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What's your favorite really obscure fantasy/sf novel?
(vanity) | Dec 13, 2013 | Me

Posted on 12/13/2013 8:49:04 PM PST by Kip Russell

Everybody (well, everybody who reads sf/fantasy) has their favorite novels in each genre...which are usually a bunch of other people's favorite novels as well. This only makes sense, since cream rises to the top.

But even so, there are plenty of obscure books that for whatever reason, never really caught on. They might well be great reads, but no one seems to have heard of them...so what's your favorite sf and fantasy novel that still lies in not-so-deserved obscurity?

With any luck, we'll all discover a bunch of great books that we've never heard of before!

I'll start off with mine: for sf, "The Killing Star" by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski.

In the late 21st Century, our solar system is attacked by aliens using "relativity missiles"...boulder-sized hunks of metal accelerated to 90% of the speed of light. Thousands of them. 99.9999% of humanity is wiped out in a few hours. There's no need for a spoiler warning, this happens in the first 20 pages. The rest of the novel follows the desperate struggle of the few survivors spread throughout the solar system.

For fantasy, "A Personal Demon" by Richard Brown, David Bischoff, and Linda Richardson.

When Willis Baxter, a frustrated professor at a New England university with a penchant for drink and remarkable talent for failure in romantic relationships, got too drunk at his own party, unexpected results ensued. Instead of just impressing his guests with his knowledge of obscure magic rituals, he summoned an absolutely stunning female half-demon, Anathae. The demon, who looks like a naked sixteen year-old redhead with small horns, hooves and a tasteful tail, has been unhappy in Hell, and is extremely grateful to her "liberator". Luckily, most guests attribute the summoning to a party trick, with amusement value pretty much divided by gender.

Hilarity ensues. "I Dream of Jeannie" meets Faust...


TOPICS: Books/Literature
KEYWORDS: fantasy; pages; sciencefiction; scifi; sf
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To: Kip Russell

“The Chrysalids” John Wyndham


21 posted on 12/13/2013 9:04:47 PM PST by DBrow
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To: Kip Russell

Pretty good book, horrible movie.

So-so book, never made into a movie that I know of.

You can see I had a thing for catastrophism.

22 posted on 12/13/2013 9:05:15 PM PST by ZOOKER (Until further notice the /s is implied...)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

And you learn about history, as well.


23 posted on 12/13/2013 9:05:57 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet ("Of the 4 wars in my lifetime none came about because the US was too strong." Reagan)
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To: Slicksadick
This is my really obscure one. Ken Grimwood’s, “Replay”.

Read it, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

24 posted on 12/13/2013 9:06:43 PM PST by Kip Russell (Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors -- and miss. ---Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Kip Russell

“Bid Time Return”


25 posted on 12/13/2013 9:07:54 PM PST by SkyDancer (Live your life in such a way that the Westboro church will want to picket your funeral.)
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To: Kip Russell

The whole recluse series by L. E. Modesitt. Outstanding fantasy, a series that rivals Tolkien in its other worldliness (?), yet far less dark. Fun to read and reread.


26 posted on 12/13/2013 9:08:00 PM PST by doc1019 (Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened!)
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To: DBrow

Wow, what are the odds we’d pick the same author (Wyndham)


27 posted on 12/13/2013 9:09:14 PM PST by ZOOKER (Until further notice the /s is implied...)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Ever read the "Casca" series by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler, author of The Ballad of the Green Berets?

28 posted on 12/13/2013 9:09:51 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet ("Of the 4 wars in my lifetime none came about because the US was too strong." Reagan)
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To: ZOOKER

I’m a fan of Wyndham, I even have “Chocky” and “Trouble With Lichen”.


29 posted on 12/13/2013 9:09:57 PM PST by DBrow
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To: Kip Russell

Ray Bradbury’s “Graveyard for Lunatics”


30 posted on 12/13/2013 9:10:40 PM PST by Thorliveshere (Minnesota Survivor)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Terry Brooks- sword of Shanara series.


31 posted on 12/13/2013 9:10:47 PM PST by EQAndyBuzz ("The GOP fights its own base with far more vigor than it employs in fighting the Dims.")
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To: mrsmith
IMO (and to my surprise) the “Retief” series by Keith Laumer is obscure!

There was a comic adaptation:

The first few issues are very good, but it goes downhill after the original creative team leaves.

32 posted on 12/13/2013 9:10:51 PM PST by Kip Russell (Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors -- and miss. ---Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: ZOOKER

Because he’s a great author! “Out of the Deeps/The Kraken Wakes” for instance.


33 posted on 12/13/2013 9:11:24 PM PST by DBrow
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To: Kip Russell
This is my main one:

But I also liked the "Wizard" series, weird though it was, about a living wheel-type space station near Saturn. I can't even find a cover image of the books.

34 posted on 12/13/2013 9:11:50 PM PST by Little Pig (Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici.)
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To: Kip Russell

A Canticle For Liebowicz


35 posted on 12/13/2013 9:12:37 PM PST by DBrow
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

read all of louis Lamour books and got ticked off when he up and died. His writting of the old west are the best. In fact it started out in I think scotland, the ancestors of those that came to america. (just from my memory). He wrote many short stories for magazines also. Many he later turned into full novels...


36 posted on 12/13/2013 9:12:41 PM PST by goat granny
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To: Kip Russell
Not exactly this genre, but here's a plug for the best war story I've ever read, and I read a lot of them:


37 posted on 12/13/2013 9:13:00 PM PST by expat1000
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To: EQAndyBuzz

Sword of Shannara - only the first one though. The rest were pale copies, imo.


38 posted on 12/13/2013 9:13:43 PM PST by Lizavetta
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To: EQAndyBuzz
Terry Brooks- sword of Shanara series.

Have to quibble with that one, it's not exactly obscure...the Shanara series was a bestseller.

39 posted on 12/13/2013 9:14:41 PM PST by Kip Russell (Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors -- and miss. ---Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Kip Russell

Here’s my picks:

The Survivors aka Prison Planet, by Tom Godwin: Neat little sci-fi novel from the 1950s about human survivors stranded on an incredibly hostile world by an enemy alien race known as the Gern. The clever twist on the standard “desert isle” story is that the story plays out over centuries, and dozens of generations. Not a real deep novel, but a good, fun read.

Press Enter, by John Varley: A 1985 novella something along the lines of Skynet in the Terminator (only without the Terminator). Some of the computer concepts in the story are a little dated, but it is still a top flight, and chilling bit of cyberparanoia.

The Kedigern Chronicles, by John Morressy: Light-hearted, clever, and often hilarious take on the fantasy genre.


40 posted on 12/13/2013 9:15:02 PM PST by DemforBush (A Repo Man is *always* intense.)
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