Tom Hering
Rememberer
Which books that qualify as science fiction or speculative fiction, written by authors who did not consider themselves SF genre writers, would you consider worth reading? Let's stick to:
(1.) Authors who were not part of the US and UK science fiction scenes. So mainstream US and UK authors, yes, but also authors whose reputation was established in other genres (mysteries, westerns, etc.)
(2.) Books that were published during the era of SF classics, so books up through the 1970s (the decade when SF began to gain some respectability in mainstream culture, with both college courses in SF and SF writing workshops becoming common - and the decade when Hollywood made SF acceptable mainstream entertainment). So books that were at least a little bit of a risk for their authors, professionally, and books that publishers went out of their way to distinguish from all that SF stuff ("This is more like literature, folks!").
Obvious recommendations would be Brave New World, 1984, and The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent PLanet; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength). But what else?
I'll start by recommending two books by Jack Finney: The Body Snatchers (which has an ending I like better than any of the movie version endings) and Time and Again. Both are superb SF novels, even if Finney wasn't one of "our" writers.
(1.) Authors who were not part of the US and UK science fiction scenes. So mainstream US and UK authors, yes, but also authors whose reputation was established in other genres (mysteries, westerns, etc.)
(2.) Books that were published during the era of SF classics, so books up through the 1970s (the decade when SF began to gain some respectability in mainstream culture, with both college courses in SF and SF writing workshops becoming common - and the decade when Hollywood made SF acceptable mainstream entertainment). So books that were at least a little bit of a risk for their authors, professionally, and books that publishers went out of their way to distinguish from all that SF stuff ("This is more like literature, folks!").
Obvious recommendations would be Brave New World, 1984, and The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent PLanet; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength). But what else?
I'll start by recommending two books by Jack Finney: The Body Snatchers (which has an ending I like better than any of the movie version endings) and Time and Again. Both are superb SF novels, even if Finney wasn't one of "our" writers.
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