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Decent science fiction authors?
Cryogen
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Registered User regular
I'm on a bit of a reading spree at the moment, and i've got the urge to read some sci-fi. But i dont know which authors to check out.
I dont want anything thats super-serious, or heavy to read, if you know what i mean. Ideally i'd like something with good action (in the past i've read lots of battletech, for example) or something humorous.
I dont want anything thats super-serious, or heavy to read, if you know what i mean. Ideally i'd like something with good action (in the past i've read lots of battletech, for example) or something humorous.
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Philip K. Dick did some neat stuff. You could check out some of his short story collections.
Larry Niven's Ringworld books are also pretty interesting.
EDIT: Oops, didn't notice you said you didn't want heavy stuff. I still recommend the Foundation series. It's just totally sweet. Short stories are also fun if you want some light entertainment, so Philip K. Dick is worth checking out.
Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Exceptionally well-written, intelligent, interesting thick sci-fi. He does an excellent job of describing completely alien cultures, and some of the ideas behind his work are incredible. It's hard science fiction at its finest, with epic plots, fine characterization, and a fair bit of action.
That sounds fucking awesome, i'll hunt for those for sure. (i normally read fantasy, so its still well in my area of interest)
I've heard of all the other authors metioned in the thread, just once i get to the library i can never remember their names! Writing them down is probably best
Lois McMaster-Bujold's Vorkosigan books are also a lot of fun. She tends to hit on different genres with each one, but they all stay firmly within science fiction at the same time.
Peter F. Hamilton is more space-opera, but his books are very good, tons of action. Lots of bad shit happens to good people in his books. He has two excellent series complete right now (Night's Dawn and The Commonwealth Saga and is currently working on another series set in the Commonwealth Saga's future.
If you haven't read David Brin's Uplift series, do so now. Very well written, though the first pseudo-trilogy is stronger than the second, more connected trilogy. Sunddiver is the first book, but light on action. It does go a long way setting up the universe.
Finally my strongest recommendation is John Scalzi's series, beginning with Old Man's War - think Starship Troopers, but with old dudes in young, cloned bodies. Scalzi also has a rather entertaining blog, and likes to fuck with Wil Wheaton. This has nothing to do with him as an author, just a random fun fact.
EDIT
DAMN! Beat'd to the Scalzi!
As for Snowcrash, dunno why I didn't think of it - I guess I count cyberpunk as it's own entity. Read it. Speaking of Cyberpunk, the Takeshi Kovacs novels are fantastic, by Richard K. Morgan.
Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies. Very futuristic sci-fi meets noir detective. Morgan's main plot toy is the concept of "resleeving" - in his future, consciousness and memory is digitized, and gets stored in tiny cortical stacks implanted at the base of the skull. This stack can then be pulled out of one body (after death, usually) and dropped into a new one. The protagonist is roughly half detective, half special-ops military, and his method of getting to the bottom of things usually involves somebody else getting hurt. Lots of action, with some interesting ideas thrown into the mix. The later books get a bit weird, though.
For shame...
Anyway, my recommendation is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Edit: Damn the person two posts above me.
Of course, I am inclined to mention John Dies at the End.
It's online fo free.
It was to my understanding that this was no longer the case as it was now a legitimate dead-paper book.
I love Altered Carbon, but I always been afraid of reading the other books, as you're not the first person to say that. Part of what I loved about AC is the great mix of cyberpunk and noir.
He's writing, or has finished writing a fantasy story now, so we'll see how that goes.
It must've been a recent thing as it was still online when the book was being sold.
Clarke turned out some real clunkers, though.
Personally, I like 2001, Childhood's End, Redezvous with Rama, and The Ghost from the Grand Banks (which usually gets thrown in with the clunkers, but I kinda like it for being clunky).
Also, Orson Scott Card's stuff is simply written but fun to ready, although after the second book the Ender's Game series gets a little silly
And I'd like to encourage people here to not purchase anything of Orson Scott's.
The Gap Series by Stephen R Donaldson. It's a nitty-gritty book about good guys fighting bad guys, and also bad guys fighting other bad guys, and guys who are mostly good turning bad, and mostly bad turning good, and a bunch of other twists and turns. If you like it, you're in for 5 or 6 decent sized books.
I deeply implore you to discover the works of Alistair Reynolds, author of the Revelation Space cycle. It's hard science fiction that's set in a deeply political distant future setting (2400-2800 AD) without faster than light travel (Causality violations are a bad thing).
Also check out Richard Morgan, author of the Takeshi Kovacs series of books, starting with Altered Carbon. It's postcyberpunk and the protagonist is something of a psychopath. The books contain valid critical commentary of the world at its present and what it'll be like in the future. Damage.
The books subsequent to Altered Carbon are even better. I promise you. Altered Carbon is relatively cliche noir with postcyberpunk elements in it, but the subsequent books go full on in-your-face postcyberpunk.
You know the protagonist of Neuromancer? He'd be the kind of loser good-for-nothing guy who dies on Page 37. Takeshi Kovacs kicks ass and takes names with a vengeance.
I'll also recommend China Mieville. It's steampunk with very weird stuff in it. You have to read his stuff. Start with Perdido Street Station.
Neal Asher's another author to look out for. Sci-fi with a ton of weird stuff in it. Like Mieville, he's part of the new weird movement. Goodbye, generic rubbish.
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Eighteen minutes later, by the softly glowing display chipped into my upper left field of vision, the same fizzing was still with me as I hurried down the lamplit street, trying to ignore the wound. Stealthy seep of fluids beneath my coat. Not much blood. Sleeving synthetic has its advantages.
Excerpt from Woken Furies (It's the 3rd book in the Altered Carbon series)
Also read 'The Steel Remains' not too long ago. I love Richard Morgan so very much.
The Altered Carbon series never gets too weird (that would really be expecting far too much of Morgan), it maintains the action/film noire cliches and are all much of a muchness. His most recent book, Black Man, is much more heavy on the action but is perhaps his most well-written book so far, borrowing - perhaps heavily - themes from Philip K. Dick. It also has quite possibly the worst sex scenes in sci-fi. Like, cheap porno bad.
Honestly, I remain neutral on the topic of whether Morgan is great or shit. His books are often dumb and embarrassing but do have some interesting concepts hidden under all the 15 year-old's fantasy of a porno sex having, laser gun slinging, cut-and-paste Mr. Tough Guy central character. The way I see it, he's basically a pulpy version of Philip K. Dick, broadly speaking the same themes but less intelligent and not as well written. However, if your previous experience is with Battletech novels then Morgan can only be an improvement.
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I Am Legend is more one of those books that genres borrow heavily from, including sci-fi. In fact, most of the modern Zombie sub-genre is entirely indebted to I Am Legend and it's at least a contemporary, if not influencer, of most of the early post-WWII, Cold War post-apocalyptic sci-fi genre. Perhaps the only notable direct sci-fi influence would be Earth Abides, a Post-Apocalyptic novel that utilises a similar method to create the post-apoc environment but not to the same ends as I Am Legend and in any case only pre-dates I Am Legend by about five years.
Indeed, perhaps the clearest influencers of I Am Legend are the horror writers Brahm Stoker (with Dracula) and Mary Shelly (with Frankenstein and The Last Man - in many ways two novels that are, similarly to I Am Legend, equally if not more so sc-fi than horror). An interesting parallel considering the similar social and political undercurrents those novels are professed to tackle.
Oh hell yes, they are also quite terrifying in places.
Limed for honesty. That doesn't mean Morgan is bad per se (I thought he did a good job of building on Altered Carbon with Broken Angels and Woken Furies), but if you're looking for something as insightful as PKD, look somewhere else.
Yeah, I mean I enjoyed his books, but it is what it is. I enjoy Die Hard too, but not for the insightful social commentary.
This, if you can find them. I had them recommended to me 2-3 years ago and only recently found them at a Barnes and Noble.
Oh, man. No one's mentioned Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. That's some good stuff right there. The first book's framing device is especially awesome--it's the end of the world, and 7 travelers are being sent to this creature called the Shrike (that may or may not be from the future). One of them will have a wish granted, and the other 6 will be killed. Along the way, they all tell stories about how they've encountered the Shrike before. It's like the Canterbury Tales in space, and then the second book turns everything up to 11.
Although I have yet to read the Endymion books (the 2 sequels--Endymion/Rise of Endymion), so approach those at your own risk.