Essential reading for Science Fiction class

Zajdel, as many other polish authors from 60-80 era, wrote books criticizing totalitarian societes (obviously especially communism) in sci-fi form. He's probably the best of them. Best book from Zajdel is now probably more relevant than ever en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limes_inferior
From Lem I wouldn't recommend Pirx (which is light and entertaining) but rather something more important.

OT: VL, udzielasz się na polskim forum planszówek?

Chyba trochę zbyt nerwowy jestem na to. Staram się raczej unikać.

Feelitmon wrote: but Watts has been condemned in some circles for his use of a double-plus ungood word in the last line of the story and the word might make the story a non-starter for your class. (It depends on whether your campus requires trigger warnings, I suppose.)

Another author whose work has been mentioned a couple of times already is Alfred Bester. I agree, The Stars My Destination may have too much objectionable stuff to make the cut.

Damn, and here I thought half the point of college was to CHALLENGE students and spark debate. Education really has been hijacked by radical leftists if they are actually banning books due to content, something only bible thumpers used to be accused of. Heck, I remember watching the 60's "Romeo and Juliet" in junior high, nudity and all. And I got several college lit compendiums that had rape, pedophilia, and assault in them. What classic lit DOESN'T have some of those things?

jason10mm wrote:

Feelitmon wrote: but Watts has been condemned in some circles for his use of a double-plus ungood word in the last line of the story and the word might make the story a non-starter for your class. (It depends on whether your campus requires trigger warnings, I suppose.)

Another author whose work has been mentioned a couple of times already is Alfred Bester. I agree, The Stars My Destination may have too much objectionable stuff to make the cut.

Damn, and here I thought half the point of college was to CHALLENGE students and spark debate. Education really has been hijacked by radical leftists if they are actually banning books due to content, something only bible thumpers used to be accused of. Heck, I remember watching the 60's "Romeo and Juliet" in junior high, nudity and all. And I got several college lit compendiums that had rape, pedophilia, and assault in them. What classic lit DOESN'T have some of those things?

Crainiac teaches in Utah, I assure you there are no radical leftists there.

I say no to Frankenstein, it's a great book, but it gets shoehorned into every writing/fiction class out there. I had to read it for a professional writing class. Actually, not a lot of professional writing went on in that class, the instructor really turned it into a literary analysis kind of class.

Short stories are the way to go to give them maximum exposure to all the types of science fiction out there.

When I think of fun novels, I loved Stephen Kings time travel book on the JFK assassination. Sci fi doesn't have to be robots and spaceships. Time travel is plenty scary.

What a cool class to teach, good luck !

If you get to assign a movie, Moon is where it's at.

Forbidden Planet would be the film of choice with its ancestry in The Tempest. One of the fundamental concepts of Science Fiction is that you can host controversial subject matter in another world and even another species, giving the reader permission to consider the implications from a neutral perspective.

Moon is excellent though. I stumbled across it by mistake on HBO and loved it.

I'd recommend 2001: A Space Odyssey as the film to show. 90% or so of the special effects hold up today. As a film it's one of the best. It's the feel-good Origin of Humaity + Murderous Artificial Intelligence movie of all time!

edit: and I agree with Sag. I finally watched Moon over the holidays, and really liked it.

It's the students who tend to complain. Almost our entire department is lefty, with a few exceptions. I had forgotten that Dune is long. 544 pages for the trade paperback. I don't know if I could commit 1/7 of the class to that book. I am taking your advice on short stories as well. The guy with a degree in SF took that same approach when he taught it. The Dispossessed is probably on the list now, I will just lecture about Frankenstein, and will probably use Orson homophobe Card's "Masterpieces" collection because I already own it and students can get it cheap:

Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century may not include every reader's choices for the top science fiction of the 20th century, but it lives up to its title. Editor Orson Scott Card has assembled 27 standout stories by the biggest names and best writers in the genre. Not surprisingly, most of these stories have been anthologized or collected elsewhere, and some (like Arthur C. Clarke's "Nine Billion Names of God," Harlan Ellison's "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," and Robert A. Heinlein's "All You Zombies--") have been reprinted innumerable times. In addition, Card has previously placed some of these selections in his retrospective 1980s anthology Future on Ice.
While some stories in Masterpieces lack fine prose and well-rounded characters, they are solid and engrossing entertainments. Other selections combine literary and science fiction virtues to produce a superior blend, and some of these stories--"Bears Discover Fire" by Terry Bisson, "Snow" by John Crowley, "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" by Harlan Ellison, "Face Value" by Karen Joy Fowler, "Tourists" by Lisa Goldstein, and "The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin--are art.

A class like this has so many compromises. We will probably watch Bladerunner too, although I am getting a little tired of it, truth be told. When I showed the Matrix, they laughed at parts of it.

craniac wrote: When I showed the Matrix, they laughed at parts of it.

Whoa!

RobertB wrote: I'd recommend 2001: A Space Odyssey as the film to show. 90% or so of the special effects hold up today. As a film it's one of the best. It's the feel-good Origin of Humaity + Murderous Artificial Intelligence movie of all time!

.

No, its really Kubricks exposition on the impact of movies, and specifically cinema on our lives. Check out some of the great stuff like "The Monolith explained" (used to be on youtube. Some guy in Liverpool did an awesome Phd just on this. The fact that it still works in parallel with Clarkes book vision which fits your description only makes it more mind bogglingly good. But rest assured, almost every single scene in 2001 is full of visual clues that leave little room for doubt about what the movie is about, and how we as human beings as an audience are being awakened by our exposure to film.

For a more recent novel, I'd recommend Embassytown by China Mieville. Most of Mieville's stuff is impossible to pigeon-hole into a genre, but Embassytown is pretty much a straight-up sci-fi novel. It focuses on the language barrier between humanity and an alien speicies. It's very cool.

Someone said short stories would be the way to go and I agree -

Farmer's best stuff is in his short stories. Same with Niven. I would include a Vonnegut short story or two (Harrison Bergeron, Monkey House, etc) over Cat's Cradle - or if you were going to do a novel Sirens of Titan (My favorite SF book OAT)

I said the thing about the short stories you idiot. Now send me some love. All over. Shower me.

I'm kind of surprised nobody has mentioned any Jules Verne novels. Are they not considered science fiction? I could see the argument either way.

Dune 1-6...And if they can't quote Princess Irulan by the end of the course, fail um!