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The first that springs to mind is Ray Bradbury. He's published at least two volumes of poetry with wide ranging subject matter (rather like his fiction, for that mattter). It's not necessarily to everyone's taste in the same sense that his short stories may not be; that is, he's obviously having fun and they're extremely un-pretentious. I enjoyed them.

While I was googling for another name (which I unfortunately couldn't find), I discovered that both Ursula K. LeGuin and Thomas Disch have published poetry. Not sure how technology oriented any of it is. I think I'll be looking for some of it though, especially Disch.

Finally, you may want to check out the Rhysling Awards (also a collection) and Star*Line, the newsletter of the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

It's called "amazon.com".

Seriously, though, my old college library used Amazon when trying to find out information about a book. It has reviews, it's surprisingly complete (considering how many out-of-print books they list), what more could you want?

And, if you're looking mostly at SF, SFSite fulfills many of the functions you list.

In this novel the Columbia breaks up or crashes on re-entry (can't remember which) which is a prelude to NASA being mothballed. Although I can't see this happening in real life, it was either a shrewd guess (Columbia being the oldest Space Shuttle) or just a coincidence, but sure is freaky. A review of the novel here, for example.

Why "ask slashdot"? Wouldn't it make more sense to check out some SF related web sites for information and suggestions about SF?

Now I have an unfair advantage in that I live near not one, but two, high quality stores specializing in SF (Other Change of Hobbit and Dark Carnival, both in Berkeley CA), and I get a lot of recommendations by going in there and looking at their recommended shelves, or asking people who work there what's new and good.

If you aren't lucky enough to have a good SF bookstore nearby, then you might want to try some SF websites. This year's Hugo voting included the category of web site (a "one-shot" category that I hope will become permanent in future).Locus Online, the Hugo winner, and SF Site, which came in third, are my two favorites. Both are full of book reviews (and author interviews, and links to other interesting sites. (The second place Hugo vote went to the SciFi Channel's website, which is more oriented towards TV and movies than written SF, but still might be worth a look).

And speaking of awards, the various SF & Fantasy awards are a great place to look for recommendations. Check out the nominee list, not just the winners (it really is an honor just to be nominated), and don't forget to check out other works by the same authors. If you don't like short stories, you should still check out the winners (and nominees) in the short-story categories; they may have written some good novels too. Locus Online (link above) has extensive listings of the major SF awards.

That said, here's a few authors who have been high on my must-read list recently: Lois McMaster Bujold, David Brin, Orson Scott Card, C. J. Cherryh, Greg Egan, Tom Holt, Guy Gavriel Kay, Nancy Kress, Jane Lindskold[1], Ken McLeod[2], Wil McCarthy (yes, one 'l'), Jack McDevitt, Patricia A. McKillip, Robert Rankin, Allen Steele, Neal Stephenson, and Connie Willis. I probably included a few that qualify as "old school", there, and left out a few thinking they were "old school" that you may never have heard of, but such is life.

HTH

[1] Lindskold is an associate of, and collaborated with Zelazny, and is well worth checking out if you like Zelazny, IMO.

[2] MacLeod is the only SF writer I know of who has mentioned Linux in his SF. Others, most notably Stephenson, have mentioned it in non-fiction writings, but only MacLeod so far has embedded it in his fictional future.

Even though you post has some trollish elements it is, with in the narrow confides of the examples you mention, somewhat correct. Heinlein was an offbeat loony, with strange tastes (but still a wonderful read). Niven I won't comment on as I cant remember any of the Ringworld novels except the first one (my very effective "garbage in - garbage out" filter triumphs again!). But that's doesn't translate to every and all science fiction books and definitely not to much published the last ten years and the question was about "new science fiction authors". Also I have to question why you have to tell us this... are you trying to save us or are you simply trolling? Anyway, no thanks.

I would say that science fiction has done a lot of growing up the last ten years. There has been a blooming of new writers that both have their technology and their characters right. Maybe not all the time and maybe not both part to perfection, but it's a lot better than in the post war "golden age" (was that the second or third golden age? I lost count...).

As for the original question:

But as others has suggested, try diversifying a bit. Try a bit of horror, a bit of crime, some elitist literature. It's all fun if it's well written. If you are afraid take some on some authors that you already know from science fiction, like Dan Simmons for horror, Asimov for crime. For something that you can pull out of your hat if you should meet a bunch of elitist snobs I recommend Poul Auster (The New York Trilogy is probably a good place to start), sometimes he's so far out that it kind of borders on science fiction or at least fantasy (only they label it magic realism).

My top list of new authors (what was the definition again?), in random order:

Iain (M.) Banks. Both his science fiction and his mainstream fiction is wonderful. His culture novels are not to be missed. Start of with something like Against A Dark Background.

John Barnes: Funny dark and witty often with a very dark view of the future.

Linda Nagata: Most of her (all to few) books work with in the same universe and most looks at the question of what we can make of man.

Peter F. Hamilton: For epic space (soap-) spaceopera this it the guy to go to. Endless never ending pages of action.

Ken MacLeod: For a political (leftwing) look at a possible future Ken is the man. Provoking and interesting alternative the topias of the seventies (his first series is the best - The Fall Revolution).

Neal Stephenson: Cyberpunk (I hate that word) done right. What William Gibson would write if he had the talent.

Greg Egan: Edge technology all the way. Egan always takes his ideas to the limit. Either we go to the lowest level (quantum is just a stop on the way) or we go for the upperlimit (experimenting with the total of totally).

That's it - there are lot's more, but those are some of my favorites. But again, treat your self to something different once in a while, just don't over do it to quickly like when I tried to read one my wifes Karen Blixen novels :-S.

(shameless link to my own site with information all these authors)

Oh, also try picking up a magazine (my favorite is Interzone), that's a good way to find new authors.

I know someone else mentioned Greg Bear, but if you haven't read The Forge of God (apocalypse theme) I would definately recommend it (supposidly they're making a movie out of it soon...).

A pretty cool cyberpunk book called Altered Carbon came out last summer, and I enjoyed reading it over the Christmas break, although it was a tad obnoxious at times (well... it is cyberpunk I guess).

is my personally defended origin of cyberpunk: check out The Stars My Destination (1956). It's got the "high tech/low life" feel that tends to characterize cyberpunk for me, physical enhancements (synthetic silver nervous systems as speed/reflex boosts), style, machinations, etc. Great book, even if you don't agree with me about it and cyberpunk.

That and Lubbock isn't a hotbed for terrorists if you know what I mean. Cow-tippers, yes. Foreign spies, no.

An annotated bibliography of Benford's work is available here. I'm forced to admit that I haven't read the majority of his ouevre, although his collaboration with David Brin is, for my money, the best hard SF ever written.

karma happens between posts

Actually it wasn't KSR who introduced the space elevator. Arthur C. Clarke had popularized it before in his novel Fountains of Paradise. In his foreword he credits Yuri Artsutanov who wrote about Space Elevators in Pravda in the 1960s.

Being Australian, I start with, Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind series. (Particularly his planet Norstrilia, "Old North Australia", like Dune settled by outback Australians instead of Bedouins.) And then A Bertram Chandler's Rimworld series about tramp spaceships on the edge of the galaxy.

More classically, Edgar Rice Burroughs' worlds: Pellucidar [the hollow Earth], Barsoom [Mars], Amtor [Venus] and Tarzan's Africa [and all its lost cities].

One of the largest and most coherent universes must be Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic League/Terran Empire. Read some Dominic Flandry and forget about Star Wars.

Of course Heinlein's "Future History" (apparently he invented the term), and Niven's "Known Space" are up there, but suffiently well known not to need my endorsement.

I am too tired to explain why this is the best, so I'll just say it's my favorite, and for good reason.

Man against Man, Man against Nature, and especially Man against himself. It's a shoot-em-up. It's romantic. It's revolutionary. It's serious. It's funny.

And then throw on some accurate forecasting (such as predicting the slashdot effect and distributed denial of service attacks, the problems of security through obscurity, and even 404s) and there you have it, the best sf.

Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The Stars my destination

Hmmm ... I just read a review of I am Legend, and it seems to me that the twist is missing: Robert Neville could become a vampire any time he wanted (if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em style). What I have to admire about this virus is that it doesn't just try to infect willy-nilly, but it DOS-es specifically those boxen that are immune to it (sort of join-or-die style, no neutrality allowed; rather than the usual join-us-join-us-join-us ... and it you can't because you're immune, uh well OK bummer).

But yeah, I'm sure there's plenty of talent out there, just none that I could quote.

No no no. Clarke envisioned Amalthea (a.k.a Jupiter V) as great big a spaceship, used by an extinct alien race to move to our solar system. See here.

Some Books to look at:

The 1979 Hugo and Nebula Award winning novel, The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke.

AND...

The Web Between the Worlds, by Charles Sheffield, using the same idea, published about the same time Clarke published his book.

AND...

Of course, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy.

In horror: Bram Stoker Award (winner)
In fantasy: World Fantasy Award (nominated, the winner has not been decided yet)
In sci-fi: Hugo Award (winner)

Look at the tons of other awards in Neil Gaiman's collection.

Internet, schminternet. The whole European continent and the British Isles are going to be replaced by a huge, alien jungle anyway.

-- MarkusQ

P.S. Seriously though, what about A Canticle for Leibowitz?

You can read brief reviews here and here, and of course, from here.

There are also:

• Fahrenheit 451 , Ray Bradbury
• A Clockwork Orange , Anthony Burgess
• Lord of the Flies , William Golding
• Animal Farm , Orwell
• "The Waste Land", T.S. Eliot (a poem, but dystopian in a similar vein)

Dean Ing wrote about a similar machine in his 1976 story Malf

It's a good man-machine interface story, if you can hunt it up. No spoilers :-)

Um, unless of course this is a collection & obituary sent back in time...

Required background reading for this /. story: the late, great Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore's Gallegher series of stories. (You may remember the authors from such sci-fi classics as The Twonky or All Mimsy Were The Borogoves.)

Although I'm afraid I've given a punchline away just via the pointer here...

http://www.sfsite.com/10b/cl114.htm

http://www.januarymagazine.com/SFF/chronoliths.htm l

http://www.mervius.com/books/chronoliths.htm

I only have a very fragile Watchers Of The Dark. If I ever see another title I'll probably buy it (as well as a replacement for WOTD of course).

Same goes for Eric Frank Russell too.

is that this was done by a theater employee with a camcorder, not some pimply faced Norwegian with a computer.

If the MPAA really wants to prevent piracy, they'd push for better pre-employment screening of cinema ushers, not try to totally cripple a whole industry that is already many times larger and more important to the economy than Hollywood. (Shit, just video/computer gaming is bigger than Hollywood now, let alone the whole digital industry!)

Silly asses.

In the same way that people research CDDB and IMDB to see who has recorded what and who has directed what and who starred in what, people also want to see full author bibliographies, checklists for book series, edition lists (there are people who collect multiple editions and sometimes even printings of the same book). Then the hunt begins. There are more uses of catalogs and libraries than just adding metadata to your own collection. There's also research.

Take a look at the SFDB for an example.

Janifer Bibliography

What appears to be his homepage

Of other science fiction writers he reminds me of maybe L. E. Modessit and Mack Reynolds the most. His writing isn't quite as political as that of either, but to me it has that same feel. Maybe Mike Resnick too?

Sounds like great the BBC series like Gormenghast could really benefit from this format then...

It's criminal that so many people have posted to this story without mention Bruce Sterling's highly relevent (and extremely enjoyable) story, "Deep Eddy".

If Class "X" wanted to insure no breeding with class "Y", not only genetics can come into play.

Imagine a world with several subspecies of humans, all with differing and incompatible pheremones, perhaps to the point that in the presence of the "wrong" pheromone, function is impaired. . . or flip it around, to S.M. Stirling's "Draka" series where the dominant species, homo drakensis had utter pheromonal control over the lower race, homo servus, and varying level of pheromonal control on "normal" humans. . .

You can check out the first 5 chapters of The Web Between the Worlds by Charles Sheffield or The Fountains of Paradise by none other than Arthur C. Clarke. Both are an intereting read and were written at about the same time.

Let us not forget the vivid imagination of Willy Ley (1906-1969), engineer extraordinaire. An important figure in popularizing the concept of space travel.

Willy wrote many inspiring books and articles, some heavily illustrated with fanciful and inspiring pictures by artist Chesley Bonestell.

Rockets, Missiles and Men in Space, The Conquest of Space, and Beyond the Solar System are a few classic (and highly collectible) titles.

Brief Ley biography here.

A Ley bibliography here.

Often overlooked is the Danny Dunn series from the 50's and 60's. This series had some far out stuff (anti-gravity paint, time travel, the "Honey I shrunk the kids" machine.)

However, some really spot-on predictions were:

-The Home Computer ("The Homework Machine")

-X10 (not the cameras, "The Automated House")

-Miniature Submarines (proper name for these? was in "On the Ocean Floor")

-Teleoperation / augmented reality (I can't remember which one, had a tele-operated machine that looked like a butterfly)

True Names.. ah, there is a truely great novella. I don't think that the link is accurate though, that edition has not (or should not have been) printed yet. I have a standing order with Tor for it, i have had the order for the last two years, the publication date has always been a few months in the future. I am fairly sure that it has not been recently published because i have just bought a compleat collection of Vinge's short stories, the only omisions being true names (because of the pending publication), and Grim's world (it being the core of Tajta Grim's World). The distributer, i think it was Baker and taylor, but i could be wrong, said that the publication date for True Names (i check every time i order something) has been pushed back yet again. This all makes me wonder why Barnesand Noble say it is instock and ready to ship.... i dunno...

online text of True Names (not sure how long this wil be up... so get it while its fresh)

True Names
A fan supported Vernor Vinge web site
Vinge's site at SDSU (the miscelanious link at the bottom has the good stuff)
Some of his other books
Bibliography

ok, thats enough for now... check google for more.
I recomend reading some of his stuff if you havn't already, some reminds you of all of the science foction you have read before, and some is just astounding. True Names is/was truely prophetic (check out when it was written, then compare to neuromancer).

golden agers still writing?

Fred Pohl. um, Andre Norton I think.

does Le Guin count as Golden Age? I still think of her as new wave.

Bob Forward still publishes, I think. but he's not really golden age. way too hard.

but apart from Pohl, I don't really like the golden age survivors anyway. I'd rather be reading Cadigan or Robinson or Haldeman or Stephenson or Goonan or Niven. or when it comes to fantasy, or Brust or Gaiman or Dorsey.

although I admit it. I saw the new Earthsea book in the bookstore a couple days ago, and I was vaguely tempted. I decided to wait for paperback though.

it's funny that Dozois of all people claims that there are still good authors out there, they're just hard to find. before he took over IAsfm, it was by far the best magazine on the market. it was edited by a woman named Shawna McCarthy, and it was amazing.

in 1984 and '85, everybody knew who all the good authors were. Shawna printed their stories. (for example, check the May '84 issue, or the June issue. all great stories.) now, Dozois edits the year's most pretentious, annoying crap, and Shawna... is editing a little-known magazine called Realms of Fantasy.

interesting. just found some good news, at least Aboriginal SF is still afloat. they're subscription-only though really, no newsstand sales to speak of. thus leaving most of the SF-reading public dependent on... Fantasy & Science Fiction. oh god.

somebody give Shawna a real job. save SF.

golden agers still writing?

Fred Pohl. um, Andre Norton I think.

does Le Guin count as Golden Age? I still think of her as new wave.

Bob Forward still publishes, I think. but he's not really golden age. way too hard.

but apart from Pohl, I don't really like the golden age survivors anyway. I'd rather be reading Cadigan or Robinson or Haldeman or Stephenson or Goonan or Niven. or when it comes to fantasy, or Brust or Gaiman or Dorsey.

although I admit it. I saw the new Earthsea book in the bookstore a couple days ago, and I was vaguely tempted. I decided to wait for paperback though.

it's funny that Dozois of all people claims that there are still good authors out there, they're just hard to find. before he took over IAsfm, it was by far the best magazine on the market. it was edited by a woman named Shawna McCarthy, and it was amazing.

in 1984 and '85, everybody knew who all the good authors were. Shawna printed their stories. (for example, check the May '84 issue, or the June issue. all great stories.) now, Dozois edits the year's most pretentious, annoying crap, and Shawna... is editing a little-known magazine called Realms of Fantasy.

interesting. just found some good news, at least Aboriginal SF is still afloat. they're subscription-only though really, no newsstand sales to speak of. thus leaving most of the SF-reading public dependent on... Fantasy & Science Fiction. oh god.

somebody give Shawna a real job. save SF.

golden agers still writing?

Fred Pohl. um, Andre Norton I think.

does Le Guin count as Golden Age? I still think of her as new wave.

Bob Forward still publishes, I think. but he's not really golden age. way too hard.

but apart from Pohl, I don't really like the golden age survivors anyway. I'd rather be reading Cadigan or Robinson or Haldeman or Stephenson or Goonan or Niven. or when it comes to fantasy, or Brust or Gaiman or Dorsey.

although I admit it. I saw the new Earthsea book in the bookstore a couple days ago, and I was vaguely tempted. I decided to wait for paperback though.

it's funny that Dozois of all people claims that there are still good authors out there, they're just hard to find. before he took over IAsfm, it was by far the best magazine on the market. it was edited by a woman named Shawna McCarthy, and it was amazing.

in 1984 and '85, everybody knew who all the good authors were. Shawna printed their stories. (for example, check the May '84 issue, or the June issue. all great stories.) now, Dozois edits the year's most pretentious, annoying crap, and Shawna... is editing a little-known magazine called Realms of Fantasy.

interesting. just found some good news, at least Aboriginal SF is still afloat. they're subscription-only though really, no newsstand sales to speak of. thus leaving most of the SF-reading public dependent on... Fantasy & Science Fiction. oh god.

somebody give Shawna a real job. save SF.

No, I meant what I said. Search the same link.

The one you mentioned was published in 1960, mine 1989. IIRC, the later one is an extended version of the earlier.

'Unclefish Beholding' is a great piece -- it's atomic science using the English we'd have if there had been no Norman invasion, i.e. no latin/greek-derived words.

"Uncleavish Truethinking". See this Poul Anderson bibliography.

If Orson Scott Card quits writing, I don't know what I'll do :-(

I gave up Card a while back, but have you tried George R.R. Martin, Neal Stephenson, Dan Simmons, Greg Egan, Connie Willis, Tony Daniel, Michael J. Straczynski, Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, or Ben Bova? Gardner Dozois makes a valid claim that there are good new authors out there. You just have to look for them.

For those who must have a morbid fascination with not dead yet lists see: Oldest Living Authors/Editors/Artists Obviously they haven't had time to remove Poul's name from that list. It is from the Internet Science Fiction Database (ISFDB) Derived Information page.

The question should be how many "Golden Age" authors are left that are still writing?

If Orson Scott Card quits writing, I don't know what I'll do :-(

I gave up Card a while back, but have you tried George R.R. Martin, Neal Stephenson, Dan Simmons, Greg Egan, Connie Willis, Tony Daniel, Michael J. Straczynski, Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, or Ben Bova? Gardner Dozois makes a valid claim that there are good new authors out there. You just have to look for them.

For those who must have a morbid fascination with not dead yet lists see: Oldest Living Authors/Editors/Artists Obviously they haven't had time to remove Poul's name from that list. It is from the Internet Science Fiction Database (ISFDB) Derived Information page.

The question should be how many "Golden Age" authors are left that are still writing?

• Frost and Fire
  
• My Lady of the Diodes
  
• And I only am escaped to tell thee
  
• Unicorn Variations
  

I had read Szilard's satirical sf novel The Voice of the Dolphins in 1961, and his sf short stories, and from him heard the story, famous in the genre, of how in the spring of 1944 Cleve Cartmill published a clear description of how an atomic bomb worked in Astounding SF, titled "Deadline." Szilard mentioned to me that Cartmill's bomb would not have worked, but the story did stress that the key problem was separating non-fissionable isotopes from the crucial Uranium 235.

This story became legend, proudly by fans touted after the war as proof of sf's predictive powers. It was a tale of an evil alliance called theAxis---oops, no, the Sixa---who are prevented from dropping the A-bomb, while their opponents, the Allies---no, oops, that's the Seilla---refrain from using the weapon, fearing its implications.

As Campbell never tired of telling, in March 1944 a captain in the Intelligence and Security Division and the Manhattan Project called for an investigation of Cartmill."

There is a lot more in the article, so go check it out. There are plenty of links if you do a common web search for the author's name, etc. The story in question has been in a number of anthologies, but I haven't found it online as far as downloading it goes.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

In the Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, he describes a space elevator on Mars which is destroyed by terrorists. The effects of the billions of tons of carbon tubules smashing into Mars as the space elevator falls (wrapping itself around Mars in the process) is on a par with the destruction caused by asteroid/comet impact.

The books are quite good, with a lot of cool ideas, and are probably one of the most realistic treatments of how we could terraform Mars. But you'll have to work your way through some lengthy discussions about the geology of the red planet.

The Kim Stanley Robinson reading list. My fault for not checking more closely the link I posted priot to this.

Apologies.

And will soon lead to the destruction of same! Buwahahaha!!!!!

__________________

The point is that The Man has no sense of humour, and that trash talking can bring a world of hurt, even if it's technically protected and innocuous. You may get off eventually, but it can be very annoying and expensive.

-dB

I am so disappointed to see yet another movie about Mars reduced to a poorly-written action flick. Maybe this is what it takes to get the concept into the general public's collective consciousness. But still, so many people think that humanity has no imperitave to spread out from our world to others. Shitty movies like this can't help change ideas like that.

For me, my attitude changed once I read the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It was one of the first set of books I had read that made me believe that we really do have a future in space, and that despite the scoffing of politicians, the reality of things is that this future can begin immediately.

Anyone who is depressed by this latest batch of Martian science fiction would be well-advised to look at these books for a pick-me-up.

So Garry Trudeau seems to have invented 1-Click shopping. It's a little depressing that he's become more tech-savy than Scott Adams!

Funny you should mention Heinlein. I once read a piece by another writer (I forget his name, but he was book editor of Analog Magazine back in the 60s) who claimed to have coined the famous word "grok" that Heinlein immortalized in his classic Stranger in a Strange Land . Heinlein supposedly picked it up at a conference they both attended. But this other writer wasn't accusing Heinlein of plagarism. He considered his use of "grok" to be a fair use of an idea freely shared.

__________