Group items tagged

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” ― Stephen King, On Writing

“We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.” ― Philip K. Dick, VALIS

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” ― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.” ― Lemony Snicket, The Grim Grotto

“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections

“I don't go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.” ― Neil Gaiman

For his important short fiction, Starlight (1976) [Amazon|Powell's].

CADIGAN, Pat. Synners [Amazon|Powell's] won the 1989 Arthur C. Clarke Award, Fools won the 1994 award for this author who won her first acclaim as the only female cyberpunk author at the time; soon after considered the "Queen of Cyberpunk." Patterns (1988) [Amazon|Powell's] was her first major collection of short works, and Mindplayers (1987) [Amazon|Powell's] was her breakout novel.

CAMPBELL, John W. The Best of John W. Campbell (1976) [Amazon|Powell's]. Influential, longtime editor of Astounding/Analog, Campbell began as a writer of space epics and then turned to writing the more subtle psychological, philosophical stories collected here.

CHARNAS, Suzy McKee. Walk to the End of the World (1974) [Amazon|Powell's] was one of the early post-holocaust feminist dystopias, followed by Motherlines (1978) [Amazon|Powell's], a feminist utopia. "Boobs" won the 1989 Hugo.

CHERRYH, C. J. Downbelow Station [Amazon|Powell's]. Hugo, 1982. This former high school Latin teacher writes about carefully designed future civilizations and alien societies, as well as fantasy novels, such as her Rusalka trilogy.

CLARKE, Arthur C. Childhood's End [Amazon|Powell's] (1953). A visionary, eschatological novel about Earth's children changing into pure mentality and joining the Overmind. Clarke is one of the three best-known contemporary science-fiction writers of his time (the other two were Asimov and Heinlein) and worth reading in any of his three moods: extrapolative, poetic, philosophical. Other important books: The City and the Stars (1956) [Amazon|Powell's]; Rendezvous with Rama [Amazon|Powell's], Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, 1974; The Fountains of Paradise [Amazon|Powell's], Hugo, Nebula, 1979; and the novelization of the Stanley Kubrick film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [Amazon|Powell's].

DICK, Philip K. The Man in the High Castle [Amazon|Powell's]. The United States has lost World War II, and Japan and Germany have divided it up, except for the Rocky Mountain states, where a novelist is writing a book in which the United States won the war; one of the best of the alternate-history novels. Hugo, 1963. Dick, who died in 1982, was a prolific author whose books, all of interest, dealt often with the nature of reality: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? [Amazon|Powell's] (upon which the film "Blade Runner" was based, 1968); Ubik [Amazon|Powell's] (1969); Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (Campbell, 1974) [Amazon|Powell's]; and Valis (1981) [Amazon|Powell's].

DOCTOROW, Cory. Doctorow is an SF author, blogger, and technology activist. He co-edits Boing Boing and contributes to many other publications. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. His fiction has been nominated for all the major awards and won the Locus Award and the Sunburst Award. Doctorow speaks frequently about copyright, technology, and post-scarcity economics. His Little Brother [Amazon|Powell's] won the 2008 John W. Campbell Award.

FARMER, Philip José. To Your Scattered Bodies Go [Amazon|Powell's]. The first novel in Farmer's Riverworld series, in which all past human beings are revived to find themselves living along the banks of a long river. Hugo, 1972. The first had Richard Burton as its hero, the second, The Fabulous Riverboat [Amazon|Powell's] (1971), Mark Twain. Farmer is prolific, and delights in reviving old heroes in fiction or fictionalized biography such as Tarzan Alive [Amazon|Powell's] (1972) and Venus on the Half Shell [Amazon|Powell's] (1975).