"Compiling VSF reading list" Topic

I'm sure there are places I could go to on the net to find a list already prepared, but I'm most interested in what wargamers think:

What are the essential reads in the field of Victorian science fiction?

Don't limit yourself to work written during/near the period in question. Contemporary works are certainly desired too.

This interest in VSF is new for me, coming from a more high fantasy and pulp horror background (yes, Tolkien and Lovecraft especially) and I'd like some guideposts/milestones on what would make enjoyable reading.

Thanks. Oh, and please include specific works, if possible, not just authors' names.

michael morcock - the oswald bastable trilogy. first book has zepplin battleships slugging it out. v v cool.

In my opinion, thereīs one book you ought to read:

William Gibsonīs "The Differential Engine".

This one develops the idea that Charles Babbage perfected his mathematic engines, thus beginning the computer age about a hundred years early. It features steam-powered cinemas, steam-powered computers, steam car racing, steam cars in military service (I admit, Iīm a steampunk junkie at heart;)), and a wonderfully vivid description of London under smog.

Read that one. Itīs VSF at itīs best.

Of course, thereīs Jules Verne. Everyone should have heard of him. I think the more "techy" books are more interesting, such as "20ī000 Leagues beneath the Sea" and "The Lord of the World"; of the latter, thereīs a nice movie, made in the 1960īs, starring Vincent Price as Robur and Charles Bronson and featuring a wonderful low-budget airship model.

That would be the books I like most about the period.

Mes deux €cent.

Jules Verne

Herbert George Wells

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Arthur Conan Doyle

(Of course, these are the main authors, most of the others being dime novelists, like the creator of "The Steam Man" (1860s) or other "Edisonnades").

The Difference Engine
The Anubis Gates
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 1
Anno Dracula

See if you can get hold of the two compilations of 19th Century science fiction edited by Michael Morcock: "Before Armageddon" and "England Invaded".

(In my formative years of reading SF, there was a great animus against the term sci-fi. This implied John Carter of Mars, E E "Doc" Smith space opera, etc. The preferred term was sf, or "speculative fantasy". well, to me, all that sf was unreadable pretentious crap, so I kept the term sci fi. Star Wars seems to have set in stone the popular acceptance of sci fi. Incidentally, die-hard sf fans, please don't flame me. I am not willing to die on this hill.) Digression over. Others can and will recommend true Victorian writings.

To me, VSF implies a mingling of a more or less technologically advanced era with some stuff from a future technology, but somehow they meld in a non-jarring way. The new stuff may be very good, but it won't dominate the game. Otherwise, just play WWII.

So I include Leonardo da Vinci games within the genre of VSF. I can think of two works which approach the Renaisssance era (as defined by wargaming rules) with VSF elements. One is "1632" by Eric Flint. A town in 2000 West Virginia, populated by NRA United Mine Workers is zapped into central Germany in the middle of the Swedish phase of the 30 Years War. Initially, they have this great technological edge over Tilly and Wallenstein, but the local WalMart's stock of .45 ACP is running out. So they have to cope, particularly in the sequel, imaginatively titled "1633". There is also the H Beam Piper "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen" stories, in which a PA state trooper near Bellefonte PA is zapped back into an alternate universe with a pre-Renaissance technology. There are many VSF elements here where he tries to introduce "modern" technology.

I don't know if L Sprague de Camp's "Lest Darkness Fall" is VSF or Roman SF, but I never get tired of reading or recommending this book. Again, a modern is zapped back into Ancient Rome, and starts to distill Brandy, introduce a printing press, etc. No wargaming per se, but a good imagination could come up with an aeroplane or hot air balloon scouting for Belisarius.

Another title I enjoyed hugely is "The Peshawar Lancers". A world catastrophe, a comet nearly wipes out the Northern Hemisphere, has stunted "progress", so the British Empire is composed of India, Australia and South Africa. Russia is a Satanic Cannibal empire. The technology is more or less 1900, with Afghan Zeppelin pirates, etc. The battle between the British and Afghan vessels cry out for gaming. The story is set in 2025. The hero seems to be a heroic descendant of Harry Flashman, BTW.

I also like Stephen Baxters "Anti-Ice"

Huge landships driven by anti matter.
The Crimean war won with a anti matter bomb.

"The Two Georges" by Turtledove and Richard Dreyfus. Yes, that Dreyfus of Hollywood fame. Great work!

Hmmm...my apologies. The aforementioned book is an alternate history (what a surprise coming from Turtledove :) I don't know what I was thinking.

Still a good book though and quite unlike any of Turtledove's other works.

I second 'Anti- Ice'

Depending on your deinition of SF, H. Ridder Haggard's books could easily make it.

Depending on your definition of SF, H. Ridder Haggard's books could easily make it.

Early stuff - Verne is dull to read, apparently due to poor translation. Wells - "Dr Moreau", "War of the Worlds", "Invisible Man" "Land Leviathan". Stephenson "Dr Jekyll", Doyle - all the Challenger stories except "Land of Mist". Hope "Prisoner of Zenda" for Ruritanain adventure.

Favourite modern Victorian adventure - As suggested so far, also Phillip Pullman's "Sally Lockhart trilogy" and "the Tin Princess". Pullman is nominally a young person's writer, though for gritty realism and plain scariness, his stuff is not for young kids. Best known for steampunkish (but set in parallel universes) trilogy "His Dark Materials" which is challenging enough for a theologian, let alone a teenager.

H G Wells obviously but I am surprised that no one so far has mentioned his "The War in the Air". This is probably his most militaristic novel with the destruction of the Amreican Atlantic squadron by the German zeppelins and the clash of the Japanese and German air fleets over Niagara Falls.All this and a bicycle repair man.

Also you could check out Marcus Rowland's Forgotten Futures website which list numerous books by the likes of Kipling, Griffiths and Conan Doyle.