Quantum Thief was interesting, I think it is an example of how you can fuck up in writing about the Singularity. It’s very easy to use the idea of godlike artificial intelligences and altered human consciousness as a springboard for what are basically fantasies or dreamlike stories. That’s kind of what “The Quantum Thief” seemed to be when I read the Amazon preview (haven’t read the whole book, but the preview was quite long.) I lose interest when that happens. I like the near-future stories that still maintain a tech edge.
I think MMOs may ultimately be the new medium of expression, where the player IS the character. Most people don’t have the creative muscle to create players in an open-ended game like Second Life so they play games where the plot and characters are created for you … but I predict, sooner or later people will spend their recreational time virtually living the lives of characters in stories they love – and that will be the death knell for movies, books and television.
That won’t happen until after we have computers capable of writing stories. A character in an MMO is “written” only for the author’s own consumption. What we’re looking for is an artist creating a work for consumption by others, which in a game environment would mean making each audience member the “main character”. Which requires a separate story for every person, which requires something other than human writing those stories.
I think authors can create the framework, much like those “choose your own adventure” novels, with expert system programs making the route through the story much more lengthy and complex than in the choose your own adventure books, creating for all the players a unique story and also allowing them to interact with other actual players where their storylines intersect. Will not require computer AIs. in fact, we will probably … hell, we ARE probably … getting there by degrees.
Lots of good nominations here!
I don’t see that anyone has mentioned Hugh Howey’s Wool (Silo Saga #1) yet. I thought it was a near-perfect combination of fascinating premise and gripping storytelling.
I thought The Blade Itself was like watching Ninefingers commit murder, only the book was murdering the genre. The murder was committed enthusiastically and with admirable skill, but it was bloody and terrible and I’m not sure I’m glad I watched it happen.
That said, I do think it’s a good thing that the murder occurred. Abercrombie took a lot of lazy fantasy tropes–the rough barbarian, the goodhearted wizard, the quest for the ancient artifact–and examined what they’d be like without a veneer of romance. The result was spectacular.
I just recently read The Red Country, his fantasy-world answer to Unforgiven. I found it a much easier read, with much more sympathetic characters, even as each main character was a murderous bastard who probably ought to be locked up for life.
Some of Ian McDonald’s earlier work may have been mentioned in the the other thread, but his recent works (River of Gods, Brasyl, The Dervish House) are also well-regarded and bring some fresh ideas to the table.
R. Scott Bakker has not yet completed his Second Apocalypse books, and I haven’t yet read all of what he has gotten around to writing. He’s not the only fantasy author with flawed protagonists and sympathetic villains. Like many other authors, he squeezes caricatures of non-Western cultures into a fantasy setting. He even borrowed one of the Crusades as a plot. Annoying, but hey, it’s fantasy. But he has a cool map and an intricate enough world history. Plus, aliens. I’m going to have to read more to see what I think about the work as a whole.
Someone mentioned Stross’s Laundry books. I think they are great fun, but I’m not sure if yet another modern Lovecraft adventure has staying power.
I recall Karl Schroeder’s Virga books having some original world building, a touch on the hard SF side. I won’t say more because I don’t remember what would be a spoiler or not. The story has escaped me, so perhaps there was a world-building / story-telling imbalance.
It might be interesting to discuss what makes a book “essential” own the road.
YA fiction is neither childish nor tripe, at least by definition. What more, it can be accessible to those with poor reading comprehension.
I’m listening to Perdido Street Station as my current project and having read it a few years back, I see just how excellent and intriguing this book is.
I also would choose The Scar as the best of them and Iron Council was - boring. I have a cat named Bellis from The Scar.
Agreed. I think Morgan’s work was terrible after Altered Carbon until his Land Fit For Heroes fantasy trilogy came out and really intrigued me.
The Windup Girl is more likely to be the “classic” though.
Wool is not only a great book, but Howey’s marketing success impacted publishing in a way that will continue to be recognized years from now.
I have read the Amazon preview for “Wool,” the characterization is really powerful and well done and the writing is topnotch, but basically it’s a dreary story of a bunch of people trapped in a silo. Couldn’t get into it.
Marketing success? Do tell?
I’ll second The Malazan Book of the Fallen. I haven’t read them all yet but the ones I’ve read were all excellent. I’ll also side with those who were disappointed with Old Man’s War - great premise, juvenile execution IMO.
I’d like to nominate two novels:
Blindsight by Peter Watts. It’s a standalone hard-sf novel of first contact featuring a post-human crew captained by a vampire traveling to outside the solar system to meet aliens. Very well written and absolutely full of ideas. It’s also available for free here.
Ring of Swords by Eleanor Arnason It’s anthropological sf that deals with diplomacy, sexuality, theater and aliens.
nvm
I got the free download of this onto my Kindle and I’ve just got around to reading it at work. I must admit, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the writing or the characterisation.
Same here, and I’m usually a sucker for time travel stories.
Another one that lots of people rave about is Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book, which somehow won both the Hugo and Nebula. I thought it was idiotic as an SF story, although the middle part had some merit as historical fiction.
This is an interesting thought, given that I still feel that Second Life is beyond any written work, ever, in terms of entertainment value and immersion. I’m working on a novel that I hope will help readers understand this. Maybe the last novel some of them will ever bother to read! Hey … wait a minute …
nvm, I already responded to this post.
I have also read “1632.” I found it entertaining, contrasting small town American values with those of Europe in 1632, but the plot was kind of episodic. There was a natural place where the novel SHOULD have ended, but didn’t, right after the defeat of the army outside of the German town, and I stopped reading shortly after that.
Spoilers for the end of the book:
You know how we’re told with regularity that the Croats or the Finns wouldn’t just line up for the American guns? Well… the Croats do. Massively disappointing, I thought.
The bit that gets me most with the 1632 series is the, well, I guess you’d call it liberal jingoism. You get used to it after a while, but it’s rather jarring.
David Weber is building up quite a body of work with his Honorverse. It’s up to 25 or so books now, and IMO shows no signs of running out of steam.
Eh, the side series are going strong, but the main line has been running out of steam for a while now.
Ready Player One is great fun (I re-read it again last week), but over time it’s focus on 80s culture will blunt it’s appeal, I think.