primitive and when the foreigner teaches them steelmaking they revere it as divine magic.
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-28 at 17:44:03 said:

    “Then you grossly misunderstood what I was driving at.”

    Wouldn’t be the first time. All right, I’ll buy that it doesn’t violate your conditions. Not sure it makes as much sense without having first read Starship Troopers, but other than that, and a deep personal distaste for the whole premise of the work, it does fit.
    Shenpen on 2014-05-28 at 17:53:34 said:

    Another idea from Zsoldos from the 1970′s – again I am looking for English-language parallels as I consider the idea cool:

    Astronauts from an advanced extraterrestial civ encounter a ship malfunction that condemns them to death. They manage to download their personality into a bunch of humans. But the recipients are ancient Summerians, and they get a mixed personality of their old one and the new downloaded one – advanced, enlightened thinking combined with Bronze Age superstitions. Leads to a complicated psychological dynamic and conflicts.
    BobW on 2014-05-28 at 18:06:02 said:

    @db48x

    Are you thinking of Larry Niven & David Gerrold’s The Flying Sorcerers?
    db48x on 2014-05-28 at 18:10:48 said:

    > Are you thinking of Larry Niven & David Gerrold’s The Flying Sorcerers?

    Yes, exactly; thank you for the correction.
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-28 at 18:42:52 said:

    “Are you thinking of Larry Niven & David Gerrold’s The Flying Sorcerers?’

    Worth it just for the scene with cussing being sent through a universal translator. (“Ignorant lovemaking savages!”)

    And they went a very, very long way for a joke.
    Cathy on 2014-05-28 at 18:44:07 said:

    Nancy:
    >> For what it’s worth, I’ve wondered whether I’m on the spectrum, but everyone I’ve mentioned it to thinks I’m not.

    esr:
    > No, you’re just really bright. This can and often does produce a set of interests/capabilities that resemble autism without the social-interaction deficits. (And yeah, this is me, too.)

    Yeah, that’s me too. Very high emotional intelligence and empathy but also strong analytical intelligence. I have strong geek interests but can easily fit in among mundanes without generating comments.

    I don’t think the combination is terribly common, but we’re out there.
    Earle Williams on 2014-05-28 at 18:48:56 said:

    I read a lot of SF as a kid because my two older brothers were voracious readers and there was always something lying around that needed reading. RAH, Asimov, Niven, Clarke, etc. were available to me but many of the harder SF authors didn’t click for me until I was much older. I recall getting hooked on Niven’s short stories, then moving on to his novels. Some other short stories that really worked for me were Asimov’s robotics stories, Reteif, and Kornbluth’s Little Black Bag.

    I recently read an anthology that included the first Retief story, Diplomat-at-Arms. I’d never read this one before and it struck me as having the most development of Jame Retief’s character than I’ve found in any of the other stories. Any other Retief story is probably great for grabbing the imagination of a teenage boy that is deep into tech and science but can fall for the James Bond type of fantasy that Retief embodies.
    Cathy on 2014-05-28 at 18:50:11 said:

    > Startide Rising (David Brin)

    No. Too complex, too much going on. A better choice would be his first novel, _Sundiver_.

    > The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester)

    I love this book, but I think the ideas are too complex and “literary” for an introductory SF list. And I hated _Demolished Man_.
    Cathy on 2014-05-28 at 18:55:34 said:

    >The Forever War is about as anti-SF as I can come up with. That’s to be expected, as it was written explicitly as an anti-war response to Starship Troopers.

    Are you sure? Haldeman once told me that it was intended as a Vietnam allegory.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-28 at 18:57:15 said:

    I’m wondering about the audience for the list– science fiction is pervasive in a way that it just wasn’t before Star Wars. Nominees for when sf took over a big chunk of movies and television?

    I’ll grant that the visual media mostly don’t have the rational piece, but games do.

    People may need to be introduced to the idea that there’s something worth their time in text science fiction, and then pointed at the good stuff, but I’m not sure they need much help with the tropes. Anyone have actual information?

    I’m going with “text sf” because the more usual “literary sf” (term invented in media fandom so far as I know) because “literary sf” sounds pretentious.

    I’d been saying “print sf”, but that’s obviously not current, so I’m going with “test sf” unless there’s a reason not to.
    Cathy on 2014-05-28 at 19:04:06 said:

    Vinge: I suggest _Marooned in Realtime_. Far more accessible than _Fire Upon the Deep_ or _Deepness in the Sky_, and more interesting than _Peace War_.

    Hogan: _Thrice Upon A Time_ is a great time-travel novel that’s much better thought-out than most, and avoids the trope of “time travel is bad, do not mess with it”. And the characters are interesting and interact in plausible ways. The challenge of figuring out first what’s going on with the time travel and later, what the problem is that needs to be solved with, are good SF.

    Hogan: _Voyage From Yesterday_, which I read as a young teen, is a great introduction to the libertarian ideals that are central to the SF tradition, while still being a great story with good humor and enough science to be true to the genre (interstellar travel, antimatter, etc.)

    _Door Into Summer_: +1
    Cathy on 2014-05-28 at 19:05:24 said:

    “Card comes accross like the kind of person who would be OK with electing some guy as an absolute dictator because just what could go wrong? I am way less libertarian than you and don’t even hate his religion (as he obviously believes ultimately god checks all power), yet this Caesarism is just too much for me.”

    Shenpen, what did you think of _Empire_ and _Hidden Empire_? If you’re looking for Caesarism, it’s there in spades…
    Cathy on 2014-05-28 at 19:07:10 said:

    “Nominees for when sf took over a big chunk of movies and television?”

    It probably started with lots of bad B-movies in the 1950′s and 60′s. Occasionally something interesting was produced, like Forbidden Planet or The Day the Earth Stood Still, but I don’t think SF of decent quality hit TV until Star Trek.
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-28 at 19:30:54 said:

    “Haldeman once told me that it was intended as a Vietnam allegory.”

    And that it was written in 1974 by a Vietnam vet comes through loud and clear.

    How much more anti-war can you get?
    David R Campbell on 2014-05-28 at 19:32:04 said:

    Nothing to add, as everything I could think of has been mentioned. Looking at the Beta list, I got multiple gutshots reading the titles. The only books I re-reread are those that produce in me an strong emotional response, and many on the beta list did that.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-28 at 19:54:02 said:

    The Forever War is a fair answer to Starship Troopers– ST has an underlying premise that the people in charge are competent. But what if they aren’t?
    Chas on 2014-05-28 at 19:55:52 said:

    I double checked, and Claremont’s First Flight series is NOT available as Ebooks, but are on Amazon at reasonable rates in the used department.

    the others are Baen titles and are available as E books without any problem.

    ck
    dak180 on 2014-05-28 at 20:15:32 said:

    While most of my recommendations have already been listed the one I hove not seen yet is:

    Moving Mars – Greg Bear
    TomA on 2014-05-28 at 20:28:03 said:

    Don’t know if its been suggested yet, but I recommend “The Martian” by Andy Weir. New author, new book. Could be described as a “faction” novel. Highly realistic fictional account of an astronaut abandoned on Mars and how he copes/survives using ingenuity and tenacity. Easy read, hadn’t seen anything like it previously.
    Zendo Deb on 2014-05-28 at 21:10:09 said:

    The list is notable for what is NOT on it. Or rather who is not on it.

    No LeGuinn. The entire point of “Left Hand of Darkness” is to consider what would happen if someone did planet-wide experiments on the human-species, with a specific look at 1 experiment with mentions of the others.

    Octavia Butler? Xenogenesis Trilogy is available as an omnibus and as an e-book. Life after the end of the world isn’t hard sci-fi enough?

    Connie Willis was mentioned, but “DA” – a novella available as an e-Book – captures the cellphone era better than anyone. And is about high school students, and is funny. Doomsday Book is well written but depressing. And “To Say Nothing of the Dog (or, How we found the Bishop’s Bird Stump at Last)” is probably too comic for your purposes and not hard sci-fi. But “Uncharted Territory” is probably good.

    Marion Zimmer-Bradley: The Darkover series is a nice melding of SciFi and Fantasy. But probably doesn’t meet your criteria for this list for all that.

    Mary Shelley? Frankenstien is usually listed as horror – but it is the horror of Science reaching too far. Though this probably won’t be listed in your “historically significant” list either.

    If you are trying to encourage a specific person that is one thing, but if you are trying to reach the entire Percy Jackson/Hunger Games audience, you seem to be missing half of them.

    I know the folks are just made for RAH, but I found most of his stuff dry as un-buttered toast. And I am a bit surprised that David Drake isn’t mentioned. Talk about HARD sci-fi.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 21:14:00 said:

    >But – the kind of “creepy unchecked power invested into an individual” stuff I mentioned didn’t bother you?

    No. Possibly because I know so many people who are extraordinarily talented enough that from the point of view of J. Average Random they might as well have superpowers. It happens. We cope.
    Robert Leyland on 2014-05-28 at 21:32:43 said:

    long time reader, first time respondent.

    I’ve had to do this a number of times, recommend an intro SF novel to late teen and early twenties. My go to list includes:

    “This Immortal” – Roger Zelazny
    “Doorways in the Sand” – Roger Zelazny
    “Gateway” – Frederick Pohl
    “Leviathan Wakes” – James S A Corey
    “Door into Summer” – Heinlein
    “Old Mans War” – Scalzi
    “The Windup Girl” – Bacigalupi
    “This Ship Who Sang” – Anne McCaffrey
    “The Atrocity Archives” – Charles Stross
    “Little Brother” – Cory Doctorow

    A lot depends on the tastes and personality of the recipient. There are lot of very good choices, many of which are already on esr’s list.

    I would nix “Ready Player One” its too “in” and very few teens would even know the games/references mentioned – its really written for 40s+ audience. A better choice for modern gamers is REAMDE by Stephenson

    cheers,
    Robert.
    PapayaSF on 2014-05-28 at 21:36:07 said:

    Someone mentioned Hogan. I think Code of the Lifemaker is a SF fine novel, and the prologue alone is as sense-of-wonder inducing as many award-winning short stories.
    esr on 2014-05-28 at 21:56:39 said:

    >I would nix “Ready Player One” its too “in” and very few teens would even know the games/references mentioned – its really written for 40s+ audience.

    What makes you think this? I’ve had it recommended by people who talked like they were much younger.
    Cathy on 2014-05-28 at 22:15:00 said:

    “Someone mentioned Hogan. I think _Code of the Lifemaker_ is a SF fine novel, and the prologue alone is as sense-of-wonder inducing as many award-winning short stories.”

    That was me.

    Yes, the prologue is the best part of the book!
    Jeff Read on 2014-05-28 at 23:28:20 said:

    All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka should be added to the list. It helps that it is soon to be a major motion picture starring Tom Cruise, but the book is a fairly typical Japanese “light novel” — aimed at teens and young adults, short, easy to read. Yet it has a fairly solid SF premise behind it and characters who seem like they could come out of Heinlein; the main female is even a redhead. It’s translated into English and available from ebook retailers.
    Rich Rostrom on 2014-05-28 at 23:43:57 said:

    The Witches of Karres by James Schmitz. “Slam-bang space-happy fantasy”, as one of the original reviews said.

    Ringworld is problematic, because much of it doesn’t have weight unless one is already familiar with “Known Space”. I think any work from a “future history” should have to pass muster standing alone.

    Mission of Gravity seems fairly accessible.

    One question to be answered: How old is the newbie? Works to interest a teenager would be a different set. It isn’t just that the teenager never experienced anything before say 2010. As one gets older and reads more, one becomes familiar with a broader sweep of history, including the years before one’s consciousness. I know a lot more about the 1940s and 1950s now than I did in 1970, when I was 16.

    On the Heinlein juveniles: I tend to recommend The Star Beast, because AFAICT it doesn’t have any obsoleted science.
    Terry on 2014-05-29 at 01:26:31 said:

    For Paul: Kerbal’s demo is now over a year old (is version 0.18.3, the current version is 0.23.5.) The Career mode is now in full swing. Comparing the gameplay of Minecraft and Kerbal is very difficult, but they do have similar development cycles (also I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Minecraft). I’d say the current version of KSP is equivalent to, oh… Alpha 1.4 (I’m thinking of Career mode as equivalent to the Nether.) And I’d say the demo version of KSP is equivalent to Minecraft Alpha 1.0. I’ve been playing self-imposed career modes in KSP since 0.18.2 when I first got it (back then, the demo was 0.13.3, the last free version, equivalent to Minecraft Classic 0.30 in terms of demo/free versioning, and I’d guess a bit into the Indev phase of Minecraft in terms of development… not sure because I haven’t played Minecraft Indev, but I sure would like to. I have begun to play self-imposed career modes in Minecraft (the first time I did something like that was self-imposed Survival mode in Classic 0.30 while I couldn’t purchase Minecraft: I had decided to switch banks the day before I decided to buy Minecraft, and Paypal took their sweet time getting that all sorted out.))

    Kerbal has a few “eras” in its development, which I have familiarized myself with by gathering a collection of old versions (and in the case of pre-0.7.3, reading HarvesteR’s blog):

    0.2: Kerbin is round (it was flat before.)
    0.7.3: Initial release (if I had the version history from 0.4 to 0.7.3, I could probably find two more era breaks: one for the NavBall, and one for scene separation, assuming they didn’t happen at the same time.)
    0.8: Stacked fuel tanks can feed each engine (not really an “era” but because of this and other relatively minor bugs, it was nearly impossible to get into orbit in 0.7.3, and it suddenly became almost easy.)
    0.10: Terrain generated with quadtrees really looks/feels different from the original system
    0.11: Map view, time compression, and RCS implemented
    0.12: The Mun appears, and planets begin to rotate (the evening and the morning is the 298th day ;)
    0.14: Persistence (being able to stop the game mid-flight and come back to that point) and multiple flights at once. Rendezvous becomes possible, and players hack together docking apparatus from the new landing gear. This was also the first version you had to pay for.
    0.17: A great many things, but the solar system is the most notable
    0.18: Docking and maneuver nodes; artwork on Kerbin makes it look like Kerbin instead of the demo planet from Libnoise (previously there were only two differences: Libnoise was Earth-sized, and Kerbin flipped the terrain east/west.)
    0.21: The Space Center is completely redone, in anticipation of…
    0.22: Career Mode
    0.24 (anticipated): Budgets and contracts, a new mod site, forum upgrades, and whatever they’re replacing the challenges with on the subreddit (recommended if you can tolerate the syphilitic camel’s anus (i.e. Markdown.))
    Terry on 2014-05-29 at 01:32:56 said:

    On topic again: I’m not sure if anyone else here is familiar with both Dahak and Tarja Turunen, but the latter did an interesting synopsis of “Mutineer’s Moon” by David Weber, which I believe is accidental:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT-B1LWSUeE
    Garrett on 2014-05-29 at 01:37:33 said:

    @esr: I would strongly request reconsidering Ender’s Game. It is on the official reading list for the US Marine Corps. You may not like OSC, though this is an endorsement both that a broad audience can handle the material as well as that they might actually get something of value out of it besides simply the introduction to SF.

    A few other thoughts:
    I also recommend something from Bujold. The Warrior’s Apprentice is a great choice.

    I second the suggestion of The Atrocity Archives over Accelerando. Accelerando doesn’t just get weirder, it gets harder to read. Truth be told, I haven’t managed to finish it – I got lost at some point where the virtualized lobster brains were broadcasting themselves into the galaxy … or something. The Atrocity Archives demonstrates world-building of the highest order while being both *really* fun while somehow managing to avoid being camp.

    I’d recommend against Snow Crash. It’s a story which strikes me as the novel version of looking at the initial covers of WIRED magazine. It’s nostalgia for the way the future was going to be. If somebody is a computer geek and somehow hasn’t caught on to SF, definitely. Otherwise, it strikes me much the same way as confusing historical fiction with “alternate history where the Nazis won” contemporary fiction would: can be fun, though a little off-putting.

    Brin’s Sundiver is a great introduction. One of its key advantages is that it takes place predominantly in/on Earth without playing with too many of the details. This avoids the need for people to absorb a huge pile of world-building, while dealing with many of the common tropes in an off-handed way which are easy to digest. Many of the issues presented (alien immigration) still carry over to contemporary issues. (His Kiln People *drastically* changed how I think about personhood, though he would have been better of ripping the back third of the book off, replacing it with a page which said “sorry – I ran out of idea and plot” – at least it would have saved a few trees).

    For almost the same reasons I’d argue against Vinge’s “A Deepness in the Sky”. It’s a positively *wonderful* book. However, it’s like asking for an introduction to classic literature and being handed War And Peace (though, actually good). It uses a lot of tropes, all in moving parts. The reader has to worry about who’s in suspended animation, who’s not, time passing differently for different people, multiple sets of hidden communication, who’s mind has been wiped of what information, etc. Multiplied by 3 different civilizations, all of which are engaged in multiple levels of conflict. Wheels within wheels.

    The this-is-true-but-a-bad-idea side of me wants to suggest Atlas Shrugged. It exhibits most of the science fiction tropes in a non-science fiction world. It was voted (once upon a time) as the second most influential book by members of Congress. The down sides being that it’s long, it’s polarizing and it’s not all that great of a read (it was written by a Russian author – Russian entertainment should be as depressing as the winter you are trying to escape by reading it). Maybe it should be on a list of “things which are science fiction even though they really don’t want to be” list.
    Milhouse on 2014-05-29 at 03:52:32 said:

    I have a some appreciation for a Hungarian writer called Peter Zsoldos [...]Anyway, are there any English or translated to English works with a similar theme?

    Dozens, if not hundreds. Starting with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Lest Darkness Fall. Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen.
    grendelkhan on 2014-05-29 at 04:17:19 said:

    I usually send people to Greg Egan’s Oceanic. It doesn’t have the heavy math that’s in most of his work, it’s short, it’s emotionally touching and it does a good job of presenting the sense of discovery.
    Dominic Dibble on 2014-05-29 at 04:52:49 said:

    OK, now I think I get your “hard fantasy” category – worlds in which the rules of magic are as rigorously applied and explained as physics, yes? In which case, consider “The Name of the Wind” by Pat Rothfuss. Both sympathy (= thermodynamic duels) and sygaldry (= runes with specific mechanical effects) are carefully outlined.

    Just another plug for “Leviathan” by James S A Corey; in a world where Elon Musk and Craig Venter exist, its pacy mix of near-future asteroid belt politics/warfare and bioengineering body horror should be an easy step for an intelligent reader.

    I suppose Gene Wolfe’s trope-twisting make his novels unsuitable for beginners, but his sheer verve as a story-teller should force him into contention – in which case I’d suggest his short story collection, “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories”.
    Richard lewis on 2014-05-29 at 06:53:56 said:

    How about emergence by David Palmer. The hero is young, intelligent, competent and resourceful. It covers a number of common tropes. It starts with the hero waiting in a fall out shelter. She then tries to survive on her own before finding the “Tarzan” which kicks off the main adventure. Interesting language style.
    Jakub Narebski on 2014-05-29 at 08:35:23 said:

    I wonder of Jack Campbell Dauntless would be good introduction for military SF… if not for the fact that it is only first part of The Lost Fleet cycle. Elizabeth Moon Trading in Danger (Vatta’s War pentalogy) has the same problem.
    Bruce on 2014-05-29 at 08:51:13 said:

    >Zelazny’s SF is problematic for new readers’.

    >’Ringworld is problematic, because much of it doesn’t have weight unless one is already familiar with Known Space.’

    SF is supposed to be evocative. It’s supposed to be shot through with problematic little phrases and settings that evoke your sense of wonder. I’d avoid starting with the sort of sequel that nails down every last evocative phrase and jeu d’friggingesprit, pardon my franglais.

    Strongly second Emergence.
    esr on 2014-05-29 at 09:09:16 said:

    >In which case, consider “The Name of the Wind” by Pat Rothfuss.

    No. Started out promisingly, and I loved the school-of-magic scenes, but it devolved into a bloated and meandering mess that I couldn’t make myself finish.
    esr on 2014-05-29 at 09:22:36 said:

    >I wonder of Jack Campbell Dauntless would be good introduction for military SF…

    It might, but I think The Warrior’s Apprentice is better for that purpose – way better characterization, for one thing.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-29 at 09:41:57 said:

    The one problem with Warrior’s Apprentice as an intro to milsf is that it might not be milsf– the one useful definition I got from usenet is that milsf is sf about people in a chain of command. Miles is *never* in a chain of command.

    Evidence for the definition: I generally dislike milsf, but I’m very fond of the Vorkosigan series.
    Zendo Deb on 2014-05-29 at 09:42:28 said:

    Several folks have mentioned “The Ship Who Sang.” I didn’t think that was too great, but a lot of my friends found it weird/disturbing. I always associate McCaffrey with Pern – and not in a good way. (I was always waiting for “Stray Cats of Pern,” because just about every other topic had been covered.)

    Instead of “Warrior’s Apprentice” by Bujold, I would recommend the omnibus “Young Miles.” It includes Warrior’s Apprentice, Mountains of Mourning (a short, originally from “Borders of Infinity” – I think) and The Vor Game. (The Kindle edition of Warrior’s is 6.99, while the paperback of Young Miles is 7.19 on Amazon)

    I would also like to second whoever recommended the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, at least the early stuff. (Might as well start where he started with the 1st book: On Basilisk Station.) The later stuff gets bogged down in politics, but the early stuff is fairly straight-forward. Though On Basilisk Station isn’t his best book. Maybe a better start would be “Short Victorious War” or “Honor of the Queen.”

    The one problem I see, is that none of this stuff or the stuff on your list looks like it grew out of today’s reality. It has the “navigating by slide-rule” feeling. What’s missing? Communication. Even the original Star Trek did a better job of having universal communication and a computer in your pocket than most of this stuff from 20 years ago. My introduction to SF always felt like it could have been my future. Almost none of this stuff does. The only thing mentioned that might is the William Gibson Cyberpunk series. I’m not sure any of this stuff is going to excite a newbie under the age of 35.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-29 at 10:15:46 said:

    Zendo Deb, what sf do you recommend as doing a good job with pervasive communication?
    Ian Argent on 2014-05-29 at 10:18:49 said:

    I’m going to down-check On Basilisk Station as a general into book. I love the series, but it’s got too much infodump. If your target is a Clancy genre fan, that’s fine, but…
    Either Mutineer’s Moon or The Excalibur Alternative would be much better intro books from Weber. (If it matters, I haven’t actually READ the David Drake yarn that EA spins off of, so it quite definitely stands alone).
    I wouldn’t include With the Lightnings as an intro either, despite (again) adoring the series; while Leary is a perfectly amiable young man (at this point in his life), he does or orders some shockingly brutal things (there’s a war on after all). In fact, I wouldn’t include any David Drake. (For similar reasons, the Falkenberg stories would be out as well).
    Random suggestions:
    Darkship Thieves – Sarah Hoyt
    Pick a Bolo collection
    Second the vote for Tinker by Wen Spencer
    John R. Woodward on 2014-05-29 at 10:22:14 said:

    If you’re still considering a Culture book, I would go with SURFACE DETAIL. It has the strongest characterizations — especially the sophont ships Sensia and Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints.
    Also, have you considered A FALL OF MOONDUST? It’s an excellent introduction to hard SF. CHILDHOOD’S END is great, but I think lots of new SF readers would dislike the ending.
    BTW, in an old interview Haldeman said that THE FOREVER WAR was not a “reply” to STARSHIP TROOPERS; it was a meditation on the Vietnam War and an an attempt at self-medication for his experiences there.
    ladderff on 2014-05-29 at 10:41:35 said:

    Regarding the Julian May sub-thread: My two cents are also for Intervention as a work that stands narratively on its own.
    Jakub Narebski on 2014-05-29 at 11:09:42 said:

    A’propos Vorkosigan saga: I have stumbled upon this gem of short fanfiction: “Mission Reports” with Interpretation guide for Dendarii (Miles Vorkosigan) field reports

    http://archiveofourown.org/works/349261
    Alex K. on 2014-05-29 at 11:49:36 said:

    Since I’ve not seen it recommended by anyone else on this page so far, I’d like to add the recommendation of Mogworld by Yahtzee Croshaw. While it’s no award-winner, overall the plot and characters are very approachable, and the comedic writing aids readers to follow the world-building required to seriously address the central (and very sci-fi) ideas regarding self-aware AI constructs.
    esr on 2014-05-29 at 12:54:13 said:

    Having just read Andy Weir’s Martian, I liked it a lot but I don’t think it’s a good book to recommend to newbies who don’t have a pretty heavy science or engineering background. Without that, almost everything in the novel will go right by them.
    Jorge Dujan on 2014-05-29 at 13:13:46 said:

    >Having just read Andy Weir’s Martian, I liked it a lot but I don’t think it’s a good book to recommend to newbies who don’t have a pretty heavy science or engineering background. Without that, almost everything in the novel will go right by them.

    Hmm… that could be the subject matter for a future list, right? I.e., a reading list for people who want to acquire that scientific background, along the lines of the project you mentioned in the “Generative science” post.
    I can see that making these lists is no walk in the park, but please at least consider the idea (I’m in no hurry, since I plan to read the SF books you’ll recommend :D).
    CorkyAgain on 2014-05-29 at 13:20:19 said:

    Define “newbie” — in particular, what level of reading skills and maturity can we assume? Are you targeting a fourteen year old boy or a twenty-something adult? Or someone else?
    Dan on 2014-05-29 at 13:23:18 said:

    Lots of fine suggestions already…you’re going to have your work cut out for you whittling the list down!

    I think that an accessible story for noobs is “The Difference Engine” by Gibson & Sterling. Can’t ignore the steampunk phenomenon forever ;)
    CorkyAgain on 2014-05-29 at 13:28:20 said:

    Sorry, I posted my question before reading the entire thread. I see now that you’ve already answered it.

    Let me just add my recommendation for Niven’s _Protector_. It has all the necessary elements: some physics, some alien cultures, some insight into the unforeseen ways things play out, and all told in relatively easy prose.
    Jess Austin on 2014-05-29 at 15:27:06 said:

    > No Mieville, I loathe him and his work.

    I’d love to see more on this topic. (The loathing for his work: I don’t care whether he is personally objectionable.) Are your objections mostly political? That would make sense for *Iron Council*, but not really for the rest. Do you not like the settings? Is it annoying that his effort in characterization stands in an inverse relation to the particular character’s agency and power?

    I had expected the strident anti-authoritarianism would appeal to you. I wouldn’t include Mieville in this list, but that’s more because he doesn’t really write science fiction as such.
    Tom McKendree on 2014-05-29 at 16:43:45 said:

    A couple comments. From the “beta” list:
    > Have Spacesuit, Will Travel (Robert Heinlein).
    Good choice.

    >Startide Rising (David Brin)
    I also argue that you should use Sundiver instead. Beyond the reasons others have given, the first question someone will ask about this is “Why are you having me skip the first book?”

    > Lest Darkness Fall
    I didn’t read it as one of my “early” SF books. By the time I got it, my response was “meh,” but maybe it really works as an early introduction. In contrast The Cross Time Engineer series was much better at actually showing what and how the traveller could do. Indeed, thinking now about that series, and the complaints people are raising against it, I am suddenly much more favorably disposed towards the concept of “Bowdlerization.”

    I’ve been mostly out of reading SF for the last few years–there are several I need to add to my list.

    Regarding some other books mentioned:

    Lord of Light. This was my favorite fiction book in High School. I still love the opening paragraph. Agree with people who like it, but also with esr that it does not belong on the list he is creating.

    Ender’s Game. Absolutely agree that this should be on the “Beginner-friendly and recommended” list. Sadly, doesn’t quite compare to reading the original short story in a magazine where, as it was a magazine, you never knew exactly how far you were from the ending until the end.

    Vernor Vinge. I would like you to include him, but I started reading him late enough that I have no feel what, if anything, would be beginner-friendly.

    Foundation. I was going to recommend it. Based on the discussion above, I can easily see leaving this out, but if Eric is creating an annotated list, with each entry having an “If you like X, Y and Z in the non-SF world, then you should try…,” then I would recommend including this one. As an aside, I can imagine someone starting with this, then The Forever War and suddenly thinking “Hey SF is all about future novels made of linked novellas!” ;-)

    The Forever War, speaking of which, I agree with Eric that this is a valid intro-to-canon SF book. It also does not require Starship Troopers as a pre-requisite. I would be more leery of recommending this to a precocious pre-teen, however, than Heinlein’s take. The Forever War is in fact an excellent intro to the whole Time-Dilation-of-Near-Light-Travel trope.

    Short Story Anthologies. Not sure which one(s) to recommend, but the idea of using short story anthologies as an an introduction is an excellent idea.

    >>Oh, and surely some classic space opera from EE Doc Smith?
    >Not for newbies, too dated.
    Hmm…, I read the Lensmen books as a post-newby, and knowing how old they were when I read them was surprised at how non-dated they felt. I still remember them as good, “pull you into SF” kinds of stories. That was over two decades ago, however, so I’ll defer to Eric’s memories.

    Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke. I vote no. I loved it, but the ultimate “pointlessness” of the plot from a neophyte’s point of view may unduly mischaracterize and tarnish the new person’s view of SF. BTW, I am implicitly assuming that the reader of Eric’s list might reasonably be expected to start with any book on the list.

    Possible recommendations not on your list:

    The Dueling Machine, Ben Bova. I haven’t read since Junior High, but I remember this as a compelling story that pulled me more into SF, and sparked a lot of cool thoughts. It was pretty short, and the core idea still seems pretty applicable.

    The High Crusade, Poul Anderson. A strong argument can be made that this is better after getting familiar with the conventions of the genre, and is parody. Nonetheless, I read it very young, and read it as a straight story, and that definitely was a good SF hook.

    I’ll risk Fantasy. I apologize if I’ve strayed too far:

    Taltos, by Stephen Brust. A short, really well-written story that I like a lot, and that I think would strongly appeal to people who like SF. OTOH, after reading this the idea that you might like SF will occur to almost no new readers. In print as part of The Book of Taltos.

    Another Fine Myth, Robert Asprin. Very SF-friendly fantasy book. Here a new reader may easily sense on his or her own “hey, since I liked this, there’s probably some Science Fiction book I would like!”

    Master of the Five Magics, by Lyndon Hardy. Pedestrian writing, but a very cool illustration of SF-friendly magic. Looking at amazon.com I see that it is not in print–withdrawn.

    Eric, what would your advice be on trying to complete your list, before branching off onto other SF works? I would recommend people new to SF to start with at least a couple on your list, but if someone finds a sub-genre or author they really like, they should feel free to follow up those interests rather than try to complete your whole list first.
    SBP on 2014-05-29 at 16:54:33 said:

    >Even the original Star Trek did a better job of having universal communication and a computer in your pocket than most of this stuff from 20 years ago.

    Mote had networked pocket computers which could even offload compute-intensive tasks to a bigger machine (we could do that, of course, but it’s not yet standard).

    Heinlein had teenagers carrying pocket pocket telephones in several of his juveniles, though not in (IIRC) HSWT.

    > I would nix “Ready Player One” its too “in” and very few teens would even know the games/references mentioned

    The protagonist doesn’t either, at first. His study of “ancient history” is a big part of the plot.
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-29 at 17:01:19 said:

    Meh…Doc Smith is interesting at this point primarily as history of SF. Randall Garrett’s Backstage Lensman is to it what Bored of the Rings is to Tolkien: much shorter and says everything that needs saying. The purple prose, repetitive grandiosities, and archaic characterizations – what there are of them – would run off, not entice, new readers.

    That Smith’s work is considered the good stuff of that era leads me to conclude that Campbell did us all a massive favor by raising the standard of SF writing immeasurably.
    esr on 2014-05-29 at 17:22:36 said:

    >That Smith’s work is considered the good stuff of that era leads me to conclude that Campbell did us all a massive favor by raising the standard of SF writing immeasurably.

    Oh, he did. I’ve sought out some of the pre-Campbellian stuff that, unlike Doc Smith’s and some of John Campbell’s own space operas, didn’t survive the demise of the pulps. Most of it was not merely creaky and archaic, it was teeth-jarringly bad.
    Joshua Barrett on 2014-05-29 at 17:24:36 said:

    I, Robot was my gateway drug into SF. Cryptomicon is also excellent, but may not be suitable for individuals without my interests. Eric, you were not the only one to be bothered by that sequence in Alvin Maker, although I have a tendancy to excuse these things. Little Brother was great, although it’s more dystopia than SF, in my opininon. I did enjoy foundation, but I’m probably on the spectrum, so that does not say much about its excessability to people my age.
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-29 at 17:37:06 said:

    Wish I could remember which Niven story had the protagonist tell how he’d gotten in trouble for watching TV on his pocket phone in school…
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-29 at 19:40:40 said:

    I’ve reread the Lensman books a number of times and enjoyed them. There are quite a few clever bits, and I like the sense of a universe full of interesting things. Also, I wouldn’t want the hyperbolic language to be used for everything, but I have fun reading it. The intensity is cranked up to at least a coruscating twelve and a half.
    Bruce on 2014-05-29 at 20:22:41 said:

    >I wouldn’t want the hyberbolic language used for everything, but I have fun reading it.

    Yes. YES! SF is science romance, it is supposed to be hyperbolic. Galaxy-destroying Hamilton wrote the pure quill, slipstream bores. I’d actually recommend Randall Garrett’s Takeoff! and Takeoff Too! (long out of print) for newbies. If a new reader throws out 19 books with great force and loves one, even parodies look good, tracks down everything close, this list has succeeded. If a new reader kinda likes some, not real moved either way, but at least nothing looked like it needed brown paper over the cover- fail.
    Dan on 2014-05-29 at 20:41:10 said:

    For sheer adventure, try “Kings of Space” by Capt W E Johns.

    Old book.

    Certainly lit up my world before Star Wars came along.
    Cathy on 2014-05-29 at 21:36:25 said:

    “Cryptomicon is also excellent, but may not be suitable for individuals without my interests.”

    I loved Snow Crash, but was unable to force my way through Cryptonomicon and gave up. this book isn’t for everyone, even among SF fans.
    Cathy on 2014-05-29 at 21:38:16 said:

    “The High Crusade, Poul Anderson.”
    +1
    Cathy on 2014-05-29 at 21:40:29 said:

    “I think that an accessible story for noobs is “The Difference Engine” by Gibson & Sterling. Can’t ignore the steampunk phenomenon forever ;)”

    Um, no. I love that book and enjoy steampunk in general, but unless you have a good knowledge of 19th century English history, you are going to miss a lot and misunderstand some of the rest. It’s not a beginner/introductory work.
    Cathy on 2014-05-29 at 21:53:51 said:

    Someone suggested Clarke’s _A Fall of Moondust_ — I give it +1, but may fail the “in print” test. _Sands of Mars_ isn’t bad either.

    “Silent Leges” — I’d suggest this Pournelle novelette as the best introduction to the CoDominium and military SF in general. It will give you a taste of it without taking over the entire story, and fit it into political background.

    _On Basilisk Station_ is definitely the right entry point to the Honorverse. Anyone who can’t get through that isn’t going to enjoy the other Honor stories later.

    “Letter to a Phoenix” — excellent short story by Fred Brown, includes a Big Idea and is very readable.

    Someone suggested Weber’s _Mutineers’ Moon_, but I disagree. That was a very early work of his and his writing has improved a great deal since. I was fascinated by it for about the first third, and then found myself skimming to get to the end.

    I’m amazed that people are recommending _Emergence_. The first-person writing style is a very strange sort of shorthand that can be really frustrating to read even though the story is pretty good. I wouldn’t give it to a noob.
    Mike G on 2014-05-29 at 21:58:03 said:

    I’d like to add another vote for “Titan” by Varley. Very Alien and lots of world building.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-29 at 21:59:11 said:

    I vote against Cryptonomicon. Half of it is historical fiction, and the other half is satire of the IT boom– very dated.

    I think of it as appealing to sf fans, but not especially sf.
    Joshua Brulé on 2014-05-29 at 22:12:28 said:

    I’ve noticed several people mentioned Ender’s Game, but I consider Ender’s Shadow the superior book.

    Also, are we allowed to nominate short stories? Because I think Asimov’s “Nightfall” and “The Last Question” are two particularly excellent pieces of work.
    Paul Brinkley on 2014-05-29 at 23:51:49 said:

    Why nominate those two? For the prestige? I suppose that would be nice. But I’d just as soon link them as freebies:

    The Last Question

    Nightfall
    Paul Brinkley on 2014-05-29 at 23:55:28 said:

    I don’t think Cryptonomicon is dated, but I do think it would not work well as SF for newcomers. I like it, personally. I see it as half high adventure (a spiritual predecessor to Reamde), half nerdporn for mathematicians and computer security eggheads. Where else can you get an encryption scheme using playing cards that actually works?
    Adam Maas on 2014-05-29 at 23:59:32 said:

    Ringo’s Live Free or Die is a good intro, much better as an intro than most of his work (it’s also not MilSF). It’s also a good tie in to my second suggestion, as it was actively influenced by it.

    Schlock Mercenary. Yeah, a webcomic. But it’s interesting, will grab most people quickly and is good SF.

    Ringo & Weber’s March Upcountry is another good starter. Very good for readers who already like low fantasy (which is functionally what it is for all but the first third of the book)

    The best starter hook I’ve ever found for both SF and Fantasy though is Jim Butcher’s Storm Front. It’s urban fantasy, but from a pure noir/fantasy take (much like Correia’s Hard Magic) rather than the bad romance with fur & fangs that is dominates the genre. It’s also an easy read, has a bunch of excellent sequels that just get better and is a real gateway drug to both SF and Fantasy. It helps that it’s got a likeable wizard named Harry who happens to have the clasic Noir detective’s weakness for damsels in distress. So far I’ve had exactly one person I’ve loaned the book to not hoover the entire series up and ask for more. And that person is the single slowest reader I know (and is enjoying the series, just very slowly)
    Jeff Read on 2014-05-30 at 01:38:03 said:

    I second the previous nominations for William Gibson’s work, in particular Neuromancer and Count Zero. In the intervening thirty years Gibson has proven remarkably prescient; the themes he addressed in his cyberpunk works have turned into major issues of today — perhaps more so than any other topic addressed by SF. We’re living in that world, or at least on the very cusp of it.
    db48x on 2014-05-30 at 02:25:28 said:

    Ah, Live Free or Die is a good book. The second one, Citadel has a lot more interesting characters though; at least four or five to the first’s one.

    Nominating the webcomic itself is an interesting move, I second it!
    BioBob on 2014-05-30 at 03:07:06 said:

    Regardless of your picks, this discussion provides a useful source of missed reading opportunities that count. Thanks for that & bookmarked for future reference.

    I would add a vote for “A Canticle for Leibowitz ” and there are so many others that I would consider mentioned.

    Here are some picks that I did not see that might be worth considering in no particular order:
    Golden WitchBreed by Mary Gentle
    Heart of the Comet by Benford & Brin
    Glory Season by D. Brin
    On My Way to Paradise by David Wolverton
    Legacy of Heorot by Niven, Pournelle & Barnes
    Memoirs of An Invisible Man by H.F.Saint
    Grass by Sheri Tepper
    The Deed of Paksenarrion by E. Moon is probably more fantasy but too good to leave off any list that it could potentially be on.
    Nancy Lebovitz on 2014-05-30 at 04:59:48 said:

    Recommended: Saurkraut Station
    Shenpen on 2014-05-30 at 06:07:36 said:

    I would recommend David Weber e.g. Basilisk Station for one reason: he made his books freely available in electronic format. This gives them a really low barrier to entry – you can just basically e-mail or share them on blog with good conscience.

    Otherwise, the Honor Harrington series is largely recommendable to those who have a Burkean dislike of the French Revolution and a liking for the British Empire. It is basically that, put in space. This is also probably its biggest fault – I think too closely imitating history, replaying history in the future is rarely a sign of originality. Then again if you want low barrier for entry, historical replays from these to The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress are probably a good idea.
    BJP on 2014-05-30 at 09:16:06 said:

    Frank Herbert – The White Plague. The human response to severe problems of science is a key part of what makes science fiction for me.

    Agree with every H. Beam Piper mention, especially Little Fuzzy, but I would include some of Paratime as well.

    George Alec Effinger – When Gravity Fails. Newbies, especially outside the USA, may gain a lot from a Middle Eastern setting.
    Michael. on 2014-05-30 at 09:27:46 said:

    Michael’s SF recomendations

    Charles Stross’s Halting State books are excellent. His Merchant Princes series is also excellent, but perhaps not so great for purpose. I wouldn’t recommend Accelerando, but would suggest the short story Lobsters.

    Another more modern work is “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” by Doctrow.

    Personally, Heinlein wouldn’t be recommended at all by me for introductory works. But I’m special, ’cause I don’t like Stranger in a Strange Land, so what would I know…

    Lord of Light is an excellent SF book which demonstrates one reason it makes sense to have a single SF & F category, rather than two. (Another is the Clarke quote about magic.) I think it is also a better introduction to SF than Creatures of Light and Darkness, as it is easier to read generally (if my memory serves correctly; I haven’t read either for a while).

    Orwell’s 1984, while not marketed as SF, could fit. But I think that an early book, Brave New World by Huxley, is a better tale for the purpose. (Both mentioned above.)

    Asimov’s robot stories are great for purpose (and some of the first SF that I remember reading).

    I’m not sure about what AC Clarke stuff to suggest, all I really remember is generally liking his stuff. But I can’t remember the specific titles (and it’s been years since I read his earlier stuff).

    Winter suggested The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison, and I concur. (And it’s on the list anyway.)

    Another anti-recommendation. Stephen R. Donaldson’s Gap series are too dark for an introduction.

    As for the Crosstime Salon, I wrote after I first read it that “there are an unnatural number of puns scatter through the book, some good, some really bad” and “there is not really any hard science in it” and I wouldn’t buy a copy.

    Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy

    As for the Honorverse, I can’t suggest it. While I did get hooked, the politics are, ahem, not so good (no Burke isn’t a political role model). It does get more sophisticated in later books.
    —

    Slightly offtopic, I found in another book review I wrote, “[in] all well written science fiction, the story is internally consistent”. Not an original observation, but still.
    Ian Argent on 2014-05-30 at 09:49:30 said:

    If you base your dislaike of Heinlein on Stranger (and post-Stranger Heinlein), give his pre-Stranger, especially his YA stuff, a crack. Stranger in a Strange Land marks a radiacal change in his writing style.
    Ketan on 2014-05-30 at 09:54:38 said:

    I may delete it later but created list for myself and it is public, so probably someone can add it too.

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/WWVJ68LQPNRL

    If there is any other place where such curated list can be kept that would be great. ESR might have some idea already.
    Andrew_C on 2014-05-30 at 11:34:22 said:

    The Atrocity Archives or Rule 34 by Charles Stross. Unfortunately, Halting State which is a better book than Rule 34 is already painfully dated.
    Marcus on 2014-05-30 at 13:30:48 said:

    I really enjoyed the Chanatown Death Cloud Peril and it’s sequels by Paul Malmont. It stars pulp science fiction authors as characters. It includes Walter Gibson, Lester Dent, L. Ron Hubbard, Robert Heinlein, H.P. Lovecraft among others. It gives you biographic background on the authors. I really got a kick out of it. It seems like a good introduction to Science Fiction.
    Chuck on 2014-05-30 at 15:00:47 said:

    but I would include some of Paratime as well

    Among H. Beam Piper’s Paratime stories my favorite is the novella The Last Enemy. The politics are interesting and still relevant, but there is enough action to carry the story if the politics goes over the head of a beginner. It is available from Project Gutenberg.
    esr on 2014-05-30 at 16:09:19 said:

    >Among H. Beam Piper’s Paratime stories my favorite is the novella The Last Enemy.

    Cool! A Paratime story I hadn’t read! Thanks much for that.
    Daniel Franke on 2014-05-30 at 16:24:50 said:

    I started reading Cryptonomicon some time during high school but hurled it across the room after about 50 pages because the prose was just so painfully bad. I’ve had a couple people assure me that Stephenson has since gotten an editor and that I should give his more recent work a chance, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
    Bruce on 2014-05-30 at 19:39:01 said:

    Please delete above. Tried to recommend http://www.orionsarm.com
    Jay Maynard on 2014-05-30 at 20:20:10 said:

    I’d really, really love to recommend _Lone Star Planet_, but for all its setting, the SF isn’t the star of the story.

    (And I’d move to Piper’s New Texas in a New York minute!)
    Greg on 2014-05-31 at 08:12:17 said:

    >I loved Snow Crash, but was unable to force my way through Cryptonomicon and gave up. this book isn’t for everyone, even among SF fans.

    I adored Cryptonomicon but it may be too much of an enforced history lesson- it’s much more historical fiction than sf fans probably want. But I enjoy historical fiction as well. Certain things like the u-boat night surface ops I thought were fantastic. Stephenson researches obsessively, and it shows. But of course YMMV. (If you liked that sort of thing, you’ll LOVE the encounter with Edward Teach in Massachusetts Bay in Quicksilver.)
    Greg on 2014-05-31 at 09:16:16 said:

    >Cool! A Paratime story I hadn’t read! Thanks much for that.

    Great googely moogely. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but Piper seems to have anticipated Rawls by more than 20 years.