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Don't forget the Strugatsky brothers!

I can't possibly do justice to the series here, but I will say that he namechecks Slashdot. Check him out -- his books are absolutely incredible.

No no. It's spelled Hoka. Not sure it's vodka, but it's said to have a kick.

I guess that by "really weird book" you mean The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke?

I guess that by "really weird book" you mean The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke?

Anyone else remember the "Cities in Flight" novels by James Blish? Whole cities lifting off from the Earth, off to find brave new worlds... Blish not only wrote many of the Star Trek novels, he wrote dozens of sci-fi books over about 4 decades.

Incidentally, this is exactly what Charles Sheffield proposed in the 70s. Very good book. The side benefit is that you have a fairly closed system. The only energy expense after startup is friction and the net (yes, net) load from earth.

Reminds me of this novel where there's an organzation that won't finance something unless it's crazy and has no chance of succeeding. I believe its motto was Bread cast upon water multplies sevenfold. In the novel the organization finances a novel way of communicating between Earth and starships.

Apart from the smells induced by the bright idea of a curry for dinner, there also come to be chunks of poo floating around when someone fails to use the zero-g toilet properly. You see, poo don't fall down without gravity. Ahem.

Sounds like Stasheff's We Open On Venus

Basic premiss is that there is a planet in another solar system that is entirely covered with hydrocarbon gas. They use quantum black holes to pull it far enough from the sun for it to cool down, which allows them to collect the liquids in different oceans. Pretty good read.

Unfortunately, most Sci-Fi writers fall into two categories:

Two categories that I suspect you would define as crap. Always remember, 90% of everything is crap.

Taking the "human condition" to the extreme.

It's a common technique in fiction to try and distill down something "pure" about humanity, to reveal things hidden by day-to-day life. Typically this is done by creating an unusual setting to eliminate reader's preconceived notions. You might do this by trapping children on an island, sending someone to fictional lands, or having animals play the parts of humans. That you might set people into a future distopia or future utopia doesn't change the basic technique.

Futures where sex is the only thing driving humanity.

Geez, as a kid I sought out the slightly racier sci-fi and I never saw anything that bad. Sure, I saw books that had alot of sex in them (looks to Heinlein), but where it's the only driving force? Perhaps you're confusing erotica set in a sci-fi setting with the wide variety of sci-fi options.

I hate to break it to the authors, but this sort of society would quickly degrade due to a lack of scientific focus. Not to mention that human feelings on the subject are actually pretty immutable. (No matter what anyone says.)

I hate to break it to you, but many people would argue that lots of human advancement is the indirect result of a desire for nookie. Even ignoring the iffy assumption that human feelings are immutable, if they are immutable they are immutable in that people want sex; not real complicated.

Most of them have space travel as a background to get to a fantasy-like world.

Heaven above, was your reading limited to erotica and Stasheff? Yes, there is alot of great sci-fi that doesn't fit into these two categories. Did Heinlein, Clarke, Orwell, and Asimov never exist? What in the world are you looking for?

Personally, I thought Heinlen's juveniles were the best examples of Sci-Fi.

Oh, that's what you're looking for. Boy's adventure stories and pulp adventure. Great stuff, I enjoy them myself, but it's an amazingly small subset of sci-fi. Sci-fi includes a wide variety of writing, just like historical fiction, fantasy, or modern stories.

You can read Light of Other Days by Bob Shaw for an answer :^)

--See, this is why we need to start terraforming and developing other planets. On a lower-gravity planet, jetpacks might actually be feasible.

--Read Larry Niven's The Smoke Ring sometime. (And enjoy the front-cover picture.)

Also, Robert Forward's Dragon's Egg and Starquake.

(Flamebait: And I don't know why he's talking about "his" genre. The Callahan books aren't SF; they're Chicken Soup for the Geek's Soul.)

Huh? OK, I'll flame. Spider Robinson has written a couple of things other than the Callahan series: here's the first bibliography Google hit that looked promising. His novels and short stories are almost all unarguably science fiction. If you're going to comment on Robinson's qualifications, you might want to find out about his work first.

Read Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven

Seriously, what you're describing sounds like an end to scarcity, for the basics at least, and that doesn't sound too bad.

There's a great short story by Maureen McHughtitled "A Coney Island of the Mind" (the title was taken from Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poem) that riffs on this idea -- it's set in a virtual Coney Island. Can't seem to find the anthology it appeared in...

Ian Watson's Novels

An Interview with Ian Watson

Ian Watson's Bibliography

Science Fiction Weekly Interview

Well, I just got back in town and have arrived on this topic a bit late, so forgive me for not reading all four pages of posts. I got .25 of the way down the first page and got tired of reading about NEAL Stephenson (whose books I have enjoyed enough to read more than once). Somone mentioned Marion Zimmer Bradley, but I did not see The Mists Of Avalon, but I'm sure you have already read this (based on your original post claiming to have read just about every Arthuran tale :P).

A couple of my favorite authors are Tad Williams (his books) and Mickey Zucker Reichert, check her chronological bio (complete with books) here and a nice book listing here (has book covers).

Tad Williams has a tendency to be quite wordy, especially in the Otherland series, but if you are a fan of detailed worlds, be sure to check him out. I would suggest starting with the Memory, Sorrow And Thorn series. As for Reichert, I can only attest to the Renshai books (pretty good IMO) and the first of the Bifrost Guardians (having never finished the series due to some distraction which I can not remember).

Should you feel the need for something different and wish to try some straight fiction, try Richard Russo of which, Straight Man is my favorite. Very witty and a great read.

To wrap things up, you may want to check out Gnod. Just search for an author and you'll get a kind of cool mapping of suggested reads based on your search. I haven't examined this site to see how accurate the suggestions are, but it looks like it may have potential.

Regardless of which authors you choose out of all these posts, I hope you find some fresh content that can keep you going. I always find myself in the same situation you described where I tend to just cycle through all of my books. Good luck on your search!

I enjoyed his take on the Arthurian legends. The style is lyrical and mystic, and thoroughly enjoyable.

1. The Dragon and the Unicorn (1994)
2. The Eagle and the Sword (1997)
3. The Wolf and the Crown (1998)
4. The Serpent and the Grail (1999)

I wish he would continue the story. A A Attanasio Bibliography. I picked up "The Dragon and the Unicorn" in a grocery store check-out line of all places. It sat unread for a couple of years, and then much like you I started hunting for things to read. After reading the book, I immediately went to the local bookstore and bought the series, one after the other.

Great game, so much fun, and surprisingly full of stuff to do and explore. Or maybe it was just because I was like 8 years old.

In any case, I loved that game so much that I bought the book. There's an entire series, in fact. The book really explains what was going on in the game. It's an interesting read if you're a Below the Root fan. ... You broke your Shuba!

Thanks, I think I'll check that out... on another note, the Gateway series by Fredrick Pohl (writeup) deals with a lot of the same topics... not as much in the first book, but the "computerized human" idea really takes off in the second book... the series is a quick read, but I enjoyed it.

So, here's my question: Does anyone who has read him have a suggestion on which book would be a good one as a first read? Not necesarrily his best (as that might include his series) but a single novel or collection that would give me a feel for his work and let me know if I would like to dig further into his collected works.

Thanks

Am I the only person who really wants us to go back to the moon?
No sir, no you are not. I think that, while the one space station has it's advantages, I'd rather the money that might go towards any US space station v3.0 project, go instead towards research towards putting together a livable habitat for use on the moon.
That way, we can all start a lucrative career as Space Pirates.

There's a cool early cyberpunk story by William Gibson along the same lines. The setting is a one on one between a gamer kid and an ex fighter pilot for a bar championship... kinda remebered from long ago. "Dogfight", I think maybe.

Or am I too old for anyone to catch this reference?

There is more info about the author, Bob Shaw here.

Orbitsville also won 3rd Prize in the 1976 John W. Campbell award for science fiction.