#73. THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE By Philip K Dick

Published : 1962
Pages : 249
Overall Mark : 8/10

The Second World War has been over for seventeen years. America has been divided between the Nazis and the Japanese. And in the neutral buffer zone between the two superpowers lives the man in the high castle, the author of an underground bestseller, a work of fiction that explores an alternate world history in which the Axis powers lost the war. It's a rallying cry for all who dream of overthrowing the occupiers. But could it be more than that?

PHILIP K. DICK (1928-1982)
'One of the two or three most important figures in 20th century US SF' (The Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction). Born one of twins - his sister died in infancy - he lived most of his life in California, and wrote more than fifty books in a career of prodigious productivity and achievement. The films Blade Runner and Total Recall are based on his stories.

VERDICT
This fascinating view of how the world of the early 1960s would be if the Axis powers had won World War II is remarkably clever, even using the idea of a novel being published within the book that tells the history we all know. Dick is at his most imaginative here, and doesn't fall into any of the usual traps of alternate historians by coming up with reasons for the change in history that actually make perfect sense. A wonderful book that forces us to question how close we were to the eventualities detailed here.

#72. THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS By Robert A Heinlein

Published : 1966
Pages : 382
Overall Mark : 8/10

On Luna - an open penal colony of the twenty-frist century - a revolution is being plotted. The conspirators are a strange assortment: an engaging jack-of-all-trades, his luscious blonde girlfriend, and a lonely talking computer. Their aim: the overthrow of the hated Authority. But things don't go according to plan, and their independence may ultimately prove harder to maintain than it was to seize...

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN (1907-1988)
Educated at the University of Missouri and the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, he served as a naval officer for five years but retired in 1934 due to ill health. He then studied physics at UCLA before beginning to publish SF with 'Lifeline' for Astounding Science Fiction in 1939.

VERDICT
This story explores the idea of a colony being placed on the moon and filled with all of the Earth's most undesirable people. Yet when their economy flourishes and Earth takes their much needs resources at the Loonies expense, the inhabitants of the moon revolt in a spectacular way. The characters are realistic and make the reader approve of their ideas and their methods, while the concepts explored manage to remain meaningful even after fifty years.

#71. DUNE By Frank Herbert

Published : 1965
Pages : 556
Overall Mark : 7/10

Far in the future, two powerful families are locked in a bitter feud. The Duke of Atreides has been outmanoeuvered by his arch-enemy, Baron Harkonnen, and must move from his home to take up the administration of the planet Arrakis, sometimes known as Dune, a vast desert where every drop of water is worth a fortune. But Dune is also a planet of fabulous wealth, for it is the only source of a drug prized throughout the Galactic Empire.

FRANK HERBERT (1920-1986)
Born in Tacoma, Washington, and educated at the University of Washington, Seattle, he worked first as a reporter and later editor of a number of West Coast newspapers. He began publishingscience fiction with 'Looking For Something?' in 1952, but he achieved fame with the publication of 'Dune World' in 1963-4, followed in 1965 by 'The Prophet Of Dune' and the two were amalgamated in 1965 as the multi-award winning novel Dune.

VERDICT
Although the ideas and the world created by Herbert are strongly structured and imaginative, I wasn't a huge fan of this, much preferring Hellstrom's Hive as a work of science fiction. Granted, there is plenty of imagination, and the world of Dune is a detailed one that most people have at least a familiarity with, but I have read better.

#70. MOCKINGBIRD By Walter Tevis

Published : 1980
Pages : 278
Overall Mark : 7/10

In a dying world where humans are drugged and lulled by electronic bliss, where there is no art, no literature, and there are no children, where some would rather burn themselves alive than endure, Spofforth is the most perfect machine ever created. But his only desire is the impossible - to cease to be. Yet there is hope in this bleak, depressing time, hope in the passion and joy that a man and a woman discover in love and in books, hope for the future, hope even for Spofforth.

WALTER TEVIS (1928-1984)
Born in San Francisco, Tevis's family moved to Kentucky when he was ten. He served as a carpenter's mate in the Second World War and then went to the University of Kentucky where he read English. He became a teacher in various Kentucky high schools and then a professor at Ohio University. He is perhaps best known as the author of The Hustler and The Man Who Fell To Earth.

VERDICT
A scary book for everyone who loves to read - a future where we as a species have lost the ability or even the longing to read. Tevis does a reasonable job with the lead characters, making them believable and likeable, and the idea itself is a simple yet effective one - though it does become a bit preachy when religion comes into the fold.

#69. DARK BENEDICTION By Walter M Miller Jr

Published : 1980
Pages : 472
Overall Mark : 8/10

Walter M. Miller is best remembered for A Canticle For Leibowitz but he also produced many shorter works of fiction of stunning originality and power that had a radical and important impact on science fiction. His profound interest in religion and his innate literary gifts marked him out as a unique talent and fuse perfectly in fine and subtle works like 'Dark Benediction', 'The Darfsteller' and 'Conditionally Human', which are included in this essential collection.

WALTER M. MILLER JR (1923-1996)
Born and raised in the American south, Walter M. Miller enlisted in the Army Air Corps and took part in fifty-five combat sorties over Italy and the Balkans as a radio operator and gunner. After the war, he studied engineering before turning to writing. He won Hugo Awards for A Canticle For Leibowitz and 'The Darfsteller'.

VERDICT
This collection of short stories by Walter M Miller Jr is a fascinating read and a great exploration of sci-fi writing in the 1950s. The majority of the stories age well, read well, and are great fun to read. Fans of short fiction will definitely get a kick out of this, and should also check out A Canticle For Leibowitz for a book length tale that is every bit as entertaining.

#68. ROADSIDE PICNIC By Arkady & Boris Strugatsky

Published : 1977
Pages : 145
Overall Mark : 7/10

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those misfits who are compelled, in spite of the extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artefacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. Even the nature of his mutant daughter has been determined by the Zone. And it is for her that he makes his last, tragic foray into the hazardous and hostile territory.

ARKADY STRUGATSKY (1925-1991)
BORIS STRUGATSKY (1931-)
Arkady & Boris Strugatsky began to collaborate in the early 1950s after Arkady had studied English and Japanese and worked as a technical translator and editor and Boris had worked as a computer mathematician. Their work includes Hard To Be A God, Definitely Maybe and The Snail On The Slope. Andrei Tarkovsky's much admired film Stalker was based on Roadside Picnic.

VERDICT
This incredibly short novel plays off an interesting conceit - the idea of comparing alien visitors who have discarded rubbish on Earth to humans leaving rubbish at a picnic. With humans characterised as the wildlife that discover the rubbish, they are at a loss as to what the things really are or how dangerous they could be to them. A nice story that suffers possibly in translation, but is nevertheless a fine idea.

#67. WHERE LATE THE SWEET BIRDS SANG By Kate Wilhelm

Published : 1974
Pages : 251
Overall Mark : 6/10

The Sumner family can read the signs: the droughts and floods, the blighted crops, the shortages, the rampant diseases and plagues, and, above all, the increasing sterility all point to one thing. Their isolated farm in the Appalachian Mountains gives them the ideal place to survive the coming breakdown, and their wealth and know-how gives them the means. Men and women must clone themselves for humanity to survive. But what then?

KATE WILHELM (1928-)
Kate Wilhelm has won many awrds for her writing, including the Hugo and the Jupiter for Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang and several Nebulas for her short fiction. She has also been influential beyond her writing through the Milford Science Fiction Writer's Conference, founded by her husband, Damon Knight, and the Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop.

VERDICT
The vision of a world over run with clones feels both real and worrying. Introducing a naturally born element reverses the usual view you'd expect in sci-fi of a clone living in a world of naturally born humans, and this makes the tale twice as effective as it could have been. My main gripe is the idea of deciding that the clones were in the wrong, and that naturaly born humans were in the right, as if it wasn't for the clones then humanity would have died out.