People of the internet!

[prairie_grass]

I desperately need your help!

(Contrary to all appearances, I have not died, and I even have plans to inform any who care of the various things that have kept me away for the last four months AND an attempt to be more interesting in general that should begin very shortly, HOWEVER, in the mean time...)


It's an emergency and I believe you have skills to save me!

I'm doing a paper this coming semester that involves writing 10,000 words of original fic. Which would be amazingly exciting, but my university's creative writing department is pretty fail, and the only person they can find to supervise me is "unfamiliar" with Sci Fi as a genre. ;_; The story I'm writing is an urban fantasy/sci-fi mixture and my supervisor wants me to recommend her some books to use as a "point of reference" that are in that genre.

My problem is, I'm hitting a total blank. I don't tend to read Sci Fi, I watch it. This story is kinda spies with superpowers, so think X-men, Alias, Dark Angel, a lot of the DC and Marvel comics cross fantasy and sci fi really well, all I need is some sweet technology being used with superpowers or something. Surely that's not too much to ask? You guys know of some really good novels in this genre, right? Even chuck in something really cliché and trite to show what I want to avoid if you can?

Ask your friends, too? Come on, with the power of the internet we can do anything, right?

Comments

[mimei.livejournal.com]

that's an interesting question. i don't read a lot of Sci-fi but there are some prominent texts...like The Time Machine, AD2001, or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (the book Blanderunner is partly based off). i sometimes read cyberpunk - William Gibson is very good & well-known in this genre.

i think you should check out the wiki page - it looks very comprehensive and it's probably a good place to pick up on key figures of sci-fi. i find that a lot of reading goes into writing (at least ideally lmao) so maybe it would be good for you to check out some books too! (this comment written super fast between classes shall contemplate more during the day...)

[alicambs.livejournal.com]

Difficult, I read more fantasy than SF, but maybe some of Ian M Banks Culture novels might be useful as a reference to some of the SF tropes, plus they're good reads by a very literate author who also writes more mainstream stuff as Ian Banks. Asimov's books are always fascinating.

It's the super heroes in an urban fantasy that's a little difficult. Super heroes tend to populate comics. Maybe you could get her to read Watchmen. :-)It's a very dark and bleak graphic novel with super heroes in an urban setting.

[emeraldus.livejournal.com]

George RR Martin's Wild Cards series is a mix of SF and super heroes. Might also take a look at Charles De Lint's Svaha book, mixes cyberpunk with Native American mythology.

[svartepus.livejournal.com]

maybe Isaac Asimov, his book earth and foundation have robots and evolved humans.