Doris Lessing (1919–2013)

While I have never read any of her work much less her SF, I thought it worth mentioning here that Doris Lessing died yesterday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/books/doris-lessing-novelist-who-won-2007-nobe...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Lessing

I've read Shikasta - it was a bit like being beaten about the head with an Ursula K Le Guin novel. I have signed first editions of all five of the Canopus in Argos books, bought a few years before she won the Nobel and one of these days I must finish the series. I've also read The Memoirs of a Survivor, which was a thin but interesting post-apocalypse story. The Cleft, however, was not very impressive.

#2

Have you read the Mara and Dann novels? I've got The Story Of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog but I haven't read it yet.

No, not read them. I have The Golden Notebook on the TBR.

I had read Doris's SF novels when I was young and wasn't sure what to make of them (my poor)

But when I read her on cats a truly delightful memoir of a long ago Anglo Africa and her poignant descriptions (especially of her 'understanding' of Cats) I fell in love with her writing.

RIP. Doris.

Shikasta, Canopus in Argos, The Sirian Experiments are wonderful books. Literary science fiction at its best. Time for a re-read I think

>#4. I read The Golden Notebook years ago and found it impenetrable. Doris Lessing has been nominated as one of the next Monthly Author Reads in that LibraryThing group. If she gets voted in as the monthly author for one of the next 3 months, then I think that I will try one of her SF books.

Briefing for a Descent into Hell is an early SF and is amazing.

My first wife read The Golden Notebook and didn't speak to me for a week afterwards. Later she (my ex) became involved with some people who studied with the Sufi Idries Shah and found out that Lessing was a close associate of his. Later when I read Shikasta shortly after reading Shah's The Sufis I realized that the novel and I assume the whole series could be viewed as a allegory of Sufi philosophy.

I have a very soft spot for The making of the representative for planet 8, only partly due to the Philip Glass opera based on the novel. I find it not only an oddly touching story, but in my past life as a trade union representative, it spoke to me quite directly as an expression of what being "a representative" actually implied.

Her name is so familiar and, with this thread, I'm made aware I don't have a single book of hers. I also don't think I've ever read any of her books.

Thanks for the recommendations. Her list of works is so long, I woudn't otherwise know where to begin.

So can someone recommend a starter Doris Lessing science fiction novel? Either the first book in a series or a stand alone book? That, hopefully, isn't too obtuse?

I'll second Zambaco in #8: Briefing for a Descent Into Hell. It's fairly short and pretty terrific. Although you might class it as "obtuse," I didn't.