It’s World UFO Day! So which books did Rob and Kate pick as their favourite science fiction or fantasy reads?
Rob: I absolutely fell in love with Ready Player One. Its futuristic mix of nostalgia and a hero’s quest ticked all the boxes for me and if you were born in the Eighties and have any interest in what we consider to be the geek culture of the time then YOU MUST READ THIS. I’m nervous about the forthcoming film adaptation and but this remains one of the few books that I would have re-read immediately on finishing it.
Kate: Inversion isn’t the Iain M Banks novel that is picked out as frequently but it’s so unusual that it really stands out as something special. As you read, you seem to be in a medieval or historical setting, with only hints at a science fiction plot, until a subtle change puts a different spin on things. I love Banks’ daring to depart from convention and his character and world-building here is second to none.
Iain M Banks is great- of course, and Inversions is a great choice, tho’ I’ll have to catch up on Ready Player One. However as a choice from the previous SF generation then it has to be Walter M Miller’s Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman. He’s most famous for The Canticle for Leibowitz- inspired by his experience as a US airman of the destruction of the monastery of Monte Casino, in which he took part. I read the canticle as a young man, and it’s wonderful- but St Leibowitz is something else. It was not completely finished when he committed suicide in 1966, a victim of post traumatic stress disorder- before it had a name- and didn’t get published until 1997. It is apocalyptic- but also redemptive. It’s the SF equivalent of King Lear, if you will, as Keats wrote
“…..for once again the fierce dispute,
Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay
Must I burn through”
It’s that good!
Great recommendation, thank you; this sounds extraordinary! – Kate