Inspiring SFF Books

The latest Mind Meld column at SF Signal collects answers to the question What SF/F/H book (or books) inspired you the most? which was posed to a group of authors.

Their answers:

1. Dan Koboldt:
1. Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time
2. Michael Crichton Jurassic Park
3. Frank Herbert Dune
4. Robin Hobb Farseer Trilogy
5. Patrick Rothfuss The Name of the Wind
2. Nicole Cushing
1. Thomas Ligotti Teatro Grottesco
2. Anonymous The Nightwatches of Bonaventura
3. Sadegh Hedayat The Blind Owl
4. Roland Topor The Tenant
5. The work of Bruno Schulz, Witkacy, and Mário de Sá-Carneiro
6. Hermann Ungar The Maimed
3. Jeremy Szal
1. George R. R. Martin Game of Thrones
2. Stephen King
3. Karen Traviss Halo: Glasslands
4. M. Darusha Wehm
1. Nathan Lowell Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series. Writes Wehm:

Beginning with Quarter Share, the series follows Ishmael Wang as he navigates the world of interstellar cargo hauling first as a green, unskilled recruit through to running his own ship in the “final” book, Owner’s Share.

5. Anatoly Belilovsky
1. Vladimir Nabokov Pale Fire
6. Dawn Bonanno
1.  Mercedes Lackey Valdemar series.
7. Amy Sisson
1. Eleanor Cameron The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet.
2. Laurent de Brunhoff Babar Visits Another Planet.
3. Poul Anderson Tau Zero
8. Kate Heartfield
1. Pat O'Shea The Hounds of the Morrigan

I thought this was a very interesting list. I look forward to checking out Lowell's Solar Clipper series, which sounds right up my alley. The Hounds of Morrigan also sounds pretty cool from the brief synopsis you can find at the original link.

Recommended Reading: SFWA Nebula Suggested Reading List

For what I understand is the first time ever, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has made its Nebula Suggested Reading List publicly available. The list is compiled from SFWA member suggestions made throughout the year, and there are separate lists for novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, and dramatic works.

The list of novels, including the number of suggestions/nominations in parentheses (as of the date I looked at it; this will change as more nominations come in), with an asterisk denoting self-published and indie-published novels, is:

1. (16) Uprooted Novik, Naomi
2. (14) The Grace of Kings Liu, Ken
3. (12) Karen Memory Bear, Elizabeth 
4. (11) The Traitor Baru Cormorant Dickinson, Seth 
5. (8) The Fifth Season Jemisin, N. K. 
6. (7) Last First Snow Gladstone, Max 
7. (7) Updraft Wilde, Fran 
8. (6) Beasts of Tabat Rambo, Cat 
9. (6) Seveneves Stephenson, Neal 
10. (6) Sorcerer to the Crown Cho, Zen 
11. (5) A Darker Shade of Magic Schwab, VE 
12. (5) Ancillary Mercy Leckie, Ann 
13. (5) Aurora Robinson, Kim Stanley 
14. (5) The Just City Walton, Jo 
15. (5) The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps Wilson, Kai Ashante 
16. (5) The Water Knife Bacigalupi, Paolo 
17. (4) Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard Schoen, Lawrence M. 
18. (4) Radiance Draven, Grace*
19. (3) Castle Hangnail Vernon, Ursula 
20. (3) Clockwork Lives Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart
21. (3) Galapagos Regained Morrow, James 
22. (3) Half A War Abercrombie, Joe 
23. (3) Silver on the Road Gilman, Laura Anne 
24. (3) The House of Shattered Wings de Bodard, Aliette 
25. (3) The Library at Mount Char Hawkins, Scott 

followed by those receiving 2 nominations

1. Alien Separation Koch, Gini 
2. An Heir to Thorns and Steel Hogarth, M.C.A.
3. Dark Orbit Gilman, Carolyn Ives 
4. Empty Space Black, Alan*
5. Forgotten Suns Tarr, Judith 
6. Last Song Before Night Myer, Ilana 
7. Long Black Curl Bledsoe, Alex 
8. Mating Flight: A Non-Romance of Dragons Bloom, Bard*
9. Nemesis Games Corey, James S. 
10. Persona Valentine, Genevieve 
11. Raising Caine Gannon, Charles 
12. Signal to Noise Moreno-Garcia, Silvia 
13. The Border McCammon, Robert 
14. The Empress Game Mason, Rhonda 
15. The Flicker Men Kosmatka, Ted 
16. The Fold Clines, Peter 
17. The Galaxy Game Lord, Karen 
18. The Glittering World Levy, Robert 
19. The IX Weston, Andrew 
20. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street Pulley, Natasha 
21. Wonders of the Invisible World Barzak, Chris 
22. Working for Bigfoot Butcher, Jim 
23. Zero World Hough, Jason 
24. Zeroes Wendig, Chuck

There were another 37 that received a single nomination.

An interesting list for a couple of reasons. First, both Seveneves (6 nominations) and The Water Knife (5) received a significant number of nominations, but were unable to crack the Barnes and Noble top 25 leading me to further doubt the sense of that list maker. Second, two self-published and one indie-published book received multiple nominations.

List of recommended novellas, novelettes and short stories are available at the above link.

Recommended Reading: Barnes and Noble's Best SFF of 2015

Barnes and Noble have come out with their list of the best SFF of 2015:

1. Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente
2. The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson
3. Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
4. Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson
5. A Darker Shade of Magic, by V.E. Schwab
6. Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho
7. The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu
8. Ink and Bone: The Great Library, by Rachel Caine
9. The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin
10. Flex/The Flux, by Ferrett Steinmetz
11. Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
12. The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins
13. Half-Resurrection Blues, by Daniel José Older
14. Planetfall, by Emma Newman
15. Signal to Noise, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
16. Dark Orbit, by Carolyn Ives Gilman
17. The Drafter, by Kim Harrison
18. Wake of Vultures, by Lila Bowen
19. Vision in Silver, by Anne Bishop
20. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers
21. Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, by Kai Ashante Wilson
22. Revision, by Andrea Phillips
23. Karen Memory, by Elizabeth Bear
24. Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, by Bradley P. Beaulieu
25. The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass, by Jim Butcher

I have read only three of these so far, although I have plans to read another four. Lots more recommendations to think about.

But overall, a pretty strange list. Neal Stephenson's Seveneves did not make the cut? Terry Pratchett's The Shephered's Crown? Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife? I thought Seveneves was one of the better novels I read this year, and so far (I am not finished yet) The Water Knife is excellent. Should I infer from this that the other books on the list are better than these? If so, I have some great reading ahead. Or should I infer that the list-maker's tastes are very different from mine?

The list also features a large selection of books by women writers, and by writers of color. Given that we continually hear about how the profession is dominated by white males, we might infer that this is a disproportionately large representation of women and people of color. That is a good thing; I think it is important to draw attention to new and different voices.

Modern SF Masterpieces?

The website Giant Freakin Robot has come out with a list of 10 Modern Must-Read Sci-Fi Masterpieces.

The list is:

1. The Dark Tower (1982 – 2004) by Stephen King
2. Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson
3. Ender’s Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card
4. The Liaden Universe (1988 – 2010) by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
5. Hyperion Cantos (1989 – 1997) by Dan Simmons
6. Jurassic Park (1990) by Michael Crichton
7. On Basilisk Station (1992) by David Weber
8. The Time Ships (1995) by Stephen Baxter
9. A Deepness in the Sky (1999) by Vernor Vinge
10. Ready Player One (2011) by Ernest Cline

This is not a terrible list. I am a big fan of Enders' Game, Dan Simmons's Hyperion novels, and everything written by Vernor Vinge. Crichton's Jurassic Park has certainly had a huge impact.

But it is not a great list. I was less than impressed with the inclusion of Weber's perfectly decent but not exactly classic On Basilisk Station or Cline's Ready Player One which, although I loved it, primarily for reasons of nostalgia, is far from a classic of the genre.

The surprising thing about the list is that, with the exception of one co-authored work, there are no women and without exception there are no people of color. This despite the fact that are many many worthy candidates. Octavia Butler doesn't make an appearance? That is crazy. No Connie Willis? No C.J. Cherryh? No Julian May? How is that possible? Is the writer of the article just that clueless? Is their reading list that narrow? Or were they deliberately trying to focus on white men?

Social media has, predictably and deservedly, picked up on this slight. Although I am often critical of the tendency to complain about a lack of diversity in everything, and the twitter uproar that follows, I am in complete agreement on this one.

Recommended Reading: Weird Fiction by Women

In the lead-up to Halloween, minds inevitably turn to weird fiction. One interesting post is an old one by A.C. Wise and is entitled Women of the Weird over at Weird Fiction Review.

The list and the reasoning:

1. Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Revolves around the idea of an uncanny malevolence and the idea of being watched. Here it is the patterns of the wallpaper.
2. Silvia Moreno-Garcia “Flash Frame”. Picks up and subverts H.P. Lovecraft’s legacy.
3. Camille Alexa “His Sweet Truffle of a Girl”.
4. Ada Hoffmann “Harmony Amid the Stars”.
5. Molly Tanzer “The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins”.
6. Kelly Link “The Specialist’s Hat”. A gothic setting, the general aura of unseen threat, and pervasive air of the odd.
7. Caitlin Kiernan The Red Tree. The narrator is unreliable. Time is tricky, the past bleeding into the present like a haunting. The idea of nature as a quiet malevolence is presented in the tree of the title.
8. Livia Llewellyn “Furnace”. Takes place in a town seemingly preserved in time, where death endlessly occurs to a young girl, on the same stretch of road each time.
9. Karin Tidbeck “Moonstruck.” The day a young girl gets her first period, the moon begins to descend, drawing closer and closer to earth. At the same time, her mother, an astronomer, begins to change.

More details, as well as links to some of the stories, are available at the original link.

What book got you to become a fan of SFF?

In a recent Mind Meld column at SF Signal entitled The Books That Made Us Love Science Fiction and Fantasy, Paul Weimer has posted the responses he received when he posed a bunch of authors, editors and fans:

Tell me what book got you to become a fan of SFF, and why?

The resulting list is fascinating, as are the reasons advanced for why the books had such an impact. I recommend you go read it all, but here are the authors and the books they cited as influential:

1. Gail Carriger: Tamora Pierce Song of the Lioness.
2. Tansy Rayner Roberts: David Eddings The Belgariad.
3. Yoon Ha Lee: Anne McCaffrey Dragonflight.
4. Rachel Swirsky: cites work generally by Sheila Williams, Anne McCaffrey, Bradbury and Eleanor Cameron.
5. Beth Cato: Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance series.
6. Tehani Wessely: lists a range of work but places Anne McCaffrey's The White Dragon at the top.
7. Alan Baxter: also lists a number of books but focuses on C J Cherryh’s The Chronicles of Morgaine.
8. Sarah Hendrix: Madeleine L’Engle Wrinkle in Time.
9. Olivia Waite: Anne McCaffrey “The Smallest Dragonboy.”
10. Anthony Cardno: Robert Silverberg To Open the Sky.
11. Ann Vandermeer: The Oz books by L. Frank Baum.
12. Sarah Williams: Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
13. Pamela Sargent: Alfred Bester The Stars My Destination.
14. Jaye Wells: C.S. Lewis The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.
15. Mike Glyer: lists a lot of books, from which I will emphasize the Lensman series by E. E. “Doc” Smith about which he says

    there I found the line that hooked me on science fiction forever — “Two thousand million or so years ago two galaxies were colliding; or, rather, were passing through each other….”

16. Sabrina Vourvolias: C.S. Lewis The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.
17. Kerry Schafer: Tolkien The Fellowship of the Ring.
18. Jim Henley: Science Fiction Hall of Fame, edited by Silverberg and Bova.
19. Melanie Meadors: Robin McKinley The Hero and the Crown.
20. M.L. Brennan: lists The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey, Dune by Frank Herbert, The Belgariad by David Eddings, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, The Darkangel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce.
21. Meghan B.: Tamora Pierce Lioness and the Woman Who Rides Like A Man.
22. Jon Courtenay Grimwood: Alexei Panshin Rite of Passage.

Usually, when I find lists of recommended or favorite readings online, I am a little embarassed by how few of them I have read. Not this list, where I must have read 80%. Perhaps it reflects the ages of the people responding?

I was also a little surprised to find how similar peoples lists were. In addition to overlap mentioned above, many people responded with other books they loved that often drawn from the same small list: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Ender's Game, Dune, as well as various books by David Eddings, Raymond Feist, Terry Brooks, C S Lewis and Anne McCaffrey.

The one book (or set of books) that was surprising in its omission was Ursula Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea which was extremely influential to me and to many of my friends. I think of it as our generations Harry Potter, and recommend it to anyone (along with Dune, McCaffrey, and Ender's Game, it topped my list of recommendations for younger readers).

Recommended Reading: The Best Short SFF

Over on vox.com, Todd VanDerWerff has an interesting article (more of a listicle) entitled 10 of the best science fiction and fantasy short stories ever, in which he interviews Joe Hill and John Joseph Adams about, as the title implies, their opinions on the best short SFF ever.

The interview contains a number of interesting remarks about what makes these stories great, as well as what makes great short SFF. I would be interested to hear from people on whether they think these stories are significantly different (less literary? more plot driven?) that what the current short SFF magazines publish (this was alleged by some commentators who I quote here). Based on the ones I have read, I suspect they are not that different at all. But perhaps Hill and Adams, as modern editors, have tastes that differ from the puppies.

The list, along with some brief remarks by Hill and Adams, is:

1. "The Jewbird," by Bernard Malamud. Says Hill:

   A great example of how a fantasy can be one thing on the surface but can also be a perfect way to grapple with big questions and big subjects like, why do human beings have to be so tribal? Why do they feel drawn to say, "Our tribe good. Your tribe bad"? That's an uncomfortable question, but in the realm of fantasy, it's one we can tackle.

2. "Flowers for Algernon," by Daniel Keyes. Says Adams:

   One of the things that I think is so amazing about the story is how Keyes is able to really have the prose style tell the story all the way through it. It starts off with Charlie being very unintelligent. He gets the drug that boosts his intelligence, and the writing improves as Charlie improves. That's such a hard thing to pull off, and yet all of it just works wonderfully together. Of course, the story has the tragic end where Charlie loses the intelligence that he got to have only briefly, so he's returned to the same sort of writing style from the start. It packs such an emotional wallop.
   
   A lot of [science fiction and fantasy] in the early days didn't have really great writing. It was very pedestrian prose, and some of the greatest practitioners of genre fiction weren't really prose stylists. Isaac Asimov wrote perfectly well, but his prose itself wasn't particularly notable.

   Says Joe Hill:

   In the early days of American science fiction, these dudes — they were mostly dudes; there were some women writing — were getting paid by the word. There was no incentive to really do anything except lay in as many adjectives as you could get into a single sentence, because every one was worth another penny and a half.

   And John Joseph Adams again:

   People paint the genre with this one brush [of being poorly written] because they read one example somewhere and they thought it wasn't very well-written. Then they think all science fiction is written like that. Of course there are brilliant examples that are counterpoints, like the stories that Joe and I selected here and in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy.
   
   In my intro [to Best American], I talk about Alfred Bester and how The Stars My Destination [a breakthrough science fiction novel] really woke me up to what genre fiction was capable of. Bester was one of the genre's great prose stylists. It's not to say that he didn't have great ideas, because he did. But he had the wonderful, beautiful prose as well. We can't separate these two things. Now the best science fiction/fantasy prose is on par with whatever you find in mainstream fiction.

3. "The Last Flight of Dr. Ain," by James Tiptree Jr. 
4. "The Deathbird," by Harlan Ellison
5. "The Specialist's Hat," by Kelly Link. 
6. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," by Ursula K. Le Guin.
7. "The Library of Babel," by Jorge Luis Borges. 
8. "Speech Sounds," by Octavia Butler.
9. "Harrison Bergeron," by Kurt Vonnegut. 
10. "There Will Come Soft Rains," by Ray Bradbury.

I recommend the whole article to you, which also contains links to most of the stories.

Recommended Reading: Diverse Fantasy Novels

Catherine Kovach has an interesting listicle entitled 15 Diverse Magical Fantasy Novels To Read ASAP over at Bustle.com. The focus is on books with characters that are from diverse backgrounds, and not necessarily on books by authors from those backgrounds.

I had heard of only a few:

1. The Girl With Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boronson
2. Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
3. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
4. Huntress by Malinda Lo
5. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
6. Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
7. Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
8. Minion by L.A. Banks
9. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh
10. Luminous by Dawn Metcalf
11. All Our Pretty Songs by Sara McCarry
12. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
13. Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord
14. Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey
15. A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files

As I've mentioned before, while I am not prepared to sign up for K Tempest Bradford's challenge, I am trying to broaden my reading horizons. I think there are some very good options in this list (even after excluding Neil Gaiman). 

You can read brief synopses of each at the original link.

Recommended Reading: Cyberpunk

Having recently read Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time (see my review here), which William Gibson credits as the birth of cyberpunk, I have been tempted to explore the genre (or subgenre) in greater detail.

Stubby the Rocket, over at Tor.com, has come out with a listicle of great cyberpunk titles Are You 1337 Enough for these Cyberpunk Tales?. Although a few are obvious, there are some other ones that I had not heard of before and look forward to picking up:

1. True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier—Vernor Vinge
2. Neuromancer—William Gibson
3. Trouble and her Friends—Melissa Scott
4. Snow Crash—Neal Stephenson
5. Halting State—Charles Stross
6. The Quantum Thief—Hannu Rajaniemi
7. Schismatrix Plus—Bruce Sterling
8. The Shockwave Rider—John Brunner
9. Corsair—James L. Cambias
10. Alif the Unseen—G. Willow Wilson
11. Gridlinked—Neal Asher
12. Equations of Life: Book 1, Samuil Petrovitch—Simon Morden
13. Mindplayers—Pat Cadigan
14. The Ware Tetralogy—Rudy Rucker
15. Little Brother—Cory Doctorow

I seem to be coming across recommendations to read Charles Stross from all kinds of places these days (see here and here). The synopsis for Halting State sounds pretty interesting:

In the year 2018, a daring bank robbery has taken place at Hayek Associates. The suspects are a band of marauding orcs, with a dragon in tow for fire support, and the bank is located within the virtual reality land of a MMORPG called Avalon Four. But Sergeant Sue Smith discovers that this virtual world robbery may be linked to some real world devastation. To foil the crime, she’ll need to team with an intrepid insurance fraud investigator named Elaine Barnaby, and hapless, recently laid-off programmer and MMORPG expert, Jack Reed. Will they learn the truth, or are the orcs going to win this one?

I had not heard of Alif the Unseen before; the synopsis makes it sound pretty cool:

In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker shields his clients—dissidents, outlaws, Islamists, and other watched groups—from surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble. He goes by Alif—the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and a convenient handle to hide behind. The aristocratic woman Alif loves has jilted him for a prince chosen by her parents, and his computer has just been breached by the state’s electronic security force, putting his clients and his own neck on the line. Then it turns out his lover’s new fiancé is the “Hand of God,” as they call the head of state security, and his henchmen come after Alif, driving him underground. When Alif discovers The Thousand and One Days, the secret book of the jinn, which both he and the Hand suspect may unleash a new level of information technology, the stakes are raised and Alif must struggle for life or death, aided by forces seen and unseen.

You can read the rest of the synopses at the original site.

Recommended Reading: Weird SF Novels

MaryKate Jasper and Charlie Jane Anders have an interesting blog post over at io9 entitled 10 Ultra-Weird Science Fiction Novels that Became Required Reading.  In it they list ten SFF novels that are, as they say, "ultra-weird" but essential.

I recommend the entire article to you, but for reference the 10 books are:

1. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany. Famous for its non-linear narrative, the original edition sold more than a million copies. The novel has drawn praise from Umberto Eco and has been compared to Pynchon. 
2. The Four-Gated City by Doris Lessing. Weird and experimental series by 2007 Nobel Laureate.
3. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. The novel follows Valentine, who believes in the rightness of consuming your friend’s flesh after he/she dies, the superfluity of clothing, and the obvious self-evidence of an afterlife, as he founds the Church of All Worlds, in which sexual liberation blends with psychokinesis. Won 1962 Hugo Award for Best Novel; one of its invented words, “grok” has entered the Oxford English Dictionary. 
4. Ubik by Philip K. Dick. Time Magazine named this book, in which half the characters might be dead, as one of the 100 best novels written in English between 1923 and 2005. 
5. The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold.  Time travel book in which the protagonist interacts (and has sex) with past and future versions of himself, even impregnating a female version of himself who may turn out to be his own mother. Nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award and the 1974 Hugo Award for Best Novel. 
6. The Female Man by Joanna Russ. A representative work from the 1970s feminist movement, nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel (in 1975), this book is about four women from different realities brought together to experience each other’s gendered (or not) cultures.
7. Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre. The novel follows a healer through a post-apocalyptic, desert-like landscape, as she looks for a replacement “dreamsnake,” whose bites produce hallucinations similar to acid trips. It won the 1979 Hugo Award, the 1978 Nebula Award, and the 1979 Locus Award. 
8. Lilith’s Brood (Previously Xenogenesis) by Octavia Butler. An alien race, the Oankali, which has three sexes - male, female and ooloi - aims to replace the human race with human-Oankali hybrids after a massive near-genocide has almost wiped out humanity.
9. The Mount by Carol Emshwiller. On a world where humans are used as riding mounts for an alien race called the Hoots, this novel explores what happens when humans get used to, and even enjoy, their servitude. 
10. The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. 

This post follows on from an earlier one by Anders entitled 10 Weirdest Science Fiction Novels That You've Never Read. The list here was:

1. This Business of Bomfog, by Madelaine Duke (1967). Dystopian world where the Brotherhood of Man, Fatherhood of God (BOMFOG) complex tries to prevent wars by giving Important Guests access to perpetual-motion art and private swimming pools. 
2. The Tsaddik of the Seven Wonders by Isidore Haiblum (1971) A Tsaddik is a Hasidic spiritual leader or wise person, and this book is legendarily steeped in Jewish lore, as the main character visits various times and places in Jewish history. This tsaddik wanders around through time & space, fights an intergalactic real estate conspiracy, and participates in in a battle between hordes of demons & time-hopping Chassidim in a Polish castle. 
3. All of An Instant by Richard Garfinkle (1999) A scientist discovers a place called the Instant, interference with which erases entire cultures and wipes out whole timelines. In addition to the normal dimensions of height, width and depth, duration forms a fourth dimension in the Instant, and it places limitations on the memories and abilities of its inhabitants.
4. Passing for Human by Jody Scott (1977) Benaroya is a giant space dolphin who's only interested in pleasure, until she decides to study humans. 
5. Time Snake and Superclown by Vincent King (1976) The main character is living on Earth, observing a species of wraiths who are pretending to be human. While investigating this insidious plot, the hero has bad sex with a female wraith, who transforms his face into a clown mask — permanently — and steals his pants. 
6. Flesh & Gold by Phyllis Gottlieb (1999) A member of a race of moral haiku-writing telepathic sauropods, stumbles upon two mysteries while on duty on grimy mining planet Fthel V. 
7. Panda Ray by Michael Kandel (1996) Christopher looks like a normal 10-year-old boy, but he's actually a member of a superpowerful race of creatures who control the world using their technology and psychic powers. When Christopher starts bragging about this at school, including details about how ESP killed the dinosaurs, bad things happen.
8. The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer by Carol Hill (1996) With her magic cat, Schrodinger, Amanda goes to Mars and finds herself in a battle for her life and her planet with the greatest seductress of all, The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, a being from forty million light years away.
9. The Flight to Lucifer: A Gnostic Fantasy by Harold Bloom (1979) The only novel that the famous literary critic ever wrote — and he has disowned it utterly. Don't let Harold Bloom see you reading this book! It's a quasi-sequel to the space-faring novel A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. 
10. The Butterfly Kid by Chester Anderson (1967) Aliens are supplying a new kind of drug, known as "Reality Pills," which cause your LSD hallucinations to become physically real. 

Recommended SFF Reading for Women from Bustle.com

Bustle.com has an interesting little article by Crystal Paul entitled Sci-Fi Books Every Woman Should Read.

First, the article dispenses with the stereotypes surrounding SFF:

Thinking of a science fiction reader may conjure up images of a nerdy white man clutching his worn copy of The Hobbit in one hand and a PlayStation controller in the other. But hold up: That's definitely, definitely not the case. Women aren't only welcome in sci-fi, they freakin' thrive here. You see, not only do women read science fiction, but there are also tons of women writing science fiction, and they do it damn well, too!

And since science fiction is a genre of literature with a long history of highlighting social issues, including gender and feminism, that’s a really really good thing. Because that's the case, there's so much that this genre has to offer every woman, even if she doesn't think she's a "sci-fi kind of gal."

It then gives a list of recommended reading "for women" although I think it applies equally to any SFF fan:

1. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
2. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
3. The Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
4. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
5. Filter House by Nisi Shawl
6. Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias
7. The Female Man by Joanna Russ
8. Ancient, Ancient by Kiini Ibura Salaam
9. Ancillary Justice by Anne Lecke
10. Octavia’s Brood by Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown
11. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

There were a couple on there that I had not heard of and look forward to checking out.

For a list aimed at women and focusing on feminist themes, it was a little strange to see the author describe Ancillary Justice as:

When the lead character of a novel is simultaneously a sentient spaceship as well as the bunch of ungendered “clones” that man the ship, you know you’ve got an interesting novel on your hands. Gender, religion, culture, and tyranny get a mind-blowing treatment here.[emphasis added]

But who am I to judge?

Recommended Reading: Short Fiction by Women

As I have written elsewhere, while I am not prepared to go The Full Tempest Bradford, I have been trying to broaden my reading horizons beyond the circle of white male authors which I have, evidently, focused upon in the past. As an aid, I have been collecting lists of books written by authors outside of this set. So far I have found lists of great novels written by women, and by women of color, and I am on the lookout for more.

Recently, I came across a list of 100 Great Works of Short Fiction—short stories, novelettes and novellas—by Women, curated by Ian Sales. The list is from 2013 and covers work published between 1927 and 2012. Each author appears only once, and so the list should not be thought of as the greatest 100 stories. Rather it is a personal list of 100 great works by 100 different women authors.

The full list:

1. ‘The Fate of the Poseidonia’, Clare Winger Harris (1927, short story) 
2. ‘The Conquest of Gola,’ Leslie F Stone (1931, short story) 
3. ‘Water Pirate’, Leigh Brackett (1941, short story) 
4. ‘Space Episode’, Leslie Perri (1941, short story) 
5. ‘No Woman Born’, CL Moore (1944, novelette) 
6. ‘That Only a Mother’, Judith Merril (1948, short story) 
7. ‘Contagion’, Katherine Maclean (1950, novelette) 
8. ‘Brightness Falls from the Air’, Margaret St Clair [as Idris Seabright] (1951, short story) 
9. ‘All Cats are Gray’, Andre Norton (1953, short story) 
10. ‘The Last Day’, Helen Clarkson (1958, short story) 
11. ‘Captivity’, Zenna Henderson (1958, novella) 
12. ‘The New You’, Kit Reed (1962, short story) 
13. ‘The Putnam Tradition’, Sonya Dorman (1963, short story) 
14. ‘Lord Moon’, MJ Engh [as Jane Beauclerk] (1965, short story) 
15. ‘Weyr Search’, Anne McCaffrey (1967, novella) 
16. ‘The Heat Death of the Universe’, Pamela Zoline (1967, short story) 
17. ‘The Steiger Effect’, Betsy Curtis (1968, short story) 
18. ‘The Power of Time’, Josephine Saxton (1971, novelette) 
19. ‘And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side’, James Tiptree Jr (1972, short story) 
20. ‘When It Changed’, Joanna Russ (1972, short story) 
21. ‘Sheltering Dream’, Doris Piserchia (1972, short story) 
22. ‘Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand’, Vonda N McIntyre (1973, novelette) 
23. ‘Clone Sister’, Pamela Sargent (1973, novelette) 
24. ‘The Violet’s Embryo’, Angélica Gorodischer (1973, novelette) 
25. ‘Stone Circle’, Lisa Tuttle (1976, short story) 
26. ‘Eyes of Amber’, Joan D Vinge (1977, novelette) 
27. ‘Cassandra, CJ Cherryh (1978, short story) 
28. ‘The View from Endless Scarp’, Marta Randall (1978, short story) 
29. ‘Scorched Supper on New Niger’, Suzy McKee Charnas (1980, novelette) 
30. ‘Abominable’, Carol Emshwiller (1980, short story) 
31. ‘Sea Changeling’, Mildred Downey Broxon (1981, novelette) 
32. ‘In the Western Tradition’, Phyllis Eisenstein (1981, novella) 
33. ‘Her Furry Face’, Leigh Kennedy (1983, short story) 
34. ‘Bloodchild’ Octavia E Butler (1984, novelette) 
35. ‘Symphony for a Lost Traveller’, Lee Killough (1984, short story) 
36. ‘All My Darling Daughters’, Connie Willis (1985, novelette) 
37. ‘Webrider’, Jayge Carr (1985, short story) 
38. ‘Out of All Them Bright Stars’, Nancy Kress (1985, short story) 
39. ‘The View from Venus: A Case Study’, Karen Joy Fowler (1986, novelette) 
40. ‘Reichs-Peace’, Sheila Finch (1986, novelette) 
41. ‘Daily Voices’, Lisa Goldstein (1986, short story) 
42. ‘Rachel in Love’, Pat Murphy (1987, novelette) 
43. ‘Forever Yours, Anna’, Kate Wilhelm (1987, short story) 
44. ‘Stable Strategies for Middle Management’, Eileen Gunn (1988, short story) 
45. ‘War and Rumours of War’, Candas Jane Dorsey (1988, short story) 
46. ‘The Mountains of Mourning’, Lois McMaster Bujold (1989, novella) 
47. ‘Tiny Tango’, Judith Moffett (1989, novella) 
48. ‘Identifying the Object’, Gwyneth Jones (1990, novelette) 
49. ‘Loose Cannon’, Susan Shwartz (1990, novelette) 
50. ‘Dispatches from the Revolution’, Pat Cadigan (1991, novelette) 
51. ‘The Road to Jerusalem’, Mary Gentle (1991, short story) 
52. ‘The Missionary’s Child’, Maureen F McHugh (1992, novelette) 
53. ‘The Story So Far’, Martha Soukup (1993, short story) 
54. ‘The Good Pup’, Bridget McKenna (1993, short story) 
55. ‘California Dreamer’, Mary Rosenblum (1994, short story) 
56. ‘Last Summer at Mars Hill’, Elizabeth Hand (1994, novella) 
57. ‘Coming of Age in Karhide’, Ursula K Le Guin (1995, novelette) 
58. ‘De Secretis Mulierum’, L Timmel Duchamp (1995, novella)
59. ‘Merlusine’, Lucy Sussex (1997, novelette) 
60. ‘Noble Mold’, Kage Baker (1997, short story) 
61. ‘All the Birds of Hell’, Tanith Lee (1998, novelette) 
62. ‘Rain Season’, Leanne Frahm (1998, short story) 
63. ‘Echea’, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1998, novelette) 
64. ‘Patient Zero’, Tananarive Due (2000, short story) 
65. ‘Knapsack Poems’, Eleanor Arnason (2002, short story) 
66. ‘State of Oblivion’, Kaaron Warren (2003, short story) 
67. ‘Inside Out’, Michaela Roessner (2004, short story) 
68. ‘Griots of the Galaxy’, Andrea Hairston (2004, novelette) 
69. ‘Riding the White Bull’, Caitlín R Kiernan (2004, novelette) 
70. ‘The Avatar of Background Noise’, Toiya Kristen Finley (2006, short story) 
71. ‘Captive Girl’, Jennifer Pelland (2006, short story) 
72. ‘The Bride Price’, Cat Sparks (2007, short story) 
73. ‘Tideline’, Elizabeth Bear (2007, short story) 
74. ‘Arkfall’, Carolyn Ives Gilman (2008, novella) 
75. ‘Legolas does the Dishes’, Justina Robson (2008, short story) 
76. ‘The Ecologist and the Avon Lady’, Tricia Sullivan (2008, novelette) 
77. ‘Infinities’, Vandana Singh (2008, novelette) 
78. ‘Chica, Let Me Tell You a Story’, Alex Dally MacFarlane (2008, short story) \
79. ‘Spider the Artist’, Nnedi Okrafor (2008, short story) 
80. ‘Cold Words’, Juliette Wade (2009, novelette) 
81. ‘Eros, Philia, Agape’, Rachel Swirsky (2009, novelette) 
82. ‘Non-Zero Probabilities’, NK Jemisin (2009, short story) 
83. ‘Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast’, Eugie Foster (2009, short story)
84. ‘It Takes Two’, Nicola Griffith (2009, novelette) 
85. ‘Blood, Blood’, Abbey Mei Otis (2010, short story) 
86. ‘The Other Graces’, Alice Sola Kim (2010, short story) 
87. ‘Agents of Repair’, Rosie Oliver (2010, short story) 
88. ‘Amaryllis’, Carrie Vaughn (2010, short story) 
89. ‘I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno’, Vylar Kaftan (2010, short story) 
90. ‘Flying in the Face of God’, Nina Allan (2010, short story) 
91. ‘Six Months, Three Days’, Charlie Jane Anders (2011, short story) 
92. ‘Nahiku West’, Linda Nagata (2011, novelette) 
93. ‘The Cartographer Bees and the Anarchist Wasps’, E Lily Yu (2011, short story) 
94. ‘Silently and Very Fast’, Catherynne M Valente (2011, novella) 
95. ‘Jagannath’, Karin Tidbeck (2011, short story)
96. ‘A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel’, Yoon Ha Lee (2011, short story)
97. ‘Immersion’, Aliette de Bodard (2012, short story)
98. ‘The Lady Astronaut of Mars’, Mary Robinette Kowal (2012, novelette)
99. ‘The Green’, Lauren Beukes (2012, short story)
100. ‘Significant Dust’, Margo Lanagan (2012, novelette)

Recommended Reading and the Tempest Bradford Challenge

I've never signed on to the Tempest Bradford challenge to stop reading books by White, Straight, Cis Male Authors for One Year. I can't bring myself to put off reading good books by authors I love for a year.

However, inspired by the challenge, I have looked more closely into my past reading choices and found that they are overwhelmingly skewed towards white male authors. And based on this, I have made an effort to seek out work from a more diverse group of authors over the past year and will continue to do so in future. The lists of books read on the right of this blog, although by no means complete, should show that I am making progress in this regard. But progress could be faster.

It is not that hard to find good writing in SFF by authors other than white males. However, it never hurts to have lists of good books to assist in that search. I have recently found two such lists that look quite promising.

The first is derived from a list compiled in 2013 by David G. Hartwell, senior editor at Tor Books, of "major books of science fiction written by women over the period 1984 to 2001." This list was originally published by The New York Review of Science Fiction and was attractively organized by Worlds Without End (which is where I stumbled upon it). Alphabetically by author, with year of publication in parentheses:

1. Brother Termite, Patricia Anthony (1993)
2. A Woman Of The Iron People, Eleanor Arnason (1991)
3. Ring of Swords, Eleanor Arnason (1993)
4. Primary Inversion, Catherine Asaro (1995)
5. The Last Hawk, Catherine Asaro (1997)
6. The Quantum Rose, Catherine Asaro (2000)
7. Unwillingly to Earth, Pauline Ashwell (1992)
8. Crash Course, Wihelmina Baird (1993)
9. In the Garden of Iden, Kage Baker (1998)
10. Sky Coyote, Kage Baker (1999)
11. The Best of . . ., Marion Zimmer Bradley (1985)
12. The Warrior’s Apprentice, Lois McMaster Bujold (1986)
13. Borders of Infinity, Lois McMaster Bujold (1989)
14. Falling Free, Lois McMaster Bujold (1988)
15. The Vor Game, Lois McMaster Bujold (1990)
16. Mirror Dance, Lois McMaster Bujold (1994)
17. Cetaganda, Lois McMaster Bujold (1996)
18. Dreamweaver’s Dilemma, Lois McMaster Bujold (1996)
19. Memory, Lois McMaster Bujold (1996)
20. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold (1999)
21. Falcon, Emma Bull (1989)
22. Bone Dance, Emma Bull (1991)
23. Dawn, Octavia Butler (1987)
24. Adulthood Rites, Octavia Butler (1988)
25. Imago, Octavia Butler (1989)
26. Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler (1994)
27. Bloodchild and Other Stories, Octavia Butler (1995)
28. Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler (1998)
29. Mindplayers, Pat Cadigan (1987)
30. Patterns, Pat Cadigan (1989)
31. Synners, Pat Cadigan (1991)
32. Home by the Sea, Pat Cadigan (1992)
33. Dirty Work, Pat Cadigan (1993)
34. Promised Land, Pat Cadigan (1999)
35. Dervish Is Digital, Pat Cadigan (2001)
36. The Furies, Suzy McKee Charnas (1994)
37. The Conqueror’s Child, Suzy McKee Charnas (1999)
38. Chanur’s Venture, CJ Cherryh (1984)
39. Voyager in Night, CJ Cherryh (1984)
40. Cuckoo’s Egg, CJ Cherryh (1985)
41. The Kif Strike Back, CJ Cherryh (1985)
42. Chanur’s Homecoming, CJ Cherryh (1986)
43. Visible Light, CJ Cherryh (1986)
44. Cyteen, CJ Cherryh (1988)
45. Rimrunners, CJ Cherryh (1989)
46. Heavy Time, CJ Cherryh (1991)
47. Hellburner, CJ Cherryh (1992)
48. Foreigner, CJ Cherryh (1994)
49. Invader, CJ Cherryh (1995)
50. Rider at the Gate, CJ Cherryh (1995)
51. Inheritor, CJ Cherryh (1996)
52. Precursor, CJ Cherryh (1999)
53. Defender, CJ Cherryh (2001)
54. Mainline, Deborah Christian (1996)
55. Mutagenesis, Helen Collins (1993)
56. Beholder’s Eye, Julie Czerneda (1998)
57. In the Company of Others, Julie Czerneda (2001)
58. A Paradigm of Earth, Candas Jane Dorsey (2001)
59. Native Tongue*, Suzette Haden Elgin (1984)
60. Jaran, Kate Elliott (1992)
61. City of Diamond, Jane Emerson (1995)
62. The Start of the End of It All and Other Stories, Carol Emshwiller (1990)
63. Rainbow Man, MJ Engh (1993)
64. Infinity’s Web, Sheila Finch (1985)
65. Artificial Things, Karen Joy Fowler (1986)
66. Sarah Canary, Karen Joy Fowler (1991)
67. Black Glass, Karen Joy Fowler (1998)
68. In Conquest Born, CS Friedman (1987)
69. Halfway Human*, Carolyn Ives Gilman (1998)
70. The Dazzle of Day, Molly Gloss (1997)
71. A Mask for the General, Lisa Goldstein (1987)
72. Queen City Jazz, Kathleen Ann Goonan (1994)
73. The Bones of Time, Kathleen Ann Goonan (1996)
74. Mississippi Blues, Kathleen Ann Goonan (1997)
75. Crescent City Rhapsody, Kathleen Ann Goonan (2000)
76. Flesh and Gold, Phyllis Gotlieb (1998)
77. Ammonite, Nicola Griffith (1993)
78. Slow River, Nicola Griffith (1995)
79. Winterlong, Elizabeth Hand (1990)
80. Æstival Tide, Elizabeth Hand (1992)
81. Icarus Descending, Elizabeth Hand (1993)
82. Glimmering, Elizabeth Hand (1997)
83. Last Summer At Mars Hill, Elizabeth Hand (1998)
84. Midnight Robber, Nalo Hopkinson (2000)
85. Divine Endurance, Gwyneth Jones (1984)
86. Escape Plans, Gwyneth Jones (1986)
87. Kairos, Gwyneth Jones (1988)
88. White Queen, Gwyneth Jones (1991)
89. North Wind, Gwyneth Jones (1994)
90. Bold as Love, Gwyneth Jones (2001)
91. Hellspark, Janet Kagan (1988)
92. Mirabile, Janet Kagan (1991)
93. The Journal of Nicholas the American, Leigh Kennedy (1986)
94. Polar City Blues, Katherine Kerr (1990)
95. The Silver Kiss, Annette Curtis Klause (1990)
96. Trinity and Other Stories, Nancy Kress (1985)
97. An Alien Light, Nancy Kress (1988)
98. Brain Rose, Nancy Kress (1990)
99. The Aliens of Earth, Nancy Kress (1993)
100. Beggars in Spain, Nancy Kress (1993)
101. Beggars & Choosers, Nancy Kress (1994)
102. Beggars Ride, Nancy Kress (1996)
103. Beaker’s Dozen, Nancy Kress (1998)
104. Probability Moon, Nancy Kress (2000)
105. Probability Sun, Nancy Kress (2001)
106. Dreams of Dark and Light, Tanith Lee (1986)
107. Night’s Sorceries, Tanith Lee (1987)
108. Always Coming Home, Ursula K LeGuin (1985)
109. Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences, Ursula K LeGuin (1987)
110. A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, Ursula K LeGuin (1994)
111. Four Ways to Forgiveness, Ursula K LeGuin (1995)
112. Unlocking the Air and Other Stories, Ursula K LeGuin (1996)
113. The Telling, Ursula K LeGuin (2000)
114. Arachne, Lisa Mason (1990)
115. Summer of Love, Lisa Mason (1994)
116. An Exchange of Hostages, Susan R Matthews (1997)
117. The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall, Anne McCaffrey (1993)
118. The Girl Who Heard Dragons, Anne McCaffrey (1994)
119. China Mountain Zhang, Maureen McHugh (1992)
120. Mission Child, Maureen McHugh (1998)
121. Nekropolis, Maureen McHugh (2001)
122. Murphy’s Gambit, Syne Mitchell (2000)
123. The Ragged World, Judith Moffett (1991)
124. Remnant Population, Elizabeth Moon (1996)
125. Once a Hero, Elizabeth Moon (1997)
126. The City, Not Long After, Pat Murphy (1989)
127. Points of Departure, Pat Murphy (1990)
128. Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, Elizabeth Moon (1988)
129. Lunar Activity, Elizabeth Moon (1990)
130. Deception Well, Linda Nagata (1997)
131. Vast, Linda Nagata (1998)
132. Limit of Vision, Linda Nagata (2001)
133. Becoming Alien, Rebecca Ore (1987)
134. Being Alien, Rebecca Ore (1989)
135. Alien Bootlegger and Other Stories, Rebecca Ore (1993)
136. Gaia’s Toys, Rebecca Ore (1995)
137. The Annunciate, Severna Park (1999)
138. Little Sisters of the Apocalypse, Kit Reed (1995)
139. Silver Screen, Justina Robson (1999)
140. Synthesis and Other Virtual Realities, Mary Rosenblum (1996)
141. Chimera, Mary Rosenblum (1993)
142. The Drylands, Mary Rosenblum (1993)
143. Alien Influences, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1994)
144. Extra(Ordinary) People, Joanna Russ (1984)
145. The Hidden Side Of The Moon, Joanna Russ (1988)
146. Venus of Dreams, Pamela Sargent (1986)
147. The Best of . . ., Pamela Sargent (1987)
148. The Healer’s War, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (1988)
149. The Game Beyond, Melissa Scott (1984)
150. Trouble and Her Friends, Melissa Scott (1994)
151. Shadow Man, Melissa Scott (1995)
152. Night Sky Mine, Melissa Scott (1996)
153. The Shapes of Their Hearts, Melissa Scott (1998)
154. Reef Song, Carol Severance (1991)
155. Heritage of Flight, Susan M Shwartz (1989)
156. Legacies, Alison Sinclair (1995)
157. A Door into Ocean, Joan Slonczewski (1986)
158. The Children Star, Joan Slonczewski (1998)
159. Code Of Conduct, Kristine Smith (1999)
160. Other Nature, Stephanie Smith (1995)
161. The Arbitrary Placement of Walls, Martha Soukup (1997)
162. Alien Taste, Wen Spencer (2001)
163. Chance and Other Gestures of the Hand of Fate, Nancy Springer (1987)
164. Larque on the Wing, Nancy Springer (1994)
165. After Long Silence, Sheri S Tepper (1987)
166. Grass, Sheri S Tepper (1989)
167. Raising the Stones, Sheri S Tepper (1990)
168. The Fresco, Sherri S Tepper (2000)
169. Virtual Girl, Amy Thomson (1993)
170. The Color of Distance, Amy Thomson (1995)
171. Through Alien Eyes, Amy Thomson (1999)
172. Brightness Falls from the Air, James Tiptree Jr (1985)
173. Tales of the Quintana Roo, James Tiptree Jr (1986)
174. Crown of Stars, James Tiptree Jr (1988)
175. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, James Tiptree Jr (1990)
176. Lost Futures, Lisa Tuttle (1992)
177. World’s End, Joan D Vinge (1984)
178. Phoenix in the Ashes, Joan D Vinge (1985)
179. Catspaw, Joan D Vinge (1988)
180. Opalite Moon, Denise Vitola (1997)
181. The Silent City, Élisabeth Vonarburg (1988)
182. In the Mother’s Land, Élisabeth Vonarburg (1992)
183. Reluctant Voyagers, Élisabeth Vonarburg (1995)
184. Whiteout, Sage Walker (1996)
185. Mother Grimm, Catherine Wells (1997)
186. Children of the Wind, Kate Wilhelm (1989)
187. And the Angels Sing, Kate Wilhelm (1992)
188. The Ghost Sister, Liz Williams (2001)
189. Sea as Mirror, Tess Williams (2000)
190. Fire Watch, Connie Willis (1985)
191. Doomsday Book, Connie Willis (1992)
192. Impossible Things, Connie Willis (1993)
193. To Say Nothing of The Dog, Connie Willis (1998)
194. Passage, Connie Willis (2001)
195. Looking for the Mahdi, N Lee Wood (1996)
196. Sister Emily’s Lightship and Other Stories, Jane Yolen (2000)
197. Reclamation, Sarah Zettel (1996)
198. Fool’s War, Sarah Zettel (1997)
199. Playing God, Sarah Zettel (1998)
200. Busy About the Tree of Life, Pamela Zoline (1988)

I am disturbed both by the fact that I have read very few of these books, as well as by the fact that I have read even fewer of the authors.

The second is a list of 19 Science-Fiction And Fantasy Novels By Women Of Color curated by Anjali Patel. The list in full:

1. Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler
2. The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson
3. Who Fears Death, by Nnedi Okorafar
4. Spirits of the Ordinary: A Tale of Casas Grandes, by Kathleen Alcala
5. Ash, by Malinda Lo
6. The Salt Roads, by Nalo Hopkinson
7. A Stranger in Olondria, by Sofia Samatar
8. Joplin's Ghost, by Tananarive Due
9. The Stars Change, by Mary Anne Mohanraj
10. The Antelope Wife, by Louise Erdrich
11. Almanac of the Dead, by Leslie Marmon Silko
12. The Gilda Stories, by Jewelle Gomez
13. Island of Eternal Love, by Daína Chaviano
14. Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord
15. So Far from God, by Ana Castillo
16. Ink, by Sabrina Vourvoulias
17. Orleans, by Sherri L. Smith
18. Salt Fish Girl: A Novel, by Larissa Lai
19. The Lost Girl, by Sangu Mandanna

Unlike the first list, I have read a few of these and look forward to reading more over the coming months (and years).

Book Review: Naomi Novik Uprooted

Naomi Novik is the author of the popular Temeraire series of novels, an alternate history, in which the English and French fight the Napoleonic Wars atop flying and talking dragons. Uprooted, which appears to be a stand alone novel, takes place in a different universe, instead being set in a fantasy version of Eastern Europe. Indeed, it is apparently loosely based on a Polish folk tale.

The protagonist of Uprooted is Agnieszka, a rural peasant girl growing up in a valley next to The Wood, a mysterious and hostile forest. The residents of the valley rely on the local wizard, known as The Dragon, to protect them from The Wood. In payment, the Dragon takes a 17 year old girl once every ten years to live with him. No-one knows what the (very long lived) Dragon does with these girls, except that at the end of their decade with him they do not wish to stay in the valley and return to their old village life.

As we enter the story, the decade is coming to an end and the Dragon will soon choose his next girl. Agnieszka is of the right age but does not expect to be selected due to the presence of her friend Kasia, who is beautiful and talented and has been groomed by expectations of her choosing for many years. To everyone's surprise but the reader the Dragon turns up and chooses Agnieszka who is whisked off to live as part servant, part student in the Dragon's tower. For Agnieszka turns out to have some facility with magic and it is the Dragon's obligation to tutor her in it.

The rest of the book then takes some interesting trails through what is otherwise familiar territory. The Dragon is forced to deal with the young and feisty Agnieszka and must un-learn some of his curmudgeonly ways. Agnieszka must learn to let go of her plans for her life, while fighting to keep intact her ties to the people of her village. The Dragon turns out to be a poor tutor for Agnieszka as her magical powers take a different but complementary form to his own and she must turn instead to a book written by the mysterious Baba Jaga. Together, they must learn to confront the forces that live inside The Wood before those forces overwhelm their entire world.

Novik writes very well which makes for a very brisk read. The Eastern European setting, while not differing tremendously from the standard Western European medieval fantasy, adds an interesting flavor to the mix. I found Agnieszka to be very likeable, and thought the character behaved intelligently and reasonably in light of the information she has available to her. If this sounds like I am damning with faint praise, it is not intended to be that way: far too often I find myself bouncing off a fantasy novel because I do not find the characters' actions believable. That is not a problem here.

As the book reaches its climax, there is a predictable (dare I say clichéd?) digression into a discussion of how humanity's contempt for nature is the root cause (pardon the pun) of evil lurking within The Wood. But just when I was afraid that the book was going to veer off into some sort of environmental screed, the book recovers and ends with the neutral message that nature and humanity need to find a balance, with nature accepting the inevitability of "progress". This is not the sort of heavy handed message fiction complained about by the Sad and Rabid Puppies.

Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot.  It was a fun read populated with compelling characters, with enough differences from the typical fantasy to make it seem fresh. On my patented rating scale, that makes it a "very good" ...

R⁴ Rating: 8 out of 10.

Recommended Reading and Diversity

A minor shit storm erupted a week or so ago when two prominent male authors were asked for recommended science fiction reading and came up with lists that were not exactly diverse (for the response see E. Catherine Tobler's and Natalie Luhrs Pretty Terrible blogs).

Andy Weir of The Martian fame (to be reviewed here soon) held a Q&A on Twitter with @XploreDeepSpace, and they asked him if he would recommend SF authors to high school readers. His response was a list of six white men:

Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke. For more recent authors, I recommend Ernest Cline, Peter Clines, and Hugh Howey

Ernest Cline, of Ready Player One fame, was simply asked to give a list of his 10 favorite SFF and came up with:

1. Carl Sagan, Contact
2. Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
3. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
4. Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon
5. Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
6. Ken Grimwood, Replay
7. Jack Vance, Planet of Adventure
8. Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination
9. George R.R. Martin, Tuf Voyaging
10. Andy Weir, The Martian

What would I have recommended? Off the top of my head? And how much of a shit storm would my list have produced?

Truthfully, I don't know. The thought of reducing a lifetime's reading to a list of only 10 favorites is daunting. Answering off-the-top-of-my-head, I imagine I would forget many great books and then look back on the resulting list with more than a little embarrassment.

Moreover, the books I would recommend would be quite different for different audiences.

So, to make things more concrete, let's say I had to recommend a list of 10 books to a group of high schoolers. This adds to the difficulty, since I now have to balance my taste as an adult against what I recall my taste in high school to have been. And looking back at my high school reading, I find that I am overcome by sentimentality.

Since I read a lot more fantasy than science fiction in high school, I will cast a wider net than Andy was asked to do; I also decided to recommend a specific work by each author.

My list, in roughly the order I read them, along with the reasons for inclusion:

1. Ursula Le Guin. A Wizard of Earthsea. My generation's Harry Potter.
2. JRR Tolkein. Lord of the Rings. Duh!
3. Anne McCaffery. Dragonriders of Pern. The first author and book that I fell truly and deeply in love with.
4. Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game. A book I have returned to many times (a problematic author we'll come back to).
5. Frank Herbert. Dune. Maybe my favorite book of all time.
6. Isaac Asimov. Foundation. Although I cannot point to a specific "aha!" moment, like Paul Krugman I figure these books must have influenced my decision to pursue a career in the mathematical social sciences.
7. Robert Heinlein. Starship Troopers. Rollicking adventure combined with some interesting thoughts about how to govern society (message fiction!)
8. Octavia Butler. Kindred. Although I did not read Butler until after leaving high school, I was blown away by her use of science fiction/fantasy/horror as a vehicle for exploring important contemporary social issues. A certified genius!
9. George R.R. Martin. A Game of Thrones. Also maybe my favorite book of all time.
10. Brandon Sanderson. Mistborn. At a time when I had mostly given up reading SFF, this book reawakened my love of the genre.

How did I do on the diversity stakes? Three women; one, a woman of color. Not bad, but not as diverse as it could be. Enough to avoid censure? I don't know. But informative and reason enough for me to seek out a more diverse list of authors to read in the future, even if I am not about to accept K. Tempest Bradford's challenge.