Message removed.
Chasm City,
Revelation Space,
Redemption Ark,
Absolution GapAltered Carbon,
Broken Angels,
Woken FuriesAccelerandoThe Reality Dysfunction,
The Neutronium Alchemist,
The Naked GodFallen DragonEyes of the Calculor,Mirrorsun Rising,
Voices In the Light,
The Miocene ArrowMountain of Black Glassetc. (Otherworld)
Forty Signs of Rain,
Fifty Degrees BelowSchild's LadderTime Future,
Time PastAncient ShoresTransmetropolitanThe League of Extraordinary GentlemenY: The Last ManWe3I haven't read the more recent
Jack McDevitt yet except for a collection published locally, but generally like him too, the Hutchins books, etc.
OK, I'm not sure the puritans call this SF, but I liked
Grimwoods Arabesque-suite:
Pashazade,
Effendi and
Felaheen. I also liked his book
Lucifer's dragon. I know this hardly counts as groundbreaking stuff, but I really enjoyed reading and rereading them.
But groundbreaking, significant? What books should that be? Books that defines a new niche or field... I think they're few, even over a long timespan. I can think of
Lord of the Ring in the fantasy field, and more recently
Neuromancer (not best ever written book, but novel in certain ways when first published?)
Dont get me started on the Otherworld series. All that reading and the resolution was SPOILER
crap.
Message edited by its author, Dec 6, 2006, 10:56am.
I don't like the Spatterjay ones as much.
BTW - I don't know what happened to
Air in my post above. The touchstone didn't work. It has in this post.
Glasshouse? No, hadn't heard of that one. That is new, I presume? I will have to check the library. I wasn't worried about accessible, he just asked favorite?
Singularity Sky yes, that was fun. I am waiting to see if he has a SF twist to
The Family Trade etc., as well.
Joel Shepherd's Cassandra Kressnov novels are fun too. Crossover,Breakaway,
KillswitchKen MacLeod sure. Have read a few of his.
A Deepness in the Sky? Yeah, ,definitely.
Gridlinked was ok for me.
Just read
Declare, similarly. Might prefer my John Le Carre or
Len Deighton how they are, perhaps. How that was handled was a little odd? I preferred
The Atrocity Archives by Stross, but totally different animals.
Spin was good. I did like
Bold as Love etc. quite a bit too now that you mention it.
I have only read one
Christopher Priest I think, I didn't really care for that at all.
Pashazade etc. I know nothing about. Is that anything at all like When Gravity Fails? Joel Shepherd's setting is refreshingly different in that sort of sense, too.
Touchstones can be flakey it seems, work sometimes, don't others.
Pashazade obviously shares more than a little with the Marîd Audran stories.
Jon Courtenay Grimwood has set his trilogy in an alternate universe and the first book is a fast-paced cyberpunk / murder mystery. However it is also more importantly a novel of character - both of its main character and the city of El Iskandryia.
I was going to say
Hyperion, but then I checked my catalogue and discovered that it's at least sixteen years old. Whoops.
Planetes should by less than ten years old, though. A manga about trash collectors in space. Brilliantly conceived and written, with a mix of hard sf and human stories.
bluetyson > I agree with andyl. They're very similar in that they are set in an arab/islamic world; they're both kind of murder mysteries; in both culture is a major character... etc. But also they are very different from each other. And IMHO while I really enjoyed the Budayeen suite of which
When Gravity Fails is the first book but it's to the Arabesque I return.
But of course, that's personal, and I think that if you like one you're likely to enjoy the other as well!
Addition - I've not heard of
Joel Shepherd before! Should I check him out?
Since Warren Ellis was mentioned for Transmet, I'm going to nominate another work of his:
Planetary. A little bit archeology, a little bit superheroes, a little bit horror, a little bit of well, everything.
Hi, MDBenoit ~ I agree with you on
The Sparrow and
Children of God. Haven't read the others, though I've heard good things about a few of the authors. Loved Moore's
Lamb; not sci-fi, but one of the funniest novels I've ever read. Have you read any
Sheri Tepper or
Louise Marley?
Busifer, yes, Joel Shepherd is worth checking out. :)
Absolutely on
Alistair Reynolds books he's one of the new great SF authors. Really good Space Opera, although Absolution Gap (the ending to the Revelation Space series, wasn't the best of his work). Another second to
mieville who's recieved a lot of praise though personally I wasn't that taken by
perdido.
Stephen Donaldson's
Gap series - initially written a while ago but the final work can't be 10 yrs old yet? Not to everyone's taste, I warn you now.
noon Is also worth looking out for. Odd, but fun.
Michael Marshall Smith has written a couple of SF novels and a short story collection. Again a little alternative but soem very amusing concepts.
Spares,
only forward.
Brin is another personal favourite who keeps writing excellant stories.
Kiln people was great.
Storeetllr: Loved
Lamb, too. Laughed all the way through. I'll be starting
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove today or tomorrow (another weird fiction), a reread, this time.
Never read Tepper or Marley. Which book of theirs do you recommend?
reading_fox: I read the first of the
Gap series and was totally disgusted, so I guess you're right, it's not for everyone. Repeated rape and enslavement of a woman, for some strange reason, is not a good enough story handle to keep my interest. Donaldson has this fascination with rape I don't quite understand. His
Thomas Covenant series also starts with a rape.
My first Tepper was
Beauty, but
Grass is usually mentioned as one of her best. I personally think I like
Gate to Women's Country best, but I haven't read it for awhile and may not agree with myself if I read it now.
I read two by Marley and would give both a 4 rather than a 5 only because the endings seemed a bit flat. O/wise both would have been a 4.5 or 5. One is
The Terrorists of Irustan, and the other is
The Child Goddess.
Come on flx.
Prey was rubbish easily the worst SF I've read all decade. Trite characters, simplistic plot and contrived scenarios. I quite like
chrichton normally but this was definetly his worst.
I've never managed to get beyond about book 3 of the Dune series. The original is great but old, and the rest just got completely unbelivable - so what are the "new" non-
Herbert dune stories like?
reading_fox: Totally agree with you about Prey. Waste of good reading time.
reading_fox: Totally agree with you about Prey. Waste of good reading time.
Yeah, Prey is pretty average, can't possibly about worst all decade.
There are plenty of Star Wars books out there, etc. Or something some bad romance writer has tried to put together, or whatever.
The new Dune stuff is backstory, basically. So if you are interested in origins of Spacing Guilds, Harkonnens, the tech, all that stuff, then read them. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. Borrow one first, if you don't like it, you won't like the others. Lots of people have mentioned Kevin J. Anderson is a good writer, I have never seen it myself. It may be people that don't read the crazy amounts of stuff like some of us weirdos, perhaps.
I'd take anything Crichton before The Sparrow though, no doubt about it. That one you'd have to pay me to touch again. :)
That being said, people's favorites are their favorites, which was the question.
Speaking of that though, I have the Grimwood from the library to check out and see if I like it, so thanks for that tip.
Crichton is one of the few other who has made me laugh out loud because of his terrible writing ... in
Sphere, although I'm paraphrasing here, he has one character talk about the evil monster and say "blah blah blah it's unkillable!" and another character answer that with "Then how do we kill it?" ... well, maybe you had to be there.
I think maybe you had to be there. A few people talking and saying the first thing off the top of their heads doesn't look like terrible writing to me? Given the next guy makes fun of him straight away, as well. Lots of people do sound dumb if you write them down verbatim, I suppose. Writers clean that up for us and put in full stops, as well. :)
----
"No," Norman said. "I mean that this creature may not be able to be killed, and so it may have no concept of killing in the first place."
Barnes stopped. "This creature may not be able to be killed?"
Norman nodded. "As someone once said, you can't break the arms of a creature that has no arms."
"It can't be killed? You mean it's immortal?"
"I don't know," Norman said. "That's the point."
"I mean, Jesus, a thing that couldn't be killed," Barnes said. "How would we kill it?" He bit his lip. "I wouldn't like to open that sphere and release a thing that couldn't be killed."
Harry laughed. "No promotions for that one, Hal." Barnes looked at the monitors, showing several views of the polished sphere. Finally he said, "No, that's ridiculous. No living thing is immortal. Am I right, Beth?"
"Actually, no," Beth said. "You could argue that certain living creatures on our own planet are immortal. For example, single-celled organisms like bacteria and yeasts are apparently capable of living indefinitely."
"Yeasts." Barnes snorted. "We're not talking about yeasts."
"And to all intents and purposes a virus could be considered immortal."
"A virus?" Barnes sat down in a chair. He hadn't considered a virus. "But how likely is it, really? Harry?"
-----
I don't know about favorites...some of these haven't been out long enough (or I haven't had them long enough) to decide that - I usually decide favorites by often I reread books. But these are newer SF that I really like a lot:
John Scalzi's
Old Man's War, its sequal
The Ghost Brigades, and (unrelated)
The Android's DreamKim Stanley Robinson's
Mars Trilogy (the last book was published within the past decade),
Antarctica, and
Forty Signs of Rain (I haven't yet read
Fifty Degrees Below, but I imagine I'll like that as well)
And pretty much the only books of their kind that I like:
Timothy Zahn's
Thrawn Trilogy (the touchstone isn't exactly right).
I can think of a few others, like
Looking for the Mahdi, which I recently reread, but that's more of just "I liked it pretty well" than close to a favorite.
Message edited by its author, Dec 19, 2006, 9:47am.
I'm a big booster of
Mary Doria Russell for originality, and what I think of as excellent writing. Any writer worth his/er salt will cause some polarization of opinion, and she's definitely got that quality!
Ken Grimwood gets my vote, too, especially
Replay.
It's his only sci-fi I know about, but I also enjoyed A Shortcut in Time by Charles Dickinson.
reading_fox (#26):Come on flx. Prey was rubbish easily the worst SF I've read all decade. Trite characters, simplistic plot and contrived scenarios. I quite like chrichton normally but this was definetly his worst.Sure,
Prey isn't as good as the rest of the books on my list, but I do agree with caz4562000's review:
It presents some really interesting ideas about Artificial Intelligence melded with biology in a totally engrossing plot.*** edited to fix html ... I wish there was a post preview ***Message edited by its author, Dec 19, 2006, 2:32pm.
reading_fox (#26):I've never managed to get beyond about book 3 of the Dune series. The original is great but old, and the rest just got completely unbelivable - so what are the "new" non-Herbert dune stories like?God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and
Chapterhouse: Dune are great! And
Herbert, Brian and
Anderson, Kevin J. have done a very good job with Dune #7,
Hunters of Dune.
As for Prelude to Dune and Legends of Dune: good sf that provides a lot of background to the "duniverse".
*** edited to fix html ... I wish there was a post preview ***Message edited by its author, Dec 19, 2006, 2:31pm.
Since my original post on
Grimwood I have read one more of his stories;
End of the World Blues. And in my opinion this is even better than
Stamping Butterflies - more focused, better paced, etc. Definitely one of my "best of the last decade". Those of you enjoying Grimwoods' other work should really take time to read this!
I have snagged the Grimwood from the library, and now looking at the first book I realise I have picked that up off the shelf a couple of times, and put it back again, thinking 'meh, Effinger/Cadigan or something but probably not as good'.
So, will be giving them a shot shortly.
I've been enjoying most of
Cory Doctorow's work lately. In particular, I loved
Eastern Standard Tribe. I've been drawn to near present sci-fi. Lately, the "what if" that speaks to me is more about the possibilities for generations I may live to observe.
My recent favorites:
1.
A deepness in the sky, Vernor Vinge
2.
Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang
3.
The Cassini Division, Ken MacLeod
4.
Diaspora: A Novel, Greg Egan
5.
Axiomatic, Greg Egan
6.
Transmetropolitan, Warren Ellis
7.
The diamond age, or, Young lady's illustrated primer, Neal Stephenson
8.
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson*
I have been planning to read some Christopher Priest, Jonathan Lethem and Richard Morgan. Perhaps, in the near future, this list will change.
*Cryptonomicon might not be considered sci-fi by some
Message edited by its author, Dec 23, 2006, 4:56pm.
1.
Halfway Human,
Carolyn Ives Gilman2.
He, She, and It,
Marge Piercy3. The Gate to Woman's Country,
Sheri Tepper4.
The Faded Sun Trilogy (omnibus),
CJ Cherryh5.
Foreigner Trilogy (First trilogy 1-3), CJ Cherryh
6.
Chanur Saga (1-4), CJ Cherryh
7.
Cuckoo's Egg, CJ Cherryh
8.
Lilith's Brood (Omnibus Xenogensis Trilogy),
Octavia Butler9.
The Handmaid's Tale,
Margaret Atwood10.
Dhalgren,
Samuel R. Delany11.
Stranger in a Strange Land,
Robert Heinlein12.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein
13.
Ringworld, Books 1-2, Larry Niven
14.
Clipjoint,
Crashcourse,
Psykosis, (no series name)
Wilhelmina Baird15.
Memory (#9 Miles Vorkosigan)
Lois McMaster Bujold16.
Lest Darkness Fall,
L. Sprague De Camp17.
Becoming Human,
Testament,
Imposter,
Valerie Freireich18.
Flesh and Gold,
Phyllis Gotlieb19. Dune Series (1-3), Frank Herbert
20. Noir,
K.W. Jeter21. Aleutian Trilogy,
Gwyneth Jones22.
Warchild,
Karin Lowachee23. Sardonyx Net, Elizabeth Lynn
24.
Windhaven,
George R.R. Martin &
Lisa Tuttle25.
Sandkings, George R.R. Martin
26. Jurisdiction Series,
Susan R. Matthews27.
Perdido Street Station,
China Mieville28. Salt,
Adam Roberts29.
The Sparrow,
Mary Doria Russell30.
The Lensman Series,
E.E. 'Doc' Smith31.
In The Drift,
Michael Swanwick32.
Red Genesis,
S.C. Sykes33.
Snow Queen & Summer Queen, Joan D. Vinge
34.
Starfish,
Peter Watts35.
To Say Nothing of The Dog,
Connie Willis36. Dooms Day Book, Connie Willis
37.
We,
Yevgeny Zamyatin38.
Seafort Saga,
David Feintuch39.
Wreck of the River of Stars by
Michael Flynn40.
Downbelow Station, by CJ Cherryh
41.
Bold as Love, by Gwyneth Jones
42.
Pearl City, by
Karen Traviss43.
Altered Carbon, Richard Morgan
44.
NeoAddix, Jon Courtney Grimwood
45. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World,
Haruki Murakami46. Illium by
Dan Simmons47. Chung Quo by
David WingroveThis is my list of the books that I enjoyed reading the most, not necessarily what I think are the most important. Some are older, but hey its my list. In some I have listed the whole series, and in others just the first book, and a few by the series name. In all cases I mean the whole series, unless I list the number of books.
The touchstones died about halfway through so I will post this and try to edit it later.
Message edited by its author, Dec 24, 2006, 12:37am.
Off the top of my head the big trilogy missing from the already long winded touchstones is
John C. Wright's Golden Age trilogy (
The Golden Age,
Phoenix Exultant, and
The Golden Transcendence). They are great neo-classical works: post-singularity tales with a heavy classicist turn (very Greek/Latin flavored) that I was quite impressed with.
Steven Erikson? Not familiar there, what did he write?
Ficus, yes, some of those don't make last 30 years! What do you think of
Peter Watts Starfish picking one off your list there?
Message edited by its author, Dec 27, 2006, 10:32pm.
bluetyson and KromesTomes: That is the most godawfully written piece I've read in a long time. IMO, Chrichton is one of the worst writers this century.
Well, given I just read the Da Vinci code, for one, I would have to disagree.
Given the millions of writers this century, there is no way he is one of the worst!
I do agree that Prey is an ordinary (as in below average) book, though.
bluetyson: The
Starfish series is very good, although it loses a bit of its unique-ness when it leaves the ocean ... I've read 3/4 of the "trilogy" and really recommend it ... I'm surprised at how hard it is to come by his books in a bookstore, though.
bluetyson:
Steven Erikson wrote The Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen; arguably the best fantasy series of the last couple of decades. I give the series a quick review at
The Bonehunters.
Here is an excellent review of his work by somebody else:
http://www.sfsite.com/01b/mi120.htmMessage edited by its author, Dec 28, 2006, 11:20am.
Ah, ok. Doesn't fit in the favorite sf of last 10 years category then.
Going to be hard to convince me to start on some 1000 page a book or thereabouts type fantasy series with no end in sight, if it is one of those though. Or is it finished?
bluesalamanders, if you liked Forty, I would be pretty sure you will like Fifty.
KT, thanks. I have never seen one of those books either, most likely I will give the ebook of the first one a shot.
Ah sorry, forgot the thread was just for sci-fi. The series in question is very tightly-written though with a clear plan in mind, ten books were scheduled from the outset which is a bit of a commitment I suppose, but worth it for my money.
Close to 10K pages would certainly qualify as a 'bit of a commitment'. :)
In the last few years i have enjoyed Peter F. Hamiltons Nights Dawn Trilogy although i thought the end let it down. I also liked China Mievilles Perdido Street Station and The Scar.
Bluetyson,
Starfish is one of my all time favorites. It and
To Say Nothing of the Dog and
The Wreck of the River of Stars are probably the closest to a 10 that I can think of in SF.
Starfish is a very dark, fly on the wall type of story. It follows what it would be like to live on the bottom of the sea (for work) if you were altered physically and you were emotionally or mentally disturbed, and your co-workers were also. It was cool to see the environment and to watch what happens.
Some people don't like it because its too dark, and others because there doesn't seem to be much happening, or a real reason for the story.
I didn't like the second book, which left the sea, and tried to create the same type of environment in a computer/net.
I still have to read the 3rd book, which goes back to the sea. The 3rd book was actually split into 2 by the publisher. Its the latest craze among publishers to boost income by making you pay twice for one book.
The book titles in the
Rift Saga are:
StarfishMaelstromBehemoth: B-MaxBehemoth: SeppukuKT, thanks for the info, interesting.
AlternativeOne, that's about half fantasy etc., do you have a few other SF faves?
Never heard of The Footprints of God or Greg Iles, what is that one about?
bluetyson--->
That depends on your definition of Fantasy... LOL (mine includes many books that others think of as fantasy but, and this is important to me, if the story has significant social implications it is, in my estimation, science fiction.)
The "Footprints of God" is a murder-mystery which is set in a top-secret artificial intelligence project (a secret government organization is attempting to build a quantum-level supercomputer.) Interesting read!
Other works would include anything by Jack McDevitt and Robert Heinlein’s (w/ Spider Robinson) posthumous “Variable Star.”
Got an essay on the social implications of rock 'n roll elves then? :)
Thanks for
The Footprints of God info. Sounds decent.
It's short, you'll like it...
Rock and Roll Elves ARE an alternate social state, therefore "War For The Oaks" qualifies as Science Fiction, IMO. Have you ever seen Elves at a rock concert? Throwing up Fairy Dust, drooling magic, stoned on longbottom leaf and discussing their immortality. It’s disgusting... not to mention the issues they have with their parents! Every teenage 60-year old elf knows what I mean!
Seriously though, there is nothing more social than Rock and Roll. Whether it involves elves or not is besides the point.
Ten years is ALOT of reading...
All books (this will save me AND you from an outrageously long list) by Octavia Butler, Ursula LeGuin, Maureen McHugh, Paul McAuley, China Mieville, Sheri Tepper, Jonathan Lethem, James Patrick Kelly, Patricia Anthony, Mary Doria Russell and Ian MacLeod; the rest in no particular order (and excluding anything that would qualify as fantasy):
The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon
Player of Games, Iain M. Banks
I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman
The latter books of the Holdfast Chronicles by
Suzy CharnasDazzle of Day, Molly Gloss
Sarah Canary, Karen Joy Fowler
Veniss Underground, Jeff Vandermeer
Divine Endurance, Gwyneth Jones
Ceres Storm, David Herter
Engine Summer, John Crowley
Salt, Adam Roberts
Impossible Bird, Patrick O'Leary
Silk Code by Paul Levinson
Queen City Jazz, Kathleen Goonan
To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
Lives of Monster Dogs Kirsten Bakis
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
Although I've read my share of Benford's, Egan's, Sawyer's, Haldeman's and so on, these are some of the books which really stuck with me. I haven't read much in SF in the last 3 years or so.
I should also add the juvenile SF titles by Jeanne Duprau, City of Ember and its sequel,
People of Sparks. Excellent thought-provoking, post-apocalyptic story for the 8-11 year old crowd...and the rest of us.
Yeah
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, and
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling - still the best steampunk in the genre - both stand out for me. I also enjoyed
Pattern Recognition - also by Gibson
Message edited by its author, Jan 4, 2007, 9:01am.
I'm reading Cryptonomicon right now & I'm not sure why people think it's scifi. It's fiction with science, not science fiction, which is kind of not the same. Maybe Stephenson has written other books that qualify as regular scifi, I dunno, it's my first of his books. It reminds me lots of Gravity's Rainbow.
65> I am also currently reading
Cryptonomicon and would agree with your assessment so far. I think
Snow Crash and
The Diamond Age (both of which I love) qualify more clearly as sf. However, one of the reasons I love
Stephenson is because his books are essentially treatises on other topics (religion for Snow Crash and education for Diamond Age) written with sf themes. Plus, the writing is simply superb (particularly Chapter 1 of Snow Crash, which a friend read aloud to me, causing me to need to read the entire book).
I'm enjoying Crypto, so I think I will eventually read Snow Crash as well. My only problem with Crypto is the one-dimensional characters. i know these people are supposed to be geeks and many of them aspergers or autistic, but that doesn't excuse poor character development. (OK, Let me have it!!!!)
This message has been deleted by its author.
The character development is much better in
Snow Crash. And I will let you draw your own conclusions from the fact that I used to be a grad student in mathematics. :)
It's just interesting how often geeky, wiz-bang plots are populated by characters I have difficulty caring about. Something in how human minds tend to be arranged, I think.
I rather suspect Stephenson, and Pynchon for that matter, himself has aspergers, not that there's anything wrong with that. It would explain a lot.
Message edited by its author, Jan 12, 2007, 7:55pm.
# 67
Cryptonomicon is one of my favourite books, and
Snow Crash was good in it's time - I guess it could feel dated today. How far have you read into the book? I thought it took some time for the characters to develop... For added depth, IF you liked Crypto when your through it I'd recommend tha Baroque cycle (
Quicksilver,
Confusion &
The System of the World). It is kind of related ;-)
I'd add that I share your view that this is not SF. There are those that consider the Baroque cycle "steam punk" but I'm of the opinion that it is historical fiction with science as a main character and plot device.
Also, the nonfiction work
The battle of wits tell of some of the real life incidents and places that Stephenson's used in Crypto. Not very well written, but interesting as background.
*problems with touchstones...*
Message edited by its author, Jan 13, 2007, 3:20am.
Cryptonomicon isn't the 'hardest' of SF, but the concept of the "data haven" certainly lets it squeak in as SF.
More centrally,
Cryptonomicon certainly is
fiction about science (in this case, cryptography), which is sometimes indistinguishable from "Science Fiction". It's a question of attitude, of approach: it's fiction in which the 'science' is central.
Which, again, how Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" - which is pretty much just straight 'historical fiction' - gets lumped in as SF. It's fiction about science.
I would bet that if Stephenson hadn't written his earlier, more "pure" sci-fi books, people wouldn't be trying so hard to put
Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle into the sci-fi bag ... because Stephenson became know first as a sci-fi writer, he's somewhat typecast.
#73 - Yes, I couldn't agree more.
Well, I don't know if it's a question of "trying so hard" to put him in the SF bag - - when you're reading them, they feel just like science fiction: they provide a reading experience indistinguishable from SF.
And then you step back and realize, "hey, there's not really much of any actual 'science-fictional' content here".
I don't think it's a question of typecasting based onhis prior efforts - I think Stephenson has the same worldview, and the same approach to fiction as do other SF authors.
The 'Tom Clancy/hardware adventure' genre has - on paper at least - at least as much 'science-fictional' content, involving the lovingly-worked-out implications of some bit of more-or-less SFnal weaponry technology, and yet they don't have the same SFnal 'feel' that Stephenson's 'historicals' provide.
>75 As I've read almost to the end now, I am beginning to agree with your take. It's the kind of fiction that appeals to people who read SF, that is, heavy on the science (or future science) content and adventure plot, light on characterization and psychological insight. It's fun "left brain candy."
But AYK_Bob, don't you think fans are inclined to continue to claim an author for the genre if they began there? Jonathan Lethem, Karen Joy Fowler and John Crowley are examples of authors who started in the genre but are now pretty much mainstream... Still they are talked about as if they are still writing SF & F; their books are reviewed in Locus and so on...
I haven't actually ever noticed anything mentioned about them until that list earlier that Crowley appeared on, and I have never heard of Fowler at all.
So, sounds pretty mainstream to me. :) Either that, or an American no-one though enough of to sell here, perhaps, not in the usual places, anyway.
But AYK_Bob, don't you think fans are inclined to continue to claim an author for the genre if they began there?Oh, sure. (And in most cases, we'd be right, too.)
It's just a question of marketing, of writers trying to escape the genre 'ghetto'.
And I think
that's a matter of prestige more than it is a question of sheer economic self-interest: as near as I can tell, a run-of-the-mill book in the SF genre sells as well (maybe better) as a run-of-the-mill 'mainstream' title.
Blue: Karen Jay Fowler is definitely One of Us, and worth reading: her first book
Artificial Things was up for the PKD Award,
Sarah Canary was Nebula-nominated. Good stuff.
Yep, and didn't her collection,
Black Glass win a World Fantasy award? But bluetyson you might have heard her name for her most recent mainstream novel,
The Jane Austen Book Club. It's an Austen-eske tale of the book club of the same name that includes some great nods included to SF and SF fandom.
Perhaps economics, yes. Perhaps prestige. But perhaps it could also be some sort of evolutionary process in their writing. Jeffrey Ford's latest novel had no fantasy at all in it (to my surprise) and won the Edgar for paperback original. Graham Joyce has been slowly evolving into mainstream. Of course, then my theory gets blown with Crowley who returns with his 4th book in the Aegypt series this May.
Message edited by its author, Jan 17, 2007, 7:37pm.
#57: as with science fiction, fantasy is becoming quite broad and as a term often feels inadequate. That's why, more and more, Speculative Fiction is used. Here's how the SF Site defines SF:
..."speculative fiction" means anything that could reasonably be said to be associated in some way with fiction of a speculative nature (including, but not limited to science fiction, fantasy, horror, historical fiction, alternate history, and probably even a fair selection of what is generally considered mainstream fiction)"
Well I might have somewhat plebeian tastes I really enjoyed all of
S.L. Viehl's work. I had seen the
Stardoc books on the shelf and liked their covers but then read the back and thought ehh I don't think so. Eventually, I got
Blade Dancer from the library and read it cause I had nothing better to read. I really liked it and that made go out and get the first
Stardoc novel after that I was hooked. I now have all of them and devour them like candy when they come out. I just got the latest
Plague of Memory and finished it in one sitting and was left wanting more. How soon the next book will be out is anybody's guess.
I also really love the
Saga of the Skolian Empire by
Catherine Asaro alot . I would have to say that my favorites in this large series are
The Last Hawk,
The Radiant Seas,
Ascendant Sun and
The Moon's ShadowThe Neanderthal Parallax by
Robert J. Sawyer is intriguing as well. Consisting of
Hominids,
Humans and
Hybrids it's an intersting anthropological and speculative take on humans and neanderthal's and social structures.
Also
Darwin's Radio by
Greg Bear and it's follow up
Darwin's Children are an interesting look at a specualtive future and society's reaction to differences.
I would strongly have to posit (Oryx & Crake) by ((Margaret Atwood)) as one of the best recent science fiction novels. Highly disturbing and written in her characteristic entertaining and accessible prose, Atwood is incredible at creating all too possible future worlds.
Would also highly recommend the new ((Cormac McCarthy)), (The Road), and the new ((JG Ballard)), (Kingdom Come). Ballard likes to dance around the scifi genre, never quite fits in, but he does great analyses of how our changing culture affects our souls.
Happy Reading!
While I might have missed it as I skimmed these posts, I'm surprised no one mentioned Vernon Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. While I tend to like and read less challenging and lighter serial Sci-Fi, this is an incredible work as was a Fire Upon the Deep.
#85 if you touchstone the work and author using the square brackets as described on the right of the post messafe box, you'll see the name appear in blue in the post AND on the list on the right of the thread. This makes it easy to see if the author has already been mentioned, You don't have to skim every post, just the list of works or the list of authors -
Vernor Vinge has,
A deepness in the Sky.
This message has been deleted by its author.
(back to top)
