50 SciFi Books That Are a Must!

I am a big fan of book lists. Part of this stems from previously working in a bookstore and the other part is my love of reading. I have trolled several of the Award Lists on Library Thing to see how my library and reading list have measured up to my bibliophile peers.    Justin Jordan (author of the comic book series of Luther Strode  and fried to cats) posted a book list that he had stumbled upon concerning how many different books a character was seen reading in Gilmore Girls. I was intrigued  I am not a fan of Gilmore Girls, mostly because I don’t’ think I have ever seen a single episode, but because I am a fan of reading and books in general, I checked it out, and then I had my fellow Twitter pal and blogger HaveYouReadIt check it out also.  

Wow.  There were a lot books on the list and a lot that I had not completely read, or read excerpts of and other that I really didn’t have any interest in reading. I couldn’t be the only one in the world that could get to sleep at night without having read the entirety of Crime & Punishment. The amount that I had not read made me a little crazy, and thinking that perhaps I should expand my horizons. But, why should read a book that I am not interested in and am not being forced to read for any sort of class? And this is how my pal at HaveYouReadIt came to my mental rescue. We would come up with our own book list of something that we would be interested in reading.    Thus began the compiling of Science Fiction Fantasy books began.  We didn’t want to go crazy with hundreds of books; we kept it simple with 50 Science Fiction Fantasy books that will knock your socks off.  Please enjoy the BAT List and figure out where your measure up, or give either of us feedback as to what you feel should have made the list!

BAT List

1. I, Robot– Isaac Asimov
2. Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
3. Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
4. Hyperion – Dan Simmons
5. A Canticle for Lebowitz – Walter M. Miller
6. The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, and Other Stories – Roger Zelazny
7. Carlucci – Richard Paul Russo
8. Accelerando – Charles Stross
9. Time Enough for Love – Robert Heinlein
10. Ship of Fools – Richard Paul Russo
11. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
12. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
13. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
14. The Once and Future King – T. H. White
15. A Spell for Chameleon (and all subsequent Xanth books) – Piers Anthony
16. The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman
17. Enchantment – Orson Scott Card
18. Dune – Frank Herbert
19. The Great Book of Amber – Roger Zelazny
20. The Scions of Shannara – Terry Brooks
21. The Black Unicorn – Tanith Lee
22. The Blue Sword – Robin McKinley
23. Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkein
24. The Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
25. Across the Nightingale Floor – Lian Hearn
26. American Gods – Neil Gaimen
27. Small Gods- Terry Pratchett
28. 2001 Space Odyssey- Arthur C Clark
29. War of the Worlds- Orson Wells
30. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy- Douglas Adams
31. The Hobbit- J.R. R. Tolken
32. Howls Moving Castle- Diana
33. Wizard of Oz- Frank Baum
34. Alice in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll
35. The Last Unicorn- Peter S. Beagle
36. Interview with a Vampire- Anne Rice
37. Harry Potter Series- J.K. Rowling
38. Summon the Keeper- Tanya Huff
39. Quozl- Alan Dean Foster
40. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea- Jules Verne
41. Beauty: A Retelling – Robin McKinely
42. The Good Fairies of New York – Mark Millar
43. The Cat Who Walked Through Walls – Robert Heinlein
44. The Chocolate Hollow Bunnies of the Apocalypse – Robert Rankin
45. Resenting the Hero – Moira Moore
46. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich - Philip K. Dick
47. Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin
48. Watchmen - Alan Moore
49. Sandman - Neil Gaiman
50. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

Wonder Woman Volume1: Blood

Wonder Woman. Just the name of it makes me think of lassos and golden underwear. I honestly did not have a lot of pre conceived notions as to who I thought Wonder Woman is, other then perhaps a kick butt Amazon with a take charge attitude. I was unexpectedly surprised that I enjoyed the relaunch of Wonder Woman Volume 1: Blood in the DC's New 52.

The story starts out with a bang and continues to deliver with an upper cut of awesomeness that continues through the entire graphic novel. The history of Wonder Woman is executed beautifully, because the reader completely understand why it is relevant to what is happening in the present. In addition the colorful characters of mythology live up to everything you would think they would do, which makes the plot line even more interesting. 

I am very much excited to see what is going to happen next and can't wait to read the next graphic novel in this new series. It is good to see that there is a strong female lead that comes from a very human back ground and is trying to do their best to cope with the uncertainty of the future.  Not only does Wonder Woman sparkle in her own right, they supporting characters have enough substance to them to leave a person intrigued and begging for more. 

If you are looking for something to read, that is as visually pleasing to the eye as it is to the mind, try Wonder Woman, it is more then just another pretty face with anger issues. 

The Uncommon Bride

Weddings. They are a common, and yet wholly unique at the same time. Every persons wedding is different. Every bride is different. Not every bride wants to what fluffy movies that are geared to a wedding audience.   Not every girl wants to sit down and watch every wedding show out there, choose bridesmaid dresses for hours or argue over seating arrangements. Sometimes you just want to watch something that has a wedding, but isn't in your face about it.

Here are 10 movie recommends for the uncommon bride.

1.  Kill Bill
2. Rocky Horror Picture Show
3. Beetlejuice
4. Robin Hood (For those with a funny, make that Robin Hood- Men in Tights)
5. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 1
6. Moonrise Kingdom
7. Nutty Professor II
8. Flubber
9. Bride of Frankenstein
10. Corpse Bride

Sometimes you want to watch a movie that stuff blows up in, but you also watch something that has to do with a wedding that isn't your own.  Enjoy. 

Tuning into Darwin's Radio

Last year for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) I wrote about books that influenced my life in one way or another. I had near a hundred books that I talked about in my mini novella. I came to a realization that not only do I use books to escape from reality, but I use books as a way to connect with other people, most particularly I use books to be able to communicate with my parents.

I don't communicate well. I am at best passive aggressive. I don't like to rock the boat.  I  am not one to enjoy larges amounts of drama.  I don't think I have ever seen a family that hasn't rocked the boat, that isn't aggressive and that has mastered the avoidance of drama. My family is unconventional and full of anxiety and mood swings. The thing that we can do and do very well is read. My mother is a huge reader and so is my father, and when we need to find something to fill silence, we resort to one thing.

"What are you reading?"

My dad lives in California. I do not. I don't keep up on California politics. I don't read the LA Times and I don't really miss the air quality warnings, and the 9% sales tax. I sometimes miss the excitement of an earthquake, but not the chaos of the aftermath of a big quake. I do miss my dad. We don't get to see each other that often, but when we do we try to make the most of it, which is why it is so important to me that we talk on the phone often.

" The flat afternoon sky spread over the black and gray mountains like a stage backdrop, the color of a dog's pale crazy eye."

My dad recommended this book to me, Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear.  He went on about this book for months. I honestly have never read anything by Greg Bear, so it was foreign territory for me, but it sounded interesting.  Then one day it showed up in the mail. It was a hardback book, that had a library code on the jacket cover, and then another library stamp on the inside.  I love getting books in the mail, but for a small moment, I had to wonder if my father was a book thief. Did he steal this book from the library, because he thought I would like it? It was an autographed copy of the book that was in pretty good condition for being in a library. After a little bit of research I discovered, it was just a library book sale that my dad took advantage of to get one of his favorite books.  I did not dive into the book right away. I had other stuff on the night stand to read and that I was in the middle of.

"Bacteria made us. They take us back in the end. Welcome  home."

I am on vacation. It is beautiful  on vacation, and I have time to read.  I brought the book with me. I don't know if I am going to like it. I don't think that I will hate it, but it isn't my usual cup of tea. I just started it and am not more then two dozen pages in, but is makes me think and not in a bad way.  I can't wait to finish it, just so that I have yet one more thing to talk to my dad about, and in a small way feel a little bit closer to him despite our distance apart.

I killed a clown.

I killed a clown. Or at least that is what I tell people when they see my hands.  I am pretty sure that clowns bleed a rainbow of colors, because clowns aren't humans. They are space aliens trying to infiltrate our planet. That might not be a true story, but so far I have had no arguments about clowns.  

 Once a month, I get together with my girlfriends and we do something, anything. We make an adventure out of it, because one cannot have too many adventures in this life. It was decided that it would be fun to do a little bit of tie dyeing.  I personally don’t remember the last time I did any sort of tie dyeing. It had to be at least a dozen years if not two decades since I have had any sort of association with tie dye. I now know why.  It doesn’t matter how much you try not to get any on you, it is still going to happen.  The gloves they include in any of the kits are a joke. They tear easily and made for giant hands, so there are all sorts of gaps for dye to seep into, especially if you have any sort of enthusiasm for the project. You get a group of girls together with some sangria and bottles of dye, and things can get pretty interesting and enthusiasm was not lacking. It was an adventure that has certainly proved to be a learning experience.

We tie dyed the following: 2 Dresses, 10 Tee Shirts, 3 Pairs of Socks, Various Undergarments, 1 Beds Sheet set, Yoga Shorts, Towel Set, Hoody, Fedoras, Ball caps, 3 Dress Shirts, Bandana’s, 5 pairs of feet, 5 sets of hands, 3 legs, 2 arms and  1 forehead.  I am sure that there is more that was dyed and I am just forgetting it, because I may have ingested some dye at one point or another.  There was a lot of dye flowing around and, since there were five of us, and five pairs hands and 5 sets of feet were dyed, you can guess that I got dyed.

It was fun, until I tried to get it off, and then I learned that the Internet is a liar.  Here is a list of things that I have tried thus far to remove the techno-colored from my hands. Please note that none of these things actually worked. 

1.        Acetone- It removes nail polish, and has been said to help remove hair dye from furniture.  This is did not work in the slightest.  Having now had the experience of rinsing my hands in acetone, I can attest to this.  Acetone is cold. It is creepy and it feels like your life is seeping out of your hands, but it did nothing to remove the dye. It didn’t even make it fade either.  I would not recommend trying this method, unless you want to know what it is like to shake the cold clammy hand of death.

2.        Orange Cleaner- I had high hopes for this. It is supposed to be able to clean anything. It doesn’t. The gritty texture and the strong smell of oranges, was kind of pleasant after shaking the cold hand of death with Acetone. However, with the exfoliation and the determined scrubbing and rubbing the solution together, it did nothing to lighten the coloration of my hands. On the bright side my hands felt smooth from the exfoliation and every crack and crevice in my hand was highlighted even more in the stubborn dye.

3.        Baking soda and Dish Soap- This is form a dye removal website. I am not going to mention the website, because I think they are using hair dye, and any cure for hair dye does not apply to tee shirt dye.  I thought it would be worth a try since I had both items in my home. Mixing dish soap and baking soda is weird. It makes a paste that almost feels like play dough. Rubbing it onto my hands was sort of like trying to wash in slightly blue cookie batter.  The baking soda continued to smooth my hands even more. It felt kind of nice, but did nothing for the dye. The dye was stubborn.

4.        Toothpaste- This is probably the weirdest home remedy that I saw, but in its own way it made sense. Tooth paste is whitening and used to remove stains on teeth. In theory it could possibly remove stains from a person’s hands.  In theory it works. The act of covering my hands in tooth paste, I don’t think I will ever forget. I learned that when you cover your hands in tooth paste, they start to tingle because of the mint in the paste.  The longer you keep the paste on, the more it tingles. After you wash the paste off , your hands will smell like mint for the rest of the evening. Despite the tingling, and the minty smell, my hands did not seem any less tie dyed.

After about four attempts and a shower later to remove the dye, I decided to just go to bed.  It was like magic; once I fell asleep I completely came to peace with myself and my new skin colors.  Waking up in the morning I gave up on changing the color of my hands, and decided to compliment my new and improved color pallet by painting my finger nails a rather fetching pink.  Then the real miracle happened, while I worked throughout the day, the color just seemed to come off of my hands and lighten and fade. It was amazing. By the end of the work day, I no longer looked like I murdered a clown or strangled a rainbow.  I would say that the moral of the story is that sometime it is easy to get distracted by the small things in life and if you just keep moving those small things sort themselves out, sort of like tie dye.

Apocalyptic Purse

I think women are better prepared for an apocalyptic situation than men, simply for the fact that they carry the purses.  Most women will not leave the house without their purse, and in the case of evacuating a building, a purse is always tucked firmly under their arms.   When I think about what is in my purse, compared to what I pack in an emergency kit, they are not that far off. 

Recently I was cleaning out my purse and taking inventory of what I could get rid of and what I should keep.  I have realized that I use my purse for more than just a way to carry my valet and keys.  I use it as a book bag, lunch box and first aid kit.  All very useful things if there was in emergency.

My Purse

•  Identification Cards (For me & both cats)
•  Keys
• Bottle Opener
• Silk Scarf
•  Petroleum Jelly
• Compact Mirror
• Make-Up (Powder, Gloss, Brush & Mascara)
• Anti-Bacterial Gel
•  Reading Material (Current Purse book is The Antipope by Robert Rankin)
• Colored Pens
• Mechanical Pencil
• Paper/ Note pad
• Thumb Drive
• Tea (Loose Leaf not bagged)
• Sun Glasses
• Eye drops
• Aspirin
•  Money
•  Hair Ties
• Snack Crackers
• Mobile Device
• Address book
•  Broach/ Pin
• Perfume/ Body Spray
•  Lighter/Matches
•  Eye glass Cleaner and buffer cloth
• Tissues
• Band aids

Emergency Kit

•   Tourniquet
•   Pain reliever
•   Matches/Lighter
• Band aids
• Mirror
• Flashlight
• Alcohol
• Pin
•   Petroleum Jelly
• Ties
• Book
• Writing Utensil
•  Paper/ Notebook
• Eye drops
•  Tissues
• Emergency Contacts
• Money

By doing a simple at a glance comparison, I can see that almost everything that is in an emergency kit is currently in my purse, with a couple of additives.  Which to mean means, that once I have fled the area, treated my wounds if I have received any, I will still be able to get my much needed hit of caffeine and have a snack, distract my mind from whatever horrors I have witnessed, while trying to get some sleep at the house of one of my vast list of address contacts, I have taken refuge with. 

For those that are wondering why I have Petroleum Jelly in my purse, Vaseline, which can be used for chapped lips, is nothing more that petroleum jelly in a tube.  It is completely normal for a person to have this item. Sure, there are more things that can go in an emergency kit, just as there are more things that can fit in my purse.  Sometimes, less is more. The more you have the less you think about what you can do with what you already have. 

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: A Short Reveiw

      I use to read real books all the time. Now, I have excuses as to why I don't read as often as I did. Some of them are really good excuses. "I have to be up early for work." "I am tired."  "I have nothing to read." I took a good look at the lot of excuses I have been feeding myself and decided that I deserve better then the lot of rubbish that I tell myself. It doesn't matter if I have to be up early for work, I can always just read a chapter or two before bed.  I am always going to be tired. That isn't going to change, what does change is what a person does about it. I can be tired and anxious about work, or I can be tired and relaxing with a good book.  I have nothing to read is a whole pile of manure. I have a stack of books on my bed side, and they are awesome books. I know that they are going to be awesome books, because I took the time to research them and get recommends, and have been putting them on Christmas Wish Lists and Birthday Gift Lists for as long as I can remember. I know exactly what type of books they are and I am fairly confident that I will enjoy them.

  Having run out of excuses, I picked a book from the bunch and decided to start reading.  Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs was  on the top of the file and figured that it would be an excellent point to start.  The book itself is eye catching. The cover of the book ha a little girl in a crown with a face that often reminds me of my grandmother disapproving at me over something real or imagined. What a person doesn't see unless they really look at it, is that the little girl is levitating. My intrigue was up. Why did I pick this book? The only way to find out was to read it.

Making myself comfortable on the couch, tucking my legs beneath me and squashing a few pillows behind me, I dove into the book, while my husband provided that much needed background noise of video games. (You would be surprised at how unproductive I can be with no background noise, because without the noise, I am my neurotic cat. I jump at every sound I hear.) The first thing that I discovered while getting into the book is that the interesting pictures are not just on the front and back cover, but scattered through out also. The amount of pictures makes the speed of reading a lot quicker while giving the story a body and a face.

I really liked this book.  I was surprised. I don't put a lot of stock in New York Times Best Sellers, because some of it very predictable. You can flip to the end of the book and not be surprised by the ending. I have my faults, and I am human, so I get to a point in almost any book that I read, that I will flip to the back to see how it ends. Reading the last page, did nothing for me.  It did not give me a predictive look as to how everything was going to come to a climax. In fact it really gave me nothing, but a picture of people on a boat.  Reading the last page, didn't really do nothing for me, what it did was make me finish the book. In one day, in one position on the couch, while my husband sat as company, I finished the book.

I want to say that I saw the ending coming, but I didn't. The end of the book was everything and more than I expected. Part of me wanted to laugh at the silliness of me trying to figure out the ending in the middle of the book, and the other part of me want to cry at the complex of emotions that it brought me. Over all I think that it was a wonderful adventure for the mind and for the emotions. If you need a beach read, or perhaps something to get you through a few hours at the airport, I would recommend Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.