Painting: Josef Albers, Homage to the Square, 1964, Tate Gallery, London

The Genocides by Thomas M Disch (Panther 1968) Cover photo by KR

Disch was one of the strongest and strangest writers of that golden era. Written in 1965 this book describes an earth which has been invaded by superior aliens who are using it as farmland to grow a crop of some giant species of cereal. It is very believable, and is a harrowing but excellent read. It combines the pleasures of escapism, which all decent SF ought to involve, with the stimulation of thought on a wider plane. All the books and stories he wrote were very stimulating, and exploited the SF medium almost perfectly. I last saw a new book of his published in about 1992 - I think it was horror rather than SF.

Ubik by Phillip K Dick

'A non-stop tour-de-force of time-travel, telepathy, bizarre intrigue and superlative science fiction storytelling from Phillip K Dick' gushes the blurb, but in this case its fully justified. Another classic Dick combination of inventiveness, weirdness and wit, a sort of literary champagne, the like of which you don't being created much in these days of pretty young authoresses (and authors) being hyped pompously around by hopeful but hopeless publishing pissants.

Tiger, Tiger by Alfred Bester

 This quickly became a classic of SF when it appeared in 1955. It did what many SF novels failed to do, and produced a story, powerful by any literary standards, which was bound into its futuristic framework by its very nature. The saga of Gully Foyle, space mechanics mate, 3^rd class, who because of one searing incident in his life suddenly changes from the slow, easy, lazy, empty stereotypical common man he had been all his life. He rises to the top of a golden age society of fabulous playland, always seeking revenge upon something that at first he hardly understands. Tiger, Tiger had the same stunning effect on me when I read it as when I first saw the film Onibaba - but that's another story.

Planet of Adventure, #1, 2, 3 and 4 by Jack Vance, (Ace Books 1968), Cover by Jeff Jones

The four volumes, starting in 1968, were City of the Chasch, The Dirdir, Servant of the Wankh, (which one could never find),and the Pnume. Vance was an adventure writer to rank with Haggard, Stevenson and the rest. His work was surely escapist, but it towered over many writers with greater pretensions to deeper meaning. He was able to bring to life alien cultures set on alien worlds with a minimalist brush. Yet there was not that feeling of cardboard scenery and simplistic characters that pervaded much lesser work. This series waltzed along with panache and purpose, seducing one into its brightly coloured world and its rumbustuous adventure. Read this series, and you'll read every Vance you can find.

Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov

Asimov is, of course a figure one could easily call the doyen of golden age SF - whatever doyen might mean. He wrote an awful lot, including non-fiction. I have to give Foundation the gold medal for sheer coherent escapism. Based upon Gibbon's mighty Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it is set on a big canvas - the galaxy - and it puts the long dead civilisation into the unborn future. If it has anything to say about what civilisation actually means, and where we are going one has to say that Gibbon said it first, and said it much better - but as a long engrossing read it is hard to beat. And you have to read it really, it's a sort of landmark work of the period.

Bill, the Galactic Hero, by Harry Harrison, (Penguin, 1969), Cover by Mike Little

This book is almost a send up of the Foundation Trilogy and Heinlein's Starship Troopers rolled into one. It is certainly the funniest SF book I ever read - although it is probably only funny if one was steeped in the SF of the era. Perhaps it helped to push the genre away from intergalactic struggles; it would have been hard to write a full intergalactic space opera if one had just read Bill. It had a sequel Planet of the Robot Slaves which came out relatively recently in 1989 - almost a quarter of a century after the original. It didn't do for me what the first one did - split my sides - but that might be because I've changed a good deal since then. Harrison wrote other funny books - the Stainless Steel Rat was a funnyish series, and there was Star-Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers - almost as funny as Bill - but not quite. Read Foundation and then Troopers, and finally Bill. I bet you'll have a good laugh.

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