Obviously they're not going to be Classics like EG, but I enjoyed them (at least until the fourth book got too bogged down in his universal love-mysticism crap, including the most recent two.
― Jordan, Thursday, 16 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Destroy: the 40s. Peter F. Hamilton. lightsabers. aliens who look like humans in masks. The Handmaid's Tale.
― thom, Thursday, 16 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 16 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― bnw, Thursday, 16 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Search: John Brunner's "Stand On Zanzibar", "The Shockwave Rider", and "The Sheep Look Up". RA Lafferty, Lem's "The Futuralogical Congress", Gene Wolfe, Neal Stephenson, Avram Davidson, Theodore Sturgeon, PKD, Ballard, John Shirley, Heinlein's "Stranger In A Strange Land" (ONLY that Heinlein though), Ray Bradbury, Ian MacDonald (especially "Desolation Road"), LeGuin's "The Dispossessed", Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War", any George R.R. Martin short story collection (look for "Sandkings"), Tim Powers, K.W. Jeter, Kim Stanley Robinson's Orange County and Mars trilogies, and any of the Damon Knight-edited "Orbit" short story collections.
Destroy: Most everything else.
― Chris Barrus, Friday, 17 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― keith, Sunday, 19 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― mark s, Sunday, 19 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Oooh oooh oooh, it's way too early to actually anticipate, but Ridley Scott and The Forever War.
― WmC, Tuesday, 24 March 2009 16:12 (fifteen years ago) link
Would have been interesting if he had gone straight to that after Alien and Blade Runner for sure. But I'm actually liking the idea of Scott doing this now more for whatever reason.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 24 March 2009 16:15 (fifteen years ago) link
I thought this was the thread that Ned (or someone) recommended THE PHOENIX AND THE MIRROR, but I guess its not. Anyway, I picked it up based on the recommendation and I enjoyed it a lot. So, thanks!
― Trip Maker, Tuesday, 24 March 2009 16:46 (fifteen years ago) link
You're welcome! That might well have been me, given how much I love Davidson.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 24 March 2009 16:47 (fifteen years ago) link
Okay I think after nearly 15 years of reading virtually nothing but sci-fi written prior to 1980 that I may have exhausted most of the good stuff. Has anything decent been done in the past 15 years? Anything to touch the best Ballard/Brunner/Disch/Silverberg/Tiptree/Wolfe? Any recommendations along those lines welcomed.
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:00 (fourteen years ago) link
School Me On Some Sci-Fi My Astral Brothers And Sisters!
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:10 (fourteen years ago) link
is the thread you're looking for for good recommendations
Light by John M. Harrison.
Also a slightly yawnsome re-recommendation of Bank's Culture books. They really do piss on most modern mainstream space opera though. Dan Simmons is interesting, but I suspect he might be a bit of a loon, and don't read his books if you're expecting explanations for stuff.
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:39 (fourteen years ago) link
I quite like the Alistair Reynolds books.
Also Bester again even though it's at the top of the thread already.
― Jarlrmai, Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Reynolds is okay, some good ideas and nicely bleak.
I tried reading a Neal Asher, can't remember the name, but gave up halfway because there hadn't been any half-way original concepts up to that point.
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:46 (fourteen years ago) link
second the Light recommendation (altho Harrison is hardly a new writer and the book cribs a lot from earlier sci-fi concepts. still a lot of fun tho)
― Jack Kirby's Orangutan Surfing Civilization (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:47 (fourteen years ago) link
If you're looking for trashy fun there's always Peter F Hamilton, of course.
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:47 (fourteen years ago) link
I haven't come across any decent new sci-fi writers in years, unless Victor Pelevin counts
Anyone read that newish Neal Stephenson?
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:49 (fourteen years ago) link
I haven't come across any decent new sci-fi writers in years
Seems that fantasy's more in vogue for younger writers now.
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:50 (fourteen years ago) link
Anathem by Neal Stephenson: Kinda Like 'The Name of the Rose' If It Were About Pythagoreans
― George Mucus (ledge), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:54 (fourteen years ago) link
Ick can't stand the one Simmons book I read. Banks is okay, I can imagine reading more of him. Also have heard people tout Ian McDonald although the one book I read by him years ago (Terminal Cafe) was pretty meh. Can Stephenson actually write now? His early stuff is rough going IIRC.
I'll look out for Light though.
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:56 (fourteen years ago) link
Last 15 years of Hugo Award winners is not giving me much hope here.
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:59 (fourteen years ago) link
read "House of Suns" by Alastair Reynolds recently and thought it was very good, quite Banks-like.
― zappi, Friday, 20 November 2009 00:03 (fourteen years ago) link
my wife really loved it. she's been a Stephenson stan since Cryptonomicron. I didn't read it but her description made it sound like Ursula K. Leguin crossed with Canticle for Liebowitz
― Jack Kirby's Orangutan Surfing Civilization (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 November 2009 00:03 (fourteen years ago) link
blindsight by peter watts (originally recommended by james morrison, reading now, quite excellent)
― jØrdån (omar little), Friday, 20 November 2009 00:04 (fourteen years ago) link
Alex I share yr distaste for Stephenson's prose fwiw
― Jack Kirby's Orangutan Surfing Civilization (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 November 2009 00:10 (fourteen years ago) link
"Seems that fantasy's more in vogue for younger writers now."
I have this suspicion that skills required to write SF are now more lucratively engaged in creating SF. Isn't Anathem supposed to be a kind of fanfiction for the Long Now foundation projects?
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 20 November 2009 00:10 (fourteen years ago) link
Steve Aylett's sci-fi/noir stuff is pretty good, kinda headache-inducing if you try to read too much at once
her description made it sound like Ursula K. Leguin crossed with Canticle for Liebowitz
Well I'm sold.
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Friday, 20 November 2009 00:34 (fourteen years ago) link
omar is right: Peter Watts is my favorite genre writer alive. Between his day job of helping with marine biology surveys he finds time to keep us all up to date with the terror of post-humanism that will befall us, as well as recent updates in neuroscience and evolutionary biology. The Rifters quadralogy is also very worthwhile.
All of Peter Watts books are available online under creative commons licence. I bought hard copies just to make sure he still writes for my personal benefit.
Peter Watt's site, with background on his 4 novels, and very, very good weblog he calls a newscrall.
― Biodegradable (Derelict), Friday, 20 November 2009 00:49 (fourteen years ago) link
I really enjoyed Anathem; my wife gave up after 40 pages or so.
― WmC, Friday, 20 November 2009 01:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Just finished Accelerando by Charles Stross, it was pretty ok.
― mh, Friday, 20 November 2009 03:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Ha I just read that too. I liked the cat.
― mascara and ties (Abbott), Friday, 20 November 2009 03:52 (fourteen years ago) link
Benjamin Rosenbaum? Tobias Buckell? The aforementioned Peter Watts?
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Friday, 20 November 2009 04:15 (fourteen years ago) link
Blindsight totally craps out by the end. but yeah, i appreciate v much that it's free online. any other good SF novels that i can read gratis? (cory doctorow doesn't count.)
― sean gramophone, Friday, 20 November 2009 05:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Here's one: Greg Howell's Light on Shattered Water, one of the best alternative fiction novels I've ever read. I haven't read the prequel (Human Memoirs) or the sequel (Storms Over Open Fields) yet, though.
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Friday, 20 November 2009 05:49 (fourteen years ago) link
Blindsight is fantastic. Very chilly and creepy.
― fel (latebloomer), Friday, 20 November 2009 05:57 (fourteen years ago) link
I've mostly been reading old stuff like Henry Kuttner/CL Moore lately. A good way of finding new writers is to pick up a recent Year's Best SF (the Dozois one.) If you like a story in there, then go check if the writer has any books out. That's how I found writers like Howard Waldrop, Terry Bisson, James Patrick Kelly, Lucius Shepard, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Nancy Kress, etc.
― President Keyes, Friday, 20 November 2009 10:14 (fourteen years ago) link
I wish Matthew Derby would write another book
― Jack Kirby's Orangutan Surfing Civilization (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 November 2009 16:20 (fourteen years ago) link
"I've mostly been reading old stuff like Henry Kuttner/CL Moore lately."
Good move.
By the way if you want to read a great study of why sci-fi pre-1960 was so ridiculously great and why post-oh 1975 or so it is so not that great, I wholeheartedly recommend Barry Malzberg's Engines of the Night.
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Friday, 20 November 2009 16:28 (fourteen years ago) link
How about John G. Wright's Golden Age trilogy? I bought this in an omnibus and it looks like it'll be good.
On the old stuff tip, I've accumulated a pretty decent Cordwainer Smith library and I really need to start on those.
― five minutes of iguana time (Jon Lewis), Friday, 20 November 2009 16:33 (fourteen years ago) link
why sci-fi pre-1960 was so ridiculously great and why post-oh 1975
lolz but my favorite period is from '60-'85 or so
― Jack Kirby's Orangutan Surfing Civilization (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 November 2009 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
60-75 is still great (it's telling that I'm asking for recs like the best writers from that period not from prior), but I kind of agree with Malzberg that sci-fi is beginning to the sow the seeds of its eventual decline through there. Post-75, with a few exceptions, is basically the decline. What between 75-85 is so great (please don't say A Scanner Darkly lols)?
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Friday, 20 November 2009 17:00 (fourteen years ago) link
Er, Delany?
― make love to a c.h.u.d. in the club (Jon Lewis), Friday, 20 November 2009 17:15 (fourteen years ago) link
Okay I'm not going to argue that folks like Delany (or Dick, Pohl, Disch, Ballard, Silverberg, Tiptree, etc) were still putting out some great stuff post-75, but compared to stuff that most of them did prior to 75?
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Friday, 20 November 2009 17:19 (fourteen years ago) link
KW Jeter (Dr. Adder, Glass Hammer), first wave of cyberpunk (Sterling's Schismatrix, Gibson's Neuromancer), some of Moorcock's best stuff (The Condition of Muzak, The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century, The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius, The Entropy Tango, The Alchemist's Question, The Steel Tsar, The Dancers at the End of Time cycle, Byzantium Endures, The Laughter of Carthage, etc), definitely PKD's last flurry of productivity (including what is probably my favorite - ie, the VALIS trilogy), JoAnna Russ' The Female Man, Frederick Pohl's best work (Jem is '79, Merchants' War is '84), WS Burroughs' last novels (which are pretty sci-fi... I'm sure there's more...
― Jack Kirby's Orangutan Surfing Civilization (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 November 2009 17:22 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm not really into Delany
― Jack Kirby's Orangutan Surfing Civilization (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 November 2009 17:23 (fourteen years ago) link
xpost Excellent Morbius coverage of the excellent and scary-ass Seconds.
― dow, Tuesday, 22 July 2014 23:19 (ten years ago) link
i really got into the 2nd southern reach book's little details of a crumbling, half-mad bureaucracy, though it was slow at points
i'm not super into ancillary justice. it's now caught up with the "present" and i find it's plateaued a bit. but i'm still reading.
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 23 July 2014 00:56 (ten years ago) link
Just watched Seconds and really enjoyed it (apart from the excruciatingly drawn out naked grape party). Particularly liked the Kafkaesque Company halls.
― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Wednesday, 23 July 2014 22:35 (ten years ago) link
haha yeah Morbz is otm about the pagan wine party fail
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 22:37 (ten years ago) link
I also thought that the crumbling half-mad bureaucracy parts of Authority are really good. The family drama bits (and the associated reveals) though drag it down a bit. First book definitely stronger and I suspect that third will be weakest as I don't think there is a satisfying resolution here. Comparing it in my mind to the similarly structured Fifth Head of Cerberus and this pales.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Sunday, 3 August 2014 14:52 (ten years ago) link
after loving the first two southern reach books i am finding the third one a real slog
― socki (s1ocki), Saturday, 27 September 2014 21:43 (ten years ago) link
A couple of people have said that... I'm still waiting for my copy.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Sunday, 28 September 2014 13:51 (nine years ago) link
lots and lots of not-compelling backstory and he's doubled-down on the vagueness.
― socki (s1ocki), Sunday, 28 September 2014 14:45 (nine years ago) link
I quite liked it, but it didn't have the real kick I was hoping for. And the explanation for all the weirdness is given in such an offhand way.
― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Wednesday, 1 October 2014 06:11 (nine years ago) link
it felt like a prequel... huge letdown and not because it didn't explain enough imho... it just didn't seem have a good reason for existing
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 1 October 2014 10:30 (nine years ago) link
Lately I've read Lathe of Heaven -- turned off by the broad characterizations, especially of Lelache -- and After Doomsday -- so expository, and the blatant sexism. What classics are there that have more elegant purpose and characters that aren't flat stereotypes?
― Bashir-Worf Hypothesis (Leee), Sunday, 23 April 2017 08:11 (seven years ago) link
Riddley Walker by Russel HobanThe Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy CasaresEarth Abides by George Stewart
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Sunday, 23 April 2017 09:45 (seven years ago) link
Lathe of Heaven is an odd one as it's basically a Philip K Dick pastiche. Not sure you could accuse The Left of Darkness of having broad stereotypes.
― ledge, Sunday, 23 April 2017 10:01 (seven years ago) link
NYC MoMA retro "Future Imperfect: The Uncanny in Science Fiction" has some rarely screened stuff, like the Borges-written Invasión:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/3855?locale=en
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 16:57 (seven years ago) link
looks great, bunch of stuff I've never seen. (also some crap, of course, but what can ye do)
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 5 July 2017 17:23 (seven years ago) link
Must say I'm curious about this double feature:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/3347?locale=en
― or at night (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 18:20 (seven years ago) link
me too
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 18:27 (seven years ago) link
Haven't clicked. Is On the Silver Globe in there?
― Guidonian Handsworth Revolution (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 18:32 (seven years ago) link
not much in English on Rat Savior, here's some
http://krelllabs.blogspot.com/2013/11/Izbavitelj-review.html
http://fredanderson.typepad.com/my-blog/2013/11/the-rat-savior-krsto-papic-1976.html
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 18:33 (seven years ago) link
mercifully no
xp
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 18:34 (seven years ago) link
yeah after googling rat saviour and the damned thing i am pretty sold on that double feature
is colossus: the forbin project rare on a big screen?
― or at night (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 18:36 (seven years ago) link
p sure it screens in NY now and then, but too cultish to be a perennial
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 18:43 (seven years ago) link
some of the shorts are revelatory; i had no idea there was a Soviet animated film of Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains." Which will be packed, cuz
The Quiet Earth. 1985. Directed by Geoff MurphyBudet laskovyi dozhd (There Will Come Soft Rains). 1984. Directed by Nozim To’laho’jayevMonday, August 14, 7:15 p.m.
Presented by astrophysicistNeil deGrasse Tyson
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 18:48 (seven years ago) link
That soviet bradbury is on youtube.
Not a substitute for the big screen, but for those not in ny.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Thursday, 6 July 2017 03:35 (seven years ago) link
Invasión is indeed uncanny (the synthetic bird noises!) but it's hardly sci-fi, more like an ultra-abstract political thriller.
― Wes Brodicus, Thursday, 6 July 2017 10:31 (seven years ago) link
Things can be both
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Thursday, 6 July 2017 10:56 (seven years ago) link
It's been a while since I saw that movie but there were no sci-fi elements whatsoever iirc.
Plenty of tango, though, on the soundtrack.
― Wes Brodicus, Thursday, 6 July 2017 19:28 (seven years ago) link
I have just finally read Christopher Priest's Inverted World, discussed at some length earlier in this thread, and I really liked it but I have questions. SPOILERS TO FOLLOW: Can anyone who's read it weigh in on to what degree the physical effects of the "inverted world" described by Hellward (what a name) are "real" and to what degree they're the product of a consciousness warped by the effects of the weird energy field? Because there is some reference to the natives talking about "giants," which would suggest that the energy field has physical effects that are perceptible to people outside it as well as those inside it. But that doesn't quite seem to gibe with the ending, which more or less suggests that the effects are mostly on the perceptions of the people within the city, rather than on the physical world itself. Maybe it doesn't matter because Priest's main points are allegorical, but it did leave me wondering.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 15:17 (two years ago) link