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Marta Randall
Suggested Reading List
Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
 
Books in italics are out of print, but can probably be found through used book stores or the library.

Books on Writing & on Science Fiction

Trillion Year Spree: The History Of Science Fiction by Brian Aldiss

Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America  by Kenneth C. Davis

Age of Wonders: Exploring the World of Science Fiction by David G. Hartwell

The Art of Fiction : Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

The Language of the Night : Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin

Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew by Ursula K. Le Guin

On Writer's Block by Victoria Nelson

Words in Our Pockets: The Feminist Writers Guild Handbook Celeste West (Editor)

Writing & Selling Science Fiction by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Out of print, but a new edition should be available some time in 2002. Check with the SFWA website.

Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy, ed Gardner Dozois et al.


Science Fiction & Fantasy: 
an idiosyncratic list

Suptertoys Last All Summer Long and other stories by Brian Aldiss

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Crystal World by J. G. Ballard

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Timescape by Gregory Benford

Time and Again by Jack Finney (but avoid the sequel, From Time to Time, which is dreadful).

Grendel by John Gardner

Neuromancer by Willliam Gibson

The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective by Harlan Ellison

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Norton Book of Science Fiction, ed Ursula K. LeGuin et al.

The Best of Fritz Lieber

Lankhmar: Tales of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser by Fritz Lieber

Amnesia  Moon by Jonathan Lethem

Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem

Far Tortuga by Peter Matthiessen

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock

A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

The Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake

Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers

Islands by Marta Randall

The Female Man by Joanna Russ

Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ

The Jaguar Hunter by Lucius Shepard

Up the Line by Robert Silverberg

Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology edited by Bruce Sterling

The Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart.

Bright Segment, the complete short stories of Theodore Sturgeon

Just about anything by Howard Waldrop is worthwhile. Most of it is available in electronic editions, the most recent being Dream Factories and Radio Pictures

Kingdoms of Elfin by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

The Doors of his Face, The Lamps of His Mouth by Roger Zelazny, especially the short story A Rose for Ecclesiastes