People are always asking where they should start reading particular authors. This series of posts working their way through the alphabet as represented by my bookshelves, is an attempt to answer those questions. The popular “A” list can be found here, and the full alphabetical index is here. Please comment to add any B writers that I may have missed, and of course to argue with my choices.
I’m linking to my posts on the books where I have made such posts.
My B shelf begins with a disturbingly large number of copies of
Destinies, a paperback SF magazine edited by Jim Baen in my own personal golden age of the late seventies and early eighties. How I loved it and waited eagerly for new copies to arrive in the bookshop! There doesn’t seem much point recommending it now but if you happen to see copies lying around it’s still worth picking up for the Spider Robinson reviews (lacerating books most people have now forgotten) the Pournelle essays on space futures and technology,
In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.
Greg Bear is one of the most respected science fiction writers to emerge in the latter part of the 20
th century, producing books on a great variety of subjects, in a wide range of settings, with all of them being well-constructed and engaging. So, when I saw that he had written a sequel to one of my favorite novels,