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Writers Who Will Stand the Test of Time?
Embedded Geek asks: "Every year, the online version of Locus (a trade magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy) asks the question: "Name the 5 deceased 20th century SF & fantasy writers you think will still be read 50 years from now." The results favored some of the bigger names (Heinlein, Asimov, Tolkein) as well as a few lesser known figures (Simak, Bester). I would like to ask a broader question: What authors (in any genre, fiction or nonfiction) alive today will still be read (hard copy or online) in 2051?" If I had to answer off of the top of my head, I know William Gibson, Charles Sheffield, and Orson Scott Card would be in my list, but that's not all of them. A few authors who I thought would be classics have since vanished (whatever did happen to Daniel Keys Moran, anyways?) aand of course there are a few iffy ones which I could be convinced on (C.J. Cherryh, anyone). What authors do you feel will stand the test of time? Yeah, these are sci-fi authors, but that's about what I read these days.
Before you all say it...yeah, yeah, he's not *real* fantasy, whatever.
But the Discworld books are actually quite sharp, and ideas based: Small Gods and Jingo, for example.
And, more importantly, they are very very funny. The sort of books you keep to read to your children one day, in the hope they'll want to read on their own. I guess like Douglas Adams did for me when I was 11.
I also find it interesting that, of all the names listed in the body of this article, I had only heard of Heinlein, Asimov, and Tolkien...
On the other hand, historical accounts will survive, I'm sure of that. So, for example, The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes will still be read, much like William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is still a must-read. The Atomic Bomb is a fantastic book, a towering and comprehensive work - I recommend it most strongly.
Then, for example, there are biographies: I doubt that James Gleick's Chaos will still be read - there will be other, better expositions of the Feigenbaum Constant - but his biography of Feynman, Genius, will still be read by anyone interested in the mystique of Feynman. (And trust me, with nanotech's rise, his mystique will only grow!)
And of course, I agree with everyone who nominated Dr. Seuss. That, and Alice, and Tolkien, will survive and still be relevant. Harry Potter - it's too early to say, though they are great fun to read...
Anyway, that's my $0.02.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
While not at the grandmaster level of Asimov, Heinlen or Herbert, he will probably reach that level. I would like to see more books by him, but only at their contined level of excellence.
Stephenson is obviously destined for greatness. His current works already guarentee his place among the SF pantheon. He is also infinitely more readable than others in the cyberpunk genre.
When I want your opinion I will beat it out of you.
Very definitely one of the best! The FIRST author to win the Hugo and Nebula in the same year.
;-)
I see criticism of his style, but I think you could make the some of the same criticism of Asimov and Heinlein. Only because they were foundational to the genera, along with others (Lewis, Dick, Orwell, Zelazny, Sturgeon, Pohl, Ellison), and more modern writers largely follow in their footsteps.
For my money, Niven has some of the very best and most memorable characterizations in the business, and some of the best stories (by-passing dogs like Integral Trees).
Some modern authors focus more on tech or gore or action. But for REAL stories and REAL characters that can provike thought, I'll take Niven.
Then again, maybe in just means I'm getting old and out-of-touch
Not because he was especially profound - although he certainly was at times - but because his humor is universal despite the sf setting. I've bugged a lot of people who positively loath science fiction into reading the Hitchiker's series, and do you know what? They love it, all of them. This was the best of British and sf humor all combined by the brilliant mind of Douglas Adams, and I really can't imagine a time when people will stop saying to each other "Hey, this guy Doug Adams wrote some really funny stuff. Read it!"
I would also argue that this degree of absurdist, uniquely british humor in science fiction was really a new innovation of Douglas Adams, although I do know I'm on thin ice there.
As is obligatory in any post about Adams, I would like to close by saying that Douglas Adams most definatly was a man who always knew where his towel was, and his literature reflects that.
I'm the stranger...posting to
If the couple of centuries before the 20th were anything to go by, the most successful writers (and by that I mean sales and critical acclaim, whatever the genre) are not necessarily the ones still read 50 or 100 years after their death. Take the 19th century - one of the biggest selling novels in the 19th was East Lynn by Mrs Henry Woods (great name), sold millions of copies, and is now hardly in print (it's still worth reading - combination murder mystery/love story). Or one of the most prolific novelists of the 19thC, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, wrote 80 novels, almost all bestsellers, including a couple of huge sellers - Lady Audley's Secret being one. You'd be hard-pressed to find it in a bookshop these days. Some bestsellers do hang around, like Charles Dickens, but his contemporary Wilkie Collins was just as popular in his day, and doesn't have nearly as high profile as Dickens still has - the Woman in White and The Moonstone notwithstanding (both excellent).
Going further back (stop me if you're bored), The Mysteries of Udolpho (Mrs Radcliffe) was HUGE at the turn of the 19th century - so much so that Jane Austen wrote a parody of it (Northanger Abby). The parody's still in print, the original is very hard to find (and having read it, you don't want to find it, believe me).
And it's not just literature where this happens. GE Moore was one of the leading philosophers of the early 20th century, a colleague of Russell and Wittgenstein - and now barely rates a mention. Yet you can have someone like Nietzsche who was ignored during his lifetime, and yet is today probably more influential and widely-read than ever in academic circles.
The obvious point is that we just don't know who will be big in 50 to 100 years time (tho its fun to speculate), although it's almost worth betting that it *won't* be someone we've all heard of today. Other times look for other things from their art, and we can't guess what they'll be. As it says in The Go-Between: "The past is another country, they do things differently there." So's the future.
That aside I can't see too many writers around today (living) who'll still be big (and I mean Dickens/Joyce/Proust big) in 50-100 years. Peter Carey, the Australian who's just won another big prize, might do it: you sci-fi fiends out there should try his novel Illywacker, it's crazy. JK Rowling's Harry Potter books probably will. Toni Morrison, maybe. So long as Martin Amis is forgotten as quickly as possible.
Gotta go, it's Clemens v Schilling... Clemens will probably still be pitching in 50 years time.