Thread: Science fiction for English professors

Hay, if you don't toot your own horn, who will. Thanks for correcting my spelling.

Thanks. I'll give it a try when I have more time. --Dave

Um, it's Owl croft . And Cabell with two l's. I appreciate your giving constructive criticism, but I think you perhaps mistake the target readership of the site: it is not a general-purpose speculative-fiction site. There are, as you say (and as duly noted in the site Apologia ), many, many of those on the web; this is not meant as another. That Apologia states it forthrightly: [M]y hope is to be of some service to two classes of...

An interesting conundrum. Also off the suggested list would be most of what we consider the classics (Asimov, Heinlein, even much of Clarke) I think some of Stephenson would probably be a good idea, though not having read much of him I couldn't suggest a particular title. Another author might be Delaney. I found The Einstein Intersection to be completely unfathomable, so it would probably be perfect for an EP. Vernor Vinge? CJ Cherryh?,...

John Varley's Rainbows End ...i think you mean Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End"? (sorry for being pedantic!)

I wonder if Philip Dick or JG Ballard might be good starting points for this readership? Just a thought

James Blish's A Case of Conscience? John Brunner's The Squares of the City? Two books I couldt finish,just too wordy.

JRR Tolkien was an English professor, and he enjoyed SF. One book he particularly admired was The Death of Grass. You could also try your friend on some of Doris Lessing's SF maybe. And I'm sure your friend has already read high-school classics like 1984 and Brave New World, but just doesn't class them as SF.