From: "Phil McDown" 
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 97 15:54:58 PST

     Good Afternoon Doug:
     
     I just discovered your book review page today (I backed into it from 
     the John D. MacDonald Homepage).  I read all of your favorite letters 
     so I could avoid as much duplication as I could.  To help you decide 
     on the quantity of salt to sprinkle on my recommendations: I'm one of 
     those folks who never made it past page 100 of Thomas Covenent.  
     Onward...
     
     My first recommendation is the above mentioned John D. MacDonald, 
     although known primarily as a writer of thrillers such as the justly 
     famed Travis McGee series, he also wrote speculative fiction.  My 
     favorite among his S.F. novels is The Girl, The Gold Watch and 
     Everything.  The basic premise is answering the question: If you had a 
     device that slowed your personal time stream by a factor of several 
     thousand, what would you do with it?  A relatively insipid made-for-tv 
     movie with John Ritter and Pam Dawber came out some years ago, but 
     (the old cliche) the book was MUCH better.
     
     One gaping omission in your list, which I'm pleased to fix for you is 
     H. Beam Piper.  He has two primary fictional universes: one with a 
     myriad of parallel time dimensions (Paratime) and a race of humans who 
     have figured out how to shift from one to another and exploit/police 
     them, the other is a fairly straight-forward space-faring future 
     history.  Three of my favorites are: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, Space 
     Viking and Little Fuzzy (despite the frivilous title it deals 
     primarily with the question of sapience and the ethics of exploiting 
     alien races).
     
     From here I'm mostly adding to recommended reading from authors in 
     your index.
     
     Poul Anderson also writes excellent fantasy...Operation Chaos, A 
     Midsummer Tempest and Three Hearts and Three Lions are three that are 
     linked indirectly.  You may also wish to read further in his main 
     future history of the Poliostechnic league (Trader to the Stars and 
     Satan's World are good examples) and its successor Empire (the Dominic 
     Flandry stories).
     
     I add my vote to the reader who recommended Asimov's short stories, 
     they are much better than his novels.  Also some of his non-series 
     novels such as The Stars Like Dust are worth checking out.
     
     Since you like Tom Clancy, you should be aware that Executive Orders 
     is out in paperback now (it and Debt of Honor form one continuous 
     narrative).  He also has another of his look inside the military 
     series due out this month titled: Into The Storm (my guess is that 
     it's about the U.S. Coast Guard).  Speaking of the book being better, 
     it totally devestated me when the opening shot of the coast guard 
     cutter in Clear and Present Danger blew 75% of my favorite subplots 
     out of the water (no helipad).
     
     David Eddings' first novel; High Hunt is a complete departure from his 
     fantasy work.  Like The Losers, it is placed in contemporary (well, 
     Viet Nam era) Washington state and deals with family, love, friendship 
     and all the usual mainstream novel stuff.  It and The Losers are out 
     in a low cost hardback double volume (you can probably find on 
     Walden's clearance table, I did).
     
      I agree with the people who recommend Heinlein's earlier works (a 
     favorite of mine is Glory Road) especially the not so juvenile 
     juveniles (I re-read Citizen of the Galaxy about once a year, Double 
     Star is a study in relativistic time dilation).  You should also take 
     a shot at his short stories... All You Zombies and By His Bootstraps 
     are THE definitive time travel stories, everybody else is derivative.
     
     Larry Niven's known space universe is definitely worth visiting.  
     Several of his short story series set in known space have recently 
     been collected into single volumes.  ARM collects all the Gil Hamilton 
     of the UN police stories together (mysteries, organ-legging villains, 
     a phantom third arm and other fun stuff).  Crashlander collects all of 
     the Beowulf Shaeffer stories together including one never previously 
     printed (Shaeffer is a tall, limber, albino space pilot from the 
     planet We Made It who has close encounters with neutron stars, quantum 
     black holes, antimatter and other hazardous stuff).  Then there is the 
     Ringworld trilogy: Ringworld, The Ringworld Engineers, The Ringworld 
     Throne (imagine the possibilities of a terraformed ring-shaped 
     artifact with a one A.U. radius centered on a sun, stocked with 
     wildlife and homonids who have evolved to fill myriad ecological 
     niches).
     
     If you liked Fred Saberhagen's Swords series, you really ought to read 
     the story of what happened before them.  Empire Of The East is a three 
     in one combination of the three short novels that preceded the Swords 
     (The Broken Lands and Ardneh's World are two of the titles, but they 
     are long out of print in the three volume form).  EoE has all the same 
     features of the Swords: Magic, demons (truly nasty ones), 
     pre-catastrophe technology and so on.
     
     Three early Clifford Simak novels that you may enjoy.  They Walked 
     Like Men (shape-shifting aliens invade).  The Goblin Reservation (what 
     if elves, goblins etc. had not been driven off by all the cold iron).  
     Out Of Their Heads (what if imagination was more powerful than we 
     think).
     
     As one writer noted Christopher Stasheff is sequel-prone.  One of his 
     series that has not yet been driven into the ground is Starship 
     Troupers.  It's clear from content and contex that he knows and loves 
     live theatre, if you do too you'll probably enjoy them.
     
     For your horror/vampire collection, I'll pass on my daughter's 
     recommendation of the Saint Germaine series by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.  
     Hotel Transylvania is one title.
     
     And finally one historical fiction trilogy (if you liked Brave Heart 
     and would like to read about him and Robert the Bruce) Nigel Trantor's 
     Steps To The Empty Throne, Path Of The Hero-King and Price of the 
     King's Peace.
     
     You'll probably hear from me again.
     
     Regards
     Phil McDown
     mcdown_phil@dph.sf.ca.us