In my columns over the years, I've sometimes referred to the "Nerd Canon" (which has amused my editors no end). These are the books that the fanboys and fangirls in my generation sought out as the seminal works we needed to have read to have nerd cred.
Now, the Nerd Canon isn't static (nor should it be). It varies from generation to generation. But we all get the idea.
Then again, some books in the Nerd Canon aren't negotiable. I mean, a compleat comics fans knows Asimov's "Laws of Robotics" by heart.
My reading of the Nerd Canon started in elementary school library, where I instinctively began searching out anything that wasn't "normie." I'm pretty sure that's when I got the mythology bug. By junor high I was reading Edgar Allan Poe for sure -- my school library had a complete Poe, which I devoured -- all the Tarzan novels, lots of sword & sorcery (Conan, Fafhrd & Gray Mouser, etc.), "classic" SF writers like H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, the Universal monter ouevre (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, etc.) and others. By the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read the Foundation trilogy, the Dune trilogy, Lord of the Rings, best of Robert Heinlein, best of Ray Bradbury (or possibly all available, as I really loved Bradbury), Michael Moorcock's Elric (and some of his other Eternal Champion stuff), some A.E. Van Vogt, some Philip K. Dick, a smattering of Harlan Ellison, Phillip Jose Farmer, E.E. "Doc" Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, and others. I also read every Star Trek novel through the early '90s, but what started as a trickle in the late 1970s became a flood and I dropped them.
I eventually gave up on trying to be comprehensive on prose when cyberpunk came along. I read Neuromancer and didn't care for it, and discovered that I was completely out of step with SF fans. So I gave that up and stuck with comics.
If you're still reading at this point then I have some questions:
1) What was YOUR Nerd Canon? How does it differ or overlap with what I said above?
2) When I bought all those stories years ago, I bought them in paperback. That was in the '60s and early '70s. In the '80s, I sold my whole hoard to local bookstores for a couple of bucks -- less than a penny on the dollar. They simply weren't holding up. My Conan books, for example, were literally sticking to each other, and when you pried them apart, parts of the cover would be torn off. I don't know why that was, but it was. There was no point keeping them. So I got rid of them, to make room for stuff that would last.
And that brings us to the point of this thread. (At least for me.) I'm going to go ahead and buy some nice replacements for those old books. I've ordered some nice HC versions of the first four Tarzan books. I've got a gilt-edge Complete Sherlock Holmes collection, and will soon have similar for Conan.
So what else should I have for the library I will build and totter about in my dotage? What is my Endgame Nerd Canon?
Sound off, Legionnaires!
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This post needs to be annotated.
What Asimov have you read? What stuck with you? What would you consider essential?
Reading the Foundation trilogy when I was in high school played a big part in my becoming an avid s-f reader. I have re-read those three books multiple times over the years and always recommend them to anyone that asks about science fiction novels. I do point out that they were written in the early 1950's and may seem a bit creaky at times. The first two robot novels - Naked Sun and Caves of Steel fall into my essential Asimov category as well.
Not essential but the two prequels that Jeff mentioned are worth reading if anyone wants more Foundation. However I found the second Foundation trilogy by Bear, Benford and Brin a tough slog - I am not sure I ever made it through the third book.
What's Asimov have you read? What stuck with you? What would you consider essential?
Well, let's see... I've read all of the Foundation series and all of the Robot novels to start. Whenever I recommend the Foundation series to someone who has never read it, especially a younger reader, I always recommend they start with Prelude to Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation (1993), the two prequel novels. Those are written in a much more accessible style. I own "The Second Foundation Trilogy" (by Gregory Beneford, Greg Bear and David Brin), but I blush to admit I've never read it.
Regarding his non-fiction, in addition to Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare (which Bob mentioned above), I also have Asimov's Guide to The Bible, which I found indispensible when I was writing my "Bible" posts last year. Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts is a fun read. It's just that: a list of facts you will find difficult to put down. I. Asimov - A Memoir also sits on my "stack of shame."
In THIS INTERVIEW* (beginning @ 34:47), Asimov himself modestly points to a few of his own favorites: "I think the Foundation Trilogy is, whether I like it or not, the one I am going to be most nearly remembered for, that is if I am remembered at all. My own favorite science fiction book is The Gods Themselves. In my non-fiction, I presume Asimov's Guide to Science is the most nearly famous book I've written, although the trouble with that is it goes out of date unless I continually keep updating it." I do own a copy of The Gods Themselves, but again, it sits on my "stack of shame."
*If you haven't heard Inside Star Trek, the whole thing is well worth listening to. It is certainly part of my audio "nerd canon."
Argh! I wanted to add to my canon post and somehow I hit "delete" instead of "edit." I'll repost later. Is there an "undelete"?
I have asked Ning, and the answer is an unequivocable "no."
The only Asimov I’ve read is Nightfall, which blew my mind. I don’t remember if I read Frankenstein and Dracula before or after Ray Bradbury, but all three were the basis for my love of Science Fiction and Horror. Stephen King is up there, too, especially his early work. This all followed comic books, of course.
I was introduced to Ray Bradbury in school. The teacher had us read his short story The Pedestrian. A man is walking around minding his own business when a robot cop challenges him. The homes he is walking by all have a faint blueish light emanating from inside. He is the only person who is out and about and is arrested for that. My teacher misinterpreted the blueish light as atomic radiation when, to me, it was clearly the black-and-white TVs therein. Watching an adaptation of this story on The Ray Bradbury Theater decades later validated my belief. This got me started on devouring Bradbury stories, the earliest of which were horror, and other science fiction and horror books. As an adult many years later I attended my first stage play, The Martian Chronicles. This got me started on live theater.
The following could be titled “Why I gave up getting autographs.” In the early years of the San Diego Con there were only a couple of thousand attendees. I got into older movies after Frank Capra and his son personally screened two of his movies sitting a few feet from me. Ray Bradbury was a guest at at least two that I attended. There were only a half dozen of us in his autograph line following his appearance. Mr Bradbury never drove a car and apparently travelled from his Los Angeles home to San Diego by train. Some guy standing behind him offered to drive him home. This took his attention away from us in line. He signed my program, but I didn’t get to thank him for starting me on reading science fiction and horror and on attending live theater. I never sought autographs after that, preferring to thank the creator instead.
Maybe you should have offered him a ride home. (Sorry.)
Not essential but the two prequels that Jeff mentioned are worth reading if anyone wants more Foundation.
No one has yet specifically mentioned Asimov's own 1980s continuation of the original Foundation trilogy, Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth. and no one has yet mentioned at all the Galactic Empire novels. If one keeps reading long enough, a link is eventually established from the Robot novels to the Galactic Empire novels the to Foundation series, placing them all in a single timeline.
Maybe my expectations were too high but the first sequel books didn't really click with me. However the two books that ultimately tied everything together, Robots and Empire and Foundation and Earth were more to my liking. Enough so that I continued to follow the series with the two prequels.
I'll tell you what I remember liking most about Prelude. As Hari Seldon was fleeing across Trantor and encountering diverse society after society, it occurred to me that any one of them, all of them, could have been the basis for a science fictional society. [SPOILER] Then, at the end of the book, when it became increasingly clear to him that the Galactic Empire was too large to incorporate into his Psychohistorical formulae, he determines that Trantor is large enough and diverse enough that Seldon decides to base Psychohistory on the societies of Trantor itself, which is what I was thinking all along, but didn't make that final intuitive leap. I was thinkig of it in comparison to Star Wars' Empire, in which every planet was essentially its own society; but Trantor was all of Star Wars' planets rolled into one, and then some.
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