Most of her SF is off-planet. The Lathe of Heaven is set in Portland, but veers more towards the Fantasy side of SF. Actually, a lot of her stuff does - she’s far more interested in people and societies than hard technology.
Regarding Ender - I once heard a comment that the plot of ever OSC novel was “Boy Wonder saves the world”. This is enough true that it rather ruined Ender’s Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon for me. He’s trying to tell basically the same story from the points of view of the other kid soldiers with Ender, and his style of writing means that in each different book he’s trying to push the protagonist of that specific book up, and more or less trash the protagonists of the other books in comparison. I was particularly annoyed by the way he geniusified Bean
True in a sense; I prefer to think that the science she chooses to fictionalize is anthropology (her father was a world-famous anthropologist and her mother an author, so it makes sense). The spaceshippish tech in her books, however, has had some influential moments, especially things like the ansible introduced in The Dispossessed. (Actually it first appeared in a different book, but IIRC was invented in Dispossessed).
I remember reading a beautiful book of hers called Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, or something close to that. And Lathe of Heaven too, I like that a lot, that was about the guy whose dreams came true.
Ahhhh, this thread is bringing back so many pleasant memories.
Humanity goes forth and meets new species and doesn’t shoot at them (for a change), because they aren’t allowed to. While most of his narrators are human, of various levels of reliability, they do tend to interact with alien creatures with their own motivations.
-DF
[sup]*[/sup]Link is to amazon search results for the author. Here is a Wiki link.
A few recommendations (some of which second earlier posts)
The Android’s Dream - John Scalzi Conquistador - S.M. Stirling A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge
The Nantucket trilogy: Island in the Sea of Time, Against the Tide of Years, and On the Oceans of Eternity - S.M. Stirling Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained - Peter F. Hamilton
The Paratwa trilogy: Liege Killer, Ash Ock, and The Paratwa - Christopher Hinz Plague Year - Jeff Carlson Saturn’s Children - Charles Stross Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise - Charles Stross Spin - Robert Charles Wilson Steel Beach and The Golden Globe - John Varley
The Vorkosigan series - Lois McMaster Bujold (am I the first one to mention these?)
I second both Peter F. Hamilton’s books and Vernor Vinge’s. John Scalzi I didn’t like that much when I read his Old Man’s War (it felt like warmed-over Heinlein, though YMMV). Of John Varley I only read The Ophiuci Hotline. It was well-written and very original and I didn’t like it too much for no reason I can identify. David Brin can be hit and miss but I loved both Startide Rising and The Uplift War and both have a lot of properly strange aliens.
Peter Watts is very good and his science is very accurate as far as I know. His last book is called Blindsight and has great weird aliens and is one of the best SF novels I’ve ever read, as is Ring of Swords by Eleanor Arnason, which is all about humanity coming into contact with an alien species and the inability of both to understand each other. The former can be tough reading and is a very philosophical work, with truly alien aliens (and some humans that are almost alien themselves), while the latter has much more human aliens and is more of an anthropological work. Both are very well-written but Blindsight has more of a modernist thing going for it while Ring of Swords is more classical in style; it references Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde a lot and I think that Jane Austen was a big influence as well. I read both books recently and I plug them here in Café Society any chance I get. I’m afraid I’ll end up annoying some Doper.
Greg Egan is great and his science is pretty hard. His short-story Wang’s Carpets has one of the best concept for alien life-forms I’m familiar with and his novel Permutation City features aliens as well. Right now I’m in the middle of Appleseed by John Clute and loving it. Also has truly alien aliens.
Frank Herbert (author of DUNE), he son took alot of his fathers notes and wrote a slew of DUNE novels in the last few years. Some were prequels and some continuation of the Dune series. He did a series of ancient history to the DUne universe called LEGENDS OF DUNE, and then the imediate prequels to DUNE, (the HOUSE books) and then the 2 sequels to CHAPTERHOUSE (Frank’s last book), and now are working on filling in the gaps in the original series
Have you read all of David Brin’s work, including the new uplift trilogy. What about the other B’s of hard sci-fi…Bear, Benford and Baxter
Greg Bear - “THE WAY” series, starts in EON, or try DARWINS RADIO
Gregory Benford - TIMESCAPE or COSM
Stephen Baxter - Try any of the stuff he has co-wrote with Clarke
I think I have more than enough suggestions, with lots of familiar names and lots of new names, to getme back into the game. Thank you all so much for the ideas!
I’m unemplyed now, so I have more reading time than is probably good for me – if that is possible.