End of the Year Reading Recommendations

A blog post I read recently used attitude towards Robert A. Heinlein as a measurement of a person’s…I’m not quite sure what, but it seemed to be connected to their worthiness to be part of the F&SF community.

I don’t care so much about that. There are problematic aspects to Heinlein’s writing, yes, and one fascinating thing about that is that they span the range of the political spectrum. But regardless of attitude, if you want to be well-read in science fiction (by which I mean you have read much of the significant material in the field and understand at a rudimentary level where it fits in relationship to other significant works), you need to have at least a nodding acquaintance with Heinlein. And if you are looking for one work that shows his range and also includes some stories that show how marvelous a wordsmith he can be, I recommend The Past Through Tomorrow: Future History Stories.

Why do you need to have read Heinlein?

• Because a significant group of readers came to science fiction through Heinlein’s YA novels. Know the novels and you’ll have a better understanding of some of their sweet spots as well as many of the basics for writing a YA novel. Heinlein knew how to do it.
• Because he wrote so many landmarks in the field. Decades later, they’re still using the word “grok” (from Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land) at Microsoft. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers are other books that are worth grabbing if you only read a few of his books.
• Because he influenced so many other writers and also interacted with and mentored many of them. Read his letters to get a sense of those interactions.
• Because he is problematic. Farnham’s Freehold is infamous for how badly it’s aged and how racist it appears today, and in some ways it showcases how a writer can fail (in my opinion) to rise above the limitations of their own world view. If you want to avoid similar traps, you need to understand where Heinlein fell into them. Heinlein has some books that I recently saw described as “squicky” and I will agree that featuring an incestuous relationship with underaged twin girls, for example, in a book does strike me as squicky — (although I didn’t note it at all when reading the book as a teen). Lolita‘s squicky too. But it’s still literature. I don’t think anyone should be shamed or scolded* for having read Heinlein or even liking his work. I like a lot of his books.

To go back to the idea of using this as a measurement of who belongs in fandom and who doesn’t: this assumption is asinine. It’s a straw man argument. If you read and enjoy science fiction, you are a part of science fiction fandom regardless of what is and isn’t your favorite. And to present this as a characteristic of some monolithic block in fandom (or use it as a way to place them outside “true” fandom) strikes me as a misguided strategy if one is genuinely trying to solve divides causing difficulties in communication.

But I digress, and in doing so I’m pulling you away from some writing that has always moved and impressed me. The story, “The Green Hills of Earth,” for instance, makes me weep and sticks with me to this day. “The Man Who Sold the Moon” is another classic, with a protagonist who is one of my personal favorites. Beyond that, the book provides a sense of the chronology of Heinlein’s universe and the events that shaped it, functioning as a sampler of of his stories.

And it holds “The Menace From Earth,” a story that so irritated me that decades later it spurred my reply, Long Enough and Just So Long.

So yeah. You should read a little Heinlein. And you should read other stuff too, newer stuff. Stuff that grew out of his works, like Bill the Galactic Hero, which was Harry Harrison’s reply to Starship Troopers, or Soldier, Ask Not, which was Gordon Dickson’s answer in turn.

*I note that this has never happened to me, but several people have recounted incidents. Your mileage may vary.

Tracy Townsend just did a terrific workshop this Saturday on Reading Like a Writer, (here’s the highlights from Twitter). One thing I came away with is the idea of planning my reading — or at least some of it — out much more purposefully.

When we did introductions and talked about what people wanted out of the class, it struck me that two ideas kept surfacing. One was the idea of using an activity one loves — the majority of writers are avid readers — to hone one’s craft would be more efficient. The second was a sense that if one was enjoying the writing, such learning couldn’t be happening; that work and joy could not go together.

I heartily disagree with the second, because I constantly draw on the first. Perhaps because now, as in the past, I am perpetually swimming in books, and consider that a dream existence. I was one of those kids who spent most of their hours with their nose inside a book, and at a time when the Internet was yet to appear, so I read and re-read over and over again, particularly L.M. Boston, Zenna Henderson, C.S. Lewis, Andre Norton, Theodore Sturgeon, J.R.R. Tolkein, to name a few.

Nowadays I get sent a lot of books — some attractive, some not so much — partially as a result of the somewhat scattershot way that most publisher marketing departments work, partially because I’m in a lot of anthologies, and partially because I am doing my best to support authors by buying their books through indie booksellers. I also pick up a lot of Storybundles and Humblebundles. While I’m a very fast reader, I’m not fast enough to keep up with the deluge.

So I like the idea of taking the last week of each month to plan the next month’s reading, particularly with an eye to assembling it. Tracy mentioned doing like assembling a D&D adventuring party, making sure it’s a mix. Her suggestions were these categories, all of which may overlap:

• authors who inspire and excite you
• authors who bring diversity to your reading list
• authors who people keep saying you should read
• authors who are great at the things you need to work on

Here’s some of the things I want to add to that for my personal plan:

• Some current novelettes/novellas. These get overlooked sometimes because they’re usually something best suited to the electronic, but we’re also in the midst of a resurgence of them, and I want to make sure I keep myself of what’s going on there.
• Because I’ve been trying to educate myself better about mid-to-late 20th century F&SF history, at least one nonfic book about it and one anthology produced during that period.
• At least one nonfiction book that is not about gardening or cooking each month.

So here’s my rough notes as I create my reading list for December. I usually read 20-30 books each month, so I’m going to plan out 15 and leave the rest sort of up to the moment.

• N.K. Jemisin Emergency Skin – novella, huzzah!
• Diversity – this month I’m going to add a few more LatinX authors to the mix, having read a piece with some recommendations, while also finishing up the collection of Harlem Renaissance novels I started last month. I’ve added two from their list I wasn’t familiar, Felix J. Palma and Adam Silverta, and will find a book from each.
• Classic – Walter Tevis The Man Who Fell to Earth. I enjoyed the series based on Tevis’s The Queen’s Gambit, but in looking at it, I decided to go with this instead since it’s a pretty classic book that I’ve never read.
• Classic anthology-wise, I’ve got a ton on my shelves, so I’ve snagged Orbit 3, edited by Damon Knight. I also bought a collection that’s worth working my way through, The Avram Davidson Treasury: A Tribute Collection, particularly since I want to look at Davidson’s methods of storytelling. For nonfiction that fits into that reading project, I’m adding Lost Transmissions: The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Desirina Boscovich, which just arrived in the mail and is a handsome looking book.
• Nonfiction books I recently picked up include NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman; American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People by Jared Yates Sexton, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan; Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein. I’m halfway through the last, so I’ll plan on finishing it and reading at least one of the others.

Looking over my Kindle – man, there is a ton of other stuff I downloaded and would like to get to, so I need to stop buying books until I’ve cleared at least SOME of this away.
Only the Devil is Here by Stephen Michell
Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen
The Wall by Gautam Bhatia
The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix
The Six-Gun Tarot by R.S. Belcher
The Afterward by E.K. Johnston
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho
Banshees by Mike Baron
Touched by Venom by Janine Cross
Brimstone Angels by Erin M. Evans
*starts to add others then goes aiiieee and runs around in circles for a while instead*

I’m still pondering the various notetaking methods Tracy talked about, but certainly reading more mindfully seems worthwhile. Will any of this be useful? I dunno, but it can’t hurt, and in the meantime I get to read.