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 HistoryHoward Waldrop- All About Strange Monsters of the Recent PastConnie Willis- Firewatch, Impossible ThingsMichael Swanwick- In the Drift, Vacuum Flowers, Stations in the Tide, Gravity's AngelsNancy Kress- Beggars in SpainBruce Sterling- Crystal Express, GlobalheadMaureen F. McHugh- China Mountain ZhangTerry Bisson- Bears Discover Fire
― President Keyes, Saturday, 21 November 2009 14:22 (fourteen years ago) link
anyone read ken mcleod?
― artdamages, Saturday, 21 November 2009 15:00 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Saturday, 21 November 2009 19:09 (fourteen years ago) link
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?
― Soukesian, Saturday, 21 November 2009 19:56 (fourteen years ago) link
Probably because people who write mostly short fiction get overlooked.
― President Keyes, Saturday, 21 November 2009 20:04 (fourteen years ago) link
You're probably right. He came along too early to be in McSweeny's/
― Soukesian, Saturday, 21 November 2009 20:15 (fourteen years ago) link
You like the Them Bones that much? I have a copy around here and now I will definitely read it sooner.
― bamcquern, Saturday, 21 November 2009 20:17 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Number None, Saturday, 21 November 2009 20:43 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Soukesian, Saturday, 21 November 2009 21:17 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― make love to a c.h.u.d. in the club (Jon Lewis), Saturday, 21 November 2009 22:31 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Sunday, 22 November 2009 01:38 (fourteen years ago) link
Dunno why I thought it was 'Bryn' and not 'Brin'.
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Sunday, 22 November 2009 01:59 (fourteen years ago) link
You thought he was Welsh?
― steenship HOOSiers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 22 November 2009 02:01 (fourteen years ago) link
picked up Shockwave Rider from Borderlands on Sunday and so far (ie, the first 25 pages) its fantastic
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 30 November 2009 18:34 (fourteen years ago) link
Sweet. Did I read you right above that only Brunner you've read before this was Stand On Zanzibar? Cuz you should definitely try to find Sheep Look Up and Squares of the City as well.
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Monday, 30 November 2009 20:04 (fourteen years ago) link
oh I forgot about Squares of the City, yeah I've read that - the chess one. Sheep Look Up was the other one the Borderlands guy recommended, but they didn't have that. I thought Stand on Zanzibar was okay, kinda lazy wrt characterization, but Shockwave Rider seems to sidestep that issue so far (helps to have a main character who's just a cipher - altho the guy-with-multiple-identities on the run in a wacky post-apocalyptic world totally reminds me of Jerry Cornelius, in a good way)
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 30 November 2009 20:14 (fourteen years ago) link
I really like Stand (just finished it recently as a matter of fact) but the two leads are probably the weakest part. He fell in love with that multi-character/sidebar saturated structure btw for a bunch of his other books (it appears in Sheep and Jagged Orbit--I've not read the latter, but I've heard its quite good as well, IIRC its his meditation on race.)
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Monday, 30 November 2009 21:08 (fourteen years ago) link
Search: Nymphomation by Jeff Noon, pretty much anything by Jeff Noon.
Destroy: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. Homophobic, misogynistic and pretty much all round shit.
― toastmodernist, Monday, 30 November 2009 22:20 (fourteen years ago) link
I love Jeff Noon and am always surprised that he doesn't seem so well known in sci-fi circles. He's kinda diminishing returns tho - output has slowed considerably and he's been kinda recycling ideas for the last few books.
lolz my wife is re-reading Heinlen's Stranger at the moment and said the same thing (we both liked it as young'uns but as an oldster I can't get past Heinlein's politics)
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:22 (fourteen years ago) link
The Scribner's Juveniles are fantastic though. (This used to be er a fairly common opinion in SF circles I guess.)
Noon's good stuff is all so 90s (maybe some of it is millenial, charitably) — the last one I bought new was that road trip one, I was like 19, I had actually completely forgotten about its existence until this moment
I have just read Altered Carbon, 'cause someone pressed a copy on me 'cause I professed a liking for The Steel Remains; though now I look this isn't the SF thread where ppl were talking about that — so nevermind, I guess
― thomp, Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:26 (fourteen years ago) link
I have just read Christopher Priest's A Dream of Wessex which I thought was okay and then I saw something online that suggested it was meant to be read as metafictional and then I realised if anything that makes it slightly worse. I am now reading an anthology for Faber he edited about the same time, and jeez, it really does seem like all the SF writers in the UK just all decided to ... give up ... around 1975. Like, I've read good stuff by Robert Sheckley and Bob Shaw, stuff that would never suggest they're capable of anything as bad as Shaw's story in this, which starts with the rather terrible -
"The retro-thrusters were unpleasantly fierce in operation, setting up vibrations which Bernard Harben could feel in his chest cavity."
- and within a page Bernard Harben is putting moves on his female companion -
"'Let's claim this planet tonight,' he said, referring to a secret game in which love-making established their title to any place in which it occurred.
Her pale lips parted slightly, giving him the answer he wanted."
― thomp, Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:30 (fourteen years ago) link
I couldn't get more than 10 pages into Altered Carbon. total crap.
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:31 (fourteen years ago) link
recylced sci-fi as noir ideas - hard-boiled hero with a grim past, a mysterious heroine-in-distress, lots of babble about genetic engineering biotech blah blah blah. so lame
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:32 (fourteen years ago) link
re: the UK - Moorcock and Ballard cranked out good shit well past '75. Noon's kinda the only recent UK writer I had any time for tho
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:33 (fourteen years ago) link
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, December 1, 2009 1:22 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
haha im glad i never made it thru the first 20 pages
― ankles (s1ocki), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:33 (fourteen years ago) link
ps i just read inverted world by christopher priest in basically one sitting and it ROCKED.
a mysterious heroine-in-distress
fyi there is no such character in this book
― jØrdån (omar little), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:35 (fourteen years ago) link
what did moorcock do SF-wise that late? those oscar-wilde-at-the-end-of-time books? they were amusing, i guess.
I think you're faulting the noir book for ... trying to be noir, you know? I know the idea's getting a little old. But there's some interesting ideas to it; the main idea is 'how can you complicate murder mystery books if you make your cast immune to death?' it is pretty flabby, though, and his fantasy novel's way better.
xposts there's the woman who spends pretty much the whole novel dead/in storage? There's at least two "mysterious femme fatale" types, though; that would have been a more accurate slam.
― thomp, Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:36 (fourteen years ago) link
like I said I stopped after 10 pages. there was a woman, I remember that much haha
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:37 (fourteen years ago) link
that stopped u in your tracks huh
― ankles (s1ocki), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:38 (fourteen years ago) link
I am currently enjoying China Mieville's The Scar.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:40 (fourteen years ago) link
re: Moorcock - loads of Jerry Cornelius books, the last of the Oswald Bastable books, all of the Fabulous Harbours books (I haven't read those), a couple Von Beck books, I think a few more of those Wildean End of Times books, etc. plus my favorite, the Pyat novels (altho calling those sci-fi is sorta stretching it).
he's one of my favorites obviously. he's turned out a fair amount of junk, but his meta-historical sci-fi stuff is almost always great imho.
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:40 (fourteen years ago) link
i think you read the prologue/flashback and not the actual novel...it's basically a very violent, grisly science fiction novel as opposed to a detective story in space.
― jØrdån (omar little), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:40 (fourteen years ago) link
*rimshot*
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:41 (fourteen years ago) link
china mieville is dope
― ankles (s1ocki), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:42 (fourteen years ago) link
best recent noir sci-fi mashup to-date has been Aylett hands down
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:43 (fourteen years ago) link
― ankles (s1ocki), Tuesday, December 1, 2009 6:42 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark
Yep, and The Scar is his best book. Those Moorcock books (Dancers at the End of Time) are also my kind of shit.
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:47 (fourteen years ago) link
at the very least, they are really funny
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Crackling with great throwaway concepts as well.
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:50 (fourteen years ago) link
― O-mar Gaya (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 19:19 (fourteen years ago) link
please tell me there is no Shins connection
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 19:21 (fourteen years ago) link
The album's title comes from a lyric in the second track, "One by One All Day", and alludes to a line from German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. In his 1843 Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Marx blames religion for creating an "inverted world consciousness" that excuses mankind from self-responsibility.
― jØrdån (omar little), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 19:24 (fourteen years ago) link
marx will change your life
― jØrdån (omar little), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 19:25 (fourteen years ago) link
The Shins were actually referencing the Priest novel. Actually though Hegel was referencing the Shins record in the first place so what goes around &c.
― thomp, Tuesday, 1 December 2009 19:25 (fourteen years ago) link
Inverted World was awesome
seconded in a BIG way
The sequels to Altered Carbon are significantly better, but also increasingly over the top with deliberately sadistic ultraviolence. I think I've given up on Morgan, but haven't read 'The Steel Remains'.
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 21:56 (fourteen years ago) link
Can y'all post the opening sentences to whatever great SF books you have lying around? I figure it's as good a thing as any for seeing if you want to read more.
Here's the opening to Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress:"They sat stiffly on his antique Eames chairs, two people who didin't want to be here, or one person who didn't want to and one who resented the other's reluctance. Dr. Ong had seen this before. Within two minutes he was sure: the woman was the silently furious resister. She would lose. The man would pay for it later, in little ways, for a long time."
I liked the short story version better, but it's not bad, and the only other SF book I have here is Star Trek: Strike Zone by Peter David
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 1 December 2009 22:02 (fourteen years ago) link
i started IW in an airport in italy and finished it over the atlantic somewhere. the dislocation of travelling really added to it.
― ankles (s1ocki), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 22:04 (fourteen years ago) link
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner:
"A THOUGHT FOR TODAYTake 'em an inch and they'll give you a hell."
― Gimme That Christian Side-hug, that Christian Side-hug (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 22:04 (fourteen years ago) link
Shadrach in the Furnace by Robert Silverberg
"It is nine minutes before sunrise in the great city of Ulan Bator, capital of the reconstituted world. FOr some time now Dr. Shadrach Mordecai has lain awake, restless and tense in his hammock, staring somberly at a glowing green circlet in the wall that is the shining face of his data screen. Red letters on the screen announce the new day:
MONDAY14 May2012"
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 22:14 (fourteen years ago) link
I really need to read more Silverberg actually. I've read like a half-dozen of his books plus one short story collection, but I was just looking on wikipedia and there are at least half-a-dozen more that were Nebula/Hugo/blah blah nominees.
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 22:17 (fourteen years ago) link