Teaching Center - SF

[neadods]

I'm not sure if it's better to read the books before or after listening to the lectures, but for anyone who's interested, this is the required reading list for the Teaching Company Science Fiction - Literature of the Technological Imagination course.



I, Robot, Asimov
The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury
2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke (with a note to see the movie as well)
Neuromancer, Gibson
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein
The Left Hand of Darkness, LeGuin
Frankenstein, Shelley
20,00 Leagues Under the Sea, Verne
The Time Machine, Wells

When I get around to doing this one, I'm also going to take the advice of a teacher from Torcon, who said that he had his classes read Tunnel in the Sky and Lord of the Flies back to back, so that they could compare/contrast two philosophies on survival situations.

Comments

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

I've read them all except 2001. Three of them I read in college for class way back when. (Oh, no wonder. They're both Rabkin. I tried to take his Fantasy class, too, but for two years he was cross-scheduled against required stuff I had to take for my major. I did get to take one of his writing classes, though.)

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Well, let's see. I've read the Asimov, Bradbury, and Leguin; I'm pretty sure I've read The Time Machine, though it was a while ago and I never felt any need to re-read it. I've read The Sentinel, but not the movie or its novelization (ack, you know what I mean!); have read plenty of other Heinlein, but not that particular one; have only historical interest in Gibson, Verne, and Shelley (and would probably go with the Cliffs Notes on those).

I have a lot of trouble reading 19th-century fiction of any sort -- the stylistic differences mean that I spend most of my time bored out of my gourd, waiting for something, anything, to actually HAPPEN. Gibson gets the same treatment because I've read enough cyperpunk to know that, as a general rule, I'm not fond of it.