This list is in random order.
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - The Mote In God's Eye.
Not to put down Gene 'The Great Bird Of The Galaxy' Roddenberry, but this book is what StarTrek The Original Series would have been if it would have been written by a seasoned science fiction writer. The scope is magnificent, this is absolutely a classic 'Space Opera', written at a time when everybody in SF-land claimed that the time for such books had come and gone. You might think of it in the same way that people tend to think about Albert Einstein and J.S Bach : The Last Of The Great Classics. Of course I'm not a writer but having said that : as an avid SF-reader I would not know how to improve this book.
Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game / Speaker For The Dead.
In a nutshell : Aliens called 'The Buggers'(because they look somewhat like insects) have tried to invade Earth 80 years ago, but were defeated by an absolutely ruthless and brilliant Israeli commander called Mazer Rackham. People and especially the leaders on Earth know however, that the aliens will very likely come back when there is the least distance between the planets again(in about 80 years). They are therefore frantically and desperately searching for a new 'Mazer Rackham' to lead them to victory, or at least to a stalemate. As a result they pick the best and the brightest of their children at an extremely young age, and put them through intensive training to see if the Great Leader will stand up. The book is mostly set on a space station orbiting Earth, that has been designed solely as a training facility. It follows a score of these young and brilliant military minds from the age of five onward.
The catch is : they cannot just pick one and give him orders, as this would destroy the personal initiative of this new military genius and render him or her useless for any great battle.
If you haven't read this book please do: I could tell you what it's about in great further detail but my words would be no match for the book itself. It is by far the best book I have ever read with a young male boy as the leading character. Ender Wiggin is one of those protagonists you immediately start to like and love. Orson Scott Card is well known nowadays for his character development and this was an absolute highlight in his career.
Four books were released in the 'Ender'-series but the first two are the most intense and up-front personal.
Ender's Game is one of those very few books that left me quite emotional. Wich is a true exception in Science Fiction as far as I'm concerned.
The(first) sequel 'Speaker For The Dead' is so ingeniously put together that it basically has hardly any relationship with the first book except for Ender and his sister. The story is set 3.000 year onward and deals with the fear of humanity of ever confronting a new alien race. When Humanity finally encounter an underdeveloped but promising intelligent race that they call 'The Piggies', they are overly cautious and turn the whole planet into a quarantined zone where only a few people are allowed to live and study.
And then something goes wrong...
Kurt Vonnegut - Galapagos
I must by now surely have bored people to tears with my praise for Kurt Vonnegut's work.
Originally a writer of SF('The Players of Titan' comes to mind) Vonnegut quite quickly move out of the SF-field because as he said 'he did not want to get stuck in the ghetto that was SF'. Ironically enough, there is a lot of SF in the books he wrote after that period.
Galapagos is one of his last complete novels and describes the wholly unlikely survival of the human race on the Galapagos Islands. The main characters are all flawed. There is a con man trying to trick a widow out of her inheritance, a captain who really doesn't know how the ship works because he has personnell who do, there are a few native girls who get stranded on the ship(which in the end is itself stranded on one of the remote Galapagos Islands), etcetera etcetara.
Kurt Vonnegut is the only writer I have ever read who could write almost in baby talk and still be completely 'gripping'. The older he got the better I like his work.
The man passed away not too long ago. May he rest in peace. I honestly do miss waiting for the new Vonnegut to come out.
To be continued...
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