I’m posting this open literary thread for three reasons:
1) It amuses me to reinforce Short Hope Unfiltered’s Stephenson meme;
2) I think that this is the first time that this site got called a blog ‘of note’ (you’d think we’d get more trackbacks/links, though);
3) I’m going to take a mini-vacation to Kitty Hawk, starting this weekend, and I could use a recommendation or three. My tastes run towards the sorts of books with exploding spaceships on the cover, so you have been warned.
Just picked up Brian Greene’s “The Fabric of the Cosmos.” I’m assuming stuff blows up (the Big Bang if nothing else), and am eager to learn why time has a direction. You?
Glen Cook, especially books 2,4 of Black Company, and any of the colored metal detective books
Stuart Kaminsky’s Moscow series !!! (cops)
Thomas Tessier, special horror
I don’t read SF anymore, tho read everything worth reading to about 1984, it is a small field
early Brunner and Silverberg (pre 1965) are like undiscovered gems of craft
“…early Brunner and Silverberg (pre 1965) are like undiscovered gems of craft….”
Interesting observation. The fact is that both gentleman wrote lots of great stuff, some of which earned lesser note than others, but, as writers by trade in a day which paid little, both also wrote tons of absolute crap. I mean, Bob wrote hundreds of straight porn books. Not all, exactly, “gems of craft.”
So as a guideline, this is uncertain (though, to be sure, Bob didn’t write his porn under his own name; but he did write lots of fifties/sixties cred under that, as well as his amazingly good stuff). Particularly if reading the magazines, though I suppose that’s a lesser option these days.
Basically,both the late Brunner, and the Grandmaster Bob, wrote lots of stuff. Silverbob remains a master at his peak. (I’m still fond of his Dying Inside period, but I would be, wouldn’t I? Of course, I’m still fond of his Spaceship period, and I would be.)
But what kind of sf do you like, Moe? As you know, it’s not exactly a homogenous genre.
Moe, just got my gf, who’s not big in Literature, to read the state of the art in space opera, Vernor Vinge’s _A Fire Upon the Deep_, which has its share of explosions – she found it intensely compelling, as has everybody else I know. If you want to read a long light romp of a book, Connie Willis’s _To Say Nothing Of The Dog_ comes to mind, esp. if you’ve read the classic _Three Men in a Boat_. If you like the idea of Dickens crossed with Anais Nin crossed with elves crossed with cyberpunk, check out Michael Swanwick’s _The Iron Dragon’s Daughter_.
second the Willis, tho I think she is good enough to write a romp that is also not just a romp
Didn’t know how much you are able to, like suspending disbelief, you are able to suspend your literary values. I was always able to appreciate pure genre material on its own terms, and went so low as to enjoy Doc Savage and Doc Smith, tho always with nightmares involving Thomas Disch and an axe
*Any* SF lover should read Peter Hamiltons Night’s Dawn trilogy. You might need more than a weekend, since each part is approximately 1200 pages…. and it takes some getting into. But if you like intelligent, creative and well written books with believable characters, rich descriptions, ingenious plotlines and lots of exitement you need to look no further than this intergalactic adventure!
The Gap series by Stephen R Donaldson. Brilliant.
Also, anything by Gene Wolfe, if you don’t mind it being a little heady. Particularly the Long Sun series.