Connie Willis : Recommendations

Anderson, Poul, "Plato's Cave" in found in Foundation's Friends, ed. Martin H. Greenberg, New York: Tor Books, 1989.  A story using Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and the problems they give rise to. CW

Asimov, Isaac, "As Chemist to Chemist" in Isaac Asimov's Worlds of Science Fiction ed. George Scithers, New York: Davis Publications, Inc., 1980.  A puzzle story that uses the periodic table. CW

Asimov, Isaac, "The Bicentennial Man" in The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976.   One of Asimov's best robot stories, in which he deals with the three laws and the nature of what is human. CW

Asimov, Isaac, "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" in The Early Asimov; Or, Eleven Years of Trying, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972.  The ultimate science-as-subject story, written as a scientific paper on a substance so soluble it dissolves before it hits the water. CW

Asimov, Isaac, "Nightfall" in Nightfall, and Other Stories, Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1969.  A science-as-subject classic that deals with a planet which has several suns and sees the night sky only once in a thousand years. CW

Asimov, Isaac, "Paté de Fois Gras" in Chemistry and Science Fiction, ed. Jack H. Stocker, Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1998.  A scientific explanation of the goose that laid the golden egg. CW

Blish, James, "Nor Iron Bars" in Galactic Cluster, New York: New American Library, 1959.  A spaceship reduced to microscopic size travels through the solar-system like world of an atom. CW

Blish, James, “Surface Tension" in The Best of James Blish, James Blish, New York : Ballantine Books, 1979.  Humans downloaded into microscopic creatures who live in tidal pools and battle rotifers. A classic that uses science both as subject matter and as metaphor. CW

Brown, Fredric, "The Waveries" in From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown by Fredric Brown, Farmington, MA: NESFA Press, 2007.   Aliens who eat electromagnetic radiation descend on Earth, attracted by our radio and TV transmissions; chronicles the history of radio and TV. CW

Brown, Fredrie, "The Yehudi Principle" in Angels and Spaceships, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1954. A time paradox story in which the story itself is part of a time loop with no beginning and no end.  CW

Bryant, Ed, "Particle Theory" New York: Pocket Books, 1981.  A science-as-metaphor story which compares the phenomenon of supernovae with human cancer. CW

Clement, Hal, "Blot" in Foundation's Friends, ed. Martin H. Greenberg, New York: Tor Books, 1989. A robot story that gives a variant on Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. CW

Dickson, Gordon, "Computers Don't Argue" in You and Science Fiction: a Humanistic Approach to Tomorrow by Bernard Hollister, Skokie, Il.: National Textbook Co., 1976.  A very funny technology-run-amuck story about the problems that can result from dealing with too literal computers. CW

Dieppe, Carol, and Lee Wallingford, "Special Delivery" in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, August, 1989.  A science-as-plot device story about a secret code hidden in the DNA sequence. CW

Effinger, George Alec, Schrodinger's Kitten, Eugene, OR: Pulphouse, 1992. A science-as-metaphor story about relativity and alternative realities based on the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment. CW

Fitzpatrick, R.C., "The Circuit Riders" in Analog II, ed. John W. Campbell, Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1964.  A future technology story which deals with a machine which detects emotions and its possible applications. CW

Godwin, Tom, “The Cold Equations" In The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, ed. Robert Silverberg, Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1982.  A science fiction classic which deals with the sometimes-tragic human dilemmas that result from physics’ inexorable laws. CW

Harness, Charles, "Child by Chronos" in An Ornament to His Profession, edited by Priscilla Olson, Framingham, MA: NESFA Press,1998.  A very cleverly worked-out time paradox story about a person who travels into the future, memorizes the daily stock market reports, and then returns to the past to make investments. CW

Harrison, Harry, "The Fourth Law of Robotics" in Foundation's Friends, ed. Martin H. Greenberg, New York: Tor Books, 1989.   An examination of the logical flaws in the Three Laws of Robotics. CW

Heinlein, Robert A., "All You Zombies" in The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein by Robert A. Heinlein, New York: Tor, 1999.  The ultimate time-paradox in which a man begets himself.  CW

Heinlein, Robert A., "By His Bootstraps" in The Menace from Earth,  by Robert A. Heinlein, New York: Baen Pub. Enterprises, 1987.  A classic time-paradox story with one person playing all the parts. CW

Heinlein, Robert A., "Waldo" In The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein, New York : Tor, 1999.  A science fiction story that not only predicted the future but invented it. "Waldo" became the term for the remote-action tools used in nuclear and micro-manufacturing because of this story. CW

Latham, Philip, "The Xi Effect" in The Ascent of Wonder: the Evolution of Hard SF edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, New York: TOR, 1994.  A science-as-subject story in which the universe begins shrinking but the length of the electromagnetic spectrum stays the same. CW

Niven, Larry, "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" in N-Space. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2007.  A very funny story that examines Superman's powers in terms of scientific laws. CW

Piper, H. Beam, "Omnilingual" in Where Do We Go From Here?, edited by Isaac Asimov, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1971.  A science-as-plot story involving a long-dead Martian civilization and the periodic table as a Rosetta stone. CW

Reynolds, Mack,  "Compounded Interest" in Compounded Interests, Cambridge, MA: NESFA Press, 1983.  A time travel story in which a man takes money back into the past to invest so the interest it accumulates can pay for the time machine that will take him into the past to invest the money.

Shaw, Bob, "The Light of Other Days" in Science Fiction: The Future, edited by Dick Allen,  New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971.  A science-as-subject classic which extrapolates the uses and human consequences of glass with a slowing index of retraction.  CW

Vance, Jack, "The Potters of Firsk" in Time Probe: The Sciences in Science Fiction, collected and with an introduction by Arthur C. Clarke, London: Gollancz, 1967, t.p. 1972.  A science-as-plot-device story which revolves around the properties of uranium. CW

Vonnegut, Kurt, "Harrison Bergeron" in Novels & Stories, 1950-1962 Kurt Vonnegut, ed. Sidney Offit, New York: Library of America: Distributed to the trade in the United States by Penguin Group (USA), 2012.  An if-this-goes-on story which puts the idea of absolute human equality into a possible technological future. CW

Willis, Connie, "At the Rialto" in The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventh Annual Collection, ed. Gardner Dozois, New York: St. Martins Press, 1990.  A science-as-metaphor story about the peculiar effects of quantum theory on a physicists' convention in Hollywood. CW

Willis, Connie, "Dilemma" in Foundation's Friends, ed. Martin H. Greenberg, New York: Tor Books, 1989.  A robot story using Asimov's three laws which examines the dilemma created by two directly conflicting orders. CW

Willis, Connie, "Schwarzschild Radius" in Nebula Awards 23, ed. Michael Bishop, New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1989.  A science-as-metaphor story about Karl Schwarzschild, the scientist who extrapolated Einstein's theory to produce the concept of a black hole while serving on the Russian front in World War I.  CW

Willis, Connie, "The Sidon in the Mirror" In The Year's Best Science Fiction First Annual Collection, ed. Gardner Dozois, New York: Bluejay Books, 1984.  A story that uses Harlow Shapley's theory of stellar evolution to set a story on the cooling crust of a red giant. CW

Zoline, Pamela, "The Heat Death of the Universe" In The Mirror of Infinity: A Critics' Anthology of Science Fiction, ed. Robert Silverberg, 1970.  A classic science-as-metaphor story comparing a housewife's daily routine and entropy. CW

First Flights to the Moon, ed. Hal Clement.  Stories about the exploration of the moon with afterwords discussing the scientific concepts involved. CW

The Microverse, ed. Byron Preiss.  Articles by noted scientists on cells, DNA, subatomic particles, quarks, and quantum theory followed by SF stories incorporating the concepts. CW

The Planets, ed. Byron Preiss.  A collection of scientific articles, speculative stories, photographs, and illustrations of the planets. CW

Science Fiction by Scientists, ed. Groff Conklin.  Science-fiction stories by scientists, including "Grand Central Terminal" by noted nuclear scientist Leo Szilard. CW

Time Probe: The Sciences in Science Fiction, ed. Arthur C. Clarke.  Short stories using science concepts. CW

The Ultimate Dinosaur, ed. Byron Preiss.  Articles by paleontologists on the latest advances in dinosaur theories with stories incorporating the ideas in fiction. CW

The Universe, ed. Byron Preiss.  Scientific articles and speculative stories on stars, pulsars, black holes, galaxies, quasars, and cosmology. CW

Where Do We Go From Here?, ed. Isaac Asimov.  A collection of science-as-subject and plot device stories with explanations of the principles involved by Asimov. CW

Cohen, David, The Black Death, 1347-1351

Tuchman, Barbara, A Distant Mirror

Ziegler, Philip, The Black Death

Camelot

Dragonslayer

Excalibur

The Fisher King

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Into the Woods

Jabberwocky

Knightriders

Ladyhawke

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Robin and Marian