Science Fiction Books for Beginners and Others

I came across an article by Sarah Hope Williams suggesting good Young Adults (YA) books to start kids on. I have read exactly two of them: Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I approve of both those choices! I don't have a problem with the themes of Ender's Game, though I will agree the author is a little wacky. I'd kind of rather a kid was ignorant of just how wacky for as long as possible; I know knowing that kind of thing about authors will sometimes colour my enjoyment of the books (Dave Sim, I am looking at you).

I'll be looking at some of the other books on this list myself, as my science fiction knowledge is pretty crummy. Some books I do consider science fiction that I enjoyed:

• Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, the novel being better than the movie in my opinion;
• A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle, actually the first of her Time Quartet series I ever read and perhaps the one I enjoyed most;
• All the books from the Ender's Game universe featuring Bean, whom I enjoy as a character more than Ender himself;
• The Honor Harrington books by David Weber, which have a very positive female role model, even if they get slightly more ridiculous the longer the series goes on;
• The Otherland tetralogy by Tad Williams, often criticized for going on too long and having too many characters, which I have no problem with, and the occasional lapse into semi-purple prose that I do have a very minor problem with when it pulls me out of the story to snicker. Once you get used to it, it becomes less of a problem.
• 1984, one of those 'must-reads' of science fiction.
  

I have read some William Gibson and liked Virtual Light the best. I may be lynched for finding H.G. Wells' The Time Machine a little boring, but in my defense, that book is considered one of the forerunners to sci-fi and by the time I got around to reading it the ideas were old hat to me. While I consider the Pern books science fiction I can't necessarily say I recommend them. They did provide the main bridge between fantasy and science fiction and 'adult'* books for me, though the science aspect was introduced after I started reading the series. Also, Anne McCaffrey is another example of author weirdness you could do without having pointed out to you.


* Not that kind of adult.