11-26-2014, 03:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-26-2014, 03:59 PM by Matterplay1.)
Hmm, let's see...
Books:
Poul Anderson: one of the old masters, and among other things a master worldbuilder. He remained active and current to the end of his career, too. His Boat of a Million Years for instance is not only a fine historical fiction but as good a piece as I've seen about what happens when a few old-style humans, however talented and experienced, live on into a culture that is increasingly post-scarcity and post-human.
Piers Anthony: his trilogy beginning with Omnivore, which I thought was highly original, though not more recent work
A.A. Attanasio: for his loosely related tetralogy of books beginning with Radix. Attanasio does more speculative science, but he does a nice turn of phrase and he manages epic sweep in his stories.
Gregory Benford: for Across the Sea of Suns and related books, and his short fiction best exemplified in In Alien Flesh, as well as for Timescape. Occasionally manages to evoke the alien-ness of the universe in a way other authors do not.
David Brin: the earlier parts of his Uplift universe (prime space opera) and some of his short stories are good too.
James Blish: for me A Case of Conscience stands out and is more interesting than some of his better-known works .
David. R. Bunch: if you can find any of his short stories set in Moderan (there's a book of them under that name) you'll be well rewarded, and may never look at borging or uploading and the motivations behind them in quite the same way again.
John Crowley: Engine Summer and Beasts are both books I'd recommend, though I think his best work has been in fantasy.
C.J. Cherryh: the Faded Sun and the Pride of Chanur series are both swashbuckling space-opera fun. Not deep at all, but fun.
Philip K. Dick: brought to science fiction that question about the difference between what the imagined world and the truth that might or might not be underneath it, especially in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and in The Man in the High Castle. Anybody who's read some of Dick's better work is likely to think again about virch worlds.
Julian May: Her Pliocene Exile books are psionic space opera done up just about as well as that can be done; you can almost hear the opera music.
Walter M. Miller: A Canticle for Liebowitz is one of the more thoughtful and subtly (and painfully) comical takes on the post-bomb trope.
Ursula LeGuin: for me her fantasy has made bigger mark than her science fiction, but LeGuin's science fiction work is solid too. She brings a more thoughtfully humane and personal touch to science fiction that is often lacking in the field.
Stanislaw Lem: The Cyberiad and The Futurological Congress, to name just two, are hugely entertaining. Some of his other work is fascinating for the ideas but suffers from poor translation, but Michael Kandel's translation of The Cyberiad is a masterwork in itself. As for Solaris, it has much to say about our confrontation with the universe and ourselves.
C.S. Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet contains one of the more evocative early descriptions of what it means to land on an alien world, and also (very, very far ahead of its time) is an antidote to the 'humans uber alles' that pervades much of science fiction.
Larry Niven: I enjoyed the aliens in his Known Space stories when I was in my teens, and remember it fondly though I don't often return to Niven's stories now.
Kim Stanley Robinson: Robinson's Mars Trilogy contains a powerful sense of landscape as applied to a world that is not Earth, and manages to mix the mythic and the personal.
Cordwainer Smith: if you want to get a good sense of what might happen for OA's provolves and splices, then read some of his work.
John Sladek: satiric science fiction with a very different slant on things; read Tik-Tok for a robot who breaks the Asimovian laws, or Mechasm for the downside of self-replicating machines. Recently I got hold of his two 'Roderick' novels, bound together as The Complete Roderick, about an AI growing up in human society and trying to adapt to it. Painfully funny...
Charles Stross: some of his capers and caprices are amusing
Jack Vance: Vance's stories an acquired taste, but I have acquired it. His adventure novels/series are in one sense all the same story, told in different settings, but told in an entertaining way. Some of his short stories, though, are extraordinarily thoughtful and entertaining. Ullward's Retreat for instance says a great deal about what it means to own something.
Vernor Vinge: I very much enjoyed Fire on the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.
Connie Willis: one of the newer writers who brings sense of humour and humanity to science fiction
Gene Wolfe: to my take on it, one of the great masters of the genre. I particularly recommend the tetralogy The Book of the New Sun, or the series of three novellas titled The Fifth Head of Cerberus, but some of his short stories are very fine too. Of these I especially recommend his collection The Death of Doctor Island and Other Stories and Other Stories (no, that's not a typo).
Some favourite authors from my childhood to early-teen years that I remember fondly are Andre Norton, Zenna Henderson, and John Christopher.
If I had to name just one science fiction author, just one, it would be Gene Wolfe, for style and depth. And, for that matter, if you are an old fashioned idea-as-hero science-fiction fan, for the ideas. Some of Wolfe's work has ideas that would have been the basis of a long (perhaps tedious) novel in another author's hands but are casually tossed off in a brief description or short conversation, to be followed by a half dozen more just within the same chapter.
Movies
2001 had its moments. Men in Black was fun. Star Wars entranced me when it first came out for a rather odd reason: it was the first science fiction movie I'd seen that had beat up worn out tech. When I saw that, I was in, aside from the standard fantasy story plot which is good fun all on its own. Blade Runner, of course. Alien was good in its way but I never have cared much for horror stories, even if they are science fiction. Speaking of horrific, Brazil is a well done dystopia. I won't watch it again, but I am glad I watched it once.
TV
I enjoyed the original Star Trek as a boy (when I was young enough to have heroes, Spock was one of my heroes), and parts of its follow-on series were occasionally good. Sometimes the original series and its successors were unintentionally funny, too, though. Doctor Who is fun in places.
Comics/Webcomics/Graphic Novels
For webcomics, I regularly visit
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/
and
http://xkcd.com
and
http://freefall.purrsia.com
I enjoy the occasional graphic novel, but I can't recall any that were science fiction.
Could say more, but perhaps I've gone on too long already...
Books:
Poul Anderson: one of the old masters, and among other things a master worldbuilder. He remained active and current to the end of his career, too. His Boat of a Million Years for instance is not only a fine historical fiction but as good a piece as I've seen about what happens when a few old-style humans, however talented and experienced, live on into a culture that is increasingly post-scarcity and post-human.
Piers Anthony: his trilogy beginning with Omnivore, which I thought was highly original, though not more recent work
A.A. Attanasio: for his loosely related tetralogy of books beginning with Radix. Attanasio does more speculative science, but he does a nice turn of phrase and he manages epic sweep in his stories.
Gregory Benford: for Across the Sea of Suns and related books, and his short fiction best exemplified in In Alien Flesh, as well as for Timescape. Occasionally manages to evoke the alien-ness of the universe in a way other authors do not.
David Brin: the earlier parts of his Uplift universe (prime space opera) and some of his short stories are good too.
James Blish: for me A Case of Conscience stands out and is more interesting than some of his better-known works .
David. R. Bunch: if you can find any of his short stories set in Moderan (there's a book of them under that name) you'll be well rewarded, and may never look at borging or uploading and the motivations behind them in quite the same way again.
John Crowley: Engine Summer and Beasts are both books I'd recommend, though I think his best work has been in fantasy.
C.J. Cherryh: the Faded Sun and the Pride of Chanur series are both swashbuckling space-opera fun. Not deep at all, but fun.
Philip K. Dick: brought to science fiction that question about the difference between what the imagined world and the truth that might or might not be underneath it, especially in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and in The Man in the High Castle. Anybody who's read some of Dick's better work is likely to think again about virch worlds.
Julian May: Her Pliocene Exile books are psionic space opera done up just about as well as that can be done; you can almost hear the opera music.
Walter M. Miller: A Canticle for Liebowitz is one of the more thoughtful and subtly (and painfully) comical takes on the post-bomb trope.
Ursula LeGuin: for me her fantasy has made bigger mark than her science fiction, but LeGuin's science fiction work is solid too. She brings a more thoughtfully humane and personal touch to science fiction that is often lacking in the field.
Stanislaw Lem: The Cyberiad and The Futurological Congress, to name just two, are hugely entertaining. Some of his other work is fascinating for the ideas but suffers from poor translation, but Michael Kandel's translation of The Cyberiad is a masterwork in itself. As for Solaris, it has much to say about our confrontation with the universe and ourselves.
C.S. Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet contains one of the more evocative early descriptions of what it means to land on an alien world, and also (very, very far ahead of its time) is an antidote to the 'humans uber alles' that pervades much of science fiction.
Larry Niven: I enjoyed the aliens in his Known Space stories when I was in my teens, and remember it fondly though I don't often return to Niven's stories now.
Kim Stanley Robinson: Robinson's Mars Trilogy contains a powerful sense of landscape as applied to a world that is not Earth, and manages to mix the mythic and the personal.
Cordwainer Smith: if you want to get a good sense of what might happen for OA's provolves and splices, then read some of his work.
John Sladek: satiric science fiction with a very different slant on things; read Tik-Tok for a robot who breaks the Asimovian laws, or Mechasm for the downside of self-replicating machines. Recently I got hold of his two 'Roderick' novels, bound together as The Complete Roderick, about an AI growing up in human society and trying to adapt to it. Painfully funny...
Charles Stross: some of his capers and caprices are amusing
Jack Vance: Vance's stories an acquired taste, but I have acquired it. His adventure novels/series are in one sense all the same story, told in different settings, but told in an entertaining way. Some of his short stories, though, are extraordinarily thoughtful and entertaining. Ullward's Retreat for instance says a great deal about what it means to own something.
Vernor Vinge: I very much enjoyed Fire on the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.
Connie Willis: one of the newer writers who brings sense of humour and humanity to science fiction
Gene Wolfe: to my take on it, one of the great masters of the genre. I particularly recommend the tetralogy The Book of the New Sun, or the series of three novellas titled The Fifth Head of Cerberus, but some of his short stories are very fine too. Of these I especially recommend his collection The Death of Doctor Island and Other Stories and Other Stories (no, that's not a typo).
Some favourite authors from my childhood to early-teen years that I remember fondly are Andre Norton, Zenna Henderson, and John Christopher.
If I had to name just one science fiction author, just one, it would be Gene Wolfe, for style and depth. And, for that matter, if you are an old fashioned idea-as-hero science-fiction fan, for the ideas. Some of Wolfe's work has ideas that would have been the basis of a long (perhaps tedious) novel in another author's hands but are casually tossed off in a brief description or short conversation, to be followed by a half dozen more just within the same chapter.
Movies
2001 had its moments. Men in Black was fun. Star Wars entranced me when it first came out for a rather odd reason: it was the first science fiction movie I'd seen that had beat up worn out tech. When I saw that, I was in, aside from the standard fantasy story plot which is good fun all on its own. Blade Runner, of course. Alien was good in its way but I never have cared much for horror stories, even if they are science fiction. Speaking of horrific, Brazil is a well done dystopia. I won't watch it again, but I am glad I watched it once.
TV
I enjoyed the original Star Trek as a boy (when I was young enough to have heroes, Spock was one of my heroes), and parts of its follow-on series were occasionally good. Sometimes the original series and its successors were unintentionally funny, too, though. Doctor Who is fun in places.
Comics/Webcomics/Graphic Novels
For webcomics, I regularly visit
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/
and
http://xkcd.com
and
http://freefall.purrsia.com
I enjoy the occasional graphic novel, but I can't recall any that were science fiction.
Could say more, but perhaps I've gone on too long already...
Stephen