The Best Science Fiction series? Why May of course!
Feb 07 '02
The Bottom Line Want something you can really escape into? Try these, they might have never gotten the hype of Tolkein or Clarke or Asimov, but they're certainly worth the look.
When I was a teenager a long time ago, I could be found with my nose stuck in a book. History, fantasy, science fiction, it didn't matter what it was, as long as it was interesting and it caught my imagination. Some series were duds, and have long since faded into the dusty shadows of used book stores. Others I have sought out copies in hardbound or rare editions to be prized and made a permanent part of my home.
So here are some of my favorite, not quite mainstream, science fiction reads. Some are just a couple steps above pulp, others are technical or sociological marvels, exploring the universe as we might find it in a few centuries or two.
Julian May's The Saga of Pliocene Exile and The Galactic Millieu
Set in a universe that's our own, and just around the corner, this is one of the best character-driven space operas I've ever read. There's exotic aliens aplenty, ancient celtic mythology, science-fiction and science-fact, psychic powers, and quite possibly one of the best time-travel twists I've ever read about. Her character of Marc Remillard (and his uncle Rogi) are two of the best hero/anti-heroes I've ever read, so complete and detailed that you know you could meet them on the street anywhere; there's other characters as well, from the trickster Aiken Drum, the malefic Felice, the exotic Tanu and Firvulag, to Jack the Bodiless, who is mankind's future, and faceless Diamond Mask - and that's just scratching the surface. The novels of Exile are:The Many-Colored Land, The Golden Torc, The Nonborn King and The Adversary. The novels of the Galactic Milieu are: Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat. There is also a linking volume called Intervention, which ties all of it together. For the best effect, read the books in the order that they were published, which makes the last volume filled with even more meaning.
C. J. Cherryh's Alliance/Union novels
This is hard science fiction at its best, with the riddles of technology and morals come together in thoughtful novels. The first one, Downbelow Station picked up the Hugo for best novel, and another Cyteen was nominated. Merchanter's Luck moves from the grand space opera to the tale of a lone ship, struggling to survive in the trade routes, and Rimrunners where a woman out on her own fights to survive on an outlaw ship and rebuild her future. If you discover that you like her work, I'd suggest moving onto the Chanur series, and the Gate novels, which combine elements of fantasy and science in the mysterious, dangerous character of Morgaine.
Anne McCaffery's Pern series
Her first Dragonriders novel, Dragonflight is a classic, first published in the sixties, and still going strong almost forty years later, with more than a dozen sequels. There's at least a dozen, and enjoyable for both teens and adults. Some of the themes are dark, with her valiant dragons and their riders that seek to rid the planet Pern of the Thread, a devouring organism that visits their planet every two hundred or so years. McCaffery has traveled from when the planet was first founded, Dragonsdawn to when the dragonriders finally manage to solve the riddle of Thread, in All the Weyrs of Pern -- or have they? These two are also character driven, with plenty of likeable, honorable heroes and heroines to fill your imagination. You should also read these in the order that they were published, or you can do them in the chronological order that they were set. Another series that McCaffery has penned is the Crystal Singer novels, where music and technology come together to power starships in the future.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels
The earliest of the Darkover novels are still the best, with such titles as The Heritage of Hastur, The Forbidden Tower, The Bloody Sun and The Shattered Chain. The basic premise is that a colony ship is lost on a cold, red-sunned world and they find a link between themselves and laran, the magic that is particular to Darkover. When Terrans rediscover them, we get a clash of cultures. When they were first published, they brought up a new question of sexism in science fiction and the later novels in the series became almost exclusively focused on the wars between the sexes on Darkover, which in my opinion dragged on for much too long, and eventually ruined the series for me.
Susan Matthews's The Judiciary novels
Dark, horrifying, these novels are not for everyone. The themes are bloody, concerning the use of legalized torture, enslavement, and imprisonment, all rolled up into the disturbing character of Andrej Koscuisko, a Ship's Doctor who holds the Writ of Inquiry. The novels are: An Exchange of Hostages, Hour of Judgement, A Prisoner of Conscience and Angel of Destruction. Definitely not for children or teenagers, the writing gets downright gruesome and disturbing. But they will certainly make you think.
Yes, you might have noticed that almost all of the writers that I have listed here are women. I'm not quite sure why, but these are the books that I come back to again and again. Perhaps it's the fact that these tend to raise psychological issues as well as giving us some cracking good adventure sequences. There's also a nice balance, most of the time, between male and female characters, or that the writing is so vivid at times you think you can step into the world that the author has created. I'm just scratching the surface here, there's quite a few more series out there, but these are the ones that have survived a decade or two on my bookshelves.
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Member: Rebecca Huston
Location: On the banks of the Hudson River
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Quot libros quam breve tempus!
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