When I first put Agent to the Stars online, I also put up a couple of additional essays, including one listing some of my favorite science fiction authors. I took down those essays when I transferred the site over to the new host and didn’t resurrect them when I re-established Agent. However, I keep getting requests for my SF recommendations, so I’m posting it here, behind the link.

As you read this, a couple of things to keep in mind: First, the list is now over six years old, so it is somewhat out of date — I still like all the authors on the list, but during the interim some of them have put out new works, and there are also several newer voices who I’ve particularly grown to like. Which are they? Well, that’s the other thing: Since I’ve now joined the SF writer fraternity, I’m more hesitant to haul out a list of writers I like, basically because a number of them I now know personally, and a number of them are my friends, and I don’t want anyone to feel implicitly (and wrongly) criticized if I don’t put them on the list. See, I’m all political now. Also, and conversely, I like the writing of all of my friends, and I don’t want to put out a list that’s just me giving mad props to SFWA homeez, yo. Suffice to say I’ve found a lot to like in science fiction, particularly recently; it’s an exciting time in the field.

In any event, here are some of my favorite science fiction reads, circa 1998.

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Writer Michelle Sagara has been thinking about the phenomenon of “online friends” on her LiveJournal (an appropriate place, that), specifically here and here. Even more specifically, she asks her readers the question: “How many of your best friends are online only?” Which is to say, I imagine, who among your closest circle of friends have you never actually communicated with except through e-mail/IM/blog or journal comments.

For me, the answer is simple: None. With really only one exception I can think of (and the reasons for that exception being personal enough that I don’t particularly feel the need to share the details with the lot of you, save to say it’s not what you think, you pervs), the circles of close and best friends are reserved for those I’ve actually spent an appreciable amount of time with in the flesh.

To explain this, let’s take a moment to define the universe of People We Know, and explore how it relates to our relationships with people, online and offline. The universe of People We Know exists as concentric circles, which are, in ascending order of importance to the person at the center (and generally speaking with corresponding fewer people in each circle):

People We Know Of – These are folks whose existences we are aware of, for various reasons, online and offline. The most removed subset of these would be celebrities; rather closer to home would be people like friends of friends (who are not friends with us), people who comment on the same newsgroups/chat boards/blogs we do, other parents of kids in one’s child’s class, people whose blogs/journals we read occasionally but without comment, so on and so forth. We have knowledge of these people, and we may even have positive or negative opinions about them, but our interactions with them are minimal at best. And although we may know of these people, it’s not always the case they know us. There are thousands of people who read my site every day, for example, who never pause to comment; I am known to them, but the reverse is not true.

Acquaintances — People who you know, who also know you, and with whom you’d had some amount of contact, but to whom you neither feel nor engender a certain amount of friendly obligation. Acquaintance is a “friend-neutral” term, as surely most of us have among our circle of acquaintances people we don’t particularly like, both online and off. However, it is certainly possible to have friendly acquaintances, particularly online. Here at the Whatever, the vast majority of the commentors I group into the “friendly acquaintance” category — they’re interesting people, and I like most of what I see of them in terms of their comments, and I think by and large we’d probably get along if we ever met, and I certainly like the community that I see on the site. But most of them aren’t actual friends. Friendly online banter and casual enjoyment of one’s company is an excellent thing, but it doesn’t cross that personal threshold.

Friends – In my world, friends are people who you like, you find interesting, and whose company you actively seek, in whatever format. They are also people to whom you are inclined to feel obligation; as a small example, if a friend puts out a book, I will often buy the book not only because (thankfully) most of my friends who write are fine writers, but also because as a friend, I want my friends to succeed, and buying their books is a small way to do that (however, and I want to be very clear on this, I don’t keep tabs of which of my friends buy my books. That’s just neurotic). But more concretely for most people, the obligations of friendship include things like a sympathetic ear, a happiness in their company, and projecting to them (truthfully) a general sense that you like having them about.

I think it’s possible to make friendships and maintain them entirely online: I can think of several people with whom I have friendships who I have not communicated with other than through words on a computer screen. For general friendship, I think that’s a perfectly sufficient level of contact. However, by and large, this is the cut-off level for online interaction in terms of personal closeness.

Good Friends — These are the people with whom you share a more personal connection; the folks you’re comfortable telling some (but not all) the things you don’t bother telling other people, and the people whose back you’ve generally got and who have generally got your back. If you go out with any friend and they run a little short of cash, you’ll spot them; with a good friend, you won’t bother remembering how much you’ve spotted them because you know over time it’ll all even out anyway. Likewise, a good friend can piss you off from time to time (and vice versa) and it generally won’t affect your friendship.

This sort of friendship, I think, almost always requires contact beyond words on a screen, because — at least in my case — I need to hear and see the people in action before I extend out that sort of personal trust. It’s not a question of people online being deceptive, mind you. Some people are to their online friends, but (to be honest about it) since I’m not a really attractive young woman, it’s generally not been the case that I’ve had to deal with people like that. It’s more that people online are idealized versions of themselves — as scary as they may seem considering what and how much people let hang out on their sites — and to be a good friend, you have to see more of that person.

I flatter myself in being a very good judge of character, and I usually know within a few minutes of meeting someone whether I am going to want them as a friend or as a good friend (if I’ve already conferred friend status to them). But it’s really the case that I have to spend some amount of time with you first. Now, I will say that there are friends that I have online who I fully expect will get Good Friend accreditation once I meet them in the real world; indeed, I can think of at least one person who went from online acquaintance straight to good friend because they were just that awesome a human being. But that just reinforces the point, doesn’t it: Personal contact is essential beyond a certain level of friendship.

Close Friends — People you can count on, and who know they can count on you, and basically you obligate yourself to putting up with a lot of crap from them if necessary. These are the folks who get the unlimited 3am crisis calls and emergency pick-ups from strange bars, and who you don’t drop from your circle even if they start dating a real asshole (although you do get the privilege of telling them they’re dating an asshole, if that’s something you want). It’s even possible not to like close friends for reasonably long stretches of time but still consider them close friends. Basically you’ll put up with a lot because you get a lot, and you’re willing to put in the work to keep it going.

Knowing these people in real life is pretty much non-negotiable because I think becoming a really close friend is very much falling in love with someone, in that there’s something about the person that speaks to you beyond the rational and explicable, and while it’s possible to feel infatuated with someone without ever knowing them, that real “God, I want this person to be part of my life” feeling by definition requires human contact, especially if you want it to last beyond the infatuation stage and deepen into a genuine and continuing relationship.

Best Friends — simply put: You’d give these guys a kidney. Or a liver (a lobe, anyway). What’s more, you wouldn’t think twice about it (which is not to say you wouldn’t remind them of it whenever you felt like it). Needless to say, best friends take years to develop, and they definitely take personal contact. I also suspect that the number of best friends any one person can have is limited, because the obligation is nothing short of a marriage (and so it goes without saying your spouse damn well better be one of these, and at least ever-so-slightly above the rest on the priority list), and it’s difficult to invest the emotional energy, and the life obligation required for this.

Now, one of the interesting facts about good, close and best friends is that once you’ve spent some physical time with them, you don’t actually need to spend a lot of physical time with them — due to factors of geography and time, I haven’t seen some of my best friends in a couple of years or more. But I’ve made that personal commitment to them, and that (plus phone calls, IMs and e-mail) keep things bubbling along. Still and all, they wouldn’t be friends of that quality had I not spent time with them.

One of the reasons it’s difficult to make new good friends as one gets older is that it’s often the case that life keeps you from making the sort of contacts that allow that level of friendship to take hold. Conversely, I think that the online world makes it so easy to meet new people (in a fashion) and that people are always eager to make new friends, particularly new friends who share common interests (as they tend to do online, because one goes online where one’s interests lie). In my case, I know over the last few years I’ve made more friends online than I have made in my little town, precisely because I have more in common with my online acquaintances.

However, of the same period of time, nearly all the people who have become good and close friends have become so from face-to-face encounters. It’s axiomatic. Ultimately, no matter how you slice it, it’s the personal contact that seals the deal with a friendship. Friendship is about contact, and contact is a tactile thing; the mind may write the contract between friends, but it’s in the physical world in which that contract gets signed.