SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

***See Message 25 for a further description of this month's theme***

Since we have plenty of time to find our January book, I thought we would do things in stages this time. This first phase should be relatively short, but it will end in a vote, and then we will come back to this thread and move on to the next stage.

Stage One: what we're looking for is a Sci-Fi Novel in a "Popular Universe."

The two obvious possibilities are Star Trek and Star Wars, but there are others and we are looking for a handful of choices to vote on.

Come and chat, weigh in, offer your favourite "popular universe" for consideration. This phase of the discussion won't require an official nomination process. Make some suggestions, we'll talk for about a week, and I'll compile a list to vote on.

Who's going to get us started?

Here's a list of the Universes that are currently part of the next poll. I may add more, and I may take some out depending on availability to purchase.

Star Wars
Star Trek
Dr. Who
Warhammer 40k
Halo
Babylon 5
X-Files
DC Universe
Buck Rogers
Marvel Universe

Disqualified due to lack of book selection (although they would otherwise have been a good fit):
Firefly
Gears of War
Battlestar Galactica
Mass Effect

Others that have been disqualified for various reasons, including cult status, "too literary," not in a "shared" universe, not recognized enough by pop culture, not Sci-Fi.

Dune. Totally kicks ass on Star Trek and Star Wars, which I love, but not as much as the Duniverse.
You choose Dune, I'm definitely in.

How about the Star Wars book that (re)started it all: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn?

How popular is popular enough? What about the "Dragonriders of Pern" series? It's more fantasy in the beginning, but it definitely turns into Science Fiction a few books in- Dragonsdawn would be a good one- while not the first written it is the first chronologically and is definitely more sci-fi than fantasy.

But Dune is cool, too. I'd be in for that one.

I did all the Pern, they're good for a one time but I'll never re-read them. Dune I re-read all of it over and over again and I get something new out of it every time. I'm a true Dune fanatic, so don't mind me pushing for it, I just can't help myself, LOL

ST and SW are good but divisive, IMHO. I mean I'm a Trekkie from way back but Star Wars is just OK ... and I know there are many that think exactly the opposite.

Thinking outside that box, I first went Old School - well somewhat old school - like the Dune universe or John Carter's Mars or The Pliocene Exile ...

What about Tarzan? Lots of authors have written Tarzan novels. . . or, similarly, Conan the Barbarian.

Mainly because I'd enjoy reading some Edgar Rice Burroughs too. :)

What should we say constitutes a popular universe? I'd say it would have to span multiple formats(ie books, movies, tv, games).

With that in mind, here's a few:
Star Wars
Star Trek
Dune
Dr. Who
Firefly
Warhammer 40k
Halo
Gears of War

Geeze... this is going to take some time

Then there are comic books/graphic novels, I suppose, that would fit as well...

There is Asimov's Foundation Universe, which includes the Robot Books.

Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan's Universe.

There is Alan Dean Foster's Commonwealth Universe, which includes all of the FLinx books, and his other commonwealth books including Catchelot, Mission to Moulekin, etc.

CJ Cherryh also has her large Alliance-Union universe including the Nebula award winner Downbelow Station

Piers Anthony's Cluster universe.

James White's Sectior General series (medicine for aliens)

Poul Anderson's Flandry series

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series

CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series is the berries. Love it. Haven't read Alliance-Union yet.

David Weber's "Honor Harrington" universe.

Second Cherryh's "Foreigner" series, Asimov's Robots, Bujold's Vorkosigan, Foster's Flinx, Anderson's Flandry.

I'll throw in David Weber's "Honorvese" (Honor Harrington series). Book 1, On Basilisk Station is one of my favourites.

I've been meaning to get to honor Harrington for a while and also considering trying the Warhammer 40K books. There's also Hammer's Slammers or Green's Deathstalker universe....

I'm all for Darkover. So I'll nominate that series.

Yeah, "popular universe" seems vague. At first I interpreted it as "something that has tie-in novels." But apparently it's also "novels that have expanded into other media"? Or is it simply "well-known, highly developed fictional SF universes"?

I don't think anyone has mentioned Babylon 5 yet, so I'll throw that one out there.

I'm fine with books alone, but I'm not adverse to the "universe" having expanded to other media, movies, games, etc. I listed 2 books only universes...I'm sure there are others.

What about the Niven/Pournelle universe where Ringworld takes place?

Oops, I just noticed Thomas already mentioned Honor Harrington. How about the Ender Wiggins books? Seems to be a bunch of them now.

And I'd also like to check out Deathstalker and Ringwold.

I love the Dune universe and the Darkover universe, and I'm another who's been meaning to read Honor Harrington for a long while.

Hmm... Other popular sf universes that haven't previously been mentioned:

- the Hitchhiker's universe by Douglas Adams
- the Culture universe by Iain M. Banks
- the universe of The Company by Kage Baker (I wish I'd been turned on to her work before she passed, but better late than not at all, I think.)

(I can think of far more fantasy universes than science fiction, which I find to be odd, as I read more sf than f, generally.)

I recently acquired 19 Darkover novels, I'm all for reading any of those.

I'd love to reread Dune - only read it once, and it's about time to reread it.

And chalk me up as another who keeps meaning to read the Honor Harrington books, but hasn't. (Also, Baen offers this as a freebie ebook in their library, which makes it very accessible to those with ereaders.)

Dune or "The Company" universe sounds good.

Hey, did anyone mention Riverworld yet?

Wow. Things have gone crazy since I posted the discussion and walked away. There are many fascinating suggestions here, but I think that Ala's got the spirit of the theme down best. His list:

Star Wars
Star Trek
Dune
Dr. Who
Firefly
Warhammer 40k
Halo
Gears of War

includes exactly the sort of "popular series" we are looking for (although it is not, by any means, definitive yet).

What we're looking for are series that are not just popular in that people like them, but popular as in Pop Culture. That said then here's an example of a series that I am disqualifying from contention: The Dune series. It is a little too cultish in the Sci-Fi aficionado way to really count, and in some ways it is "too literary," particularly the earlier novels. I will make similar choices as we go, but I will make sure that I make "Series" (which will open the door for all series, not just the pop ones) an option in a future theme poll.

So here are some things to consider when putting forth ideas:

1. Is there a popular, well known visual expression of this series? Movie? Television? Game? Comic/Graphic?
2. Is this series something the average person outside our group would have heard of?
3. Does this series maintain a level of pulpiness?
4. Must be a shared Universe.

I will start compiling the official list that we'll be voting on tomorrow, and I will post that in the first post at the top of the discussion as we go along.

I hope this helps to clarify what we're shooting for here.

Dune is cool, but only the first Dune novels by Frank Herbert.

Seeing that some readers have already mentioned Gears of War and Halo: What about Mass Effect? (Revelation)

The biggest shared universe options currently out there are probably Warhammer 40K and Star Wars...

Is it restricted to shared universe novels? If not, the options pool will expand vastly, and in the end anything will go, so there might as well not have been a theme in the first place. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Brad wrote: "1. Is there a popular, well known visual expression of this series? Movie? Television? Game? Comic/Graphic?
2. Is this series something the average person outside our group would have heard of?
3. Does this series maintain a level of pulpiness?"

I would argue that my suggestion of Tarzan and/or Conan the Barbarian fits the bill.

1. Visual expression -- both have been made into movies multiple times
2. At least one of the Tarzan movies was a Disney wide-release animated feature; can't get more mainstream than that
3. They *were* the pulps.

Hmm... I think I see what you are going for, Brad. I'll suggest a series that I think qualifies, as there are movie, television, game, comic/graphic novel, and book adaptations. The X-Files

(Wikipedia has a better list of the books than I could compile simply via Goodreads links: The X-Files Literature )

Edit to add: I have not read any of these books, so I have no clue if they are any good. But I like the universe, and it does seem to fit the definition of "popular" and "well-known" and "pulpy".

Actually, for me "popular" and "pulpy" means only "of low quality". For those definition go the most of SW, ST, WH 40K... Ye, and Dune doesn't go. Hmmm, but i do not like to read poor things. Or are we trying to find smth good of those popular universes? That might be not a bad idea.

By pulpy I believe Brad means "like the pulps." i.e., the early American SF magazines.

I don't have a good sense of whether Babylon 5 is known outside SF/F circles. My sense is "probably not much" but I'd welcome input from others on that.

X-Files definitely is widely known. I read at least one of its tie-in novels when the show was still on and remember it as merely okay, though. That was a Kevin J. Anderson book, though. (No offense meant to any fans of his, but I've just never felt intrigued by his work.) I see there are some novels by people who produced excellent episodes of the series. I'd never heard of those until now.

I recently re-read some of the Timothy Zahn SW tie-ins and sadly, they weren't as fun and awesome as I thought the were the first time 'round.

Star Trek has some good tie-in novels, and I would be happy to provide a list of the ones I think are enjoyable if we get that far.

This category is kinda vague, and all that really fits is Star Trek, Star Wars, and maybe Dune. Of those, I'd want to read a good Star Trek novel, since I've always been a big fan of the show and I know there's a pile of Trek novels out there, hopefully someone can steer us toward the best ones.

If you read Dune I'm in, had it sitting around for a while :D

Some good Trek novels, IMO:
Articles of the Federation by Keith R.A. DeCandido What's good about this one is that it's not in an established series that you have to know who is who and what is what. It's kind of a "West Wing" meets "Star Trek."

is a Next Generation novel.A Time to Be Born

A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson Is a DS9 that takes place on Cardassia and is from the POV of Elim Garak, written by the actor who played him, as an acting exercise. I was blown away by this book.

Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi CorpsGreg Keyes I enjoyed this book about the early Psi-Corps in the B5 universe.

I have some Battlestar Galactica (relaunch) books, but I haven't gotten around to reading them yet.

I'm a huge (recent, I only watch, so far Doctors #9-11) Whovian and whatever we're called who like books in the Torchwood series. Anyone know some good books here?

The only Firefly novel I know of is a movie tie-in, though comic books based on the series/ movie are still being written.

Dirk wrote: "Seeing that some readers have already mentioned Gears of War and Halo: What about Mass Effect Revelation***Is it restricted to shared universe novels?... "

Mass Effect is precisely the sort of book we're looking for, Dirk (as is X-Files, Candiss, thanks for that one), the only thing that really removes it from contention is the dearth of books written on the subject. The literary expression of the universe simply isn't built enough at this point, I don't think.

And the answer is "Yes" to this being limited to a "shared universe," assuming I understand what you mean by that (a popular universe managed by multiple authors, yes?)

Phoenixfalls wrote: "I would argue that my suggestion of Tarzan and/or Conan the Barbarian fits the bill...."

I think both of those do fit my description of what we're looking for except for one important element: I don't think either of those series are Sci-Fi. Definitely not, Conan, and I can't really see how Tarzan works either. I think they would be excellent suggestions for a similar theme in Fantasy, though.

Clarification, please. 2. Is this series something the average person outside our group would have heard of?

Why do we care about this?

I wonder if the War of the Worlds would fit this category. Not only a book and movie(2), but there have been various sci fi tv series on the subject as well as various comic books series that have been based on the book but were quite different?? Or one I'm not so familiar with, but William Shatner's TecWar tv series which also had books and comic adaptations?

Cool theme. I haven't read much of anything (or anything at all) that fits into this category, but I think it would be fun to try.

I'd like to throw out two that I haven't seen mentioned yet. I really love the universes of Resident Evil and Battlestar Galactica.

Julia wrote: "Clarification, please. 2. Is this series something the average person outside our group would have heard of? / Why do we care about this?"

We care about this, I think, because it was what we voted for and because our bookshelf is packed with some seriously literary Sci-Fi.

The Culture novels by Iain M. Banks are amazing, for instance, and popular within Sci-Fi circles, but they aren't "popular" in terms of popular culture, and part of the point of this theme is to open our group, ever so slightly, to Sci-Fi books that we wouldn't usually read, giving us a breather from the heavy stuff we usually tackle.

Tek War certainly fits, Bill. Are there enough novels connected to War of the Worlds to make that work? I'll do some investigating.

My top picks of those you've mentioned are Dune & Hitchhiker, since I already have those and haven't read any of them.

I tend to avoid "franchise" books like Star Trek & Star Wars unless perhaps they're by an author I like. I've read many of the Darkover novels, and am a great fan (same w/ Pern)So that'd be fine, but I might like trying something different.

Well, While I've been working and asleep it look like everyone else has made the suggestions I would have ... Dune, Darkover, Pern.

I meant why do we care if the average person outside of our group has heard of the book, but I think you meant heard of the series, right?

As for "War of the Worlds," listening to the Norman Rudman play that Orson Welles recorded is easy on the computer, as is reading the play on the internet. Also, Alien Voices (Star Trek actors led by Leonard Nimoy) recorded it more recently.

Hi Brad....beating your head on the wall yet???? (LOL)

It's not one I'd choose, but you might also consider Hunger Games as it's got a movie and a strategy game coming out. Just thinking of ones that could be added. Personally I'd like to go for Warhammer 40K. I've been meaning to look into it as I like (good) military science fiction. I thought of Deathstalker, but no ther tie ins exist I know of...so, if all stays the same I'll probably go 40K. But I'll look around today, I'm sure that thrills you...:)

Conan (and probably Tarzan) are clearly fantasy. Pern is more science fiction--Analog/Astounding wasn't into publishing fantasy at the time the first Pern stories appeared there. Another universe (not series) is in Andre Norton's early sci-fi books now being reprinted, where many of the organizations and much of the history, but generally not the characters, are repeated across many books.

But those don't have any "popular" tie ins. As I understand it, this is to involve books that may also have (for example) movie, TV, or game tie ins...

Would Graphic novel tie ins count as pop-culture?

Graphic novel tie ins would, indeed, count, Mike. I am actually surprised that no one has picked out any graphic novel/comic universes themselves.

I'd be interested in something that is well written, but no idea what those books might be.

I know Brian Evenson has written books for both the Alien and Dead Space universes. I'm curious about both of those.

Aliens: No Exit
Dead Space

The Warhammer40k books always get a lot of good mentions.

<3 The Instrumentality of Man by Cordwainer Smith <3
Birthright Universe by Mike Resnick
The Eternal Champion by Michael Moorcock
The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
Future History by Robert A Heinlein
Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

Dune - Herbert (6 books)
The Crystal Singer/Killashandra/Crystal Line - McCaffrey (3 books)
The Saga of the Exiles/Intervention/Galactic Milieu Trilogy - May (8 books)
Saga of the Well of Souls - Chalker (7 books)
Hitchhiker - Adams (5 books)
Day of the Triffids - Wyndham (1 book)
A Space Odyssey - Clarke (4 books)

Not all pop, but all good for cutting one's sci-fi teeth.

Mike (the Paladin) wrote: "Hi Brad....beating your head on the wall yet???? (LOL)..."

No, not at all, Mike :) I knew we'd have some issues with this first discussion, but I bet we wind up with a pretty decent book at the end of all this. There are some gems out there in the Shared Universes (I have a couple of Star Trek faves), so I think people will be pleasantly surprised by what we end up with.

Thanks to everyone for participating so far.

There are a lot of superhero novels that would fit the bill.

Enemies & Allies
The Last Days of Krypton

To name a few.

Star Trek The Next Generation - X-Men: Planet X

And this gem includes two pop culture universes. LOL