Hi, Doug.

Just stumbled across your site tonight, and REALLY enjoyed browsing it
as I'm hungry for new SF books to read, but am reluctant to plunge into
them since so many are a disappointment to me.  Your site's definitely a
bookmark to keep!

(Funny that you're an INFJ; I am too, and they're usually rare, aren't
they?)

Before I get into any of my own book suggestions to you, let me say that
you are far, far more generous a reviewer than I am.  In fact, I found
your site by doing a search for reviews of Simmons' Endymion, hoping to
find someone else as disappointed as I was, and you let him off easy.  I
really liked the first two books (thought about them for months
afterward), but this 3rd one was a let-down since so little ever
happened, and I thought a lot of his writing was shameless fluff (good
lord, how many of their meals did he have to describe in endless detail?
and all those lengthy inventories of how many flashlights and knives and
batteries they had?  who cares?).

I guess I liked the beginning and end of the book where the action
happened, and nothing in between, because it was more like a travelogue
than a novel and almost no questions were answered (what are the
Ousters, Core, and Pax really up to? what happened to the people on the
Jewish and Muslim planets? who does the Shrike answer to? and just what
is this wise and wonderful woman going to teach that's so profound?  and
how did the narrator wind up in jail? etc.), so of course now he gets to
write yet another sequel to answer the questions he should have dealt
with in this one.  (Sorry, this is a rant about cynical publishing, but
I work for a publisher, so I see it from all sides.)

Anyway, I really liked your comments on Gibson and Terry Brooks: very
honest and to the point.  And you warned me off of several books I'd
been tempted to buy (Azimov's Nemesis) plus changed my mind to go after
some I'd hesitated on (Saberhagen's Swords Trilogy), so many thanks.

What follows are books I didn't see listed in your reviews but that I've
read myself (some long ago so I'm sketchy on plot details, but remember
if I like them or not).  And by way, we don't publish any of these so
this isn't a sell-job, and I work in the college textbook area anyway,
not fiction.


Poul Anderson, The Devil's Game, 1980

A favorite of mine.  A mysterious being called Sammael helps a ruthless
man build an financial empire, then has him summon to his private island
seven strangers to compete for a million-dollar prize. Very
psychological with well-developed characters and insightful inner
dialogues of each of them, and some interesting plot twists.


Ben Bova, The Dueling Machine, 1969

I've read 5 of his books, this is the only I'd recommend. Not real deep,
but an imaginative lark as a scientist finds his "dueling machines"
(created to end violence in society by letting people resolve their
conflicts in a shared dream) is being twisted by an ambitious dictator
to help spread his little empire (set in the far future when Earth has a
big empire surrounded by smaller ones).  Some humor, lots of political
intrigue, basic but appealing characters.

He also wrote Voyagers, a first contact novel, that was so-so.  Not
recommended.


Isaac Azimov, Pebble in the Sky, 1950
                The Stars, Like Dust, 1951
                The Currents of Space, 1952

These are all self-contained preludes to the Foundation trilogy, set
before the Galaxy-spanning society that falls apart in Foundation has
been fully set up.  Not as compelling as the Foundation books and
lighter reading, but I still enjoyed them.


HG Wells, The Time Machine

A quick classic worth reading; I used it as part of a college thesis on
futurism and had fun both reading and studying it.


James Hogan, The Two Faces of Tomorrow, 1979

A slightly slow buildup in the first half, great action and adventure in
the second half.  An orbiting colony of Earth is the experimental sight
for a new breed of computer system that is truly self-aware.  Only
problem is that it's not aware of anyone else, so when it flexes its
muscles those insignificant humans ("shapes") get in the way.


Dennis McKiernan, Dragondoom, 1990

This is the kind of book I would pick on while you would find redeeming
elements, so you might give it a try.  It was recommended to me as "a
book written in Tolkien's style" so I leapt on it and was disappointed.
It does have men and dwarves and dragons in it, and there's a lot of
map-travelling quest stuff and battles, plus a woman and dwarf
rivalry/romance, but I just couldn't get hooked like some people, and
it's NOT written in Tolkien's style.


Pat Frank, Alas, Bablyon, 1959

An old classic, so of course later books have gone beyond it, but I
think it was pioneering for its time.
Nuclear war hits the US in modern times, and how do people cope and
rebuild society?  It's mostly about survival and struggling and the
consequences of war and radiation, but it was worthwhile for me to read
a granddaddy of its genre.


Vernor Vinge, The Witling, 1976

He's really creative about setting up alien worlds, isn't he?  I thought
A Fire Upon the Deep was really fascinating how he developed the
wolf-packs that functioned as a single mind and personality.  Anyway,
The Witling is about future human explorers who find a medieval world
where everyone can teleport, both themselves and objects around them;
everyone, that is, except the imperial heir to half the planet.  His
life is in jeopardy since he's considered a freak and unfit to rule, and
he and the humans get caught up in intrigue and adventure with a good
ending.  Well-developed ideas about how the politics, economics, and
social structure of a teleporting race would work on an everyday basis.


Larry Niven, Ringworld, 1970

Seems his most famous classic, so I was surprised it wasn't on your
list, though I thought it a neat idea that didn't go very far.  It
involves several races finding this great artificial band surrounding a
sun and working as its own world with various unique regions, kind of a
travelogue without too much plot that I remember, plus the characters
were only so-so (it had some of those Kzin in it too, but this is after
their wars with humans).  It won a Hugo and a Nebula, which was why I
read it, but I would recommend it only to familiarize yourself with a
classic.  (Then again, you'd probably be more tolerant of it than I
was.)


Sharon Shinn, Archangel, 1996

Just finished this one.  Good points: very well-developed society based
on the division between angels and humans, though the angels aren't
saintly like in the Christian tradition, but they have wings and fly and
sing in overwhelmingly beautiful voices; in fact, their culture is based
on singing, and they call down good or bad powers from the God Yovah by
singing to him.  The culture seems post-apocalyptic, so there are
remnants of technology but it's basically medieval.  Each region of the
continent has its own identity, which made the travels around it
interesting, and the tone is on the positive side (unlike the current
trend of novels that are dark and depressing and cynical).  Bad points:
not many, but it's a romance (which I'm not into), so there's a lot of
"she hates him/he hates her, but they're stuck together so they have to
get along," and there's spat after spat, and those parts are rather
contrived (you can guess by page 2 if they're going to wind up loving
each other or not; in fact, you don't even need to read that far!).

But there's also a political sub-plot of things being slightly amiss in
a land that should be harmonious, and the signs continue to build, and
that kept me reading it to see what happens.  Plus I like original,
well-developed societies, so that made it all worthwhile.


That's all for sci-fi, but 2 other novels I'd recommend:

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

I wish I'd read this novel sooner!!!  I don't usually read books about
Americana, but this is the great exception: great characters, many
plotlines (it's about way more than racism), some mystery, some humor,
some tension and excitement, and marvelously written--not a word wasted
or an ounce of filler.


Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride

Another kind of book I wouldn't normally read but glad I did.  It's
about 3 very different women who have something in common: they've all
led difficult lives, and those lives were made 100 times worse by the
intervention of the cunning, beautiful, mysterious, and sadistic Zena
(sp?), who preys upon them one at a time like a spiritual vampire,
sucking out of their life whoever or whatever they've found to make them
happy. Now she's back after a long absence, and can the 3 of them
finally stand up to her or will they crumble one by one? Atwood's a
really good writer, and I enjoyed this one.


Well, that exhausts my list and it's getting late, but I sure appreciate
your list and wanted to offer something in return.  Thanks again for all
the work you've put into your site!

Randy Welch