Decent science fiction authors?

Echo

Forar wrote: »

Just thought of another series; Worldwar by Harry Turtledove.

Oh, I think I read the first one of them. Pretty interesting; apart from the obvious interstellar travel capabilities, the tech level of the invaders is about what we have now -- jets and efficient tanks. Which, of course, stomps the 1940s tech into the ground.

Judge-Z

Echo wrote: »

Forar wrote: »

Just thought of another series; Worldwar by Harry Turtledove.

Oh, I think I read the first one of them. Pretty interesting; apart from the obvious interstellar travel capabilities, the tech level of the invaders is about what we have now -- jets and efficient tanks. Which, of course, stomps the 1940s tech into the ground.

I used to be a huge Turtledove fan, but he started writing the same books over and over again. The Worldwar series was one of his first efforts, however, and one of his best (along with Guns of the South, wherein time traveling racists bring AK-47s back to the Confederacy during the Civil War). If you want a pulpy good time, Worldwar is a decent bet.

Khaczor

You guys are awesome. I just jumped into this thread and probably got enough reading material for the next year or so.

The Cat

Salvation122 wrote: »

In the vein of Turtledove (and more interesting, in my opinion) is John Birmingham's Axis of Time series, where an aircraft carrier and a couple other ships from the mid-2000s accidently time-travels back to the first Battle of Midway and sort of cocks things up.

But if you really want vintage Birmingham, you want 'He Died With a Felafel in his Hand'. Not SF, but comedy gold.

Kingthlayer

I read and thoroughly enjoyed some of George R. R. Martin's sci-fi stories. He co-wrote the novel Hunter's Run with Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham. There is also the short story Sandkings, which can be found in one of the two Dreamsongs anthologies. There are several others but those two were my favorites.

Of course, I'm a bit of a GRRM fanboy, if it isn't obvious. You say you like fantasy so I'm going to assume you've read his "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. If not, you should read that, too.

Kipling217

If you want one recomendation from me, I would suggest Player of Games by Ian Banks. Its one of his Culture novels and is a better starting point than Consider Phlebas wich was the first book in the series.

Also I consider Cat's condemnation of Richard Morgan to be overly harsh, he is not nearly as misogynistic as she claims.(This is from a guy that has read his share of misgynistic authors over the years).

Avoid the Honor Harrington series though, its crap. Imagine Horatio Hornblower turned into a female Mary Sue and dumped into space. Then add Republican/Democratic talking points via Fox news, where the republicans are always right and the democrats are stupid/evil. As for the battle sequenses?

A 100 missiles streak towards their targets, 18 got distracted by decoys, 20 impacted on the bowline, 25 where succesfuly destroyed by counter missiles. Of the remaing 37 missiles; 5 hit the lead ship and it vanished in a blaze of glory. The rest writhe and turned as the impacts fused their metal.

There! You now have every battle in the Harrington series.

Sporked

I've seen some really excellent suggestions, but I want to point out that Frank Herbert wrote some really amazing stuff that wasn't Dune.

The Destination: Void series was great, if a little heavier. The Dosadi Experiment, The Godmakers, The Santaroga Barrier are some I can think of that I really enjoyed. He has a lot of stuff out there that's not Dune and it's all worth checking out, if it is a bit hard to find.