|
|
|
|
Humor in science fiction often consists of taking science into the
fantastical by exaggeration, while humor in fantasy is either stuff that is
imagination run amok almost without limit or, more commonly successful,
fantasy that is treated with doses of strange rationality. In both cases, it
is the genre-bending of the expected that starts the laughter. In both
cases, the writer is going to be lots more worried about being funny
without being stupid than about being scientifically pure or heroically apt.
One has to learn the rules of comedy as well as of speculative fiction.
- Life, the Universe, and Everything and
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by
Douglas Adams
The Xanth series by Piers Anthony, comprising:
A Spell For Chameleon
The Source of Magic
Castle Roogna
Centaur Aisle
Ogre, Ogre
Night Mare
Dragon on a Pedestal
Crewel Lye
Golem in the Gears
Centaur Aisle
The Myth series by Robert Asprin, comprising:
Another Fine Myth
Myth Conceptions
Myth Directions
Hit or Myth
Myth-ing Persons
Little Myth Marker
M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link
Myth-ion Impossible
Myth-Told Tales (with Jodi Lynn Nye)
Class Dis-Mythed
Myth-Chief
Myth-Fortunes
Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman by Nelson Bond
Kai Lung's Golden Hours and Kai Lung Unrolls his
Mat by Ernst Bramah
The Retief'
series by Keith Laumer
The Silver Eggheads by Fritz Leiber
Tales from Gavagan's Bar by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague deCamp, or the Harold Shea stories comprising, among
others:
The Castle of Iron
The Land of Unreason
The Carnelian Cube
The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
Stalking the Unicorn, Stalking the Dragon,
and Stalking the Vampire by Mike Resnick
The Master of All Desires by Judith
Merkle Riley
The Masque of Manana by Robert Sheckley, a
skewed collection of short stories from a master of satire
The Awesome Lavratt
by Ann Wilkes
You can purchase Humor
titles at the Other Worlds Bookstore.
|