/lit/ - Literature

How about some genre - Lovecraft, or Thomas Disch The Genocides.

Well, Tom Disch, M John Harrison, Sam Delany, I suppose

What's so satisfying about Borges is that he explores so fully the premise of his short stories. Everything has a meaning, and every meaning is dissected to the bone by himself. Only a few writers manage to do that. Off the top of my head I can only think of Thomas Disch, although the style and subject have nothing to do with Borges.

If you want a feel for older SF authors with actual personality, the list goes on and on: Olaf Stapeldon, Leigh Brackett, Walter M. Miller Jr, John Wyndham, PKD, Walter Tevis, Harlan Ellison, Thomas Disch, John Brunner, Samuel Delany, JG Ballard, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. LeGuin, Jon Crowley, etc.

Anyone who shoots you something by Clarke or Asimov as an example of the best the genre has to offer probably has not read much science fiction. As for Heinlein, he definitely had character, but was so obnoxiously abrasive.

I'd consider this a fantasy, really. The science in it, especially as it relates to energy, economics and agriculture is more like paranoid rambling than any actual projection. It's a fun book to read though, just way way off on a lot of it's assumptions. Sort of like if Phil Dick were writing Ayn Rand.

That said, try some Tom Disch, or some George Alec Effinger, and especially anything you can find by either Tim Powers or Raphael Carter, who really know how to do this stuff right. K.W. Jeter is also pretty good, and you might like Diamond Age and Snow Crash, since they have similar unrealistic economics and energy science but colorful stories anyway.

>>3632019
It's great. I think it in part inspired Anathem but I think Anathem is also on some other shit but also I have strange views about Anathem.

>>3632026
off the top of my head - Sam Delany, The Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. Tom Disch, Camp Concentration. Vrs works of Michael Bishop and James Tiptree and RA Lafferty and Gene Wolfe.

>>3608090
It's a short story; most of Sturgeon's best work was. It's here, if you want it: http://strangehorizons.com/2009/20090413/lostsea-f.shtml

I don't know if I'd say it's similar to Bester; just from the same era, and quite good. If you want things that are similar to Bester, I think you mostly have to look somewhat later, to the New Wave and Cyberpunk, who had a somewhat similar style. John Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar, the work of Harlan Ellison, definitely Disch, probably Zelazny, and then maybe go from there.

I don't think Brian Aldiss is obscure at all, but I don't see him mentioned here very often. So uhh, Brian Aldiss.
Thomas M Disch, A E van Vogt, Adam Roberts. I'm not really sure how obscure these guys are, but again, rarely mentioned here (or I just haven't chanced to come here when they are)
Nesfa press has published a lot of short story collections/omnibus editions of novels from older sf authors; people I had heard from only rarely or not at all. I've only dipped into Russell and Tenn at the moment, but I like them both.
Glen Cook is invariably known by his fantasy work - mostly Black Company, sometimes Dread Empire or Garrett files - but I think his sf novels (Dragon Never Sleeps and Passage at Arms) just may be his best work

>>3590521
It's a shame Lafferty is so consistently out of print. At least Hodgson and Lindsay are - or have recently been - in print...

>>3558302
Are you fucking kidding me? Samuel R Delaney, Fritz Leiber (short stories only), PK Dick, Ursula K Leguin, Frederick Pohl, Thomas M Disch, Robert Silverberg are all a million times better then this self indulgent, convoluted piece of sophomoric fantasy. Do yourself a favour and read some real sci fi.

Also JG Ballard is a contemporary, postmodern scifi writer who cannot be ignored.

>>3454919
Barrington J. Bailey
http://fantasticmetropolis.com/i/bkspace/full/

Also a lot of Samuel Delany's stuff, especially Dhalgren, and Triton
Thomas Disch - On Wings of Song
Maureen F. McHugh - China Mountain Zhang

>>3386338
Ted Sturgeon: A good short story collection is probably your best bet, one that includes at least "The Man Who Lost The Sea" and "A Saucer of Loneliness". 1950s/60s science fiction writer, very much of his time in some regards (although way ahead of it in terms of dealing with sexuality in science fiction).

John Crowley: Little, Big. Little, Big. Little, Big. And other than that, Four Freedoms is pretty good. I'm reading the Aegypt sequence right now and it's decent but not as good as Little, Big.

Tom Disch: Camp Concentration is great, but that's all I've read. Also worked as a (fairly serious) poet.

Jack Vance: Extremely pulp, but also great prose. Dying Earth or the Demon Princes series is probably the best place to start. No one does what Vance does better than Vance.

Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast. VERY highly stylized, extremely distinct, but really good imo.

>>3386292
>Ted Sturgeon. John Crowley. Tom Disch. Jack Vance and Mervyn Peake.

Ted Sturgeon. John Crowley. Tom Disch. Jack Vance and Mervyn Peake. That's kind of what springs to my mind, at least.

>>3312544
Well, Ballard is another New Wave writer, so you might try any of the New Wave writers I mentioned since they often deal with similar themes; a move from "outer space" to "inner space" was an often-invoked concern for the New Wave writers. Other New Wave writers include Tom Disch (Camp Concentration is a really interesting novel you may enjoy) and Sam Delany. You could also read Bester's Demolished Man and also his short story Fondly Fahrenheit, and a lot of Sturgeon's work. And Tiptree maybe kind of - she was a psychologist and her stories are definitely interesting from a psychological, especially a Freudian, perspective. You might at least check them out and see what you think of the writing.

Other things, you might try Fred Pohl's Gateway, and Michael Bishop's work has a lot of weird psychological stuff. even Ender's Game has interesting psychological elements (whether intentional or not). You might also spend some time at this page and see if anything jumps out at you: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/psychology

>>3187554
Well, it partly depends on your taste, and partly depends on your definition of science fiction.

But I'd probably want to mention at least Harlan Ellison, Sam Delany, John Brunner, Roger Zelazny, James Tiptree, Ursula K Leguin, Walter M Miller, RA Lafferty, Gene Wolfe, Thomas M Disch, M John Harrison, JG Ballard, Brian Aldiss, Bruce Sterling, and Robert Silverberg as being pretty good writers, mostly in the same imaginative class as those you listed.

>>3182238
Light, by M John Harrison. The Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, by Samuel Delany. Camp Concentration by Thomas M Disch. Collected short stories of James Tiptree. Collected short stories of Ted Sturgeon. Collected short stories of Harlan Ellison. This Immortal, by Roger Zelazny. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner. Several works by Brian Aldiss. Collected short stories of Ted Chiang. Collected short stories of Michael Bishop. Stations of the Tide, Michael Swanwick. Work of Ursula K Leguin.

Off the top of my head and incomplete, but I'd say most of that is pretty good.

>>3182222
I don't know what you mean by "transcend the genre" or what you've read so it's hard to say whether I agree with you. But, I mean, it kind of sounds like you're doing the old "anything bad is genre, anything good transcends the genre" thing. What about the New Wave writers? Do they transcend the genre? Sam Delany? M John Harrison? Thomas M Disch?

The phenomenon that you're describing is something that is fading away, and in fact the people who are diehard genre haters on here are in some ways behind the times. Many times I've been defending genre on here (from a literary point of view) and felt that I was saying things that were obvious, faits accompli.

Anyway, to answer your question. Gene Wolfe, without a doubt. RA Lafferty (deceased but v much worth reading). M John Harrison - absolutely a fantastic, talented writer. John Crowley, as someone said - Little, Big is one of my favorite books and he's very much worthwhile from a literary standpoint (even endorsed by Bloom). Most of the Science Fiction New Wave people have some literary interest - certainly, Tom Disch, JG Ballard, Harlan Ellison, John Brunner, Samuel Delany, Brian Aldiss. UKLG. James Tiptree Jr beyond a doubt. That would be at the top of my list (although SF&F is the only genre I read). Then there's a lot of contemporary stuff, although I'm less certain how I feel about a lot of that. Lisa Goldstein, Michael Swanwick and Ted Chiang, are, I think, pretty worthy. And then there's people like Theodora Goss and Cat Valente that I'm less certain about.

Author Thomas M. Disch, died on Friday in his Manhattan apartment. He was 68.

One of Mr. Disch’s best-known works is “The Brave Little Toaster: A Bedtime Story for Small Appliances”

His friend Alice K. Turner said Mr. Disch shot himself. She and other friends told how his apartment had been devastated by a fire; then his partner of more than 30 years died; then his home in Barryville, N.Y., was flooded; and finally, he faced eviction after he returned to the apartment. He also suffered from diabetes and sciatica.

“He was simply ground down by the sequence of catastrophes,”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/books/08disch.html

>>2906056
>Makes me wonder, actually... which sci-fi writers avoid these problems? Are there any out there with literary pizzazz?

Many.

In the 70s, there was a change in science fiction comparable to the one Asimov was a major part of, called the New Wave, which was much more experimental, more interested in "soft science" and more interested in artistic expression than Golden Age science fiction. You should read some of those writers, and people who wrote after that point. In particular, Harlan Ellison, JG Ballard, Tom Disch, and John Brunner for New Wave, and Gene Wolfe, James Tiptree, Michael Bishop, Ursula K Leguin, M John Harrison, and John Crowley.

Also Ted Sturgeon. Siempre Ted Sturgeon.

>>2906056
>Makes me wonder, actually... which sci-fi writers avoid these problems? Are there any out there with literary pizzazz?

Many.

In the 70s, there was a change in science fiction similar to the one Asimov was a major part of, called the New Wave, which was much more experimental, more interested in "soft science" and more interested in artistic expression than Golden Age science fiction. You should read some of that shit, and people who wrote after that point. In particular, Harlan Ellison, JG Ballard, Tom Disch, and John Brunner for New Wave, and Gene Wolfe, James Tiptree, Michael Bishop, Ursula K Leguin, M John Harrison, and John Crowley.

Also Ted Sturgeon. Siempre Ted Sturgeon.

>>2789514
RA Lafferty. No one wrote books like RA Lafferty. Most underappreciated author I know of.

Gene Wolfe is pretty good too, and so is M John Harrison and JG Ballard and Tom Disch, but none of them are as original as Lafferty.

>I think some extraordinary good writers are appearing: Sladek, Malzberg, Disch. I hate to name specific ones, because I'll leave out one that I really like. Ursula LeGuin, for example. I think it is like the twerp fans say. "Gosh, wow!" It is really gosh, wow! Today. People are coming into the field today who are so much better than the older writers. Like Chip Delaney. At one time we had only one writer who was even literate, and that was Ray Bradbury. That's the only one, I swear by God.
>--PKD

RIP

Steampunk is mostly terrible. But that's just my polemic... if you're interested in things like that, you should read Infernal Machines (KW Jeter) and Difference Engine (Gibson & Sterling). Other than that, would recommend you check out Jeff Vandergris' stories, esp City of Saints and Madmen. China Mieville, as others have mentioned. Hal Duncan's Vellum/Ink duology was pretty good. M John Harrison's Viriconium stories might be up your alley.

Outside of those, I would recommend just checking out New Wave Science Fiction and some of its inheritors - writers like JG Ballard, Tom Disch, Michael Moorcock, Michael Bishop, people like that.