1) I read almost all of Anne McCaffrey as a teen, but I wouldn't exactly say they're all good books. The only ones I do keep coming back to are Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums (now called the Harper Hall trilogy). They were the first ones I read, work well enough on their own, and I'm not sure I would have cared so much about reading the rest of the books if I'd started elsewhere.
The classic Le Guin recs for Science Fiction are The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, but I don't know which would best to try first. I started with her Earthsea (Fantasy) books, and my favorites by her are Lavinia (which I guess could be counted as Fantasy but is more literary fanfic to my mind) and Searoad which is a collection of short stories based around a small town in Oregon. Anyhow, her "Hainish" universe (to which both The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness belong) really explore constructs of gender and society.
I'm really mostly several years out of date on who's writing what in SF/F right now, but two authors I'm going to try to pick up books I missed in their series while I'm in CA are C. J. Cherryh and Jo Walton. I'm missing a book in Walton's alternate WWII series that starts with Farthing, and I think I'm two behind in Cherryh's increasingly epic Foreigner series. Cherryh does alien psychology really well, BTW, and I love what she does with linguistics and culture (as well as her characters). If you try that series, you will want to start from the beginning and read in order, and this may take a bit of effort because the first third of Foreigner is a self-contained first-contact novella, and then the real story picks up generations later. At least the first nine books or so break nicely into trilogies, but as the story gets bigger the books get less self-contained. For a smaller try, her earlier series starting with The Pride of Chanur is really fun and deals with some similar themes (and the alien psychology she does so well). My favorite standalone of hers is Cuckoo's Egg.
The thing with both of these authors: They're not lazy and they try new things. Walton writes more Fantasy, as she started with a really original take on an Arthurian story, but she never repeats herself. She's written a Trollope novel with dragons, Alternate History, and most recently a magical memoir Among Others, that blends believing in fairies and magic with coming of age as a science fiction fan.
I love Peter Watts, but the experience of reading those books is a serious gut punch and I think the last one influenced a bad dream. And I am not easily squicked, although I'm not a horror fan. So, yeah. I can't not warn, but I'd say at least try Starfish, keep on for at least until you get used to the flat affect of the style (which is there for a reason), and realize things get darker if you think it's worth continuing. The Rifters trilogy is available online for free under a creative commons license, btw.
Yeah, "smegging" is a great word. I love Red Dwarf (which reminds me that completely daft and illogical sit-coms set on a space ship with absolutely no pretense at continuity or scientific credibility can also be brilliant Science Fiction). :D
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The classic Le Guin recs for Science Fiction are The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, but I don't know which would best to try first. I started with her Earthsea (Fantasy) books, and my favorites by her are Lavinia (which I guess could be counted as Fantasy but is more literary fanfic to my mind) and Searoad which is a collection of short stories based around a small town in Oregon. Anyhow, her "Hainish" universe (to which both The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness belong) really explore constructs of gender and society.
I'm really mostly several years out of date on who's writing what in SF/F right now, but two authors I'm going to try to pick up books I missed in their series while I'm in CA are C. J. Cherryh and Jo Walton. I'm missing a book in Walton's alternate WWII series that starts with Farthing, and I think I'm two behind in Cherryh's increasingly epic Foreigner series. Cherryh does alien psychology really well, BTW, and I love what she does with linguistics and culture (as well as her characters). If you try that series, you will want to start from the beginning and read in order, and this may take a bit of effort because the first third of Foreigner is a self-contained first-contact novella, and then the real story picks up generations later. At least the first nine books or so break nicely into trilogies, but as the story gets bigger the books get less self-contained. For a smaller try, her earlier series starting with The Pride of Chanur is really fun and deals with some similar themes (and the alien psychology she does so well). My favorite standalone of hers is Cuckoo's Egg.
The thing with both of these authors: They're not lazy and they try new things. Walton writes more Fantasy, as she started with a really original take on an Arthurian story, but she never repeats herself. She's written a Trollope novel with dragons, Alternate History, and most recently a magical memoir Among Others, that blends believing in fairies and magic with coming of age as a science fiction fan.
I love Peter Watts, but the experience of reading those books is a serious gut punch and I think the last one influenced a bad dream. And I am not easily squicked, although I'm not a horror fan. So, yeah. I can't not warn, but I'd say at least try Starfish, keep on for at least until you get used to the flat affect of the style (which is there for a reason), and realize things get darker if you think it's worth continuing. The Rifters trilogy is available online for free under a creative commons license, btw.
Yeah, "smegging" is a great word. I love Red Dwarf (which reminds me that completely daft and illogical sit-coms set on a space ship with absolutely no pretense at continuity or scientific credibility can also be brilliant Science Fiction). :D