Challenging Science Fiction Reads

May 11th, 2011

This is the subject of a new Mind-Meld post over at sfsignal.com, which I contributed to:

Mike Brotherton
Mike Brotherton is the author of the hard science fiction novels Spider Star (2008) and Star Dragon (2003), the latter being a finalist for the Campbell award. He’s also a professor of astronomy at the University of Wyoming, Clarion West graduate, and founder of the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers (www.launchpadworkshop.org). He blogs at www.mikebrotherton.com.

In no particular order:

The Fifth Head of Cerebus by Gene Wolfe. This “novel” is a set of three novellas that can be read in a different order than packaged, with different insights each time. It’s a novel of identity, of the alien, and of perspective, coupled with Wolfe’s sophisticated skills in mood and style. It’s a challenging read, with great depth.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Like Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, this novel jumps about in space and time. It isn’t the easiest thing to keep track of, but the net effect builds to an emotional climax worth the work.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Deep ideas join the invention of language. It’s easy to be distracted by the extreme violence, but this is an amazing and complex novel.

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. A novel of the future with multiple points of view that can be read at different levels, this novel was billed as a “non Novel” in its day. Complicated, complex, inventive, but worth the effort.

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Stephenson writes long, complicated books, and has a tendency to include long technical passages about Babylonian gods and cryptology. In this novel, it’s computing. Combining aspects of cyberpunk, steampunk, and old-fashioned hard sf, The Diamond Age deserved its awards, but isn’t the easiest read out there.

Very honorable mentions: Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi (burdened by graphic rape scenes and challenging cultural/language jumps), Quarantine by Greg Egan (full of quantum weirdness), Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany (reminiscent of The Fifth Head of Cerebus but perhaps more accessible), The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin (complex structure coupled with issues of the Cold War and theoretical physics).

I tried to stick to better known novels that aren’t too hard to track down, and to stick to science fiction rather than delving into fantasy. I tend to read fantasy for escape, and read easier books in that genre as a rule I only sometimes break, so I’m not as much an expert for challenging fantasy novels.

The other contributors had some interesting suggestions. It seems that Delany and Wolfe are big winners when it comes to “challenging but worth it.” Neal Stephenson, too. I thought more people would mention Greg Egan, who writes the hardest of the hard science fiction, with fantastic but challenging ideas involving math and science.

I suppose one person’s definition of challenging means “hard to read” for a variety of possible reasons, while another’s might mean “deep ideas requiring a lot of thought.”

Anyway, check out the other responses at the link above and feel free to make your own suggestions here or there in the comments.

Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.