Following are the titles listed on the back cover of the Expanded Game Rules, from the first printing of July 1982:
NON-FICTION:
- Asimov, Isaac—Extraterrestrial Civilizations
- Bylinsky, Gene—Life in Darwin's Universe
- Dole, Robert—Habitable Planets for Man
- Feinberg, Gerald and Robert Shapiro—Life Beyond Earth: An Intelligent Earthling's Guide to Life in the Universe
- Anthony, Piers—Macroscope
- Anderson, Poul—Ensign Flandry series
- Asimov, Isaac—Foundation trilogy: I, Robot; The Gods Themselves
- Aspirin, Robert—The Cold-Cash War
- Bester, Alfred—The Stars, My Destination
- Blish, James—Cities in Flight
- Bradbury, Ray—The Martian Chronicles
- Brown, Frederick—What Mad Universe
- Brunner, John—Stand on Zanzibar
- Budrys, Algis—Rogue Moon
- Chandler, Bertram A.—Commodore Grimes series
- Clarke, Arthur C.—Rendezvous with Rama; The Fountains of Paradise
- Clement, Hal—Mission of Gravity; Close to Critical; The Nitrogen Fix
- de Camp, L. Sprague—Krishna series
- Dick, Philip K.—Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- Dickson, Gordon R.—Dorsai series
- Drake, David—Hammer's Slammers
- Farmer, Philip Jose—Riverworld series
- Garrett, Randall—Starship Death
- Goulart, Ron—many short novels
- Haldeman, Joe—The Forever War
- Hansen, Karl—War Games
- Harrison, Harry—Bill, The Galactic Hero; The Stainless Steel Rat; Deathworld series
- Heinlein, Robert—Starship Troopers; The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
- Herbert, Frank—Dune series
- Laumer, Keith—A Plague of Demons; Retief series; Bolo series
- LeGuin, Ursula—The Left Hand of Darkness
- Lem, Stanislaw—Solaris; The Cyberiad
- Longyear, Barry—Circus World
- Niven, Larry—Ringworld; Ringworld Engineers; Tales of Known Space
- Niven, Larry and Jerry Pournelle—The Mote in God's Eye
- Norton, Andre—Star Rangers
- Pohl, Frederick—Gateway
- Pournelle, Jerry—The Mercenary
- Russel, Eric Frank—The Great Explosion
- Saberhagen, Fred—Berserker series
- Silverberg, Robert—The Man in the Maze
- Simak, Clifford D.—City
- Smith, E. E.—Triplanetary; Space Patrol; others in the Lensmen series
- Stapleton, Olaf—Last and First Men
- Vance, Jack—Big Planet; The Grey Prince; Tschai, Planet of Adventure series; Demon Princes series
- Van Vogt, A. E.—The Weapons Shops of Isher; The Silkie; Voyage of the Space Beagle
- Varley, John—The Persistence of Vision
- Zelazny, Roger—Lord of Light
Leave a few of your own in the comments. (Movies, comics, whatever--it's all acceptable!)
It's a weird list; most of those titles have little if anything to do with Star Frontiers' default UPF setting. More of my thoughts on it here: http://gnombient.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/star-frontiers-recommended-fiction-list/
ReplyDeleteA few selections I've found to be particularly inspirational in my own SF gaming/imaginings:
Leigh Brackett - various "Solar System" tales
Alex Raymond - Flash Gordon (comics)
E.C. Tubb - Dumarest of Terra series
Jack Vance - The Demon Princes series
It depends on the sort of sci-fi I'm going to do. For a sort of retro-sci-fi:
ReplyDeleteLeigh Brackett - solar system short-stories and novellas
CL Moore - Northwest Smith stoires.
SM Sterlings - The Sky People, Hall of the Crimson King
for space opera:
Scott Westerfield - The Risen Empire, The Killing of Worlds
Cordwainer Smith - The Instrumentality of Man stories
Greg Egan - Diaspora
near future:
Bruce Sterling - various short-stories
William Gibson - the Sprawl trilogy, and Burning Chrome
Greg Egan - Quarantine
Alan Dean Foster - The Mocking Program
George Alec Effinger - When Gravity Fails
I don't know. Star Frontiers as a system may not seem to lend itself easily to some of these series but the feel is there in many cases.
ReplyDeleteMy old Star Frontiers campaigns were definitely influenced by A. E. Van Vogt, E.E. Smith, Andre Norton and Keith Laumer.
Very glad to see Olaf Stapledon on there-Last and First Men is so underrated-still!-that it hurts. There's bizarre far-flung imagination in bulk in there.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff guys--thanks for adding to the mix. There's so much out there now that it's tough to comb through. And there's plenty of NEW lit that's just too great to pass up!
ReplyDelete