We have a friend who is doing some commuting and has asked me for science fiction and fantasy recommendations -- specifically for someone who has not read a lot of speculative fiction.

Here are some of mine. They are not a top ten list or a best of or anything like that. They are just ones I have loved or found interesting or even ones that I think are "important" to the genres. In no particular order:

1. Dune (Herbert)
2. The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood)
3. Stranger in a Strange Land (my hero, Heinlein)
4. Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead (Card)
5. The Gate to Women's Country (Tepper)
6. Cryptonomicon (Neil Stephenson)
7. A Spell for Chameleon (Anthony) (yeah, yeah, but you don't have to read the OTHER 57)
8. Foundation (Asimov) is probably important enough to give a read -- I have not read it in forever, but it is part of my brain DNA.
9. Harry Potter (Rowling)
10. The Hobbit, LOTR, Tolkien. Egad, I temporarily forgot Tolkien.
11. The Liveship trilogy (Hobb)
12. A Wrinkle in Time
13. Doomsday Book (Willis) is always in my top 20 or so. I have read it many times.

I will add others as I think of them. Recommendations/reminders are welcome.

Edited to add: Anything after number 9.

Everything on this list has been read at least twice by me; several have been read many more times than that.

The same ideas come up in my stories over and over again:

1. Things are never as they seem, or Nothing is as it seems.

2. You can't replace a person/child. (This one comes up more recently, and it was one of the hearts of the story I just turned in. Yes, my stories are many-hearted creatures.)

3. Good people do bad things. Evil people do good things.

I don't want to get stuck in a rut, but it seems like two and three could give me enough material for a lifetime. Number one is fun.

Eighteen hours after deadline is approximately the time that I decide that all the work I have ever done in my life is utter crap and that I hope it got lost in the mail/internet so that no one will ever see it and that I should take up another career, preferably hard physical labor.

Manna

John, from his computer across the room: Marsh, you have to get back to getting your stuff out there.

For a moment I thought he was looking at a budget sheet or something. I considered reminding him that most of the stuff I'm writing will pay for a happy meal and a toy, and that won't change for a while.

But actually he was reading a critters (online critique group) story. "A line edit wouldn't really turn up much, but..." There are a whole lot of folks out there writing perfectly grammatical sentences, but they have no spark, no soul, no... reason to read them. (And how on earth do you say THAT in a critique, by the way? No grammatical errors, man, but I really don't care about the characters or what happens to them or really anything about this story.) This is why he wants me sending more work out. John thinks the world needs MY stories.

Obligatory aw-shucks aside, having one's partner get one's work -- GET it, really get it -- and think it is what the world needs... I can't imagine being richer than this.