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November 2014 will be a cross over month, so for this month's nominations you can make two nominations one from the 1980's and the other from the 1990's(and here can you please specify the decade thanks!).

Nominations 1980's
Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
Startide Rising by David Brin
The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Nominations 1990's
On Basilisk Station by David Weber
Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanswick
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
The Prestige by Christopher Priest

I'm having a tough time with this. There don't seem to be many novels that I think are important to the evolution of SF AND that I like during this decade that we haven't already picked. That being said, for the 1980s, I'll nominate:

Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is one of her early Vorkosigan novels & one of the first that mainstreams homosexuality. It's probably my least favorite of the series, but still not bad.

Coils by Roger Zelazny & Fred Saberhagen. Another mind in the machine & great team up.

For the 1990's:
On Basilisk Station by David Weber. This is the first of the Honor Harrington series & stands well alone. Not a perfect book (info dumps) it is Horatio Hornblower turned into a girl & set in space, an obvious, but fun evolution of the genre.

I have to agree, the 90's are a tough decade to determine what was contributing to the evolution of science fiction. There are some real standout novels that scream, "I dominated the 90's," like Doomsday Book, Snow Crash or Red Mars and the Mars trilogy, but they don't really evolve the genre much.

I think, for me, the issue is slipstream was coming into its own in Science Fiction at this time and, I think, some of the best novels of the decade fall into that category. One might argue it to be a devolution of Science Fiction, but I think it is what shifted the genre most in the 90's.

For me the stand out writer of the decade was Jonathan Lethem, so I'll nominate him for author for the 90's. (Are we doing that at this point?)

For 90's novels, I think Niccola Griffith's Slow River might be a better choice for a gender bender, but I haven't read it, so I'll leave it to someone else to nominate it.

My nominees for 90's novel are:
Gun With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem
Stations of The Tide by Michael Swanwick

Honorable mentions to Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

I looked back to see what I might have nominated for the 80's last month, but apparently I fell off the map that month. From looking at the list of book from the decade, I wouldn't have contributed much. I preferred George Alec Effinger's take on Cyber Punk, but it would be difficult to argue he contributed more to the evolution of SF than William Gibson.

For 80's book I'll nominate
The Shadow Of The Torturer by Gene Wolfe

I hadn't started the thread for the author the group would like to read for the 1990's but it is now open and can be found here:

/topic/show/...

David I have put Jonathan Lethem in the list of nominations.

I guess I need to choose one book nominee for the 90's. Will we be doing another one from the 90's in December?

David wrote: "I guess I need to choose one book nominee for the 90's. Will we be doing another one from the 90's in December?"

Yes, one nomination please. In December we will then read one book from the author chosen and you can make another nomination next month for another book from the 1990's.

This is a tough choice. Both are such awesome examples of slipstream. I'll nominate Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick, his Nebula winning experiment in writing a Science Fiction novel using fantasy tropes.

I want to nominate books that are highly regarded but that I haven't read yet.

Startide RisingStartide Rising by David Brin won the Nebula in 1983 and The Hugo and Locus SF in 1984. It's on a number of Best SF lists. I've only read one other book by Brin and I didn't think much of it. I want to give him a second chance.

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis won the Nebula in 1992 and The Hugo and Locus SF in 1993. It was nominated for three other awards in 92 and 93. I've read three other books by Willis. I don't love her overly chatty style, but her books are quite readable and are pretty good. Doomsday Book seems to be on just about every Best SF list.

Buck wrote: "I want to nominate books that are highly regarded but that I haven't read yet.

Startide RisingStartide Rising by David Brin won the Nebula in 1983 and The Hugo and Loc..."

Doomsday Book is less chatty than her later novels. It still has some of her later failings as a writer, but it's minimal compared to what you find later. In my opinion, the more she did readings at cons and MCed events, the more the chattiness took over. Lincoln's Dreams, her first novel, shows the least of that influence.

Buck wrote: "I want to nominate books that are highly regarded but that I haven't read yet.

Startide RisingStartide Rising by David Brin won the Nebula in 1983 and The Hugo and Loc..."

Startide Rising is a sequel to Sundiver, Brin's first novel. In case anyone would want to read it first. Sundiver was the first of the Uplift Universe novels.

David wrote: "Startide Rising is a sequel to Sundiver, Brin's first novel. In case anyone would want to read it first. Sundiver was the first of the Uplift Universe novels. "

Sundiver is the only Brin novel I've read. I didn't realize it was his first. It wasn't very good. He must have improved for Startide Rising to be so highly regarded.

David wrote: "Doomsday Book is less chatty than her later novels. It still has some of her later failings as a writer, but it's minimal compared to what you find later. In my opinion, the more she did readings at cons and MCed events, the more the chattiness took over. "

That's good to know. Two of her books that I read were Blackout and All Clear, which really are one novel divided into two books with different names. I think they are sequels to Doomsday Book.

Buck wrote: "David wrote: "Doomsday Book is less chatty than her later novels. It still has some of her later failings as a writer, but it's minimal compared to what you find later. In my opinion, the more she ..."

You are made of sterner stuff than I am. I got through about 70 pages of Black Out and counted up the pages that could have been edited out and it was about 35%. I was completely frustrated by all the misdirection the characters were forced to go through. There was way too much of that. 10% of it would have gotten the point across and we could have gotten on with the plot. I decided my time was better spent elsewhere. Doomsday Book has a better balance of it.

I'm going to nominate for the 1980's The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson. I really enjoyed Tau Zero and i'm surprising myself by enjoying The Broken Sword which is fantasy with Elves and trolls (not really my thing) so i'm sure this must be good. For the 1990's I haven't yet decided...

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood for 80s and The Prestige by Christopher Priest for 90s