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/lit/ - Literature

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863954 No.863954 [Reply] [Original]

Quality sci fi thread

Lets go with recent books. Dont come up with the eternal Dune, Fahrenheit etc.

>> No.863961

Dan Simmons is pretty damn good, but by the end of the fourth book it was all starting to look like a farce. if i were Raul Endymion and they asked me to do as many fucked-up things with no explanation, i would have walked into the swamp ten pages into book 3.

>> No.863977

Fact: Science fiction is shit since 1990

>> No.863978

Sorry, but you're going to narrow it down further than just 'sci fi'. Any particular qualities or aspects or sub-genres? I just can't do anything with 'sci fi', it's too broad.

>> No.863985

>>863961
Gold.
first two books are ok, third book is shite, fourth book will make you want to have simmons killed

>> No.863989

>>863978
git. don't do anything then. go away

>> No.863994

>>863989
lol k.

have fun getting recommended dune 9000 times because nobody on here actually reads science fiction.

>> No.864000

>>863994
alright, point made. But almost all the scifi that does come up is junk like the American Gods or Hyperion threads on right now.

>> No.864003

Isaac Asimov

yeah, I know, its fucking old

>> No.864004

as in, it's writing, not lit, and should be taken back to amazon

>> No.864013

>>864003

Nothing wrong with old. Asimov is good, provided you get the right Asimov, cos he wrote everything from highbrow shit like The End of Eternity to penny-dreadfuls like Lucky Starr, Space Ranger!

Larry Niven is great, no one does planet-scale or bigger engineering and orbital mechanics like him

James Blish is also good. Pieces of Heinlein, though it gets a bit wack

>> No.864015

>>864000
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I just can't deal with a request for SCIENCE FICTION all caps, the same way I can't deal with 'TELL ME BOOKS TO READ.' I need something to think about and remember books by, I guess.
>>864003
SEE IT IS MY CASE IN POINT. No one on /lit/ actually reads sci-fi, outside of Clarke / Asimov / Herbert, maybe Heinlein and a couple other 50s / 60s authors, and Enders books.
>>864004
you realize that 'literature' has always referred on /lit/ to pretty much any form of the written word, that literature is not really a meaningful coherent objective category, and that /lit/ has always had substantial discussion of sf&f, correct?

>> No.864028

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award

Good place to start?

>> No.864033

>>864015

Yes, I realise, but that doesn't mean I accept people coming in and telling me how good hyperion is, or stuff of that low quality. I enjoyed it when I was 16, and wouldn't now. I tend to find the same with most modern sci-fi. It's lacking something, possibly a simple ability to write - hence my comment

>> No.864037

>>864028
Absolutely. The Hugo is a surprisingly good judge of quality, and I would say that all of the awards and nominees are at least worth looking into.

>> No.864039

>>864028

True, The Dispossessed by Le Guin is fkn gold. Mb start there :)

>> No.864057

hahaha, and David Brin has won Hugos. Can't write to save himself, that man. Stories aren't awful, should stick to children's lit

>> No.864063
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864063

This thread is now about classic Sci-Fi

>> No.864066

>>864063
Skylark series.

>> No.864069

>>864063
This thread is now about classic Sci-Fi like EVERY OTHER SCIFI THREAD ON /lit/ EVER, I MEAN THIS LITERALLY AND AM NOT KIDDING EVEN ONE BIT. LOOK AT MY FACE DO I LOOK LIKE IM JOKING.

>>864057
you have to understand that the critical standards in science fiction are inevitable somewhat different. Brin won, not for classical literary excellence, but for very good world building, interesting take on hard sci-fi concepts, and to a certain extent for 'meta' reasons - his ability to redeem space opera as a tendency, and his position as a member of a younger generation

>> No.864077

Blindsight by Peter Watts

Google it, it's available on his website for free. There is no excuse for a science fiction lover not to read it.

It's philosophical poison.

>> No.864085
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864085

>>863954
There you go, OP.

>> No.864088

>>864085
oh yeah robert charles wilson is awesome as hell, i really dug 'the chronoliths'

He's one of those authors who really writes books with similar structures over and over - in his case, bizarre event with world-wide implications and no known explanation occurs, and we follow these changes through the lives of individuals - family or friends - who live their lives effected by the event, but who are also quite close to the event itself, and may even find out the cause eventually.

>> No.864092

>>864088
Anoter author like this is Ian McDonald - who writes novels featuring a large cast of characters in a developing nation in the near future, dealing with modernization and new technologies while still holding on to tradition. the characters' lives are mysteriously intermingled and their stories come together.

Quite good, though.