Best SF Books People Have Never Heard of

[J-Sun]

Over in Book Search, @Herb mentioned this list:

The best nine SF novels you've never heard of

I'll grant that I've only read one on that list but Moon's The Speed of Dark and Priest's Inverted World and especially Blish's Black Easter should have been heard of by most SF fans. Lem is not an obscure author but I haven't heard of the title. McMullen and Carver may be somewhat known but, again, I haven't heard of the titles. I find the observation on Carver: "Carver's other books seem rather hackneyed..." to be in the ballpark of my impression of Eternity's End.

The one book I have read is by an author everyone should know and is a title everyone should know and that's Greg Egan's Permutation City. Excellent work by a modern master.

That said, yeah, there's still some obscure stuff there in terms of the titles and some authors and it's an interesting looking list. So that made me think we could add to it and, as I indicate, one person's undiscovered gem is another's well-known classic but that shouldn't stop us from trying and, even if they do turn out to be well-known, it's still a recommendation of a good book. If all else fails, maybe folks will enjoy the original list.

I'll think on it and come back with something or things of my own but anyone quicker on the draw can get the ball rolling.

 

[Herb]

Great idea. I wonder how many have read one I recently enjoyed called Footprints of Thunder by James F. David?

 

[Extollager]

I wouldn't say this is one of "the best," but some Chrons people might find Lynch's novel worth a reading. Here's what I wrote about it some years ago for the New York C. S. Lewis Society.



Bohun Lynch’s Menace from the Moon


This early science fiction novel, published in London by Jarrolds in 1925, is indeed a little-known book. Lewis doesn’t seem to have commented on it, but a copy was in his library as catalogued a few years after his death.


Fans of H. G. Wells and John Buchan -- such as Lewis himself -- could have enjoyed the novel’s imaginative premise, occasional bits of satire, and atmospheric passages. The premise is that, in the seventeenth century, the secret of travel to the moon was discovered and three human couples went there. Their ancestors have survived but not thriven. Now never-specified “terribly hostile” conditions make it imperative that they come to the earth; but they no longer possess the secret. They beam at-first-puzzling messages to earth using, as is eventually realized, the “universal” shorthand devised by Bishop Wilkins (an historical person, onetime Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, author of An Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language [1668], subject of an essay by Jorge Luis Borges). They threaten earth with destruction from heat-ray projections unless papers their ancestors left behind are retrieved and their contents beamed back to them by the “super-cinematograph” that they assume earth-dwellers must, like themselves, possess. However, those papers appear to have perished; in any event the people of earth don’t have the technology by which to communicate with the moon people; and doom seems assured.


Lynch develops the satirical or ghastly possibilities of human behavior under such an appalling death-sentence less intensely than an author today might. Many people, at least in England, either deny that there really is such a danger or despite their expectations go about their activities as if nothing dreadful is imminent. (This behavior may be a satire on English phlegm.)


Lynch’s writing conveys a Buchanesque quality of adventure early in the novel, when the narrator is lost in the fog on a moor. The sudden and frightening appearance of strange lights -- he doesn’t realize at first that they are projections of Wilkins’s “hieroglyphics” – and the apparition of a face may remind some readers a little of the frightening experiences “Lewis” has at the beginning of Perelandra. The sequence in Menace, Chapter 14, in which the narrator becomes lost again, this time in Italian mountains, and stumbles upon a weird, torch-lit rite conducted by old men beneath the pines, is a bit like something out of Buchan’s “The Wind in the Portico” or The Dancing Floor, stories Lewis is pretty likely to have read and enjoyed. (Along with books about boxing and a few other novels, Lynch wrote a book about travels in Italy, and the Italian episode in Menace from the Moon is as evocative as his moorland material.) A chapter about a mad Oxford scholar, who happens to reside in an old house that might have contained one of the manuscripts needed by the moon-dwellers, and who sets his own house on fire, is exciting in Buchan’s manner, while the sequence in which an invisible ray causes the Ligurian coast to become terribly hot suggests the fiction of Wells, except that Wells would probably have made the passage more frightening.


The novel’s resolution depends on the release of energy from the nucleus of the atom in a way that is surprising for a fiction published just a few years after Ernest Rutherford split the atom, and twenty years before the “Trinity” nuclear test in New Mexico.

(c) 2016 Dale Nelson

 

[J-Sun]

@Herb - that's a new one on me.

Wow. Neat find and good review, @Extollager .

Should have looked before I leaped. This list (semi-coincidentally also nine if I cheat) was harder to come up with than I expected as I actually don't read much obscure stuff. Well, at least to me, but some people have never heard of everyone from Stanley Weinbaum to Connie Willis (not that I actually read Willis, but I have). So this is more like "underrated novels you may have heard of from authors you almost certainly have." If the author/title or my line on it interests anyone, the "further info" links go to reviews that I link to just for the summary information and I only scanned them to make sure they seemed fairly descriptive but didn't thoroughly read them. Many are positive but many are negative or I otherwise disagree with them (so maybe it is just me) but I provide them mainly to say what the books are "about" rather than to qualitatively characterize them and, either way, it's additional perspective.

• C.J. Cherryh - Wave Without a Shore: famous for series and space opera, here's basically a philosophical singleton. (further info)
• Hal Clement - Ocean on Top: a very short novel serialized in 1967 that didn't receive a book publication until 1973 but it's a really cool underwater story involving a fascinating society and great speculations on language and all kinds of stuff. Just really neat. (further info)
• Charles Harness - The Paradox Men aka Flight Into Yesterday: much better known in the UK than in his native land, this is a van Vogtian thrill ride that blew my little mind when I first read it and was still spiffy on a much belated re-read (took me forever to find it again). (further info)
• Fritz Leiber - The Green Millennium or Destiny Times Three or You're All Alone (alternately The Sinful Ones): cheating here as I can't make up my mind. These may be well known but not to the extent of Gather Darkness and Conjure Wife and Our Lady of Darkness but are right there with them, IMO. (further info for Destiny Times Three, The Green Millennium, You're All Alone/The Sinful Ones)
• Katherine MacLean - Missing Man: I actually like her collection, The Diploids, more and this is a fixup where the main novella may arguably work even better by itself but it's still worth a mention as a neat book - one of "future city" subgenre. (further info)
• Charles Sheffield - Between the Strokes of Night: I must be delusional here as this is a stone cold classic to me but seems to be relatively overlooked and not even in an "overlooked classic" way but just plain ignored, from an author whose works are generally not ignored. Maybe it's bad, but I love it. A cosmogony opera with a great hard sidestep of the lightspeed limit. (further info)
• Robert Silverberg - The Second Trip: lost in the flood of early 70s works, I think this should bob to the surface more. I read it once eons ago so may be remembering it wrong, but it seemed actually more structurally sound than some of his better-known works from the era. (further info)
• Michael Swanwick - Vacuum Flowers: Swanwick's foray into cyberpunk may be better known than I think it is but my impression is that's not well-known and my distant memories say that this was excellent - and was space cyberpunk. (further info)
• James White - All Judgment Fled: just discovered this recently and have already raved about it on this board. (further info)

 

[BAYLOR]

Jack Faust by Michael Swawswick . Highly recommend .

 

[dask]

Really liked this one.

 

[Herb]

Wow, thank you J-Sun for the awesome list. And here I was thinking I was a fairly well read SF fan, but many happy hours ahead I see from your list alone.

 

[dask]

And this one also by a guy whose pen name ain't quite householdy:

 

[BAYLOR]

And this one also by a guy whose pen name ain't quite householdy:

Definitely a new one on me.

 

[BAYLOR]

@Herb - that's a new one on me.

Wow. Neat find and good review, @Extollager .

Should have looked before I leaped. This list (semi-coincidentally also nine if I cheat) was harder to come up with than I expected as I actually don't read much obscure stuff. Well, at least to me, but some people have never heard of everyone from Stanley Weinbaum to Connie Willis (not that I actually read Willis, but I have). So this is more like "underrated novels you may have heard of from authors you almost certainly have." If the author/title or my line on it interests anyone, the "further info" links go to reviews that I link to just for the summary information and I only scanned them to make sure they seemed fairly descriptive but didn't thoroughly read them. Many are positive but many are negative or I otherwise disagree with them (so maybe it is just me) but I provide them mainly to say what the books are "about" rather than to qualitatively characterize them and, either way, it's additional perspective.

• C.J. Cherryh - Wave Without a Shore: famous for series and space opera, here's basically a philosophical singleton. (further info)
• Hal Clement - Ocean on Top: a very short novel serialized in 1967 that didn't receive a book publication until 1973 but it's a really cool underwater story involving a fascinating society and great speculations on language and all kinds of stuff. Just really neat. (further info)
• Charles Harness - The Paradox Men aka Flight Into Yesterday: much better known in the UK than in his native land, this is a van Vogtian thrill ride that blew my little mind when I first read it and was still spiffy on a much belated re-read (took me forever to find it again). (further info)
• Fritz Leiber - The Green Millennium or Destiny Times Three or You're All Alone (alternately The Sinful Ones): cheating here as I can't make up my mind. These may be well known but not to the extent of Gather Darkness and Conjure Wife and Our Lady of Darkness but are right there with them, IMO. (further info for Destiny Times Three, The Green Millennium, You're All Alone/The Sinful Ones)
• Katherine MacLean - Missing Man: I actually like her collection, The Diploids, more and this is a fixup where the main novella may arguably work even better by itself but it's still worth a mention as a neat book - one of "future city" subgenre. (further info)
• Charles Sheffield - Between the Strokes of Night: I must be delusional here as this is a stone cold classic to me but seems to be relatively overlooked and not even in an "overlooked classic" way but just plain ignored, from an author whose works are generally not ignored. Maybe it's bad, but I love it. A cosmogony opera with a great hard sidestep of the lightspeed limit. (further info)
• Robert Silverberg - The Second Trip: lost in the flood of early 70s works, I think this should bob to the surface more. I read it once eons ago so may be remembering it wrong, but it seemed actually more structurally sound than some of his better-known works from the era. (further info)
• Michael Swanwick - Vacuum Flowers: Swanwick's foray into cyberpunk may be better known than I think it is but my impression is that's not well-known and my distant memories say that this was excellent - and was space cyberpunk. (further info)
• James White - All Judgment Fled: just discovered this recently and have already raved about it on this board. (further info)

The only one I've read on that list is Between The Strokes of Midnight by Charles Sheffield phenomenal book . Also by him The Nimrod Hunt and Traders World

Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak a fantastic science fiction horror novel , was made into a film of the same name on the 1950's. I mention this one because people seem to have forgotten about it.

 

[BAYLOR]

Liege Killer by Christopher Heinz.

 

[Extollager]

Ronald Clark's Queen Victoria's Bomb.

Queen Victoria’s Bomb by Ronald Clark | Steampunk.com

I found it worth owning and have read it twice in the past few years.

 

[Herb]

Hal Clement`s Iceworld, from a notable author working in the 1950 s, perhaps the first generation of hard SF.

 

[dask]

I get the feeling this one flew in under the radar:

 

[Bick]

Robert Silverberg - The Second Trip: lost in the flood of early 70s works, I think this should bob to the surface more. I read it once eons ago so may be remembering it wrong, but it seemed actually more structurally sound than some of his better-known works from the era. (further info)

Glad you mentioned this one, as I saw it in a used book store the other day (after reading your post) and picked it up. I've read several of Silverberg's great books from this era, but not this one, so thanks for the recommendation. I've just started a longish Cherryh novel so not certain when I'll get to this one, but I'm sure I will sooner than later.

 

[BAYLOR]

I get the feeling this one flew in under the radar:

When was this one written?

 

[dask]

When was this one written?

First printing: May, 1973

 

[J-Sun]

Glad you mentioned this one, as I saw it in a used book store the other day (after reading your post) and picked it up. I've read several of Silverberg's great books from this era, but not this one, so thanks for the recommendation. I've just started a longish Cherryh novel so not certain when I'll get to this one, but I'm sure I will sooner than later.

Cool! Hope you enjoy it (or at least that it didn't cost much if you don't). I thought I had a similar experience when I saw what I thought was Dask's Gilman book but it turned out to be about every book in the series except the first one and I didn't want to skip the first.

If you're about, Dask, have you read the others and how do they stack up or read if you come in on the middle? Or is just that first one?

 

[dask]

Just the first one. Never knew there were others till years later, even picked up a few but never got around to them yet.

 

[J-Sun]

Okay, thanks. Maybe the first one will turn up someday or I'll hunt it down specifically.