From: David Kennedy 
Date: Fri, 12 May 95 12:37:30 0100
Subject: Book reviews
 
Hi, I was reading over your booklist and had a few suggestions.
 
These are all off the top of my head and as such haphazard and oddly
and arbitarily organised: :-)
 
Better Side of SF
-----------------
Robert Silverberg - Add 'Hot Sky At Midnight'
Mary Gentle - Golden Witchbreed, An Ancient Light (Better than
'Rats&Gargoyles')
Peter F. Hamilton - Mindstar Rising, A Quantum Murder, Nanoflower
Gregory Benford - Find his other books and read them.
Donaldson's Gap Series - Buy it now, its nearly all out...buy buy buy!
Storm Constantine - Surreal dreamy Sf/fantasy/magical realism. Great.
C.J. Cherryh - Heavy time, Rimrunners, Cyteen, Downbelow Station etc.
Greg Egan - Up and coming ideas man. Permutation City is very good.
John Barnes - A million open doors
John Varley - Add 'Steel Beach' for a great laugh.
Ian Watson - British ideas man. Also did some 'games' stuff. Those have WH40K
plastered all over them, butarequitegoodandyoudidn'thearmesaythat...
J.G. Ballard - Older, genteel british SF, wonderful short stories.
Pat Cadigan - Cyberpunk - hit and miss, try some of her books and see.
Michael Swanwick - Best *before* 'Iron Dragons Daughter'. Stations of the Tide
is wonderful.
David Zindell - Odd, see if youlike him. People either love or hate him.
Philip K. Dick - A MUST READ. Try and read all his short stories.
Tom Holt - Humerous writer, not a patch on PTerry, but not bad. Doesn't belong
in this category either, usually writes myth pisstakes. Faust, Beowulf etc.
Paul J. MacAuley - Great offbeat sci-fi, space opera-ish at times but very
good.
Ian McDonald - Gentler side of dreamy 'ideas with people' sci-fi.
 
 
Silly Fantasy for when your brian is tired and you
want a great read and a packet of crisps.
--------------------------------------------------
Dave Duncan's 'Seventh Swordsman' Series.
Peter Morwood's 'Old Russia' or 'Horse/demon/etc Lord'
 
Horror - Usually hate it, here are some more decent suggestions.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Tanith Lee
Clive Barker
 
 
Better Fantasy
--------------
Tim Powers                      Ignore his early books. Suddenly he got better.
Kathryn Kristine Rusch          New and worth a quick read.
Michael Scott Rohan             Dunno why but I love his books. He can write
                                well even if his stories are weak.
 
I should have taken the time to write better notes and maybe give a few
titles, but I'm in a rush! Hope you enjoy some of the suggestions anyway.
Perhaps some of the books are ones you mightn't have seen on USA shelves,
I usually find WWW booklists give a different spectrum of books due to the
predominantly American influence.
--
 
David Kennedy, Queen's University Belfast
E-mail: D.Kennedy@Queens-Belfast.ac.uk
#include