Came across this list of science fiction books that changed the genre today.

Like most people, I mainly used it to see how many of them I have already read. Of the 17 there, I’ve read 10. And of the ones I have ready, I totally agree with their assessment. Like I have said before, the novel Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clark had such a deep affect on me that I walked around in a profound daze for the next two daze. Something about the ending of that book drew extremely powerful emotions from me when I read it in my late tweens and early twenties, and I am positive it must have changed me a lot as a person.

And come to think of it, I haven’t read it again since. I guess I never wanted to go through all that again.

Stranger In A Strange Land contains such love and liberalism in it that it makes me want to throw the book, full force, at anyone who thinks Heinlein was a conservative. A libertarian, certainly, but back then, all that meant was that you were a ferocious defender of the little guy against the faceless powers that be that would stomp the little guy into the dirt.

Most liberals were, back then, libertarians.

Dune by Frank Herbert is one of my favorite books in all of existence. Every time I read it, I am amazed by how deep, rich, and magnificently satisfying the novel is. Wheels within wheels indeed! And at the center of it all is the spiritual journey of Paul Mua’dib Atreides, who passes through the eye of the needle and comes out the other side without his new power destroying him.

The War Of The Worlds by H. G. Wells still has enormous power. The Time Machine is brilliant but it doesn’t move me like The War Of The Worlds does. TWOTW grips me and makes me feel the desolation of a world shattered by an invasion of an army far stronger than anyone we have. And the fact that we humans survive by sheer dumb luck makes a great deal of sense to me, because the whole idea of the thing is to show us what colonialism is like from the point of view of the colonized.

Foundation by Asimov is an extraordinary novel. When I first read it, and read the description of psychohistory, I had to put the book down just to think about that for a while. I wanted to deny it, but it’s entirely plausible. Humans are unpredictable as individuals but highly predictable in groups, and the bigger the group, the more predictable we become. As if we have some kind of inner balancing system – the zeitgeist, maybe – that insures that it all turns out the same no matter what we do. If force A come into play, force B will spontaneously arise to counter it, and the end result will be about the same as if force A had never gotten into the game in the first place.

It’s spooky, really.

Ringworld by Larry Niven is the weakest entry in the bunch. Niven was so eager to show us around this big idea of his that the plot is, frankly, crap. But I cannot deny that it had a huge impact on the hard science fiction genre, and fired the imaginations of generations of scientists and engineers.

It’s just not my cuppa.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman did not have a huge impact on me personally, even though I enjoyed it. But it doesn’t age well, in my opinion. The big points it was trying to make seem trivial and obvious now. An endless war based on a misunderstanding? Mindblowing. But for its time, it was an amazing work and radical as hell.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is a book so profound that it is now taught in non-specialty English classes in high schools and universities all over the world. This pleases me, because it’s an amazing book that treats reinventing the novel like an afterthought. But I have to admit that I worry that, by forcing it on so many kids, it will become resented by an entire generation who might have liked it if they had found it on their own, like I did.

I went through a heavy Vonnegut phase in Grade 9.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury was part of my entree into the world of science fiction. I read all the Asimov my elementary school’s library, and didn’t know what to read next, and there, right next to the Asimov, was Bradbury.

And, last but definitely not least, we have The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It is still the funniest science fiction book I have ever read, even after all these years, and the fact that it unites two of my favorite things – science fiction and comedy – as well as being bloody brilliant means its place in my heart is forever secure.

Reading the list was a lot of fun, but it did bring a sad realization : I guess I am not going to be a famous science fiction writer after all. Not in the usual way, anyhow. I would love to be a writer on a science fiction series, and I could definitely live with being the next Dan Harmon or J. Michael Straczynski.

But I am not going to become the next Asimov. At least, not any time soon. The die is cast, the decision is made, I am going to be a screenwriter or TV writer. So I have to let go of one dream in order to embrace another, and that’s never easy.

If I make a name for myself, maybe those people who approach celebrities and get them to write a book will find me. Or I will find them. And nothing says that I can’t write the great Canadian science fiction novel between gigs.

And who knows…. maybe someone will pay me a million bucks for the movie rights!

And guess who will be writing the script?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.