Pointing at Science Fiction, part II

From Kung Fu Monkey:

For optional Category B: We can all agree on the classics. but what's your little obsession? The book/work you live which you can't honestly say has reached classic status quite yet, but it knocked you on your ass. Who's your favorite underrated dark horse or up-and-comer?

I probably have a few of those, too. Let's see...

Alan E. Nourse

One of my favorite authors as a kid, right up there with Andre Norton and Robert Heinlein. A surgeon by training, he wrote books like Raiders from the Rings and Star Surgeon. The former involves a variation on the "Mars needs women" theme, where space causes women to be sterile, but not men. (OK, so a doctor should have known better.) Anyway, there's a whole lot about kidnapping young women, aliens who live in the asteroid belt, anti-missile missiles, etc. Great fun. Nourse also wrote a book called Blade Runner—a title borrowed later for a PKD novel. The Nourse book is about illegal medicine, not replicants.

The works of Cordwainer Smith

Sure, many people have read the simply bizarre "Scanners Live in Vain," which gave us the verb "to cranch." Total mindfuck of a story, actually. There's also "The Game of Rat and Dragon," a short story about fighting the monsters of space with psychic cats. Taken as a whole, Smith (aka Dr. Paul M.A. Linebarger, author of a book on interrogation techniques and adviser to Sun Yat-Sen) wrote a series of interconnected stories about the Instrumentality of Man. There are hints at a larger structure, and the NEFSA press anthology attempts to put them in the correct order. Worth a look.

Revelation Space -- Alastair Reynolds

One of the bigger New Space Opera writers, Reynolds has written some gripping short stories and novels. I strongly recommend his first and second novels, though I was less satisfied with the resolution in the last pair of books. Sooner or later they will collect his short fiction into a larger trade, but for now you can get a sample of them in Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days.

Under the Eye of God -- David Gerrold

This is Gerrold's reworking of a failed TV script into a pair of novels. Vampires, talking puppies, double- and triple-crosses, loads of fun for the whole family. OK, the sequel, Covenant of Justice, is depressing in spots. But this is one of the few books I started rereading again as soon as I finished it. Of course, that could be that I was in Nebraska at the time and there wasn't much else to do...

Marrow -- Robert Reed

Like Beggars in Spain, this is a short story expanded into novel length. Unlike the Nancy Kress novel, it does a good job of building on the source material. (I was sorely disappointed by Beggars in Spain. It made Kornbluth's story "The Marching Morons" look chipper and optimistic. Plus, the main character that is the focus of the short story gets turned into a cipher very quickly in the novel.) Reed is a prolific writer with a huge body of work. His stories about the Ship—sort of a cruiseliner for immortals—are my favorites, though I also like his story from a few years ago about a guy who makes a virus that makes every pregnant woman on earth pregnant with... him. You should also check out his short story collection, The Dragons of Springplace.

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand -- Samuel R. Delany

My copy of this reads as "part 1 of 2." It's been over a decade, where is my part 2? Seriously, though, this book really messed with my head, in a good way.

Coming soon! Parts III and IV! Same robot time, same robot channel!