In my youth, I devoured sci-fi in great amounts. And another thread about sci-fi suggestions reminded me that I should dive back in to find some great ideas to think about.
So… anthing or anyone that was well known in sci-fi up to the mid-80s, I’ve probably read it. About the only author I’ve followed consistantly past that time is CJ Cherryh, who remains my favorite author. Some of my other favorites – Larry Niven, Roger Zelazny, David Brin, Clarke, Asimov, Pohl, Dick, etc. I’m defintiely not looking for an indroduction to the field.
Not interested in swords and sorcery, or dragons, or any other kinds of mystic or magic writing. I’m a pretty hard-sciency kind of guy, though I don’t especially care if the author dwells on explaining it all in detail.
I’m especially interested in interactions with alien society, which probably explains why I like Cherryh so much. OTOH, I’m NOT a fan of Most of Star Trek and clones, in which aliens are by and large treated as humans with anger issues and skin conditions. I’m fond of speculations about genuinely alien societies whose motives and actions are incomprehensible to us.
Robert L. Forward – very hard-sciencey, he was a physicist, and lots of very original ET races: Giant ever-flying “rukhs” in the upper atmosphere of Saturn, sentient hive insects on Pluto, and a race of sluglike sophonts made of neutronium who live speeded-up lives on the surface of a neutron star.
But much of the best recent SF is near-future SF, set within the Solar System and featuring no ETs, or at least no living, intelligent ETs. Check out Allen Steele,Neal Stephenson, and Ben Bova’s Grand Tour series. Stephenson’s best stuff does not even leave Earth; but, in Anathem, we do get a sort of alternate Earth.
Robert J. Sawyer won a Hugo in 2003 for his “Neanderthal Parallax” series, about an alternate Earth where Homo sapiens went extinct early and left the world to Homo neanderthalensis. A very ingeniously thought-out civilization based on what very little we know of Neanderthal society.
Yes, I’ve read some Gibson – The Difference Engine and Mona Lisa Overdrive, both of which I quite liked (and th latter is one of my all time favorite titles). I’ve heard of Sterling, but I didn’t think I’d read anything by him – I guess I didn’t realize he co-wrote with Gibson.
Sawyer’s completely new to me. I will take a look.
Recently I’ve been sidelined into George R R Martin’s Song of Ice & Fire series. Really excellent, but swords abound & dragons have been sighted. Once I’ve torn through the four books published so far, I won’t join his fans yearning for the long-promised #5. I’ll get back into some harder SF.
Which means I’ll continue reading up on The Culture–in the works of Iain M Banks. The first book, Consider Phlebas, blew my mind. You want some alien aliens? You want a ripping yarn with derring do on the spaceway? Check this guy out.
A bit lighter is S M Stirling’s Lords of Creation series, set in an alternate solar system where our astronauts discovered civilizations on Venus & Mars. There’s a bit of swashbuckling, but also a scientific basis for the weirdness encountered on steamy Venus (The Sky People) & ancient Mars (In the Courts of the Crimson Kings). Great fun–especially for those with a background in early SF.
One old master you didn’t mention is Cordwainer Smith. All his short fiction is available in one volume. His tales of humanity in the very far future are quite distinctive.
I just finished the first book of the series - Genesis by Paul Chafe and I’m currently reading the second book, “Exodus: The Ark.” It’s set in the not-so-distant future on a world where resources are running out and there are too many people, so they build a humongous generation ship to go to a neighbouring galaxy. The first book is the struggle to get the ark built and a while in the ship; the second book is thousands of years into the journey. The interactions are in a society that becomes alien, and the science is nice and science-y (there’s quite a bit of description of building the huge spaceship). What really struck me about the books, though, is that Paul Chafe is a really good writer - he sets a good pace, keeps it interesting, develops characters, all that good stuff.
I never heard of Steampunk, but I’ve apparently read some of it. The Wiki page mentions some of Keith Laumer’s work as being part of it. I’d read his Worlds of the Imperium. It look like the genre name was coined later.
Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep is a great book, containing multiple different alien povs, from semi-humanoid, through to hive mind, through to semi-godlike entities whose motivations none of the main characters have any capacity to predict.
On the really off chance that somebody decided to film Smith’s stories, I could see Christina Hendricks as C’mell.
If you like densely written far-future stories, what about Gene Wolfe? He’s not an Old Master, even if he’s not exactly Brand New. The Book of the New Sun should get you started.
I’m old school, and prefer the older stuff, myself. But here are some newer writers: John Scalzi – as meantioned above. I learned about him on these Boards. Very good stuff, and his Old Man’s War has been compared to Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Haldeman’s Forever War.
Walter Hunt. If you like interactions with Alien Societies, you’ll like his Dark Wing series. But start with the first one – one problem is that Hunt doesn’t even describe his aliens in the later books, which will leave you thoroughly confused if you don’t start there.
I’m surprised to find Forward mentioned here. If you read SF in the 1980s, then you’ve read his stuff. And, sadly, he’s dead now.
The Culture are a civilisation comprised of humanoids and Minds (AIs) who benignly interfere in the development of lesser civilizations as well as competing with equally advanced civilisations. I would recommend 'em.
How about Vinge–he reads sorta like Niven (if I had to compare him with someone) but better characterization. His A Fire Upon The Deep is possibly the single best SF novel of the '90s.
Definitely read all of Iain M. Banks works. Feersum Engine is the only one that didn’t click with me (though my dad thought it very good), and Matter is a bit weak but the others are phenomenal.
I’d suggest Andrew Reynolds to those who haven’t heard of him. He tends towards hardish science New Space Opera, and his Revelation Space books are some of my favourites. Living alien cultures don’t feature much, but he often deals with far-future almost alien human cultures.
Note that there were only FIVE books in the Well of Souls series. Any books published after Twilight At The Well Of Souls were mass hallucinations caused by bad mushrooms. (Seriously, the post Twilight at the WoS books are so very bad that they actually retroactively damage the earlier books)
