Five books for a Non-SF Reader

I saw this question brought up in another thread, and thought it merited a separate discussion. The question was: "What five SF books would you recommend for someone who is not an SF reader?"

My suggestions, for what little they are worth:

Dune, Frank Herbert
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
2001: A Space Odyssey Sir Arthur C. Clarke
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl

I think that there is plenty enough variety in those suggestions for someone to find something they like.

What are everyone else's thoughts?

I'm not too sure about 2001. I can't say why, but it just doesn't strike me as a very good introductory book from what I remember. Dune might also be a bit heavy for an introduction, but is definitely worthwhile.

I suppose it depends on what they do like to read. For example, if they're a fan of mysteries, I might suggest Isaac Asimov's robot novels, like The Caves of Steel, or Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Retrieval Artist series.

I'm sure that other genres have similar SFnal standouts…

I assume most non-SF readers don't want to get hit over the head with all the SF standbys. Aliens, FTL, Wormholes and so on.
So I'd go with;

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

None are too heavy on the science but take the reader out of the ordinary world.

I think you have to show some of the SF standbys but there have to be handled well. Most non-SF readers probably associate SF with the visual media and not with well written books.

Anyway here are my five

Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr
Timescape by Gregory Benford
Pashazade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

These aren't my favourite books but between them they cover a fair few bases. I couldn't find a book set in space involving one or more spaceships to make the list but I didn't think too hard.

Actually quite a lot of the books listed here I would think quite heavy going for someone who doesnt read science fiction

I usually get people hooked with something lighter, maybe more in the space opera, epic adventure vein. Eg: books from Lois Bujold's Vorkosigan series - the 2 Cordelia books - i have the Cordelia's Honor omnibus (especially for female readers) or the Warrior's Apprentice, or even her more standalone books Falling Free which I really enjoyed when i was a bit off science fiction. They have been very well received numerous times.

Other good books I might recommend to people not familiar with the genre but where the SF doesnt get in the way of the story, but just provides a different frame to explore human topics - several CJ Cherryh books like the Chanur series, at least I think the pride of chanur can work. I tried with the foreigner series once and that didnt work, its probably a bit too much.

There's also Dreamsnake which is a sly way to get people into science fiction without even realising it. The Family Tree can do the same. In both I didnt quite see the twist coming, which makes them very memorable and much loved :D

There are some more "light" series like the Serrano series, or the weather warden series, but I dont own many of them so I have not lent them out. But I suspect they could work like the Vorkosigan saga (but the Bujold books have the humor on top which really carries it off)

If they normally are happy reading more heady or bleak stuff, then yes, some distopian books like A canticle for Leibowitz or the parable of the sower mentioned above. I find snow crash hard to like even as a fan of the genre, though, so I would be very careful about that one

I love Snow Crash, but I do think it might be difficult to understand for someone who hasn't read much science fiction.

I have listed my 5(ish) a couple of times, but here they are anyway:

The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Anything by Greg Bear
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

I dunno. 2001 was one of the first sci-fi books I read. I think Arthur C. Clarke is a master of explaining hard sci-fi concepts in a simple fashion. Plus, since the book is so old, it explains a lot of things that your average sci-fi reader takes for granted.

I also think Childhood's End, The Caves of Steel and some of the Robert Heinlein juviniles would make a good introduction.

I wouldn't recommend ANY of those first five except maybe Dune. And I guess it depends on what they DO read, but I'd think the "lighthearted, epic adventure" may confirm the worst prejudices of some non-SF-readers. (They'd be good for people who watch lots of SF TV and movies and don't really read much at all, not so much for people who read widely in mainstream fiction, for instance.)

How about:

The Left Hand of Darkness: It explores interesting ideas and the SF nature is absolutely critical to the plot; it couldn't possibly be told as a mainstream story. And it's well-written to boot.

Permutation City: Gets into real mind-bending SF territory, but starts out on relatively familiar ground, without assuming a great deal of background knowledge.

Timescape is a pretty good suggestion, as is A Canticle for Leibowitz (which is one of the few SF books that my generally non-SF-reading father really enjoyed).

For my fifth I'm going to suggest a good strong retrospective anthology, maybe The Best of the Nebulas edited by Ben Bova, (which I've read) or The Best of the Best by Dozois which I haven't, to give a sense of the breadth of the field and to acknowledge the importance of short fiction.

What I wouldn't do is recommend anything by Asimov or Clarke; they really don't hold up well, especially for someone concerned with characterization.

Some of my favorite books, like Hyperion, A Fire Upon The Deep, etc., really assume more of a background in the genre than a newcomer would have, and I couldn't recommend them to a newcomer.

Clarke and Asimov don't hold up? I had never read any of their books until the mid '80's. I thought they held up pretty well (Clarke more so than Asimov to me).

I will give you Heinlein. To me his characters are a lot more 'of their time' than Asimov or Clarke.

Admitedly, none of these guys are literary writers, but when it comes to what makes SF special and different from other genres, they do the job.

9>

If you don't mind me asking, how old were you in the mid-80's?

I ate up Clarke and Asimov in the mid-to-late 1980s, but as they say the Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12. I wouldn't reread them as an adult, and I wouldn't recommend them to an adult, though I'd certainly give them to a kid interested in SF.

I've reread Asimov's robot & Foundation stories (except Robots and Empire, out-of-print in the US & my copy is trashed) in the last year at age 22, and still thought he held up fairly well. The Empire stories are mindless fluff, but the Bailey novels and Foundation stuff age rather well. About the only thing dating them is the prevalence of smoking.

Yes, Asimov's style is rather sparse, and he doesn't go into great depths characterizing people. But that's something that should've been held against him as they came out, too, not something that comes from them aging.

I read 2001 (for the first time) when I was 15 or so, true. But I have reread it since then. Childhood's End I was mid-twenties. Caves of Steel early twenties.

I can see what you are saying, but my wife first read 2001 last year and she liked it quite a bit. I hadn't read Foundation until a couple of years ago. I think these guys are something of a sci-fi primer. (2001 also has the bonus of Stanley Kubrick's wonderful but incomprehensible film. If somebody enjoyed Stanley Kubrick, but never quite got what was going on with that one, the book is an excellent recommendation.)

Sure Margaret Atwood may be a better writer, but if I were simply trying to show somebody what I like about SF, I would stick to my recommendations.

Of course, all this stuff is dependent on this imaginary person, their taste and how willing they are to try sci-fi.

A lot of good picks here so far. This will be a hard one without knowing the person. But here's my try at some recommendations:

City or Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffery
On The Beach by Nevil Shute
The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

I would stay away from any long series or trilogies.

On the Clarke/Asimov divide: I think that early and mid-period Clarke (up to & including Rendezvous with Rama) holds up far better today than most of Asimov. For me, Clarke's early books - Expedition to Earth, Childhood's End, The City and the Stars - are some the best work the genre has produced. Later Clarke is a very different matter: avoid!

For someone who's not afraid of a literary challenge, I suggest The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe.

And there's always the "SF that isn't marketed as SF", such as The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - I think many mainstream readers struggle as much with the thought they're actually reading science fiction, as with the content.

On Arthur C. Clarke. The extreme late period is relatively poor but I recently re-read The Fountains Of Paradise which is still a very good book (it nearly made my list). Imperial Earth was good as well. So I would put the break point just after 2010 : Odyssey Two.

On early Clarke versus late Clarke debate, I actually enjoyed 2061 and The Light of Other Days myself, so I can't dismiss late Clarke (though I suppose Stephen Baxter actually wrote The Light of Other Days...)

Of course early Clarke outshines later Clarke.

>10 lorax: I agree about the age thing - the burgeoning enquiring mind of the adolescent (usually male??), wanting fast reads and none too critical about 'literary' merit is well served by the genre. I remember hoovering up Astounding Science Fiction and the like at that age.

To encourage a non-SF reader to dip a toe in the water, how about books with a bit of 'bottle-age' like The Time Machine or We?

P D James' The Children of Men springs to mind, as well, but I'm never sure whether to call these "end-of-civilisation-as-we-know-it" books SF

> 13 Way Station

I had good success with this in our book club last year, with few of the group interested in SF. Few are interested in 'old' books either, so that goes to show!

I agree about On the Beach too, but maybe only for older readers - a book set in the near future which is now 40 years ago is probably a bit much for those under 40!

On the whole, I think time travel is one of the easiest entrees to the genre, particularly if it is not 'in the future'. Door into Summer would be another good choice, though again its now rather dated.

> 18 sarahemmm,

On The Beach is very relavent todays world and not dated at all.

The war in the book started by the boming of a U.S. city by an unknown country, The U.S. retaliates angainst the most likely suspect ( which is wrong). Others decide to launch or jump on the band wagon. The rest, is as they say," is history".

When the book was oringinally published there were only five countries that had nuclear weapons or capabilities of uranium enrichment.
There are at least twice that number
today.

For the political junkie - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
For a reader of modern romance novels- Bellweather
For a reader of historical romance novels- In the Garden of Iden
For the online gamer- Enders Game
For the military history buff- From the earth to the moon

And because it comes up in Florida-
For the Carl Hiaasen fan- Callahan's Crosstime Saloon

The Watch by Dennis Danvers
Expendable by James Alan Gardner
Calculating God by Robert J Sawyer
1984 by George Orwell
Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold

I chose these books because they highlight the core concept of sci-fi: speculative or extrapolative writing that can involve world-universe building or examination of commonly accepted mores and beliefs.

Further the books are well-written with believable and engaging characters. If I was making the selections for people that I know personally, I would tweak the list somewhat. Replace Shards with Ethan of Athos for someone I know to be open-minded, replace 1984 with We for someone who we bummed out by 1984 (or for someone who was familiar with that book from school), etc. The primary reason that I chose 1984 over We is that the are so many cultural references to 1984.

My approach is to recommend science fiction or fantasy books that are NOT classic examples of the field, to "ease them in" and to make them say "oh! maybe there IS something to all this stuff...."

So:

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Replay by Ken Grimwood

Sorry, that's only 4 instead of 5. But these books work wonders in non-science fiction/fantasy book groups. They generate terrific discussion, and then the readers ask for more books along these lines!

Very gender specific.

For men:



For women:

amysisson, Time Traveler's is great. The scene with the fetus is freaky! Of course, I read the book while I was pregnant.

While most of his work is horror, one of Stephen Kings earliest novels (1977), The Stand is an Apocalyptic SF that starts out in a current day setting. Great characters.

> 19

Yes, I read it again quite recently, which is one of the reasons I considered it, but rejected for the reasons I gave. For myself, I think it is a superb book; I always have time for Nevil Shute.

It would definitely depend on the reader. Just thinking of my friends..

For the feminists: The Gate to women's country
For the environmentalists: The Sea and Summer
Readers of literary fiction: Slaughterhouse Five or Rendezvous with Rama
For the military history buff (to pinch a category from poster 20) Weapons of Choice: World War 2.1
For someone who just really wants to immerse themselves in the essence of science fiction I would probably recommend a short story collection rather than a book. I'd probably choose between the later and earlier books edited by Gardner Dozois depending on the reader.

Interesting suggestions so far, but I'd want to know what straight fiction this reader has liked. A Hemmingway aficionado might find something to like in Haldeman, while a Saramago fan might fall right into Phil Dick.
But, in the absence of such data, let's see...

Assuming an intellectually curious and reasonably adventurous reader wanting a brief tour of the sort of thing that comes under the heading of Science Fiction, I'd give them:

Asimov (ed): The Thirteen Crimes of Science Fiction
(something of a cheat, but presumably if they haven't been reading SF, they've at least looked at a mystery or two. These are all good stories, in a variety of styles and approaches, so presumably it's a reasonable entry point)
Heinlein: Starship Troopers
(I know, a lot of heads just popped off, but while it's not his best, it's a good story, a reasonably straightforward set of extrapolations, and it's also a didactic novel, a novel of ideas, of which they should get an example. Alternate: Space Cadet)
Sturgeon: There are so many collections of Sturgeon, find one with at least Largo in it, it's bound to have a few other great ones. Alternate: Zelazny, Frost and Fire or Unicorn Variations.
Alfred Bester: The Demolished Man or Stars My Destination
(probably the best novels of the New Wave, of which they should have a taste)
William Gibson: Neuromancer
(okay, that's a punt, I wanted something post New Wave, and it's a good novel, but perhaps there's a better representative of the last thirty years or so)

Both The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination, I believe, pre-date the New Wave. If you must have one from that era, then an early JG Ballard, or M. John Harrison.

Neuromancer was a seminal work, but I've heard that it's not aged well. There are plenty of more recent works that would be better than a 25-year-old (approx) novel - just have a look at any of this year's awards shortlists...

Perhaps Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds would be a good starting point and could be added to the list.