Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe—that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.
[H.L. Mencken]
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« Science recommendations? | Main | Juvenile science fiction recommendations? »
Category: Books
Posted on: November 30, 2006 10:03 AM, by PZ Myers
Wait…what about us grown-ups? What is the best science fiction novel you've read recently?
I'm seeing lots of recommendations for Orson Scott Card, but I have to admit that I've long lost any affection I might have had for his work. Did you know he has a new book? It looks like full-blown reactionary tripe.
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Comments
Since our daughter's birth, I haven't really had much occasion for books (I'm still stuck mid-chapter somewhere in Quicksilver). However, as a general recommendation, for modern sci-fi with plenty of intelligence and usually many interesting threads in the story (but not so that one gets lost), anything of Timothy Zahn may be recommended. The very best of the Star Wars literature is of his doing, and his Cobra and Conqueror trilogies (he has a thing for trilogies) are eminently readable.
Martin
Posted by: Martin Christensen | November 30, 2006 10:19 AM
Tough call. Out of the books I've read recently, if I restrict myself to those which were written recently, top picks might go to David Weber's At All Costs and David Brin's Kiln People.
Nobody wants to call Thomas Pynchon's work science fiction, but you can't classify science fiction or draw boundaries around the genre without taking him into account. (The same holds true for Kurt Vonnegut.) I just finished Pynchon's latest, Against the Day, last night. It was very good. One thousand eighty-five pages of goodness. Its only defect (and to some people this may be severe) was a deficit in the cephalopod department. For that, you need to read Gravity's Rainbow.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 30, 2006 10:23 AM
I've been on an Iain M. Banks kick lately. I've been a fan for years but have just read The Bridge (not SF but has a hilarious sword'n'sorcery parody) and Use of Weapons, which was near-perfect SF. Player of Games might be my favorite SF novel ever.
Posted by: Will E. | November 30, 2006 10:23 AM
Oh, I forgot to say that a friend lent me a copy of Charlie Stross's The Atrocity Archives, and I enjoyed it very much. I also got myself hooked on the 1632 series by Eric Flint et al. (which my mother has likewise come to love).
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 30, 2006 10:31 AM
Dan Simmons' Hyperion quadrilogy is a great epic read. He creates an immensely detailed universe and interesting characters, plus (as an added bonus) he steals shamelessly from a lot of great historical works of fiction in building his tale.
Posted by: zadig | November 30, 2006 10:33 AM
I happen to have a pretty big site devoted to this very obsession.
Posted by: Martin Wagner | November 30, 2006 10:34 AM
Isaac Asimov's Nightfall was a fun book for me, with a bit of commentary on how a religious belief could be put to the test and survive, with different interpretations being made of that fact by scientists and the religious.
'course, there's a bunch of stuff by Asimov that anyone could recommend.
Posted by: William | November 30, 2006 10:36 AM
The best science fiction book hands down has got to be Dune by Frank Herbert. And I'd say that no other sci-fi book has such a close resemblance to the current state of the world. Ultimately, it's a science fiction book about ecology, with the "spice" mined from a desert planet being what everyone in the universe fights over. It was written a while back but it accurately predicts the desert and religious wars of recent history.
The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC. But it's so much more then that. It's also about beuracracy, and power, and what sort of people that power attracts. Anyways, just go and read it. You'll be amazed at its excellence.
Posted by: Chris Doan | November 30, 2006 10:37 AM
I just finished three books by Robert Charles Wilson,
Spin, The Chronoliths, and Darwinia.
All different stories, all very literary and hard science fiction. They are all indicative of a supremely talented and intelligent mind at work.
Posted by: Mencken | November 30, 2006 10:46 AM
All of an Instant by Richard Garfinkle has to be one of the most original Sci-fi novels I have read in a long time. Be prepared to pay close attention as the story line is (necessarily) convoluted. It's a bit of a journey and crams 1000 pages into a svelte 383. Give it a try and you won't be dissapointed.
BTW Martin The Baroque Cycle is by far Stephensons best work. Keep pushing on through Quicksilver and you will be very pleased. The trilogy only gets better through The Confusion and System of the World.
On that note, Neal Stephenson has quite a few great novels that you may enjoy PZ. Snow Crash his breakthrough work is amazing as is the (unrelated) follow-up Diamond Age.
Amazon Links for your perusal:
All of an Instant
Quicksilver
The Confusion
The System of the World
Diamond Age
Snow Crash
Posted by: Ryan | November 30, 2006 10:51 AM
I am re-reading all of David Weber's Honor Harrington books - great characters, grand space opera, lots of books in the series, not dull on a second or third read-through.
Posted by: ctenotrish, FCD, PhD | November 30, 2006 10:53 AM
Alastair Reynolds - All of it (Pushing Ice, Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Chasm City, ...)
I'll second Kiln People by D. Brin.
Learning the World: A Novel of First Contact by Ken MacLeod
Vacuum Diagrams by S. Baxter
Not novels or new but still fun sci fi reads: Appleseed (all of it) and Ghost in the Shell 1 and 2 by M. Shirow
Posted by: Dunesong | November 30, 2006 10:55 AM
Just started The Iron Council by China Mieville -- a follow-up to his Perdido Street Station and The Scar. Brutal backstreet grunge described in lyrical prose. Interesting and original ideas about a different but very familiar world. I'd recommend any of the 3 (pending my finishing the present book).
Posted by: Gadfly22 | November 30, 2006 10:57 AM
World War Z by Max Brooks. Honestly.
Posted by: Badono | November 30, 2006 10:58 AM
I surprised myself by enjoying John Ringo's Gust Front. It was my first foray into "military" SciFi.
Posted by: billw | November 30, 2006 11:01 AM
Don't buy "Next" by Michael Crichton...
It's a lousy book and there isn't much science to it, aside from stupid "news blurbs."
Posted by: Stanton | November 30, 2006 11:03 AM
Gregory Benford's Tides of Light series. Great stuff, that.
Posted by: D'Arcy Norman | November 30, 2006 11:03 AM
In the "just released" category, I recently read Scalzi's newest, _The Android's Dream_, and found it to be simultaneously highly amusing (in a very good way) and strangely plausible. While it's up-to-the-minute in terms of its storytelling, it somehow also harkens back to the olden days of SF, with highly entertaining results. It's perhaps a bit lightweight, but I enjoyed it a lot.
Max Brooks's _World War Z_ is supposedly a "Oral History of the Zombie War", and while that might sound really silly and cheesy, I found it enormously detailed in the thought that went into it, and even moving at times. A really first-rate work of fiction, despite the totally bogus pseudoscientific explanations for the cause of Zombie-ism.
Posted by: Daniel Harper | November 30, 2006 11:03 AM
City of Saints and Madmen, by Jeff Vandermeer.. a dark, obsessive compendium of stories set in the city of Ambergris. While not really all that science fiction-y (no "Tree'liq plugged his New Gencyte Bioprobe into the XJ-23 cyberjack while drinking his nano-coffee"), it does involve squid!
Posted by: Pete | November 30, 2006 11:06 AM
Louis Menand (of "faith and reason" at Harvard fame) says of "Against the Day":
"Against the Day" is a kind of inventory of the possibilities inherent in a particular moment in the history of the imagination. It is like a work of science fiction written in 1900.
I'm only on page 27, but it's very entertaining so far. Almost every sentence seems like a beautiful, perfect construction. Very enjoyable.
I'm reading Hitchhiker's Guide for the first time, too (aren't I lucky?). Actually listening to it. Stephen Fry does a terrific job with it. Lots of fun.
Boy, do I love good books!
Posted by: George | November 30, 2006 11:12 AM
Try 'The Carpet Makers' by Andreas Eschbach. His only work translated into English. Maybe enough readers will get us some more.
Stargeezer
Posted by: Stargeezer | November 30, 2006 11:14 AM
well, instead of reading SF, why not listen to it? The podcast Escape Pod buys SF short stories and puts them online in audible form each new week, completely free! They had this year's Hugo nominees, but there's not one episode I didn't like so far. Go check them out!
Posted by: Argent23 | November 30, 2006 11:15 AM
I can't recommend Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon highly enough. It's not too well-known today (neither is the author), but he crammed more ideas into every three pages of that book than almost anything else I've ever read. The scale of time covered by the novel (the entire history and future of the universe) is mind-boggling. And yes, "Star Maker" does refer to God, but not the Judeo-Christian God by any stretch of the imagination; think a more lucid and slightly less inimical version of Azathoth instead. Go read it now.
Posted by: Brian888 | November 30, 2006 11:21 AM
Things I could have done without in the last few years...
Couldn't get into Reynolds, though I liked his hard SF conceit in maintaining all the laws of physics for interstellar voyages; he just seemed to descend into mysticism at the end, not unlike the ridiculous Disney movie The Black Hole did.
Sawyer's Hominids series left me feeling flat. Consciousness explained as a byproduct of a quantum interaction in one primate precursor that somehow becomes inherited? Hmm. Not a little magicking up, there -- and Calculating God was infuriating, pretending to be atheist when it was in fact anything but.
Things I was glad I did...
Stephenson. The Baroque series is lovely; its nominal prequel, Cryptonomicon, is astonishingly riveting and highly recommended. Start with Cryptonomicon. If you like it, you can take on Baroque.
The Ravnica cycle by Cory Herndon -- this absolutely shocked me because it's a fantasy trilogy tie-in to Magic: The Gathering, which is a fun game and all ... but I never, ever thought I'd enjoy this specific book cycle as much as I did. It's really quite well done.
I keep mining my library of Delany, savoring, taking my time. His product is consistently odd, which I appreciate. Similarly, I delve into Lem. (I have about a dozen books by each which I've collected over the last decade or so; I pay them out to myself slowly to make the experience last.)
Ghost in the Shell: The manga by Shirow Masamune. The comic that spawned the movie, then the series. Very, very good stuff.
Posted by: Warren | November 30, 2006 11:31 AM
The Saga of Seven Suns by Kevin J Anderson. It currently weighs in at 5 thousand-page volumes (with two more in the planning, I think).
I think it's been a long time since I was impressed quite so much by space opera. It's got genocidal robots, sentient space-going trees, aliens who live within stars, Bondian secret agents (sorry - "experts in obscure details"), an ancient empire held together with weak telepathy...
What's not to love?
Posted by: wintermute | November 30, 2006 11:32 AM
"The Atrocity Archives" is quite squarely on the "science fantasy" side of the science fiction continuum, but I loved it anyway. Stross also writes some passable "hard" science fiction (or at least as hard as Singularity stuff gets), but none of it is as fun as his "Slashdot meets Lovecraft" fantasy.
I disagree that the Baroque Cycle just gets better. "The System of the World" is one of only a few books I've ever put down in midread, and if I didn't have such high hopes (they are Neal Stephenson books, after all) I would have found it dull enough to put down a book earlier. It was never engrossing enough for me to appreciate the fiction and I was too worried about the artistic liberties taken to appreciate the history.
Most of the best books I've been introduced to recently are years or decades old: John Barnes' "Candle", Vernor Vinge's novels, plus a few by Michael Kube-McDowell and F.M. Busby. It gets harder and harder to keep track of the best SF authors as the genre grows. I had heard of Vinge, but might never have picked up "A Fire Upon The Deep" if Amazon's recommendations system hadn't caught it for me.
Posted by: roystgnr | November 30, 2006 11:33 AM
James Morrow's "Bible stories for adults" and "Towing Jehovah". Wicked fun.
Posted by: Lola Walser | November 30, 2006 11:38 AM
Nice to see someone else recommending Iain M. Banks. He's probably Britain's finest hard-SF writer today, and his non-SF stuff is pretty good too. I would also agree that the "The Player of Games" is one of his best.
And if you want a flavour of how intriguingly twisted his mind can be then you can give his non-SF thriller Complicity, or The Wasp Factory a go. (Though, be warned, the latter is definitely not for the faint-of-heart!)
Posted by: tacitus | November 30, 2006 11:43 AM
If you liked "Fire Upon the Deep" be sure and get "Deepness in the Sky". I haven't managed to snag "Rainbow's End" yet, but it is most likely great.
These aren't science fiction, but the best scifi/fantasy book last year was "Johnathon Strange and Mr. Norrell"
Posted by: will | November 30, 2006 11:45 AM
Relatively recent authors/books:
I'll add my vote for any of Iain Banks' books ('Use of Weapons' and 'Against a Dark Background' are favorites). Rudy Rucker's stuff is always a bit of a mind-bending romp. I've become a big fan of John Scalzi - everything he's written has been very enjoyable. Joe R. Lansdale's 'Drive-In' series and the 'Zeppelins West/Flaming London' pair are a nice introduction to his science fiction - he's better known as a mystery/horror writer, although in reality his work spans as many genres as you'd care to name. China Mieville and Jeff VanderMeer books are always on the 'purchase on release' list.
Posted by: David Kirkpatrick | November 30, 2006 11:50 AM
The most recent science fiction I have read is The Twilight of Evolution by Henry M. Morris. It's light on the science, but heavy on the fiction. I really can't recommend it, it is lacking in strong characters, good dialogue and a coherent plot.
Posted by: quork | November 30, 2006 11:50 AM
Anything by Julian May
Posted by: paulh | November 30, 2006 11:53 AM
Charlie Stross - Accelerando. Fun singularity stuff. Not always hard sci-fi but his solution for the Fermi Paradox is novel.
Anything by Vernor Vinge - Fire Upon the Deep, Deepness in the Sky, Rainbow's End, Marooned in Realtime
China Mieville - Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council. Not strictly sci-fi, and in fact a lot of it is marxist philosophy masquerading as fantasy, but it's a great read. He and Gaiman are probably the only two fantasy authors I'll read.
Peter F Hamilton - Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. Space opera, pure and simple. But big. Not as big as the Night's Dawn trilogy, but still big.
Ken MacLeod - Cosmonaut Keep and its sequels, whose names escape me right now. It's got intelligent squid in it.
Stephen Baxter's Xeelee saga. Ring, Raft, Flux, Vacuum Diagrams, and a few others. This guy doesn't think small, when you have stories about races hurling planets and stars at each other as warfare. Also, his alternate-history "Voyage" is a fun thought-experiment about going to Mars in 1974.
I can't get through Neil Stephenson anymore. I liked Snow Crash and Diamond Age, I was okay with Cryptonomicon but felt it needed both some serious editing and a better ending, and the baroque cycle kind of left me cold (and it too needed editorial pruning).
If you liked Dune, avoid the new books. It feels too much like cheesy fanfic.
Posted by: Eric | November 30, 2006 11:53 AM
Excellent (IMHO) recent science fiction:
Dies the Fire
The Protector's War
A Meeting at Corvalis
Conquistador
by S. M. Stirling
Counting Heads
by Marusek, David
Hominids
Humans
Hybrids
Mindscan
by Robert J. Sawyer
Altered Carbon
Broken Angels
Woken Furies
by Richard K. Morgan
Vamped
by David Sosnowski
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
by Cory Doctorow
Ribofunk
by Paul Di Filippo
I just can't get enough, really.
Posted by: Russ Myers | November 30, 2006 11:54 AM
David, I love Iain Banks' books as well - great choice, but it's Iain M. Banks when talking Sci-Fi and Iain Banks when talking regular fiction. It's all about the 'M'.
All his culture books are good, and I found the algebriast (his latest) to be very good also.
Posted by: Rich | November 30, 2006 11:54 AM
Oh god, Julian May. "My metapsychic redactive talent is bigger than your metapsychic redactive talent."
I recommend "The Dazzle of Day," by Molly Gloss.
Posted by: Sammy | November 30, 2006 11:58 AM
Speaking of Charles Stross, I'm just finishing the final volume of The Merchant Princes, liking it very much.
(I don't know if "hard fantasy" is a genre of its own, but if so, this stuff belongs there.)
Posted by: Petter Hesselberg | November 30, 2006 12:02 PM
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Oddly, I've been off sci fi for a while, even though in general it's one of my favourite genres. Hm.
Posted by: Joshua | November 30, 2006 12:02 PM
I would recommend any works by Charles Stross, Richard Morgan, and Alastair Reynolds.
Posted by: Paul | November 30, 2006 12:03 PM
Not new, but my perennial vote for (at least) best first contact novel is Niven and Pournelle's "Mote in God's Eye." Pretty much anything the pair did is worth the time, and "Footfall" gives you another interesting alien gang. I agree with the Stirling recommendation above, though I wonder of the flood of "modern man thrown back in time" stories really are sci fi any more; fun, anyway. Bujold is a great story teller; and if you like a smart ass, the Vorkosigan series works fine.
Posted by: les | November 30, 2006 12:05 PM
Hi Rich,
I have all of Banks' novels (as Iain or Iain M) as I've been reading his stuff for years - in fact I've collected first printings (UK and US) of all of his books. I didn't make the distinction because, personally, I think anyone reading this list would probably enjoy his straight fiction as well as his SF - the characteristics that make his SF so enjoyable carry over to his mainstream work (although I will admit that 'Song of Stone' and 'Whit' were lesser works). 'The Crow Road' and 'Espedair Street' were particular favorites from his mainstream books, and 'The Wasp Factory' is amazing (you have to respect a book where, upon reading the final chapter, you realize that you must immediately re-read the whole book!).
Posted by: David Kirkpatrick | November 30, 2006 12:08 PM
The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
Posted by: squidward | November 30, 2006 12:11 PM
Keith Laumer - Dead now, but his books are being re-issued by Baen Books. I like his lighter attempts (like The Great Time Machine Hoax and Reteif Series) as opposed to his more serious writing, but hey we're all different.
S M Stirling - Against The Tide Of Years series (3 books). Nantucket transported to the Bronze Age. Interesting premise, and fun to read. I also liked his Peshawar Lancers - Comet hits earth - wipes out European and American civilization - England survies by moving to India, and Conquistador, where WWII vet comes home - goes to alternate universe where he accidently finds a portal to unspoiled alternate world and creates a feudal society . Interesting action when 1990's Game Wardens find out.
1632 series - Eric Flint - also alternate history, when a Pennsylvania Union town is transported to Germany in the midst of the 30 years war.
Posted by: J-Dog | November 30, 2006 12:12 PM
I have a book to recommend that will surprise you as to its being science fiction. But it is, and the best kind - a single premise about science, and how that affects society. In addition it is beautifully written and is a gripping story.
"Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro; Knopf, 2005.
Ishiguro's previous book was "The Remains of the Day".
Posted by: Karl | November 30, 2006 12:14 PM
I quite enjoyed Eifelheim (Michael Flynn). It's a first-encounter story through the lense of plague-times Europe, interlaced with the story of a math-focused historian studying a missing village from the past. Brings up issues of religion, astrophysics, aliens ... kind of rough in the first few chapters, but then becomes gripping.
Posted by: Rachel H. | November 30, 2006 12:14 PM
I think all of Banks' early Culture books are out of print here in the States--a real crime. And purely as a book nut, I loved the artwork on those Bantam Spectra paperbacks, which I have to say got me to check out his work.
Posted by: Will E. | November 30, 2006 12:14 PM
Charles Stross's latest two books may be his best yet:
_The Jennifer Morgue_, which is Lovecraft meets Fleming meets Coupland: foreboding, fast-paced, yet lots of in-jokes for your inner geek.
_The Glasshouse_, which is more hard-scfi and Matrix-y.
And anything by Iain M. Banks.
Posted by: mss | November 30, 2006 12:18 PM
I also recommend "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro. Not typical science fiction, but an absolutely beautifully written story.
Posted by: Silmarilion | November 30, 2006 12:19 PM
Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt is more alternative history than straight-up science fiction, but it is fiction with a lot of science in it. It's about how the world might have turned out if the plague killed off nearly all the population of Europe in the High Middle Ages, leaving the Chinese, Indians, Muslims, and Americans to fill the gap.
Aside from assuming the truth of some form of Buddhism (as the main characters meet in the Bardo between reincarnations and occasionally recognize one another while alive), it's naturalistic in outlook, and the characters are often scientists or liberal activists.
Posted by: Philip Brooks | November 30, 2006 12:22 PM
I haven't been reading that much SF recently (by my standards). The only ones I've read in the last few months are:
Lathe of Heaven - Ursula LeGuin
Excellent stuff, if very Dickian and less political than most of her work.
The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
Very funny, but always promising more than it delivers.
Y: The Last Man - Brian Vaughan
Probably the best comic currently running. Every male animal on earth is killed by a mystery plague, except for one man and his monkey.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | November 30, 2006 12:38 PM
I have to second "The Years of Rice and Salt" as spectacularly good.
Posted by: Brian888 | November 30, 2006 12:47 PM
I think Vonnegut's brain has slowly rotted over the years, I'm afraid.
Anything by Le Guin, or Ian (M) Banks, Stross' non-merchant princes, and we've forgotten the last of the "Golden Age Authors, old and ill as he is, yet "Against the Fall of Night" and almost anything else by A C Clarke is worth the read.
Don't bother with Julia N. May - it is christian apologetics.
Posted by: G. Tingey | November 30, 2006 12:48 PM
Stephen Fry's "Making History" was a wonderful read.
Posted by: Judy L. | November 30, 2006 12:48 PM
Iain M Banks, yes.
Larry Niven, yes.
Vernor Vinge, yes.
Isaac Asimov, yes.
Robert A Heinlein, yes.
Neal Stephenson, no, no, a thousand times no.
OK, that's a little harsh. Diamond Age and Zodiac were passable, but nothing special. Snowcrash had a really cool first and last scene, but everything in between wither bored r annoyed me. And as for Cryptonomicon, well, it was a 20-page story mixed in with a 1000-page Libertarian manifesto on why we need strong crypto, or the government will kill us all...
I mean, the greatest heroes of the book are a bunch of people who want to walk around openly carrying military-grade almost-portable weaponry while masked, and think it's evil and wrong that the police think they might be planning something illegal.
Heinlein's Libertarian manfestos never seemed to get in the way of a good story. But then, he could actually write.
oh, and in case no-one's mentioned them yet, the Polity novels of Neal Asher and anything by Peter F Hamilton (I'd recommend starting with either The Reality Dysfunction"> or Pandora's Star are well worth reading.
Hrm. Everything I recommend seems to be high space opera. Ah, well.
Posted by: wintermute | November 30, 2006 12:52 PM
Boy, Julian May seems to polarize people, doesn't she? I've always liked the many-colored land series, as well as the later prequels, but it's only marginally science fiction... more fantasy than sf, even though it has the trappings of sf (future/distant past settings, outer space, aliens). The bulk of the story is in the characters, and in their mental abilities that are completely indistinguishable from magic. Great read, though.
And I'll second the Niven/Pournelle recommendations... great team. Better together than either author individually, although they've both written good stuff on their own.
And I don't see David Brin mentioned, but anything he's written is great. And soundly based in science, a lot of the time.
Posted by: zadig | November 30, 2006 1:01 PM
Altered Carbon
Broken Angels
Woken Furies
By Richard K. Morgan. Read them in that order.
Futuristic setting where people have all sorts of implants and can swap bodies. The main character is a real anti-hero (a murderous thug, actually), but is also extremely charming. Something that should please PZ and many others on this board: I get the feeling that he's an atheist.
The books are extremely graphic in terms of violence and sex (so they're not for kids) and are written in a noir style like a 50's detective novel (it's a great fusion of sci-fi and the noir-detective novel, IMO). My wife was jealous about the time I was spending with the books instead of with her on our honeymoon (yes, they were that good).
Posted by: Miguelito | November 30, 2006 1:02 PM
I should add that, because everybody's mind is stored in their cortical "stack" (which is retrievable after death), it makes murder and intrigue in Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies, that much more interesting.
Posted by: Miguelito | November 30, 2006 1:05 PM
haven't read any sci-fi lately, so I'll just mentioned my favorite.
Gateway, by Frederik Pohl.
Incidentally, is anyone ever gonna bring up a discussion of the new insane neocon book by Orson Scott Card?
Posted by: craig | November 30, 2006 1:09 PM
I'll definitely second the vote above for Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies. Characters, dialogue, literary finesse, plot, and political commentary -- Morgan has it all, nailed. Fantastic.
Other sci-fi writers worth mentioning: the Gregs, Bear and Benford. Bear's Axiomatic, an anthology of short stories, is a delight -- but out of print. Terry Bisson's Bears Discover Fire, another short-story collection, is excellent -- it includes "They're Made Out of Meat!" which I use when I teach philosophy of mind.
I recently discovered M. John Harrison, whose Viriconium and Light were recently published in the States by Bantam. Elegant, weird, a bit light on the science, but fascinating. Viriconium is a collection of stories set in the far distant future (part of the "dying Earth" genre); Light goes back and forth between the present, where two programmers are on the verge of discovering the mathematics of FTL travel, and the far future, where the next great leap forward is about to happen.
Posted by: Carl Sachs | November 30, 2006 1:16 PM
Another vote for Iain M. Banks and second plug for his Player of Games (damn, but I enjoyed that -- all three times that I've read it). It's a pity that sometimes you can't get his books here and need to resort to Amazon.uk, but it's worth it. His Culture novels are especially delightful, but even his non-sf works (for which he drops his middle initial as a friendly warning) are usually engrossing. Beware of Feersum Endjinn, however, which is a rough read because of his phonetically rendered dialect in many passages. Not the place to start reading Banks.
I'm also on record as a big fan of Alastair Reynolds.
Posted by: Zeno | November 30, 2006 1:23 PM
Over the last 2 years, my favorite author has definitely been Neal Stephenson. Yes, he gets wordy at times, and could use an editor, but I found his work to be entertaining and clever, and the subject matter to be engaging. Unlike another reviewer here (20 pages of material in 1000 pages of text), I would recommend Cryptonomicon first, followed by Snowcrash, and then followed by the Baroque Series. The Baroque Series is about 3000 pages spread over 3 volumes, but the volumes are not standalone; you need to read all three to get any closure on the story lines. Don't start on the them unless you like Neal Stephenson's other work and are ready to commit to 3000 pages.
Posted by: Lee | November 30, 2006 1:30 PM
I have no idea why Janet Kagan has only written two novels, but both of them are extraordinary. Hellspark speaks more intelligently about the diversity of human language and culture than any novel I've ever read, all in the context of a rollicking good mystery yarn. Mirabile has an engaging, well-characterized cast - most of whom are hard-working field biologists on a colony planet where something has gone seriously awry with human-imported organisms. Great stuff! My most enthusiastic recommendations (after Dune, natch).
Posted by: G | November 30, 2006 1:31 PM
From Timothy Zahn, I would recommend the Conqueror's trilogy. A first contact goes horribly wrong, and the only chance to save humanity is a bluff.
The Icarus Hunt by Zahn is also really good.
For fluff scifi (I don't always have time or energy at the end of a day to read a dense author like Frank Herbert, despite his brilliance), I would go for Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40K novels, especially the Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn and Ravenor series.
Sandy Mitchel's Ciaphas Cain novels are often histerical, with a cowardly antihero who gets thrust into situations where his best chance to survive is to charge headlong into battle.
Despite the response that some have given Frank Herbert's son and his prequals to Dune, I have really enjoyed them.
Posted by: Robster | November 30, 2006 1:49 PM
China Mieville, seconded. Good stuff there. Probably some of the best new sci-fi I've read.
Also some of my friends are really into Gene Wolfe's stuff, particularly the "Book of the New Sun" and "Book of the Long Sun". Not my personal favourite, but absolutely an interesting writer.
Another vote on the pro-Stephenson side here. I disagree with most everything the reviewer above said; I find his work consistently engaging and innovative and his world-building among the best. Actually liked Cryptonomicon least of the lot, really, which seems unusual. I'd add "Zodiac" to the list above as well; it's an older book of his and less well-known, but still excellent stuff.
Charles Stross is also worth reading. The person who got me reading him described his book "Accelerando" as "the first four pages of 'Snow Crash', except the entire book's like that". Good stuff, especially if you're willing to immerse yourself in it and read it all at one go which is what I did.
And everyone -- and I mean everyone -- should read Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Left Hand of Darkness" if you haven't already.
Posted by: octopod | November 30, 2006 1:54 PM
The best one I have read in years is perhaps fanatasy rather than SF, but it is the trilogy by JOHNATHON STROUD, "The Bartimaeus Trilogy".
Of course start with the first, "The Amulet of Samarkand". The best way to describe this is perhaps that it is an anti-Harry Potter, or if you like, Harry Potter for adults and older kids that get irony.
It is published in a children's series, but everyone I have given it to has loved it, including adults. Usually they have then told me that they offered it to friends or family.
Posted by: bernarda | November 30, 2006 1:55 PM
Although they are classified more as historical fiction, the "People of" series by Kathleen and Michael O'neal Gear are great if you like anthropology and ethnology.
They seem to be well-researched, and when I have read the non-fiction literature on the cultures they use as background they are usually fairly accurate. Unlike Jean Auel.
Posted by: sfreader | November 30, 2006 2:07 PM
I've seen Stephen in the thread a couple of times already and I must recommend him as well for his Manifold Trilogy. They're three different novels that examine different possible answers to the Fermi Paradox. They all contain the same characters, each in a different universe. Very good hard sci-fi. Each novel is both thematically different and examines a different part of science. The books are Manifold: Time, Manifold: Space, and Manifold: Origin.
Posted by: Akusai | November 30, 2006 2:10 PM
Not new, but my perennial vote for (at least) best first contact novel is Niven and Pournelle's "Mote in God's Eye."
I would call the moties my favorite aliens in all of scifi. How could anyone NOT like Crazy Eddie?
Posted by: Baratos | November 30, 2006 2:12 PM
A fantasy series with an interesting take on atheism is Jennifer Fallon's Second Sons series... the first one is "Lion of Senet." There is no god (well, Goddess, in this case) and the priestess-in-chief knows it; but she uses her astronomical knowledge to predict eclipses, etc. and make the hoi polloi think she has divinely-granted powers. Hijinks ensue...
Posted by: RedMolly | November 30, 2006 2:13 PM
Bah, forgot the quote tags. First sentence is by someone else.
Posted by: Baratos | November 30, 2006 2:13 PM
Second Richard Morgan. I think "Broken Angels" can work well as a stand alone, and makes an ideal gift for anyone getting off on warporn - enough violence to sate any perversion, and cynical enough about it to put you off the genre.
Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | November 30, 2006 2:20 PM
David, I agree with you 100% on 'The Wasp Factory'. I enjoyed 'complicity' too - great kinky sex!
I think Banks' Sci-Fi is great. so conceptual you couldn't really make a film of it. Is this an acid test for good sci-fi?
Posted by: Rich | November 30, 2006 2:23 PM
I found John C. Wright's Golden Age series absolutely dazzling. In fact, it got me back into reading sci-fi. I love books that are so full of inventive ideas that it's worth the 50+ pages of saying "Huh?" before you figure out what's going on. I wish I could find more of them. Of course, I did read it soon after the birth of our son, so the sleep deprivation might have hindered my capacity to quickly understand what was going on.
Posted by: Jim | November 30, 2006 2:26 PM
China Miéville, seconded. Also M. John Harrison, though his best SF novel (The Centauri Device) seems out of print.
Best recent thing I've read recently is Justina Robson's Mappa Mundi. I look forward to reading her Natural History, which has gotten rave reviews, soon.
Folks who loved Heinlein when they were growing up should definitely check out John Scalzi's Old Man's War (and its sequel The Ghost Brigades) ... military SF w/ a humanist soul (aside from the bizarre intrusion of the "accommodationist politician" in the first).
I also loved Paul Cornell's convoluted time-travel novel British Summertime, which took a long time to get an american release. Why are so many of the best SF writers these days British?
Posted by: Jim Flannery | November 30, 2006 2:29 PM
Iain M. Banks for definite (although a couple are a bit iffy): Use of Weapons is one of the best constructed books around. I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Excession, though.
I'll add my vote for Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton (but he can go on a bit...) and Richard Morgan.
I like The Saga of Seven Suns, apart from the idea that humans could cross-breed with the aliens - that spoils it for me.
Posted by: Graham Douglas | November 30, 2006 2:32 PM
Both of Alfred Bester's novels. I just discovered these recently but they are must-reads for anyone into speculative fiction.
The Stars My Destination
The Demolished Man (first Hugo winner, 1953)
The Vintage reprints are expensive, but excellent.
Posted by: nocturnation | November 30, 2006 2:37 PM
There is a back-in-time novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, "The Difference Engine". What if computers had been developed in 19th century Britain?
A bit more in the fantasy department is Ishmael Reed's "Mumbo-Jumbo". A bit of voodoo.
Not SF, but if you are interested in academia, there is Ishmael Reed's "Japanese Spring" and Stephan L. Carter's "The Emperor of Ocean Park".
Posted by: bernarda | November 30, 2006 2:37 PM
I'm still surprised I bothered to read Perdido Station (Mieville) all the way thru. I thought it was an awful book.
To add to the good list:
Karl Schroeder
Pamela Dean (not your usual sorts of fantasy)
Charles Sheffield
Jack Vance, especially two trilogies: Lyoness and Araminta Station. Excellent books.
Steve
Posted by: Steve | November 30, 2006 2:47 PM
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Joan Slonczewski, a practicing biologist; A Door Into Ocean and The Brain Plague are good starters. Nancy Kress writes a lot of interesting science-premise-based SF, e.g., Beggars in Spain and Maximum Light. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy -- especially the first, Red Mars -- is great science-based terraforming / planetary colonization, and a lot of his stuff is credibly science-based. Kathleen Ann Goonan's Queen City Jazz and Mississippi Blues did nanotech & her The Bones of Time is about cloning.
Posted by: Laura Quilter | November 30, 2006 2:52 PM
I'll second the recommendations for Cormac McCarthy's The Road (which I just finished) and Pynchon's Against the Day (which I just started, so far so good). Completely different stories, but they seem to go together.
Posted by: Don | November 30, 2006 2:54 PM
Rich - in case you didn't know, two of Iain Banks' mainstream books have been filmed: 'Complicity' was released in 2000, and 'The Crow Road' was done as a UK TV miniseries in 1996. I don't think anyone's dared to do one of his Iain M. Banks books yet, however...
Posted by: David Kirkpatrick | November 30, 2006 3:03 PM
Anything by Robert Charles Wilson or Will McCarthy. No apologies for being vague, I haven't found a bad by them yet.
Avoid Stephenson's Baroque trilogy. I haven't, and will never, read the third book. The first two were so bad, and so long. I liked the first half of the first book for its portrayal of the Royal Society. Other than that -- poo.
Posted by: Philip Downey | November 30, 2006 3:04 PM
Lots of wonderful recommendations in the thread. I hope I don't repeat any of them.
Walter Jon Williams' "Dread Empire's Fall novels". Novels set in a multispecies empire (with humans as a high but not the highest member) which starts to crumble after the founding species dies out. It feels a lot like 18th century Britain in its social structure, and the technology encourages the feel of "Horatio Hornblower in Space"
Naomi Norvik has a trio of novels, speaking of which, set in an alternate Napoleonic era with dragons, yes, dragons, as bonded to human fliers air corps. Book One sets the stage, book two brings the main characters to China for a very different view of the Dragon-human relationship. I haven't read Book three...yet.
And let me plug my friend Elizabeth Bear's "Jenny Casey novels" (Hammered is the first, Scardown and Worldwired complete the set). Near future America and Canada beset by Global climate change, the emergence of an AI, a broken US, oh, and yes, the discovery of an alien space craft on Mars by the Canadians and Chinese, and attempts to reverse engineer it...
Posted by: Paul | November 30, 2006 3:04 PM
Another vote for Richard Morgan, particularly the first in the series, Altered Carbon. While written in the style of Philip Marlowe, it really deals well with how your perspective changes when you can't die, as long as you have enough money to afford a new body.
And I think the PZ'rs of the world would appreciate the ramifications of the clash between religion and science when science has defeated death... In the book, devout catholics are not allowed to be r