Science Fiction : search and destroy

"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.

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.

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

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)?

Er, Delany?

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?

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...

I'm not really into Delany

Okay most of that stuff I love (only Jeter can make the claim of being a post-75 talent--the rest are 50-60s through and through) but most of the first wave of cyberpunk is just so poorly written and obvious. Compare Neuromancer w/ Shockwave Rider or "The Girl Who Plugged In" or Dr. Adder, the former seems so tepid and hack-y.

that reminds me I'm kinda irritated I still haven't been able to locate a copy of Shockwave Rider... only Brunner I've read was Stand on Zanzibar, which was okay.

I do have a soft spot for early Bruce Sterling, but I haven't re-read any of the Gibson stuff in years (and I def. read that before I was aware of any precedents).

Other post-75 talent worth mentioning - Gene Wolfe, Jeff Noon, some other folks already mentioned. But I agree there's a massive dropoff in the last couple decades into bland, serialized tedium

but yeah no argument that almost everyone I cited has their roots in earlier eras, I just think they peaked later

I love Wolfe, but I don't think he ever came close to topping 5th Head.

"that reminds me I'm kinda irritated I still haven't been able to locate a copy of Shockwave Rider"

There was one at Aardvark for a while and another at Borderlands, although it might be gone now.

eh I should probably just get it from the library

Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky were good. And Orson Scott Card may be a bit of a mentalist but I consider Ender's Game to be a classic.

it's one of those not-very-good classics though

Yeah like Dune or the Lord of the Rings.

Why the Dune hate? Dune and Bill the Galactic Hero are among my favorite SF parodies.

I don't hate Dune, but I don't think it's particularly interesting or well-written sci-fi classic.

No feelings on Bill the Galactic Hero?

Never read it. Not a big Harrison fan.

It's very different from Make Room Make Room -- I wouldn't recognize it as coming from the same author. Give it a shot! Quite fun.

I can't say I hate Dune either but I've also never finished it haha

yeah it isn't particularly well written

Lynch's movie version is fun tho

Dune's also one of those books which inspired way too much overlong crap.

I thought it was a parody of overlong crap! Shorter than Infinite Jest, anyway.

wait you thought Dune was a parody?

if so those are some shitty jokes

nerd humor! (talking bout both dune and infinite jest)

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

WHAT A KNEESLAPPER

Dune's also one of those books which inspired way too much overlong crap.

totally agree with this btw (and same w/LOTR obviously, altho I genuinely love those books). So many people took it as a sign that if they developed ponderously long stories about a ridiculously detailed fantasy world that the resulting book would be a wonder for all to behold instead of unreadable shit.

Dune is pretty good by itself, but I think I'm better off having just read the one book and none of the sequels. From what I've heard, you don't really get much more out of it until you read at least the next three or four, and I just don't have the attention span for that much Dune right now.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer."

I thought he was goofing on scientology engram purging ninja mysticism.

OH MY SIDES

why sci-fi pre-1960 was so ridiculously great and why post-oh 1975 or so it is so not that great
Here's one theory, with a different cut-off date: http://www.conceptualfiction.com/moon_landing_and_sci_fi.html

I hear Frank Herbert absolutely killed at the Chuckle Hut back in the early 60s

xp I don't buy that theory though.

Then I'm afraid we are going to have to administer some rough lunar justice and put you out of the airlock.

That beats reading Infinite Jest.

Sorry if my comment was a bit, um, harsh.

I got into magazine SF in the 80s and it's still my one of favorite eras, so I can't buy that everything post-75 blows. There was a generation of new writers who may have been better at short fiction than massive trilogies. My recommendations from around that time period:

Lucius Shepard- Life During Wartime, The Jaguar Hunter, Ends of the Earth (Not sure why this guy isn't more well known.)
Kim Stanley Robinson- The Wild Shore, Remaking History
Howard Waldrop- All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past
Connie Willis- Firewatch, Impossible Things
Michael Swanwick- In the Drift, Vacuum Flowers, Stations in the Tide, Gravity's Angels
Nancy Kress- Beggars in Spain
Bruce Sterling- Crystal Express, Globalhead
Maureen F. McHugh- China Mountain Zhang
Terry Bisson- Bears Discover Fire

anyone read ken mcleod?

Yep, read Cosmonaut Keep. Didn't think much of it, so didn't bother with the sequels.

Anyone into David Bryn? The two of his I've read were extremely enjoyable.

xpost: I read an anthology of Howard Waldrop's short stories from the library (Them Bones, I think), which were really about as good as the genre gets, and really haven't seen much since - why isn't this guy better known?

Probably because people who write mostly short fiction get overlooked.

You're probably right. He came along too early to be in McSweeny's/

You like the Them Bones that much? I have a copy around here and now I will definitely read it sooner.

Not a huge fan of David Brin but i dig his Uplift books to an extent just cos i really like the idea of talking chimps and dolphins.

The Waldrop anthology was "Night of the Cooters", which is a crap title, but a great collection. "Them Bones" is a novella, and it's also pretty damn good, but not as dazzling as the anthology.

Waldrop has always been known as a 'writer's writer' iirc. For some reason I have it in my head that he makes his bread and butter on TV writing and such.

Haven't really enjoyed the Brin I've read, but all the Greg Bear I've read, speaking of four-letter 'B' authors, has been worthwhile.

Waldrop's stories have a very loose, ragged style, and he has a sentimental streak a mile wide. They work best when you read one or two of them in an multi-writer anthology or a magazine.

Dunno why I thought it was 'Bryn' and not 'Brin'.