Who's the best Sci-fi author?

Everyone's entitled to their own opinions. But the goal of a science fiction writer is to be prophetic. No one tops the three writers I mentioned.

I will definatly take your advice on Stephonson though, thanks!

Originally posted by StreetCorner Philosopher
Everyone's entitled to their own opinions. But the goal of a science fiction writer is to be prophetic. No one tops the three writers I mentioned.

Exactly my point. Most of the technically possible inventions that were predicted have already been invented. The mark of a master of this genre is the ability to step outside convention and offer up something new and original which is why I recommended Neil Stephenson. He is pretty much the only author that I'm aware of to break new ground since Blade Runner and Neuromancer.

Another mark of Great Fiction in general, is the ability of the author to put me into a trance and instead of reading the words I start to "see and hear" the action and the words become silent.

I will defiantly take your advice on Stephenson though, thanks!

You'll love Snow Crash. Everyone does. It also has a generous dose of Psudo-Religious-Techno-Mysticism. Technically it's a Cyberpunk Comedy novel. Here is the synopsis.

www.amazon.co.uk...

Amazon.co.uk Review
From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible. --Acton Lane

Synopsis
In the future the only relief from the sea of logos is the computer-generated universe of virtual reality? But now a strange computer virus, called Snow Crash, is striking down hackers, leaving an unlikely young man as humankind's last hope. This book is shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

The Diamond age is a much different book and is written in the Victorian style. Yeah, a Sci-Fi novel written in the same style the Victorians used. It's also very confusing the get your head around the first time through as he writes in a completely different style depending on whos eyes your "seeing" through. Nell, the Main Character in the book has an ever evolving Point of View as she grows up. It start Childlike and ends up Sophisticated and Shrewed. The Judge is written in a more Humorous tone. Nells father is written in a much more disturbing detached way. I won't ruin it for you as it's integral to the plot but if you read this book twice you will appreciate it if not love it. It grows on you like a fungus.

www.amazon.co.uk...

Amazon.co.uk Review
Decades into the future, near the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neo-Victorians, by making an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer". Seattle Weekly called Stephenson's Snow Crash "The most influential book since ... Neuromancer." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Synopsis
A nanotechnologist, John Hackworth, breaks the moral code of his tribe, the neo-Victorians. He has made an illict copy of a device called "A Young Lady's Primer". Its purpose is to raise and educate a girl capable of thinking for herself, but Hackworth's copy has fallen into the wrong hands.

Also, here is a site you all might be interested in.

Sci-Fi Lists

[edit on 22-3-2007 by sardion2000]

[edit on 22-3-2007 by sardion2000]

[edit on 22-3-2007 by sardion2000]

I appreciate it really. I looked and read the synopsis. It's not my type of story. I just can't dig it.

I'm currently reading "when the sleeper awakes" by H.G Wells. I like dark sci-fi I guess.

But thanks again. Post more reccomendations if you can!

Snow Crash is pretty dark. Most Cyberpunk is very dark at it's core if not on the surface. And it's not HAHA funny, it's more like that's funny cuz it's kinda true. I guess I should say it's more of a Satire rather then a Comedy. It pokes fun at such things as Ted Turner(under a Pseudonym of course), and Television in general.

Here is a much better review.

www.complete-review.com...

Snow Crash is an entertaining read, and we certainly recommend it it -- strongly to those interested in science fiction, but also to those curious about where our world is headed. Stephenson has many interesting thoughts, and he writes engagingly and often well.

This basically sums up my opinion.



[edit on 23-3-2007 by sardion2000]

originally posted by sardion2000 He is pretty much the only author that I'm aware of to break new ground since Blade Runner and Neuromancer.

Iian M Banks has certainly been one of the latest crop of SF authors to have 'broken new ground' imo. Even his general fiction is original, strange, disturbing. Check him out if you havent already. Here's a great interview.

Dominating Banks' SF output is the Culture series, seven loosely linked examinations of how a vast interstellar utopia—in essence human, governed by wise artificial intelligences, post-scarcity, non-propertarian, alluringly hedonistic—conducts itself in the barbaric regions beyond its frontiers. How can utopians avoid arrogance and condescension in their dealings with technologically less developed, hierarchical, sometimes oppressive civilizations? How can they be sure their benign manipulations will yield beneficial fruit?

source

I think William Gibson was an iconoclast when he first arrived on the scene with "Burning Chrome" and still plays outside the box with his current style of current day techno romantic prose.

[edit on 23-3-2007 by whaaa]

Originally posted by whaaa
I think William Gibson was an iconoclast when he first arrived on the scene with "Burning Chrome" and still pushes the box with his current style of current day techno romantic prose.

Each to their own i guess but i never really 'got' Gibson.
Banks, Baxter and Hamilton suck me right in with their style.

Which probably means i'm more of a traditionalist when it comes to sf, the cyberpunk/techno sf leaves me cold.

I'm not a sceintologist, and Heinlein is my fave as with Asimov ( read the I, robot anthology at age 11 and was a confirmed bookworm ever since) but L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth series is fantastic as wall as battle field earth.( the Movie was Horrible IMO) Before L. Ron went insane, he was considered one of the grandfathers of science fiction and was (before his insanity) a friend of R.A.H. ( there is a debate that rages as to weather or not he really wrote Mission earth but it's Very topical , more so now then when it originally came out).
if ya have a month or two it's worth the read

Clarity edit

[edit on 24-3-2007 by thedigirati]

All I have to say is that Arthur C Clarke's 3rd part of his Time oddysey series is being released this year. I CAN'T WAIT ! "Sunstorm" was the best sci fi novel I've read in a long time.

I have always like the Dragonlance series. I have read most scienceificion in the book store. And yet The dragonlance series has always cout my eye.

Margueret Waist and Tracy Hickman (names spelled wrong) Are good writers. Maybe not the best, but they're up there on the list.

Alasdair Reynolds,Ian M Banks,Robert Silverberg,Ursula Le Gunn,David Mitchell,Neil Gaiman,Ben Bova are all brilliant authors as well many classics written by Isaac Asimov,Arthur C Clarke,Philip K Dick,H.G. Wells etc.
One of my favourite though is John Wyndam,hes wrote many great books and short stories.
His novella 'The Chrysalids' is excellent and way ahead of its time.

John Varley's book Mammoth was pretty interesting. Gotta love time travel and mega-fauna, right?

Asimov was a genius.

Really liked the robot trilogy, and robot dreams.

PHILIP KINDRED DICK ! he's the one who opened my eyes. He is God !

I like Bester, Simak and Bradbury, buit nowadays the SF is just an Art Show contest for who's gonna draw the best spacecruiser or motojet...

I'll have finished my own SF novel by the end of summer i guess. It's called " l'appel " (the call in english ) and talks about a post-war world in whic people have given up their freedom in exchange for a law and order state. (((where do i get these ideas???)))

Originally posted by AegisFang
I'm really suprised that no one has mentioned R.A. Salvatore yet. Creator of Drizzt Do'Urden, and series that spans 20 books. He would be my favorite. A close second would be the duo of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman of Dragonlance fame.

YES YES and YES! I also really like Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series.

Originally posted by thedigirati
I'm not a sceintologist, and Heinlein is my fave as with Asimov ( read the I, robot anthology at age 11 and was a confirmed bookworm ever since) but L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth series is fantastic as wall as battle field earth.( the Movie was Horrible IMO) Before L. Ron went insane, he was considered one of the grandfathers of science fiction and was (before his insanity) a friend of R.A.H. ( there is a debate that rages as to weather or not he really wrote Mission earth but it's Very topical , more so now then when it originally came out).
if ya have a month or two it's worth the read

Well, there's no accounting for taste, I guess; I read the first two books in the Mission Earth series and thought they were the most poorly written and thought out sci-fi books I had ever read. In fact, I wondered to myself on several occasions how such an amatuerish bunch of crap could ever get published. But, hey, that's just my opinion.

For me, the best of sci-fi can be found in the works of authors like the following:

R.A. Heinlein - SIASL; The Door into Summer; Time Enough For Love. Also, great collections of short sci-fi, including one of my all-time favorites, The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.

Arthur C Clarke - 2001, A Space Odysee; 2010 Odysee 2; Childhood's End; and short story collections like The Nine Billion Names Of God and Tales From Planet Earth

Larry Niven - The Ringworld Series; The Mote In God's Eye; Destiny's Road

Frank Herbert- Dune; Children of Dune; The God Makers

That's enough for now, although I also enjoy reading the books of Greg Bear, Dan Simmons and Orson Scott Card, as well.