Dressing old problems in a new overcoat is a terrific way of holding a mirror up to society. I love the freedom that SF gives authors to reinvent cultures, to mess with hierarchies and to make social comment.
Some of the most thought-provoking fiction ever written (Frankenstein, Dracula, Nineteen Eighty Four, Day of the Triffids, The Memoirs of a Survivor) deals with imagined realities.
And yet, so I’m reliably informed, around 80% of readers will never pick up a book that is labelled SFF because they don’t think they will enjoy it.
Why?
I’m genuinely puzzled when people say ‘I don’t read SF/F’ but then watch (and love!) films such as Terminator, Alien, The X Files, Jurassic Park, and Avatar. Is it possible that the majority of the film-going, TV-watching public simply don’t notice that a huge portion of their cinematic diet is Sci Fi/Fantasy? (And this is a genuine question, because as a writer of SF/F, I’m hardly impartial.)
My message to those of you who loved any of the above, or the Harry Potter, Twilight or Hunger Games films, is this: If you watch it, you should read it, too.
Below are some of my absolute favourite Sci Fi Fantasy reads. This is a diverse list, and I unashamedly use the SF/F label as a catch-all term for anything not quite of this world/reality.
So here goes, in no particular order…
The Memoirs of A Survivor, Doris Lessing
Mara and Dann, Doris Lessing
The White Dragon, Anne McCaffrey
The Earthsea Trilogy, Ursula Le Guin
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell
The MaddAddam Trilogy, Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Crystal World, JG Ballard
The Drowned World, JG Ballard
A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan
The Ice People, Maggie Gee
A Wrinkle in the Skin, John Christopher
The Trouble with Litchen, John Wyndham
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
February 2015