My pal John Scalzi got this phenomenal mention from SFFAudio:
The name of John Scalzi can now stand in Science Fiction pantheon proudly beside the likes of Orson Scott Card, Joe Haldeman and Robert A. Heinlein.
I recently put out my call for SF anthology suggestions, so let me return the favor: Get Old Man’s War, and move it to the top of your Giant Pile of Books You Bought And Won’t Ever Have Time To Read.
Then make time to read it. Yes, it’s that good. It’s Forever War good. I promise.
In related SF news, I took Nolan out to dinner last night, and he wanted to go into the bookstore when we were done. To my surprise and delight, he went directly to the SF section and began to browse.
“I want a new book,” he said, “but I don’t know where to start.”
I suggestedEnder’s Game, which I loved when I was his age and was something he could relate to, but for reasons that only make sense in the teenage mind, my enthusiastic endorsement had the opposite effect than that which was intended: “Meh.”
“Meh?” I said.
“I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem . . . I don’t know. Let’s find something different.” He said.
I thought about all the SF I love, but couldn’t come up with anything I thought he’d like. Ringworld wouldn’t interest him, I doubt he’d relate to Old Man’s War, as much as I love it. I suggested Fragile Things, October Country, and a couple of Gardner Dozois anthologies that readers had recommended to me. None of them got the dreaded “Meh,” but nothing was grabbing his interest.
I saw a golden opportunity slipping away. Nolan enjoys fantasy, but this was the first time in his life he’d expressed any interest at all in the science fiction that I so dearly love. I didn’t want to blow it by suggesting something that would turn him off from SF forever, so I sent a text message to my friend, Andrew, who is wise in the ways of science fiction.
“Did you suggest Ender’s Game?” He sent back.
I told him about the Meh.
He thought for a long time, before suggesting Heinlein’s Red Planet“I read it when I was a little younger than Nolan, and I really liked it then. I read it again this year, and it holds up surprisingly well.”
I grabbed it off the shelf, and read the back.
“This looks like a really cool book,” I thought to myself. Then, “Well, here goes nothing.”
I found Nolan on the other side of the rack, and showed it to him.
“Andrew says that he read it when he was your age and loved it.” I said.
Nolan looked at it.
“Have you read this?”
“No, I haven’t.” I said. I cautiously added, “it looks cool, though.”
He read the description on the back. I tried to act nonchalant while I watched him.
“Okay,” he said, “this looks really good.”
A bell rang in my head, and I smiled.
“Cool,” I said. “Can I read it when you’re done?”
“Maybe,” he said, thoughtfully.
“Maybe?” I said.
A mischievous glint flashed in his eyes.
“Now would be a good time to talk about you letting me get Assassin’s Creed . . .”
Discover more from WIL WHEATON dot NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I think the first actual Sci-Fi I read was The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey. Very compelling. I followed that with the Crystal Singer series, and the Pern books and then skipped straight to William Gibson. But McCaffrey’s got some great sci-fi that you don’t need a lot of background to appreciate, and some of it crosses the sci-fi/fantasy barrier pretty handily, if you’re trying to hand someone a transition book.
Nolan’s a tough crowd, huh! Well, I do remember all the times my mom would wax effusive about where she went to college…I was always thinking “yeah, yeah.” I applied just to make her happy.
Guess where I ended up going?
A wonderful 4 years of my life. Nothing like a little teenage determination to be different to potentially keep one from great things!
Or, you could tell him that D&D girl has probably read Ender’s Game and he might need to catch up….
Priceless!!
Ender’s Game eh?! I’ll have to look into that one…
BTW — just finished Happiest Days of Our Lives, and it ROCKED… Loved the memories of D&D — brought me back to my D&D days when i got my first set of dice, my first monster manual and my first Player’s hand book. Oh the days of D&D marathons and instant coffee!!! 😉
Thanks for the book Wil!
I have not yet read either of the books you mention, Old Man’s War, or Forever War. If I use the links you provided to buy the books on Amazon, do you get credit?
BTW, Ender’s Game is my favorite Sci-Fi book. Loved it as a kid, and I re-read it every year.
OH yeah..
I bought old mans war after reading some reviews read the first 50 pages then went to amazon and ordered the other books in the series. I loved them all. the sad part is how fast I read them.
John is a great writer..
Jeez Wil, so many good SF books out there. You can always go SF-Lite and recommend some Piers Anthony. 🙂 I loved ‘Bio of a Space Tyrant’ as a teen. BTW… Someone recommended you as one of the “6000 intriguing people you want to meet online before you die.” on Cliff Pickover’s web site. If you haven’t seen Cliff’s site, you owe it to yourself to waste a few days surfing it. http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/home.htm
Okay, this post finally prompted me to sign up with typepad… long time reader, yada, Hi Wil!
I wanted to second the recommendation to the Pern books and anything by Asimov. Has anybody mentioned Hitch Hikers Guide? I reread that one every few years and it still makes coffee come out my nose. Spider Robinson’s Mars series is amazing and good hard scifi. Alan Dean Foster has some good stuff for younger folks.
On the fantasy front I have to suggest Phil Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy – I’m cautiously hopeful that they won’t frack up the movie too badly.
Thanks for the new must read list!
FYI: The eBay auction for seats at Wil’s table during the Child’s Play dinner has been reposted. Per Gabe at Penny Arcade, the original winner found out that he can’t go and asked them to repost the auction while keeping his winning bid as a donation.
It ends on Friday:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180189334902
Maybe like myself, he shuns Card because he’s a raging homophobe, hardly someone RAH would want to spend time with.
I think I would have had the same reaction if my parents had made active suggestions about reading material. Instead, they had two huge bookcases in the hallway with all kinds of books – fiction, non-fiction, poetry – and my brother and I were just given free rein to read whatever we wanted off the shelves. So, when I was bored or looking for something to read, I’d go out and pick something off of the tall wooden bookshelves. That’s how I was introduced to John Irving (probably at too tender an age, but it didn’t hurt me any), Kurt Vonnegut, and many other favorites. It’s just passive enough so that he’ll take books off the “shared” shelf that he might not take directly from your hands.
My folks were smart.
Also, as a woman and past Pern reader, I feel I ought to point out that those books are kind of girly. I don’t know exactly why, but they have a very female following, so Nolan might not be so into them.
I was actually on the opposite side of that Ender’s Game “Meh” when I tried to get my dad to read it and he refused, so I feel your pain. Oddly enough, about a year ago he gave me a book as a present “just because” and it was Ender’s Game. (I blinked at him. He deserved it.) Maybe Nolan will have better luck if it comes from a source other than himself.
1. All I know about science fiction are the TNG novels I read as a kid. This is why I love when you post about science fiction and everyone else comments — I get a lot of great book suggestions. I am a bad geek — I’d never heard of Ender’s Game until you mentioned it.
2. I just read your GIR and I’m not a member of SG so I can’t comment there but let me say: Um, how do I submit an application to be a Zombitis: Dawn of the Shred groupie? Srsly. Because I hear they’re a pretty rad rock band. \m/ (Personally, I’m going to treat myself to a used PS2 and GHIII for Christmas. I’d play Rock Band but I don’t have friends who’ll rock out with me. Sad. 🙁 )
Great reveiw! How’d your deadline go?
Cheers!
Have to second John Montgomery’s recommendation for Andre Norton. I think it was her books that plunged me headlong into Sci Fi and led directly to Bradbury and Heinlein (my parents would have cringed if they’d known the range of Heinlein I was reading), Asimov, etc.
Nolan likes Fantasy huh? May I suggest David Eddings’ Diamond Throne and the books following? Sparhawk ROCKS!
If he’s into series fiction, I HAVE to recommend Eric Flint’s 1632 Series. It’s a kind of hybrid, not really Sci-Fi, not really fantasy. More Turtledove’s What If work. But these books are SO yummy. Imagine an entire town full of West Virginia redneck miners (and deer hunting enthuseists) transported, along with the entire town, to Thuringia Germany in the early 17th Century. The charm of these books is all the RIGHT things about being American, fighting for survival in Feudal Germany in the middle of the 100-Years war. “That for Richelieu!”.
A final suggestion. Look into Dean Koontz’s “Lightning”. Koonts writes horror, but THIS book is SF. Still, look for it in Horror. This is the BEST Time Travel novel I’ve ever read. The surprise ending is WICKED.
Oh yeah! One more SF recommendation. I was hugely surprised with Peter F. Hamilton’s “Reality Dysfunction”. It starts out as a classic example of seriously hard-core hi-tech Sci-Fi, and suddenly takes a 572-degree right turn into fantasy (Sulu knows about 572-degree turns). I don’t love ALL of Hamilton’s work, even in this universe, but RD is a good ride.
Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy. (Which recently turned into a quartet, but oh well–they are ALL good.)
If he needs a reason why tell him there are hoverboard chase scenes throughout all three books. Hoverboards! And like I said earlier today, keep repeating the word “Hoverboard” until it sinks in. If that’s not enough, explain that in book four, kids go surfing on maglev trains.
You might also try Nancy Farmer’s HOUSE OF THE SCORPION, near-future sf about a kid cloned to be the new body of a drug czar in the drug state formed between the US and Mexico, or her fantasy novels, THE SEA OF TROLLS and THE LAND OF SILVER APPLES, set in Saxon England and the Viking north. I second the Timothy Zahn mention, and there’s also Jane Yolen’s Pit Dragon books, about a young bondsman who steals a dragon to train for fights for enough money to escape his prison planet. Don’t worry about the two female author names–the books have guy heroes and are not in the least “girly”!
I’m halfway through Old Man’s War, and so far Scalzi’s my new favourite SF author. Just FYI.