I moderate an online Science Fiction Novel discussion group and I’d like a bit of help if y’all may.
The way that it is set up is that people nominate an upcoming book based upon a “theme” (Women authors, Cyberpunk, etc), then we vote among the nominations and the book with the most votes wins. Pretty simple, eh?
The problem is with this month’s theme: “Newly Published Authors.” I chose this theme because, as you can expect, all the books we’ve read so far have been the standard “classics” and I was looking for some variety.
Unfortunately, I might have been a little constrictive in my definition of a “NPA” - an author whose first published novel appeared in 1998 or later - as there are a dearth of nominations. I chose Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, and so far, that’s the only nomination.
What I’d like are some suggestions as to authors that fit my bill. I read Science Fiction, hell I love science fiction, but I don’t have time to read everything and I’m coming up blank other than the Reynolds.
Well, after a few complaints from the participants I dropped the “deadline” back to 1993.
Tan: Sure, it’s open to the public. It’s on another message board (one actually dedicated to the Civilization series of computer games), and our current discussion on the novel Red Mars can be found here.
Well, now that the cut-off point has been pushed back to 1993, allow me to recommend Jonathan Lethem, whose first novel, Gun, With Occasional Music was published in 1994. It was named “Best First Novel” by Locus in 1995.
Gun, With Occasional Music is a fantastic read, and I also greatly enjoyed As She Climbed Across the Table, Amnesia Moon, and his short-story collection, The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye.
Lethem has also written a non-science fiction novel called Motherless Brooklyn, which I enjoyed.
I don’t have access to my books right now and I don’t know when they were published (I think it was post 1993), but I very much enjoyed John Cramer’s Twistor and Einstein’s Bridge. Good hard science fiction, written by a physicist. Both have similarities to Gregory Benford’s Timescape.
If you are including Fantasy/Horror, Jim Butcher’s first book was Storm Front in 2000. Start of a series set in modern day Chicago and a lot of fun. Or there is S. L. Viehl’s Stardoc, sort of a modern day version of the Sector General books, but not quite as optomistic.