Today is my Dad’s birthday and in honor of this momentous occassion I am providing a reading list just for him (fair warning – if you don’t like science fiction or technothrillers you are SOL). For as long as I can remember my dad always read Asimov – he always tried to get me to read the Robot Foundation series. Unfortunately, teenage girls aren’t as interested in classic science fiction as say, historical romance novels or watching Dirty Dancing for the thousandth time. So if you haven’t read Asimov, take some time and read I, Robot – it was written in 1950 and is considered THE classic sci-fi novel. If you have read it, then maybe peruse some of these novels :
1) The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
A collection of eighteen short stories following the destiny of humankind. A mixture of science fiction, magic, reality, and imagination. (taken from Fantastic Fiction)
2) The Phoenix Code by Catherine Asaro
Robotics expert Megan O’Flannery is the sole human contact with the new self-aware android project dubbed Aris. Programmed as part of a top-secret defense project, Aris proves to be resourceful and uncontrollable. Megan enlists the help of robotics genius Raj Sundaram. Aris soon becomes jealous of Raj, and Megan discovers that Raj may be a greater danger than Aris. (taken from Fantastic Fiction)
3) Peace on Earth by Stanislaw Lem
A comic send-up of militarism, espionage, scientists and psychiatrists in which the unflappable hero fights for truth and justice in a world gone mad. (taken from Fantastic Fiction)
4) The Door Into Summer by Robert Heinlein
When Dan Davis is crossed in love and stabbed in the back by his business associates, the immediate future doesn’t look too bright for him and Pete, his independent-minded tom cat. Suddenly, the lure of suspended animation, the Long Sleep, becomes irresistible and Dan wakes up thirty years later in the twenty-first century. He discovers that the robot household appliances he invented, far from having been stolen from him, have, mysteriously, been patented in his name. There’s only thing for it. Dan has to, somehow, travel back in time to investigate… (taken from Fantastic Fiction)
5) Gateway by Frederick Pohl
Wealth … or death. Those were the choices Gateway offered. Humans had discovered this artificial spaceport, full of working interstellar ships left behind by the mysterious, vanished Heechee. Their destinations are preprogrammed. They are easy to operate, but impossible to control. Some came back with discoveries which made their intrepid pilots rich; others returned with their remains barely identifiable. It was the ultimate game of Russian roulette, but in this resource-starved future there was no shortage of desperate volunteers. Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. (taken from Fantastic Fiction)
6) Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg
Set in an immense world teeming with alien races and fantastic magical machinery, Valentine wakes up one morning with only a vague and troubled idea of who he is. His dreams suggest he is the ruler of Majipor – but no one will believe him. (taken from Fantastic Fiction)
My dad also loves the Tom Clancy technothriller. Here are some books that Tom Clancy himself recommends :
1) Storm Warning by Jack Higgins
During World War II, a group of German expatriates trapped in Brazil must sail across five thousand miles of tempestuous water to reach their homeland-and face the deadly barricade of American and British military power. (taken from Fantastic Fiction)
2) The Spanish Gambit by Stephen Hunter
Julian Raines was a golden boy from Eton, a renowned young poet who fled into the Spanish Civil War. Robert Florry was once Raine’s friend. Now he is being blackmailed by British Intelligence into hunting down his old friend in Spain. MI-6 says Julian Raines has turned KGB spy. The whorehouses of Barcelona are jammed. The bars are filled with laughter, and the streets are running with wine and blood. In the chaos, Robert Florry will find his old friend, unaware that a noose of espionage, psychological terror, and murder is being tightened around them by masters of the craft. A Soviet agent named the Devil Himself has gone rogue; an American mobster turned secret policeman is after a missing gold shipment; and all the rules have changed. Now there’s only one way out of Spain: on a path of terror, lies and blood. (taken from Fantastic Fiction)
3) The Generals by W E B Griffin
They were the leaders, the men who made the decision that changed the outcome of battles…and the fate of the continents. From the awesome landing at Normandy to the torturous campaigns of the South Pacific, from the frozen hills of Korea to the devastated wastes of Dien Bien Phu, they had earned their stars. Now they led America’s finest against her most relentless enemy deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia. It was a new kind of war, but the Generals led a new kind of army, ready for battle–and for glory…(taken from Fantastic Fiction)
4) The Legacy of Hereot by Steven Barnes, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Civilization on Earth was rich, comfortable and overcrowded. Millions applied, but only the best were chosen to settle on Tau Ceti Four. The colony was a success, an idyll, the stuff of dreams, but beyond the perimeter the nightmare has begun to chatter.(taken from Fantastic Fiction)
Lastly, if you know anything about my dad you know he is Hungarian and proud! So I thought he might like to read some books by Hungarian authors…check them out!
1) Fateless by Imre Kertesz (Sorstalansag)
On his return to his native Budapest from a German concentration camp, 14-year-old George Koves senses the difference of people on the street. Left to ponder the meaning of his experience alone, he comes to the conclusion that neither his Hungarian or Jewish heritage was at the heart of his fate. (taken from Fantastic Fiction)
2) Embers by Sandor Marai
In a secluded woodland castle an old General prepares to receive a rare visitor, a man who was once his closest friend but who he has not seen in forty-one years. Over the ensuing hours host and guest will fight a duel of words and silences, accusations and evasions. They will exhume the memory of their friendship and that of the General’s beautiful, long-dead wife. And they will return to the time the three of them last sat together following a hunt in the nearby forest–a hunt in which no game was taken but during which something was lost forever. Originally published in 1942. (taken from Goodreads)
3) The Door by Magda Szabo
The story of two women, a writer and her housekeeper. While responding to her own needs for recognition and acceptance as an artist, the writer encourages her very private housekeeper to emerge from inner isolation. But when the housekeeper becomes ill and dies, the writer is not available to her. The book serves as the writer’s apology for neglecting her human responsibilities. (taken from Goodreads)
4) The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
A circus, promising to display the stuffed body of the largest whale in the world, arrives in the dead of winter, prompting bizarre rumors. Word spreads that the circus folk have a sinister purpose in mind, and the frightened citizens cling to any manifestation of order they can find—music, cosmology, fascism. The novel’s characters are unforgettable: the evil Mrs. Eszter, plotting her takeover of the town; her weakling husband; and Valuska, our hapless hero with his head in the clouds, who is the tender center of the book, the only pure and noble soul to be found. (taken from Goodreads)
As you can see, Hungarians are an upbeat bunch ;P Anyway, Isten éltessen sokáig Dad! Enjoy these books. Thanks for always picking up ridiculous teeny bopper movies from the video store (which must have been embarrassing) and turning me onto Blood Sport. I love you.
Trina
The Bookinista 