Sci-Fi authors

[Arising_uk]

I'll get back to the rest but I prefer this first.

Dune was a masterpiece, without doubt.
I used to read nothing else but sci-fi, but one fine day I just stopped - about the same time I finally started my Access course before my degree. The last sf book I read was probably "Bug Jack Baron" the next thing I read was The Origin of Species, which I lapped up from cover to cover.

Hmm.. as I but he was dullish prose I think, so I kept in touch with sci-fi and a dearth it went through with rise of Sci Fan and Sword but there have been some gems that I think you'd like. Not least Douglas Adams I'd have thought.

But for new ones I'd recommend, Iain M Banks, Ken Macleod, Rudy Ruckner, Greg Egan, Charles Stross(not the late funny stuff maybe), Vernon Vinge, Jeff Noon, Neal Asher, Steven Baxter, Greg Bear, Alexander Besher, Kim Stanly Robinson, Katherine Ann Gonan, Paul Macauly, China Miéville, ... all very different I think, would offer a broad range of whats been out there. Think of it as a reflection between the list you could probably make between Azimov and Norman Spinrad.

Me I still try to read both philosophy and bits of whatever sci-fi's getting up to at the time.

[chaz wyman]

I'll get back to the rest but I prefer this first.

Dune was a masterpiece, without doubt.
I used to read nothing else but sci-fi, but one fine day I just stopped - about the same time I finally started my Access course before my degree. The last sf book I read was probably "Bug Jack Baron" the next thing I read was The Origin of Species, which I lapped up from cover to cover.

Hmm.. as I but he was dullish prose I think, so I kept in touch with sci-fi and a dearth it went through with rise of Sci Fan and Sword but there have been some gems that I think you'd like. Not least Douglas Adams I'd have thought.

Eh? Darwin do you mean - dullish prose? No way!. His English is beautiful.

But for new ones I'd recommend, Iain M Banks, Ken Macleod, Rudy Ruckner, Greg Egan, Charles Stross(not the late funny stuff maybe), Vernon Vinge, Jeff Noon, Neal Asher, Steven Baxter, Greg Bear, Alexander Besher, Kim Stanly Robinson, Katherine Ann Gonan, Paul Macauly, China Miéville, ... all very different I think, would offer a broad range of whats been out there. Think of it as a reflection between the list you could probably make between Azimov and Norman Spinrad.

AC Clarke, Asimov, Piers Anthony, ObviouslyD Adams, Michael Moorcock, Niven , Dick, Patrick Tilley, L Ron Hubbard (though I hate to admit it), harry harrison, some of the ones I read. But I find it difficult to keep my interest these days when I can be reading philosophy.



Me I still try to read both philosophy and bits of whatever sci-fi's getting up to at the time.

[Notvacka]

I don't read much SF nowadays, but on the whole, Arising_uk's list seems more interesting and up to date than chaz wyman's. (Hubbard? Anthony?) I would like to recommend Ian Banks in particular, though he sometimes tries too hard to be clever. My favourites are Walking on Glass and Feersum Endjinn.

[Arising_uk]

It's Iain M Banks when he's sci-fi Notvacka.

And I think chaz was just confirming my assumption and not making a recomendation.

chaz,

Surprised Heinlein wasn't there?

But I think the list you gave will be reflected in it's breadth and range by my modern one.

Theres a couple of pot-boiler space-operas in there, as the new boys have decided to revist them, a couple of great English post psyber-punk novels, and a couple of nice takes on maths, computers, nanotechnology and politics.

Oo! And William Gibson and Bruce Sterling(shaper/mechanist series) and an American called John Barnes - did not expect this from an American.

I think you might especially like Ken Macleod and Greg Egan.

Shit, if you can stand thumping great rip-roaring, boys own, sword and sorcery then try Steven Erikson - Matzlan Book of the Fallen. Although I agree that given you've studied History fact can be stranger than fiction.

[Notvacka]

It's Iain M Banks when he's sci-fi Notvacka.

Yes, I know. I find it a bit silly though. While novels like Walking on Glass and The Bridge deal with inner space rather than outer space, they're SF enough for me. Or perhaps fantasy. The main difference between SF and fantasy is mostly whether the wonders described are technological or magical. A difference beautifully explored in Inversions by Ian (M) Banks, by the way. And all fiction is fantasy. It's just that some fantasy worlds seem closer to the real world than others.

[duszek]

But some writers want to express the truth and nothing but the truth. They write about their true experiences in a fictional way.
David Foster Wallace explains American way of life to me much better than a bloke would in a bar.

Writers use one fourth of their brains whereas normal people use only one eighth of their brains. (I heard this once and it sounds convincing to me. You cannot make any measurements of course, you can only make a guess.)

The contrary of this is "literature" which wants to please the audience by serving the audience´s needs ("Thornbirds", Rosamunde Pilcher etc.).

[Rortabend]

China Mieville's The City and the City is excellent. A cross between Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler. I'm trying to read Kraken at the moment but it's heavy going. His editors should have had a word about not trying to cram too many ideas into one book.

[Arising_uk]

Yes, I know. I find it a bit silly though. ...

I have no idea why he does it but I could guess that its a combination of things like, that his 'real' fiction readers wouldn't want to associate with Sci-Fi, that it helps him keep him focussed when writing in the two different genres in does. My take is that much of his fiction is pretty much sci-fi in disguise for the literati to swallow.

[Arising_uk]

China Mieville's The City and the City is excellent. ...

So is his earlier work Perdido Street Station.

[Arising_uk]

Writers use one fourth of their brains whereas normal people use only one eighth of their brains. (I heard this once and it sounds convincing to me. You cannot make any measurements of course, you can only make a guess.)...

I think this stuff is pretty much nonsense.

I think things like this are based upon a misunderstanding of how complicated it is to walk, talk and chew gum, something that takes a shit load of processing power to do in real time.

[duszek]

Have you tried to write a piece of literature ?

I have and I can tell you that it requires a far greater complexity than losing mathematical problems for example.
Or finding good arguments for a point of view in a discussion.

[Arising_uk]

Have you thought that the vast bulk of the CNS is not there to write?

These ideas that X uses Y% less or more of the CNS than Z are mainly bullshit.

[duszek]

I am not familiar with the acronyme CNS.
Less swearing would be appreciated.
We are here to exchange reasonable arguments and not to get emotional, I hope.

[Arising_uk]

My apologies,

The Central Nervous System and bull faeces.

[duszek]

Now I see what you mean, thanks.

Yes, it is not to write in the first place. But it makes associations and links between digits of information stored.
It can recall a memory of walking in the woods and connect this memory with thousands of other things in order to make some order emerge from the chaos of stimuli.

You can tell what happened in a simple way.
You can tell what happened in a sophisticated way, like in the stream-of-consciousness technique or whatever.