Childhood sci-fi/fantasy

[cesare]

Radix!

 

[scifisam]

There are tons more I could add, but I'm too tired to type much, so Chocky will have to do. The TV show wasn't half bad either, which is unusual for BBC adaptations of kids' stories.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Jan Mark. She was good. I recall two SF books by her: The Ennead, about a stone-carver and Divide and Rule, where a youngster is selected by a priestly cult to be the "Shepherd" and had the memorable dialogue "Eat! It is the bread of mortification!" "No! It's a sodding onion!".

 

[ViolentPanda]

Loved this, it was one of my favourites. So sad.

Also was mildly obsessed with Meredith Pierce's Darkangel and a very weird book called Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones, both of which share an eerie, dislocated atmosphere. Read the first six Dragonlance books many times, although having read them again recently the writing is pretty awful. We had all the Fighting Fantasy books up to about 22 - I'm sure a few of them were constructed so that you couldn't actually win (yes, I'm looking at you House of Hell )..

Man, Diana Wynne Jones has written so many good children's fantasy books it hardly bears thinking about (strains memory):

Power of Three
The Eight days of Luke
Dogsbody
Archer's Goon
The "Danemark" trilogy
Fire and Hemlock
The Merlin Conspiracy
Hexwood.

 

[dilute micro]

The Martian Chronicles was almost dark, I thought. I loved it.

 

[Idris2002]

"Children of Morrow" by HM Hoover - brilliant post-nuclear holocaust thriller. Read it as a kid and finally tracked it down again about five years ago.

Really enjoyed Nicholas Fisk (anyone remember the BBC adaptation of Starstormers?) and Robert Westall as well - I remember feeling quite queasy reading Futuretrack 5 about a future where basically you get lobotomised and have your nose and ears cut off if you fail your A-levels!

Is that Hoover one the one where a tribe descended from members of a US nuclear missile base worship a missile as a god?

Fisk was great; but how exactly did Starstormers end?

 

[Idris2002]

Loved this, it was one of my favourites. So sad.

Also was mildly obsessed with Meredith Pierce's Darkangel and a very weird book called Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones, both of which share an eerie, dislocated atmosphere. Read the first six Dragonlance books many times, although having read them again recently the writing is pretty awful. We had all the Fighting Fantasy books up to about 22 - I'm sure a few of them were constructed so that you couldn't actually win (yes, I'm looking at you House of Hell ).

There were also numerous random sci fi novels that I can't remember the name of now, just a few details. One where people live in a city under a huge protective bubble and kids learn by having knowledge modules plugged into sockets in the back of their heads. Everyone is bald, overweight and pasty. They fear the outside world. Then the protagonist gets accidentally trapped outside the bubble and taken in by some of the rogue element who live among nature (obviously these are all lean, tanned and happy). He gradually adapts to life on the outside, loses the fat, gets a tan, grows some hair and falls in love with some fit hippy chick, and also learns a lesson about the power of propaganda as he comes to realise that they are not in fact the enemy. At the end of the book he volunteers to go back inside the city to work as a double agent for them, even though it means giving up everything about life that makes him happy (hippy girl, being thin, having a tan).

The other one involved some sort of ghost on the moon and featured Welsh speaking. No idea what that was about but it was quite a sweet romance.

I remember one about a future Britain where most of the country is covered by 'The Conurb', i.e. a vast conurbation that presumably grew out of all the major urban centres. The hero is a young lad who's father is in the underground resistance (society is highly divided, inequal in both wealth and power, and under heavy surveillance. . . hmmmm) and who is killed. The lad escapes to the countryside where an apparently idyllic life is led by a neo-gentry class. There was more to that than met the eye, but I can't remember what it was now. . . I do remember the last seen where the hero breaks back into the conurb to carry on the struggle. . .

 

[Maurice Picarda]

I remember one about a future Britain where most of the country is covered by 'The Conurb', i.e. a vast conurbation that presumably grew out of all the major urban centres. The hero is a young lad who's father is in the underground resistance (society is highly divided, inequal in both wealth and power, and under heavy surveillance. . . hmmmm) and who is killed. The lad escapes to the countryside where an apparently idyllic life is led by a neo-gentry class. There was more to that than met the eye, but I can't remember what it was now. . . I do remember the last seen where the hero breaks back into the conurb to carry on the struggle. . .

That's The Guardians, John Christopher, op cit.

 

[Random]

One where people live in a city under a huge protective bubble and kids learn by having knowledge modules plugged into sockets in the back of their heads. Everyone is bald, overweight and pasty. They fear the outside world. Then the protagonist gets accidentally trapped outside the bubble and taken in by some of the rogue element who live among nature (obviously these are all lean, tanned and happy). He gradually adapts to life on the outside, loses the fat, gets a tan, grows some hair and falls in love with some fit hippy chick, and also learns a lesson about the power of propaganda as he comes to realise that they are not in fact the enemy. At the end of the book he volunteers to go back inside the city to work as a double agent for them, even though it means giving up everything about life that makes him happy (hippy girl, being thin, having a tan).

That's Devil on My Back http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_on_My_Back

 

[Random]

My main recommendation is Prince on a White Horse by Tanith Lee. Never really like all her later goth vampire stuff for grownups though.

 

[Random]

Man, Diana Wynne Jones has written so many good children's fantasy books it hardly bears thinking about (strains memory):

Power of Three
The Eight days of Luke
Dogsbody
Archer's Goon
The "Danemark" trilogy
Fire and Hemlock
The Merlin Conspiracy
Hexwood.

Almost everything she wrote is good. Some of the latest stuff is rather ropey, though, imo. Plays knowingly to the genere and to its fans, rather than speaking to people in general.

 

[golightly]

I remember one about a future Britain where most of the country is covered by 'The Conurb', i.e. a vast conurbation that presumably grew out of all the major urban centres. The hero is a young lad who's father is in the underground resistance (society is highly divided, inequal in both wealth and power, and under heavy surveillance. . . hmmmm) and who is killed. The lad escapes to the countryside where an apparently idyllic life is led by a neo-gentry class. There was more to that than met the eye, but I can't remember what it was now. . . I do remember the last seen where the hero breaks back into the conurb to carry on the struggle. . .

Sounds like a book by John Christopher (he of the Tripods fame). In the one I read the countryside was called the Shires. I recall that the lad escaped to the Shires from a rather grim orphanage.

 

[May Kasahara]

That's Devil on My Back http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_on_My_Back

You're right, thank you!

 

[Elpenor]

Ann Schlee - The Vandal