Alternatives to the Automobile

Bibliography

Bruce Stirling

Stirling started out more or less as another "me too" cyberpunk writer, an apprentice to William Gibson; but he has turned into an able satirist in his own right and imho has surpassed Gibson in some respects. Highly recommended: Heavy Weather (what will things be like after a few decades of global warming?), Distraction (quite simply one of the funniest books I've ever read, an incisive exploration of big science, big politics, spin control, and what happens when things fall apart), Zeitgeist (surreal and amusing riff on globalisation and the "entertainment culture"). Of these three, Distraction is my favourite.

Neal Stephenson

Famous for Snow Crash which established him as a "rock star" of the mainstream SF publishing scene. He followed up Snow Crash with The Diamond Age, also a hit, and then the ambitious and geek-friendly Cryptonomicon. They are all entertaining reads. His first novel The Big U is worthwhile as well. But my all-time favourite Stephenson novel is his second book: Zodiac, an "eco-thriller" which is simultaneously funny, angry, scientifically grounded, full of percipient social criticism, and heartfelt in its own manic, cynical way.

Judith Moffatt

Moffatt made her mark on the SF scene with Pennterra, a novel of space colonisation. But the books for which I remember her most fondly are The Ragged World and Time Like an Ever-Rolling Stream. The premise is not unfamiliar: advanced aliens arrive and "rescue" humanity from ourselves. But the execution is original, thoughtful, and compassionate. Moffatt asks what it would mean if we had, overnight, to mend our ways and live sustainably. Her answers are both disturbing and hopeful.

James Tiptree Jr

The cat has been out of the bag for a long time; just about everyone knows that "James Tiptree" was for many years the pseudonym of "Raccoona" (Alice) Sheldon, a writer of remarkable depth, passion, and subtlety. Sheldon's short stories, one novel, and a couple of novellas are some of the most powerful social criticism ever written in the form of science fiction. While she is best known for the blazing feminist satire of such stories as "The Women Men Don't See," "Houston Houston Do You Read," and "Morality Meat," she was also deeply engaged with environmental issues (which drive such tales as "Time-Sharing Angel") and with animal rights ("The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats"). The nature of global consumerism is summed up tragically in her novel Brightness Falls from the Air. Look for the anthologies Star Songs of an Old Primate, Warm Worlds and Otherwise, Out of the Everywhere (and anything else you can find).

George R. R. Martin

Half fiction writer and half poet, Martin won kudos for his brooding, lyrical space-opera short stories such as "A Song for Lya," and his ambitious high-tragic novel Dying of the Light. Later his writing became colder, more cynically tailored to mass marketing (and vastly more popular) in his "Thrones" series of blockbuster fantasy novels. My favourite Martin, however, is the series of long stories collected under the title Tuf Voyaging, which introduces an unforgettably bizarre protagonist and uncomfortably incisive treatment of ecological and economic themes. Environmental stupidity, overpopulation, toxic bureaucracy -- Haviland Tuf encounters (and deals sternly with) them all. Great wish-fulfilment fare.

Lee Killough

Killough never became a Big Name in American sci-fi. But her police procedurals set in the future of Kansas are fascinating for the detailed way in which she builds a world living at the end of its industrial resources. Climate change, fuel shortages, and changing social mores are only the background to her whodunnits but the background is well worked out. Look for The Doppelganger Gambit, Dragon's Teeth and Spider Play.

John Varley

Best known either for the Titan trilogy or for his novel Millennium which was adapted (rather badly) into a TV movie, depending on whom you ask. Millennium is far better than the movie made from it; its unremitting dystopian gloom about our poisoned future overshadows the cleverness of its time-paradox plot.

Frank Herbert

Herbert went far beyond rock-star status to become one of the demi-gods of American sci-fi. Despite his success in stringing out the Dune saga for novel after increasingly turgid novel, I still like only the original, unmatched achievement. Dune is all space opera on the surface, but just beneath that decorative and entertaining veneer is a very serious discourse on the nature of biotic infrastructure and our relationship to it. Herbert was exploring what it means to live "sustainably" and in harmony with one's environment long before "sustainable" attained buzz-word status. Don't be put off by either of the variously flawed video adaptations; the novel stands by itself as a parable of the intimate relationship between people and planet.

Clifford Faust (almost certainly a pseudonym)

Faust's diptych novels, Ferman's Devils and Bodekker's Demons, are howlingly funny, an insider's nightmare tour through the future of the public relations business. After laughing mightily at Faust's manic dystopian vision, I recommend slogging your way through Toxic Sludge is Good For You to discover how much of it has already come true.

Sheri S Tepper

Tepper's prolific output -- pretty daunting for the new reader! -- ranges from the early 'True Game' novels (vastly inventive, oddly moving) to later, more serious, very engaging novels on environmental and feminist themes. Perhaps no SF writer other than Tiptree/Sheldon has dealt so realistically and unsparingly with patriarchy in all its manifestations. Tepper's worlds are remarkably, unforgettably strange, fulfilling the often-hollow promise of SF to take the reader someplace truly different. Family Tree might be a good place to start if one has never tackled Tepper's shelf of titles before. I've read and re-read all of them; Sideshow remains for me the most haunting.

James H Schmitz

Schmitz perhaps doesn't quite count as a "serious" SF author; but his delightful space operas touched on feminist and environmental themes early in the history of the genre. The classic novel is The Witches of Karres, where already he's pursuing a critique of commerce and a kind of environmental awareness (the management of the planet of Karres and its culture would please any 70's back-to-the-lander). His sardonic/comic short stories "Grandpa" and "Balanced Ecology" reveal a passion for ecosystems and their defence against money-minded exploiters. The Demon Breed (also published as The Tuvela) also hinges on ecology, biology, and inter-species affection and partnership. Schmitz was a pioneer in presenting female protagonists as courageous, intelligent, ingenious, adventurous, competent, etc.; decades before Joss Whedon was born, Schmitz was writing about brave, boisterous young action-heroines who would be right at home in Buffy-space.

C J Cherryh

Cherryh's output is enormous and some of it is, quite frankly, potboiler grade. However, she managed to produce some really memorable stories and worlds; she had an unusually good feel for the alien in SF, and her stories often hinge on a lone human protagonist stranded in an alien culture, having to adapt and conform (quite a contrast to the traditional Anglo/imperial narrative of the heroic humans Conquering Space and saving the heathen, as in the original Star Trek and its endless sequelae). Her "Chanur" adventures eventually deteriorated into potboiling, but the first novel in particular is good, and offers some gender-reversal satire as well as plot galore. She makes good use of field biology to construct alien cultures as extrapolations of familiar life forms (leonid, insectile, reptilian, etc). Of her shelf of mixed works I chiefly remember Hunter of Worlds, Wave Without a Shore, Serpent's Reach, Forty Thousand in Gehenna. Cherryh often pivoted her plots on the necessity for humans to learn how other species live, think, and perceive; language, translation, and cultural difference are recurring themes, as are prejudiced or ignorant underestimates of alien races and cultures which bring disastrous consequences.

Molly Gloss

I know MG only for one novel -- but it's a treasure -- The Dazzle of Day. The premise: industrialism has wrecked Earth's biosphere to the point of no return. A group of Quakers undertakes the ambitious project of founding a colony on a new, barely habitable planet. Nicely written, more focussed on the ethics of consensus and nonviolence than on the nuts-n-bolts SF (space travel is merely a backdrop for a tale of morality, human nature at its best and worst, and personal/cultural survival). Memorable, strange, well worth your time. I should really catch up with her other, non-SF novels.

Cecilia Holland

I find Holland's work very hit-and-miss, but one of her novels remains a favourite and should appeal to every anarchist. Floating Worlds is on the surface another sprawling 1970's space opera; but it has features of interest. First, the protagonist is an anarchist, and there is open conflict between egalitarian anarchists and corporate capitalists (and openly imperialist thugs as well). That conflict, like many others, is solved nonviolently (for the most part), and iirc the protagonist never surrenders her dignity, her personhood, or her anarchist ideals. The novel has flaws you could drive a small spacecraft through, but it remains an anarchist and anticapitalist classic (right up there with The Dispossessed imho).

Karen Traviss

Traviss is another potboiler-producer ("Star Wars" novels cranked out on a schedule to pay the rent, one surmises); but with City of Pearl (the first in a series that probably went on a bit too long) she touches on environmental, feminist and anticapitalist themes. Earth has become totally Enclosed by corporadoes; growing your own vegetables is a criminal offence; and dissident humans are colonising remote planets and coming into conflict with established species. (Since the post-McCarthy thaw of the 70's, much US SF has tackled the uneasy American conscience; no official Truth and Reconciliation effort has ever attempted to bring the nation to terms with its brutally violent and genocidal founding, but fiction writers have expressed the moral anxiety of a generation who read and wrote critical, "unpatriotic" histories rather than cheery nationalist jingotoons.)

Terry Pratchett

TP is such a best-seller (somehow without ever quite descending into potboilery) that I hesitate to mention him; but he stands out consistently for his sympathetic and respectful use of strong, cranky, eccentric female (and moreover, female and old) characters. He stands out also for a deep, passionate biophilia, a love of the living world and of agrarian/peasant tradition. All his Discworld novels are romans a clef in one sense or another; most are loving satires of a popular theme or genre, others are not-so-loving political or cultural satires (Going Postal for example is a gorgeous send-up of the telecommunications cartels and geek subculture). All are funny, wry, and oddly forgiving of human nature and the imperfectible human condition. There is a cheerful yet deeply felt pagan thread in TP's work, and a deeply felt disrespect for and mockery of patriarchy, authoritarianism, aristocracy, militarism, imperialism, etc. that brings a refreshing whiff of anarchism to the page. He writes also with insight and a kind of spiritual humour about aging, loss, and death. His "Tiffany Aching" trilogy, though meant for younger (teen) readers, can be read with pleasure by sympathetic adults. As to the seemingly endless Discworld series, there are two approaches: find the Discworld Reading Guide online and plough through them in fictional chrono order, or just dive in anywhere :-) if diving in anywhere, I would perhaps recommend Lords and Ladies as a starting point. No SF/fantasy author, I think, has written more perspicaciously about bees. Alas TP's health is declining, and I fear we will soon no longer be looking forward eagerly to the next clever, sardonic Discworld confection.