Somtow Sucharitkul

Today, I'm recommending four essential works by Somtow Sucharitkul, a Bangkok-born composer-conductor who emigrated to the United States and established himself as a science fiction writer. Starship & Haiku (1981): This Locus Award-winner for Best First Novel is set in a post-apocalyptic Japan where the survivors of biological and nuclear war choose ritual death over degraded survival, as the world's whales sing a mysterious telepathic song across the poisoned seas. Light on the Sound (1982): The opening book of The Chronicles of the High Inquest saga presents a far-future universe where the godlike Inquestors rule over a million worlds, destroying or saving civilizations to preserve the balance of the galaxy. Mallworld (1981): Iconic satirical SF set aboard an orbital shopping mall the size of a small moon, where aliens observe humanity amid a grotesque spectacle of consumerism and decadence. Utopia Hunters (1984): The third Inquest book, a collection of linked stories that expands the vast galactic civilization through tales of planets, cultures, and peoples caught under the rule of the High Inquest. Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler and Philip José Farmer.