Some are Hugo Prize winning novels, others are just quirky stories that I enjoyed. To make it simple for myself they are not in any particular order.

1) The Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov
These were the books that converted me to a full on Science Fiction fan. It was about ‘Psycho-history’- predicting the future. The Foundation was a planet with every square metre covered by libraries of books.

2) The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
I read all the Wyndham books, but this was my favourite, a great adventure story. I also liked ‘Chocky’ which had something faster than the speed of light – thought.

3) Dune – Frank Herbert
Another space opera based on a desert planet. Great fun apart from the weird names.
 
4) Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
This book is so good I have read it three times. It has a strong theology theme. “You are God, I am God” Is the ‘catchphrase’ of this book.

5) The Iron Dream- Norman Spinrad
Pulp fiction par excellence. This has Adolf Hitler leaving Germany after the first World war, and setting up as an author in New York. Hitler’s first novel is about a pure human race battling against mutants, and colonising the Milky Way. A fascist wet dream.

6) Jesus on Mars – Frank Herbert
Herbert wrote this for his Mother, and it shows. A very pleasant tale of Jesus going to Mars after he rose from the dead, then returning to Earth for the Second Coming. It has a happy ending.

7) To Your Scatter Bodies Go (Riverworld) Philip Jose Farmer
Reincarnation onto a world with a river that goes on forever. Interesting characters from all parts of history gives plenty of scope for the Riverworld series. I think I read the first four.  
8 ) Ringworld - Larry Niven
A wonderful idea about an artificial planet that encircles the sun, Ringworld. This planet is round, but the other way. If you could see far enough you would see the Ringworld reaching up into the sky.

9)  Hyperion – Dan Simmons
Based on Chaucer’s Canterbury tales this is possibly my favourite Science Fiction book. One tale has a person travelling backward in time. There is a great monster in this – the Shrike. He travels through time, making him invisible to those around him. He impales his victims on spikes attached to his body.

10) The Mote in God’s Eye – Larry Niven
I’m an atheist but anything with Jesus or God in the title attracts my attention. I think the Mote in God’s eye is somewhere near the Horse’s Head nebulae in Orion. A space feature that has always fascinated me. I enjoyed Larry Niven taking me there.

What are your favourite Science Fiction books? My choices reflect my age. I was mainly reading SF in the 1970s, and a lot of the books were written in the 1950s or early sixties.

No fantasy or sword and sorcery please, I will write another post for Lord of the Rings type fiction.

John McNally
SF fan in Leamington Spa, England

‘All Things Must Pass’ was George Harrison’s first solo album where he was able to record all the half-finished songs he was unable to get onto any Beatles record. The result in 1970 was a triple album, and one of the finest recorded by any of the solo Beatles.

All Things Must Pass includes the title track, My Sweet Lord, If Not for You, Isn’t it a Pity, What is Life and many others. One of my least favourite songs is ‘Wah-Wah’ which I always thought refered to a baby’s crying sound.

Harrison wrote this after an argument with Paul McCartney. It also refers to the ‘Wah-Wah’ pedal used for guitar distortion, which McCartney complained Harrison was using too much.

However I now think there are three interpretations to this. Here’s a quote from ‘the Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini; “An end to the killing! Wah wah! But like the poet says; ‘How seamless seemed love and then came trouble!’ ” (p.261)

Harrison was influenced by eastern culture and religion, and he would have known of this ‘wah wah’ term.

In Northern India ‘Wah wah’ is used as an expression of enjoyment or appreciation, the English equivalent would be ‘wow!’ 

When I was reading the Kite Runner novel I thought I may learn something about Afghanistan, instead I added another piece to my Beatles knowledge jigsaw. Serendipity is my favourite word – ‘unexpected pleasure’.

John McNally

I was reminded of this by a recommended read for my local book club; ‘Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks’ by Alan Coren. I just didn’t like the title, it sounded frivolous and boring. I’m not interested in chocolate OR cuckoo clocks.

I knew that Alan Coren used to write a column for the humour magazine Punch, and I also didn’t want to read a load of short articles – I prefer novels.

If the library didn’t have a copy, I was going to make some excuse and not go to the book club. The library DID have a copy, and am I glad they have good taste….The book is excellent.  

It’s a selection of the articles Coren wrote for Punch magazine, and they are very, very funny. They are also very well written. Often Coren would parody the style of Hemingway or Joyce just for a laugh, which is more than you would get from the originals.

So the lesson here is chose your titles carefully, and ‘Never Judge a Book by it’s Cover.’

John McNally

The only reason I still have this paperback is because I find it impossible to throw books away. But unknown to me this bit of pulp fiction I bought in a junk shop in the 1970s is out of print, and I suppose because of Dan Brown and the popularity of “The Da Vince Code”, conspiracy theories are back in fashion.

This made me wonder what other hidden gems I might have lurking on my bookshelves. Here’s a random selection of books I thought might also be valuable with the Amazon sale price:

£15-  ’Behind the Flying Saucer Mystery’ by George Adamaski (1967)
£20- ‘Fischer-Spassky Move by Move’ by Larry Evans (1973)
£35 – ‘ The Silver Surfer’ by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby (1978)
£44 -  ‘The Jesus Scroll’ by Donavon Joyce (1972 – out of print)
£78 – ‘Secrets Behind the Comics’ by Stan Lee (1994 – Limited edition)

Take a look around your attic, or on your bookshelves, you never know what hidden gems may be lurking there.  One person’s bit of junk is another persons antique or collectible item.

I haven’t sold anything on eBay yet, but I’ve suddenly realised I have a house full of stock.

John McNally

Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real Mockingbird of this pulitzer prize winning novel, Tom Robinson a black man falsely accused of raping a white girl.

As I read this book I remembered the film with Gregory Peck
who portrays one of the great heroes of literature, a lawyer whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped in prejudice and hypocrisy.

This book is a very well written ‘page turner’ which captures the atmosphere of the deep South in 1930′s America. A time which is drifting into the shadows of the past now that we have Barack Obama as President. Although the story is very moving and poignant there was one part that made me laugh out loud.

Tom Robinson was being quizzed at the trial as to why he ran away;
“Like I says before, it weren’t safe for any n****r to be in a – fix like that.”
“But you weren’t in a fix – you testified that you were resisting Miss Ewell. Were you so scared that she’d hurt you, you ran, a big buck like you?”
“No suh, I’s scared I’d be in court, just like I am now.”
“Scared of arrest, scared you’d have to face up to what you did?”
“No suh, scared I’d hafta face up to what I didn’t do.”

This short film extract demonstrates how it was impossible for Tom Robinson to have committed the crime, yet he was still found guilty by an all white jury.

One thing jarred in the book with me, and the only other instance I can think of is with Bart Simpson and Homer. Throughout the book the children call their father by his first name Atticus. Does anyone know how or why this happens in some families?

John McNally

The Future Homemakers of America

The story follows the American women married to USA pilots, who travelled to different foreign bases with their husbands.  Laurie Graham takes us through Korea and Vietnam, revisting the Cold War years when the world was on the edge of destruction.

This is a novel about relationships set against a military background. I enjoyed this nostalgic look back to “the good old days”, reminding us of a time when not everyone had a car,phone,TV or even a toilet inside a house. (Instead you had a freezing run to the outside loo).

Although I knew this was a book about women, it took me 50 pages before I realised the person telling the story was also a woman. So I had to readjust my head to get a female perspective – quite an unusual experience.

I have read very few books by female authors, and they are mainly in my favourite genre of science fiction or science fantasy. However this book reminded me of “84 Charing Cross Road” by Helene Hanff.

It concernded the same era, 1950s and 1960s, and the same theme, an American woman interacting with an English friend. Not exactly a clash of cultures, but these books point out the differences.

I recommend both as enjoyable reads. 

John McNally

CONTACT is a novel by the late scientist Carl Sagan about first contact with alien lifeforms. Sagan’s enthusiasm and belief in Alien Intelligences led to the establishment of SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestial Intelligence).

Contact was an excellent science fiction novel exploring themes of religious belief, science, rationality, faith and god. Contact is also a hollywood film staring Jodie Foster. The film version however, left out my favourite part of the book.

In the novel, the Jodie Foster character travels to the far end of the universe and talks to an Alien lifeform. The alien seems so powerful and all-knowing that at one stage she asks “Are you God?”. The alien replies that he is not god, but if you want to find him, look into pye (the mathematical formula).

Returning to Earth, scientists consider the aliens enigmatic reply, and decide to set up a super-computer to print out pye, in binary form, to trillions of decimal points. After 6 months of binary print-out, there is suddenly an excited cry, from a scientist monitoring the computer.

There amongst all the ones and zeros, was a large perfectly formed circle. Within the mathematical formula for a circle, was another circle. It couldn’t have happened randomly. It could only have been placed there, by the diety who constructed the universe.

It was God’s signature, which he left for any race who gained enough intelligence to calculate pye to trillions of decimal points. It was a lovely idea.  It’s a pity that we haven’t found any such signature, and can only sustain god through faith.

John McNally

These articles could be classified as Product Reviews, EXCEPT you never read a bad review! After all, the blogger won’t make any money out of saying how bad something is.

What’s  worse than the blatant sales pitch, are those blogs where the reviews aren’t even personal. They are just a rehash of the products sales page, or a PLR article scattered with BUY buttons.

These Blog owners are making a fundamental error. They know that the purpose of the blog is to make money, however by FOCUSING on this aspect, their blog loses QUALITY. If the blog has no quality it will lose traffic, and ultimately lose money.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a famous book on philosophy, that sold millions of copies in the 1970′s.
The book criticises the scientific tradition of splitting the world between subject (YOU) and object (the BLOG). Instead the author advocates looking at the world as a whole, and the glue between subject and object is QUALITY.

Religious people also recognise how unsatisfactory the world is, when only perceived with a duality between subject and object. However their “glue” is called LOVE. The Beatles knew about this, but they didn’t need thousands of words to explain it, they could do it in one lyric. “All You Need is Love”.

“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions, and right actions produces work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the centre of it all. ” Robert M. Pirsig,  ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ (1974) Bantam Books, page 267.

John McNally

When I choose a science fiction book I usually go for a title with ‘God’ or ‘Eternity’ or ‘Infinity’ in it. I want to travel to the furthest reaches of human imagination. I usually enjoy the book but I’m almost inevitably disappointed by the conclusion. 

I’m looking for the answer to “life, the universe and everything” (as Douglas Adams would say), but it’s obviously naive of me to think a science fiction author has got all the answers.

I’ve just finished ‘Childhood’s End’ by Arthur C Clarke, and this is the first time a books conclusion exceeded my expectations. Arthur C Clarke always tells a good story, but the ending of this book is exceptional. If Buzz Lightyear was writing this he would be justified in exclaiming “To Infinity and Beyond”.

The best visual experience I have had for travelling into infinity is at the end of 2001 A Space Odyssey. Here the ending is deliberately enigmatic, but it’s certainly uplifting, with the astronaut Dave Bowman being transformed into a “Star-Child”.

The conclusion of Childhood’s End is even better, with the whole of mankind being transformed. I don’t want to spoil the book for you by revealing any more, but I do recommend you read it.

John McNally

My first choice was I thought fairly ‘safe’. “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey. This was also a great film with Jack Nicholson. The book however gives terrifying descriptions of probably the most evil monster in fiction: Nurse Ratched.

I’m glad to say the whole group really enjoyed the book. Next, I picked a children’s/adult crossover novel, “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak. Again the whole group liked the book. I was on a roll now, and gaining confidence, so I decided to introduce them to Science Fiction.

I obviously picked one I thought they would like, and chose “Fahrenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury.  I was on fairly safe ground here as the novel is all about the joys of reading! Once again the group enjoyed the book, and even commented on how well it was written, (something I was unaware of)!

I had picked a few fun books, so I thought I had better introduce an “intellectual” novel, and chose “The Magus” by John Fowles. What a disaster! No-one liked the book. They thought it was pretentious, adolescent rubbish………I thought it was far too long, because I still haven’t finished it!

I’m sticking with what I know next time – So it’s back to Science Fiction! 

John McNally