At the Guardian, he tagged his top ten sci-fi sagas for teens, including:The Tears of the Singers by Melinda SnodgrassRead about the other entries on the list.
My guilty secret all these years has been my being a fan of Star Trek not in any of its TV or movie incarnations in particular – but rather the original novels from the 1980s. Melinda Snodgrass was one of a whole gang of women writers who wrote all the best Trek books (see also: Diane Duane, Barbara Hambly, AC Crispin, Jean Lorrah.) This one is my all-time favourite since it puts Uhura at the centre of the action. A world of singing alien seals are all that stands between the universe and utter destruction, and of course the seals are being clubbed to death one at a time by ruthless men who collect the crystals the seals shed at the point of death. It sounds sappy but it’s absolutely wonderful. Where else would you ever have Uhura falling in love with a prog rock organist, a shipful of furious klingons, Captain Kirk vanishing into a vortex and a planet full of warbling manatees?
--Marshal Zeringue
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