Best SF Series
Dec 20 '99 (Updated Apr 08 '00)
There are a few excellent series in SF. Foremost in everyone's mind in the field is the FOUNDATION/ROBOT/EMPIRE universe, which Asimov was able to unite before his death. As one connected universe it is excellent and contains many groundbreaking works: the original FOUNDATION TRILOGY, "The Caves of Steel" as an excellent Robot mystery/detective story and "The Currents of Space" for the quintessential Empire story. The overall opus of works contained is amazing to behold and gets my nomination for 'most detailed universe'. No other SF author has had the time or patience to fill out a future history like this. That said, even with excellent sub-series (FOUNDATION books, ROBOT MYSTERY books) I cannot name this series as Best SF Series. Although the bridging works are good stories in themselves, they do show the fault lines of the original works that Asimov had to bridge. Master works, but the master was building on old FOUNDATIONS.
My nominee for best SF series goes for the self-contained CHILDE CYCLE by Gordon R. Dickson. No other author has attempted to give the depth and breadth of characterization that Mr. Dickson has achieved in the CHILDE CYCLE. Starting out with the protagonist Hal Mayne in "The Final Encyclopedia" we see a young man setting out to save the splintered factions of humanity in the future. Through "The Chantry Guild" and "Other" we see the protagonist flesh out his concerns and give them to the reader in a very compelling and convincing argument. On the other side the antagonist, Bleys, is given to us as a rather deep manipulator and quite evil in his designs. Excellent work to the point of "Other" where the reader is firmly convinced of Mayne's point of view. What Mr. Dickson does in "Young Bleys" is to then give the reader the story line from the antagonists view and make it absolutely compelling. By the end of that book you don't know who is right and who is wrong, and there are no clear answers or indications of what the future will hold for the respective viewpoints of each of the main characters. Only Gordon R. Dickson has attempted to do something so daring in all of the fiction I've heard about and he pulls it off with ease. Best SF series? Best SERIES!
Now on to the big disappointment series: "Dune". The first book is the only one in the series worth reading. The rest go quickly and absolutely down hill and it seems that Frank Herbert is writing them for the money and only going through the motions for plot and story line. Read "Dune" and treasure it as one of the best SF novels of all time. Forget the rest of the series.
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