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At the last session, Wes asked me to come up with 3 suggestions. Herewith:</div>
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<i>Stand on Zanzibar</i> (John Brunner, 1967). The first of the doorstops I mentioned in my leadup to the discussion of a couple of his later works; his only Hugo winner, and in his opinion his best work. Set in a more advanced 2010 than we got to (and more
chaotic, but don't ask me about 2022), and written as a mosaic (ref Dos Passos's
<i>USA</i>, if anyone still knows that work) with labels, so following main/sub/context lines isn't hard. Main line is two characters, one chasing rumors of a breakthrough in genetic modification and the other returning to his ancestry by bracing a small African
country against its larger neighbors.</div>
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<i>The Forgotten Beasts of Eld</i> (Patricia McKillip, 1974). A breakthrough book not so much for the author (first non-YA book) as for fantasy, which was mired in gaudy heroism (this was the era of the series some of us called "The Sword of Sha-Na-Na"); still
sometimes miscalled YA on account of its publisher, but it isn't. Sybel is the latest of a line of hermit mages, collecting control over the titular beasts, and doesn't think much when an infant is dumped on her doorstep in the aftermath of a faraway battle;
a decade later, the unsettled battle causes come to her, leaving her with stark choices. Winner of the first World Fantasy Award for best novel, ahead of a couple of much better-known figures. McKillip
<a href="https://www.tor.com/2022/05/11/patricia-a-mckillip-1948-2022/" title="https://www.tor.com/2022/05/11/patricia-a-mckillip-1948-2022/">
died just a few weeks ago</a>; this is a good intro to her work. Commentary (with possible spoilers) at <a href="https://www.tor.com/2022/03/31/the-price-of-power-in-the-forgotten-beasts-of-eld-by-patricia-mckillip/">https://www.tor.com/2022/03/31/the-price-of-power-in-the-forgotten-beasts-of-eld-by-patricia-mckillip/</a><br>
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<i>Growing up Weightless</i> (John M. Ford, 1993) Six people on the cusp of legal adulthood, against a mid-ground of tangled politics (finding water turned out to be much harder than Heinlein thought), in what Wolfe called the best book set on the Moon since
<i>The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress</i>. Also not YA despite (and rarely mislisted as such). Ford was Boskone GoH in 1997; like all of his novels this resembles his other novels only in involving some of his major interests (here, gaming and trains) while telling
a great story in several layers. (See if you notice the plotting trick he pulls off without making a show of it.) Ford died way too young and there was confusion about his estate; Tor is now reprinting everything they can get the rights to (he did a couple
of brilliant and just-as-unique(*) original-<i>StarTrek</i> novels as work-for-hire, so those may not come out), and Amazon says the new printing/e-ing will be out on 27 Sep 2022.</div>
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And just for fun: <i>The Alteration</i> (Kingsley Amis, 1976). Amis was a frequently snarky mundane writer who upset the British writing establishment with his first book (about a non-U grad student at a toffy university) and upset Princeton a few years later
when he chose to answer his invitation to guest-lecture by talking about SF(*), which was a major interest. He co-edited several anthologies (with snarky comments about people who tried to dis SF) and wrote three very assorted genre novels(**); this is set
in a version of 1976 which begins with a couple of members of the papal music faculty listening intently to a brilliant boy soprano, to consider whether he should remain a soprano. Assorted implausible in-jokes (typical of many uchronias) decorate a serious
and IMO plausible story.</div>
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(*) later collected as <i>New Maps of Hell</i> -- much of it is dated now but it's an excellent study of its time.</div>
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(**) the other two are a contemporary ghost story and a technothriller-on-the-side<br>
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/CHip<br>
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