So where are the good currently writing science fiction authors?

[kierthos]

I'm serious here. I grew up reading Heinlein and some Asimov (I have trouble getting into some of his stories), and a few other good science-fiction authors.

But the majority of it was from the 50s, 60s and early 70s.

For the life of me, I cannot think of the last "recently published" science fiction I could get into other then David Gerrold's "War Against the Chtorr" books, and even that's pushing the boundaries of "recently published", as the fourth (aka the most recent) book came out in 1993.

Is it because we actually have computers and cell phones and video phones and shit like that? I mean, hell, they just did the first test of an actual flying car the other day. But is that the big reason? Because a lot of the tech that Heinlein and others talked about is here? I mean, sure, we don't have commercial rocket ships flying tourists on intergalactic cruises, or humanoid robots serving us coffee at Starbucks (yet), but we do have what amounts to near instantaneous communication around the world, and practically a day doesn't go by without some new weird toy, tool, or device coming out of Japan. (And amazingly only about 30% of them seem to show what remarkable perverts the Japanese are.)

Or it just that I'm looking in the wrong bookstores? I don't want more J. Random Author's take on insignificant character from Star Wars. I don't want another Star Trek book. Where's the good science fiction? I can't fucking swing a dead rat without hitting a halfway decent sword-and-sorcery book (or a dead flea without hitting some crap trying to foist itself off on a post-Harry Potter society), but that's not what I'm looking for.

Suggestions as to authors I should look at? Anyone?

Comments

[mierandra.livejournal.com]

My husband would be better for this than I am, but have you read the Honor Harrington series by David Weber?

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Only one of the books. I think it's the one that mithras appears in.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Harrington isn't really SF, per se. It's a very, very thin veil on Age Of Sail setup - the similarity in Harrington's name to Horatio Hornblower's is not even the slightest bit coincidental.

Not that they're *bad*, mind, but they strike me much more as fluffy Sailing Adventure Military Stories than traditional SF.

[morinon.livejournal.com]

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are good. Also, David Brin, Greg Bear, Steven Barnes, and I've heard good things about Brenda Cooper.

[morinon.livejournal.com]

Also: Stephen Baxter.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

*nod* I've read some Niven. I like his Ringworld stuff. And Stephen Baxter sounds familiar. I'll have to check out some of the other authors you mentioned.

[manywaters.livejournal.com]

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller's Liaden series. Start with Crystal Soldier/Crystal Dragon. Most of it's out of print thanks to publisher hijinks (they were going to get a massmarket reissue this year but thank you recession, that's been tabled), but I have PDFs that I can send you in the meantime.

One of my favourite books is Mirabile, by Janet Kagan, which was a gift from mithras. Admittedly it's old, but damned good.

Empire of Man series by David Weber & John Ringo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Man)

I always liked Anne McCaffrey's Brainships books and the universe it shares with the Crystal Singer novels, but she's not really writing anything like that anymore. Ditto with the Talent books.

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

I occasionally poke my head on Tor.com to see what's coming out from their authors and io9.com has book rviews every now and again.

[delwin.livejournal.com]

Living luminaries of Sci-Fi:
Harry Harrison
David Webber
Neal Stephenson
William Gibson
Orson Scott Card
Larry Niven

Dead:
Roger Zelazny - If you like Heinline and Azamov you'll love Zelazny.

Lesser known authors:
Kelly McCullough
Kim Stanley Robinson
E.E. Knight
Lilith Saintcrow

I've found however that a lot of sci-fi has moved into 'present day' science fiction. These tend to be far more fantasy than science fiction but you get things like Kim Harrison et all.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Run, do not walk, away from Orson Scott Card.

[morinon.livejournal.com]

OSC is fine so long as you only read some of his stuff, and keep him the hell away from my already established comics characters.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Ender's Game is an objectively fantastic book. The man is an asshole and the rest of his cash cow books suck, but Ender's Game should be read.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Ender's Game is an adolescent revenge fantasy based on the principles that the Nazis were right about everything (all the way down to basics of biology), that dissent is treason, morality is weakness, and that the sad, weak, unworthy people will hate and fear the few individuals who will do what is necessary to save them.

And that this savior? Is Hitler. And the threat he's saving the unworthy people who do not appreciate him from? Are Jews. And at the start of the second book, he fakes his own death and escapes to Planet Brazil.

Ender's Game is sick. I can easily see why adolescent nerds like it - it feeds right into their persecution fantasies and the underserved entitlement complexes that lead to Libertarian "thinking", "fans are slans", Nice Guy(tm)ism, and the completely unmerited delusion that some day they will have their revenge because they're inherently better.

But that doesn't make it a good book.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

So, what you're saying is that you don't much like it, right?

(This is not what I took away from the book, but I suppose I can see how you could. Not so much with Ender, actually, as with Paul...)

[jdack.livejournal.com]

You should check out John Scalzi. He's very reminiscent of Heinlein. And there's some free versions of his stuff around and about.

I'd start with Old Man's War. First in a series.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'll second John Scalzi. Conveniently, "Old Man's War" is available as a free e-book download from tor.com

Also, you should check out Charles Stross. I'd suggest NOT starting with Halting State, though, even it's the most traditionally SF of the stuff he's written recently - the writing style is *quite* odd in that book.

Warrren Ellis' "Crooked Little Vein" is kind of a twisted, fucked-up near-future SF.

CJ Cherryh, both for the older work (Chanur series) and the newer (Foreigner).

Robert Charles Wilson's "Spin".

In fact, why not grab the Hugo nom list for the last decade and work your way through that?

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Another couple of votes for Bear and Stephenson. Neither of them have written a book that I dislike, and many of them have just been awesome, hardcore sci-fi.

[jimcyl.livejournal.com]

For awesomely bad train-wreck you don't want to look but you can't turn away, check out John Ringo (google for "Oh John Ringo, No!" and you'll see what I mean).

For more serious sci-fi, I'd recommend Alastair Reynolds and Iain Banks, and perhaps Dan Simmons as well.

[razelore.livejournal.com]

I would highly suggest David Brin, the Uplift series is incredible. If you want seriously fucked up you have to read Philip K. Dick. Neal Stephenson is awesome as well, and has one of my favorite quotes, "The Deliverator's engine had enough potential energy to fire a pound of bacon into the asteroid belt."

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

Steven Gould (all you can find of his, read)
Mike Resnick
Harry Harrison (Stainless Steel Rat and others)
Harry Turtledove (mostly alt-history fiction and fantasy, some sci-fi)
David Weber (some of them)
Michael Marshall Smith (Highly recommend "Only Forward")
Will McCarthy

For some reason I like Kevin J Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns series, but oh good god some of his other works are so astoundingly bad.

Anne McCaffrey has a bunch of series, some in the sci-fi. I liked reading the "Freedom" series.

Dafydd ab Hugh's "Doom" series based on the video game were cute, but failed to go anywhere meaningful. Still, the first two added a nice bit of depth to the games we all know and love.

Niven. ALL of the Known Space series. Any universe that names it's planets "Jinx" "WeMadeIt" "Mount Lookitthat", etc, is worth looking at. A lot of good build-up of a pre-FTL human galactic civilization followed by the introduction of FTL and the subsequent changes. It goes a bit out there at times and the characters can be a bit hard to swallow (and interchangeable for some), but it's still cute. Also his non-KS works are good, particularly Footfall, etc. He's still writing and publishing (or was)

Heinlein are classics, though the characters are template.

Greg Bear has some good ones, and some definite bad ones.

Jerry Pournelle
Steven Barnes
Where they work with Niven it's good, where they work alone? Your call.

S.M. Stirling

David Feintuch, I found it easier to get through all the "Hope" Series than the Honor Harringtons.

John Barnes (duh)

Orson Scott Card (also duh)

Gordon R. Dickson (Dorsai! maybe you can read it)

David Drake (tons)

Pretty much the entirety of Baen Books publishing. There are some gems in there, there are some real craptacular wastes, and there's a portal to billions of other writers. The electronic library is a good way to get E-Books with little-to-no DRM issues.

Then more apocalyptic fiction and the like:
Jeff Long (though he has other stuff)
George R Stewart (Earth Abides)
Z. A. Recht
David Wellington
Brian Keene
David Brin
Pat Frank's Alas Babylon, old but good.
and of course, the wiki list of a ton of apoc/post-apoc works (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction)

[morinon.livejournal.com]

Niven has another book in his Puppeteer series (subset of KS) coming out in October.

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

Nifty. Always did love the puppeteer novels, especially their reactions to the core explosion.

[hartley.livejournal.com]

More votes for:

Orson Scott Card (ESPECIALLY the Ender series)
Mike Resnick (and not just because he's a family friend)

Also:
Julie Czernada

[(Anonymous)]

I hope with the Ender's series you are including the Shadow series...

Actually, I wasn't.

[hartley.livejournal.com]

It reads more like "political thriller" than "science fiction" to me.

Still good, but not the same genre at all. Just because it's in the future doesn't make it science fiction.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

I'm utterly shocked that nobody's recommended Vernor Vinge here. His "Fire Upon the Deep" and "Deepness in the Sky" are instant classics.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that, re-reading the thread, I don't see Lois McMaster Bujold.

Or Haldeman's "Forever War".

[publius1.livejournal.com]

As much as you hate Ender's Game? That's how much I hate "The Forever War".

And Bujold, while wonderful, is Honor Harrington-esque in terms of "light" SF.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

But I was still surprised to see that neither had been suggested.