Though not pure scifi, I love Roger Zelazny's "Lord of Light", about humans on
an alien world in which a select group of people have developed powers and rule
the planet by posing as the Hindi gods. Great stuff. I also love his
"Chronicles of Amber", about a family where the members can move among parallel
realities. It may border on the line between fantasy/scifi, but it's really
good.
Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers are good books. If you like Niven, consider
his book "Footfall", about the invasion of Earth by an alien race of advanced
pachyderms.
Also, ever read any of Jack Chalker's books? His "Rings of the Master" series
is great. It's about a far future in which the galaxy is run by an all-powerful
computer that humans put in place centuries before. There are those who want to
overthrow the computer, but it controls whole societies, space fleets, and uses
a legion of robotic servants to enforce its laws throughout space. There is a
way to overthrow the computer: as sophisticated as it is, its core programming
(which can't be changed) allows humans to take control of it. However, to do
so, you need five "keys", encoded pieces of hardware which will access the core
programming. The computer is forbidden to destroy the keys, but nothing in its
programming said they can't be *hidden*. A diverse group of people come
together to try to locate the keys across the galaxy, then run a gauntlet to
the one access portal where they can be used--whose location is also not known
at the moment. Good stuff too.
----- Original Message -----
From: "angelababycat" <asrobin...@mindspring.com>
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 10:34:53 PM
Subject: [scifinoir2] The Left Hand of Darkness
Just finished reading Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness" -- the first sci-fi
novel I've made time to sit down and enjoy in a long time. Felt good. I forgot
how much I liked Le Guin's writing too. A great place to start.
Next in the pile is "Ringworld" by Larry Niven. I have the list of suggested
reading from the group, but I was at the book store and just pulled a few
titles from what was in stock. And a librarian handed me Octavia Butler's
"Parable of the Sower" last weekend, but I still haven't recovered from seeing
"The Road" on PPV so I don't know about that one...
Anyone read any of these?
Angela
P.S. -- Here's Wikipedia's summary of Left Hand if anyone's curious:
The basic principle of The Left Hand of Darkness is one that started in Ursula
K. Le Guin's first novel in 1966 and runs through several of her early works:
that of the interplanetary expansion started by the first race of humanity on
the planet Hain and expanded across the universe, forming the League of All
Worlds, eventually expanding to the eighty-three world collective called the
Ekumen. This novel takes place in the year 4870 and concerns an envoy, Genly
Ai, who is on a planet called Winter ("Gethen" in the language of its own
people) to convince the citizens to join the Ekumen. Winter is, as its name
indicates, a planet that is always cold, and its citizens are neither female
nor male: they only have gender identities or sexual urges once a month. These
conditions have affected the ways that civilizations on Winter have developed,
with the most notable effect being that there has never been a war on the
planet. There are, however, arcane rules of politics and diplomacy that the
envoy must learn in order to survive. His fortune changes quickly, according to
what political faction is in power at the time in the country he is residing
in: in one country, for instance, the Prime Minister arranges an audience with
the king for him, but the next day the Prime Minister is exiled for treason; in
another he has trouble determining which factions among the thirty-three Heads
of Districts support him and which want to use him to gain political power. The
struggle of Genly Ai as he tries to understand the ways of these people and
survive on this hostile planet gives Le Guin the chance to explore what life
would be like without the dualities, such as summer and winter or male and
female, that form our way of thinking: the book's title comes from a Gethen
poem, which begins, "Light is The Left Hand of Darkness … "
