Starship Troopers: Robert A. Heinlein's other two Hugo winners revolved around criticism of the existing society by throwing it up against something else (in “Moon” it's an alternative society, in “Stranger” it's getting rid of all your inhibitions [or possibly the return of Jebus]). Starship Troopers goes beyond that and throws out the whole existing society, putting it its place what some consider to be Heinlein's preferred system, whereby only those willing to join the armed forces actually get to vote. That's not to say the whole place is run by some military junta, and the rest of society is essentially free - just not able to vote. The plot is not all that long, but it's broken up by large tracts where characters explain why the system is so good, and why the previous system sucked (and also how it got going, which seems to involve Scotland in some manner), and has Juan “Johhny” Rico signing up for the mobile infantry for all the wrong reasons, getting dragged into a war against the hive-mind bugs (a thinly veiled communist reference) and coming out of it a better man (and, against all reason, a superior officer to his dad... but maybe Rob had Daddy issues). Not to be confused with Paul Verhoeven's film of the same name which was written before the writers knew of the book, and only bought the rights when the major similarities were pointed out (Verhoeven, by all accounts, never made it through the book in any case).

Stand on Zanzibar: John Brunner's dystopian over-population novel is named for the idea that if, in the early 20^th century, the entire population could stand on the Isle of Wight and by the late 1960s it would need the Isle of Man, then, by 2010 it would take the Island of Zanzibar to hold all 7 billion people. Brunner throws the reader deep into this strained world, utilising chapters full of nothing but back story that have almost nothing to do with the main plot (and completely against some people's ideas of how to do things properly™ ), but where the problem and solutions of over-population can drive people to go on crazy killing sprees.

For the actual story, Brunner focuses on two room-mates destined to make a mark even so. Donald Hogan and Norman House are chalk and cheese; House is a high-flying executive for General Technics, although as a black man (or Afram codder in the book's future slang) he's somewhat of a rarity, as the racism of the 60s has not been diluted over the years. Hogan meanwhile is apparently a student, though in fact he is an undercover sleeper agent for the US government. He's awakened to active duty and sent to investigate when the Asian nation of Yatakang says it can cure all genetic problems and turn babies into superhumans. Meanwhile, House is running a project at GT to take over the running of the African country of Beninia which, despite its low wealth and location, has managed to avoid ever having fought a war. The secret of Beninia may hold the cure for human violence, but only if Hogan's investigations in Yatakang bear fruit...

BTW, the world population is expected to hit 7 billion at or around 2011 - you can decide for yourself if Brunner was right...

Ringworld: In the annals of Sci Fi, there have been many attempts to invent useful swearwords. Drokk in 2000AD's Judge Dredd for example, or frak in Battlestar Galactica. Possibly the best was Smeg in Red Dwarf, but that was largely because it was actually one, and the BBC didn't know. Sadly, Ringworld's “tanj” is never anywhere close to being one; formed from the acronym for “there ain't no justice” (which itself pops up on a couple of occasions) its use spoils the otherwise decent Ringworld. Maybe they couldn't get published in 1970 with the word “fuck” or something...

Anyway, Ringworld is set in 2855 and has an alien race of abject cowards, the Puppeteers, hiring a couple of humans and a member of the psychotic cat-like Kzin (as we know, all alien races will have one over-riding trait, unlike humans) to investigate the massive artificial titular Ringworld with the reward of a nifty new interstellar craft if they do. With one Puppeteer (who is considered mad by his fellows for even thinking about talking to aliens, and is only doing this to get laid) they accidentally crash on the ringworld and spend some time finding out its history, and also how the Puppeteers have tanjed with both humans and the Kzin - mind you, they're called Puppeteers... something of a clue maybe? It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

The Forever War: Joe Haldeman's possible riposte to Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Haldeman had actually seen combat, whereas Heinlein had served, but not actually fought - but both considered each other friends, and Haldeman has said it's not one. However, it covers similar ground but results in different view - for example where Heinlein's troops come back well prepared to run the world, in the Forever War, they only become more and more isolated from the civilian population. Some of that is due to the time dilation from near-lightspeed flights; after protagonist William Mandella returns from his first tour of duty against the Taurans (with whom no communication has found to be possible) he finds Earth has become almost completely homosexual in order to combat over-population and being hetero is considered something of a psychosis. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Unable to fit in due to that and other changes, including the death of his mother because she's not important enough to get medical attention, he and his girlfriend sign up again, even though they hate the forces. As a survivor of a previous battle Mandella gets a command (all of whom are homosexual and consider him weird) and tries to survive again.

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang: Named for a line by Will Shakespeare, this is a post-apocalyptic tale by Kate Wilhelm. Spotting that humanity is about to be pwned by its own pollution, one family sets up a scientific retreat where they'll try and overcome the increasing sterility of the human race with cloning. They manage, to some degree - the problem being the clones are really weird and not all that up ons sexual reproduction any more. However, the cloning process isn't 100%, so they need to keep some breeders around, and a somewhat creepy society evolves where the majority of the clones hang around with their fellow batch-mates and hold full-on orgies every now and again with the rest. Anyone who gets pregnant is shipped off to a separate part of the compound where they're trained to fear leaving and then made to produce babies all the time.

To find out what's going on in the rest of the world, a few clones are sent off on an expedition; however, being separated from their batches send most of them off their rockers, and two of them end up having a kid together. The child, Mark, grows up to be able to really freak the clones out by going off alone, and eventually he realises the clone society is going to run into problems, so he sets about fixing things.

Dreamsnake: Vonda McIntyre's post-nuclear-apocalyptic tale (so, presumably, on beans' list) about a healer called Snake (not Kurt Russell) who wanders the radioactive badlands of the US tending to the ailments of those scratching a living there. To achieve her cures she uses three genetically engineered snakes: a cobra and a rattlesnake which can be dosed and then used to inject serums and an alien dreamsnake which can bring peace to the wounded. However, whilst tending a young boy her dreamsnake is killed by his family, worried that it will bite him. Chagrinned at losing the rare snake, Snake decides to head to “Center”, a closed city where aliens sometimes land and she may be able to get a new dreamsnake. Her route takes her through the town of “Mountainside” (I get the feeling McIntyre is as bad as I am at thinking up names for things...) where she finds out a crazy guy is stalking here and adopts a disfigured orphan to protect her from child abuse.