Books for Dudes: Five-Star Science Fiction

Douglas Lord -- Library Journal, 01/22/2009

After two recent indoor triathlons, I’m back to my bookish ways. I admit I’m a nerd—I’m even proud of it. I carry a nerd membership card in my pocket protector, and I know in my heart of hearts that I’m made of pure awesome.

Confession No. 1: I used to play Dungeons & Dragons (maybe I still do). Confession No. 2: Like many of my ilk, I like reading sci-fi novels. And while I can be a bit of a snob—I like good sci-fi, which I define, quite naturally, as anything I like—my tendencies toward “soft” sci-fi (plots that have fleshed-out characters and get into their psychology and/or politics) or even “hard” fantasy (it’s not all unicorns) inform my choices. Basically, I’m looking for zapper-gun stories with literary merit, something that makes me think, something set in outer space or another world. I guess that also makes me a fan of speculative fiction.

Thankfully, these tales are not difficult to find, but for every great sci-fi tome, there are at least two stinkers that substantiate the genre’s bad rep. Reading, you see, is a lot like eating: There are five-star meals à la Arthur C. Clarke and drive-through dreck, e.g., most of Anne McCaffrey, all ten Mission Earth novels, the Babylon 5 books, and the TekWar series by Cap'n Kirk himself, William Shatner. Although Bill is a personal hero, these books are total Bat Durstins. Get the idea? For this dude’s money, books not driven by franchises, which can choke out new, creative voices, are a plus.

My point is, life's too short to ingest fast food all the time. Don’t let your brain atrophy in these cold, TV-heavy months—feed it with the high-protein, low-fat goodies featured below, which I selected simply because I keep coming back to them and am never disappointed. Promise: By spring your inner nerd will be ready to emerge healthy, brawny, and whole. If you’re lucky, you’ll hatch a li'l Charleton Heston (“Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!”). That's all, folks.

Anthony, Piers. On a Pale Horse. Del Ray. 1986. 336p. ISBN 978-0-345-33858-7. pap. $7.99.
Many readers pick up Anthony, the author of approximately one zillion books, without realizing he is a series hound (notably, the Xanth books). Horse is the first in the enjoyable “Incarnations of Immortality” stories in which our hero Zane manages to kill Death just moments before his own suicide. Little does he know, however, that in doing so he must assume the “office” himself, becoming Death Incarnate. (Dude factors: it’s a pretty boss job; one perk is his horse, which can change into a muscle car.) As such, his job is to collect and weigh souls and help them reach heaven or hell. While this is interesting in and of itself, Death also interacts with other “Incarnates” (e.g., Time, War, Fate), gets to know his powers and place in the cosmic scheme, and just happens to fall in love and save the world. Each series entry centers on one Incarnate, and the various plots follow the cosmic destabilizations created by new “people” in the different offices and their shifted allegiances. In Horse, for example, they band together to ruin careful arrangements Satan has made to gain overall dominion, while in the sixth book, For Love of Evil, Satan is the hero saving the day. The fifth book, Being a Green Mother, is comparatively weak, but on the whole Anthony restrains his tendencies toward wordplay and uses logic to strengthen rather than dull the plots.

Asimov, Isaac. Forward the Foundation. Spectra: Bantam. 1994. 464p. ISBN 978-0-553-56507-2. pap. $7.99.
Asimov began the seminal future history series dubbed “Foundation” in the late 1940s with Foundation, Foundation Empire, and Second Foundation (books three, four, and five, respectively) and came back to it in the 1980s (Foundation Edge, etc.), posthumously polishing it off with Forward in 1993. Though written last, Forward is placed second in the seven-book* series and centers on Hari Seldon (many think this character mirrors Asimov himself) who created psychohistory, “a mathematical way of analyzing human society that ends by predicting the future.” After ruining a villainous, anti-Imperial plot on planet Trantor, the charismatic and, as they say in Boston, “wikked smaht” Seldon becomes First Minister to Emperor Cleon I. While Seldon escapes an assassination attempt, Cleon doesn’t, which puts Seldon out of a job. Subsequently, Seldon continues working with psychohistory; his physical aging and the loss of his loved ones mirror the regression of universal civilization and foreshadows the fall of the Galactic Empire that Asimov chronicled in book one. Dialog frequently carries the plot and action, and characters sometimes seem a little stiff since the books are so concerned with societal change. An especially lucid writer, Asimov is classed in nine of the ten DDC ranges (he missed the 100s). He’s called The Grand Master for a reason. Dude factor: Best. Sideburns. Ever. (See LJ’s original review.)

Bova, Ben. Moonrise. Avon. 1996. 417p. ISBN 978-0-380-97302-6. $24.95.
Here we have a solid entry in Bova’s 16-book strong saga called "The Grand Tour," which centers on near-future space colonization. While the characters sometimes feel a bit thin, the story is driven by battles between the mad heir apparent of a private space exploration company and two generations of heroes named Stavenger (first Paul, then his fantastically named son, Doug). The struggle for control of Moonbase’s profits involves murder and mayhem and typifies this series: expeditions run into problems with talented but reluctant heroes; conflicting societal forces exist among “pure” scientists, enviroesque activists, and corporations led by greedy industrialists. The series remains internally plausible, and while there is lots of cool space stuff like nanotechnology and Clipperships that go from New York to Buenos Ares in 45 minutes, these are primarily human dramas. The especially prolific Bova (over 100 fiction and nonfiction books; former editor of both Analog and Omni magazines) began the series in the early 1990s and wrote them wildly out of order. Chronologically, they begin with Powersat and lead up to Venus. Bova’s web site gives a rough reading order. Dude factor: you’ll learn that Saturn has a moon called Titan. (See LJ’s original review.)

Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles. HarperCollins. 1997. 288p. ISBN 978-0-380-97383-5. $15.95.
This 1950 short story cycle is a future history of the colonization of the Red planet. At first, the Martians repel the invaders, but Earth’s fourth expedition succeeds, helped along by a plague that decimates the natives. The trickle of early settlers turns into a river, and soon Mars is a copy of the Earth everyone was so intent to leave—rotten. One story, “The Off Season,” relates a nuclear war on Earth and how most of the settlers return there; the few who stay behind become “new” Martians. Lyrical, compelling, and critical of crass consumerism, these tales feel every bit the sci-fi cousin to Bradbury’s wonderful Dandelion Wine (1957), a series of short stories centering on the boyhood adventures of awesomely named preteen Douglas in 1920s Illinois. It’s hard not to be enthusiastic about these works, which are by turns celebrations and dirges about youth, growth, and innocence, wherein Bradbury’s seemingly limitless imagination turns the humdrum—soda fountains! lawnmowers!—into explorations of subjects like human time machines and witchcraft. But Bradbury doesn’t just do short stories; his long game is good, too (see the noir gem Let’s All Kill Constance). Dude factors: Bradbury’s merciless attitude toward his characters—many die—not to mention his knack for exotic locations, be it Mexico, Ireland, or Mars. Also, the man loves libraries (see LJ’s video with the writer from last summer’s ALA).

Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game. Starscape: Tor. 2002. 336p. ISBN 978-0-7653-4229-4. pap. $5.99.
A space-age Lord of the Flies thrill ride (sans the psychological couch trip), this follows six-year-old Ender Wiggin’s odyssey from being the smartest, smallest boy in Battle School to savior of humankind. To prepare for an upcoming war with a devastatingly murderous insectoid race (the “formics,” aka “buggers”), select earth children are trained on “the Battle Game.” Aptest pupil ever Ender quickly rises to the top of Battle School, which has twice the nasty of any boarding school and all the charms of a snake pit (Battle School dude factors are endless). Many Card novels are spun outward from this tale, including the recent Ender in Exile. Dude factor: While these works can be enjoyed individually, they tend to enhance one another. For example, reading Ender’s Shadow, which focuses on the fascinating and tragic character of Bean, is heightened by knowing all about Bean’s hyperdevotion to (and competition with) Ender. The chronological details of various books remain in neat order, with some entries complementing others during simultaneous time frames and others serving as prequels or sequels. Also fascinating is the shift between the blunt action of Ender’s Game and its two immediate sequels, Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide; these are completely different in style, yet similarly captivating on a philosophical plane. In 2008, Tor published Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind in one big gift set, ISBN 978-0-7653-6243-8.

Zelazny, Roger. Nine Princes in Amber. Thorndike. 1998. 255p. ISBN 978-0-7838-8425-7. $23.95.
Confession No. 3: This book is out of print (sorry!), but it tells a story as old as the hills, one of retrograde amnesia, a discovery of godlike lineage, travel through multiple worlds, and freakishly cool sorcery. Zelazny skillfully and gradually reveals the plot of this individual novel as well as introduces major series machinations that lead readers onward to the other stories in the “Chronicles of Amber.” The first five books follow Corwin, a prince in the House of Amber, as he gains, loses, regains, and generally messes about with the family throne amid the constant shifting alliances of his eight brothers, armies that they raise, assassinations, and various real and shadow worlds. There’s also The Trumps (not Donald and Ivanka), a tarot deck with images of family members that offer contact and teleportation when used. As in much saga fiction, cosmic forces (in this case Pattern and Chaos) influence life and result in plot. The next five entries in the series follow Corwin’s son Merlin, who is a product of both Pattern (Corwin) and Chaos (on his mother’s side) as he is pursued by various friends and foes. While certainly enjoyable, the Merlin novels feel more contemporary; some call them second-tier, but it’s fairer to consider them a new series. Dude factors: intrigue, power, assassinations. Can't find this on Half.com or eBay? Eos published all ten novels in one massive tome in 1999, ISBN 978-0-380-80906-6.

*There were seven books in the series proper, though Asimov linked them with his “Robot” and “Empire” novels. Plus, other authors (including Orson Scott Card, see below) have written in the series.