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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.
Will stand the test of time as "the classic 'missed it completely' book".
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
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.
Roger Zelazny. Probably the best modern mythic author next to Tolkien and the only such author to try and talk about magic and technology as if they were the same thing and under the control of similar mythical forces.
Also H.P. Lovecraft. I predict people will recognize him for the genius he was sooner or later, although he was dismissed as a pulp author by most of the literati in this century.
Animal Farm will definitely stand the test of time. It has thus far. Why not another 50 years?
Probably my favorite author and still very young. 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
..........FULL STOP.
I have no particular rah-rah comment, but I'll just say that his writing is some of the most tightly crafted that I have ever read.
...is a very slow writer. You can expect his next book in another couple of years. His latest novel is "The Last Dancer"; it's been out for a while, though there seems to be a special edition of it due out this month.
To that list of writers, in the SF category, I'd have to add Neal Stephenson, one of my favorites.
One word - Shanara - enough said. Personally, I think what he has produced is every bit as good as LOTR (please don't flame me) and is actually in some ways better - A, there's more of it, and B, it's written in a way that is easier to read. No, I didn't have any trouble with LOTR, but I have known people who have, and most of them have found Brooks very accessable.
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
Bible of the 21st century? Some bios
Yes, not his *real* name, but I forget it right now. I've been enjoying his Wheel of Time series more than LotR, and - like most fantasy - the appeal is timeless.
Last post!
A short list:
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
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...
Although he wrote lots of different subject matter, I think his sci-fi themed works were his best. Fahrenheit 451 & The Illustrated Man were both written in 1951, and they are some of the best and most forward-thinking sci-fi I have read.
He was *way* ahead of his time and I think Fahrenheit 451 will be read some time in to the future and hopefully some of his other works as well.
Someone has already mentioned Pratchett, and I hope that Clarke, Jordan, Niven, and others will also "stand the test of time" as talented writers.
However, it would pain me to see some of this work be declared "Classic," for I find this a segregatory (is that a word?) and unfair label for works. It is one of the things that has bothered me the most about my public education - the venerated pantheon of elderly literature labelled "classics," whose members are taught to be the only things really worth reading. This is a distrubingly static literary world that has left, in my experience, no tolerance or room for less well-known and/or more modern work of equally masterful quality.
I have liked many "classics" and disliked as many. I see that such a label may be the inevitable result of "standing the test of time." But when incorporated into curricula, it becomes (in my far from humble opinion) a dangerous and unfortunate thing.
Karma: T-rexcellent.
This is a very similar same issue.
Now you also have the favorites of particular professors, perpetuated because that is what some doctorate candidate wrote their thesis on. So most writers depend on the mercies of the college professors, unless they have some large estate to keep promoting them, republishing the works, etc.
There was a special on PBS recently on the author of the original sam spade detective novels, well known today from Humphrey Bogart movies. But most folks have probably never read the original stories.
Finding out who that was is left as an exercise for the reader ;-)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Stephen King: I think he's likely to fill the same niche in future centuries that Edgar Allen Poe does today. He also has the advantage of having written both god novels and short stories so he'll be easy to fit into an academic curriculum.
Dr. Seuss: This is limited to the English speaking world (although I've seen translations) but I'm sure kids will be reading his books for a long time. Perhaps J.K. Rowling for older kids. Maybe Tintin, also, given its international range.
On the science fiction front, I'd say Neal Stephenson, if only because I have a feeling that Snow Crash is going to seem really prescient.
As long as we're broadening the question, what about other fields? I'm thinking Bob Marley (musically and for sociopolitical significance), Roy Lichtenstein,...
Apparantly, a small press is publishing all his existing Continuing Time books. I'm just really upset that new ones aren't being written (at least not reported on the web site).
For those who don't know what Continuing Time is, picture Neuromancer written by Zelazny, with his "practical gods" approach (toss in heavy genetic engineering and a bit of "is it science or magic?"). Make a plot that spans across not only all of time, but across all possibilities (from chaos to order). From the website (and from The Long Run): "Sixty-two thousand years before the birth of Yeshua ha Notzri, whom later humans knew as Jesus the Christ, the Time Wars ended, for reasons which no sentient being now knows. With that ending, the Continuing Time began.".
Armageddon Blues and Emerald Eyes are two of my favorite books - they are great reads. Last Dancer would be better if the rest of the books would get written. As it is, it leaves too much unanswered.
Incidently, for a quick calibration, Stephen Brust is my favorite fantasy author (barring Paksenarrion), Heinlein my favorite speculative fiction author, and science fiction varies, but I like Asimov, Simak and Clement (who, bless his soul, is one of the nicest people to sit and chat with at a con).
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Zelazny's blend of dry humor, sarcasm, and underlying amusement with life in general are, unlike any other author I can think of, absolutely unique.
Jordan's Wheel of Time series, now up to 9 novels, has been, IMHO, more definitive of the modern fantasy genre than even Tolkien.
Also, the rumor is that Book 10 is being submitted in early 2002, and will be published later in the year! Not sure why such the long turnaround time.
As we approach the Technological Singularity described so awesomely by that awesome science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, it dawns on us that not only we humans but also our emerging fellow cyborgs will be the readership of classic authors from the current time.
Since by definition we can not see beyond the Singularity, we may only list here a few dark horse candidates who will appeal to the AI Minds of the expanded readership by virtue of having written about artificial intelligence:
Orson Scott Card -- Speaker for the Dead (1986)
Joseph H. Delaney, and Stiegler -- Valentina: A Soul in Sapphire
David Gerrold -- When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One
Robert Heinlein -- The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Frank Herbert -- Destination: Void (1966)
James Patrick Hogan -- The Two Faces of Tomorrow (1979)
Victor W. Milan -- The Cybernetic Samurai (1985)
Rudy Rucker -- Wetware (1988)
Thomas Ryan -- The Adolescence of P1
Astro Teller -- Exegesis
Thomas T. Thomas -- ME: A Novel of Self-Discovery (1991)
Guy Gavriel Kay might make the list though. He is actually a decent writer, and has mastered the little things most pulp fiction writers miss - characterization, plot, beautiful descriptive language,broad vocabulary, etc. Books like Tigana, A Song for Arbonne, and The Lions of Al-Rassan have permanent residency on my bookshelf. Kay immerses the reader into his works.
dschl
Anyone who thinks hunting is barbaric should try visiting a chicken farm someday
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
He has written some of the greatest horror and fantasy stories of all time. Stephen King, who writes the same type of stuff and is far more popular, is a hack, compared to Barker.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
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."
Each these writers have written about future in a way that technology improvements by 2051 won't affect the stories they tell.
Vernor Vinge's Queng Ho & Bobble universes are far removed from the day to day tehcnology issues and focus on the role of the individual in changing society in crisis.
Dan Simmons' Hyperion series is a masterful look at religion, technology, and the hubris of humanity.
Larry Niven's Known Universe is perhaps one of the most detailed and consistent future histories created in the last 50 years.
John Varley's Eight Worlds series and Titan/Wizard/Demon trilogy will stand the test of time as examinations of the effects of endless plentiful society on the individual.
While I love Neal Stephenson, William Sterling, and Bruce Gibson, they work is so focused on near future (part of it's appeal!) that they will suffer as technology passes them by.
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I would say Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Terry Brooks, C.S. Lewis, and Douglas Adams would probably be in my top five. It's really a hard list to make but those are the authors that have had the biggest impact on me so far through different periods of my life. Authors such as Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander also played an important part during my teen years. Dr. Suess and the Brothers Grimm were my favorite during my childhood.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
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
Stephen King will be known as the Charles Dickens of our time. His works will be read for at least two generations. King will live on because he isn't obsessed with the technicalities of the genres he writes in unlike many of the SF writers whose works are starting to look rather dated. King puts his efforts into crafting characters that appeal psychologically to his audience as having truth beyond the genre. King isn't a horror writer who stoops to write about people--he's a writer who analyzes the human condition who just happens to have used horror as his handle to establish an audience. I believe that King will grow stronger in reputation as time goes by because his being mainstream will allow further acceptance of his insights. In fifty years once the controversy over some of King's themes subsides, King will become the United States orthodox white male to assign to students to read. He will be acceptable to the interest groups because his opinions are politically correct, he will be acceptable to the parents because of familiarity, and he will be acceptable to the students because his characters reflect empathy to many of their struggles.
No Troll intended on Heinlein, but it sads me up to reflect how the exquisite, quirky writers with the intricate things to say don't always get the recognition. Even though Phil Dick was certainly all that (eg, Valis), and excellent with it, I wonder how much of his mass popularity here is due to the continuing thing with films being made of his stories.
How much of the voting will in hindsight show ephermeral trends (eg, the loathsome Hubbard).
I'd personally have to go for
Pratchett, Spider Robinson, Douglas Adams, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, William Gibson. Also I hope no one forgets the absolutely wonderful J.K. Rowling and anyone who hasn't read the Potter books is missing out on something truly special.
Wait til the copyrights expire.. all these books we've known and loved will be preserved forever for all future generations to experience thanks to the joy of the Internet.
I'd love to have one of those printers that can print a real book. Imagine when every kid has the ability to read any book in the library of congress online or printed instantly into a paperback. Never shall another book fade quietly into the night.
My current sadness is the difficult time I'm having finding all the books in the very good Son of the Hero series. I hope this is a problem that the future can avoid.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Iain Banks Culture stories are fantastic!
I'd recommend Consider Phlebas to someone starting out.
Use of Weapons, Excession, and Player of Games are excellant as well.
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Just because someone writes an enjoyable science fiction book doesn't mean that it will be seen as a classic by the literary establishment. Some depth and powerful, original ideas are needed too. [Thinking up some weird kind of planet is not a "powerful, original idea".]
I think it's safe to say that Vonnegut, Heinlein, Asimov, Tolkien, and Bradbury are already widely read in schools and meet those requirements.
Most of the other guys I've seen posted here make interesting science fiction, but don't rank among the best overall writers of our time. I mean, how many science fiction writers from the 1800's are still popular today? H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and not much else. And that's when there were a lot of new sci-fi ideas still left to explore.
These will be read many many years from now.... :)
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Tezuka's is really a comic artist, but he's so beloved in Japan that I think he'll survive the test of time. The majority of his works were of a sci-fi/fantasy genre. He even gave birth to the entire manga phenomenon in Japan, which produces somes of the best fantasy work ever (and some of the worst too :) ).
Stanislaw Lem is an incredible author, and, along with Alfred Bester and PKD, probably my favorite SF writer. He will be read - and in circles far broader than the SF fan crowd - when Orson Scott Card is relegated to footnote status.
Also in not-in-English, Adolfo Bioy-Casares should share mention with Jorge Luis Borges; Borges identified him as the best Spanish-language fantastic fictionist of his time.
Many years from now, people will be able to look at this books without thinking "Horror author," which is often attached to this name. A lot (maybe a majority) of his stuff isn't horror.
And he's written so much. This man doesn't write because he likes it, he writes because he has to.
Really, I think that one hunred years from now, King's books will be a great insight to what our culture was like at this time. In all of his books, he does a great job of capturing the time period, which is something that is often looked for in classic authors.
When once asked in an interview what genre
he thought that his writing fell into, Burroughs
replied 'Well, science fiction, of course.' I have
to wonder if the interviewer even read any of
WB's books.
I think that _Naked Lunch_ and the Nova
trilogy (_The Soft Machine_, _Nova Express_,
_The Ticket that Exploded_) will stand the test
of time.
Star Trek fans would do well to read _Cities of the
Red Night_ in which commanders insure the loyalty
of their troops by getting them addicted and
supplying them with opiates --like the Founders
and the Jem Haddar of DS9, except that 'Cities'
was written ca. 1974.
Any genre (not just SF!), alive today:
Umberto Eco
Don Knuth
Saul Kripke
Martin Gardner
(puzzle books have ungodly staying power)
John Cage
(oops, dead)
-Tom Duff
If the literary range of slashdot readers is accurately represented by the postings to this story so far, most of you really need to break out of the SF rut once in a while. I'm not suggesting that SF books are inferior; just that there is a whole lot of great writing out there that is not in that category.
My nominations:
-Joseph Heller. After Catch 22 he didn't have much inspiration left, but Catch 22 is clearly one of the best American novels ever.
-Michael Chabon. I'm not nearly as confident about Chabon as I am about Heller, but some of his books are great reads and he's still in his 20's (I think).
Benjamin
Mary Doria Russell.
Okay, she's only written two books (you have read The Sparrow, haven't you?), but if she keeps it up, she'll be regarded eventually as one of the true greats of the genre.
Lois McMaster Bujold. ...
Go on. I dare you, dismiss it as space opera. Okay, it is space opera, but all her books are great, widely read, Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning,
Other have mentioned:
Clive Barker
He deserves to be remembered, if only for writing that rara avis: consistently intelligent, well-written horror.
Terry Pratchett
When I worked in an SF bookshop (that's a science fiction bookshop. In Dublin), Pratchett was consistently our best-sellign author. People with no interest in SF or fantasy would wander in for the latest, and even when spouses/SOs were wandering around, eyes glazed, they'd inevitably find themselves browsing the Pratchetts. I don't think anyone apart from Transworld realises exactly how popular he is.
Neal Stephenson
I'm going to commit heresy here. I think Stephenson is great, but not one of the greats. His books are all eminently readable, but most have been surpassed in their respective sub-genres (Read The Bohr Maker by Linda Nagata?). Crytonomicon is an exception, and not just cos it's the first novel I've read with embedded perl.
Aside: I suspect if someone ran the Cryptonomicon manuscript through Acme::Buffy, it'd still be better than all Buffy novels combined.
Given the tendency of some corporations like Disney to keep pushing for extensions to copyright law, I wonder if any of it will be available in 50 years. The only reason for the publishers to keep the works available is to make a buck. If releasing a book isn't projected to meet their desired rate of return, they won't do it. Sure the stuff that's really popular now might be around, but I'm sure that they are vastly outnumbered by the books that were good, but for whatever reason didn't do well enough to go beyond a 2nd printing. These will rot away in the publishers' archives while being protected from 'IP thieves' by copyright law. I've heard about film historians lamenting the fact that scores of early movies have been lost and continue to be lost just because of this reason.
This might not be as bleak if the primary medium for publishing literature remains the old fashioned paper book. They will last for ages if proper care is taken. These stories will live on and will be passed from person to person via ebay, used book stores, gifts, etc. But what if the publishers successfully get the public used to reading e-books and wean them off the dead tree kind? Given that the publishers will want some copy protection scheme, the work will only last as long as the device used to read it and as long as you can keep the original copy. They will certainly try to make sure that you won't be able to make backup copies (even though it's your right) because that will open the door to pirating or sharing of the work. A person won't be able to sell it unless they part with the reading device also and that would still probably violate a EULA. Converting to a new format wouldn't be allowed because that would deny the publisher the profits from doing so, and open the door for the feared IP pirates. All of this will increase the rate at which works of literture will die and be forgotten.
My prediction: People will have the works that are currently in the public domain (ala Project Gutenberg), titles that are available for the standard e-book reader of the time(which will probably be obsolete every 5-10 years), the surviving paper books, and whatever L. Ron Hubbard's Scientologists keep churning out. Everything else will be forgotten by the publishers and will die with the people who loved it. The same will be true for movies and music.
I pray that I'm wrong.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Almost no mention of non-geek writers to be found. Where are William Styron, Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Michael Ondatje, Kenzaburo Oe, among many others?
you should try his apalling "Philiosphical" essays. Complete nonsense. Dick could out think Huxley in every way. And for vision, look at wyndham's "The Kraken Wakes" and "The Trouble with Lichen" for a nice preview of global warming and the burgeoning market in anti-ageing crap, and the ir gene and clone based future.
That was classic intercourse!
1. Greg Egan
2. Gene Wolfe
3. Bruce Sterling
4. Greg Bear
5. William Gibson
6. Vernor Vinge
7. Dan Simmons
8. Octavia Butler
9. Neal Stephenson
10.Howard Waldrop
Honorable mention: Stephen Baxter, Pat Cadigan, Ian McDonald, Rober Reed, Brian Stableford, Walter Jon Williams. Note: This list really only deals with writers who acheived prominance in the last 20 years or so. There's really little point in listing living legends like Fred Pohl, Arthur C. Clarke, or Harlan Ellison, who pretty much everyone agrees will still be remembered then. (For one thing, they've all won Hugos, and Hugo-winners tend to be reprinted.)
I've stuck to science fiction writers, so Stephen King, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Sean Stewart and Joe R. Lansdale are all missing from this list, though I expect some of their work to still be read 50 years from now as well.
Another interesting question is which even newer writers do you expect to see make the cut. Some of my predictions: Patrick O'Leary, Mary Doria Russell, Linda Nagata, Ted Chiang.
Remember, science fiction is a genre with a good institutional memory. It's quite possible that one or two works from all the above will still be read, they way that people like Eric Frank Russell, C. M. Kornbluth and Frederic Brown have all had large reprint collections of their short fiction published in the last five years.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Herbert deserves a place in history for his Dune series (the early ones at least), but not all of his books are commendable. "The Santaroga Barrier" is a real turkey.
I noticed a strange thing at my local used book store - Right after Douglas Adams died his books were moved from the 'Science Fiction/Fantasy' section to the 'literature' section.
..wierd.
I'm wondering what their thought process was on this one? 'Science Fiction/Fantasy' is not 'serious' enough? He's dead now, so his writing is classic literature?
air and light and time and space
Lovecraft, on the other hand, has been dead for well over 50 years and is already regarded as a classic horror writer, and his works have been in print almost continiously since the founding of Arkham House in 1939.
Since the original question asked for LIVING authors, your choices don't fit the criteria.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
His "Web of the Chozen" is a deeply prophetic masterpiece.
Those are also classics, of course. :)
Genre is sometimes a meaningful categorization and sometimes a trap. It's meaningful to talk about "Classics of Science Fiction" and "Literary Classics" as two separate but intersecting sets. There are certainly SF/F/H novels which are clasics within their own genres but don't really qualify for that status in the outside world, but there are also a few which are big and important enough to achieve that status overall, both inside and outside the genre. Part of the problem, of course, is that SF really hasn't been around long enough to decide if any of its works will stand the test of time the way Shakespeare has (though I should make the obligatory note that while Shakespeare didn't write SF, much of what he wrote can be classified as either fantasy or horror.)
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Unfortunately relatively few scifi authors will stand the test of time. Not because there is anything wrong with scifi but because "nothing is so dated as yesterdays vision of tommorow." Too many scifi authors are just glorying in a clever "vision of tommorow" (or of the mythic 'past' in the case of fantasy) and are not using that vision as a medium to tell a great story or display any insight into larger truths. They will be entertaining and popular for a day and then quickly fade. I have read many of the authors mentioned in other comments and many were very entertaining but few of them will be read 50 years from now.
I have loved scifi since I was a kid, but I often stand before rack upon rack of scifi novels at the local bookstore despairing of finding anything truly worth the time it takes to read. More and more I have turned to the classics section to find novels that have already proven themselves over time. For obvious reasons there seems to be a higher "signal to noise ratio" in that corner of the bookstore, the writing is better, the stories are less shallow and if many of the themes are sometimes familiar it is because of all the cheap knockoffs I've read before, often from the scifi aisle. I'm sure that there are a few, maybe even a lot of books in the scifi section that would satisfy but finding them is frustrating among so much dreck.
Interestingly enough, while the last two have had movies and OVAs based on their works, they bear the same resemblance as Dune does to the Dune movie. Shiro wrote Ghost in the Shell about a wisecracking, practical joke playing Major in a mobile AI driven "tank" force (Fuchikomas are far more than tanks). The movie is not quite the same, and the comic goes much farther into the nature of self. Kishiro did 'Battle Angel', and the OVAs stripped out the action for their use. It makes sense; the foreshadowing and plot stuff in the first volume (which is what the OVAs are based on) only come into play later in the series. And once you read the entire story, you'll understand why the name change (Gally/Alita) occured - the westernization was for a decent reason that isn't evident until the last pages of the last book. --
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
As the Sci-Fi/Fantasy realm as already been pretty well covered, and the question pertained to all genre's here's my additions to the list:
Hunter S. Thompson - I think better than any other living author he truely understands the dark underbelley of 20th century life and commented on with such style and aplomb that he will become required reading
Kurt Vonnegut - Like Thompson he has a keen understanding of our modern world and is, IMO, the greatist satirist since Voltaire.
Ayn Rand - people either love her, or hate her but no one can argue that her work hasn't had a powerful effect.
Milton Friedman - he's one of the fathers of modern economic thought, someone will be reading him in 50 years
Just to make it a longer list than requested:
Carl Sagan
Stephen Hawkings
Gore Vidal
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (aka The Great American Novel)
2. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (aka The Great Funny American Novel)
3. The Gulag Archipelago - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Very possibly the most important non-fiction work of the 20th century. There are many important works documenting the Nazi holocaust, but this brilliantly written work must stand as the first, best, and most comprehensive work to document the Soviet holocaust (which Solzhenitsyn estimated killed some 68 million people) by one who lived through it.)
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
If you havent read any of PKD before, try
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
His most famous novel which inspired Blade Runner. A chilling futuristic story that demonstrates his creative genius.
Ubik
A great story of corporate intrigue where time moves backwards. Intensely psychological with unpredictable plot twists.
The Man In the High Castle
Dick's masterpiece which won the Hugo Award in 1963. A mind-bending novel which takes place in an America occupied by Axis forces. These are some of his strongest characters.
see http://www.philipkdick.com/main.htm
How many authors have an award named after them???
I'll start off with the following:
Zadie Smith : White Teeth. I predict this will be required reading in high school by the year 2020. If you haven't checked it out yet, I strongly urge you to do so.
Haruki Murakami : Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World . Really, just about any of his novels would suffice. This particular one is a blowing mixture of magic realism and science fiction.
Gabriel García Márquez : 100 Years of Solitude. He practically invented magic realism. Other than Tolkien, he's probably the most influential writer of the past fifty years.
Kazuo Ishiguro : The remains of the day. His writing is so precise, so exquisite, so flawless, I don't believe there has been an English-language novelist to compare. I actually prefer his The Unconsoled, but I don't think it has the same aura of classicism.
Stanislaw Lem : Memoirs found in a bathtub. I think this will stand the test of time as his most "excellent" book, even though gems like The Cyberiad and The Futurological Congress are undoubtedly greater crowd-pleasers.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
The Culture novels are brilliant, and, to my mind, should form a model for the future development of human society. For those of you who haven't read any Culture books, see the FAQ
Choice of masters is not freedom.
I am sure that by this point in the thread, many of these authors will be redundant. Here goes anyway (single author per genre, living only, pretty arbitrary) ...
/. just loves this guy but I had to add my $0.02 - especially since he didn't make it into the original message.
... and hilarious.
... I can't read 'em all ;-)
Science Fiction: Neal Stephenson - I know
Fantasy: George Martin - If you haven't read his Song of Ice & Fire books, run (don't walk) to your bookstore right now! He stands almost alone in this god-forsaken genre for snappy dialog and compelling character development.
Satire: Kurt Vonnegut - "I've got doctorates in pig shit, horse shit and chicken shit. If you need me, I'll be out back shoveling my thesis."
Farce: Tom Robbins - Consistently brilliant
Thrillers: Tom Clancy - Now if they'd just stop ruining his books with crappy films.
Popular Science (non-fiction): James Gleick - His "Chaos" is a terrific read.
Physics (non-fiction): J.D. Jackson - You're not a super-geek until you've grokked the fullness of "Classical Electrodynamics"!
Computer Science (non-fiction): Donald Knuth - See Jackson in physics above. Replace "Classical Electrodynamics" with "Art of Computer Programming I - Algorithms".
History (non-fiction): Alvin Josephy - His "Patriot Chiefs" is one of the most interesting books I've ever read.
Cuisine (non-fiction): Julia Child - duh!
Sorry about the limited selection of genres
Although SF now seems like a narrow genre, time tends to wipe out such notions. Jules Verne comes to mind. His books are read by all sorts of people, not just the lame star trek crowd. The best work of any genre will eventually become part of the classic litterature.
Asimov's books on robots will always be relevant. The authors who use SF to illuminate the human character will be relevant. Orwell will be relevant. All the Star Wars/Star Trek offspring will sonn be forgotten. Most of the dragon and knight sort of fantasy will soon be gone. Too much of the SF/Fantasy litterature is like Barabara Cartland for people who don't care for bodice rippers. Just replace bodice for space suit, and horse-cart with space ship.
Another factor I would include in this, is how much read the author is today.
An old favorite of mine is Dickens. He was wildly popular in his time, but not considered very fine litterature. However, his penny novels have stood the test of time much better than his contemporary's, who wrote flat, boring pieces about the dilemmas of the upper classes. So when trying to pick out the classics of the future, one might want to look for similarities with Dickens.
Agatha Christie is another one. There are better mystery writers out there, but her name might be the only one remembered 300 years from now.
If I have to pick the Dickens of this century, it'll be Stephen King. His short stories are excellent. He writes pure fiction, and is not afraid to break some laws of nature. He is extremely productive, and a best-seller. Teh best-seller part is what surprises me a bit, since I usually try to stay away from the unwashed masses reading habits. I guess sometimes the unwashed masses are right. Or maybe they buy the books for the flashy ingredients, not realizing what gems they are. Some of his books dig deep into the human character. He does not try to please the literature critics and besser-wissers. He just wites and writes. Some of his books have a strange ending, but that was also the case for Dickens.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Every highly moderated post so far has been some sci-fi or fantasy author. Yes, some of these authors probably will be read in fifty years, but not nearly as much as the "great" writers of the 20th century. A good corollary is music. Sure, people will still be listening to Black Sabbath and King Crimson in fifty years, but not nearly as many as will be listening to The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Why? Because that's the way music criticism has been running for the last thirty years, and it is showing no signs of changing directions. In order to understand why authors are still read fifty years after, you have to look at the critical direction. This shapes what is talked about, which shapes what is read, which shapes what is known in the future.
So I would say that in fifty years the most widely read authors of the 20th century will be:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
Vladimir Nabokov
T.S. Eliot
James Joyce
And probably a few others I've missed. This is the way modern criticism is shaping up, and, personally, I like it this way. Then again, a few of these could be dropped and a few added in the coming years. F. Scott Fitzgerald was not overly popular in his own time, and only became well respected when he was rediscovered in the late forties. Likewise, Shelley was practically worshipped as the greatest romantic poet for much of the 19th century, but his standing dropped dramatically with the "new criticism" of the early 20th century. This has already happened to a degree with Hemingway as he is now regarded as a bit sexist.
So yeah, some S/F is worthwhile and will be read in the future (I'd point to Dune and and LotR)...but the above authors will almost unquestionably be read.
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For those who are unfamiliar with Lem, I'd recommend starting with the Cyberiad, which is a collection of fables involving two robot builders. It's whimsical, witty, and accessible. My favorite, though, is the vastly different Solaris, which in some ways reminds me of Borges. For those unfamiliar with Borges, perhaps Labyrinths or Dreamtigers would be good starts. Borges' prose and poetry are dense, compact, and carefully wrought; fascinating as his themes are, it's his style that is most distinctive.
I don't have the spare brain cycles at the moment to talk much about either author, but you can find some decent Borges resources at Booklist.com. A google search should net some good Lem sites. Mainly, I just wanted to chime in my agreement with the parent post.
People mention William Gibson- I can see that, primarily for the 'Burning Chrome' stories and 'Neuromancer', but I think Pat Cadigan will stand the test of time better. "Mindplayers" is an incredible piece of work.. I haven't got "Synners" yet, but "Fools" is so much more ambitious that it gives you whiplash, and pulls it off. I don't know anyone else who is able to use _typeface_ for _dramatic effect_, put it that way. There's a moment towards the end of Fools (which uses typeface to indicate narrating personality) that gives you chills when you notice the identity 'slip'. William Gibson doesn't do that, he just wallows in grit, though some of his stuff has formidable intensity.
I think Douglas Coupland will be seen as an important author in the long run. It's very easy to write rubbish that's 'slice of life' and ordinary, but it's very much another matter to set up hidden tensions and suspense, beneath the surface of the narrative, and then finish by resolving them still without obviously calling attention to them: my pet example is in the online version of 'Microserfs' in which the tension has to do with the narrator's dead brother, a conflict never dealt with, and finally brought into the open- what's being resolved isn't about the father's problems, it's the way the narrator's life has led him to his own resolution- concluding with the blinking lights that characterise the narrator's life lighting up the sleeping father. I realize a lot of people will think this is reading ridiculously much into it, but that's exactly my point- this is why he's a legitimately great author. His writing makes very big points in very, very understated ways.
Finally- in an utterly, totally different field, remember Dale Carnegie and "How To Win Friends And Influence People"? The guy writing books like that in the modern day is Harvey Mackay, an envelope tycoon with a lot of basic common sense and honesty. As usual, he's continued to write even after he's said most of what he had to say- not that the sequels are bad, they hold up well- but the primary book by him is called "Swim With The Sharks Without Getting Eaten Alive", and it certainly will stand the test of time- and will also tell you not to buy anything in a room with a chandelier in it ;)
What, you have never even heard of him. Come on, hes relatively new, but that doesnt automatically mean that he is bad!!!
All his novels: a must read!!!!
p.s. - Two up and coming authors that still fall roughly under the sci-fi rubric and that I can recommend are Jonathan Lethem and Ken McLeod. Check them out.
The authors that will stand the test of time are the ones whose stories actually have something to say to the audience of tommorow. Many science fiction authors have a nasty habit of dating themselves. What is incrediably imaginitive today might be stale 50 years from now, and only of literary interest to english majors and literary historians. William Gibson is an absolutely amazing writer. I love his work. However, will he stand the test of time? His work does focus on technology a lot, often at the expense of the characters. While his imagination of the world of tommorow is an amazing experience today, will it be as hard hitting 50 years from now when a good deal of what he has imagined is realized or surpassed? I think some of it will. Neuromancer is still an excellent read despite the fact that much of the technology (i.e. The Net) has been realized, and not precisely as he envisioned. Another science fiction author that stands out in my mind is David Brin. His take on human relations with alien species is unique, and could only be outdated by actual alien contact. His books are filled with the fantastic, but he keeps his work grounded in real science. (He has a doctorate of astrophysics and has consulted for NASA) Besides having some truly origional ideas and real science in his novels, he also builds living breathing characters that are absolutely compelling. Even if you ignore the ideas and science, his books are still a good read just for the characters and conflict. There are other authors I should mention but am simply too lazy to write about right now. =P One thing we should keep in mind is that the classics of today may not be readily apparant to us. Tolkien's work was not well received when it was first published, and there are a plethora of other classics that went unappreciated in their own time but are dear to us today. It's quite likely that the real classics that everyone will be enjoying 50 years from now are books nobody here has even heard of, let alone read.
You can't "wait" until copyrights expire anymore. The best thing you could do is work toward getting the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act ruled unconstitutional, and ensure that copyrights one day will expire.
People should have enough of a sense of pattern recognition by now to realize that in 20 years, Disney will still be around to make sure nothing created after Mickey ever goes out of copyright. So classic works like the Rhapsody in Blue may never be available to the public, and the books you mention may very well fade quietly into the night.
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The only Womack I've read is Random Acts. Can you recommend one of the others?
This kind of question reminds of watching old science fiction movies. Entertainment that attempts to portray the "future" is always hamstrung by the fact that any vision is constrained by current knowledge and to connect to its audience in any meaningful way must include contemporary references, which necessarily dates the material immediately. Every "future" seems simply to be a forward looking time capsule of the period in which it is produced, and inevitably says more about its own time than the time it purports to portray.
The same with sci-fi. Who knows who will live on? I certainly wouldn't look at the best sellers to tell me. Look back and some old best-sellers lists from the 30's and 40's and see how many titles you recognize. You'll probably say, "who the hell was that?"
Some cases in point: Kafka was barely read at all during his time and directed that all his papers be burnt upon his death. It is only through the "faithlessness" of his executor that we are able to read him at all. Salieri(?) of 'Amadeus' fame. He was by all accounts one of the most popular composers of his day, but who knows of him now except through the play and movie in which he is portrayed as hopelessly mediocre. Bach led a very parochial life, never straying very far from his home town and church, yet wrote volumes of what is now considered to be some of the greatest works of all time. It is really only after his death and through other scholar's research that he has come to be so recognized.
Who will people be reading in 50 years? We probably aren't even reading them now.
Vonnegut is one of the authors who most influenced my adolesence... I read Cat's Cradle in my early teens, and dreamed about lower-energy molecular states for a while. I also house-sat once for a man who had an extensive library of Vonnegut, so I caught up with a lot of his other books then. It made for an enjoyable two weeks. :) It's too bad they're all printed in that expensive premium-paperback format... I'm all for authors making lots of money from their work, but let's face it, I'm just a broke college student.
One of the best things about Sci-fi is that it takes reality, tweaks it a little bit, and imaginatively runs with the tweaking, creating a whole new world. I think Vonnegut does this as well, if not better, than many SF authors... his tweaks are tiny, and they make his created realities just a little different from ours, creating extraordinarily believable characters in fascinating situations.
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
William Gibson
Kurt Vonnegut
Stephen King
Douglas Adams
That's the Top 5 I think will be around 50 years. hmm, well there are others, five is too short of a list.
These comics are WAY too topical - they make sense at the time, but as soon as we forget the petty struggles to configure win2k ISA server, or the win32 Apache port, or any other similar issue these comics address, the humor will lose a lot of its value. That said, I think historians who specialize in the twentieth century might get a kick out of them.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Sentimental clerk who's a DNA fan. Nothing wrong with that, mind you - I would have done the same thing - , but it has no deeper meaning.
I'm the stranger...posting to
The thing that made Poe great was the way his stories and poems struck a chord with the reader, made them really empathize with desperately unhappy, disturbed people - and he could do that because he was himself very disturbed and unhappy. Read "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Raven" if for some strange reason you haven't already, and tell me you don't fell unsettled by them, that you don't identify with the narrators on a very deep level.
No go read a Stephen King novel, novella, or short story. Is he a talented writer? Are his stories and characters engaging and thought-provoking. Absolutely, on both counts - I really do like King. But the problem is that his works very often comment directly or indirectly on our modern society, mores, and values. "The Long Walk" was one of the best pieces of short fiction I've ever read - and I did empathize with the protagonist - but it plays to a large degree on twentieth-century values and ideas.
Poe, on the other hand, is timeless. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a story about a descent into madness. Nothing more or less. Very little setting is given, and the story is short enough that you really don't get a feel for the society of the day - but that is what makes it so universal - all the extraneous stuff is cut out.
Does this make any sense, or am I full of it?
I'm the stranger...posting to
In that vein, look at some of the authors people cited as timeless on these posts:
- Dr. Seuss - All his stuff was written in the 40's-70's, yet his messages ring true, even the political ones. (If you've never seen his collection of anti-Nazi cartoons, run out and get it).
- Larry Niven - Some of his technology is dated (mainframe computing) but his stories are still fantastic. The fact that Known Space takes place in the far, far future helps.
On the other hand, Tom Clancy will not (IMHO) "stand the test of time," and not because of the quality of his writting (although some might criticize him for that). No, what I mean is that his stuff becomes dated so dang quickly. Look at his subject matter: politics and technological nuts & bolts details. You'd be hard pressed to find two subjects that have changed more radically in the last ten years. I mean, try to reread Red Storm Rising as anything other than "What may have been" and you bust a gut laughing (On the other hand, The Hunt for Red October works great as historical fiction).Of course, don't weep for poor old Tom: he's laughing all the way to the bank.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I'm sorry, man, but come on. They were saying back in the 50s that they'd have sentient AI in ten years. In the sixties, they were still saying it. Ditto the seventies, eighties, nineties, and now the oughties. Given that track record, is it that wise to bet on sentient AI within fifty years? And don't talk to me about the "vast strides" we've made in AI, because they don't exist. We've made kick-ass expert systems, true enough, but the state of the sort of true generalized AI that might lead a long time from now to sentience is still in its infancy.
One last point: How the hell do you code something when you don't even know how it works? And can anybody tell me in precise, painstaking detail how sentience works? Well enough to program it?
I'm the stranger...posting to
I couldn't name any 40s bands..
On the other hand, the modern classical composers will be remembered by their industry forever (any classical musician will be able to give you a pretty continuous list of composers, from the 1800s up to today)
That one was VERY large indeed - his robot stories, foundation, and a lot of his other works were all part of this universe, although you need to read a lot of his stuff to see it.
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Dickens wrote novels that, more than anything else, explored the tragic and terrible human condition of the poor in 19th-century England. His novels, while they certainly use their characters to good effect, are used to send a message about society.
King also has strong characters - I could argue that they're even stronger than Dicken's in many ways - but those characters are used only to drive a plot, a plot that usually conveys no real social message. (With the exceptions of some of his earlier novellas.)
I confess, I have a hard time thinking King will be considered a classic author. But even if he is, he will not be in the same niche as Dickens.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Hell, even laypeople can quote the Three Laws of Robotics, and people who haven't even read Robots and Empire can quote the zeroth law.
People who've never read Foundation know about psychohistory, and psychohistory, robotics, etc have become a part of the english language because of Asimov.
So, odds are, he'll be the one remembered a hundred years ago, one way or another.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
No offense, Asimov is good, but I found his stuff a little 'loose'.
It seemed to take several novels to get the gist of the Foundation society and what was going on.
The authors I mention drop you 'onto the island' of their world with enough survival information to get by without turning it into a textbook. Asimov seems to drop into lecture mode quite often. It's his style, but it's not for me.
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Literally. Reading "Atlas Shrugged" hurts. I did it once, on a dare, and I had a headache for a week. That woman is just so damn preachy - she stuck a 40-page lecture on the evils of helping people in the middle of the book! 40 pages! No interruption! After that, I gotta say, I read a steven king novel right away, and it was like taking a warm shower. Never again will I open a book by Rand - she was a sadist!
I'm the stranger...posting to
Well, there is a subtitled version of the Russian original. It's an astonishing film: Tarkovsky is excellent at portraying the slow spirituality of the movie. It's not Tarkovsky's slowest movie (that one is definitely Stalker, an amazing movie in its own), but it is definitely awesome.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
I'm surprised there aren't more non-SF authors listed. Well, OK, this is /. -- maybe I'm not so surprised :-) My partial list of living authors off the top of my head:
Science Fiction and Fantasy- Neal Stephenson - good cyberpunk and other works, very readable
- Ursula K. Leguin - The Left Hand of Darkness and other classics
- C.J. Cherryh - she's very prolific, and writes both science fiction and fantasy
- Orson Scott Card - the already classic Ender's Game
OtherHis work has made it 70+ years so far and spawned an ever-growing pile of pastiches, homages, and occasionally, a really novel and entertaining piece of work (Richard A. Lupoff, please call your office...). At least one publisher has a strong interest in keeping his work in print (Arkham House), and the literary critics don't seem to have finished with him yet.
I don't think Lovecraft is likely to get the same kind of name recognition as, say, Jules Verne, but I have a feeling his work will survive.
No non-English authors in your list, which is a bit of a pity; you've probably never read anything by Stanisaw Lem, Boris and Arkadi Strukatzki or Karel apek, and you don't know what you're depriving yourself of :-)
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
From what I understand, Zelazny... was in none-too-good health when he wrote the last amber book.
Not true. Zelazny was getting on in years at the time of course, but he was certainly not in bad health. I had the fortune of meeting him at a con in 1991 just after Prince of Chaos was published. He did not die until June '95, a full four years later.
Other posters have already mentioned the important writers from the early half of the century. Let's not forget the more recent greats:
/.ers love will be remembered by the people who visit the 22nd century version of /., not by the masses. Of course, Tolkein will always be remembered.
Don Delillo (White Noise, Libra, Underworld)
Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow, Crying of Lot 49)
William Gaddis (Recognitions, JR)
David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest, his essays)
Haruki Murakami (already mentioned)
possibly Jonathan Franzen
Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-5, Mother Night )
John Barth
Philip Roth
In terms of sci-fi, I imagine selections from Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and Bradbury will be remembered. All those smaller audience books regular
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
Nice to hear from you, Mr. Moran. :-)
Tip for anyone who though The Matrix was original: read Tiger! Tiger!
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
That's because it wasn't called "Charly," it was called "Flowers For Algernon," by Daniel Keyes. It was subsequently made into a movie called Charly. To be fair, I believe there was a limited edition of the book published with the name of the movie.
I suppose that the novel might be a "dark horse" entrant in the 50-years-from-now question. I don't remember it being of any particular greatness in terms of writing quality (perhaps someone can correct me), but the plot ranks as a great high concept story which has been used over and over again since.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
- George Lucas. Yes, Phantom Menace wasn't all it was hyped to be. But after almost 25 years, Star Wars is still flying off the shelves....
- Sir Paul McCartney. They don't make you a smelly English Knnnnnnnnnnniggit for nothing...
- John Williams. Classical music for people who hate classical music. And then there's "Catina Band"....
- Don Henley and Glenn Frey. Hell froze over, and they still play "Tequila Sunrise." And then they told us to Get Over It.
- Andrew Lloyd Weber. CATS. Phantom. Evita. They shoulda named him "Tony."
- Chuck Jones. The Grinch. Porky Pig. Wile E. Daffy. Hell, we know Daffy survived into the 23rd Century, just ask the next guy....
- And last but not least, J. Michael Straczynski. Tolkien brought the saga into the 20th century. Lucas put it on the big screen. JMS brought it to the small screen, and did the same kind of pioneering with CGI that Lucas did with what became ILM...
Of course, there are others who are only recently dead that deserve mention... Charles Schultz, Gene Roddenberry (less for scriptwriting than for starting something that just won't dieBut the folks I have mentioned have, by creating outside of traditional print, created icons that have, for the most part, already stood the test of time. These aren't the only ones out there, either.... just what came off the top of my head over Sunday brunch...
--
Oh, drat these computers. They're so naughty and so complex. I could pinch them.
-- Marvin the Martian
OK, this one's partly in jest, but I love their books. And hey, anyone who can tell the same story 4 times, using 16 books to do it, and still be just as readable by the end can't be half bad... ;-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
which one? the TV miniseries with Hurt or the Lynch movie.
I recently saw both, and as much as I like kyle mch@#45lan (how DO you spell that name?), the Lynch movie is crap. Much worse than the miniseries, mainly because so much of it was left on the cutting room floor.
the miniseries is cut too, but there they at least TRY to mark the passage of time between chapters. In the Lynch movie, if you haven't read and memorized much of the book(s), your SOL.
They are both beautiful tho. Great use of color. Both are (ok contradicting myself now) worth seeing for the visiuals, but again, the miniseries is better.
If you like "ideas" SF (like bear) and don't mind somewhat sloppy plotting, Greg Egan is a master.
For these reasons, he tends to come accross better in shorts than in novels.
I recommend Permutation City. You can stop half way, tho, as it all falls appart about there (which is kinda incongruous, given that I'm recommending it..), but by then you'll have been wowed by great ideas behind the story.
Author of The Cyberiad, starring Trurl and Klapaucius, which inspired the game SimCity.
A articulate Polish universal fiction writer, who thinks that Philip K Dick is a Visionary Among the Charlatans.
Nobody can figure out how he writes in Polish, yet the English translations of his books are full of brilliant poetic puns and neological phonetic jokes. He's got a great translator, Michael Kandel, to say the least.
His son Tomasz Lem created and maintains his father's official Stanislaw Lem Web Site.
-Don
PS: But here's what Philip K Dick, another great writer, had to say about Stanislaw Lem to the FBI:
Philip K. Dick to the FBI, September 2, 1974
I am enclosing the letterhead of Professor Darko Suvin, to go with information and enclosures which I have sent you previously. This is the first contact I have had with Professor Suvin. Listed with him are three Marxists whom I sent you information about before, based on personal dealings with them: Peter Fitting, Fredric Jameson, and Franz Rottensteiner who is Stanislaw Lem's official Western agent. The text of the letter indicates the extensive influence of this publication, SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES.
What is involved here is not that these persons are Marxists per se or even that Fitting, Rottensteiner and Suvin are foreign-based but that all of them without exception represent dedicated outlets in a chain of command from Stanislaw Lem in Krakow, Poland, himself a total Party functionary (I know this from his published writing and personal letters to me and to other people). For an Iron Curtain Party group - Lem is probably a composite committee rather than an individual, since he writes in several styles and sometimes reads foreign, to him, languages and sometimes does not - to gain monopoly positions of power from which they can control opinion through criticism and pedagogic essays is a threat to our whole field of science fiction and its free exchange of views and ideas. Peter Fitting has in addition begun to review books for the magazines Locus and Galaxy. The Party operates (a U..S.] publishing house which does a great deal of Party-controlled science fiction. And in earlier material which I sent to you I indicated their evident penetration of the crucial publications of our professional organization SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA. "
Their main successes would appear to be in the fields of academic articles, book reviews and possibly through our organization the control in the future of the awarding of honors and titles. I think, though, at this time, that their campaign to establish Lem himself as a major novelist and critic is losing ground; it has begun to encounter serious opposition: Lem's creative abilities now appear to have been overrated and Lem's crude, insulting and downright ignorant attacks on American science fiction and American science fiction writers went too far too fast and alienated everyone but the Party faithful (I am one of those highly alienated).
It is a grim development for our field and its hopes to find much of our criticism and academic theses and publications completely controlled by a faceless group in Krakow, Poland. What can be done, though, I do not know.
-Philip K Dick
From Stanislaw Lem Questions and Answers.
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Reading the majority of the comments, no one is given the reasons that most "classics" share; that being universal themses.
These are those stories that span ages and most cultures; stuff that made Tolkien famous and has a bunch of people re-reading his work in anticipation of movies!
If you've ever read his trilogy, you'll notice that it's good - vs.- evil all over again in an interesting world. Robert Jordan has an amazing world, but I can't see him sticking around as a classic because he doesn't write to the heart and soul of people.
Consider Shakespear who may not be the most famed sci-fi writer, but in the Tempest touches on forgiveness and the depth of meaning of life and love between enemies and family. People don't read Shakespear today because of the hefty language barrier and they had it spoiled for them in some formal education, but I encourage you to pick it up and take a look! Shakespear's claimed "genius" should NEVER be put in his plots! They are trite and many clearly borrowed/stole. The reason you read Shakespear is that he writes so that we can see the depth of the characters, and in them we see reflections of our selves.
What do you think makes Star Trek (or did make Star Trek) so popular! We saw bits of our daily world in those shows with racism, hate, love, betrayal, forgiveness, grace, justice, and all the rest. The sci-fi wrapper was just a very tasty sugary hook, hehehe.
I'll say that many sci-fi series and books will linger on, but I think the ones with the "universal theme" as it's called, will remain. Read Frankenstein! It's sci-fi and is really a great book. Read The Time Machine. Read The Tempest and King Lear and Paradise Lost. (Paradise Lost does drag, though). Read the Christian Bible and you'll see universal themes applied to life here in our reality; In our Internet; In our world.
The bottom line to this rambling is that despitre genre or plot books that deal with certain issues stick around regardless of what people do. Farenheight 451 will be around for a loooong time. It deals with rights of the individual and breaking the mold. Oh well... you get the idea.
Sam
you know Katz will stand the test of time, when old and grey /.ers will still be whinging about him
Come on, that guy's writing haven't even begun to sink in yet, and his prophesies will come continue to support him.
He's got a better grasp on the human condition than anyone else I've read in my life.
I'm reading that now. :-) Awesome book, definitely. I think it's amazing how so few people know that it even exists.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Ubik
The Man In the High Castle
Those are my favorite three Philip K Dick books, having read all three in one week about four summers ago. And don't forget all the movies that have been made based on his stories...
Total Recall, Minority Report, Bladerunner, Drug Taking and the Arts, Screamers, Impostor, and Confessions of a Crap Artist.
Not all winners, but many will endure, so Philip K. Dick has my top vote. Not quite the same, but Brendan DuBios' Resurrection Day reminds me of his writing.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
He has had assistants (and may currently use them). His locale in Japan (in the art boonies) made it hard to find qualified people, and required him to do all the art himself for a period of time. Look at Appleseed Volume 1 versus Appleseed volume 3 and it's like looking at Dilbert versus Michael Manning. His stuff developed both artistic and setting detail, with heavy footnotes and appendixes. That, I think, is part of the reason he's good. The other is that every one of his works has a deep unanswerable question. In Appleseed, he questions if happiness, contentment and peace are real and/or obtainable, or if they are mythic impossibilities. In Ghost in the Shell, he questions "Are we only the sum of our memories?" and posits a future when those memories can be altered, and poses an interesting question of identity when two sets of knowledge ("ghosts" or souls) are merged into one - who is that person? Where did the contributors of those two sets of knowledge "go"? It's worth noting that the movie ended there, while the manga goes on for quite awhile in a almost completely text internalized conversation. (If you read this far, you're a fan - you *do* know that the word 'manga' refers to both printed and animated cartoons, right? Despite that, I'm using 'manga' in the Americanized version of just referring to the printed comic).
Of course it's all wrapped up in sex and violence, but sex is part of being human, and the violence is almost a showcase for future weapon concepts (thus the footnotes and anal detail in the appendixes about rank insignia and such).
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
The 20th century authors still read 50 years from now will mostly be non-sci-fi authors. Sure, a few sci-fi authors will still be read - J.R.R. Tolkien, Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, etc. But the others you mentioned - hell I haven't even heard of half of them NOW. In 50 years the 20th century literary giants that will still be read will be authors like: George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Maya Angelou, J.D. Salinger, etc.
I don't think anyone would seriously argue that the sci-fi authors you mentioned are more well-read even now than someone like John Steinbeck is, let alone in 50 years.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Even if we limit ourselves to fiction, sci-fi will be a *very* small portion of the fiction that survives to be well-read 50 years from now. Hell, I haven't even heard of half the authors Cliff mentioned NOW, and either have most other people. Authors who will stand the test of time are more timeless authors - ones like J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye), George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm), John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath), etc. Does anyone really think in 50 years anyone will have heard of Orson Scott Card, much less place him beside authors like Steinbeck?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
(Ugh. I deserve a -1 for that title. Maybe someone will be nice enough to give me +2 for being Informative.)
Calvino is not, per se, an SF writer, but if you like Lem or Dick, his philosophical & folklorish style of writing will lend himself to you.
The three titles I own of his are:
Invisible Cities (an allegory based on a fictional dialogue between Marco Polo & Kublai Khan)
The Castle of Crossed Destinies (the telling of several stories based on cards from a Tarot deck)
If on a Winter's Night a Travel (selections from several imaginary books . . . well, you have to read it for yourself to understand)
And if Calvino has sated your weird literature taste, then there is Milorad Pavic. His _Dictionary of the Khazars_ evokes HPL's own creation of the _Necronomicon_.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Even though Phil Dick was certainly all that (eg, Valis), and excellent with it, I wonder how much of his mass popularity here is due to the continuing thing with films being made of his stories.
I think that Phil Dick is rather like Lovecraft in that he is more important for the themes suggested in his work rather than the literary merits of anything he actually wrote. And as with Lovecraft, the best films based on Phil Dick's work (for example Blade Runner) tend to be those that take the most liberties with the source material but preserve the feeling.
How much of the voting will in hindsight show ephermeral trends (eg, the loathsome Hubbard).
Only if Scientology collapses. Remember that 100 years ago Mormonism was considered as wacky as Scientology is today, and yet today it is a mainstream religion.
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.
Robert Heinlein
C. J. Cherryh
A. E. van Vogt
Vernor Vinge
E. E. 'doc' Smith
Frank Herbert (just for Dune, since they make kids read it nowadays)
David Drake
S. M. Stirling
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Well I guess I look at science fiction and literature a bit differently. So here are my authors whose work will be read and appreciated 50 years from now.
JACK VANCE - Crossing science fiction and fantasy Vance writes great stories which are not tied to science closely. His stories of the Gaien Reach are wonderful. And "The Last Castle" is a true classic.
KIM STANLEY ROBINSON - I'm thinking less here of his Mars trilogy than his Orange County Trilogy and "A Memory of Whiteness." Again, not too closely tied to any given technology.
LARRY NIVEN - One work: "Ringworld" because it will last. No galactic core explosion but who cares? Perhaps it's a bit too '60s.
URSULA LEGUIN - for "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "Earthsea" if nothing else. She writes very well indeed.
GREGORY BENFORD - this one is riskier but Benford is more than a "hard science" writer.
GREG BEAR - just for "Blood Music" if nothing else.
I have a few picks that are sort of "off the beaten path"
LUCIOUS SHEPARD for "Life During Wartime"
CONNIE WILLIS for her short stories. I think "At the Rialto" will appear in many anthologies.
THOMAS PYNCHON for "Gravity's Rainbow"
and the staples:
ALFRED BESTER for "The Stars my Destination"
ROBERT HEINLEIN - the early juveniles were well done. His later work was self-indulgent crap and he desperately needed to be edited - hard - as he was in his early career.
I'm not sure about Arthur Clark. I don't think his work has legs.
To Kill a Mockingbird.
'Nuff said. Just re-read it today...
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
I see a ton of people mentioning SF writers. I also noticed that the question was "any genre". It's astonishing that nobody has mentioned SHAKESPEARE he's only been around for, oh... 400 years? My guess is he lasts the next 50. He's only the most obvious example. Feel free to name more.
No sig for you.
My top authors for "Still good in 50 Years"
Sci-fi
Bujold - (start with Cordelia's Honor ) MARVELLOUS
Moon - fantasy and sci-fi
Cherryh - Cyteen / Chanur / etc
Mystery
JA Jance
Hillerman
maybe list
Niven's Ringworld series may last
Weber is good ~
Clive Barker
and whever wrote Phule's Company
Hmm-
We create our society each time we interact with another person.
What kind of society did you create today?
Richard C Bond, Sr. 1986!!!
We create our society every time we interact with each other. What kind of society did you create today?
Good point. But it actually didn't surprise me much that she wasn't mentionned more. Her first books were good, and I loved them dearly, but is she as immortal as masters such as Tolkien, Asimov? I don't think so. Especially as Pern is pretty much becoming a franchise, with goodies of dubious quality thrown in (don't get me started on the Pern video game). Wouldn't surprise me much if Todd (her son) went on writing Pern stuff after she leaves this world.
Good author? Definitely. You don't win the Hugo prize easily, mind you. But immortal? Nope. Sometimes I think that Pern died along with Robinton. Sad.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
If we're talking timeless, immortal authors, I'm highly surprised that nobody mentionned Michael Ende. Whether his writings qualify as fantasy or philosophy is anyone's guess, but The Neverending Story is just that, a timeless masterpiece. I think it's one of those books that will always live on, possibly through centuries, because as long as there will be someone putting words on paper, there will be neverending stories, and Ende's book is about them, and why they matter. I know I'll keep re-reading it all my life long. It's worth it.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
why? I really don't think it needs to be pointed out
I'm relating these to children's stories, which have shown a decent persistance.
The point is, that a book or a show can disappear leaving just small marks on society. But given the current techie culture of quoting heavily on certian books and references, we might expect the original Star Wars, The Matrix, and the general feel of Dr Who and Star Trek to suvive, these are doing better than other works, such as Blakes 7 or Babylon 5.
Given the vast material on Dr Who and Star Trek, we might find these surviving in a guise like Noddy, Mickey and Minnie, &c, where people are familiar with the characters, but not any specific plot.
Hitchhicker's Guide, may well be the new Alice in Wonderland, and the Matrix, and Star Wars may well survive as storys that give many quotes to, something like Black Beauty, or the Secret Garden.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
jon katz
Liberty uber alles.
me!
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
True. I was being rather nice. In reality I'll just copy all the stuff anyway and let them try to figure out how to keep children from accessing the files after I've inserted them into FreeNet version 72.
:)
I don't have the money to buy off our officials like Disney can but I can out-geek them. It's best in a war not to fight where your enemy is strongest right?
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
It seems that most of the writers mentioned so far are genre writers, so at the risk of being too obvious, I'd like to nominate John Steinbeck.
The transcendent East of Eden may be one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century. A tragic and yet beautiful retelling of the Fall from Grace in a modern setting, the story manages to be simultaneously heart-rendering and uplifting by exploring the themes of destiny and freewill, righteousness versus callousness.
IMO, it competes with Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath for the title of Steinbeck's best work.
Randy's dad was the one who devided up the furnature. Randy just hacked it so he would get the punchcards :P
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Shikasta also provides a perfect explanation for the stupidity and short-sightedness of humanity, although I think it might a spoiler to say what that explanation is.
When was the last time you read a comic strip written 50 years ago?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
An analogy would be to compare primitive Mesopotamian clay sculptures to more modern artwork. No-one goes around claiming that the Venus of Willendorf is immeasurably superior to, say, Henry Moore's work - although for their time, those Venuses were pretty cutting-edge.
And in defense of science fiction, it's one of the only genres which allows themes to be explored that go beyond the mundane and boring details of current human existence. If it weren't for the pretensions of the aforementioned individuals, this would be more recognized. Some amazing work of great literary significance has been done in SF, but often has not received the recognition it deserves because of the limited perspective of those literary critics who believe that if it's not dealing with the petty trivia that fills their dreary existence, it's not relevant to their lives.
Don't allow yourself to be constrained by the tunnel-visioned, small-minded parrots who can only repeat how great someone who lived hundreds of years ago was, and how everything that's new and that's now pales in comparison! What we create in our time will become the legends and greatness of the future - appreciate our creations for the human genius that they embody, the equal or better of anything that has come before!
I think not. These three are chiefly remarkable because they found a parade and got to the head of it or, at best, appealed to some very specific, topical part of the zeitgeist. The world hasn't quite turned out like they thought (Japanese ascendancy for Gibson's example). I'm willing to bet that they don't speak to anything as common to the human condition as, say, Ring Lardner, O. Henry, or Runyon. And who reads them any more?
If any of today's popular writing survives it will probably be Dr. Suess.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
Yeh, If by 'writing' you mean 'copy and pasting other people's work to kuro5hin'
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
John Berryman, Seamus Heaney, Wallace Stevens, in that order.
illegitimii non ingravare
Rm *.* would only delete files with spaces in the name. You want rm *
Or perhaps the famous rm -rf *
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I say Michael Crichton because if nothing else, a number of his movies were made into Hollywood block busters. Jurassic Park, #2, #3, Congo (although it wasn't nearly as good as the book), and more I think. Good author. Good books. Good read IMHO.
I noticed a strange thing at my local used book store - Right after Douglas Adams died his books were moved from the 'Science Fiction/Fantasy' section to the 'literature' section.
..wierd
He was always complaining that his books ended up in strange places, such as "travel", "Eating", "Religion", etc.
I'm wondering what their thought process was on this one? 'Science Fiction/Fantasy' is not 'serious' enough? He's dead now, so his writing is classic literature?
It's also that literary critics like to claim to be authorities into what the author was thinking. Which is easier when an author cannot contradict them
I hate to nitpick (well, I love to nitpick, but I hate getting berated for it), and perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but it sounds like you're saying Speaker for the Dead was written about artificial intelligence. It wasn't - in fact, as far as I remember, there was no mention at all of artificial intelligence in the entire series.
If you're referring to Jane, I'd suggest you finish Xenocide and Children of the Mind or check out some fan websites - Jane wasn't artificial.
If they have not read Xenocide (which explains exactly what she is) they might get the impression that she's an AI.
Obligatory Author: Frank Herbet (Specifically Dune). I know he's dead, but it was premature and relatively (15 years) recently. He certainly is a writer of this era.
First of all, my thoughts here are strictly confined to authors who write in English of some form. As for the longevity of current authors I think almost none will be around in 50 years, other than those within the circles of the literati (eg Nobel and Booker prize winners). The problem will be that the volume of content will continue unabated and the new prose (particularly in SF) will drown out that written today.
The problem with SF is that there is little to recommend it as literature, the plots are often excellent (for example I love greg bear and a grandchild of mine would surely enjoy his work as much as I did, but I don't think they will read him) and the ideas great but of this masse, it is only those who famously tie themselves to a point in time in the future that end up being read at that time, particulalry since their lack of literary "quality" means that they will notbe taught in schools. I think we have moved into a phase where the near future offers barren ground for the current author (perhaps current events will alter that) and so few will stand the test of time.
I agree with a previous poster who mentioned Steinbeck (although he too is dead) and I think that Irving Welsh will be read in fifty years because he speaks to/of the chemical generation whose lives will be "interesting" at that time.
One of the great problems is the lack of social comment in "populist" literature. It is difficult to find the Dickens of the late 20th C (in fiction) whose well crafted books critique the wrongs of the society of the day, through metaphor and satire. For it is those authors who are sought out to try and understand a society for ehich we do not have a direct experience. The other problem is that literature is no longer the most accessible vehicle for that form of comment any more. Television and even music is the metaphoric record of today.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Pure science fiction that more of today's writers grew up reading.
Besides the Barsoom tales, there is the Pellicudar tales on Venus as well.
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
Off the top of my head: BB King, Glenn Miller, Muddy Waters, Billie Holiday. My 'older music' interest is rather blues-slanted, but even so...
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
Basically, there are those authors who date themselves by extending today's technology and describing it in detail. Then they hinge their stories on those technologies.
I don't think these people will survive. Michael Crighton's diamonds and state of primate training in Congo fit well into this category (not to mention the futuristic powerful imaging system he described, that now sits on many desktops). Jurassic Park did okay because cloning is cloning -- Tom Clancy's work will be outdated.
Then there are others who present a very 'human' story surrounded by technology. Crucial technology is more loosely defined and is based on an ultimate end -- human-like robots (Asimov) and emotional talking computers (Clarke). We've passed 2001's date and it doesn't feel dated.
I think the following comic artists will be read 50 years from now:
1. Bill Watterson--his Calvin and Hobbes are truly imaginative and stand the test of time.
2. Charles Schulz--again, Peanuts at its very best also stands the test of time.
3. Will Eisner--he has done a number of graphic novels that are flat-out GREAT. I'll never forget The Neighborhood: Dropsie Avenue; I hope it gets made into a TV miniseries someday.
By that reasoning I suppose. I have also heard people from Britain refer to "Southern Yankees". In their vernacular it makes perfect sense but would get them punched out if they said it in Georgia.
Rudy Rucker, particularly Transreal!, freeware
Douglas Adams - The "Trilogy" and the online site
Robert Heinlein, especially The Number of the Beast and Stranger in a Strange Land
A. E. Van Vogt - The Weapon Shops of Isher series, the World of Null-A, and other novels.
E.E. "Doc" Smith - The Lensman series.
Ursula K. LeGuin - A Wizard of Earthsea, the Earthsea trilogy. Lasted this long and going strong online!
Edgar Rice Burroughs - Mars series
William Burroughs - Naked Lunch and others
William Gibson - The Gernsbach Continuum, Burning Chrome
J. G. Ballard - Crash
Bruce Sterling - Islands in the Net
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age
Nancy Kress - Beggars and Choosers trilogy
Philip K. Dick - The Zap Gun, Martian Time Slip, lots of others
Michael Crichton - Travels, Andromeda Strain, Timeline, Rising Sun
Stanislaw Lem - The Cyberiad
Greg Bear - Blood Music, many others
David Brin - Uplift Trilogy, Earth
Carl Sagan - Contact, many others
Arthur C. Clarke - 2001, many others
Frank Herbert - Dune series
Samuel R. Delaney - Night and the Loves of Joe Dicostanzo, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, Dhalgren
Vernor Vinge - Realtime series
Isaac Asimov - The Foundation series, The Robot series
Larry Niven - Ringworld series
Jerry Pournelle (with Larry Niven) - The Mote in God's Eye
C. S. Lewis - The Narnia series, Perelandra series
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
Some others which may not make it into history but might be good to keep..
Charles de Lint - Moonheart and others
A. A. Attanasio - Radix tetrad
Jack L. Chalker - Well of Souls series
James P. Hogan - The Genesis Machine
John Varley - Titan
Peter F. Hamilton - The Reality Dysfunction
Stephen Baxter - Timelike Infinity
Alexander Besher - RIM
www.tor.com has a number of these artists.
there are some other great ones from early 80s for which I can't remember author/title.. help?
1 - another cool one, author/title unknown. a message from aliens that resembles an animated sequence of hypnotically merging venn diagrams drives every genius who sees it crazy with its seductive, inescapable logic. A lesser man who gets around the intelligence test gains access to a interstellar library beam. A key scene is inside a spaceship built from this ("Omnivox?") technology, in which the beam de-evolves the crew into liquid which can stand heavy accelleration, then re-evolves them back. One bad guy suffers a mishap in which he ends up a starfish! Predates the public Internet and tells you what may happen when we light it up one day with atomic lasers.
2 - a more recent, fun novel which features an American Indian whose sand paintings prove to be alien warps in time and information space. (Not Jack Haldeman's High Steel)
3 - another novel which features "neurolinguistic programming", which according to this fsf novel is a special language used by the sumerians that is rediscovered and gives its speakers over others.
4 - Hollywood (or maybe California) Dreamtime, by unknown author. Involving description of virtual reality technology and funhouses of the future. A fsf mystery.
anybody has an idea, please email me!
Forgot to mention in my list, Leiji Matsumoto's
comic books and films in the Galaxy Express 999
(Ginga Tetsudo 999) are going to last a long time.
Also Gainax' Evangelion series, though that is just film as far as I know.
Contemporary authors who will still be read 50 years hence: Vonnegut Pynchon Pratchett Adams Seuss Asimov Heinlein Clarke Rand Ones who will drop from sight over time: Stephenson King Herbert Hawking plus all the great but obscure SF writers that would get mentioned only on a /. list - 50 years is a ong time for tastes to change, especially for niche artists. There's no justice or accounting for mass tastes.
Frankly, most of her her stuff reads like a political tract to me.
I did like the Earthsea Trilogy, though.
YMMV,
Jon
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I can't believe yours is the only post I've read so far mentioning Tad Williams.
Critics have called Williams the closest thing there is to a modern-day JRR Tolkien but, IMHO, his work blows Tolkien away.
Sure, he's not as well known, but read his classic fantasy trilogy Memory, Sorrow and Thorn (made up of The Dragonbone Chair, The Stone of Farewell and To Green Angel Tower*), and compare it to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
Now I'm not saying that LOTR isn't a good read - it's a great one - but MST has so much more action, emotion and depth that you immediately remember that LOTR was written for kids.
If more people knew about Williams, he'd be lauded as a genius - and rightly so.
(* MST's book three was also published in paperback in two parts as it was so big. These two books are called Storm and Siege.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I definitely agree on Shockwave Rider, but of course a close examination of my nick prolly tells you that :) (was haflinger_n taken? anyway, I digress)
But Stand & Sheep? They're great novels, and yes, I think they'll survive pretty well. But they're not representative of a paradigm shift the way Shockwave is, merely really good books which had the good luck of being released relatively early in his career, and so avoided getting ignored as many other really good books he wrote did (particularly in the '80s, when he became Old Hat or something; Jagged Orbit, Traveller in Black, Children of the Thunder, all really amazing books)
Shockwave on the other hand is an incredible predictive novel. The Great Quake hasn't happened (yet), and we don't yet have the kind of vidphone tech he suggests (though things like WebTV come close), but conceptually it's really amazing how close modern society is to the Brunner/Toffler vision.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
The context is Japan. It's a japanese word, and the Japanese use it to refer to both animated and comic form cartoons. This comes from four people: Peter Payne of J-List (who lives in Japan), a friend who taught in Japan for six years, his wife he came back here with, who is Japanese and speaks little english, and her friend who came over for Christmas to visit America for the first time (who spoke pretty much no english). None but the first were particular fans of manga - they are just average people from Japan using the word as it is used on the street, while the first is a big fan of manga, and would be the equivelent of someone in America who would distinguish between "Comics" and "Cartoons". So it would seem that both among fans and non-fans, in Japan the word manga refers to both animated and print cartoons. Here in America, of course, manga generally just refers to only the printed form, while anime refers to animated movies, OVAs and TV series.
A friend just added that he's heard that among British otaku, it's all called manga as well, according to a Brit tourist he met at EPCOT (who also called my friend's large collection of anime pins "manga badges").
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Inaccurate perception.
Tolkien did not know when to quit. He also didn't know when to publish. He kept on writing until he died, but never managed to get anything which he thought was ready for publication other than the Big Three plus some miscellaneous shorts. What he Really Wanted I think was to publish twenty volumes of the Silmarillion, but he just couldn't get it organized well enough.
You may be right about Jordan, though. :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Just because a Brust fan likes this Moran character, I think I will have to check him out.
Stephen Brust is amazing. The man can do anything he wants to.
Interesting footnote: I always get my girlfriends to read Agyar. So far, there's been a direct correlation between the length of the relationship and what they think of the book.
Brust is probably the only author to take Zelazny's style and actually be a better writer.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
*Jackie Collins
*John Grisham
*VC Andrews
*Cmdr. Taco
*Jon Katz
I don't think it's possible to list all the books that have ever made me think, but here's a few.
"The Dispossessed", by Ursula LeGuin
The "Foundation" series by Isaac Asimov
"Earth Abides" by George Stewart
most people have never heard of this book, but anyone who has seen or read "The Stand" by Stephen King will feel the echoes of this story throughout. I think the original was better.
"The Coelura" novella, and also the "Powers That Be" series, both by Anne McCaffrey
The "Incarnations" series by Piers Anthony
"The Unfinished Revolution" by Michael Dertouzos
"The Prophet", and also "Mirrors of the Soul" by Kahlil Gibran
"Ethics for the New Millennium" by the Dalai Lama
"No Logo" by Naomi Klein
"Dune" by Frank Herbert
"The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle
what's on your think list?