You know a new year has started when Carl’s Science Fiction Experience is announced! As carl himself says this isn’t a challenege, more of a window in which we all get to share our experiences of science fiction in books, TV, films and so on.

As always I’m going to try to read as much sci-fi as I can between 1 January and 29 February, but also thought I would do something a little different this year. I asked the Book God, an afficionado of sci-fi since the year dot, to pick two books from his collection that he thought I should read and he came up with the following:

  • A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge – “a space saga of awesome conception, and a rivetting novel of conflict, love, loss and survival“
  • The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester – “in a world in which the police have telepathic powers, how do you get away with murder?”

That looks like a pretty good start to me.