Posted on 12/13/2013 8:49:04 PM PST by Kip Russell
Everybody (well, everybody who reads sf/fantasy) has their favorite novels in each genre...which are usually a bunch of other people's favorite novels as well. This only makes sense, since cream rises to the top.
But even so, there are plenty of obscure books that for whatever reason, never really caught on. They might well be great reads, but no one seems to have heard of them...so what's your favorite sf and fantasy novel that still lies in not-so-deserved obscurity?
With any luck, we'll all discover a bunch of great books that we've never heard of before!
I'll start off with mine: for sf, "The Killing Star" by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski.
In the late 21st Century, our solar system is attacked by aliens using "relativity missiles"...boulder-sized hunks of metal accelerated to 90% of the speed of light. Thousands of them. 99.9999% of humanity is wiped out in a few hours. There's no need for a spoiler warning, this happens in the first 20 pages. The rest of the novel follows the desperate struggle of the few survivors spread throughout the solar system.
For fantasy, "A Personal Demon" by Richard Brown, David Bischoff, and Linda Richardson.
When Willis Baxter, a frustrated professor at a New England university with a penchant for drink and remarkable talent for failure in romantic relationships, got too drunk at his own party, unexpected results ensued. Instead of just impressing his guests with his knowledge of obscure magic rituals, he summoned an absolutely stunning female half-demon, Anathae. The demon, who looks like a naked sixteen year-old redhead with small horns, hooves and a tasteful tail, has been unhappy in Hell, and is extremely grateful to her "liberator". Luckily, most guests attribute the summoning to a party trick, with amusement value pretty much divided by gender.
Hilarity ensues. "I Dream of Jeannie" meets Faust...
Not obscure (MIAHM won the Hugo, as I recall), but two of Heinlein's best!
Not exactly obscure, more like forgotten.
One of the first "superplague wipes out 99.99% of humanity" novels, and the first one that isn't totally obscure!
One of my favorites!
Ok, It’s a graphic novel, but still interesting and obscure:
Superman:Red Son by Mark Millar and Dave Johnson.
From the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game:
I've seen it argued the The Divine Comedy is the first science fiction proto-novel.
I've read it at least half a dozen times. One of my all-time faves.
That's....putting it mildly. Rather controversial amongst the alternate history fan community as well.
Not “Deliverance the Home Game?”
I don’t like banjo music.
“sub-genre of “cozy catastrophes”
Ah ha, that’s like some murder mysteries are described as “cozies”. LOL, sure it is very British.
I think a well known example of the cozy murder mysteries might be “The Cat Who.....” series. I read a bunch of those, but they got a little too cute after a while.
Reminds me of the t-shirt I saw the last time I went white water rafting:
"I hear banjo music. Paddle faster."
Whoever owns the rights to this book should strive to make it more widely available, the demand seems to be there.
For a long while hubby and I were commuting 2 hours a day and we really enjoyed listening to audio books.
And actually the best, by far, was “World War Z”, it was an abridgement, but they did it like a radio play with all different people reading their part of the story. And Mark Hamill was excellent as the main protagonist. Highly recommended!
I found Lovecraft back about 1962 in high school. I challenged a girl in class to read THE RATS IN THE WALLS.
She later cussed me out (in a friendly way) and said she could not sleep for a week after reading it.
I’ll check that out, though all my home machines are Linux :(
Very good, and very different from the movie.
And Mark Hamill was excellent as the main protagonist.
He does great voice work...he was the voice of The Joker in the Batman animated series of the '90s.
Yup. Stirling says he set out to write a series in which the last two centuries of history turned out as badly as possible.
He came pretty darn close. Any history in which the Nazis of WWII are the kinder, gentler side is going to be pretty unpleasant.
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