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Of course, we all know what this really means....

Holy missed Iain M. Banks reference, batman!

Greg Egan - best ideas ever. I'm currently re-re-reading Diaspora
Charles Stross - fun. I read Accelerando (free book!), then bought all his other stuff and wasn't disappointed.
Richard Morgan - really likes his Lone Genetically Modified Male protagonists, but luckily he does them well enough for it not to get old.
Alastair Reynolds - the Revelation Space universe is one of my favourites.
Iain (M.) Banks - The Culture novels are quite interesting, and his other books aren't bad either.

Honourable mentions:

Peter Watts - all his books appear to be online. Blindsight is very, very good, but I've not read much else from him yet.
Greg Bear - some of his older works are among my favourites. Queen of Angels, Slant (literally "/") and Moving Mars are one of my favourite trilogies. I'm behind on his newer stuff though, and his latest "terrorist thriller" makes me suspicious.

Iain Banks is right! Ever notice lately how everything is always postulated in the binary mode (i.e., either Stross or Hawking)???? Etc., etc., etc. There are far more choices in the universe than just two......

Harbouring what form of life exactly.

Stroller.

Good to see the Idirians are contributing peacefully to the Galaxy once again...

I seem to remember it being titled "Ringworld"

Funny. I thought it was titled Consider Phlebas. ;-)

Oops, typo. I should have said Iain M Banks .

He is just brilliant - totally reinvented, or is that reinvigorated, SF. You don't believe me? Try "Consider Phlebas", "Excession", or "Look to Windward"..

Now, the REAL accomplishment would be to produce the movie in second person. :)

I've read a book that was written in both first and second person - somewhat unsurprisingly, it was written by a certain Iain [M.] Banks... :-)

Once Nivens wordiness is removed Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers would make GREAT sfx movies.

Halo gives a hint of how good the concept is visually.

On the literary front I think Niven suffered horrendously from his collaborations with Pournelle. The books make good intro sci-fi but read like childrens fiction now. I also think that Gentry Lee diluted ACC's work to a childlike level.

Any way imho Iain M Banks writes THE best modern Sci-Fi.

The author Iain M. Banks has discussed this issue throughout his "Culture" series of books. He suggests that perhaps there are galazy spanning civilisations out there, but that they are evolved enough to leave us alone until we reach a level as a species where we can be considered for inclusion in the galactic community.

Why would they need to do anything as unsubtle as establishing moonbases when they could have invisible ships 30 kms long able to control every single tv screen on this planet from outside the orbit of Jupitor? :)

In fact, one of his short stories from the collection The State of the Art is about what happens when the Culture use Earth as part of a control group. An excellent read.

Of course this is sci-fi but you get the drift. If anyone is interested I would go as far as saying that for thought provoking Sci-Fi, Iain M. Banks is the man to beat at the moment.

Here he is in an interview at scifi.com talking about his writing. And here is the man with a few introductory notes on the Culture for the unitiated - I just picked this site from the top of google so I hope they don't mind me posting here :P

The author Iain M. Banks has discussed this issue throughout his "Culture" series of books. He suggests that perhaps there are galazy spanning civilisations out there, but that they are evolved enough to leave us alone until we reach a level as a species where we can be considered for inclusion in the galactic community.

Why would they need to do anything as unsubtle as establishing moonbases when they could have invisible ships 30 kms long able to control every single tv screen on this planet from outside the orbit of Jupitor? :)

In fact, one of his short stories from the collection The State of the Art is about what happens when the Culture use Earth as part of a control group. An excellent read.

Of course this is sci-fi but you get the drift. If anyone is interested I would go as far as saying that for thought provoking Sci-Fi, Iain M. Banks is the man to beat at the moment.

Here he is in an interview at scifi.com talking about his writing. And here is the man with a few introductory notes on the Culture for the unitiated - I just picked this site from the top of google so I hope they don't mind me posting here :P

I really hope they make some Iain M Banks books into movies. They might be a bit long, but the imagery is fantastic!

Now if they could come up with something like that I'd be impressed :)

• Ian M. Banks (the Culture stuff - not the fantasy stuff)

• Kage Baker (The Company Series is rather fun).

• William Gibson ... obviously.

• Greg Egan
• Iain (M.) Banks
• Alistair Reynolds
• Ken MacLeod
• Richard Morgan
• Peter F. Hamilton
• Plus one of the old masters back at work: M. John Harrison

All of these SF books are pretty good. He writes pretty good fiction as well.

Reading "Consider Phlebas" (title is a nod to T S Eliot's "The Waste Land") right now.

The Culture series of Iain Banks is a good example of future of AI in SciFi, and also integration of this with "normal" humans. I readed only the first 3 of the serie (Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games and Use of Weapons) and they are excelent.