I love watching sci-fi, but have only read a few novels. I'd really appreciate learning of great sci-fi novels that have happy endings - the happy ending bit is particularly important.

Curious to know what Isaac Asimov's works are like - are they 'people are wonderful' type books, or do they tend to paint people in a less inspiring light?

Does 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' by Robert Heinlein have a happy ending?

Thanks,

Fran

Fran, do please read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." It's one of the most wonderful books around. Not only are the people wonderful, but the computers ... well, judge for yourself.

Also, you might enjoy (I'm positively addicted) to Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series. Absoluately fantastic, although they are thick as hell, and thus far, there are twelve books in the series. Good side - it'll take a long time before you run out of things to read. Oh, and you should read the Sword series in the order written.

Enjoy.

Ginny

I no longer remember all the details, but I think most if not all of Heinleins stories have more or less happy endings.

Another recommendation: John Wyndham The Chrysalids. A dystopian novel that has a happy ending, though not without a twist.

My favorite science fiction novel is an oldie: Jules Verne's Mysterious Island and it definitely has a happy ending. I read halfway through the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but did not find it as engaging as Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, Revolt in 2100 or the Puppet Masters.

Jim

Yes, yes, YES!

Let's put it more precisely: Bittersweet, with no more than 10 percent bitter. Because not all of the protagonists make it to see the final, successful outcome. But that's how revolutions work.

Please buy it now. Especially in the gray-covered quality-paperback edition. It'll hold up to re-readings, and if you like it as much as I have for thirty years, you'll eventually wear out a copy or two.

I'll also put L. Neil Smith's Probability Broach, either in quality paperback or as a graphic novel, in that high (and happy) echelon.

Yay, thanks guys for all of your recommendations - they shall definitely keep me entertained over the coming months! I shall order the 'Moon is a Harsh Mistress' now. I like Jules Verne, and as it has a happy ending, I shall have to buy Mysterious Island. Oooh, then I can start reading Probability Broach and The Chrysalids

And then as I have a long flight to the conference in July, I could start reading Terry Goodkind's books...

Really appreciate this guys - I love reading fiction, but get stuck on what to read as I hate sad / non-descript endings.

If anybody else would like to share their favourite books, I would enjoy hearing them (I'm hoping to live for a long time...

Fran: Happy endings? In Sci-Fi? Well, maybe This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. Or watch the movie Back to the Future.

My all-time SF favorite novel, with a fairly happy ending, is The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldridge by Philip K. Dick. Truly rough sledding in the last third of the first time thru. But nothing better on earth the second time round. A minor masterpiece of fiction -- not just SF fiction.

P.S. What the #!%$#!% are you doing in Greece?

Hi Fran:

All of Asimov's books are pretty up-beat. Try reading the original Foundation series (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation). I didn't enjoy the other books in the series anywhere close to these originals. Other good books by Asimov are The End of Eternity and The Gods Themselves with the latter being possibly his best book. He is also a master of the short story and there are many collections from which to choose.

I highly recommend anything by Vernor Vinge. For big space opera stories try A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Other good works are The Peace War, Marooned in Realtime, and any of the short story collections.

I also recommend the work of George R. R. Martin. Start with Windhaven, Dying of the Light and especially all of his short stories which are truly fantastic. The writing is magnificent, but there is a bit more of the tragic in these stories than with Vinge or Asimov.

I like David Brin. In SiFi circles he gets a lot of criticism (some of it justified), but I think there is always enough interesting in his stories to recommend them. Start with the three original Uplift Universe books (Sundiver, Startide Rising and The Uplift War). Other interesting works are Earth, Kiln People and The Practice Effect.

Arthur C. Clarke has written some good stuff. My favorite novel was Childhood's End, but since this is about the end of humanity, I guess you wouldn't say it has a happy ending! :-) Read 2001: A Space Odyssey if you want to figure out what the movie was all about!

I like the earlier works of Larry Niven, but nothing from the past 25 years. If you get to him, try World of Ptavvs, A Gift From Earth, Protector, or short story collections like Neutron Star or The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton.

Orson Scott Card is an interesting writer. I recommend the first three books in the Ender Wiggins series (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide) and I really liked the alternate universe Alvin Maker series which, like the Ender series, began to run out of steam after the fourth book. The first four are Seventh Son, Red Prophet, Prentice Alvin and Alvin Journeyman.

I also liked Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and read many of his other stories, but never became a huge fan of his writing style.

That should keep you busy for a while!
--
Jeff

Read -The Dispossessed- by Ursula LaGuin. It has a ending you will probably like.

-The Dispossessed- is to anarchism what -Atlas Shrugged- is to capitalism. Plus Ursula LaGuin is a better writer than Ayn Rand.

Ba'al Chatzaf

A random few:

Robert Heinlein: Citizen Of The Galaxy and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel

Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle: Inferno, The Mote In God's Eye, and Footfall

Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination

Connie Willis: Doomsday Book

And I heartily second Ba'al's recommendation of The Dispossessed.

The Heinlein and Bester novels show their age (dating from the 1950s) but are still worthwhile; Heinlein held a great deal of optimism about humankind in general.

Also by the same author -The Demolished Man-.

There was a character on Babylon 5 name Alfred Bester. It was no accident. The Bester of Babylon was a leading light in psy-corps. Demolished Man was about teeps.


Ba'al Chatazaf

Jeffery already recommended Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game but I'll repeat it because again and again I've seen it have a powerful effect on many of those who have read it. Not at an intellectual level like Rand's novels, and not anything lasting, but something very specific, I think, to all of us who were very bright as children. That book somehow touches how it is to be a child in a way that would make it worth reading for that reason alone.

Mars Shall Thunder - Book One: Judge Faraday
Mars Shall Thunder - Book Two: The Virgin of the Hunt

I suppose MST is the worst sci-fi novel ever written, because there are hundreds of published sci-fi authors and thousands of junk fantasy titles in print. After a decade of pitching agents and publishers worldwide, I resorted to paid publicity, which accomplished nothing and convinced me to break my pen and throw it away. There is no market for Objectivist authors.

See Sunni Maravillosa's review

"Known Space" was a great series and my favorite SF "universe" (the last couple of Ringworld novels notwithstanding).

Also a good choice, of course. I didn't mention it originally because I didn't think it qualified as having a "cheerful ending," but it offers a well-constructed picture of a very different society and justice is certainly served at the end.

"Tenser, said the tensor."

Don't be too disappointed if you DON'T like Heinlein. Some people actually don't, I being one of them. His fans tend to be men and his detractors tend to be women. Personally, I think he hadn't a clue what goes on inside the female brain, and that his women are all examples of what men WISH women were like. That said, "Moon" is one of his better books. Don't even consider "The Number of the Beast".

One of my favorite books of all time -- from any genre -- is J. Neil Schulman's "The Rainbow Cadenza". I wept at the end because I was so inspired by it. Probably out of print; look for it at www.abebooks.com.

Check out F. Paul Wilson's "An Enemy of the State". I stayed up all night to finish it and ended up with a big grin on my face. It's out of print, and you might find it in a collection by the author called "The LaNague Chronicles".

Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" books are sometimes considered "light science fiction" or even fantasy, but they're properly placed in the science fiction genre, and are a fun and happy read. You might especially enjoy these books as an animal lover, since they're stories about humans empathically bonding with dragons. I DON'T care for McCaffrey's social systems at all, and doubt that any libertarian would.

A classic, and an all-time favorite since I was eleven years old, is Michael Crichton's "The Andromeda Strain". It's a science and medical thriller that kept me enthralled then, and my opinion hasn't changed.

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's "Relic" and "Reliquary" are a cross between the thriller and science-fiction genres. I enjoyed them, although not as much as the books above.

If you don't mind hunting for obscure, out-of-print books, some more adventure/science fiction books that count as among my favorite books of all time are by Ian Cameron: "Island at the Top of the World" (also released under the title "The Lost Ones", and upon which a Disney movie was made) and "The Mountains at the Bottom of the World". This author wrote a number of young adult adventure stories as well, and when I first discovered abebooks, I spent a fortune scarfing up copies of all of them. These two are my favorites.

If I think of more, I'll add them in a later post.

Judith

Anything by Crichton. Especially Sphere. I'll put in another recommendation for Ender's Game as well.

Heck, I didn't even like "Number of the Beast." Actually I think Heinlein pretty much "lost it" after the late 60s.

I also found The Number of the Beast one of his weakest works. But apart from that I like his later works, they have their own kind of charm. (As a reminder: I'm not an SF fan, with a very few exceptions, Heinlein being one of them).

Yes. The Loonies (that is what Moon inhabitants call themselves) win their political independence from Earth governments. They had to drop rather large rocks on Earth to convince the various governments it was in their interest to let the Loonies be free and independent.

I consider TMIAHM to be canon along with -The Dispossessed- (by LeGuin) and -Atlas Shrugged- (by Rand). I hold -The Probability Broach- by L. Neil Smith in near canonical status.

After RAH wrote -Stranger in a Strange Land- he went kind of squishy. So it goes.....

Ba'al Chatzaf

Have to agree. Heinlein is one of a dozen or so authors I *really* got into and read just about everything he wrote. I couldn't get into NOTB or most of his later works.

His 'juvenile sf' series are some great reads, btw.

"Moon" is a great work as well.

TMIAHM is Heinlein's magnum opus.

Bob Kolker

Well, I think Job was the most entertaining of that lot.

I have to say that I was never very taken with Stranger either; I read this both as a teen and an adult (to see if age would give me a different opinion about the book- it didn't, really).

I have to point out that there was no need to "spoil" the main plot line of Heinlein's Moon ..., in post 20, with so much detail. Others answered Fran's question without doing so.

Yes, the book has been in print for four decades, but in this limited context — with her specific topical interest, and being intrigued by this particular title — a revelation of this much becomes a spoiler comment.

On the other hand, I found "JOB: A Comedy of Errors," one of Heinlein's last books, quite charming.