I was in a conversation with a friend of mine who has only starting exploring science fiction and she said, “Please send me a list” of the books I thought she should read in the genre.

So… rather that just sending her a list, I’ve decided to build an ongoing list which you can find here (“Have you read this yet?”).

It’s clearly not complete and I’ll (hopefully) be updating it as I get the chance but I thought you might all enjoyj.

One oft-cited recommendation to writers is never to write about ghosts or angels. After all, they’re dead, so where’s the story?

But Jim Butcher with his latest Harry Dresden book, “Ghost Story” proves the exception to the rule.

I read it in a night.

If you haven’t read the Dresden Files, you should start with “Storm Front.”

The down side, of course, is that I now have to wait another year for the next book!

Seeing as the first of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” movies will be coming out shortly, I made it a point to re-read the series and just finished the last book yesterday.

What strikes me, with this longer break in reading the books, is how marvelously subversive the series really is. I mean, straight out, in the first book, we have Hagrid’s warning: “Not all wizards are good” which translates in YA speak to also mean: “Not all adults are good.”

It gets better in the following books with Goblet of Fire being the book that makes it plain that you shouldn’t necessarily trust the Press to be fair and unbiased, then with Order of the Phoenix showing how the judicial system can be subverted for political ends, then in Half-Blood Prince where we discover that the government is often more interested in appearances than facts.

If J.K. Rowling has an enduring legacy, it is this legacy of questioning authority. The first book came out over twelve years ago and a generation has grown up with them, a new generation will doubtless also find them fascinating (they read differently when you’ve got all of them at once, instead of having to wait for the next book) – and the first generation is now entering the workforce in large numbers. I wonder how this questioning background of theirs will impact us all? For that matter, how much did Harry Potter affect the US 2008 election?

If you haven’t read Lois Bujold’s masterful Miles Vorkosigan series, do yourself a favor and get the first in the series, Cordelia’s Honor (this is a compendium of two novels: Shards of Honor and Barrayar) and then move on to Young Miles which is a combination of the book The Warrior’s Apprentice, the novelette The Mountains of Mourning and the novel The Vor Game. Once there, you’ll doubtless go through the whole series which will lead you to the latest, Cryoburn.

Lois has won more Hugos and Nebulas than anyone — and deservedly so! Mum loves her so much that she’s quoted on the covers with the very accurate, “Boy, can she write!”

As for Cryoburn, I was very glad to read more of Miles and very saddened by the ending but Lois Bujold handled it all masterfully.