science fiction
Out of context: Reply #52
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- detritus0
Arthur C Clarke's a great conceptualist, but wrote like an autist living in his mother's basement in Dulwich. It's like he picked up some pulp guide on how to write books from the late 40s then never really moved on.
Don't get me wrong, his books are fantastic, they're just turgidly one dimensional when it comes to the human element.
Samesame with one of my favourite random sci-fi books - 'The Killing Star' by Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski - it's one of the most well-described, reasoned descriptions of a first contact event.. but it's written by engineers.
My favourite ever sci-fi writer is beyond question Iain M. Banks. Stupidly high concept space opera with characterisation you actually invest yourself in. Violence, humour, drugs, socialist utopianism, uber tech and AIs off the rails.
Just finished Dune, by Frank Herbert - seriously regretted not reading this my entire life. For some reason, I'd always assumed it was going to be shit. It wasn't.
Other authors I'd recommend are Stanislaw Lem (for totally unique, lushly described worlds), Neal Stephenson, Dan Simmons, Margaret Atwood, Neal Asher and Alistair Reynolds. When I was a kid I loved Greg Bear - though re-reading them now, I find his books a little too entrenched in simplistic Cold War polarism.
I still don't know what to make of Philip K Dick. I'll always read his shit, but never really know what had just happened when I finish them.
Oh - Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land is a must-read - it, like Lem before it, says more about society than it does about science.
- Wow. Same situation with me and Dune recently. Always hated Greg Bear...TheBlueOne
- ..and I think that's the way you are supposed to feel with Philip K. Dick. Feature, not bug.TheBlueOne
- Asimov is similarly emotionless.ximeraLabs
- stranger in strange land = classiiiiiiicdoesnotexist