Link: Jim's Top 10 Science Fiction Picks
Link: Jim's Top 10 Fantasy Picks
...and also, a link to Jim's goodreads.com Author Page
More of Jim's Picks
with descriptions from Goodreads.com and other sources...
The Stars My Destination
by Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester (1913-87) is a pop culture author of radio scripts, screenplays & comics--creating the Green Lantern's Oath. Known for his sf, The Stars My Destination may be his finest novel. Published in Galaxy in 1956 as "Tiger! Tiger!" (after Blake's poem), it's about a man who teleports himself out of a tight spot, causing consternation in the process. Slyly potshotting at corporate skullduggery, it remains contemporary.The Stars My Destination is, in one sense, an adaption of Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo. It's the study of a man without imagination or ambition, Gulliver Foyle. Fate transforms Gully. Shipwrecked in space, abandoned by a passing luxury liner, he becomes a monomaniacally sophisticated monster bent upon revenge. Wearing many masks, learning many skills, he pursues his goals relentlessly.
The Stars My Destination anticipated the cyberpunk movement—megacorporations powerful as governments, a dark overall vision, cybernetic body enhancement. It added the standard one weird idea—that humans could learn to teleport or 'jaunte' from point to point, with various personal limitations & one overall absolute limit: no one can jaunte through outer space. On planet surfaces jaunting rules supreme. Off it, people are restricted to machinery.
Unlike the world of Bester's Demolished Man, telepathy is rare. One character is able to send but not receive thoughts. The solar system has about six full telepaths.
The protagonist, Gully Foyle, is introduced as 'He was one 170 days dying & not yet dead.' He's a cipher, a man with potential but no motivation, suddenly marooned. Even this isn't enough to galvanize him beyond seeking air & food on the wreck. Everything changes when an apparent rescue ship deliberately passes him by, stirring him out of passivity.
The scenario of the strandeded man ignored by passing ships came from a National Geographic story Bester had read. During WWII, a shipwrecked sailor survived 4 months on a raft in the Pacific. Ships passed because their captains feared the raft was a decoy to lure them into Japanese torpedo range.
The Seedling Stars
by James Blish
The Seedling Stars is a collection of science fiction short stories by James Blish. It was first published by Gnome Press in 1957 in an edition of 5000 copies. The stories all concern adapting humans to alien environments. The stories all originally appeared in the magazines Fantasy & Science Fiction, If, Super Science Stories & Galaxy Science Fiction.Contents:
"Seeding Program"
"The Thing in the Attic"
"Surface Tension"
"Watershed"
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights remains one of literature’s most disturbing explorations into the dark side of romantic passion. Heathcliff and Cathy believe they’re destined to love each other forever, but when cruelty and snobbery separate them, their untamed emotions literally consume them. Set amid the wild and stormy Yorkshire moors, Wuthering Heights, an unpolished and devastating epic of childhood playmates who grow into soul mates, is widely regarded as the most original tale of thwarted desire and heartbreak in the English language. 
A Far Sunset
by Edmund Cooper
"A VERY FAR SUNSET FROM HOME...The -Gloria Mundi-, bound for the distant planet Altair Five, was the third starship to leave Earth in the 21st century. The six pairs of human beings aboard included Paul Marlowe---the ship's psychiatrist---and his wife. Upon arrival on Altair, exploratory expeditions were quickly arranged---from which no one returned. When the remaining three crew members were captured and sent to Baya Nor, one immediately committed suicide, another went insane. Only Paul, now named Poul Mer Lo by the natives, attempted to adapt himself to life on the new planet. But even he found conditions on Altair Five---a place where an ancient myth was still curiously alive---far lonelier and stranger than he had ever dreamed..."
Anansi Boys
by Neil Gaiman
Fat Charlie Nancy's normal life ended the moment his father dropped dead on a Florida karaoke stage. Charlie didn't know his dad was a god. And he never knew he had a brother. Now brother Spider is on his doorstep—about to make Fat Charlie's life more interesting . . . and a lot more dangerous. 
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
by Neil Gaiman
From Barnes & Noble: "A mysterious circus terrifies an audience for one extraordinary performance before disappearing into the night, taking one of the spectators along with it . . . In a novella set two years after the events of American Gods, Shadow pays a visit to an ancient Scottish mansion, and finds himself trapped in a game of murder and monsters . . . In a Hugo Award-winning short story set in a strangely altered Victorian England, the great detective Sherlock Holmes must solve a most unsettling royal murder . . . Two teenage boys crash a party and meet the girls of their dreams—and nightmares . . . In a Locus Award-winning tale, the members of an exclusive epicurean club lament that they've eaten everything that can be eaten, with the exception of a legendary, rare, and exceedingly dangerous Egyptian bird . . . Such marvelous creations and more—including a short story set in the world of "The Matrix", and others set in the worlds of gothic fiction and children's fiction—can be found in this extraordinary collection, which showcases Gaiman's storytelling brilliance as well as his terrifyingly entertaining dark sense of humor. By turns delightful, disturbing, and diverting, Fragile Things is a gift of literary enchantment from one of the most unique writers of our time." 
Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman
Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart - and an ordinary life that is changed forever on a day he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed - a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city - a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known... 
Tool of the Trade
by Joe Haldeman
From Library Journal: "Nicholas Foley appears to be an ordinary American psychology professor. He is, in fact, a Russian spy, inserted into the United States after World War II, joining the American army, attending American universities, falling in love and marrying an American, but always in touch with his Soviet superiors. All he ever does in the way of spying is turn in the names of people who might be "turned." But then he makes his momentous discovery. He isolates an ultrasonic frequency that causes anyone within earshot to do whatever he is told. A few demonstrations send both the Russians and the Americans after Foley with a vengeance. Eluding both, Foley uses his tool to strike a blow for world peace, as envisioned by a Sixties hippie, his wife. A carefully paced thriller. Recommended." - Patricia Y. Morton, State Lib. of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg 
Hal Spacejock
by Simon Haynes
An incompetent, accident-prone pilot is given one last chance to save his ship. An aging robot is trusted with a midnight landing in a deserted field. And a desperate businessman is prepared to sacrifice both of them to get what he wants... Combining relentless action with non-stop laughs, Hal Spacejock explodes onto the science fiction scene with the subtlety of a meteor strike and the hushed reverence of a used car salesman. 
Friday
by Robert A. Heinlein
Friday is a secret courier. She is employed by a man known to her only as 'Boss'. Operating from and over a near-future Earth, in which North America has become Balkanized into dozens of independent states, where culture has become bizarrely vulgarized and chaos is the happy norm, she finds herself on shuttlecock assignment at Boss' seemingly whimsical behest. From New Zealand to Canada, from one to another of the new states of America's disunion, she keeps her balance nimbly with quick, expeditious solutions to one calamity and scrape after another. 
Starship Troopers
by Robert A. Heinlein
In one of Robert Heinlein's most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe - and into battle with the Terran Mobile infantry against mankind's most alarming enemy! 
Fury
by Henry Kuttner
The Earth is long dead and the human survivors live in huge citadels beneath the Venusian seas, ruled by the Immortals, genetic mutations with a lifespan of 1000 years. Sam Reed was born an immortal, but his deranged father had him mutilated as a baby. Now, at the age of 80, he learns what he is. 
The Summoner: Book One in the Chronicles of the Necromancer
by Gail Z Martin
The comfortable world of Martris Drayke, second son of King Bricen of Margolan, is shattered when his older half-brother, Jared, and Jared's dark mage, Foor Arontala, kill the king and seize the throne. Tris is the only surviving member of the royal family aside from Jared the traitor. Tris flees with three friends: Soterius, captain of the guard; Carroway, the court's master bard; and Harrtuck, a member of the royal guard. Tris harbors a deep secret. In a land where spirits walk openly and influence the affairs of the living, he suspects he may be the mage heir to the power of his grandmother, Bava K'aa, once the greatest sorceress of her age. Such magic would make Tris a Summoner, the rarest of magic gifts, capable of arbitrating between the living and the dead. 
The Blood King: Book Two in the Chronicles of the Necromancer
by Gail Z Martin
The second installment of the Chronicles of the Necromancer. Having escaped being murdered by his evil brother, Jared, Tris must take control of his magical abilities to summon the dead, and gather an army big enough to claim back the throne of his dead father. But it isn't merely Jared that Tris must combat. The dark mage, Foor Arontala, has schemes to raise the Obsidian King... 
I Am Legend
by Richard Matheson
From Barnes & Noble: "From out of the night come the living dead with a single purpose: to destroy Robert Neville, the last man on earth."Note: Provided inspiration and a framework for at least four attempts at a film version, none of which adhere strictly to Matheson's book.
I Am Legend (2007) starring Will Smith
I Am Omega (2007) starring Mark Dacascos (as Renchard)
The Omega Man (1971) starring Charlton Heston
The Last Man on Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price (as Dr. Robert Morgan / The script was written in part by Richard Matheson, but he was dissatisfied with the result and was therefore credited as Logan Swanson. The main character was renamed Robert Morgan for this production, and Richard Matheson felt Vincent Price was miscast in the part)
The White Dragon (Dragonriders of Pern, Book 3)
by Anne McCaffrey
Never has there been as close a bond as the one that exists between the daring and adventurous young Lord Jaxom and his white dragon, Ruth, as in this tale from the queen of fantasy. 
The Coming of the Walrus
by James Riordan
When a down and out acid casualty stumbles across the greatest secret of the 1960s, all hell and half of heaven breaks loose. In his effort to find the famed Walrus of the Beatles legend, Dave Chalmers battles his way through demons, madmen, murderers and conspiracy tales to cross paths with nearly every myth and wild tale of the era including who killed John Kennedy, what really happened to Jimi Hendrix, the faking of Jim Morrison's death, where Elvis is today and what was the real power behind the greatest era. A wild supernatural ride with loads of comedic twists that explores the legendary myths of the magical, mysterious 1960s including the greatest myth of all -- who and what was the Walrus?
Where the Wild Things Are
by Maurice Sendak
One of those truly rare books that can be enjoyed equally by a child & a grown-up. If you disagree, then it's been too long since you've attended a wild rumpus. Max dons his wolf suit in pursuit of some mischief & gets sent to bed without supper. Fortuitously, a forest grows in his room, allowing his wild rampage to continue unimpaired... 
Guns of the South
by Harry Turtledove
January 1864 -- Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equipped. The battle of Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower. Then Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle: its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking -- and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantities to the Confederates. The name of the weapon is the AK-47... 
Sorcerer's Legacy
by Janny Wurts
In Sorcerer's Legacy, we discover a world full of magic and intrigue. It is into this world that Elienne has chosen to come, to save a prince's life. Lady Elienne finds herself captive in the dungeons of the one who killed her husband and conquered her lands. While there, a great wizard appears to her offering to take her away. Does she stay and suffer certain cruelties or go with this wizard who alleges to have searched time and space for her. Neither choice has much chance of her surviving, so neither choice looks good. But if she goes at least it will be by her own choice... 
