The Apolyton Science Fiction Book Club.

[St Leo]

May I suggest Diaspora by Greg Egan?

BTW, the Handmaid's Tale is brilliant. I found it very motivating with regards to bashing religion and I actually sympathised with the hero (whereas I was rooting for the antagonists in Brave New World).

[cavebear]

I think serious consideration should be given to Jack Chalker for the "Well of Souls" series. His ability to combine science and societal speculation in his fiction is remarkable, and I think his writing is pretty good on an absolute scale, as well.

There are certainly many others. I still see value in Niven;s Ringworld seriies and he and others are good for their internally-consistent universes. And, of course, getting into universes, we can't ignore Heinlien's 'Number of the Beast' which connects all his series into a single plotline.

Are there any 'Heroes from Hell' or 'Wild Card' fans out there?

[Jon Miller]

I have read one Wild Cards book

I suggest The Fresco, by Sheri S Tepper


Jon Miller

[JohnT]

Anybody else interested?

I've got 7 participants for February's selection, The Handmaids Tale. Also, I'm still taking nominations for March's book.

Cavebear, which Well book do you want?

[chequita guevara]

I support Handmaid's Tale. I'll read it again. I would catagorize it as science fiction because the whole situation comes about because of pollution, IIRC.

Actually, Bush and Ashcroft have me thinking about that book a lot. It's interesting how she foresaw the rise of the religious right in the early seventies.

[SpencerH]

A Handmaids tale came out mid eighties.

[chequita guevara]

R U sure?

[SpencerH]

The Handmaid's Tale; McClelland & Stewart, Houghton Mifflin, 1985; Cape, 1985.

[jdd2007]

ive been dabbling into SF lately, with the Ender series and Dune. pretty good books, though i dont want to get too deep into the addictive world of scienfe fiction...

[Rogan Josh]

I nominate Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

[JohnT]

This is a brand new club, jdd. If you want to throw Ender or Dune out as a nomination, feel free. Hell, I'll do it myself.

[JohnT]

600 pages, Rogan? You wanna kill our club?

Looks interesting, btw. I'll throw it in the nomination pot, as well as see if I can find a copy myself.

[molly bloom]

I'd like to nominate:

Thomas Disch- 334

L. P. Hartley- Facial Justice

U K Le Guin- The Day Before the Revolution or Vaster Than Empires and More Slow (short stories in the collection 'The Wind's Twelve Quarters')

and China Mieville - Perdido Street Station

[loinburger]

Count me in. I'd like to nominate Drake's Hammer's Slammers series, but since a series (four books) is too much to nominate, I'll report back when I can pare it down to a single book.

[mactbone]

I'm interested, but I'm currently taking a couple of classes that are reading intensive. One actually happens to be a Sci-Fi/Fantasy English course concentrating on Nanotechnology and Cyborgs.

I just finished the Ender's Game series and it gets kind of... stale, I think. I also read the first book in the Discworld series, and it's interesting. The book/s I would really like to discuss are the Herbert/Ransom Jesus Incident series. I think it's very interesting to read books set in odd places that deal with themes we experience in our lives, like religion.

The books in my Sci-Fi class are:
Frankenstein
The Ship Who Sang
The Wild Seed (which is fantasy)
The Left Hand of Darkness (fantasy)
Blood Music
Diamond Age
Crescent City Rhapsody