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Connie Willis : Recommendations

Recommendations

Through the years Connie has compiled many lists.  These are but a few of them. 

A Selected Bibliography of Science Related Science Fiction

Asimov, Isaac, Fantastic Voyage  A science adventure in which a spaceship is shrunk to microscopic size and injected into a human body. CW

Asimov, Isaac, I Robot  The Three Laws of Robotics and the complications that result from their application. CW

Clarke, Arthur C., Rendezvous with Rama  The classic science-as-subject novel of scientists exploring and attempting to understand an abandoned alien spaceship. CW

Crichton, Michael, The Andromeda Strain  High-tech science-as-subject story of the scientific effort to isolate an alien virus. CW

Dick, Philip K., Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (published as Bladerunner)  A classic dystopian novel of androids and artificial life forms. Science as subject and as metaphor. CW

Gernsback, Hugo, Ralph 124C 41+:  A Romance of the Year 2660  The novel that started it all and started SF's reputation for predicting the future. CW

Heinlein, Robert A., Have Space Suit. Will Travel  A space adventure full of science: astronomical units, breathable H/0 levels in spacesuits, calculating gravities, plus a keen love of and interest in science. CW

Heinlein, Robert, A., Time for the Stars  A space adventure dealing with relativistic effects of travelling near the speed of light. CW

Niven, Larry, Ringworld  Science-as-subject space adventure of a team exploring an artificial ring constructed around a sun. CW

Stith, John, Redshift Rendezvous  A murder mystery set near the speed of light with relativistic effects as clues. CW

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 AlecSchrodinger's KittenEugene, 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 OlsonFramingham, 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 Sedited 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

Connie's All Time Favorites

Painting about King Arthur and the Middle Ages

The Beguiling of Merlin by Edward Burne Jones

I Am Half Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott by J.W. Waterhouse

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by J.W. Waterhouse

The Lady of Shalott by William Holman Hunt

The Lady of Shalott by J.W. Waterhouse

Mariana by John Everett Millais

La Belle Iseult (formerly known as Queen Guinevere) by William Morris

A List of Great Stuff About King Arthur and the Middle Ages

Bradley, Marion Zimmer, The Mists of Avalon

Browning, Robert,  "The Pied Piper of Hamelin"

Brunner, John,  Father of Lies

Chandler, RaymondThe Lady in the Lake

Cooper, Susan, Over Sea, Under Stone

Costain, Thomas, The Black Rose

DeAngeli, Marguerite, The Door in the Wall

DuMaurier, Daphne, The House on the Strand

Eco, Umberto, The Name of the Rose

Follett, Ken, The Pillars of the Earth

Fowles, John, The Magus

Gloag, John, Caesar of the Narrow Seas

Gloag, John, The Eagles Depart 

Gloag, JohnArtorius Rex

Godwin, ParkeSherwood

Grimm, The BrothersFairy Tales

Gross, L. Z. & Wilhelm, J., The Romance of Arthur

Hawke, SimonThe Ivanhoe Gambit

Kaufman, Pamela, Shield of Three Lions

Lofting, HughThe Twilight of Magic

Malory, Sir Thomas, Morte d'Arthur

Peters, Ellis, The Cadfael Chronicles 

Powys, John Cowper,  A Glastonbury Romance

Pyle, HowardThe Book of King Arthur

Reade, Charles, The Cloister and the Hearth

Scott, Sir WalterIvanhoe

Scott, Sir Walter, The Talisman

Skurzynski, GloriaWhat Happened in Hamelin

Spenser, EdmundThe Faerie Queene

Stewart, Mary, The Crystal Cave

Stewart, MaryThe Hollow Hills

Stewart, Mary, The Last Enchantment

Stewart, MaryThe Wicked Day

Stewart, MaryThe Prince and the Pilgrim

Sutcliff, RosemarySword at Sunset

Lord Tennyson, Alfred, The Idylls of the King

Lord Tennyson, Alfred"The Lady of Shalott"

Lord Tennyson, Alfred, "The Death of Arthur"

Tolstoy, NikolaiThe Coming of the King

Turner, Ann WarrenThe Way Home

Undset, SigridKristin Lavransdatter

Undset, SigridThe Master of Hestviken

Undset, SigridGunnar's Daughter

White, T. H., The Once and Future King

White, T. H.The Book of Merlyn

Wibberley, LeonardThe Quest of Excalibur

Williams, Charles, War in Heaven

Willis, Connie, Doomsday Book

Zelazny, RogerThe Last Defender of Camelot

Tuchman, Barbara, A Distant Mirror

Ziegler, PhilipThe Black Death