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What Makes Great Science Fiction?
cheesethegreat writes "Have you ever noticed how everyone breaks down into a near-religious frenzy when the topic of the "best" science fiction universe comes up? Everyone has a favorite universe, be it the Foundation Series by Asimov, or the classic Star Wars trilogy. So tell Slashdot what your favorite is, and what the most important part of a science fiction universe is to you."
FP
...and his ability to foresee the future, and tell us about it so that our imaginations flowed with his. And throw in some Asimov for his clarity in things machine.
dune. say no more...
FarScape is a kickass series. Very well done and almost realistic. :-)
Nubile female alien sex addicts, who are genetically engineered to please men at the drop of a hat.
Well, as far as books go, I'd have to say the Dune series by Frank Herbert (ALthough, I'm sure you all know that) The way it so elegantly combines action, suspence, twisty curvey plots within plots that actually require one to think... but the prequels... they are just pieces of crap that are poorly written..
As far as movies go... Donnie Darko, although not blatently science fiction, is one great piece of film... you should all watch it...
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
Can't we just all get along and create one all encompassing universe?
As much as I like nearly all science fiction universes, my favorite is that of Dune. Herbert's universe is filled with politics, planets, populations and dozens of complicated plots that could affect whole galaxies. He manages to convey a vast and complicated universe through his works. I am always amazed.
My favorite.
Mods have no sense of humor...
anything with a giant bug and Xev in it works for me.
#1: Believable, REAL people.
Heinlien, Weber, Drake, Cook. All authors that have good solid characters.
#2: Believable science.
a limited number of WOW factor science. Make it easy for Me to believe, and make it well thought out and self consistant!
Sci-Fi needs to tell a story, period. Many times you read a sci fi novel and the author is obviously in love with how clever he can be. Sci-Fi is about expanding ideas, not how clever an author can be. An author needs to suspend disbeleif, this can almost be as easy as Orson Scott Card (enders game) when he assumes technology exists, because then we can see how it affects the characters and devise how we beleive it works. Or an author can take the road of Peter F. Hamilton (reality dysfunction) and completely describe every minute detail about how things interact and function. Both authors achieve a suspension of disbeleif about things that are scientifically fictional, and they mix it with the good elements of a story, that are not sci fi at all. The blending of sci-fi concepts and ideas and a good solid story seemlessly make a good science fiction novel.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
Arthur C Clarke's Space Oddysey series, without a shadow of a doubt. Not just a classic movie (and so-so sequel), but four incredibly compelling books which explore far more than any other sci-fi series I've ever come across.
Deliberately non-specific so as to be non-spoily for people who haven't read the books (try them, you might like them!).
As good literature: nontrivial (but feasible)technical ideas, good non-cartoonish characters (read: NOT Luke Skywalker or Captain Kirk), interesting plot (read: not necessary ends with happy end). In general, one may actually have more questions after finishing the book than he had in the beginning. BTW, Lem is one of such authors. Philip Dick is another.
Iain M. Banks' Culture.
I'd love to live in the middle of trippy post-humanist apace opera universe... wouldn't evryone?
deus does not exist but if he does
For me, the must reads of SciFi have always been Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke. With a strong extra vote for Kurt V (but V doesn't fit in the "ABC" quipe). The cool thing about SciFi is that it allows the author to extropolate a particular theme in isolation from reality, often almost to an extreme.
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
Hard Science Fiction Mofos;
New Wave Sucks, Golden Age forever!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
he's my favorite sci-fi writer.
I think what makes great science fiction isn't the universe, it's the concept behind it. Of course, you can argue that this is what distinguishes short stories (which tend to be much more concept-oriented) from novels (which need to develop deeper characters, unless you can figure out a device like Asimov used in Foundation to get away with shallow character development). Still, I can think back on the great science fiction I've read, and most of it is really about the ideas, not about the universe.
After all, most sci-fi universes are just our own universe with something changed - a more complicated version of a Sliders episode. If everything were actually different, we'd have no reference point and it wouldn't mean anything. It's the fact that almost everything is the same except for some crucial difference (more advanced technology, or the Nazis winning WW2, etc.) that makes the stories compelling. That's why so many of these stories include some kind of foil character that the reader can identify with (Arthur Dent is a good example of this, but literally almost every single sci-fi book ever written contains at least one main character that is strikingly similar to people contemporary to the author's own culture). The story can often be created simply by allowing the contemporary typical person to clash with the changes introduced in the universe.
Well, I grew up on Star Wars, so I really don't have the best view on it. To me, good sci-fi needs a few things. -Believable characters -Deep Storyline -Something I can relate to. For exmaple, you write me a story about earth being destroyed in nuclear war and we move to other planets, give me some high-tech goodies, a deep storyline and some believable characters and I'm a happy guy! Then again, SF isn't my first choice in literature. Fantasy by David Eddings or Terry Goodkind will get my attention a lot faster. But that's just me.
TLoM: Nerds + DDR + Rednecks for the win!
Not that I want to escape real life that badly, but I get a kick out of being there. It kinda feeds upon itself. That's exactly what science fiction is all about, no?
I really am a big Gibson fan. And no, not just because of the hacker-of-the-future thing. I think that when he writes (every 8 years or so, the lazy canadian bastard) he creates a future that could damn well be tomorrow. Granted, it's no Dune or LOTR, but I think he has a great mind.
There is no greater science fiction writer than the late Douglas Adams and there is no greater work of science fiction than the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and its five part trilogy.
Science fiction doesn't have to be dramatic to be good, but being nuts does help a little...
OFTC: By the community, for the community
Interesting question.
Mine would have to be Babylon 5. I've always been a SF fan, and enjoyed all the popular stuff, and a lot of the unpopular stuff. But B5 was great for any number of reasons, not the least of which was that it was the first major SF show with any production value to have an actual story arc, not just a series of disconnected episodes taking place in a loosely connected background.
Contrasted with most other SF series, B5 had a consistency and an appeal that made it truly great. As an example, I think it's the only SF series I can recall that even attempted to use something resembling realistic physics in its spaceflight sequences.
As far as movies go, I have to give the nod to Star Wars, just because it's great, even if it's a little (a lot) schlocky. If I had to choose one great SF film, it'd be 2001: A Space Odyssey. Once again, the use of real-world physics (or something resembling it) made a lot of difference, and as a long-time Clarke fan, I had loved the book/short story long before I saw the film.
Both Asimov and Dune write science fiction; Farscape is television and I have never seen it so I do not comment.
My all time great is the world of CJ Cherryh with books like Cyteen and Downbelow station. It relates how humanity develops when time between travelling from point to point is an issue
Do try to read these and enjoy!
Gerard
Really, it's the same thing that makes any story good:
1) GOOD CHARACTERS
2) Good plot
3) Well-written imagery and narrative
Too many sci-fi writers seem to forget those rules. They take a gadget or a concept or an individual occurrence and try to stretch it into a novel, because it's sci-fi and "people who read sci-fi" (insert Trek convention stereotype here) will buy it no matter how shitty it is. They don't even TRY to be good writers.
Also, and even good writers can be guilty of this, they write into the genre rather than letting the genre be a non-factor. They don't develop a plot or a character in a logical way because that's "not sci-fi enough." You can always tell when a writer has shoehorned something into what they percieve as a sci-fi limitation.
DUNE is by far the most expansive of all sci-fi.... There are 6 original books by Frank Herbert and 4 by his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson with at least another 3 on the way from them. The new books are, as far as I'm concerned, just as good as the originals too.
No other sci-fi series can compare. The Dune universe spans hundreds of thousands of years and still ties in together.
Battlefield Earth was the best science fiction movie ever!!!!!!!! Man... Where else can you find a bunch of natives who learn how to fly jets in under 42 hours... all by reading...
I tell you... nothing to get better than that...
And with that whacky scientoligist alien guy... it's excellent! You should all go rent it right now!
EOS, End of Sarcasm
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
News? This is a /. poll, without the obligitory Cowboy Neal option.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, were the trinity of SF when I was a kid. The genre offers too much to be limited in thi way.
For really great SF look to Gibson, Stephenson, Sterling, Vonnegut...
Dont forget to read mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
The list of great SF goes on and on, basically because stories of the future answer or us the question "where are we going?"
The essence of great science fiction, to me anyways, is taking ordinary people as we know them in real life, then placing them in extraordinary (but still believable) situations. Of course, science and technology should be present, but it shouldn't dominate the story. If you let it upstage the rest of the story, you get garbage like Independence Day (which wasn't even very science-fictional, if you ask me).
Great science fiction sheds light on the inner workings of what people are like, by showing them in a different light. It serves as a warning about possible futures, examining implications of technologies both good and bad. And perhaps most of all, great science fiction has ideas and themes in it that can survive the test of time.
Cecil
Seriously, if you haven't read this guy, do yourself a favor. American book stores don't care much of his stuff, although I have seen Excession and Look to Windward in there lately. His books are hands down the best science fiction I have ever read. His fiction books are widely acclaimed also.
The technology in his books allows him to place his well-developed characted in unusual situations. He doesn't let the technology run the story. The questions his books pose stay with me for many days afterward. His endings are not simple, usually they're very bloody and unhappy, sometimes even unsatisfying. And that's why I think they're so great. So check him out. Start with Consider Phlebas, or Against a Dark Background. You won't regret it.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Ug. I am so sick of everyone telling me that I have to go see that movie. What a dissapointment.
The ending was horrible and the only interpretation that I could take away was that it was a retelling of the Christ story: ie. Darko's death was the "salvation" of his little town. Ew. Everything he was "forced" to do in the splinter universe was useless and accomplished nothing: the death of his girlfriend, manipulating his mother to get on the airplane, etc. POINTLESS!
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
I like my SF a bit newer.
How about the Seafort saga by Feintuch or possibly Dan Simmons' series about the Shrike.
These books, now they will blow your socks off. 2001? Please....too boring!.
One thing that makes great sci fi is when the story and setting can not only withstand the implications of the science, but grow naturally from it. Examples of science fiction stories that really reflect an understanding of their science are: everything by Vernor Vinge (particularly A Fire Upon the Deep, anything by Greg Egan (I particularly love Permutation City), and even the classic '50s film Forbidden Planet, whose plot is almost inevitable given its compelling techno-sociological premise.
Examples of Science Fiction that cannot withstand the implications of the science presented include Star Trek (particularly the later series) and the Star Wars franchise. Neither of them really know what they're getting themselves into with their technological advancements. Replicator technology in particular would be so transformative in reality that we would not recognize the society that resulted from its existence.
Gotta go with Douglas Adams' universe. I'm probably not as well versed in sci-fi as some people here (I gave up reading it a few years ago) but it seems to me that his universe is the most realistic - all the power belongs to the media, nobody cares about anything, stupidity and bloody-mindedness are the norm and no one really has any idea as to what's going on. :)
:)
I also liked the universe Asimov created in the "Stars like Dust" trilogy. I'm annoyed that it's out of print - I wanted to give it to someone for christmas.
My all-time favs tho are sci-fi stories that happen here, like Adams' Dirk Gently series or the Illuminatus Trilogy. I find them easier to immerse yourself in. People seem to forget that Sci-fi doesn't automatically assume spaceships and all that.
Triv
I think that in any medium, having a good storyline is key. By good, I mean:
-Plot: The plot needs to develop in a natural, thought out way. Using superior technology to escape from every little situation kills the story.
-Characters: The people in the story need to act in a believable way. Having Darth Vader cuddle up with a pussy cat just wouldn't seem right.
The second thing would be actors. If the acting seems too fake (wooden, forced, whatever), then it can EASILY kill a very good story.
Of course, the best way to create a wonderful sci-fi story is to do something that DOESN'T involve a holodeck screw up!
If you smoke after sex, you're doing it too fast.
Niven is one of my personal favorites - you can't go wrong with the Ringworld books, or the Smoke Ring books(a world consisting of a gas torus around a white dwarf star, giant trees and humans evolved to live on them. Tech from when they first arrived is highly prized and guarded. Great stuff!) Pretty much all his books are good, I have noticed a battle of the haves and have-nots theme reappearing here and there.
Clarke is great and has put out alot of '2 hour' books, finish them on a long car ride - if you can stand your wife's/gf's driving ;)
Asimov is wonderful and has written something about everything. Clarke and Asimov I found while buying cheapy sci fi books at garage sales and thrift stores. I will *always* buy anthologies - they never fail to provide a story that amazes me, and authors that I've never heard of writing incredible stories. I'll post some when I find my books...
I think you're answering the wrong question.
...must be at least 70% fiberglass and/or silicon - in particular, heads.
Does this make my brain look big?
For me, the best scifi worlds would have to be... William Gibson's Sprawl (from Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) or Dune, with Isaac Asimov's Foundation in the running.
Neuromancer is so gritty, so unexpected, that it would be marvelous (and scary as hell) to live in it.
Dune is amazingly complex, and awe-inspiring until Herbert went 'round the bend a bit at the end... and a previous poster nailed it: the prequels suck.
And the Foundation is the anti-Sprawl: a panacea.
Everybody dies.
Am I the only /.er that loves this show? Speak up. I don't watch traditional sci-fi, and Red Dwarf is definitely not that.
I'm reluctant to cast a vote in the best SciFi category, mainly because there is so much great stuff.
I will, though, mention one author that is completely blowing me away right now. Her name is Octavia E. Buttler and for powerful, dramatic SciFi, she reigns supreme (for me at least). Clay's Ark and Patternmaster are definately not to be missed. Also, for great short stories, try her collection of short stories Bloodchild: And Other Stories
Also, for good old fashioned SciFi, check out Roger Zelazny. The first half of the Amber series is almost purely fantasy (while the second half is a mix of SciFi and Fantasy) so they probably don't count as an answer to this question. But Psychoshop and Donnerjack are definately fun to read.
Oh and I guess I might as well plug one of my all-time favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut. All of them are so good that I can't even pick out one to recommend. Just try any (or all) of them.
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
Lately, I've been going through Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Series. Very interesting, and quite entertaining.
I think what makes it appealing to me is that it isn't too far-fetched, and also deals with the human element -- something that's all too often ignored in the terribly geeky, antisocial realm of sci-fi.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
Richness of description. The cadence of the words. The coherence of the world presented to the reader. I've only read a few books that were /really/ good.
Heinlien hasn't written anything I've liked. Asimov makes him seem like a child.
Give me any Larry Niven book anyday!
What the hell? Shouldn't this be a poll, or something other than a "News" article?
Go ahead and mod me offtopic. This whole damn article is.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
Cowboy Bebop is one of my most favorite Sci-Fi universes.
Not quite as lovey-dovey as the Star Trek commie-universe, not as apocalyptic as Mad Max. Uses the best of both plus a little BladeRunner to mesh all cultures together.
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
Stephenson is one of my favourites. Especially
Cryptimonicon, which I assume others also will consider to be sci-fi, even tough it takes place in our world, during WW2 and the present.
Or would you not consider Cryptimonicon as sci-fi?
However you spell his name, He was fun to read. I liked Job, especially perhaps...but many were very, very good.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
If you haven't read Ender's Game yet then you must do so immediately if not sooner. I'm not kidding.
Slashdot should just engage in the traditional day of rest on Sundays, instead of running all this crap. :-)
-Rob
-Rob Ewaschuk
Nudity, robots and nude girls, nude girls floating in zero-g, nude girls in futuristic cities, and umm, nude girls.
The Star Trek franchise is by far the best Sci-Fi around, past present and probably future. If you dweebs actually prefer Star Wars or the faggoty Dr. Who crap, knock yourselves out. But I ask you to ponder this: What does God need with a starship!?!?
Some of his insights: Edgar Allen Poe's horror stories were great sci-fi. As an "exercise", he rewrote "Masque of the Red Death" into a Cold War-themed "Masque of the RAD Death" - and changed about ten words. Or a story about man first receiving SETI-type signals - which ended after a month and an alien nuclear war.
Ben Bova is one of the sci-fi heavyweights - find this one at your library and give it a read. I promise you won't be disappointed.
A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire
It's just like things such as "what makes a great sandwich." Some swears by tomatoes while others can't stand them; the select few will go with anchovys and say that any sandwich without them is no food at all, etc.
/., eh?
/. to get them answered, anyhow... It's all about Karma-whoring right?
Furthermore, you can't really answer this without delving into a question like "what makes a good book." And if all of us had better ideas than you, we'd be making millions selling books instead of posting of
Of course, I can give you what I personally like in SciFi - imaginative worlds are always welcome (well described, mind you), and intellectually stimulating is also another plus (social / psychological / whatever problems that arise from these new and imaginative circumstances); beyond that, here and there some action / romance / whatever to help push the story along so I actually look forward to continue reading.
Of course, I have read books that may lack some of these qualities but were still very fun to read. So in the end, your question is still unanswered; but anyways... who posts questions on
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Though I find it hard to nail down a great definition of Fantasy, great Sci Fi is not Fantasy.
Fantasy generally contain spells, mythical creatures and/or some sort of super natural. Sci Fi can be very similar, but with "scientific" reasons behind it. If you follow this arguement through, you will notice that it gets *very* hard to distinguish the difference. If can define the difference better,please let me know.
There are some authors (Anne McKathery (sp?)) who blend Sci-Fi/Fantasy. I like these authors.
Though often times in Sci-Fi, there's a great emphasis on technology or tricky plots, there's nothing more off-putting to me than a lack of interesting charactors. For instance, the book The Light of Other Days has an arguably good and interesting plot, and has technology that's both believable and very cool. But it lacks any sort of actually interesting charactors. The kind of character that makes you just want to go and meet them.
On the other hand, one of my favorite SciFi writers, Lois McMaster Bujold, manages to incorporate amazing characters. The tech in her universe is fairly generic (in fact, it rarely calls attention to itself) and while it's mostly scientifically correct (that is, it doesnt' make any blatent errors) it doesn't seem to overly concern itself with mundane scientific details, but instead tells a very human story. And that, to me, is very important.
Yes, it's nice to have your action take place on a superintelligent space-ship, travelling through time to save the galaxy, but if your characters lack substance, I frankly don't care if they live or die. Good characters make people care.
Charles Sheffield, for one.
."
:wq!
Of all the Sci-Fi authors I have read over the years I would have to say he had the formula down the best.
Hard science fiction, believeable characters and the odd McAndrew made for exellent storytelling I could read over and over again.
Too bad he passed away here lately and I won't get to hear any more of his ideas but in order of prefrence I would have to say:
hard science. Sure, you have to extrapolate a bit, but make it believable and intelligent.
Humor. That's always good. Like the alien Hollus, in his first meeting with humans. The humans thought it was all a prank at first...:
"...Of course, if you want, I could give you an anal probe . .
There were gasps from the small crowd that had assembled in the lobby. I tried to raise my nonexistent eyebrows.
(in Robert J. Sawyer's exellent Calculating God)
And finally characters you can get behind and understand. This is a lot more ephemeral and it dosn't happen to fall into a nice neat little package. Normally, you gravitate towards Sci-Fi characters you can see yourself in (or how you would like for yourself to be someday). Idealized supermen are silly.
whew! time to get back to work.
Writing.
Writing is what makes good science fiction;
a fancy, exciting world means nothing without good writing.
On the other side, a crap world can be entertaining and even enthralling, providing that the writing is good.
Last year, I had the opportunity to take a class with Joe Haldeman, here at MIT. He asked us for a challenging topic to write a short story on - the topic we chose was "Sentient Asteroids" - and, surprisingly, he made a good story for the topic, even if it was flavored by September 11th in theme.
That is why my own stories will never be good - because I am not a good writer; no matter how detailed I make the worlds, the fact is that my writing sucks.
No offense, Raymond E Feist, but the writing of those Midkemia books has gone down over the years, despite the fact that more aspects of these worlds are fleshed out with every book. I stopped reading them - who else can say the same?
Of course, place an area in the middle for capitalization on popular themes, mass market fantasy books (cough cough), and such, but if you want good fantasy or science fiction, look for the writing.
REALITY(TM), of course.
Are you crazy? Aren't you forgetting something, like, oh...
FUCKIN' STAR TREK!?!
Enterprise rocks my world like Mexican food for breakfast. Everything else is just pretenders to the throne.
Love Always,
Cobalt
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
Then again I just started on the Foundation series again so that might change shortly :)
Either way in the foreword in the newer Foundation Asimoc writes
James Gunn, who, in connection with the Foundation series, said, "Action and romance have little to do with the success of the Trilogy-- virtually all the action takes place offstage, and the romance is almost invisible-- but the stories povide a detective-story fascination with the permutations and reversals of ideas
Not sure if that is completely consistent with Dune but my personal belief in in strong, likable, and interesting characters (ie not Annican) are necessary. Along with that goes a consistent plot and science to back it up. The science can't become the center of the story with endless detail nor can it make you gag with inconsistencies... Oh how I wept when Frank Herbert had Waff freeze something at -275 Kelvin!
I stole this Sig
There are some other examples. Aside from the world the writer creates another big factor (for me) for a good SF/fantasy book is the surprise factor.
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I prefer my fiction to define and follow a consistant set of laws of physics. When a series does this and stays constant, it becomes much more "real" to me. Explained and ahered to rules allow me to visualize the situations better, and I can think along the lines set by these rules.
David Weber's "Honor Harrington" series does an excellant job of this. He defines how weapons and FTL propulsion works, and sticks with them. His details on character interactions will turn some off, but I love them. Seeing how he describes naval battles is a treat for this former member of Uncle Sam's Canoe Club! Weber also details the history, including how scientific discoveries came about. That structure and revelation strongly appeal to me.
I really love the classics:
Asimov, especially the original "Foundation" trilogy.
Clarke's "2001"
Heinlein's "Stranger In a Strange Land"
Niven's "Ringworld"
Among more modern works, I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman("Neverwhere", "Sandman", "American Gods"), William Gibson("Neuromancer", "All Tomorrow's Parties") and Neil Stephenson("Snow Crash", "Cryptonomicon")
What I like about them differs. Asimov does large stories and themes well. There aren't any big characters in "Foundation", but the story is so beautifully put together, spanning hundreds of years. "Stranger In a Strange Land" is barely science fiction, dealing almost exclusively with people's perceptions and beliefs. Gaiman has an excellent knowledge of classical myth and legend and how to weave it into more modern stories. Gibson deals with themes and problems that are just starting to become an issue today. Stephenson's books vary in type and character, but most are pretty good. "Snow Crash" is a pretty out-there half cyberpunk/half action-flick novel, it's a great quick read. "Cryptonomicon" has two separate but related storylines fifty years apart, and he plays them off each other very well.
There's nothing specific to any one of these authors or their novels that I can single out, aside from good writing skills. Their novels are enjoyable and intelligent, which is all I require from any genre.
I like a lot of sci-fi... though, some didn't work for me (like Asimov's foundation novels... his robot works were much better for me.)
I my favorites are so varied... E.E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensman" and "Skylark" series, David Webber's "Honor Harrington" books, David Drake's "Hammer's Slammers", the Metzda mercenary book by Joel Rosenburg, Pournelle's Falkenburg's Legion books. (I'm big on various military scifi)... nearly anything of Spider Robinson's...
But in the end, what makes sci-fi work for me is little fake explinations of how things work... fake, as in, it's pure BS that makes no sense... if you're going to do that, you might as well just gloss over and say "such and such exists" and good, deep characters, with unique motivations and flaws (I know, a number of the books i mentioned do have the "cookie cutter" characters syndrom... but some don't).
Nano tech mixed with bio, mixedw ith comp sci!!! Great stuff! Worth the 26 bucks to read it! Wonderful vacation or weeekend reading material.
Lexx.
It's sexy.
It's weird.
It has characters I love to hate. (Prince, 790)
It has characters I despise but cheer on (Stanley!).
It has characters I want to ogle (Xev).
It's epic (C'mon, lexx = biggest weapon of destruction ever built?
The whole initial plot is serendipity so severe that it can only be called extremely dumb luck that the heroes can find themselves in such roles.
Oh,and it doesn't have omnipresent use of special effects.
Vaiyo A-O
A Home Va Ya Ray
Vaiyo A-Rah
Jerhume Brunnen G!
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Regardless of your local definition, a good dose of fragging can turn any ol' sci fi into a nebula prize shoe-in.
/sarcasm
either that, or add some post-apocalyptic goodness.
good fiction makes good sci fi. No amount of technology after the fact can save a crappy story.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Early?
:)
I don't recall H.G. Wells writing about anyone or anything nubile, expect for space travel...
You must be thinking of Cringley and Heavy Metal
To me, good science fiction starts with what makes good fiction. You need good, believable characters, an interesting plotline, etc. The difference between science fiction and other genres is the fact that there's science involved in it. There should be some correlation to real physical laws in the universe that may or may not have been discovered yet.
Science fiction is similar in some regards to horror and fantasy genres. They both are fiction that hold themselves within limitations that are commonly known. (Horror titles probably have a good amount of leeway. Fantasy titles enjoy more leeway than science fiction, also.) In my opinion, it is these limitations that make good science fiction.
Great science fiction asks, "What if?" questions that provoke our mind, but it'll do so within a hypothetical context. Take a look at LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness for instance.
My personal favorite episode of Star Trek (Original) is City on the Edge of Forever. It asks the question of how important can a single person be? How important is a single moment in time? It also provides some great scenes with the interplay between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. (There's also that memorable line at the end, with McCoy saying, "I could have saved her! Do you know what you just did?" And Spock replying, "He knows, Doctor. He knows." Love it!)
I also personally enjoy Larry Niven's Known Space stuff. Hard science fiction is great. As a reader, you exercise your mind and get entertained. "Science fiction without a net" is the perfect way to describe it.
Finally, I really enjoy Gibson's stuff. I must have read Neuromancer about twenty times, and there's always something new to find in there. Great books are like that.
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
I laughed out loud...bravo!
I just love the acting, all players are real professionals.
LeGuin's sci-fi (Left Hand of Darkness, Hain cycle, etc.) always struck me because of it's cultural realism. Even though the alien species posited are humanoid, the extreme difference in culture between the species makes for a great dramatic device (especially when help is decades away!). By giving them such different points of view from our own, she makes her writing much more humanly thoughtful than a lot of sci-fi out there. Just as she built up the world of Earthsea with offhand anecdotes regarding the world around the characters, building up the cultures of her alien worlds gives her novels both a satisfying completeness and a believable internal consistency.
Too bad no one has ever tried to make some sort of movie or series out of his works....
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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For originality I've always been a big fan of Walter John Williams. Anyone else familiar with his work? Hardwired, Voice of the Whirlwind, Aristoi...
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Jesus loves you, I think you suck
His writing, whether for Star Trek (the first appearance of the Romulans) or in the "Matter for Men" series, featured main characters fighting their own flaws and their allies as well as their opponents. And the "Matter for Men" series featured implacable foes (a series of aliens tailored to convert the Earth's ecosphere to one of their maker's liking) that make the Borg and Geiger's Aliens look like one-trick ponies.
Favorites are a matter of personal taste. I find that personal tastes change with time. When I was a lad, I loved some stuff I like now, and I hated some stuff I really like now.
I really liked A.E. van Vogt. I really liked Doc Smith and the lensmen series. Heck, I really liked the Perry Rhodan series. Was it great literature? Nope.
I really like Neal Stephenson's stuff. Literature-wise, his stuff is a lot better. And it looks like he's outgrowing SF. Cryptonomicon was a tech-heavy mainstream novel.
Nowadays, I'm thinking that SF is in trouble. The rate of technological change makes it hard to anticipate the future. Vinge throws his hands up and talks about the singularity.
A lot of SF authors are moving over to Fantasy. I think that Hard SF is to hard for lit majors, and the days of a technical expert writing something that can escape the slushpile are long past.
I love SF-Books with lots of science (especially physics) often referred to as 'hardcore-SF'... Like books from the great Stephen Baxter One of my favourite books though ist 'The Diamond Age' by Neal Stephenson ('Cryptonomicon') It has a great story and is a really stunning read..
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
Asimov covered a lot of topics, even with his robot chronicles, where he let robots handle morality conflicts. Take Elijah Bailey, what is the better good, saving one person that could ultimately kill millions, are you then responsible for those millions of deaths. Asimov gave us a great look on sentient AI. I bet his stories will have an influence in future AI development. The foundation series takes a long term view of things. Asimov assumed that humans will advance in technology and therefore looked more to the social and political aspect of what advanced means.
Another of the track universe I liked was the Douglas Hill's "Collighi conspiracy". Life would be interesting if the universe were that screwed.
my 16BPP
KruiserX
I prefer to make a distinction between the three, because I think there can be great stories in all of them, however, if you block them together as tends to happen, you don't have good criteria with which to judge.
I think science fiction is fiction in which the science plays a major role. My example here is David Webber's Honor Harrington series: I think it's a good story, but obviously not fantasy: he takes too much care in making sure there are realistic scientific devices with known limitations, and builds his characters inside a world with that science.
Fantasy is simply where that doesn't happen: magic is the canonical example here: World XYZ has magic. We don't know *why* they have magic and we don't, but they have magic.
Speculative fiction, on the other hand, I characterize as the types of stories when the author says "what if this happened?" My classic example is the movie Pleasantville: "What if we were all in a black and white world and suddenly there was color?"
Speculative fiction can be either of the above catagories, but is unique in that it is usually a social commentary. As a book example, consider any of Ben Bova's novels. Especially his near-future ones, like "The Kinsman Saga". When it was written it was speculation about the future. What if the military took a real interest in space and we got missile defense to really work? And what if local problems like overcrowding and such were growing? Most good speculative fiction changes a few things, very few, and just paints a picture of what the world might be. Orwell's 1984 is just like that: "What if the government was always watching?".
In any case, there are many great novels in each category, but the distintions are so rarely made that trying to choose the best often leads to trying to pick one. I think it'd be much much easier (but still nontrivial) to pick a best in each catagory, rather than one overall. My picks:
Fantasy: LotR (Tolkein)
Speculative Fiction: Colony (Bova)
Science Fiction: The Worthing Saga (OSC)
These are just a few, there are many just as good. But I think it's a few good picks.
No one mentioned Ursula K. Le Guin. I think she's the best fiction world creator I ever read, and she has a fantastic writing. Reading her books about far and strange cultures helps understanding human nature... Just a though.
Assimov and his imperial galaxy. It would be so typical of humans to migrate from earth , and after a few million years refuse to admit that humanity originated on earth. Assimov's books do tend to be a little slow in comparison to other sci fis and he does tend to over-obsess with mind control and telepathy, and he may be wrong about his robot fundas, but the rest is all brilliant. He addresses the shorcomings of mankind - this is who we are - this is what we do. Gene Rodenberry was supposed to be very accurate with his sci-fi predictions. Apparantly the design of the starship Enterprise is credible, the matter-anti-matter converters would have to be a safe distance from the main hull. He also foresaw the mobilie phone/wireless funda. Ofcourse, he too had a few flaws in his plot - he couldnt land the damn ship- hence the beaming up and down and he was obsessed with peace and minimized violence (which seems to be impossible for the human race). Orson Scott Card and his Ender series were pretty cool too. 20,000 leagues under the sea was hardcore sci-fi at the time of its relese. It maybe all real now, but Jules Verne , again, was ahead of his time. The most convincing sci-fi plot i have ever come across is - The Matrix. it's more credibile and has lesser loopholes.....
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Heinlein had the ability to make his characters grow as the story progressed. I have always loved his story writing. And he never let technology bog down a story. Technology is a crutch to some writers...Look at StarWars II.
I also loved Zelazny's Amber series, although I guess that was more Fantasy than Sci-Fi.
Its hard to pick out the greatest, because there are several good ones. Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Card...and the list goes on.
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Arthur C. Clarke did a very good job of foreseeing the future. His stories are very believeable, even in today's world.
...interesting if true.
Something about the gratuitous nudity, filthy planets, and entire orbits filled with space trash.. hrmm.
Actually, I read a lot of Clarke when I was a kid. I've always thought that songs of a distant Earth was great reading for a gloomy teenager. Just think: endless dust, and Earth at 6.5 billion years.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Once we got past fawning :-) we asked him who he read.
One of the names he named was John Stith.
All of us said Who?
I've since read all of Stith's stuff, and it's good. Despite his web site. :-)
I can't resist answering a question like this ... so many good reasons to read SciFi
:-)
My favorite: HHGTTG series. Douglas Adams, RIP. I was very, very sad the day he died. His writing was funny, witty, british, and he really "got" the whole absurdity of modern technology and science (the technology that represents humanity's ultimate triumph over itself
Also good: Dune. So internally consistent. So cleverly conceived. So rife with politics. Such a huge vision. I guess it's the size scope and breadth of vision that really wins this one.
The best: The Foundation series. Again with the internal consistency. This series really is the epitome of a massive internally consistent universe, a universe that isn't our own but could be. We can look at the characters and see how and why they do what they do, and then he shows us how it fits into the big picture. I learned so much from those books too. And of course, you can't forget Lije Bailey and R. Daneel Olivaw - the most human robot ever! I still feel a pang of emotion when reminded of that novel.
So, yes, great writing but also breadth and internal consistency of vision.
simon
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I'm too tired to make a proper post just now :-(.
Lovecraft's genius was to tap into the human anxiety about what might exist beyond the limits of reason and the safe, predictable, knowable world ,and the nagging thought that perhaps the universe itself might harbor malevolent intent toward our fragile planet and the humans who dwell on it (Lovecraft's characters would often go insane when faced with these alien horrors). .
These fears have manifested themselves throughout history in everything from witch trials to UFO scares. Lovecraft was so good at playing off this ancient unease, in the process creating his own universe of alien gods and beings, that his legacy lives on decades after his stories (never out of print) were first published, in the form of countless "Cthulhu Mythos" stories, games, and of course tribute websites.
Have you ever noticed how everyone breaks down into a near-religious frenzy when the topic of the "best" science fiction universe comes up? Everyone has a favorite universe, be it the Foundation Series by Asimov, or the classic Star Wars trilogy. So tell Slashdot what your favorite is, and what the most important part of a science fiction universe is to you.
It is presumed that science fiction moves "everyone" into "near-religious frenzy" (are the religious fully frenzied?), and we all have "a favorite universe." (I'm fond of this one; is another universe possible? Stephen Hawking, are you lurking?)
Before some cruel person strikes you down, not everyone likes science fiction! Professional wresling may have a larger following.
So those of us who do like SF need to be sensitive to the plight of the majority who don't. Primetime mass-audience shows appear more tilted towards the paranormal, like X-files, and we haven't seen tons of creativity in science fiction aside from amazing progress in special effects (The Matrix). Also, many successful flicks seem borderline fantasy -- like Bladerunner -- the cyberwhatever segment.
I'm pissed about Farscape, FWIW. What a waste. Finally an anti-Trek show with challenging plots adn characters comes along and (sniff) they kill it.
I could bore y'all with my DEEP THOUGHTS about the genre, but will save it for another day. Just wanted to make a reality check for those of us who need to "get a life" but don't want to.
The one author I keep returning to is Stephen Donaldson. I have read the whole Gap Series 5 times now, and it remains interesting. There is nothing like the raw power, emotion, violence and vile politics that Donaldson portrays in the Gap series. Every page you think that the characters cannot endure more - cannot go further. The final book, "This Day All God Die", is one massive crescendo - a fitting finale for a space series of serious proportions.
Donaldson is the master.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Orwell's 1984 of grey buildings and nameless superpowers being the post war England he was living in.
Haldeman's Forever War as Vietnam.EE Doc Smith's space opera Lensman G-men Vs The Mobs in the 30s.
Clockwork Orange as swinging London.
Delany's Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones and Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar as New York in the 60s.
That said, my vote is for Niven's pre Ringworld Universe as it has the best of FTL and non-FTL science with good writing and his Gil The Arm stories as they succeed as mysteries as well as science fiction.
For pure science - The Cold Equations (although he's really pushing the math), Greg Bear - Blood Music.or Gibson's Count Zero for sheer flavor. The tech is glossed over but there is a real feel for a future.
For Sociology, Le Guin The Dispossesed - a frightenly relevant society.
Best story telling (IMHO) The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress as there is a good tech angle and the plot is epic while remaining about the characters.
There's always George Luca's planet of the teddy bears.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
I think he qualifies as Sci-fi...although maybe only barely. I LOVED Cryptonomicon and am almost done with Snow Crash.
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Philip K. Dick: his characters are so real you want to yell at them, his plots are so bizarre you MUST keep reading.
Stanislaw Lem: absolutely brilliant and nearly perfectly thought out machinations whose characters don't get in the way of a good story.
Frank Herbert: pretty little psychological japes.
Edmund Spenser: iron robot kills amazons and one communist giant (plus followers), 1590's. Heavens!
Edgar Rice Burroughs (also Leigh Brackett): pfiffle, if you don't know why this is great, you watch too much TV.
Jules Verne: he has to be in here.
M. P. Shiel: brilliant exposition of the madness underlying us all in "The Purple Cloud". cf "The Quiet Earth"(1985, NZ "talkie"), which I would suspect the screenwriter(s) had read, hopefully.
What makes these great is not their characters, per se. You want a good character in a watery, unreadable plot, Kate Wilhelm and "James Tiptree Junior" (Alice Sheldon) are perfectly adept at that. Even Gardiner Dozios at his best was but a slightly more tightly written Steinbeck. And that just doesn't cut it for Sci-Fi. It's the imagination, it's the literary control. The great author can keep you reading, keep you from thinking about lunch or that nasty big credit card bill for a few hours and, if they're truly masters, they will ask the questions no-one else has thought to ask, or no-one else has asked so pointedly.
Take my colleague William Henry Harrison. There was a fellow who could outshoot any Kentuckian alive, kick a filthy southern secessionist in the balls, and still take time out for his daily prayers and nightly rounds of "Stuff this where the Nabokov don't shine, Whig!".
Anyway, I liked "Dark Star".
A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence. -Dante
I finally just started reading Foundation, chronologically starting with Prelude to Foundation, and so far I am amazed. Asimov managed to tell the story without really getting entrenched in science fictional ideas while keeping the story involving. With whomever made the post about shallow character development,I would have to strongly disagree. At least so far, the character development has been core to at least the central characters. Again, since I am starting with prelude, which was written long after the series began, my opinions could change in the future. But for now, chock it up as my favorite.
I haven't seen mention yet of the Stephen R. Donaldson "Gap" series (ie. Gap Into Conflict, Gap Into Vision, etc). That was a terrific series.
Oh, and Blue/Red Mars. But now I digress.
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The vast majority of Science Fiction is actually drama in space. This is what Star Trek, Star Wars, and most popular SF is. SF that falls into this category is easy to spot: every alien speaks flawless American English.
Then, there is real, actual, science fiction that focuses on the science, not the drama. This variety is much less common, less popular, and most people don't like it because the parts that do not focus on the central premise are often dry and boring. Real science fiction doesn't make for good movies, so it tends to be restricted to novels. At the end of the day, gray goo can't act.
Occasionally, you get bits and pieces of real science fiction in a TV show that is usually of the drama in space variety. The Borg in Star Trek for example are sufficiently different from the prototypical humanoid alien species to be interesting in their own right, not just as token antagonists.
Star Wars IS NOT science fiction.
give me bongo
Stephen Donaldson once said in his "Gap" Series that there is a difference between Drama and Melodrama.
Imagine a triangle, with each of the main character classes at a point - the Villian, the Victim and the Hero.
To truly be drama, in the course of the story, at least 2, but preferably all three of the characters must change place:
The Villain becomes the Victim, the Victim becomes the Hero and the Hero becomes the Villain. That's the essence of true drama. Otherwise it's just melodrama.
Stephen Donaldson used this to good effect in the Gap Series. Like much of Piers Anthony's work, this story featured some pretty hefty brutality and abuse of women. Unlike Piers Anthony, it's not the mainstay of Donaldson's work. Anthony has managed an entire universe based around this Hero-Pirate, but essentially the characters always stay the same, and his work never makes it past low-grade melodrama. Donaldson uses almost exactly the same pretext and gives us an epic and dramatic tale.
This is also a reason why Episode II was so poor from a narrative perspective. [*spoiler alert] We all know that Anakin becomes Darth Vader, we know what happens to Obi Wan. We know from Episode IV where all these characters must be. So unlike most stories, the interest is not derived from where the characters go, but how they get there. Which is what Lucas failed to deliver. The story of Anakin is not so much a fall from grace as a slight trip - you can believe that he becomes Darth Vader, but his personal journey to the dark side isn't particularly interesting.
I was simply blown away when Asimov linked all the Foundation story to the Robot Novels. He managed to link so many of his books together so well, and these are books that he wrote long before Foundation.
What an amazing writer.
I do.
Nobody mentions how great any of Herbert's other works are, so I will.
Destination: Void rules, as does the rest of that series, The Jesus Incident, the Lazarus Effect and the Ascension Factor. Kickass. They don't compete for my affection with the Dune series but they certainly are good. The Santaroga Barrier: cool. Man of Two Worlds, very entertaining, great read. Soul Catcher, good. The Book of Frank Herbert - lot's of cool novellas, good stuff, a more pulpy-feeling side of Herbert, interesting read.
Destination: Void should be required reading in any SciFi class. Such a cool book.
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
Many other posters have stated that great science fiction is great fiction + science. Although science fiction contains both of those things, it is not nearly so simple.
Science fiction is an opportunity for us to look at uncertainties in the world as we see it, and then to draw interesting assumptions that lead us to examine and question the nature of our own lives. Look at the matrix, for example. We cannot prove that our reality is as real as reality can get, therefore there is always an uncertainty as to the true nature of reality.
The matrix draws an assumption: our reality is not real. Then the story builds a good fictional story on top of that assumption, thus causing us not only to be entertained, but to question our original position on the matter at hand. The matrix is good science fiction not because it is a good fictional story with fictional science, but because the assumption used as a plot device (reality is not real) is an interesting suggestion, which causes us to question our own reality.
It's not good science fiction unless you walk out of the theathre / put down the book and wonder if all of that crazy stuff you just saw / read is or could be true.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Rod Serling, his work on the twilight zone are masterpieces.
IMHO, the biggest rift in Sci Fi is between devotees of "hard" Sci Fi (focuses more on the *science* than the tale - think Greg Egan) and "soft" Sci Fi (space opera - swords & sandals epics in space - think Peter Hamilton).
I like both, and have always found the zealotry on either side to be kinda childish. Think emacs v vi... (sorry kids).
The bummer with Hard Sci Fi is that a lot of the really _interesting_ stuff will go straight over the reader's head: I've got a reasonable grasp of, say, the basics of quantum physics, but I get completely lost when someone a lot smarter than me starts using more esoteric aspects of the theory as a _starting_ place for an exploration of the logical consequences of said theory in a literary context. _I_ like it though, because even if I don't completely understand, I can still muddle through and figure out the gist of what's going on. The other downside of hard sci fi is that the writing tends to be _terrible_. You effectively have scientists attempting to write engaging stories. It's not, as a rule, their forte. Too much science, not enough fiction.
Conversely, the bummer with "soft" sci fi for me has always been that it's just some-old-story-set-in-space. Star Wars is like that. In fact, it's a modern classic of the genre. Peter Hamilton is another good example. This kind of sci fi is more like fantasy than _science_ fiction. Even worse, the fiction is usually terrible too. I used to love space opera when I was young - laser beams, aliens, space ships, funky babes. But I think you kind of grow out of it unless there's something _more_ to it than big-arse space battles & galactic empires.
Which is why I'm a _huge_ fan of Iain M Banks. This is a guy who can _really_ write. His sci fi (he writes more standard fiction under the name Iain Banks) is space opera, but some of the best space opera I've ever read. Read the Culture novels - start with "Consider Phlebas" or "Player of Games". Seriously - they're worth reading just for the ship names.
So I guess what makes great sci-fi for me is great writing. There's plenty of "ideas" writers, and don't get me wrong - interesting ideas are part of what sci-fi's all about. But that's a neccessary condition, it's not a sufficient condition.
Long post - must sleep.
Jeff Noon too. I seriously recommend "Vurt" - Automated Alice says curious yellow.
The most important thing in Science Fiction is to never ever, under any circumstances make up any science. All the really good series have fantastic machines, faster than light travel and all kinds of silly impossibilities, but they never try to explain how they work. Fiction stories exist in a realm that we choose to believe for the time being. This suspension of disbelief (as the lingo goes) lasts only as long as the reader can imagine such a world.
Take, for example, the world created by Orson Scott Card in Ender's Game. The world is great and totally believable. The greatness even lasts into a sequel. In the third book (the name escapes me) Card starts to explain the physics of his world and the storyline breaks down. It is no longer believable. Go ahead and flip back through the series. The instant that he starts to mention this new, crazy physics of his is the instant the story falls apart into completely unbelievable crap. You just can't make up physics. Stretch it, bend it, but never try to tell the reader how it happens. That's the trick to good science fiction.
My favorite Sci-Fi has to be:
.ahhhahh
Shaft. .
He's a miracle
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
SadSaddened to read Iain M. Banks isn't popular among the US bookshops, in my opinion he has to be the best Sci-Fi writer I have read.
l ture.html for an explanation of his unique Utopian universe.
and he has the best ship names in the business...
(seems to have influence Xbox Halo a fair bit as well)
His non Sci-Fi Iain Banks (winner of most transparent nom d plume award) is pretty good too.
Others I have introduced to him too were blown away, so I wholeheartedly encourage you to seek him out.
Read http://homepages.compuserve.de/Mostral/artikel/cu
I think you are missing something. What makes great science fiction is politics and psychology. I have never read a single science fiction piece that really got into my skull that wasn't challenging some present-day assumption about society or the individual.
I think all great science fiction seeks to answer not just "what if?" but "where do we go from here?". The technology in science fiction is not just a prop, it is usually a disguise for an topical issue in the here-and-now. "Sci-fi" that uses technology as a "gee-whiz" element is just fantasy or action dressed up as science fiction.
Personally, the best stuff I've ever read has been short stories. Something about SF has always lent itself to short, concise explorations of a single theme. I think novels tend to get tricky, since you need a few themes and a really strong philosophy to back it up.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
For me, it is not what is in it, or what it is about, or how realistic the science is. Good science fiction is science fiction that makes me think about themes and ideas that are sometimes only barely explored by the work itself. It's usually the kind of story that sticks with me for only a little bit, and then when I think that I've forgotten all about it, it comes back and plows me over.
Kubrick's version of The Clockwork Orange might fit this definition for me.
Maybe Socrates' (Plato's) story of the cave.
Roger Zelazny's lyrical short story Frost comes back to me every now and then, as well as Wolfe's even more lyrical and adept New Sun books.
Tsutomu Nihei's manga series Blame is remarkable for its visual style, and what is even more remarkable is the story it contains--one that can only be told through the particular medium which Nihei has selected.
And of course, my favorite place to find good science fiction is in Gardner Dozois' yearly anthology of short stories, The Year's Best Science Fiction. The summation at the beginning of the past year in science fiction is worth the price of the book, and the many stories inside are pure gold.
I'm a big fan of P.K. Dick.
Whenever they make a Dick book into a movie they change things around, but his characters tend to be schlubby middle aged guys teetering on the brink of loserdom.
In Blade Runner Decker is a guy whose greatest ambition in life is to have a sheep, a real one, not a synthetic animal.
Dick's view of the future was all about the countless new ways things will suck.
And then there's the madness that crept in at the end.
Yep. Dune is the best. Well, at least, the Frank Herbet ones are. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for his Son's work - The Brian Herbet Prequels just don't cut it. The writing is very weak and the characters are one-dimensional. Still, the Prequels are nevertheless entertaining. My advice to a Dune Newbie is to read the Frank herbet novels first.
This is easily the most important aspect of SciFi. Any time a story involves anything considered "fantastic," be it supernatural, scientific or whatever, the story still needs to lie within the realm of what people would deem believable. And I don't mean believe as in "Aliens in outer space scanning my mind so let me go get my tinfoil hat." It's more like stepping outside the boundaries set by your perception of how things should be.
Your actions on earth echo in eternity.
... and here's how you can convince yourself: generalize your question to
..." qualification, you can find something that violates those criteria that you *still* think is GREAT.
What makes Great Fiction?
or
What Makes Great Literature?
or, even better,
What Makes Great Writing?
I can guarantee you, that for any criteria you care to propose for "Great
and the Giants Novels. A must read for anyone who is my friend and reads books (Very few now adays.)
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
Anything not scripted by our buddy George qualifies as good in my book. Anything without Jar Jar, ANYTHING
Heinlien,
In a word, no. Most of the female characters in his books were just his libertarian wet dreams. How realistic are super-proficient women, who just happen to dress provocatively and mouth his beliefs perfectly?
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
I am too tired to explain why this is the best, so I'll just say it's my favorite, and for good reason.
Man against Man, Man against Nature, and especially Man against himself. It's a shoot-em-up. It's romantic. It's revolutionary. It's serious. It's funny.
And then throw on some accurate forecasting (such as predicting the slashdot effect and distributed denial of service attacks, the problems of security through obscurity, and even 404s) and there you have it, the best sf.
Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The Stars my destination
no... props to 4c1d burn
...is that labeling something science fiction doesn't entitle it to a different standard of greatness than any other form of creatvity.
Science fiction is a humanistic imprisonment of the fantasy genre created so that people have their fantasy with underpinnings in empirical science. This can be done fantastically so that it might as well be pure fantasy; it can be done with sense of vision like Jules Verne (or Da Vinci.) IMHO, it is best done when it reaches for the profound effects that science and technology can have on culture and civilization.
Science has given mankind many ideas to explore creatively and new colors to paint his pictures with, but ultimately it is man who created science and man who draws upon that science for art. Science fiction must still be about what man feels, what he thinks, what he experiences... what it means to be human. The best science fiction, like all fiction, is rooted within the mythology, psychology, and religion which lie buried within our minds.
There's little if anything is unique to great science fiction versus great fiction in general.
So what's great fiction? Great fiction changes the reader; for better or for worse it leaves the reader in a subjectively significantly different state after reading. It can be subtle, it can be life founding, it can simply illuminate a viewpoint, but it leaves a mark in a manner the reader knows of or about (if only long after the fact).
Why and how does it leave a mark? That rather depends on the exact mark left on which exact reader. Social, cultural, and educational background play a huge role and don't even begin to define the set.
That said, what do I consider makes for great SF? Something that leaves me thinking, especially if it leaves me thinking months or years later. There are works which achieve that mark. David Zindell's Neverness is one. L E Modesitt Jr's Adiamantine is another. Stepping outside the SF boundary Myer's Silverlock has left such deep marks I'm forced to renew them regularly. The list goes on.
David Wingrove has written a fascinating sci-fi series called "Chung Kuo." I would highly recommend it!
As a kid, I read just about anything sci-fi...but even then, I think I recognized the gems of the genre. The books I kept, versus the books I gave away or sold, includes a list of the authors I still read and enjoy today. Back then, if there were robots or sex or spaceships, it was probably good enough for me to read it once...but what I kept has some qualities that the majority of the pulp stuff just doesn't have.
I think sci-fi without a real science underpinning is generally crap. The science doesn't have to involve mechanical technology in the form of spaceships or robotics, it can just as easily be the science of sociology or the science of medicine. But where "sci-fi" pulp fiction often fails is in being too dedicated to mysterious magical developments...I'm afraid the Star Trek and Star Wars universes often fail because of this reliance on trappings of mystery. The explanation of The Force as a virus just seems forced, if you'll forgive the pun. Star Trek has too many dramatic dying scenes and too many dramatic miraculous healing scenes for either to be believable.
Good sci-fi asks tough questions about how the human race will realize some dream, and what the cost will be. Great sci-fi shows us the fallacy of common truisms, and makes a case for the other side. As has been said many times before, science fiction is about asking "What if?" and making an honest attempt to figure it out.
Asimov, of course, deserves the title of great science fiction writer. The Foundation novels are compelling for their sweeping vision of a human future (not The human future, as no one knows what The human future will be, and there wouldn't be so much point to sci-fi if we did). History and social sciences are merged and theorized into a strikingly convincing future. One comes away from them with a little more understanding of human history, and human behavior on a grand scale. Of course, it wouldn't be very much fun if the story wasn't worthwhile as fiction. In that regard too, Asimov is a lonely figure (though not entirely alone) in the sci-fi landscape. Humor permeates his every novel and story, along with a profound sense of joy and surprise at the diversity of the human race. Every character is real, complete and knowable. Without the human element, science fiction is just more useless techno-babble.
Heinlein too, has persisted in my book collection, and his best works are capable of impressing even people ordinarily bored to tears by sci-fi. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, perhaps my favorite, provides laugh-out-loud comedy, strikingly human personalities (even on Mike the computer), and a great story of "what if?". What if a computer developed "life"? What if the moon housed a colony of humans, growing tired of being dominated by Earth? What makes a revolution? The best of Heinlein is respectful of history, is lovingly impressed with and in equal part disgusted with the human race (to know us is to love us...and hate us), and perhaps most importantly, fun as hell to read.
Stanislaw Lem is a new one for me, but one that I can't help be impressed with. I recently picked up Peace on Earth because of frequent Slashdot recommendations, and was simply blown away. Lem knows science, and is convincing whenever he wanders into imagining the future of technology. Lem also knows the human mind, and presents it in all its glory and fallability. But the key to Lem is his feel for the movement of a story. The story flows from beginning to end with the majestic and impossible force of a glacier...it is unstoppable, and yet it is almost unnoticeable in its momentum. It reaches its conclusion with almost crushing force, and leaves the reader satisfied at having made good use of the time spent reading.
All of that said, I keep finding myself wanting to differentiate the above authors from run of the mill science fiction by talking down the things they are not. They are not writing fantastic tales of improbable outcomes in entirely fictitious universes. That is the realm of fantasy writers. Science fiction requires a respect for science, not a mindless fascination with explosions and shiny things. Of course, great science fiction isn't just respectful of science, it remembers what its purpose is...to entertain. Without that, any other reasons are moot, as no one will read the story to find them. So, great science fiction is also great fiction, and can stand beside other great works of fiction...if it can't, then it is merely an interesting footnote into predicting the future (if the predictions within prove correct in some respect). I wouldn't be ashamed to suggest Asimov's Nightfall or Bicentennial Man, be read alongside Huckleberry Finn in a study of great American literature. Ray Bradbury doesn't really need my endorsement, as he has already received much of the respect amongst the literati that he deserves, but is worth mentioning anyway, as he is a shining example of great science fiction. Nearly everything he has written is simply stunningly pretty to read, all the while answering all of the other requirements for great science fiction.
I would like to think that the tripe (even the tripe I enjoyed as a child) will be filtered out of our collective memory over time...There just isn't any point in wasting more peoples time or money on L. Ron Hubbard books. I attempted to reread Battlefied Earth when the movie was nearing release, and was just astonished at how bad the book really is (I loved it when I was a kid). Full of paper thin caracitures posing as human, overwhelming in its scientific and historical ignorance, and painfully obvious in its every twist and turn. A more thoroughly pulp sci-fi space opera has yet to be constructed (Ok, Star Wars comes close, but I still love the original episodes as well as the next nerd, despite its flaws).
I'll stop talking now, as I'm back to wanting to bash the stupid 'sci-fi' products of the world rather than talking up the good fiction and film. There's just so much crap to talk about...
1 and 2...both are absolute incredible Sci-Fi movies. Even better than BattleField Earth if you catch my drift... ;)
Come on, everyone breaks into a near-religious frenzy whenever *ANY* subject about which it is possible to have more than one opinion - geeks enjoy nothing more than picking a position and creatively defending it, even if they're blatantly wrong. :)
Having said that, I seem to be living in a reality composed entirely of the KDE desktop which I use to read Slashdot, post innane comments, look at porn, write email and occasionally pretend to code.
Which means that when the cat tries to sit on the keyboard to get my attention, he's really trying to destroy the entire universe.
Not to be a troll, but anything that is a cinematics universe (Star Wars, Lexx, etc.) can not compete with a book. Cinematic universes are restricted by practical factors such as special-effects (can't beat human imagination yet).
I would also add that I am not aware of any sci-fi universe that spans so much time and space as Asimov's books do. I believe that more than half of his sci-fi fits into the universe that he is describing. The vision that is required in order to imagine and paint such a great picture is hard to come by. I will be watching how Episode 3 fits into the story line... if it is believable, when StarWars will have a few generations covered (and Asimov has many thousands of years)
For me the most important characteristics of good SciFi are an epic plot, forethough (and planning) on the part of the creator, strong lead roles, and detail. At the end of it, good SciFi "says" something to me; touches me in some way, and makes me reevaluate what I think of the real world. Of course good writing/presenting style and/or dialog are essential.
Babylon 5 and Dune achieve both of these admirably. Star Wars sacrifices some forethough and detail, while Star Trek has little in the form of an enduring plotline, poor details and consistency, and weak characters. Of course I still enjoy them ;)
Babylon 5 weaves a web of intrigue which is underpinned by an epic saga and several prophecies. Consistency across the entire series is high, as is detail. Small seemingly throw-away comments in some of the first episodes have significant three seasons later. The acting and dialog is evocative, and it is easy to relate to all of the characters, even the "bad guys". The are at least several monologues that I would like to see again just to copy down and put up on my wall (and some other dialog besides). Characters come and go and when they do there is a profound sense of loss.
Dune presents a far different universe. During the series the focus expands from a single character to several, to the political balance of the known universe, and beyond. His attention to details is magnificent, and he draws on a wealth of knowledge to flesh out the behaviour of the characters. He too presents a saga which is a turning point in history, and encourages the reader to relate to the characters. While many disagree with me, I personally enjoy Herbert's writing style and find it captivating.
Perhaps the most significant part of these two settings compared to other SciFi is that they are SciFi-Fantasy. Babylon 5 is based far more in reality than Dune (concerning itself with physics and scientific possibility in many instances), but both present fantasy aspects which transgress the realm of the strictly possible, and add a level of interest which is difficult to attain in any real (or future-real) world setting.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Hello Xenu blow me up in your magic space volcano and I will watch all your bestest axxion flixx.
AUDIT ME AUDIT ME FOR CLAM I AM!
I don't really read enough si-fi to comment on a best author, for me it might be Larry Niven or Paul Hogan. What makes it good for me? An interesting story and good plot twists naturally come to mind, but just as important is an author who doesn't preach and doesn't write down to me. I couldn't believe that The Foundation series by Asimov was listed as a canidate for a favorite, the man couldn't resist sending clue after clue about what was going to happen to the point where reading it became painful, and then, when he sprang his big "plot twist" on you had the nerve to further insult your inteligence by explaining all of the clues. Clearly he thought he was writing for morons; I did too and never read him again.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Did you mean Short Circuit 1 and 2?
A few of my favorite series (book wise) are the Titan, Wizard, Demon trilogy from John Varley. The Gateway/ Heechee Saga from Frederick Pohl or for a good romp the Stainless Steel Rat series from Harry Harrison. These may not be the high brow mainstream stuff like Dune, 2001 or Foundation, but hey for me they were all entertaining and a good read.
"Have you ever noticed how everyone breaks down into a near-religious frenzy when the topic of the "best" science fiction universe comes up?"
/. story dedicarted to it!
OK, so let's make a whole
I mean really, I really dislike getting into 'holy wars' and reading through the responses so far, I've already had to resist (hard) several times responding to posts to tell the poster what an idiot he is for ignoring one author or backing another.
Seems like this whole story should be modded down to -1 flamebait.
(of course, I'll probably be the one modded down for this comment, but oh well - I've sworn off of AC posting, so I guess I'll take the hit)
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
As is the case with all fictional literature, the
:-)
"best" is that which most effectively triggers,
shapes, and gives life to the mental images which
writing can only stimulate in our minds rather
than convey directly.
Since minds are so different from individual to
individual, and sometimes utterly so, there can
never be a single "best". At most, the fact that
any given book is seen as "best" by more people
than any other simply means that there are more
people with that particular mental makeup which
allows that book to succeed. Quite often, this
translates to those people inhabiting similar
memespaces, which is very common especially in
high-bandwidth communities both online and off.
So, which SF books best trigger my mental imagery
at the present time? In several categories of
subjective assessment:
Iain M. Banks's Culture novels
-- most convincing galactic future
Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age
-- most convincing human-level future
C.J. Cherryh's The Chronicles of Morgaine
-- most forceful and single-minded heroine
Peter F. Hamilton's The Nano Flower
-- most luscious yet unobstrusive image weaving
Walter Jon Williams's Aristoi
-- most distant yet still recognizable future
E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series
-- fastest delivery of mental images
Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time
-- most endearing treatment of distant future
I'd expect a fairly good correlation with the
"bests" of other SF readers on Slashdot, as the
memespaces of the technical communities tend to
be fairly cohesive. Ultimately though, it really
doesn't matter, since "best" is a personal issue.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
There's great as in "great literary work", or great as in fun to read.
I'm gonna catch a lot of heat for this one, but I really like E.E. "Doc" Smith. It's not high literary art but if you read the Lensman and Skylark series there's an atmosphere to those books you just don't find anywhere else. I know people complain about how every gun is the new ultimate weapon, but really if you think about it that's what we do with computers, military weapons, and lots of other technology, so it doesn't bother me much. They do deserve respect as a precurser to lots of later stuff - I'm willing to bet George Lucas had read these books before thinking up the whole Star Wars thing. And I saw one of Smith's "nonsense" words appear in a modern Star Trek book, so I can't be the only one who likes his stuff. Most people would say his work isn't "great", and in a literary sense I'll agree, but they're great fun and to me that makes them worthwhile.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Ursula K LeGuinn wow....
She is amazing, I am surprised nobody mentioned her.
I like most the stuff other people mentioned, here are some people they left out i think.
Harlan Ellison (he is the king!)
Sheri S Tepper
people should also remember that you should read for your own enjoyment. if a novel is complete trash but you enjoyed reading it who cares if all the characters are one dimensional and the plot tired, it was fun.
To return to what was asked in the original post, the coolest, best realized and with the greatest 'damn, I'd live there' factor universe in all of Science Fiction is without a doubt Iain M Banks's 'The Culture'.
I would recommend anybody wanting to try it to get started with 'Excession', and then move on to something heavier, such as 'Use of Weapons' or 'The Player of Games'.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
My favorite scifi universe is the universe created by Peter F. Hamilton in his Night's Dawn trilogy (also short stories featuring this environment are collected in "A second chance at Eden"). Absolutely believable high-speed space opera ;)
In Gibson's fiction you can always find a party.
In Soviet Russia, Party always finds you. ^_^
I know, I know, I'm sorry. .
Any sci-fi, which make me feel, that I was born
at the wrong time. Movies like: Starwars, Alien.
TV: b5, farscape, buck-rogers or any Book that make me wish I was there is good sci-fi.
Do not underestimate the power of the Dark side
Best motherfucking book ever, and one of the least recognized. Imagine a more literate "Star Trek" with elements of "Alien" and "Forbidden Planet" thrown in (but it predates all of them by quite some time). Though it was born out of pulp sci-fi, it transcends the vast body of what was being written then; I'd rank it up alongside "Nightfall". Vernor Vinge is the only other author I've read who makes me feel anything like I do reading Space Beagle.
Other than that, all of Philip K Dick's short stories. His novels are even better, but most of them aren't sci-fi the way Asimov or Heinlein are; I think he just wrapped them in futuristic settings. Of all of these, I'd say "Eye in the Sky" and "Ubik" are my favorites.
H. Beam Piper's books about Fuzzies have to be some of the best novels ever written.
;-)
Fuzzy Wuzzy may have been quite fuzzy but Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't a Fuzzy!
Anyone Heard from Dan Simmons and Hyperion ?
When I was little, my parents introduced me to Greek mythology. I soon learned the Pagan explanation of the world and phenomena. I was amazed by the intricate web constructed to explain the world. Soon, though, I was introduced to a new myth, mostly by videogames, known as alchemy. Alchemy fascinated me even more! The way that fire, wind, water and earth came together in perfect balance and contrast to explain every aspect of life: ecology, psychology, chemistry was utterly amazing! For a short time, I obsessed about it, and I could feel fire coursing through my veins, and the earth trembling beneath me. But then, one day, the wind brought me news of a new myth: the greatest, most elaborate myth humanity had ever constructed, quantum mechanics. This myth was so complex, that only very wise people understood it, and I felt very much inspired to learn as much about it as I could. I was intrigued by the complex system of subatomic particles that were said to mediate all forces. Every system in the universe could be interpreted so as to be explained in terms of particles, waves, and probability paths! Even things that didn't exist, intangible rules, were simplified into elements that actually existed in our world! Even now that I have finished most of the material in physics class, and actually know the way the universe works, I still like to pretend I'm a quantum physicist coming up with new particles to explain a recently discovered phenomena. It's that ability to invent particles to mediate any phenomenon at my will that makes quantum physics so enticing to me; it's like being God!! I can't help but love that immense feeling of power!!! THE POWER!! erhem, oops... Im getting off track... so yea, it gives me escape in my dull, controlled environment. It's both a take on reality, and an escape from it; that's what makes it such an intriguing myth...
[12/02/2047]
"Never be trapped in your paradigm"
Science Fiction...
Classic Jules Verne.(Intrinsic SciFi)
Asimov and Heinlein (ex: Number of the Beast)
Phillip K. Dick (ex: Do androids dream...)
Science Fantasy?
Larry Niven's Ringworld and related titles.
The Dray Prescott series. Tides of Kregen.
The Drakka!
Dr. Who.
George Lucas - THX1138 (I never read Orwell)
I like a good tale. One that doesn't fall all over itself breaking well known and basic rules of science. One whose storyline and storyhistory are well planned and laid out. A story that excites the senses and suspends disbelief.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Greg Egan is one of the latest authors that takes the latest ideas in the sciences and makes coherent believable stories that bring them to life. "Diaspora" is an amazing novel that treats us to a view of a post human world with a view of universes beyond ours, still based in coherent extrapolations of current bleeding edge physics. A must read for extropian buffs. ;)
The best ever sifi movie: The High Crusades If anyone doubts my word on this, well, then they doubt my word on this.
Sig
Not trek, or anything like it, and its perfect werfect, hold your hands, everyone loves everyone society.
Mod me down now, you know I'm right.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Just combining all of the A-list--Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5; Dr. Who, Red Dwarf, Judge Dredd and the DC and Marvel universes would be a monumental gordian knot pain in the ass. I'd hate to be the poor sucker stuck with the job of making that timeline consistant. Then add in the major Anime: Akira, Cowboy Bebop, The Lovely Angels (old and new school); Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon, Bubblegum Crisis (classic and 2040), Trigun, Ghost In The Shell--oh Lord, the Gundamverse. All of it.
.
Ah. .
Can we get Steven Hawking on this? Maybe he and Harry Turtledove can put something together, if they've got a spare millenium or so.
If one Sci-Fi premise has held true through the decades, it is that of the "Displaced Hero." This is evidenced in shows beginning with "The Fugitive" continuing with "The Six-Million Dollar Man", "Quantum Leap", "The Pretender" and even, my all-time favorite, "Millenium." Yeah, I know, what does the "Displaced Hero" factor have to do with "Millenium"? Well, nothing. It was a shameless plug for my fav. These shows have combined genius, science, horror, government, religion and a slew of other near-believable scenarios into modern settings and were able to cultivate loyal fan bases. With respect to the "short-story" type series such as "The Twilight Zone", "Night Gallery", and others, these satify a short-lived craving for a deviation from the believable and did not focus on long-term character development. To sum it up, I would have to say that my favorite Sci-Fi universe is that which is closest to modern day events, but with placing somewhat believable, albeit Sci-Fi, characters in extraordinary circumstances which further propel the long-term plot and build on long-term character development. Has anyone else noticed the similarities between, Fugitive, Quantum Leap and Pretender series?
Well yall,
:-)
because of the convincingness of the culture's & connections to the present, the psychology is sharp, romance, politics & of course religion.
Thanx Frank, where ever you are!
Greek Geek
Flesh Gordon.
The first requirement of a good SF work is (as many allready have pointed out) that it is good litterature by the same standard as any other writing. Believabel characters, intresting plot, enjoyable language and so on.
But the one thing that makes SF somehow different from other fiction is of course the tech.
I say there are two manageble ways of introducing fictous tech in a story.
It's just a matter of engineering
This is how Gibson and one of my favourites, Stephen Baxter, does it.
They take tech concepts and ideas that are OK in theory today and expand them. We know about nuclear fusion. From that, a working fusion plant is just a matter of engineering. We know about computers and the net. From that, a Gibsonian world or The Matrix is a mere extrapolation.
It's just there
If You cannot explain the marvelous tech, don't.
This is how Asimov does it. He does not lose precious story time on flawed explanations of an interstellar jump or a force field generator. It's just something thats there in the future.
The same strategy works well in variations of "War of the worlds". The aliens have alien technology. Accept it.
If you try to create a pseudo explanation of the tech marvels, You end in tedious technobabble, or new-ageish inventions like "midi chlorines" (sp) which just annoy the reader.
Anyway, my
All opinions are my own - until criticized
My first thought was "Heinlein of course!" then I said to myself "But wait, what about John Varley?" then "No! Arthur Clarke!" "Asimov!" "Spider Robinson!" "Gibson!" "Brin!" "Greg Bear!" "F.M. Busby!" "Fred Pohl!" "Simak!" "Phil Dick!" until finally I just ended up gasping and going back and forth amongst my 3600+ Science Fiction books, touching one after the other.
There is no one SF universe ("What about Niven?!?") that is "better" than all the others. Some are so complete and self supporting, even when they make no overall sense ("Frank Herbert!"), that they leave one breathless. Others don't seem to be a coherent whole ("LeGuin!"), but each part of them is surperb.
How can one possibly choose?
As "literature" most SF does not measure up. But some of it I would put up against most any sort of fiction, if it were to be judged honestly and fairly. ("Vonnegut!")
As others have said, the quality of a novel/story depends a lot on "real" characters and reasonable situations, but SF gives a bit more latittude because both characters and situations can be expected to have changed enough to be VERY different but still "real."
Bottom line, is "Does this book/author/series bring you pleasure and expand your mind and feelings in some way?" If the answer is "Yes" then it is good.
Excuse me, I need to go read a bok . . .
Posted in the hope someone will read it. Written in 1930.
Personally I absolutely adored the Rama series of books by Arthur C Clarke, and the universe that that was set in.
Absolutely fantatic writing, and great characterisation (man I was tearful when Richard died at the hands of the altered robots in that cell), I think this deserves a place down here.
-Nex
This sig has been deprecated.
Picard: Doctor Crusher, some of our crew seem to be ill with a highly contagious disease which we've never encountered before. Can you come up with an antidote?
Crusher: I'll do my best Captain.
50 minutes of people acting irrationally, wandering round the ship contaminating other people etc.
Crusher: I think I have the solution, Captain. I'll introduce it into the ship's ventilation system so everyone will be back to normal in time for the closing credits.
Captain: Excellent work Crusher.
Or how about the ever-popular "We'll reconfigure the deflector array to emit an inverse tachyon pulse."
And why don't they have any robotic probes they can send down to unknown planets to explore? No, instead, we'll send down half of our most senior officers, then a storm will start up and the transporters won't work through the interference ... Will the crew get transported back to the ship before they die of exposure/radiation/disease/killer plants/boredom?
Anyone here that answers other than the Culture of Iain M Banks has probably not read Iain M Banks.
:)
I suggest they rectify this omission immediately
To make an imaginary world become interesting and even remotely immersive, I think, beyond the fact that there has to be a level of general plausibility, the key is the details and scientific consistency.
:) And the most important bit is that the fundamental things are explained.
While everything doesn't have to be explained, it's still fiction, I, myself, just don't enjoy the random-gadget-does-a-random-thing kind of tech that's presented in science fiction all too often. No, there should be explanations for things. If a high-tech Foo has a weird Bar decoration, I want to feel that it's not just a random visual conceptuation by an author, art director or whatever, I want science fiction to be plausible, and for it to be plausible, things have must a cause. In good science fiction literature, the author should put in explanations and clarifications to the fictional stuff exactly the same way that he/she'd put in explanations to more regular matters. Yeah, when I'm reading science fiction, I don't want to get the impression that the made-up widgets are separate from the familiar widgets in some way, I want to get the impression that the characters use the stuff like everyday items.
Don't get me wrong though, there certainly has to be a fair amount of things left out to the perceiver's imagination. For this, I believe it's important that there are lots of details. Excellent example: Star Wars. Indeed, the fans have done a lot more than Lucas himself in explaining the behaviours of creatures and tech of the technology, but still, the Star Wars galaxy is thoroughly filled with details that make it look plausible if not realistic. Okay, Star Wars has lots of random-gadgets, contradicting what I wrote previously. But then, Star Wars isn't really good science fiction, more like good science fantasy or space opera
</random_irrational_rant>
Ok, here's what makes great sci fi:
1. Lasers. You gotta have lasers. Ones that travel nice and slow so you can see a 2-meter long laser burst take 3 seconds to travel a few miles.
2. Computers. Really smart computers that can speak only English and achieve only 2 nines in terms of transporter reliability.
3. Space ships. Ones with wings for maximum lift in space.
4. Virtual reality rooms or brain hookups - ones that our future brethren never seem to find the extremely sick pr0n usages for.
So I love everythingn from E.E. Doc Smith through the "Great Ones" of Asimov, Bradbury, Clark, Heinlin and on to Brunner, Zelazney, Niven and most of the other mentioned earlier in this thread.
Now days mostly read Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine which keeps me up with the huge amount of great stuff being written to this day. Mostly really high quality in every dimension (and extra-dimensions too).
But my all time favorite is one by an author that is not normaly listed as science fiction. Doris Lessing wrote a series of books that were kind of outside her "normal" fiction. It is a five book series called Canopus in Argus with the first one being the most intense and stimulating, though most of the others were very good and very different from each other, but all in the same "universe".
Book 1, Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta is basically "Biblical History" through the eyes of extra terrestrials who helped human evolution get started on Earth and then helped Earth get through a very bad period (like most of human history) where human potential dropped and lots of various extra terrestrial beings at different levels of evolution where playing around with humans as well.
Book Three The Sirian Experiments is basically the same history line but through the eyes of a Sirian woman who lives through and observes the Canopians and Humans and goes through her own evolution. My description does not at all do the book justice. Check out the blurb Its not just the story line, but the way that she tells the story and builds the characters that is truely amazing.
I think RIM/MIR/CHI by Alexander Besher deserve a mention. Yeah, the endings are a bit rough sometimes, but you can't do much better "cyberpunk"/mystcism (rekindled by love for Gibson's world too).
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency (Eugene McCarthy)
The wing commander movie is a perfect example of science fiction at its best. So imaginative.
It depends what you are after. When I read sci-fi I want to explore a new idea/universe. I'm not overly interested in the characters beyond what makes them important to the ideas.To me the best sci-fi is in the short story anthologies. Authors get to explore, are forced to move things along and develop the characters quickly (if the idea needs it) but they don't have to draw out a simple idea into something it just isn't worth the time to read.
Of course, if you can explore an idea and have all the other elements of a good novel on top of that then you might prefer that.
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
Science fiction takes more than a futuristic setting. In an essay written by Asimov on the subject of sword and sorcery published under "Magic: The Final Fantasy Collection" by HarperPrism Asimov states that the..
"...characteristic that differentiates it (science fiction) from other forms of fiction, (is) a tendency toards the deification of reason. Scientists are sometimes heros, and intelligence is very frequently the weapon that must be used, even by those who are not scientists, to solve the problems posed."
Star Trek would fit well into this catagory -- but with elements such as magical powers, swards, wizards, the idea of pure good and evil, I would catagorize Starwars under fantasy
makes some EXCELLENT science fiction.
My brother and a couple of my friends are into it too.
;)
Today I explained the word "Jozxyqk" to his wife. She didn't believe me; he came back into the car and I said "Hey, bro, what's jozxyqk mean?"
Great fun.
But probably not a truly great sf universe.
1. The way it lets authors play around with and explore philosophical ideas of how society develops. Asimov did this with the Foundation series, basing a whole story on a theory of how society develops through crises, what steps are taken in what order, who gets in power when and why. That's quite hard to make in a non-science fiction novel, unless you write a historical novel which often gets more dull and predictable.
2. Separate what is undeniable facts in the world around us (i e many aspects of human nature, like love, hate, passion, greed, curiosity etc) and what is just the results of our cultural heritage (our economical system, democracy, patriarchalism, monogamy and focus on material wealth just to mention a few). A good science fiction novel can be an eye opener to what can be changed and what can not.
3. Let's us explore our possible futures. Good SF gives us a glimpse (although very simplified and exagerated) of how the future might look like. By comparing the scenarios of Star Trek with Cyberpunk and 1984, we can more easily get aware of what the future might hold and as a society make decisions on what we want and don't want of what's ahead of us. The novel 1984 has definitely helped to raise the public awareness of the threats of totalitarianism combined with technology, likewise has Cyberpunk woken up many people to how global corporations gathers more and more power and how that might affect society.
4. Epical tales. I'm personally a real sucker for this and no other category except fantasy so easily allows for grand epical tales as SF.
These are to me the promises of SF and a good SF book should take advantage of at least one of these posibilities, otherwise there is no need to put the plot/characters in another space and time. Plot and characters must still be good though, but I expect that from books of any category.
Actually, I'm a bit surprised that not more of the ./ community has more elaborate thoughts of why they've fallen in love with SF and not just books with good plots/characters...
A lot of stuff i read here didn't truly stress the difference between sci-fi and other styles of story-telling. It's interesting to see that what got our attention and inspired us dreams as children in such reknowned titles such as starwars, star trek, or even in babylone and farscape: a strong *hypothesis* for our future... Those hypothesis raise a lot of sociological issues, which are all about our evolution as a group, as a species, as workers and as male or female. Those issue are emotionally relevant to us, simply because its in the definition. The author HAD to put the most powerful stuff describing his *reality* in, because that's what relevant in sci-fi... My personnal taste, however, also dictates that a great sci-fi movie be very rich in photography detail.
I don't think people looking for good "what if?" science fiction can do much better than Greg Bear (Darwin's Radio) and Robert Sawyer (The Terminal Experiment, Flash Forward).
Arthur C. Clarke
Frank Herbert
Isaac Asimov
Alfred Bester
Robert A. Heinlein
Orson Scott Card
THeodore Sturgeon
Ray Bradbury
H. G. Wells
William Gibson
Anyone want short story and novel references for these guys? Sturgeon and Bester are more obscure now (alas!) but worth the trouble to find.
+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"
The thoughts in my head and the dreams that i have will always be the best science fiction i have ever seen. It is inspired by everything else i have viewed, wished, or ever wanted. But it is always new with a twist and written towards my personality.
Dan Mayer: my blog, essays, art, etc
Science fiction tends to break down into 2 major catagories. Hard science fiction where science and politics tend to drive the story along, and Sci-Fi which encompases all of the action / adventure / romance novells placed somewhere in the future. Needless to say I'm a major fan of hard science fiction, but almost everything I've read/seen, that I would classify "Hard Science Fiction" ultimatly ends up being distopian. It's hard to choose something from that catagory for a 'favorite universe'.
No matter how good the Mars series is by Robinson, or Moving Mars by Bear, or Macroscope by Peirs Anthony, or even the Rama series by Clarke; I woudn't want to live there. And these are just a few examples
eg.
The Mars series introduces the reader to a whole bunch of very cool technologies (space elevators, a lot of terraforming, and some genetic engineering) that ultimatly get wrapped up in a whole bunch of very very wordy politics that lead to 2 wars. By the end of the story nobody is really any better off, Earth is a f'king sess pool that can't shovel its population off the planet fast enough, and the the rest of the solar system is weighed down by billions of people who now live 500-1000 years thanks to genetic engineering. Very very good books, but not a happy universe that I'd like to live in.
On the other hand, Sci-Fi offers us the wonderfull universe concieved by Peter Hamilton, portayed in the Reality Dysfunction -> Naked God series (A nice fat total of 6 books). It's placed only 800 or so years in the future, Humaity has spread out to about 850 systems thanks to FTL travel, made contact with 2 alien races (one of which is a benevolent inter-galactic super race), and still hasn't really deleveloped socially beyond what we have now.
Except!
There's this 'splinter' scociety called Edenism, which takes its roots from the Borg and Budism. But 180% from the "Asymilate Everyone" that we all know and love. The collective link is done through either genetic engineering or for those not born with the 'Affinity Gene', through symbiotic organisms. The Edenists are the only humans that use any biotech due to religious restrictions, and use it they do! Sentient starships linked to their captains, sentient habitats orbiting gas giants and used as a container for thousands of personalities after they die. Organic computers, etc... The most stable scociety you could imagine.
This is the universe I want to live in. Sure most of the books take place during the greatest war humaity has ever faced vs. 99% of everyone who has ever died, a satan worshiping lunatick who wants to destroy Earth, and Al Capone (who don't love Big AL baybee!!) , but Edenism really makes this a wonderfull universe to live in.... as long as you aren't religious.
The hatred, bigotry, and enforced ignorance is still as rampant as it is today (and on some planets its much much worse), but it dosen't touch Edenism execpt in an economic way.
The whole series of books is THICK with 'souls' and the shortcomings of religion, science and politics when faced with the greatest unknown. It's also heavy on the combat, and does get pretty wordy in places with whole chapters you can basically skip or scim in places and not miss a thing because all he's doing is describing the enviornment.
-Opiate (I got an account, somewhere...)
Some of the most important criteria for good SciFi literature are basically the same criteria as for any other genre of literature.
The development of the characters in the story is very important. All good literature is basically about humans. Good SciFi in particular is about humans in strange environments and situations. The elaboration of the technical and scientifical aspects here is very important, but the modelling of the charactors should be considered not less. So a good SciFi writer needs a lot of experience and psychological insight into human behavior, feeling and thinking. The talent to create good stories about humans relationships is a requirement for good literature, and so any good SciFi writer should be capable of also writing good non-SciFi literature. Many Science Fiction writers fall short of this: while the technical elaboration of their stories is very interesting, the characters just remain shallow. In contrast, my favorite SciFi writer Philip K. Dick provides very elaborated and interesting characters, which make up for the quality of his work.
Another important criteria for SciFi, as for any other kind of literature, is that it should contain insight into current reality. While SciFi is primarily imagination about irreal worlds, a good SciFi writer develops these worlds out of tendencies that are found in our reality. Of course, profound insight into the real world and society is a requirement for this. Again, Philip K. Dick, and also Stanislaw Lem are outstanding writers in this criteria.
Are we allowed to include fantasy in this discussion?
My favorite books period, ever, have to be the Dragonlance Trilogy. Nevermind that it was part of one of those overplayed TSR worlds that subsequently destroyed that particular universe... the original three books were INCREDIBLE (Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night and Dragons of Spring Dawning).
The primary reason these books compell me so is because of the character development. The psychological and emotional build up of the characters in the books is astounding. You get happy when something good happens, you want to cry when a charcater dies and you get furious when they are thwarted by the bad guys.
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are extremely talented writters, combining both psychological insight and excellent character development with ease-of-reading. I'm no idiot, but personally I prefer to be able to drift off with a book. That why I read fiction. If I wanted to have to re-read each page twice (ala Dune) I'd be reading non-fiction.
Sig.i>
Fallout, Mad Max 2, 12 monkeys, Blade Runner...
Enough said
Hot chicks and Lasers!
...might be a very eurasian p.o.v., but the strugazki brothers have released some very intelligent scifi, in which technology is a) a utility and b) mostly enhances mens capability to build a better future. which it should be, in my humble opinion. although some of their books (the stalker, the far rainbow) have a quite pessimistic view, it is always the responibilty of the individual what to make of it. most of their books (e.g. troika) belong to the wittiest scifi ever written.
Both _Hyperion_ and _Fall of Hyperion_, by Dan Simmons, are wonderful.
Totally engrossing, thematically complex, gorgeous writing, a world so well-realized that reading about it feels like travelling, and just a dash of cheese. When I finish these books I feel almost bereft.
(I'm surprised that no one has mentioned them yet. Or have I just missed that thread?)
...he can just submit a pathetically transparent article like this to Slashdot and have hundreds of geeks provide him with both brainstorming and market research?
Disgusting!
Whoa... This must be the best front page troll in a looooong time.
I gotta say, Sternberg's "The Journal Entries of Kennet R'Yal Shardik, et.al., and Related Tales" are the best sci-fi value I've ever found. You can't beat free.
Heres a few of my favorites.
(that last one was posted to Fark a couple months back, which is how I found this whole thing)
which makes the Star Trek universe my favorite Universe of all , which makes Gene Roddenberry my favorite author of all and one of his latest concepts brought to life by his wife Majel R called Andomeda is pretty damn good too revolving around a believable and Fascinating Universe.
.. is Lexx. I probably like it for the same reasons others don't like it: It's very different from most other scifi concepts. There is tech, but you don't get all the tech talk with it, and it is totally different than usual - flying around in bugs and moths for example.
;>)
But I also like other shows that have nothing in common with Lexx. I guess my expectations of good Scifi are that I have a good time watching it, that there's not too many poorly "designed" aliens (people with funny noses/ears/hair) (Startrek aliens) or poorly designed ones as in Muppets in Space (aka Farscape)
Also I like scifi that is actually getting somewhere, storywise. That's one of the reasons I don't like Enterprise as much as DS9 (Or B5 for that matter, before anyone gets upset
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
And that's the hackneyed, team written, formula TV shows with computer generated effects as the main attraction and a predictable cast. A few of the STNG first season offerings were good, the rest were just plain embarassing. And that includes all the Star trekkie things that followed or were spawned off it. Only watchable show is Farscape. The rest send me off to jack into the net to read the drivel on /.
Great pulp and mainstream writers and books have been mentioned, but don't forget, "Cities in Flight", "When Worlds Collide", "After Worlds Collide", anything by JG Ballard and Robert Silverberg, especially "God Body".
As far as sci-fi movies go even though it was a cartoon I still love Titan AE I'm not even sure why but it's one of my favorite sci-fi movies that I've watched.
:)
As far as TV I've always loved Star Trek (don't get me wrong I'm no trekkie) I never really was into TOS but I loved the Next Generation and the later seasons of DS9 and Voyager. I've never managed to give Enterprise a chance though I've heard if it were on hbo it'd be a porno....I always wanted to be like Worf...only white....and with no wrinkles.....which would make me about the same as the klingons from TOS
First, a note of personal preference. Good scifi needs to be space opera: fleets of starships fighting with Ride of the Valkyries playing in background, exploding planets, tragic heroes and big stakes are a must. Small-scale (and low-tech) scifi can be pretty entertaining, but who wants to read about people living their everyday lives, when you can just watch your neighbour do that?
:-) However, a few years back, I discovered a Scottish writer called Iain M. Banks. His Culture books have all the elements I want: ultra-high tech (ships hiding in suns and manipulating planets with their effectors from lightyears away), a realistic look of a very advanced society , no given morals (except the Culture's very obscure ones) and thought-provoking endings. If you haven't read Banks yet, do yourself a favour and buy a book. I recommend starting with Player of Games or Use of Weapons. Then, if you want to know more about the Culture (the human utopian society), read the author's essay A few notes on The Culture.
Frank Herbert's Dune series were long my favourite scifi novels. Deep ecological and religious themes are something not-so-often seen in scifi, and I belong to the rare few who actually likes Herbert's writing style.
- Ismo
Asimov knew that in good sci-fi you have to leave the technical descriptions vague, not referring to something that sounds impossible today but in fact will be common property some years later.
I think many sci-fi writers are falling into that pit over and over again not realizing that books is something that lasts and maybe will be read in 100 years.
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
Instead of sounding like some bizzare fanatic and spouting out about how cool it was when Mantrid destroyed the light universe by relocating too much matter in an attempt to defeat the Lexx with his drones or anything like that, I'll just leave you with some quotes...
Kai: The dead do not squeeze and please.
Kai: The dead do not poo.
Kai: I have not been sexually aroused in over six thousand years.
Stan: You know, I'm not so sure Prince is a man. I mean, he used to be the ruler of this really evil planet called Fire... and, well, he'd just die, over and over.
Prince: I'm very good with pain.
Xev: What's in Washington DC? Kai: Stan is. Xev: Oh.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
I really like the style and feeling of The Fifth element. Except for the aliens I think our world might look something like this in a few hundred years. It's the little details that makes it. The clothes, the music and the cigarettes with 80% filter and 20% tobacco. The really compact living. Smart drivers licenses. Maybe we won't have flying cars, but something has to be done to prevent the traffic jams of today. Yes, I really like that "universe".
Martin
On this I have to agree. Dune far surpasses anything I have read; the entire storyline is quite simply a labyrinth of plots within plots that will allow you to get lost for days at a time.
And the characters are so well defined it reads more like fact then fiction.
As to Herbert junior, well his prequels don't measure up to his farther (but then how could they), but I feel they are still suburb
Ctrl-Z
It isn't the "universe" it's the tale.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
When I asked about my literary preferences, I generally refer to SF as SF&F - I tend to read SF and fantasy in about equal ammounts. That said, my favorites on the SF side are David Brin (anything written by him), William Gibson, and Peter F. Hamilton. On the fantasy side, Tolkien (need you ask?) and Ursula LeGuin.
/and/ quality writing. I do require both interesting story and interesting characters to get into a book.
I guess what attracts me is bold imagination
Incidentally, my favorite world is Larry Niven's Smoke Ring... It's a pure childhood dream-of-flight. I wish the characters he put in there weren't so flat.
--
I refuse to use
...and his shaper/mechanist universe, definitely...
...
the greatest i've read so far. the keyword is: diversity...
a good universe must have a good and believable history and political system. sterling built that one up masterfully.
get your copy here
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
First, the genre "science fiction" hasn't been adequately defined to determine what might make a particular science fiction universe the "best." Second, I would argue that a science fiction film is a different creature from a science fiction novel, and what makes one "best" is not necessarily what makes the other "best." Lastly, "best" hasn't been defined: is it really different strokes for different folks? Is Manimal really as good as Blade Runner because Viewer X thinks that it is? Or are we using some other criteria?
I can define science fiction easily by giving examples of what it is and isn't. Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land and Blade Runner are science fiction. Yes, I know that I'm mixing medias. But some quality binds them into the same genre. I'm not prepared to say what that is - if I did, a dozen people would disagree with me, perhaps all with valid reasons. Still, although a consensus proves nothing, most would probably agree that the three works I mentioned are science fiction.
Now, IMHO, Star Wars isn't science fiction. It looks like science fiction, it uses the apparatus of science fiction, but I would personally label it fantasy and not science fiction. I expect many to disagree, but that okay. It just helps to illustrate the problem of defining anything.
As for the differences between science fictions films and books, that's again subjective. I am not an eye candy person. I love eye candy, but if the rest of the film is lacking no amount of eye candy can redeem it. Give me shitty or non-existant F/X any day, but as long as the acting and the direction/writing are good, I'm happy. Some people are exactly the opposite.
IMHO, good/enjoyable science fiction films:
Blade Runner
A Clockworge Orange
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Terminator
Robocop
THX 1138
Metropolis
Scanners
The Matrix
The Thirteenth Floor
eXistenZ
IMHO, bad science fiction films:
Tron
The Black Hole
Battlestar Galactica
The Abyss
Total Recall
Robocop 2
I didn't include any of the Star Wars pictures in the second list because I do not categotize them as science fiction. Also, there are many films missing from both lists.
As for science fiction literature, do you read for story or for shimmering prose? I'm a shimmering prose man. I prefer that a novel has a good story, but I can happily read 800 pages about licking postage stamps if it is told well, versus 25 pages of the most fascinating tale, poorly written.
IMHO, good/enjoyable science fiction authors:
Gene Wolfe
Robert Silverberg
Sheri S. Tepper
James Morrow
William Gibson
Bruce Sterling
IMHO, bad science fiction authors:
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Alan Dean Foster
Piers Anthony
R.A. Salvatore
Christopher Stasheff
There are many books missing from both lists. I've also noticed that some fantasy authors slipped onto my second list. Whoops. I guess that's because I find that science fiction tends to be better written than fantasy. Sorry about the inconsistency.
The best science fiction universes for me are those universes that are so involved and with philosophical questions posed that are so complex that I, as a viewer/reader, am left in a state of pondering wonder for years after the film/book has been digested. I saw Blade Runner 20 years ago, and I still can spend a satisfying evening debating it in my mind, or over coffee with friends.
That's my answer. Your answer may differ. If we re-phrase the question, and ask what makes a particular science fiction universe the most saleable, then we should probably ask George Lucas, as he seems to have figured out the answer.
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
Banks is almost unique in writing mainstream modern novels as well. There he is known just as Iain Banks, that is without the initial. Many who enjoy his SF novels would also enjoy some of his mainstream stuff, which also shares his dark sense of humour, particularly "Complicity".
See my journal, I write things there
There's no greatest SciFi writer, but I guess on the short list is definitely Asimov, Zelazny, Niven, Clarke, Heinlein. Asimov is my personal favourite because his book 'The Robots of Dawn' was the first SciFi novel I read and I still have a special place for it in my heart ;)
*But* you simply must read the Manifold series by Stephen Baxter, it's the best SciFi in ten years IMHO. SciFi got decidedly political in the nineties with excellent writers such as Robinson, Bear, et al, and Baxter has brought back the classic 60's/70's style of SciFi updated and armed with modern sciantific thought.
Brilliant!
(Cheers)
John Ringo(www.johnrino.com)has one of the best military sci-fi series out right now. The plotline is great and he has a great tie in with a comic strip called Sluggy Freelance (www.sluggy.com). I warn you sluggy is very addictive so enter with caution.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned Jules Verne yet. As far as science fiction is going, he was a precursor. Go back to your library and read 20000 lieux sous les mers (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in english). Of course I'd recomend reading it in VO if you can, but if french is not your cup of tea the english translations are fine.
I own 700 Sci-fi books, and the ones from Jules are definitely my favorite, he brings you in world deliciously imaginative, and yet completely believable.
Mobile in mobilis
Battlefield Earth! Xenu! Xenu! Xenu!
n/t
I think the best genre to describe it would be "ultimate slash fanfic"; Almost everything in the universe of Pendor is borrowed from, related to, named after, or is a reference to some contemporary source.
Alright, I know everyone just loves Foundation and the Foundation series. Unfortunatly, Asimov's greatest work is too often overlooked.
I speak of course of The End of Eternity.
This book is brilliant, probably the best sci-fi I have ever read. I'm not sure if anyone has ever even heard of it. It has the most amazingly interesting concepts but forward you will ever see. I recommend to anyone who enjoyed Foundation to pick up a copy of End of Eternity. You won't regret it!
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
... the Culture, of course ;)
As I'm reading the comments here, I'm thinking a majority of you people have (no offense) not a clue about science fiction. All that's being discussed here is space opera and sci-fi. To be sure, that's fun and entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking, but it's also very shallow. This is the literature that indeed _needs_ a good plot and believable characters and everything to be worth reading, because without those it's hopelessly lost and just fumbling along with concepts that are never clearly expressed or explored.
/That/ is what real science fiction is all about.
/mean/ to us, little humans? What does it mean to life? How does it affect us, and how /should/ we be affected by it?
But science fiction can be so much more. True science fiction dares to dream big, true science fiction explores our position in the universe and digs deep into the consequences of all manner of developments. What's more, this kind of science fiction takes you along for the ride and manages to open your mind for new insights. Or, far more often, for old insights seen in a new light, for old insights suddenly connected to other ideas and thus reformed, seen completely anew.
The characters and the plot are never the point of science fiction; this does not mean that they should be ignored by authors, but as long as they do a passable job portraying them, that'll suffice. It's the journey and the insights that matter. It's the soaring of the mind, the "oh my god, this is so huge!" feeling you get when you first glimpse where the author is taking you, as you first realize the scope of his vision.
Not these silly spaceships and laserguns, and not even the alternate histories, moralistic fights against technology, carefully crafted cultures and political insights of most of the better known books in the genre.
The primary task of science fiction has always been to explain, and to set thoughts onto a path to thinking along beyond the boundaries in the story. Originally concepts such as "the fourth dimension" or "time travel", but nowadays life on the cosmic scale. Evolution of universes, minds, the structure of time and space. Abstract, unknown, horribly wrong; yes, to be sure. But not per definition unknowable, and these first tentative steps already can do so much... But it's not all flightly and reamy, this kind of science fiction looks at it from the human perspective, grounds it back in reality; taking the ideas just presented and proddnig it with a large stick. What does this
As Stephen Hawking says about science fiction, "It's really the only fiction that is realistic about our true position in the universe as a whole."
Consequences and possibilities, soaring minds and dreams; that, far more than characters and plots is what matters. The best books manage to combine both, but plots and characters will never be what sets science fiction apart, and if they were all that mattered, I'd be reading a different genre.
Of course, which books do for individual people what I've just tried to describe is not set in stone. Robert J. Sawyer might do the trick for some, while others will be lightyears ahead of him with their thoughts.
For me the two clearest examples of truly good science fiction are Greg Bear's "Darwin's Children" and David Zindell's "A Requieum for Homo Sapiens", but there are many others. Not nearly enough, mind you, as most science fiction authors take only the most tentative of steps instead of boldly leaping forward. But there are some.
(Arthur C. Clarke might have been like this once upno a time - "2001" to be sure is truly a classic and has much o what I talk about here; but if you look at some of his recent work such as "3001" or "The Light of Other Days" he's clearly lost it.)
being a fanatic Star Trek and a great Star-Wars fan I must admit that the nciest setting i came across lately was the one of "Supertoys last all summer" wich was turned into a movie by Mr. Spielberg a few years ago. I love it because it looks kinda realistic with the melted polecaps and the few wealthy people. Although supertoys might not be just around the corner i really enjoyed the background.
cu,
Lispy
1st Iain Banks/ a good consistent universe/ i always wonder if he isn't a member of "the culture" of which he wrights/ how else could he be so authoritative and open minded ;)
;) i get my writing style from his book "needle in the groove"/ especially good if you live in manchester/ england/ where all his books are set ;)
:)
2nd William Gibson/ this man could make chewing gum stuck to the pavement sound cool and the universe in he first three books shown amazing fore sight
3rd Jeff Noon/ in this man's universe the line between drugs and technology are very blurred/ in fact most lines are blurred
writers like Heilein and Asimov make a good read but in a lot of cases science has moved on and makes their writing seem dated/ so what i do when i read them is emagine that the tech they use in these books is something so advanced that the science has almose come full circle/ giving everthing a retro feel/ helps me enjoy the books anyway
She wrote a nine-book cyclic epic (The Exile, Intervention and Galactic Milieu series) and I've yet to run into a better-described world. Also an excellent construction and unification of a lot of folklore and myth. Jynx
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
In the sixties he was considered by Brian Aldiss to be at the forefront of "New Wave" scifi. He's often called the "mighty JG Ballard". Without him, there would be no William Gibson, no Robocop, no Blade Runner. He was the first to see entropy and breakdown as the primary shadows cast by the future!
Stephen baxter - the manifold series. Blew my mind, and actually got me interested in sci-fi and theoretical physics! before i thought they were the domain of geeks.
:)
turns out i was right, and i'm now a geek. doh
I like anything with a good story, but the thing that really gets my goat is they wheel out the old barrel-bottom-scaping time-travel plot device - like they did in Star Trek 7 (or was it 8?).
It might be interesting science-speculation, blahdy-blah, but from that point on the plot is completely wreaked as basically anything goes, e.g. characters that are dead can be brought back to life by going back in time, etc, etc.
Whenever I run into this I feel like going back to Waterstones to demand my money back.
- It has to be FICTIONAL (somewhat obvious).
- It still NEEDS a story, no amount of science will turn a bad story into a good sf novel or tale.
- The "science part" needs to play a ROLE in the story. It doesn't mean it should be "techy" at all, it could be tech-lacking, but not science lacking (it doesn't even have to be scientific, but must have internal logic, be non contradictory, and even though you don't need to explain, you should be able to come up with a reson for everything, in a way that does not make other claims contradictory).
That's the basic ruleset...no wonder why I don't like most sf writers and specially, ST and the likes (yikes).
unfinished: (adj.)
I feel kinda silly saying this, because it just seems so obvious. But I haven't seen anyone who said it yet.
All that's really important is a good story.
I will believe in any bullshit technology, I will suffer through any cliche characters, I will keep reading as the author fills page after page about any breakfast cereal he likes. As long as it's in service of a good story.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
ok maybe his worlds aren't clock-work believable like asimov, maybe he was intentionally writing pulp for cheap sale for years, but i can't think of another writer who travelled so far not only in the universe but more importantly into the deoths of the human mind / imagination.
from the elegant historical revisionism of man in the high castle to the whacked out jungian paranoid fantasies of radio free albemuth, dick has it asll, and through ti all there is a deeply disturbed genius working very hard to push boundaries, with complete disregard for his own mental health.
my personal favourite dick book is 'now wait for last year', a mad tale of drug-enabled time travel, divorce, and interstellar war that borrows more from jean beaudrillard's simulation and simulacrum 30 years before the matrix.
science would be a dull, cold place without philip k dick; no matter what people write now the vast influence he had remains string.
I once had a girlfriend who claimed to hate sci-fi. One night I got her to watch the director's cut of Blade Runner with me. She really enjoyed it. Her comment afterward was that it wasn't sci-fi. Her logic was pretty solid... she liked this film and she didn't like sci-fi, therefore this wasn't sci-fi.
I think many people think of things like Star Wars when they think of sci-fi. Just people in spaceships shooting lasers at each other. Personally, I find the ability to stretch reality very helpful in exploring human depths. Some of my favorite Star Trek episodes revolve around Data because you can expore humanity more through him than anyone else. Same with Blade Runner. Or any Bradbury story.
Devon
There are many great sci-fi authors, dyansties out there. Star Trek, Star Wars, B5, Farscape, *cough* X-Files, etc... Although there is one that seems to me to be continually overlooked mainly because of the immediate succes and then horrible follow-ups. This is the Aliens series. The first two movies had a certain mystique about them and carried the concept very well. The second two began to slump in this trend of groundbreaking storytelling/special effects. There is an entire subset of literature set in this "world" and it never seems to get noticed by anyone. There's a large assortment of graphic novels a short run of actual novels and of course the video games (AvP, AvP2 and the upcoming Aliens:Colonial Marines for PS2). There is finally an Aliens vs. Predator movie ACTUALLY in production after having been shelved for almost 10 years. Hopefully this movie will return the legacy of great storytelling, believable characters and excellent eye-candy. Until then I manage to get by by playing Natural Selection and waiting patiently. Also in the realm of novels, I'd have to say that Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide "trilogy" is by far the best.
Don't get me wrong, I love SF. And for my money great SF is about grand ideas. Talk of characters et al, is not important.
Great literature is about the human condition, or about the magnificent use of words. It is not impossible for SF to be about either, but if it is then it is most likely that it need not be SF. Indeed, most every piece of SF I have ever read, from Benford, Bear and Bradbury through Herbert, Hoyle and Heinlein to Verne, Wells and Wyndham is not really about great literature (although some of the above have certainly approached the human condition in some of their work) but about grand ideas and the grandest ideas make the grandest SF.
I mean, Herbert's devices to eliminate technology as a factor in the Dune universe, genius. Bear's cosmic accounting to destroy planets, inspired. these are the ideas on which great SF is made.
For me, it is a tough call. I read and loved Wyndham's work when I was child, "The Chrysalids" and "Midwich Cuckoos" entranced me (perhaps because of the central role of children). But it was Dune that was the first universe that enthralled me, inspiring me to create within the constraints of that universe. I suspect that it will remain a classic, and remain read for many years to come. Perhap's that is the best measure of what makes SF great.
As for Film and TV, most 50's SF (the "golden age") was just allegory and metaphor, nothing wrong with that, and indeed some of it was fabulous, but once the object of the allegory is lost then the story loses meaning. Star Wars changed the landscape forever, for that alone it will last and is great. Bab 5, loved it, loved the vision, loved the idea of using TV as the medium for a grand arc, but in truth it was again just the first, and it (hopefully) will not remain the best. Finally the one offs like Blade Runner and Alien (the sequels _DO NOT COUNT_), are they really SF? possibly. Are they great? Definitely.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200106/0671318357.ht m?blurb
I have two counter-examples to test any definition:
1) Star Wars does not count as SciFi in my book, it is a space western.
2) Isaac Asimovs stopry of the hen that laid golden eggs is a prime example of SciFi, because of the scientific way he treats the problem.
I know this puts me in the hard core end of SciFi fans, and prbably that StarWars limit offends some readers - sorry about that.
In Murphy We Turst
I get mod'd down as having an 'overrated' opinion? :)
:) Keep it coming...I can take it.
That must mean my opinion's are routinely of such high value that they now function as a commodity. Wow..I'm flattered!
That's rich..... I must have really hit a socio-political nerve to be dragged out into the street and beaten over being so bold as to state my opinion when asked. I'd hate to see what kind of mod I'd incur if I really sounded off...this place never ceases to provide unadulterated humor
His writing is very dark and not very uplifting, which is why I don't really enjoy his work (Ok, I admit it; I'm an optimist :). The one book I read of his where the main character didn't die, it turned out that the protagonist murdered someone in a quite gruesome way.
This is one of the the best sci-fi novels I ever read: http://www.concentric.net/~Los/ft/lossf.htm It's amazing that the amatuer written stuff available for free is often much superior than books you have to pay for.
Stanislav Lem's(yes, he wrote Solaris) "Fiasco" is the best novel I have read recently, but I've heard the english translations of his books are no good.
what, starwars is just a farytell that parents
tell to ther kids before ther go to bed in startrek.
Jedi Nut, dont read this post.
It's not star wars, that's for sure. Not really sure, Aliens universe seems cool, but there is not too muc explained - maybe that is why it seems cool. Blade Runner etc. There is plenty Warhammer 40 000 because of the gothic Dark Reign, Total annihilation and other games just because they got neat vehicles Alternity RPGs Star * Drive was okay setting.
Two good writers come to mind. I've named both of them because they evolve; other then, say, Orson Scott Card who just writes the same 4 books about 15 times, these guys grow from one stage into the next:
1. Neal Stephenson. "Snow Crash" and "The Diamond Age" are probably the only ones of his books that could be classified as "Science Fiction". They all succeed in mixing a number of themes into a reasonably good story. In the case of Snow Crash, he's trying to mix mythology with technocracy and linguism. In his last work, "Cryptonomicon", he's completely stepped off of SF and is proudly banging himself on the chest about the research he did into the WW2-history of cryptology (it's still a good book, though).
2. William Gibson. Writing mostly in trilogies (two so far), his most famous book being the first one of the first trilogy - Neuromancer. It's cyberbunk at its best, but over the books, he's turning into a stylist rather then a technogadget-loving society-critic (how's that for scrabble-words).
Minority Report, Imposter, Screamers, Blade Runner, Total Recall and more all came from Philip K Dick shories, so we can note that he is the leader in some objective way.
This is probably because Phil Dick had more ideas per paragraph than most Sci-Fi authors entire books. His writing style is raw and unvarnished (and often not quite completed) so some people have a difficult time "getting it". His best stuff are his short stories; after reading his entire works you may agree with me that he was in one way the best Sci-Fi writer of them all.
War of the Worlds. A plot so far ahead of its time that the ending is still being copied. Ususally badly (V, Independence Day - although I believe that film to be satire for reasons I'll be happy to debate later). Or how about The Shape of Things To Come, which correctly predicated mechanised warfare. Perhaps you prefer The Time Machine, redone yet again on film in the last year or so. Or perhaps The Invisible Man, redone as Hollow Man. Maybe even The Island of Dr Moreux, which predicts human/animal hybrid experiments like Slashdot's human/mouse hybrid thread a couple of days ago. All of the HG Well's stuff was set in this universe, so it becomes that much more believable.
No? How about Jules Verne's undersea worlds. Or the book his publisher rejected as too depressing, in which he described light railways, telephones and fax machines. The name unfortunately eludes me.
No? How about Brave New World. George Orwell's excellent and entirely depressing book, though to my mind a bit ripped of from his namesake's Shape of Things To Come (George Orwell. Herbet George Wells. Hmmm).
Films. How about 1926's Metropolis, from Fritz Lang? The film without which Bladerunner simply wouldn't exist. The short story 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' probably would, but the short story and the film bear almost no resemblence to each other.
Need to look a bit further back than just the last few years. There's probably some visionary author writing before Wells that I've overlooked. If so, please tell me. I'd be interested to hear it.
Cheers, Ian
Iain Banks' Culture or Niven's Known Space.
The Culture's a good model for future development of humanity.
Neal Stephenson (Snowcrash)
William Gibson (Neuromancer...)
Frank Herbert (Dune)
Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers)
Isaac Asimov (Foundation...)
Ray Bradbury (Martian Chronicles)
any more?
This is 'hard' science fiction and I have to admit that they do require quite a bit of concentration, but the reward is worth it. It's a Universe where faster-than-light travel is unknown. So although the galaxy has been colonised, there is no way of instantaneously jumping around. If you leave a planet, you are gone for decades - people come and go, things happen - and you remain ignorant. Which means that planets are isolated and develop their own cultures.
Chasm City is a sort of Bladerunner Extreme! city, a technological wonderland that has gone to the dogs (or is it the pigs) following an attack by a technological virus (did I mention the virus? How remiss of me!)
Humans have changed - some modify their bodies into bizarre forms, others become 'cojoiners' with machines, others remain pretty much like you or me. And all of these factions are playing off one another.
Not to mention the very strange aliens - but that really would be spoiling it!.
Well worth a look if you have time to read a book (you really can't pick them up and drop them). They start with 'Revelation Space', but you could probably read 'Chasm City' (which is admittedly a better book) first. The twist in the latter book is a real doozy, you'll catch on reasonably early, but the 'how', the 'why' and the 'what the f-' are terrific.
Best wishes,
Mike.
1- Star wars (number one classic) 2- Star Trek Vovager 3- LOTR 4- Terry Brooks (Shanara, Magic Kingdom) 5- Harry Potter (no really the books are pretty good-and I am over the age of 30) 6- Matrix 7- Deep Blue Sea 8- Alien (the first movie only) 9- MS White papers (some of the funniest Fiction ever read) Before you go flaming me Magic is alterative Science!! In some worlds it is same as science.
The Lensman series , by EE "Doc" Smith. Absolutely classic 1940's space opera in five volumes, from which Star Wars derives a bunch of its themes.
These are the two genres that are not completely appreciated by most science fiction fanatics. Be it the complete Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, the futuristic look at Batman in The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller or the Swamp Thing saga by Alan Moore. They are writers with an amazing story telling attitude that uses the sci-fi aspect only to make the story go forward as opposed to the central aspect of their story being the crazy new technological advances we make in the future.
When it comes to cyberpunk, as many posters have noted earlier, Gibson and Stephenson have really shaped the genre itself. Neuromancer and its followings talk a lot about the setting up of the entity that was the basic premise behind movies like The Matrix. Stephenson on the otherhand spends more time wonderfully detailing the cyberworld itself.
Some of the best books i have ever read was science fiction novels. Even if they consist of otherwise very boring issues the Science fiction plot makes them worth the reading. Many russian books critizise society but in a very subtle manner. That is also true of many western books about the future with a small number of companies battling for world domination. They to critizise society in a subtle way. The sience fiction aspect makes it easier to view from a distance and to look at an issue from a neutral viewpoint.
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Aliens, Scully..
Gay Deceiver - Bounce!!
i don't read slashdot anymore.
'Known Space'. Larry Niven, et. al.
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Scanning through the comments, I see nobody mentioning Charles Kingsbury. Courtship Rite is a wonderful, brutal, anthropologically accurate comedy of manners. I think it is not only his best book, but one of the very best science fiction novels I've read. In second place is The Earth Goddess and the Son which, among other things, is about Russian history, the Mongols, Low Earth Orbits, and modelling society.
Recently he seems to want to play in other people's universes. He has two novels in Larry Niven's Kzin War series and has recently done a giant Foundation Series book called Psychohistorical Crisis.
Worth reading.
-Gareth
Com2Kid says "popular science fiction authors had two cliche statements attached to them"... in a vain attempt to build his karma by attacking someone else's, then replies with a slightly less than insightful excuse for not having his own quoted facts on hand... "...or whatever it is (it is late, been awhile, I have it around here someplace.)" .
Now that's what I call real diaper gravy...hehehe c2k should check his load at the door next time. No wonder he/she comes in with a score of 1. When you can't stand on your own, find someone else to blame.
Most every person who considers Armor the BEST book and universe ever created, has served in the military.
Armor is a military novel. Armor is a single book which Steakly has never revisited - although the characters appear again in Vampires (which a movie was based on).
The story is not unique and is OPENLY based on another book, Starship Troopers (the original). The beauty is that the physical universe Armor takes place in, is essentially the same as Starship Troopers but the psychological is different, changing the entire universe as much as a physical change would.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
In a world where our mindset, our very thought patterns, our feeling are conditionned by our culture, social environment and even more so by the omnipresent medias, it is good to have people, free thinkers, who give us bits of uncommon wisdom. That's what I love in sci-fi, when the author shakes my perception of the universe and makes me see prejudgements, pre-made ideas, I didn't even know I had. Among my favorites, these two are from Frank Herbert's Dosadi Experiment : 'All sentient beings are born unequal. A good society gives everyone the chance to rise at one's own level' (Bureau of Sabotage Manual) 'The innocents are guilty, thus the guilty are innocent' (Gowachin Law)
His novels based in "The Culture" cut it best for me.
... honest ;-)
A huge universe, one faction of which is "The Culture" - an evolved human race who have no need for money (they can make anything they want) and which is ran by "Minds", machine intelligence.
When they need a new spaceship, they build one and install a Mind, who becomes the ship, hence the entire thing is sentient (and usually hilarious).
I always thought Arthur C Clarke could describe vast tracts of space thoughtfully, but banks is on an even higher scale.
I'm not biased because he grew up a few miles from where I'm typing this
IMHO has been by David Brin in his Uplift series. It has it all, rich setting, interesting characters, beleivable plot and an incredible story. Don't judge his work by "Postman" - the movie sucked, the book wasn't much better. Though it would be a nice change of pace to see a film maker put forth an honest effort to bring the Uplift universe to life on screen. The original ideas presented in Startide Rising and later books (the first two seem out of place) give one of the most realistic visions of what could be out there waiting for us. Not everything has a happy ending, yes the universe is a very dangerous place and any society outside of Earth may very well be too old and strange to comprehend. Well, just my .02
So maybe someone has already made a comment on this guy, if only to say that it's not reeealy "Speculative Fiction", but aside from my favourites, William Gibson, Ian M. Banks, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett (no, not the discworld ones (even though they're worth reading too (why, they practically read themselves)), I mean the two SF onces he did), he's my absolute favourite (... er, as it were).
... Apart from being irreverent, chaotic, probably drunk, and the story consisting almost entirely of deus-ex-maccinas, he also has some interesting ideas as to how the world works - almost, it seems, in spite of himself.
The blurb on his book regularly contain one critic's comment: "A sort of drinking man's HG Wells" - which hits the nail on the head.
yes, we have no bananas
Our hero lands some n years in the future, and the first thing he does is walk into a shop for second-hand-gear, finds something from his own (our) time, and let that play a significant role in the story.
That typical for bad sci-fi: The authors really didn't have so much understanding for the science of it that they could make bold predictions, and they weren't able to make fiction based on those predictions, because they didn't have the imagination to see what the science could imply.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Well, the Wold Newton Universe makes a reasonable stab at this. PJF's initial takes were wide ranging and since then more and more have been added.
And of course his World of Tiers universe is worth a mention on it's own.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
1) A universe. An english teacher of mine was fond of saying "People don't exist in a vaccum" I believe that holds true for SF. People interact with other people and interact with the world arround them. If there isn't a world beyond the story, the SF isn't good. Everything can't automagicaly be connected.
2) People you can care about. If you have no caring for the characters, what they do or how they act. If you can't connect with the characters, it's not good.
3) It can't feel like SF. You should be able to read the book and never have it once cross your mind that you're reading SF. It has to have other plot elements that make it a story that just takes place in a world different from our own. Good examples of this are Ender's Game and Cobra. Both have an entire sublevel of politics and character interactions that make it so that the technology is written for the story, not the otherway arround.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I always wonderd where the non-Dick stuff from Blade runner Came from
D.A.K.D.A.E.---- Deny all Knowledge, Destroy All Evidence
I've always thought one of the main functions of sf is to present ideas in a way that makes you look at them from a different angle than you had before. Slavery, for instance. I'd say that it doesn't affect most people-- it's a relic of the past, and everyone knows it's evil, and that's that. But after watching Blade Runner, you not only gain appreciation for its evils, but you also understand why it existed in the first place and why it was attractive to so many. I suppose it could be set in 1840 just as well as 2017, but I think setting it in the future makes it much more immediate and urgent to us, since it can't be dismissed as a historical curiosity.
L Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth Saga. The writing of this ten volume badboy is naieve, but the comedy keeps you chowing down like a cannibal at a nudist convention. Brilliant... especially when the hero Soltan Gris gets caught up with the sadistic Miss Pinch and her lesbian lover Candy Licorice. I've not felt the same way about dildo's and mustard ever since. :D
I really like both his Terro-Human Future History and his Paratime stories. His main characters are another version of the Cambellian competent man but well written. His science is a little light but his sociological insights are pretty good. Part of this stems from his use of historical precident in laying out his stories.
Unfortunately most of his work is out of print. There's been two recent collections put together, The Complete Paratime and The Complete Fuzzy. These are out of print but still available at Amazon. The Paratime one has most of the Paratime stories as well as Lord Kalvin of Otherwhen, his only Paratime novel. The Fuzzy compilation contains Piper's Fuzzy novels but nothing else. For the rest of Piper, it's eBay.
John F. Carr has been writing Lord Kalvin novels and information on them can be found at hostigos.com.
I drank what? -- Socrates
I'd actually say: our world, the present or possibly the near future. We are not far from major technological breakthroughs and we are already living in a world which would seem very much like science fiction only 20 or 30 years ago.
We've got pet robots, instant communication, speech recognition software, genetic engineering, cybernetic implants and satellites in space. The first manned Mars-mission is being planned. Space tourism is beginning to take off.
I could go on like this for a while. The list is long. You don't need 8-legged tentacled monsters to have science fiction. All you need to do is read the technology news in your favourite paper. It's there. It's happening. Now.
Would be cool with a light sabre, though.
Most people seem to have read the novels of some great writer, but I find some missing. It is like you would talk about the music of the sixties by mentioning the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but leaving out the Who.
So, in addition to all mentioned greats, here are some people to mention, not only for their great science-fiction, ranging from hard to soft, but also because they created already SF with fantasy elements, before fantasy became popular.
I try to collect all the books of these writers, whether they are out of print or not (love flea markets and second hand stores).
Poul Anderson. Not only a very prolific writer, but also someone with a background in historical sciences. His adventures range from the human paleolitic past up to the end of the universe. He is also one of the writers who is really good in creating a political background to his universes.
Can't mention a favorite book, but to have a grasp of the reach of his work :
Jack Vance. One of the few SF writers who has all his books translated in Dutch. He loves to blur the line between SF and fantasy, but his stories are never unlogical. To grasp his humor, you really should read his stories several times. He is a creator of worlds and cultures infinite in variety.
It is not easy to create a short reading list, but the following books I re-read regularly.
Tanith Lee. This lady must be the most prolific female SF/fantasy writer, although she mostly leans more to the fantasy and even the gothic side of things.
Her real science-fiction books probably date more from the beginning of her career :
I guess with a better imagination and more time on my hand I could be aroused by asexuality as well :)
John Brunners "The Shockwave Rider", "Sheep Look Up"
H.G. Wells "When the sleeper wakes", "The Land Iron Clads"
Philip K Dick "Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep", "Confesions of a Crap Artist", "A scanner Darkly"
But I should also toss in as good (But not yet essental)
Greg Bear "Forge of God" & "Darwins Radio"
Robert L Froward "Dragons Egg"
D.A.K.D.A.E.---- Deny all Knowledge, Destroy All Evidence
Good Sci-Fi will imagine solutions to todays problems, and present everyday items in a new and streamlined form, whether it be a streetlight or a toaster oven. Good Sci-Fi could also predict what could go wrong too...
But either way, it's got to be believable.
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The Hyperion series of books has been my favorite
sci-fi "universe" - consistent, believable, true
to human nature - you don't want the books to end.
On TV/Movie media, it's got to be Babylon 5...
Most of the works/worlds that have been mentioned here are not SCIFI but more of the Space Fantasy Arena. Azimov, Clarke, Crichton are SCIFI writers who take the reader on a journey of extrapolation from today's technology to tomorrow's. SCIFI is about the understanding of things to come. While understanding where we are today. From Robots, to NanoSwarms, to Thinking computers. These guys have the ideas and it is up to us to figure out how to make them real.
The planets, space and ships are anecdotic. It's only a mystic story about empires, families, "the force"...
I havent read sci-fi in ages, and this thread just lost me a nights sleep because I was reminded of Lois McMaster Bujold's "Miles Naismith/Vorkosigan" and couldn't put down a book I was reminded of.
Bujold's series is impressive because it focuses on a solid single character. The universe she creates is treated mearly as a backdrop and rather complex plot devices. The remainder of the charaters in the series are richly developed and remind you of Real People (tm). When you beleive your reading about Real People, its much easier to accept that they are in extrodinary positions.
Miles is:
- Disabled
- Strong
- Imperfect
- Inspiring
- A role model for the reader.
I think if I look back across other fiction both in and out of scifi, similar traits of the protagonist will be in common. People want to read about people who inspire them.
Secondly, the science is very hard. Hard science fiction is a genre that is very hard to pull off. A lot of authors who do hard sci-fi spend most of the pages of a book just describing their hard science. Baxter manages to seamlessly weave it in to the story and you barely notice, but is leaves an impression.
However, what truly makes it great is that he weaves the plot and the science together perfectly. A lot of sci-fi authors simply use sci-fi as a setting and tell a traditional type story. A sci-fi love story or a sci-fi crime thriller or a sci-fi horror story. These are all sci-fi, but can only achieve the rank of 'good' sci-fi. Truly great sci-fi needs to have science in it, but also relate it to the plot.
When I read a piece of science fiction, I like to know how the advanced science affected the culture. So, in the future there is some really cool technology. Well, how do people's lives change? What are the consequences? These are all focuses in Baxter's series. A big part of the plot is the interaction between the technologically superior Xeelee and the (comparitively) primitive human race, and the resulting war between the two races. Add to that the impending death of the universe and the pursuit of science among all of this, which leads to some startling discoveries about the Xeelee.
Few other sci-fi universes has these elements together. The only other one that I can think of off hand is the Foundation trilogy, which is second on my list. It only falls behind Baxter's series because the science is less than hard.
Lem is not afraid to tackle the real difficult questions in his books. For example, the problem of communication with another lifeform/species is far from trivial and Lem gets into it in a number of his books.
Orson Scott Card comes close to this topic with "Speaker for the Dead" - where there is a weird cultural conflict. But most other SF authors just gloss over this issue, in Star Trek "Universal Translator" style...
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Amen to that. There are very few authors where I will buy a new book on the strength of the author's name alone and without asking if I will actually have time to read thge book. Iain Banks has to stand at the head of that list (which would also have to include Peter F Hamilton, Vernor Vinge, Jo Clayton, and Stephen Donaldson)
Of course there are many other good authors I may buy if I think I will have the time to read them and I like the look of the book ( but I already have one shelf full of SF I haven't found time to read yet !-()
IMO he should have stopped at book 2, about where the radio series ended, and about where he actually tried to make the story coherent.
Far more serious a work in sciece fictions was his Dirk Gently's series. He tackled some serious issues regarding time, mythology, the very meaning of reality.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
From what I've heard from people who knew the Heinlein's, many of his female characters are based on his wife.
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Red Planet, Blue Planet, Green Planet.
I think Red Planet is the best though. It has very believable and neurotic (what makes them believable) characters. The story is good and fairly believable, especially for a scifi.
Battle Lords of the 23rd Century. Hands down.
the best sci-fi rpg out there. www.ssdc.com
The Childe Cycle series by Gordon R Dickson is without a doubt the best SciFi I've ever read. It a very well thought out universe and very strong character development. I've yet to read all of the books, but I've read about 5 in the series.
The aliens in "Mote in God's Eye" and "The Gripping Hand" are some of the most interesting I have read to date.
Also the universe created around the Puppeteers (Ringworld Series) was quite fascinating also
Foundation is actually the Roman Empire, and the first Foundation story (the prequel where Seldon is an actual character, and I mean the one that appears in the first book, not "Forward the Foundation" or whatever that tripe was much later published to cash in on the Foundation name) is the actual fall of Rome.
Any relationship to current times should be considered thought-provoking, but do note that to the extent we are currently stagnatng, it is not complete; technology is still developing at a rapid pace, which is a major difference from the Empire yet.
Yes he did. He wrote City of Death, The Pirate Planet and Shada. Check out imdb if you don't believe me.
The best Trek episode (classic, tng, movies, whatever) ever. Written by Harlan Ellison.
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My favourite is Perry Rhodan. Perry Rhodan is published on a weekly
basis, with about 60 pages per week. The team consists of about 6-8
authors and is located in Germany. The first issue came out in the
1960s, and the story begins with Perry being an american astronaut
flying to the moon. From then on, the story diverges from reality
as it turned out 1969.. Perry Rhodan discovered a stranded alien
spaceship on the moon. The US/Russian/Chinese powers on earth want
to get ahold of the alien technology, but Rhodan understands to use
it to unite them (after quite a while). Mankind starts to explore
the universe and still does today.
Published since about 40 years, Perry Rhodan today consists of almost
2200 episodes. There were translations in more than 20 languages, but
popularity varied over those 40 years and I'm not aware of many
translations still being done today. If you understand German, Perry
is for you!
The nice thing with it is that the authors try to be consistent within
the "Perry Rhodan universe". They extrapolated imaginary physics
from what was known at the point of writing. And from then on, they
stick with the rules. Except for some minor errors, it is very
consistent.
Apart from the 2200 episodes (60 pages each), they were re-published
as book ("Silberbände"). Each book combines about 10 episodes and has
been refined to provide more fluent reading (each episode was written
by a different author of the team, to keep up with the weekly publishing
deadline).
If you have EMULE or EDONKEY installed, give it a try with "Rhodan"
as search word. Most of it is available as ebook.
Marc
My Eye-Opener and all-time favorite, :)
5 53 X/ref=pd_sim_b_dp/026-9739727-9738844
apart from the Foundation of course
Julian May had created a cyclic immense universe story of 9 books of which this trilogy is a encapsuled part of.
Read it and see for yourself.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/033028
He's written ~4,000 pages on the Confederation universe. Now he's moved it out of the galaxy, writing more could make it cluttered and end up with it going stale :)
:)
Hopefully we'll see more from him in the same vein, though. At the moment he seems to be concentrating on strong standalone books. Although it would be nice to get another decent series from him, that'll take ages. Bah
You either grok science fiction or you do not.
~~ What's stopping you?
Yeah, I can't see anything particular 'bent' in the humour of RD? Ordinary british comedy. Along the same line as much of the other fun stuff produced on that island for the last 30 years, just the settings changed.
And no, Mr. Bean is not funny!
Red dwarf is tho. Funny.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
I personally have always found that science fiction with a deep social or psychological comment appeals to me the most. Particularly I like Stranger In a Strange Land by Heinlen, and anything by Philip K. Dick. I also really enjoyed the questions posed about morals and philosophy in Trigun. Would you kill someone to save someone else's life? What gives you the right to decide which one of them has more of a right to live? Is there a way they can both survive?
Close the world.
Since books are cheaper, it is easier to produce good science-fiction stories than good science-fiction series or movies.
Movies/series tend to be a) popular, in which case the real SF aspects of it are underplayed and they are a little bit of a disappointment to the real SF fan, or b) the SF is good, but in that case it loses most of its appeal to the general public, and they tend to be cancelled.
Also, movies derived from books tend to have the same problems as above. The most notable exception is probably '2001: A space oddysey' as the film and the book where done in cooperation by Kubrik and Clarke.
The problem with movies and series is to display the underlaying logic of the SF theme. When one reads a good SF book, the logic is consistent and follows from details that are written and emphasised in the book, but which you can almost not do in a screenplay. Sometimes the creators of the screenplay make one of the characters explain the logic, but this is very difficult and tends to mostly end up being pedantic.
All of this said, I think that the one series that mostly stands out for me as a science-fiction series, is the original Star Trek, mostly because a whole lot of stories where created by real SF writers.
Another series, more recent, I like as SF, is 'Sliders'. While the special effects where sometimes below par, it introduced the non-SF knowledged to the concept of parallel universes and had a whole lot of nice ideas worked into it. My wife liked it, and she is not an SF fan.
I can't say much about movies. I've seen most of the classics mentioned here, but I think that most movies are not really capable of being 'hard' science-fiction. They tend to become adventure movies with much special effects and/or violence. I find that among the exceptions are '2001', and an old classic 'The Forbidden Planet'.
In addition to that, and to be consistent, I probably should also classify the Star Trek movies as real SF movies, but I haven't seen one of them. However, one of my favorite writers, Alan Dean Foster (Blood Hype/The Middle World), has worked on these, so they should probably be OK (or did he just enscript the book from the movies ?).
I like the first Star Wars series, but it is probably more a fairy tale with SF elements.
In short, I like the books more, probably also it stimulates the imagination more than a movie.
I have taken great pains to study the great masters. I have read the commentaries of several authors, poured through Campell's "Power of Myth", and foisted my work on unwitting colleges and family.
What I lack is what the masters posses: magic. I don't mean the swords and sorcery type of magic, I mean the I'm moving my left hand so you don't see my right hand reach down into my pockey type magic. The ability to suspend disbelief and despite the audience's best efforts, engage them in a meaningful story dressed up as a shootem-up or fantasy.
How many Sci-Fi novels have you read, and after reflecting on the whole story you realize that the characters weren't just real people, they are people that you actually knew. How many plots seems fantastic and almost farcical, and end up being allegories for current events?
My problem is that I don't have a lack of story telling ability. I just don't have a story to tell .
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I love SF, but after high school and my life being dedicated to working on computers I gave up books.
Then 3 years ago I picked up Asimov and read the Foundation Series when I would be in the air. It reminded me of what I was missing and I started reading again.
Since that I time I have read numerous authors but have to admit I always try to sneak in another Asimov work when I can.
The best "science fiction universe" ever has got to be Scientology (TM). Its inventor, L. Ron Hubbard, took the wild and crazy magikal ideas of Aliester Crowley and mixed them up with the wild and crazy space opera of E.E. "Doc" Smith and came up with something that was more than a mere universe, it was a business model disguised as a religion!! And the pestelential inhabitants of that business-in-clerical drag universe are still a menace to we civilized citizens of earth!
No disrespect to Arthur C Clarke, but he didn't come up with the idea of geosynchronous orbits, they come directly from Newton's equations.
I have never laughed so hard in my life (well except when I watch Full Metal Jacket stoned).
"Classic" Star Wars????" Give me a break. Pretty on the screen, but you don't call somethinbg that's totally derivative (ERB's Barsoom, Dune, Flash Gordon, etc, etc) classic, no matterhow well executed.
PK Dick was the Man. Know why? Because good SF is good writing.
Sorry but Heinlein and Asimov were hacks as writers. I mean how much Lazarus Long can you read before you realize it's 95% dialog.
PK Dick Was the Man. The only SF writer who realized that the future is always bad, and he welcomed it anyhow.
I can't believe no one has mentione Tarzan yet. Or the Mars stuff he wrote. If you haven't read Tarzan yet I suggest you do. It's really cool stuff. And note I said READ. Yes, the movies are fun but they don't hold a candle to the books. And if you don't think its Sci-Fi, then I regret to say that you have no concept of what Sci-Fi really is .
What is the problem with that?
This is exactly the kind of women I read about in my magazines. Or perhaps not exactly read, but at least I look at the pretty pictures.
Some of my favorite science fiction is the remarkable collaboratory efforts of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournell: Lucifer's Hammer, Footfall, Legacy of Heorot, et.al. For them, it's all about the plot. Their separate novels are good, but don't quite measure up to the collaborations.
God is imaginary
For me, the answer is the universe of the First two books of Fredrick Pohl's 'Gateway' series. Those books provided one of the most interesting worlds I've read about. It is rare in that it required the kind of real imagination that many sci-fi writers spend lucrative careers demonstrating that they lack:
Gibson and the Cyberpunks were largely a matter of predicting technical trends and greasy sociology.
Niven and other intelligent, highly technical sci-fi writers get the physics right, but write like virgins discussing sex when it comes to human nature... including sex.
Far-future, galactic empire fictions like Dune and Star Wars, tend to impose anachronistic systems of government onto far distant futures with such regularity that the result often looks more like a cheap device than a towering work of the imagination.
By contrast, the Universe in Gateway, is close enough to our own time frame in terms of its sociology and economic perspective that the characters it gives rise to are understandable in present terms; they seem relevant in that they are driven by the same forces that drive us.
Dune offers the reader the story of the son of a fallen Duke rising to fulfill the messianic prophecy of an indigenous people, but his journey provides no characters whose motivations a normally functioning reader can really relate to (i.e., how much time have *YOU* spent with a poisoned needle to your neck?). By contrast, in addition to its many stunning visuals, 'Gateway' offers us a glimpse into human nature using a story in which the science is more than just a backdrop to feudalism and this is the best kind of science fiction; the telling of a story that would be impossible to tell without the science.
Most readers have very little experience of nobility in a time of vendetta, but it's hard to imagine anyone who has never seen the results of greed and guilt.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
It's amazing. In the same slahdot main page, we can see a review of Stanislav Lem's Solaris (well, the film). Ok, the Wired article explains why so few Americans do not know this author (he writes in Polish, and most novels are not translated or only poorly). However, also non-Amreicans read Slashdot, and being German, I can only say: After reading Lem, you stop reading Asimov, and others (just the Hitchhiker will still be considered good SciFi). And, Lem's books are translated into German where he sells millions. The only hope for the Americans is that the film Solaris will be a blockbuster -- and trigger the editors to newly traslate all other Lem books as well.
ok, ok my two cents: William Gibson. A few other posts about Gibson, but I'd like to point out that the focus of Gibson is not so much the technology in his story's (which gets these books classified as Sci-Fi), as it is the culture which the technology created. The one difference I've noticed between Gibson and some of the other masters of the field (ie. Asimov) is the level of detail given to the nifty little gadgets. In "Idoru" I almost screamed when the main character gave a passing glance at another characters computer, and didn't give it any more thought. Anywho, My Gibson rant is done, and at the end of the day, the world of the BAMA Sprawl, the Sons of the Neon Chrysanthemum, and the original "consensual hallucination", will always hold the best/worst future for me.
~The Geek shall inherite the Earth~ (I think thats right...)
Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein - definitely. For all the reasons described above.
Gibson, Hamilton, Marshall-Smith, Card - nice rounding out of ideas, stories which make you think long after you finish reading.
Herbert - not for Dune, which I liked, but rate along with Gormenghast for amusingly overblown shallowness, but for his wierd stuff, and short stories.
Niven, Pournelle, Bear - scientifically/technically plausible universes. On an epic scale.
This book has it all: subterrain Earth exploration and exploitation; war mongers; mercenaries; and a hadal ancient civilization lead by a Jesuit priest. I'll never go into another cave or mine shaft!
Being Australian, I start with, Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind series. (Particularly his planet Norstrilia, "Old North Australia", like Dune settled by outback Australians instead of Bedouins.) And then A Bertram Chandler's Rimworld series about tramp spaceships on the edge of the galaxy.
More classically, Edgar Rice Burroughs' worlds: Pellucidar [the hollow Earth], Barsoom [Mars], Amtor [Venus] and Tarzan's Africa [and all its lost cities].
One of the largest and most coherent universes must be Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic League/Terran Empire. Read some Dominic Flandry and forget about Star Wars.
Of course Heinlein's "Future History" (apparently he invented the term), and Niven's "Known Space" are up there, but suffiently well known not to need my endorsement.
My favourite writer, (and thus my favourite universe) would have to be that of Greg Bear, especially for "The Forge of God" & "Anvil of the Stars" he writes tech well, and people very well.
:) Though especially for bringing magic to ordinary places and events.
:)
I'd also have to give a shout out Herbert's Dune universe; Heinlein's worlds, people and above all, his stories. Then of course there is Douglas Adams, who gave us not only "Ford Prefect" & "Zaphod Beeblebrox" but the sublime and brilliant "Dirk Gently" Where Norse Gods live in nursing homes
I think Clarke writes great places and tech, but his characterisations truly suck, the're so one dimensional, especially the women...
Ian M Banks, for such things as the GCU "No More Mr Nice Guy" the wierd and wonderfull game of Azad, and droids with both a personailty and a sense of humour.
And finally Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle for thier indivial and colaborative efforts in such places/books as "Ringworld" and "Mote in God's eye" Which was truly amazing at the time I read it. I Still remember Rod Blaine rubbing his nose in times of stress
later
jb
(praxis22@hotmail.com)
Generally, what churns my butter in a science fiction story is how thought provoking or insightful it can be. Greg Egan is one of my favourite authors despite the fact that his characters can be flat listless plot devices that are there to put a human face on an abstract concept. (In fairness, this does not speak to all his characters or stories.)
Science fiction allows authors to explore themes that come off as contrived at best in regular fiction: explorations of human nature, information theory, the role of power in nature, the true implications of the existence of X. My rule of thumb is that if a story can leave you pondering something, it's a successful science fiction story.
That doesn't excuse some of the piss poor hacks who have a cool idea and a word processor. Neato factor does not a successful story make. A harlequin romance could be brilliantly written (in theory I guess, I'll never know) and the best story concept ever could be given to the Eye-of-Aragon guy.
I guess what I'm getting at is that if all the other elements of a good story - interesting & believable characters, gripping plot, well developed setting, good writing are there what separates a good read from a brilliant story is the underlying concept.
That said, Ian Banks (anything), Neal Stephenson (Snowcrash and Diamond Age), Orson Scott Card (Pastwatch and Enders Game), Harry Turtledove (Guns of the South, How Few Remain and the Great War Series), Peter Hogan (The Giants Series and some of his other stuff), Joe Haldeman (Forever War), Peter F. Hamilton (Reality Dysfunction) and Robert J. Sawyer (Calculating God, The Terminal Experiment and Factoring Humanity) are off the top of my head examples of great vs. good science fiction.
I think that with all science ficition it shows use what we could achieve, or our potential as a soceity. Which can either show us our ability to progress and develop new and amazing feets. Or nuture our distructive capablities. I suppose the thing that i find with Sci-fi is they explore and drive on they creation. The imagination of the human spirit.....the future is anything we want it to be.
One of the best to come along. Hands down. Complex plot, tons of literary allegory, religious reflection. A classic series.
i read ings "datafat" (horrible) and sterlings "schizmatrix" (mindbogglingly great) and found a strange (HA!) affection for futuristic erotic/sex... :)
i wanna ask slashdot: are there more novels dedicated to that topic?
some tips on well written scifi/erotic stories would be appreciated...
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
Far-future, galactic empire fictions like Dune and Star Wars, tend to impose anachronistic systems of government onto far distant futures with such regularity that the result often looks more like a cheap device than a towering work of the imagination......I thought that Star Wars happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? but I may be wrong on that one.
http://www.whateversclever.net
I'm guessing you won't get much flack because a lot of folks aren't even aware of E.E. "Doc" Smith in the first place. For those of you who weren't reading serials back in the 40's, E.E. "Doc" Smith is the inventor of the classic space opera. Yeah, he's the one who pretty much started the whole "spaceships shooting at each other thing". His best-known works are the "Lensman" and "Skylark" series, which were mostly published originally in serial form starting in *1928* with "Skylark of Space". Although most of his books are out of print today, "Old Earth Books" has reissued the Lensman series, and my experience is that you can find at least one Smith paperback in any used book store worth it's salt.
The good: even today, I think Doc's books count as some of the most imaginative Sci-Fi printed from a "universe" and "technology" perspective, especially when you consider that even the basic forms of the genre hadn't been established when he started writing. His science is very internally consistent, and has some wonderful ideas in it that make for great story. The action sequences are first-rate, and there is a sheer exhileration in the way that the scale and the power of the technology and the story grows from book to book- the Skylark series starts primarily as a conflict between two men, and ends up as galaxy vs. galaxy.
The bad: Nobody will claim that Smith writes good literature. The characters are completely flat, and are unambiguously good or bad (with a couple notable exceptions). By good, I mean Boy Scout, and by bad, I mean Adolf Hitler. Dialogue is cheesy and unrealistic, and the plots, while somewhat innovative at the time, are terribly repetitious. Modern readers will also have a hard time with the jurassic gender roles, and perhaps with the fact that many stories end with the genocidal slaughter of the bad guy's entire race (who, of course are all unsalvagably evil).
But to get hung up on the "bad" is to completely miss the point. You may start reading E.E. "Doc" Smith because of the high ironic enjoyment value (they'd make excellent MST3K fodder), but you'll keep reading it because of the exuberance, creativity and vastness of Doc's vision will pull you in.
If you want to start out somewhere, I'd suggest "Skylark 3" or "Galactic Patrol". Although neither of them are the first in their respective series (although "Galactic Patrol" was the first Lensman book *written*) they are great intros to what E.E. "Doc" Smith is all about, and are a must-read for any hard-core sci-fi fan.
Heinlein Heinlein Heinlein....
This get's overlooked quite a bit. It is CLASSIC space opera. From the authors of the Deathgate Cycle and Dragonlance. Weiss and Hickman kick ass!
Niven's Codominium is certainly a plausible kind of world government and adds so much to the Falkenburg's Legion books. What about the ARM series? That too was a world government based on the UN model that was entirely not too far fetched.
But do you remember Harry Harrison's Wheelworld trilogy? The UN takes over and the only democracy left skulking around the world is Israel? Or Harrison's Deathworld trilogy where virtually every piece of life on the planet is out to destroy the humans living in "The City"?
Any ways thought you needed a couple of other universes to ponder beyond Dune, Foundation, and Star Wars.
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
That said though, I personally have always found genre fiction to be more than a little stifling. I don't have any problem with a good scifi yarn but a steady diet of it leaves me a little anemic, and as far as I can tell a steady diet of it leaves a lot of the writers pretty anemic as well. This isn't just a problem with scifi by the way -- I also find a steady diet of westerns, mysteries, or whatever else to be boring.
Maybe that's why my favorite "scifi" people would have to include Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, and [if a film maker can count] Stanley Kubrick. All of them have dabbled in scifi, but their targets have been much bigger than just the scifi niche market; if scifi makes a good backdrop for telling a story -- cf. the time travel stuff in Vonnegut's _Slaughterhouse-Five_ or the doomsday device in Kubrick's _Dr Strangelove_ -- then great, that's fine by me. But you don't have to use these props all the time to get good ideas across, and over-relying on them can be just as bad as not being willing to try them at all.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Niven: Known Space (interesting tech) Baxter: Xelee stories (interesting timeline, decent science) Hamilton: Night's Dawn (interesting space opera) Hamilton(again): Mindstar series (good cyberpunk stories, reminds me of Crichton)
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
any story that can make you believe in a totally abstract concept using scientific data and/or visual effects.
some people might prefer to see the technological advancements of the future.
other people might get off simply seeing the human race survive the destruction of the earth.
The book has a plot that doesn't rely on the gadgets or "universe" that surround it. Rather, it's the story of one man's drive for revenge against a system that he believes left him to die. All the "sci-fi" trappings are just window dressing for the story, and in many ways, that's the point.
Another one that bears mentioning is Theodore Sturgeon. I'd swear that Killdozer was the inspiration for Christine, but his real masterpiece was More Than Human, which tells the story of several idiot-savants with supernatural powers who are incapable of functioning in the world themselves, but together form an odd sort of gestalt/family unit.
In both cases, believable, human stories told from a slightly different point of view. Really, so are the stories of Hari Seldon, Case, and Luke Skywalker when you break it down.
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
I can't believe nobody's yet mentioned Hugo Gernsback's famous definition of SF.
."
Part of the disagreement here may be definitional: some are saying what makes a great work, regardless of genre, some are saying what makes great space opera, and a few are talking about Science Fiction, or as he called it in Amazing Stories #1, "scientifiction":
"By 'scientifiction' I mean the Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story -- a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision . . . Not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading -- they are always instructive. They supply knowledge . . . in a very palatable form . . . New adventures pictured for us in the scientifiction of today are not at all impossible of realization tomorrow . .
So basically to be Science Fiction as opposed to space opera (and I'm not knocking good space opera, I love Babylon 5), it needs to be grounded in science with a view toward revealing how humans interact with the consequences of a given technology.
So to be GOOD SF, it must have the elements that make for good literature (plot, characterization, vivid place, etc.), but it also must highlight some aspect of humanity by examining how we react to changed technological circumstances, and do so plausibly and without obviousness. Some of the ones that explore this well for me are Brin's universe of Sundiver/Startide Rising, and Clifford Simak's City.
So SF isn't excused from the requirements for good literature, it imposes extra requirements on it.
Speculative fiction, as noted elsewhere, lifts the technological requirement but does require changed circumstances, the essential "what if." I'd even go so far as to say that Science Fiction is a special case of Speculative fiction. So once you find out what makes good literature and good speculative fiction, you can figure out what additionally is required to make good Science Fiction.
I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed with most of the replies in here. That's slashdot, I guess.
One author who is mostly considered fantasy is Stephen Donaldson, but he's branched into Sci-Fi not just with novels (The Gap Series), but with short fiction as well, in both of his short story collections (Daughter of Regals and Other Tales, and Reave the Just and Other Tales). "Mythical Beast" is a good story from the first, and "What Makes Us Human" a good sci-fi selection from the second.
As for the Gap Series itself, the first book is troublesome to say the least. If you get through it, though, he has a wonderful control of plot and characters, and I love Norse mythology, so the (deliberate) echoes of the Ring cycle are fun. It's got some strongly mature themes, but I would highly recommend it to anyone here. The structure of each of the books is a little different, but I liked the "Ancillary Documentation" of Chaos and Order the best.
I don't know about you guys, but the messages attached to this story will be invaluable to me next time I can't find a good book to read.
Instant bookmark!
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Most people don't consider this science fiction, but I think Stephen King's "Dark Tower" (and related) novels all mix a certain element of horror, fantasy and science fiction.
For those that haven't read these books, the Dark Tower series takes place in a parallel universe, similar to our own, except set a thousand years after we would have wiped ourselves out (after making a few hundred years of additional scientific progress). The core concept is that there are an infinite number of universes, many of which impinge on each other, and all held together by these mysterious "beams" centered on the Dark Tower. There is a villain trying to destroy those beams and presumably lay waste to the various universes held by them.
The books are excellent, and the universe is very interesting, with most of the world having reverted to what we might consider technology of the "old west", lying smack in the middle of (some partially-functioning!) relics of our ancient technology. Universes "near" this one, and the way they relate to each other are all equally interesting (e.g. the Territories from the Talisman).
What makes this universe a masterpiece, though, is now King is weaving this plot into nearly every piece of fiction he's written lately. Talisman came before Dark Tower, but its sequel, Black House, connects it to the Dark Tower. Insomnia was connected. Hearts in Atlantis was connected, etc. He's basically taking one central theme (the Dark Tower universe) and is writing books about small pieces of that one major plot.
So in a way, he's not just writing a saga, or a trilogy about the Dark Tower, here. He's inventing a universe and we're getting peeks into that universe from many angles, watching the Dark Tower plot unfold as a bystander just as much as we do by reading the actual Dark Tower books. I just hope he gets around to finishing it some day!
How realistic are super-proficient women, who just happen to dress provocatively and mouth his beliefs perfectly?
If Friday is an example that comes to mind, I suggest you re-read Friday and Star Ship Troopers with a more critical eye. Heinlien is NOT Friday or a Star Ship Trooper, he's used the character's to mouth a future he considers nighmarish. The characters are imperfect and unable to understand their situation as well as we do.
Our Star Ship trooper is happy to see the entire planet turned into a war machine. He even smiles when he sees his own father drafted. Would you want to live in a world like that?
Friday is not supposed to represent any living person either. She is a poorly educated sex slave with extraordinary strength and mental ability. Friday demonstrates both her mental power and lack of education by a nauseasingly detailed recitation of events that span years. She remembers every single meal she eats in every greasy spoon and tells us all about it years after the fact! Clearly, Heinlien wanted to paint a mind that was not trained to disregard extraneous details but strong enough to not need to. The average person who burdened themselves with all those kinds of details would run like M$ XP. What appears to be poor story telling is crucial to our understanding of the character! That Heinlien can pull it off without losing the reader is awsome. Yes, she was concieved and bred to be some adolescent man's dream toy. Sterile, with low self esteem and taught only those things that might sexually please before being recruited to other things. It is doubtful that any Libertarian would want anyone else treated that way.
In any case, both of these stories demonstrates what makes good science fiction: they take a few postulated technical inovations, understand how they might effect society and it's members, then create an entertaining story of entrapment or escape. Good science fiction, like any story telling, requires an understanding of both human nature and creation. I see a kind of triad, character insight, technology insight and storyline. Strengths in one area can make up for weakness in others, depending on the tastes and education of the reader. My favorites are short stories that have all the elments.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
> Dimension-hopping perverts who cavort with
:P
> dragons and vacation in the land of Oz?
That's PerVECTS!
-JC
(droops head sadly as he realizes noone gets the reference)
PS: And furthermore, that's Aahz, not Oz.
I wonder if there is a substantive different in quality and \ or type between authors that are solely or primarily SF and those that happen to write SF.
In the debate Ian M Banks has been referenced. He also writes literary novels under the name Ian Banks. Then there is J G Ballard who writes all types of fiction including SF and D Lessing who is a celebrated 'feminist' author and has also written a fantastic DF series.
On the whole I think find novels by authors that 'also do SF' to be better as works of fiction e.g. better more subtle characterization, better plot structures etc; thought I cannot decide if they are better novels of ideas - if one looks at the writers I have referenced above they certainly do not seem to lack in originally or depth of imagination when it comes to the fiction of possible futures.
These novels have a great premise: an organization of weapon shops selling, in defiance of the imperial government, weapons that work wonderfully, but only when used in self defense (the guns are smart enough not to be fooled).
This is an example of one of my favorite kinds of science fiction, where the implications of a significant-but-limited technical change are followed out. (Of course I can get that from reality, but not in one evening's reading.)
One way to investigate the politics of a question is to change its technological parameters -- some pacifists and some militia members might change sides on the gun-ownership question under weapon-shop conditions
Man, what a long thread. If only MS was involved in some way, it would expand exponentially until slashdot entered the dictionary as a synonym for "large smoking crater in the ground". But I digress.
I was going to say anything by Bear or Benford, than I thought about the best series of books I have ever read: the Lanny Budd series by Upton Sinclair (follows Lanny from 1914 to 1950s as he moves among the political figures of the times as a spy and an art dealer). The strange thing is, though Sinclair was a rationalist, Lanny runs into inexplicable psychic manifestations from time to time - tying into the Nazi fascination with the occult. Looking back, I think you could consider the series as sort of an alternate history series of SF. Anyway, don't start reading these books unless you want to give up the next several weeks.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I can't wait until the fourth Ringworld book comes out. When will authors learn that books should be about science and not plot or characters (seriously:).
Greg Egan show promise in that respect.
For soft literature, I'll take Douglas Adams, though Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert deserve honourable mentions.
P.S. Shakespeare and Eminem are equals. I don't mean that as a compliment to Eminem. I mean it as an insult to Shakespeare. The bastard just wrapped up reactionary, traditional, and absurd ideas in pretty words.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Other good short sci-fi: Larry Niven has a hilarious parody of superman as a teenager. It may be available on the net (no, I'm not going to search for it before I post).
I'm surprised, as no one has seemed to mention Ray Bradbury. Maybe some people are angry that they were forced to read Farhenheit 451 in high school, but it's a really good book, and so are many of his other famous sci-fi works.
Harlan Ellison is a prolific short-story writer, as well, and worthy of a mention here.
As for everyone still caught up in the classics, there's nothing wrong with them. But try to increase your breadth. Using amazon.com's "related items" section is helpful in finding new things to read.
Alan Dean Foster.
Love all his stuff but the best and most popular is the Humananx Series.
Come on you know you want a Mini-drag!
-- No Comment
Why the hell does everyone always overlook Stephen King's Dark Tower Series. In 100 years everyone will see it for the epic genius that this series is.
From everything I can tell, Heinlein's works go through three stages-
Overlap is to be expected - note especially how Starship Troopers is about fifty-fifty 1 and 2, while Stranger in a Strange Land is about 75/25 2 and 3, and Time Enough for Love is almost 20/80 2 and 3. Number of the Beast is just plain weird.
My favorite is Scientology. Talk about a sci-fi universe with a religious following!
He wrote most of his good stuff in the late 70s/early 80s, then stopped writing for about a decade.
Although he's best known for his Gaea Trilogy (Titan, Wizard, Demon), I don't think it's his best stuff. His short stories, to me, are the best. Unfortunately, most of them are out of print but can be found with some effort.
I do believe that his novel, The Ophiuchi Hotline, which takes place in the same world as his short stories, is easily found and is a great introduction.
I like Sci-fi that forces charchters to deal with problems and take them through to conclusion. The Deus ex Machina supertechnology that that pervades most crappy sci-fi is a divorce from what it is to be human. I like dark, I like emotion, I like feeling the anger, the hatred, the lust, the good the bad and I like feeling that It could actually happen. (some day) That's why Ender's Game is my favorite. If you havent read it, you're missing a great read.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Not so much "makes me think about social/political issues here on earth", but more "makes me think about unusual circumstances or science". It used to be those damn temporal paradoxes, but I think I've started to get those figured out. Just kind of the strange puzzles and situations. Maybe the Sienfield theory of science fiction. The plot isn't the main interest, but the quirky circumstances and interactions within the story.
David Weber's Honor Series is one of the few that I sit and wait with excitement for every book. Think of it as Star Trek meets CS Forester's Horatio Hornblower.
The intrigue, military detail, politics, characterization, and the development of all the plots within plots makes it one of my favorite book series ever.
FreeBSD The Power to Serve
GREAT science fiction uses the universe as a device to enhance the story.
Mediocore Sci Fi uses the story as a device to enhance the universe.
Aweful Sci Fi is all about the Universe and has no story.
I don't care how friggin great the ideas are, if the story sucks, the book sucks.
Wait, that's only four.. What gives?
My other two choices both could be considered Science Fiction or Science Fantasy, depending on your point of view (at least for now).
They are also my two top favorite series of all time:
The above links go to Amazon.com Listmania lists for books by that author. I'm not in any way affiliated with either amazon or examware.net, just picked the first listmania links I could find through Google :)
"If you have to cross thin ice, then be the one to cross it in a dance" -- paraphrasing of Mercedes Lackey's Herald Skip
Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos.
"For me, it is a tough call. I read and loved Wyndham's work when I was child, "The Chrysalids" and "Midwich Cuckoos" entranced me (perhaps because of the central role of children)."
...
Ah, Wyndham! You know, I think he's one of the most underrated scifi writers, and he (along with Asimov and Bradbury) sparked my interest in the genre.
I reread some of Wyndham's works every few years. It is still a surprise to me to see how well his fiction stands up now that I'm an adult, with scientific training. (Reading "Trouble With Lichen" while I was in grad school gave me a new appreciation for the author's talent!)
What do I appreciate about his work? Realistic, well-drawn characters. Interesting story-lines. Plausible but interesting scientific concepts. Clear writing style. That's off the top of my head
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
I'm surprised that I did not even read a single mention of David Zindell. He is the author of Shanidar and Neverness (both of which were relatively well acclaimed), as well as a series called "A Requiem for Homo Sapiens".
:).
:-D
He's one of my most favourite writers, and his world is just as colorful and varied, as Frank Herbert's, Asimov's or even Tolkiens (especially the names remind of Tolkien - Danlo wi Soli Ringess, Tamara Ten Ashtoreth etc
Well, yes, you would probably see some similarities in his world's with some of Frank Herbert's creations, including say, Jesus Incident, etc - He talks of the possibility of us interfacing our brains with computers, using voidships and massive bodies as infinite data extractors where we could redesign ourselves till we are nothing but a moon sized brain, and growing, where information is all that matters.
Amazing philosophy, great science fiction, well written and it has a touch of William Gibson's or Philip K Dick's world's. And what more, he's got a sarcastic sense of humour like Neal Stephenson in some parts
I'd suggest any fan of science fiction to read him.
I used to love Star Wars. I've read over 65 of the 70 some real novels. I could tell you all the deaths of Bevel Lemlisk (sp?), I could tell you exactly how a blaster works and maybe even convince you it would work.
However, for my senior research paper, I read Dune by Frank Herbert. After doing most of my research at this point, I've fallen in love with the Duniverse. It has incredible insight into ecology, religion, and politics. Rarely ever do I get really into a book enough to read for a long time, but I read 250 pages in one sitting because I got addicted to it. Lady Jessica, Leto, Chani, Paul, and even Baron Harkonnen are full characters, with interesting backgrounds and ties to each other.
Herbert explains things in a way that the reader doesn't learn too much; he doesn't tie up loose ends, and that's what keeps the reader reading, and what makes him a spectacular author.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
I wish I remembered who said it, but I agree that "the best science fiction puts ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances." And it never hurts if the "ordinary people" show just a little human frailty, but overcome it with the human dignity and determination that we really want to identify with and see in ourselves.
Xesdeeni
Well, except that I've learned many other trades besides (like hacking, hardware or software), it sounds a lot like me. I actually have a little writeup on my webpage of the characters in fiction that remind me of me, and Friday is definately one of them.
Sometimes I don't feel like a real human either. Figures.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
Or to paraphrase Douglas Adams, as a fun party trick, to transport every molecule in the hostess' undergarments 3 feet to the right...
Freedom: "I won't!"
Make it an interesting story. Make it with characters I care about. Make it timeless. And yes, if it's a long story, invoke a bit of Joseph Campbell and the importance of myth.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
But I've always absolutely loved her, in part because she really uses SF as a means to an end of speaking to grand human themes. In part (and unlike 90+% of SF writers), she has that option because she writes SF, Fantasy, mainstream fiction, non-fiction essays, literary criticism and poetry. If she's got something to say, she finds the right medium and says it in he way that works. She doesn't have to shoehorn a message into an SF story just because that's what she writes.
And she seems to always remember that SF if a way to tell us about ourselves, but creating a situation just sufficient foreign that we can see it clearly. How many of her stories and novels couldn't just as easily be told without SF, but not nearly as well? (Not Left Hand, of course, but many could.)
And finally, I have to agree with the comment above about world building. The Universe of Hain is remarkable for the history and the complex interweaving of worlds and characters and events and stories that built it into as rich and complex a SF universe as any author has ever created (and I will stand by that in a debate), without hitting anybody over the head with the didactic writing and history lessons to flesh out the universe.
Frank Herbert's dune.
Kim Stanley Robertson - Mars Trilogy, it is hard SF and not for everybody, but I was completely gripped by the plot.
John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar.
Stanislav Lem - Solyaris. Not really better than the movie (the original of course), which I really loved, it is still a good book.
Robert A. Heinlein - Starship Toopers. It is rather excellent, just as the movie, but entirely different.
Tad Williams - Otherland
David Weber - Honor Harrington series. Okay, it is pulp, but still an enjoyable read.
Jack McDevitt - Engines of God. Intriguing and a good read.
Orson Scott Card - Ender's Shadow. I name Ender's Shadow, which is excellent as well because I actually cried somewhere reading the book.
Ursula K. Le Guin - Left Hand of Darkness, intriguing, wellconstructed novel, the trek over the ice is actually breathtaking, I REALLY have to get more Le Guin
What I really like in good SF (and fantasy) is to be involved with the main character, so I like that kind of SF the best, I have a soft spot for sweeping descriptions though....
Personally, I think the best SF I've read are the Callahan's books by Spider Robinson (though I think the earlier ones are the best). They've got interesting stories, great characters, and painfully good puns. Who could resist a barful of booze hounds who really care about each other...
This reminds me when I met JMS when he spoke at MIT. He truly is a pompous ass, and after listening to him, I really found it hard to enjoy the show. After a few experiences like that, I've just gotten to where I don't want to go listen to authors I like.
That's it. The rest of the writers are good if you like space opera, cyberpunkishness and hard science, but these are true craftsmen.
..Free Live Free...
Has anyone in here ever watched Star Blazers ? It is one of the best epic tales told through anime, not very "sci-fi", though, more on the Star Wars side (space opera).
The story goes like this: in the year 2199, all life on Earth is extinct by the alien force known as the Gamilons...The oceans of planet Earth have disappeared and poisonous radiation have covered most of the planet's surface (the Gamilons have nuked most of Earth). The remaining population is living in underground cities, but there is only one year left before radiation infiltrates them and kills all underground population.
One day a message from outer space is received. From planet Iscandar, there is an invitation to Earth to go there and retrieve the Cosmo DNA, a machine which is capable of removing radiation and restoring Earth to its previous state! But Earth has no spaceships left...so they retrofit the IJN Yamato for space travel and name it the Argo, since its hull was almost intact at the bottom of the Great Eastern Sea of Japan!!!
The Iscandarian message also contained the plans for an engine that would solve the problem of interstellar travel: the Wave Motion Engine. the principle behind it is tachyon particles which allow for faster-than-light travel by warping through space.
The Wave Motion theory was a new thing for Earth's physicists, but they managed to pull another rabbit out of it: they discover how to manipulate the wave energy and turn it to a giant beam capable of destroying single planets with one blow. They fit such a gun in the Argo and they name it the wave motion gun.
After all this, the Argo takes off for an 1-year trip to Iscandar and back in order to bring home the Cosmo DNA...The epic tale begins!!! Gamilons try to stop the Argo from reaching Iscandar, but they fail horribly, because humans put their greatest effort to overcome the various Gamilon traps...
Through the journey, most of the characters unfold and grow before our eyes. We learn about their most indimate fears, about their relationships with other crew members...new friendships are developed, there is a love story (the Argo has female officers also), there is the great captain and his tragic death at the end (sorry for the spoiler)...
Battle after battle, the Argo finally reaches Iscandar...there are many suprises there: Iscandar is a twin planet of Gamilon!!! The Argo is trapped in planet Gamilon between the thick crust and the acid sea below it, but somehow they manage to escape blowing up most of the planet...
Another central character is the arch-enemy of Earth: leader Desslok. We follow his character development also: fearless at first, he is confronted for the first time in his life with the word 'defeat'. He has never seen people fight so hard like the Argo crew...
There are numerous other things about it untold here, which if I was to tell in detail, it would take me lots of hours to write. You have got to see it to believe it. Although the story is a little childish at certain times, each episode has a big surprise...It is like Babylon 5, but is was produced almost 30 years ago. The format of the story is 26 episodes of 20 minutes action for the first series ("the journey to Iscandar").
The second series (26 episodes again) start one year after the Earth has been restored with Cosmo DNA. Earth receives a call for help from outer space...at the same time, a giant comet rushes towards Earth...but it is not a physical comet, it is a war machine (something like the Death Star), disguised as a comet and called 'The Comet Empire'...
The Argo takes off (against the UN will) without its captain (who has died in the previous series) to go to the planet that the call for help is from...on the way to planet Telezart, Gamilons and Desslok come back to hunt the Argo and its brave crew with the help of the Comet Empire...but the Argo breaks the Gamilon defences again, using previously unthought methods of warfare and one trick after the other to get away from the Gamilon traps...
The Argo manages to reach planet Telezart, where they meet a beatiful woman alone in her devastated planet, and another love story unfolds between her and another Argo crew member. But this time the love story is hopeless, due to the great war that is to come between the Comet Empire and Earth.
To keep the long story short, the Earth forces are wiped out by the Comet Empire's guns (they are so big, that each missile is almost like a boat), but the Argo manages to escape the onslaught by pure luck. As the comet lands on Earth, causing major earthquakes, tsunamis etc, the Argo prepares an all-out attack from the bottom of the comet (the only vulnerable spot of the Comet Empire), the Earth is prepared to totally surrender to the Comet Empire, and Desslok breaks free from its prison (he was tricked and prisoned by the devious daughter of the Comet Empire Emperor because she felt Desslok had an eye for the throne!!!) with only one purpose in his mind: to defeat the Comet Empire!!!
The end of the second series is very dramatic from all sides, and I will not reveal it here. There are so many sub-plots that is nearly impossible to describe them all here.
As a conclusion, I think that Space Battleship Yamato is one of the greatest stories ever told. It presents glorious space fights, great weapons, great characters willing to die for their cause (but not everyone is a hero), true love, hopeless love, sacrifice, war, the effect of techology in humans, great strategy, arrogance, whatever feeling you or I ever had may be found in some scene!!! It has great symphonic music (almost classical), the greatest theme song ever, and it conveys the feeling of travelling in the 'sea of space' almost better than any space series I have ever seen. In the process of dubbing it for the US, many things were lost on translation, so the technobabble is not as impressive as it was in Japanese; as a result, there is a childish feeling sometimes, but it is never cheesy.
If the story sounds like Babylon 5's Crusade, its because it is!!! mr J. Michael Stracynski has blatantly ripped off Star Blazers: in Crusade, a lone ship goes on in a 5-year Journey to find the cure for the dying planet Earth!!! it even has a gun like the Wave Motion Gun of the Argo, that when fired can destroy a single planet with one blow!!!
Haven't seen a plug yet for the great Niven / Pournelle novel "The Mote in God's Eye" and its sequel "The Gripping Hand." VERY good stories, believable technology, a well-crafted universe, and some darn kooky aliens.
It's a refreshing switch from mainstream SF - not that there is anything particularly wrong with Asimov, Clarke, et. al. - although Niven used to be considered mainstream (Ringworld, "Known Space," etc.) It is blissfully free from techno-babble, unlike our beloved ST/ST:TNG series and its sequels. For those who know Niven, he wrote some pretty campy dated SF as well - take it for what it's worth.
Nevertheless, go to the "Mote" and see for yourself. It's worth the trip.
This sig is a test. If this had been an actual sig, you would be reading something quite a bit wittier than this now.
BTW my answer is Bester's "Tiger! Tiger!". It's not my all-time favourite book (but it's close) but it is my favourite background.
Favourite series: Asimov's robots/empire/foundation set.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
For the "science" in science fiction, he's the best!
I don't know how to define greate SF, but I know it when I read it. Here are some Authors: Bruce Sterling, Greg Egan, Stephan Baxter, Robert Heinlein, Greg Bear, John Varley, David Gerrrold, Neil Stephonson, Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur Clarke, James Helperun, JR Dunn, Carl Sagan (book "Contact").
I found the best 'science' fiction was with the science of anthropology. The VERY BEST was CASTANEDA. He pretended it was real.
Instead of going to outer space he went to inner space.
And it was about real people who faced real problems.
He was so good that he had most people convinced it was real all the way up to the fourth book, where he tipped his hand. And still, it is listed as 'science, anthropology' and not as fiction, which it clearly is.
Very good books. Castaneda spent a lot of time studying mysticism and rolled it all into these fantastic stories about taking drugs. He sucked in the readers and then after a while admits that the drug aspect was a red herring.
There is some Sci-fi that I consider greater than Iain M. Banks (namely, the Hyperion Cantos), but the main reason I love Banks is the phenomenal inventiveness of the guy. He has a greater density of ideas per square inch than any other writer I've seen - ideas that other authors would devote entire books to come and go within a paragraph.
:)
Also, he credits readers with a little intelligence - some things are merely sketched out, or mentioned in passing as an accepted and integral part of the reality he is describing. For example, an author now would not (unless they were incredibly dull) devote pages to the inner workings of televisions, telephones and cars - they are normal, everyday tools that fade into the background of a story. Banks doesn't devote pages telling you exactly what a Knife Missile is or how Fields work the first time you encounter this stuff - he gives you just enough to work out for yourself what you think it is and it forms a seamless part of the story. And I'm not restricting myself to his Culture novels either - Feersum Endjinn is my favourite Banks novel, Scifi or otherwise.
As another note, I met Banks shortly after he wrote Excession, and I told him how much I loved the names the ships give themselves (Grey Area, Of Course I Still Love You, A Frank Exchange Of Views, etc. etc...). He Said he gets a lot of that sort of thing, and its the subject most commented on by his fans. Interesting that in his next overtly Culture novel, Look To Windward (Yes, I know Inversions was a Culture novel too...), he seemed to devote a couple of pages to conversations revolving entirely around the names of starships.
Perhaps he just wanted to get them all out of the way in one go, to shut the fans up
Needless to say I'm a major fan of hard science fiction, but almost everything I've read/seen, that I would classify "Hard Science Fiction" ultimatly ends up being distopian. It's hard to choose something from that catagory for a 'favorite universe'. No matter how good the Mars series is by Robinson..."
Funny you should figure Robinson's Mars trilogy as dystopian hard sci-fi, since it's very much a utopian effort. I suppose I could see how there are dystopian elements in it, since he doesn't ignore human frailties and, well, doesn't lie. It's not utopian in the sense of depicting a Utopia and saying "hey, let's all live here, it's wonderful!" - rather, it's a utopian exercise. That's what I loved about it - he was looking at the world and saying, OK, it's a dirty place, and humans aren't perfect, but maybe, given the opportunity, we could look at the best things from our past and learn from them and try to build something even better.
In a way, it's exactly what the colonies did in America 200+ years ago.
It's not really that hard sci-fi necessarily ends up dystopian, but rather that good hard sci-fi doesn't gloss over the blemishes of human nature and "the world", but rather deals with them up front, face-to-face. What I like about Robinson is that he tends towards optimism. He doesn't look at the world and say "well, it's going to hell in a handbasket, better get used to it," - instead he suggests we might be able to make the world be whatever we want it to be. And seeing that, we have the chance to realize that we already make the world what we want it to be. If it will be a certain way, it is because of who we are and how we behave - the choices we make every day.
The Mars series introduces the reader to a whole bunch of very cool technologies (space elevators, a lot of terraforming, and some genetic engineering) that ultimatly get wrapped up in a whole bunch of very very wordy politics that lead to 2 wars.
I liked the politics, personally. And didn't you notice that the revolutions in the books (OK, wars) got progressively less violent? I think that's a pretty good goal.
By the end of the story nobody is really any better off,
Really? Nobody is better off? I kinda like the society he tried to build. Sure there are some perhaps unrealistic goals or ideals, but that's what drives us, isn't it? I wouldn't like to live in a society that just gave up...
Earth is a f'king sess pool that can't shovel its population off the planet fast enough, and the the rest of the solar system is weighed down by billions of people who now live 500-1000 years thanks to genetic engineering. Very very good books, but not a happy universe that I'd like to live in.
That's kinda the point... As usual, the bad things are things to keep an eye out for, and the good things are things to shoot for. It's better than the stories that say "Wow, we could live forever, wouldn't that be neat!" or "Oooh, lookout, the population will just keep growing and growing... The future's gonna suck."
It's a real world, with projected problems that the people are actually dealing with.
I like a good fantasy as much as the next person, but Sci-fi tends towards the escapist and it's so wonderfully refreshing to see it showing realistic people actually dealing with potential problems. It makes you think maybe we could actually do that now.
If the books make you think it's not a happy universe that you'd like to live in, doesn't it follow that one should act to help keep the real world from becoming like that? No one else is going to do it for us. I for one find myself in a real universe that I don't think is happy and that I don't enjoy living in as much as I could, so I work for change, both in my personal life and in the lives of others.
In my opinion, good fiction inspires...
I just wrote a science fiction novel for NaNoWriMo and posted it on my Web site. I can't claim that it's Great Science Fiction, but my friends who've read it have liked it and you can't beat free-as-in-beer.
Go read it!
- Matthew Skala
Don't forget robot girls! Those mechnical wonders that do everything for a man. That's si-fi!
Douglas Adams was a master of getting you to imagine great special effects--he started off writing for radio. In addition to HHG, I love _Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency_ and _Starship Titanic_ (cowritten with Terry Gilliam.)
Fun sci-fi eye candy:
- The attack on the Death Star in the original Star Wars
- Dune
- Gotham City in the Batman movie with Catwoman in it
Really good sci-fi books:Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
George Bush's environmental policies.
Easily my favorite sci-fi universe. I would have loved to get aboard a single seater, spin the nav dials and head off to parts unknown. If you have never read any Gateway books, try them!
VASIMR to Mars!
there's nothing like a discussion of scifi on slashdot to demonstrate our collective inability to grasp basic spelling and grammar.
and yes, i know i'm not using caps. bite me.
Although some may argue they aren't sci-fi, the universes created by Philip K. Dick are my favorite. Reading his work seems to turn me into one of the paranoid, twisted characters that populate it.
You can never be sure of anything while reading a Philip K. Dick novel. This makes you feel more like a character in the story, instead of the omniscient reader.
The Herbert, Asimov and Clarke are all great, but how about someone that's still alive? (Sorry Arthur). I've been a big fan of David Brin's books for a while now. He's very authentic with the science and he has interesting characters. Best of all, his books make you think, which is the main reason to read science fiction IMHO.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
That was not the case at all! Ender created a physical replica of his sister and his brother, but they were most definately not his sister and brother. They were extensions of himself, and they did not help; they made things worse and more confusing, and led to Ender's death(sort of...).
On the other hand, the instant travel bit I agree with you about. That was technology for the sake of the plot, not plot based around new technology.
I guess I'm just nitpicking, as I agree that Children was the weakest of the Ender series.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Learned to play chess at age 4.
Attended the US Naval Academy, competed in fencing and marksmanship. Graduated 20th in a class of 243 with a degree in engineering.
Served in the Navy until honorably discharged at rank Lieutenant because of Tuberculosis.
Ran as a Democrat for representative in California on a platform of ending poverty (lost). Was active in politics as a fundraiser, speaker, and committee member throughout most of his life. His 'libertarian claptrap' was, right or wrong, the product of his disaffection with politics through years of direct personal experience.
Amon his many interests and careers, he dabbled in mining, photography, and masonry.
During WWII he worked with the US military on high altitude aviation suits, the precursor to modern day astronaut uniforms.
Designed and built his own house while in his 50s.
I'd say it's fair for a writer that happens to be a jack of all trades, sexually open-minded, highly intelligent, libertarian, and reasonably athletic to write about characters that also have those characteristics, don't you?
The whole Hyperion cycle paints a picture like few other future-set books I have read. It has computers and religion and civilization working in fascinating ways. While the Dune series was a very definite influence on me, Hyperion was a much deeper one.
Paint me a picture where computers become our masters, albeit hidden ones....hmmmm, I'm sitting in front of one of those infernal machines right NOW!
+that's funny...I don't FEEL tardy.+
A good book has to
a) Provoke thought
and/or
b) Stimulate the imagination
Scenario (a) often applies to the non-fiction works, or works based on comtemporary/historic/near-futuristic reality. You have events that happened, or events that very possible could have happened, had things been a bit different, or could happen in the future. It gives you that sense of "what if" that makes you think, and also leads you into scenario (b).
Scenario (b) works often start in the fictionous/fantasy realm. Characters are very far out, not believable in physical definition, but (for their fictive archetype), believable in action. Things like being able to fly, or use magic, etc are often based around childhood imaginations or fantasy. It doesn't really make for a "what if this happened today", but more of a scenario where the reader thinks: I wish life were more like this.
Don't cross me boy, you'd make an ugly toad!
That's what makes good sci-fi to me. It's all this great technology, but how it becomes subverted, ala Niven, Sterling, Gibson, Stephenson.
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
For the life of me, I can't figure out why this book is so well-regarded as a piece of fiction.
The titular idea (Ringworld itself) is simply brilliant, don't get me wrong.
But the story is crap.
Kindly note that the actual plot has bugger all to do with Ringworld itself; that's just a backdrop. The central plot centers around the Luckiest Girl In The Universe, and could just as easily been told in modern Manhattan (plus some meddling aliens).
Also, note that 1) every female character of note is extraordinary in bed, which 2) our male protagonist gets to find out first-hand.
It's a fabulous idea, wrapped up in a plot that treats it like an amusement park, liberally sprinkled with jeuvenile soft-core porn.
Niven should be ashamed that this was the best way he could find to introduce and explore the concept.
I needed an english credit, and guess what they offer? ENGL 334 : Science fiction as literature. I bet you're all incredibly jealous. Here's the reading list: ;-)
Frankenstein (Shelley) : one of the first sci-fi novels, and written by a woman, on a dare
The Time Machine (Wells) : one of the first sci-fi authors, revolutionary at the time
"We" (Zamyatin) : Our prof had a hard-on for russians. And it was a good book.
Starship Troopers (Heinlein) : he bashed it because it was so fascist and militaristic. I dunno, I liked it a lot more than him.
Canticle for Leibowitz (Miller) : Wow, cool book. First published as 3 different novels, one of the first post-apocalyptic novels (excepting Shelley's "The Last Man")
Songs of Distant Earth (novel version, by Clarke) : First sci-fi novel to make it on the new york times bestseller list, written as a response to 2001's cold, pessimistic view of the future.
Solaris (Lem): Read the solaris thread from yesterday.
Left Hand of Darkness (LeGuin) : Our gay-lesbian-transgendered group did a discussion on this. It's a REALLY creative novel, and it's pretty good too.
City of Bones (Martha Wells) : Wells is an alumni, but she's also an amazing (but not prolific) writer. But I don't think she's been writing for long, so give her time. This was my favorite book because of it's VIVID world and realistic fight scenes (our hero is a good fighter, but loses repeatedly) and it's raw originality. Think "Dune" meets "Star Wars", but post-apocalyptic and with magic.
The verdict? Our prof also teaches russian lit, and he seems to think that all of these novels were based on either Brothers Karamazov or inspired by it, except for "We" which is the best book to come out of europe, ever. And he hates Heinlein for being politically incorrect. But he has a lot of interesting things to say, and he manages to make multiple lectures over each novel. And it sure as heck beats the other ENGL classes (except "Language of Film", which has 33 seats per year).
Austin is more fun than Dallas.
The author of this comment has adopted the assumption that in order for a science fiction universe to be "best," its characters must be similar to us in enough ways for us to identify with them. While that is not an unfair assumption, it belies the inherent difficulty of this sort of discussion. The underlying assumptions of the person offering the opinion largely determine what the opinion will be. For example, if I assume that in order for a science fiction universe to be "best," its characters must be as different from the people in my everyday life as possible while still being comprehensible, my "best" would not be the 'Gateway' universe. If I prefer good style and lots of character development, I wouldn't choose anything by Isaac Asimov. In other words, there are no objective criteria, and so this discussion is inevitably doomed to be a battle of tastes.
Take current global demographic predictions, shake and stir, and bake in a populated solar system for 200 years. Hello new society!
I'm getting older and so more cranky about SF that doesn't get 'culture' -- that there's a massive breadth and variety to human behaviour, and an enormous set of options for our adaptability.
This is where a great deal of SF falls down, so you find things like Heinlein's caricatures-as-characters and a star drek universe filled with Euros with funny foreheads.
It's the writers who really combine the ability to create realistic characters and put them in inventive cultural predictions, combined with a grand vision of the human experiment, who do the best job on nailing the technological futurism that makes SF so much fun. So, writers like John Varley who understand that culture changes at least as quickly as technology, and that the two are deeply intertwined, do a pretty good job at showing us where we can go. (Despite the fact that his characters have a Heinleinian glibness to them, he still pulls off some character depth and realism--and I think it's because he really likes the whole species.)
Kim Stanley Robinson is another excellent example of somebody who gets this intersection of cultural demographics and tech that we're working on (though his amazing Mars trilogy downplays the interaction of computer / brain tech in order to play out his political scenarios).
Some other writers who get this (or try to): N. Stephenson, S. Delaney, LeGuin, Gibson, O. Butler, A. Bester (sortof), Brin/Benford/Bear, Vinge, etc. Writers who say they do but don't: Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Niven, and yes, [not meant to be flamebait] Herbert.
To me, most of the 'cyberpunk' derived SF is engaging simply because of the cultural complexity these stories acknowledge. I'm really tired of the naturalization of mid 20C US mainstream culture throughout the cosmos.
Pretty much all SF has a strong covert or overt narrative tension between Utopia and Dystopia, and whether we realize it or not when we're reading it, this dynamic between where 'we' want to go and were we'll go if we blow it is one of the key movers of a good SF plot. You can't deal with either Utopia/Dystopia or technological development properly without the variable of cultural transformation front and centre.
Damn those pesky terrorists
There's a (series of) Dilbert cartoon(s) where Dogbert gets his paws on star trek gizmos, so he starts zapping people who are standing in line in front of him in a line at the movie theatre, and things like that.
I think Dave Barry has covered this territory also.
No favorite universe; there are lots of different books I like, from different worlds, and no one world is "the best". Individual books are more important to me than worlds.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I notice nobody has mentioned Olaf Stapledon. Terrible literary form, but his books pretty much outlined about 70% of all SF plots to date. Arthur Clarke's most popular writings, are, for example, really derivative of Stapledon (intentionally or not). If plot is your main fixation, check out Stapledon's Last and First Men (the entire multi-billion year history of humanity) or Star Maker (nothing less than the history of the cosmos).
Damn those pesky terrorists
"The Flying Sorcerers" - Gerrold and Niven
(OK, so Gerrold and Niven aren't quite unknowns.) Funny and revealing. It will help to enjoy bad puns.
Sherri S Tepper
I've come to quite like Tepper's works. She builds good, consistent (though odd) worlds, reasonable characters and interesting plots. She doesn't always do endings well - often trying to do something climactic and dramatic which only ends up being a bit silly. I think I'd suggest "After Long Silence", "Raising the Stones" or "Grass" as starting points.
"Stand on Zanzibar", "The Shockwave Rider" - John Brunner /.'ers should read it, then notice the copyright date. And wonder where he kept his time machine.
Both deserve to be considered classics. "Shockwave Rider" - well,
Although I'm an Asimov fan from birth (nearly so :) and also a Clarke as well, Dr. Steven Baxter is my 'buy anything off the shelf unread' writer today.
His incredibly hard sci-fi, the imagination he possesses (life on a neutron star???) and the span of time he can work in, just blows me away at times.
And versital as well! Longtusk, isn't sci-fi at all. At least in the literal sense. But still incredibly well done.
The material he's written, makes you think, and keep thinking about it for weeks. I'm still contemplating 'time viewers' dispite it being over a year since I read 'The light of other days' with Clarke.
Stephen Baxter's got my vote! Although I'd also add, Clarke, Asimov, Harry Harrison (for his incredible Eden trilogy), Heinlein, Poul Anderson, and Michael Crichton
Speculative fiction, on the other hand, I characterize as the types of stories when the author says "what if this happened?"
One of the best books I read that falls into the category of speculative is The Practice Effect by David Brin. Just took one idea, that entropy INCREASES over time, and then builds a world based on that concept. What would the culture and society be like? Of course it's not possible, but an excellent what-if.
I've also noticed no mention of him, thus far. Brin's Uplift War novels stand with many of the great SF classics, IMHO. And then there's Earth, an excellent example of near future technologies being predicted accurately, a la William Gibson.
Brin's latest uplift trilogy also has some of the best applications of relativistic and quantum physics. He was able to make some of the strange ideas in physics into believable, concrete examples. In short, Brin rules.
...is Scientology! Now THERE is a neat science-fiction universe!
Interesting question... There are several folks out there who have written or are currently writing interesting SF. Some of them are people like China Mieville and Pat Cadigan, as two recent examples. There are two major dilemmas for SF writers today in my opinion. The first is a reflection of the state of the publishing industry in general. Everything has been consolidated to a few major publishers who view shelf space and "product" similar to fresh fruit. Books now have a real shelf life and they are moved off the shelves pretty rapidly. This is even true in many used bookstores. What this leads to is the franchise novels, ie book 8 of the Goombah Universe or whatever. Notice how many slashdotters referred to their favorite franchise world even though the question was about the genre? The Star Wars Universe etc are known commdities and therefore presold to a good percentage of SF readers. But what about the single volumes, those gems that do not belong to a series? They keep getting harder to find ( but they are out there...) The second dilemma for SF has to do with how the explosion of real science has rendered "the future" strangely antique. How do SF writers today synthesize the current breakthroughs into the same kind of thought provoking work that their predecessors did? It is a harder task now. Even the "Cyberpunk" work seems oddly naive now. SF writing requires a lot more HOMEWORK now than ever before. Not a lot of the industry hacks are up to it.
Fool's War by Sarah Zettel
The Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward
The Mote In God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Beggars In Spain by Nancy Kress
Armageddon Inheritance and On Basilisk Station by David Weber
A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge
The Demons at Rainbow Bridge by Jack L. Chalker
And of course Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
And Hitchhiker's, Ender's Game, DUNE, Foundation, Ringworld, most LeGuinn, all things by Philip K. Dick, etc...
Education is the silver bullet.
The classic RD's were bloody awesome, but the newer ones (take this to mean all the ones with the new non-scottish ?kochanski?), were rather dry. Now that I think about it, it's a bit like how the old SW and the new ones compare. Only the difference isn't so large.
(Bah! I still can't believe they altered so much of the canon storyline in the new SWs! Midichlorians my 4$$! And how can Anakin lose his arm in a fight with Obi Wan if it's already been lopped off??! And the Mandalorian Armour! And...and...GAAAAHHH!!!!!
Mr Lucas, if you ever read this, please get someone else to direct your last film. All the films you've personally directed have been mediocre at best, whereas the others have turned out awesomly (Compare SW1&2&4 vs SW5&6!!))
Brave New World
One thing that I think makes good science fiction -- when humanity itself is like a character in the book. And changes and grows like a well-written character should. Arthur C. Clarke was best at this.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
I always like to point to Shelley's Frankenstein as THE seminal work.
To me (now, this is just MY opinion) - Science Fiction is all about man versus nature. Our inginuity, our technology, how we change the situation God/Nature handed to us, and how that change or attempt changes us; the human condition, and consideration of the implications, morally, ethically, of what we as a species do.
For instance, in Frankenstein, the limits imposed on us by Death seemed to be broken down by Frankenstein's innovative experiment. But it made us think about the implications.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Novelty. The opposite of formulaic. I.E. - I don't expect to see the formula for writing I will like appear here or anywhere else except the book in question.
:)
I want to be amazed.
I also expect good writing. I used to tolerate sophmoric use of language, but I just don't have the patience to endure it anymore. (Just because I like to read good writing doesn't mean I write well myself, alas...
If you've only ever read science fiction, try some other genres. Try Nabokov, for example. I'd recommend 'Lolita'. Yeah, there's a movie, but don't bother. You might just cry the next time you slough your way through a penny sci-fi novel.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
maybe it was the space race n all, but 50s & 60s authors really rocked - asimov; jg ballard - the short story, "voices of time", is heart breaking; lem; theodore sturgeon's " more than human"; vonnegut; especially the exceptional "cat's cradle", complete with its apocalyptic calypsos; doris lessing - the segue from the five realist martha quest novels set in africa to the five novels of the canopus in argos series, starting with "shikasta", is quite unlike anything else i've encountered (except maybe the crossovers/parallel story lines between "buffy" and "angel") - hell, philip glass even made an opera out of "the making of the representative for planet eight", but the scope of it is extraordinary - i'm suprised that no one's mentioned gregory benford's trippy "timescape", with its rather immaculately explicated quantum parallel worlds - in the past week i've just finished reading ken macleod's "the star fraction" - truly amazing! i do recommend it to anyone who's ever contemplated the turing test - he manages to create a post-ww3 future with credible geopolitics (well, if you live in norlonto) - like all gd science fiction, this manages to be a comment on the now, as much as about any future maybe - the best science fiction film i've ever seen is tarkovsky's "stalker", from the strugatsky bros "roadside picnic", followed by abel ferrara's 1993 remake of "body snatchers"
Upon being asked who my favourite author was, I thought for a bit before having to reply that I am my own favorite author. (One example of my sci-fi)
Basically what makes great sci-fi is what makes any story great. Well-developed characters that one can relate to facing believable situations and reacting in a believable manner. It's not about gee-wiz gagetry, or the difference between the story's "universe" and our own. The story shouldn't be "What if (one thing) was different and (one other thing) happened?" It should be more like "I Wonder..." and it shouldn't necessarily answer any questions raised.
But to make my (mostly forgotten due to interruption) rant shorter, A few things I expect from good to great sci-fi:
1. I don't want to be treated as though I'm completely ignorant of things/issues presented in the story (even if I really am). Lengthy, detailed explanations of exactly how the fictional science/situation works really bog down the story. Any ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY minutely specific details that I ABSOLUTELY MUST know to "get it" can be worked into the plot whithout bringing the story to a complete halt in order to lecture me. If I have to I can look up the relevant science or pick up the neccessary background info from reading the story itself.
2. Realistic Characters are a must. Even an invulnerable superheroic character has to have some kind of believable motivation for what s/he does. I'll even accept a completely flawless character, so long as it behaves in a reasonably believable manner. Characters should develop and grow through the process of the story. But sometimes, no matter what happens, some people just refuse to learn from their experiences and this is truly tragic, and should be presented that way.
3. Leave out the tired/useless plot devices. I hate useless sidekicks that exist solely for the purpose of comic relief or plot/science exposition. These plague mostly TV/movies, but are not at all uncommon in other media. Deus ex machina pisses me off. I don't mind if an important character gets offed if the situation in the plot indicates that there is a 99.99999% chance that death will happen. Otherwise you've got to have a damn good explanation. Just being lucky enough to have that crucial bit of tech/info/nerve at exactly the right moment to save your butt is not bloody likely. I've personally been dangling 100 feet in the air when that one crucial piece of tech I needed at that exact moment was *dropped* (oh shit!), and I'm only glad that it wasn't a life/death situation.
Well, damn. I forgot the other essentials I was going to list, but those above would correct 90% of the problems with all those almost-great stories out there.
Stupid COWorkers... I gotta have a smoke now... GRRRR
What Would Satan Do?
Slashdot is my favourite universe.
You have everything that a good sci fi story needs.
The Evil Empire (do I really need to say?)
The cooperative sources of light
Well developed main characters (Cowboyneal, CMDRTaco...)
Minor races (trolls)
The force (/. effect)
and most of all, unending storyline.
Need I say more?
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is truly brilliant, and probably my favorite sci-fi universe (although, telivision-wise, I do have to give much credit to Babylon 5). Actually, to be more accurate, the Foundation "Universe" encapsulates 3 different series of novels, each in a different historical epoch, plus a couple more thrown in in between. I'll list them here, for the benefit of anyone who's interested:
The Robot Novels:
The Empire Novels:
The Foundation Novels:
In addition to all these, a few other authors have written books in Asimov's universe. Roger MacBride Allen wrote a trilogy of novels set just after the Robot series, taking place on a Spacer world at the very beginning of the Settler expansion. The books are decent, but don't really live up to Asimov's skill. They are listed as follows:
As I was researching, I came across some additional Robot mysteries written by Mark W. Tiedemann. I haven't read these, so I have no recommendation, but here they are:
There was also a "second foundation trilogy" authorized by Asimov's estate and written by some very excellent modern SF writers. These books flesh out some of the details in Asimov's universe, but the authors tend to project their own themes onto the stories with mixed success. All three are great books, though, and take place concurrently with Forward the Foundation:
As I recall, Asimov himself may have also written a book which takes place during the reign of the Trantorian Empire (between the Empire and the Foundation series) involving contact with an alien species, an element notably absent from all the rest of the novels in this arc. I haven't read it, though, and I forget the title.
Anyway, these books are truly epic, and present a huge historical drama about the human race as a whole. You should read them. Now!
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
This new Goodkind book is friggin weird, I'm almost finished and I haven't seen Richard or Kahlan yet...He took a step backwards, in my opinion.
TLoM: Nerds + DDR + Rednecks for the win!
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Fred Hoyle yet. In my very personal opinion, the best scifi book ever written his "The Black Cloud", which must have appeared in the 1950s.
There are no spaceships, no laser battles, no bug-eyed, man-eating aliens, and the story itself was set in the very near future (the 1960s, in fact).
One thing about this book is that it presents probably the most original alien I have ever read about. In fact, the extreme unoriginality of aliens in most scifi really pisses me off. Do you remember seeing some Star Trek film, in which other races make first contact with Earth? Here a Vulcan steps out of his spaceship (basically a human with pointy ears), and some onlooker says "It's like nothing we've ever seen before". Like, wow. Pointy ears. How amazingly exotic. The point is, any alien will be FAR LESS related to us than any of those truly weird creatures you can see in any rock pool at the beach, yet almost all scifi still treats aliens as basically human with some simple modifications (four arms, green skin, etc). I could go on about this. There are some other original creatures in the books out there: The Moties ("The Mote in God's eye", Larry Niven) are anatomically uninspired, but at least have a very interesting sociology; the Scrode-riders ("A Fire Upon The Deep", Vernor Vinge) are actually pretty cool, and I LOVE the role they play in the book. There may be some other examples, but most aliens suck in my opinion. Read the Black Cloud for the most interesting alien there is.
Besides that, the book is very nicely written, has interesting characters (one of them is very obviously Fred Hoyle himself), bashes politicians (which I always apreciate), and gives, in my opinion, a very realistic account of how things develop on Earth (administratively and sociologically) in a very special kind of crisis.
Lastly, this book can serve as the very definition of "hard" science fiction - which is to be expected, as Hoyle was in fact one of the world's leading astronomers (he coined the term "big bang, afik), and narrowly missed a Nobel Prize in physics for explaning the creation of heavy elements in stars.
"...Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
I do not have a single author, or series, that is a favorite. I prefer a wide range of reading.
.while some of my favorite "Universes" are:
That said, I do prefer Sci-fi over other types of literature. Some of my favorite authorss are:
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Eric Flint
Robert A. Heinlein
Christopher Stasheff
David Weber
. .
Foundation
Howards (neat to live over a thousand years)
Midkemia (only if you were at the top of the ladder)
Mars series (There is too a Barsoom!!)
As for the zealotry, you can have all of mine.
Mike
Good science fiction is a vehicle for the author to display his beliefs about human nature by setting his story in a world that is optimal for the social point he or she is trying to make.
Take Star Trek: TNG for a moment - not nessisarily the best SciFi out there, but it does qualify as SciFi (mostly). A science fiction setting allows it to talk about things like the Borg and people's reaction to the possibility of being "Assimilated" into a cyborg hive mind.
A good science fiction universe doesn't nessisarily have anything to do with good science fiction. One of my favorite science fiction universes is BattleTech, and it's just an excuse to talk about 30 foot tall humanoid tanks - (now with chain saws).
In the intersection of "Good Science Fiction" and "Science Fiction Universe" there's a good number of examples.
Asimov's Foundation/Robots universe managed to be both, mostly through Asimov being an amazing writer and thinker.
Heinlein's future history stories always were a favorite of mine but they don't form that much of a Universe - they more manage to talk about human nature: Religion, Immortality, etc.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
This was a close call for me. I see two different ways of answering what my "favorite" sci-fi universe is. The first is to say "this is the universe that I'd most like to live in." The winner for me, hands down, would be Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League. This is the world of Nicholas Van Rijn and the merchant princes of interstellar space. Why do I like this "alternate future" so well? Frankly, it is some of the best-written and most well thought-out space opera I've come across. And yes, I ENJOY space opera. Hard sci-fi bores me. I enjoy thinking-man's adventure stories. If I want somebody's take on "reality", I'll pick up a copy of Scientific American. Poul Anderson's stories have interesting characters, and fascinating plots. The tales of the Polesotechnic Leagure are part of Anderson's future history series, and a good sample of that entire series can be had by reading The Earth Book of Stormgate. Or just pick up a copy of Trader to the Stars at your used bookstore. Anderson also has the Dominic Flandry series about a future Terran Empire (after the League). I like Star Wars, but frankly, Anderson does it better. A second way to answer the question is to say "this is the universe that I think captures human future history best." That is, which sci-fi universe gives the better window on humankind's future, and so reflects on the present? Without a doubt, for me, that future vision is Frank Herbert's Dune. Long after we tire of our toys, long after the glitter and promise of technology has dulled, eternal questions regarding our place in the universe will remain. Religion, not technology, will define the human condition, and the limits of human potential, not the potential of our technology, will be the true final frontier. We will still be asking what it means to be human, no matter how our technology advances. Most sci-fi futures seem to disregard the centrality of religion and culture in human affairs. Herbert didn't make that mistake.
Ah yes, a few points that have little to do with Heinlien's use of imperfect narative. I had forgoten the characters names and that there was no compulsory draft. The reason I'm hazy about details like that is that Rico's narative is less than perfect, we can not and are not supposed to trust what he says.
Now consider if the father's enlistment was portrayed in a positive manner, despite it being seen that way by Rico. Would you really consider it good for people who have run sucessful business to suddenly give it all up? One of the biggest reasons for the father's enlistment and the "big change" was that one of the alien worlds under Earth attack had managed a couter strike that killed Rico's mother along with a large chunk of the world population. Old men like Rico's father jumping onto rockets was portrayed even by Rico as a despiration measure.
The idea seems to be that a military society had evolved which made all decisions and ultimately used all resources to further its own aims. That they did this without repressing free speech and taking other liberties is unlikely. We never get a good view of why the earth was at war with all other inteligent life forms and that is the root of the nightmare. Rico presents us with a society that was prosperous and had recovered from a horrible nuclear war only to be plunged into endless galactic wars. Rico can't tell that his is an awful existence or that things could be any different.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
1)I have to like it.
2) see 1
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Vinge created not one but two very good Sci-Fi Universes. 'A Fire Upon the Deep' and 'A Deepness in the Sky' were set in the same universe and are both very good books. I loved the idea of the zones and the difference in the races that populated them. The ideas in these two books are large and well thought out. The aliens and the powers are what I expect aliens and alien intelligence to be like, if they exist. He also did a good job in creating a believable future in the Peace Wars saga. Although the wider universe is only hinted at (through the travels of the deep space scout) it is apparent that it is a large place with mysteries aplenty.
David Brin's Uplift Universe is also very well thought out. Like Vinge, Brin has aliens that are alien and humans are not at the center or even close to the apogee. The aliens have thought processes that are not like ours and their behaviour is at times completely unexpected. I also like the idea that we are not the only beings capable of higher intelligence on our planet. It's a good lesson and one that most people seem to overlook. If one day in the future we realize that our Galaxy or our neighborhood therein is bereft of intelligence, maybe we can start looking here for friends and allies to keep us company and enjoy in it's benefits.
Most science fiction is too small or too homogoneous. If and when we ever get off of this rock, I'm sure that we will all be surprised at what is out there for us to find. I just hope we survive long enough to actually do some of the things we are capable of imagining.
I can't remember the authors name, but he's the guy that wrote
"City on the Edge of Forever"... he actually stood up in a sci-fi convention, told the assembled crowd
that Star Wars and Star Trek were utter crap, that the only decent Sci-Fi on tv was Dr Who, and he'd take them all on one by one
or in a group to support his view. The Dr, at least in recent years, used wit and
knowledge to battle ignorance and fear, he didn't blast the crap out of his enemies, he OUTWITTED them.
The Doctor is also a complex individual, he never lets us see the whole picture, and at times (Particularly torwards the end, with Ace)
will manipulate others to gain his means.
Not to mention the Daleks still send chills down my spine. "Exterminate!" beats the crap out of "Assimilate" any day!
In the real world, people are molded by the choices they make. Every evil choice, even if it is minor, and even if it is "for a good cause", makes it a tiny bit easier to make an evil choice the next time.
Good Fantasy/Sci-Fi has a realistic moral universe to complement the counterfactual/extrapolated physical universe. This does not mean that the protagonist always or even usually makes good choices. (A realistic dark protagonist is instructive, if depressing.) It does mean that logical consequences ensue. Too many stories show the protagonist making lots of minor evil choices (lying to friends, stealing from or killing the innocent, etc) in order to accomplish a Great Good (saving the world). Instead of these choices making them more like the enemy they are vanquishing, the effect is portrayed as neutral - an implementation detail for the Great Good that is accomplished.
As an example of a realistic moral universe, it is clear in Tolkien that in using the one ring to defeat Sauron, the user will become (as evil as) Sauron.
While real world examples are rarely as dramatic as in Tolkien, it does happen. Suppose a proposed plan to defeat Hitler involves infiltrating his inner circle, and then assasinating him. To gain his confidence, the assassin must participate in many horribly evil activities: torture, extermination of innocent people, etc. In fact, many of the activities prescribed for the inner circle are in fact rituals of evil designed to reduce the participant to the same level of moral decay as the others.
It's probably been said before (I don't feel like reading 800+ comments to find it), but what makes science fiction is not the special effects (spectacle), the elaborate description of a high-tech thingamabob (diction) -- it's the story! In order to be 'fiction', it must have "one unbelievable thing" that is crucial to the story. In order to be "science fiction" that crucial, unbelievable thing must be scientific in nature.
(That covers a lot, Quazi. can you narrow it down some??)
Well, you're gonna hate me for this, but in order to be GOOD sci-fi, the story must not be based on any other genre. Star Wars was a WWII flick. Star Trek could be the Partridge Family (going from one place to the next, meeting new people). Don't get me wrong, Star Wars and Star Trek make for some good stories, but they're not intrinsically sci-fi.
On the other hand, imagine "2001" without HAL. You can't just replace him with a human character, the story will lose a crucial element (a computer cannot lie, a human can). That is the only way the story can be told -- with a piece of technology at the center of the story.
I like John Varley's Titan/Wizard/Demon series, as well as his other work. Steel Beach has one of the funniest first lines ever: "In five years, the penis will be obsolete." The "Central Computer" in Steel Beach is reminiscent of the AI's in Iain Bank's Culture books.
Other good stuff: Neal Stephenson, Vernor Vinge, Iain Banks.
What makes good sf? Imagination. The ability to start with the here and now, twist it a little, and extrapolate to the logical or illogical conclusion the effects on humanity of that twist, be it a new technology or whatever.
-cbare
Off the top of my head, and having read a number of the other posts on this article (and boy-howdy did this one bring out the opinions from everybody), Here's my tentative list of major SF genre, and some classic examples that I have read from each (I'm more qualified in 'hard SF' than most of the other categories). I'm also going to try and keep my opinions to 'Universes' in which there are more than one work.
Major SF-related Categories:
These may not be universally regarded as 'The Best' but all are worthy of note.
'World-building' is one of the most important elements of Science Fiction. It is arguably more important than 'setting' in more standard literature, since experience can fill in more gaps in traditional literature - historical fiction being the exception. There are a couple of outstanding examples of world-building that I've run across in single novels which were never made into a 'franchise universe' where any number of novels are set. Two shining works along these lines are Way Station by Clifford Simak (who has the best aliens in SF, IMHO) and The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, who's 'Esper Guild' inspired Babylon 5's Psi-Corps (Hence Walter Koenig's character being named "Alfred Bester" in an intentional homage).
I suppose I should have an honorable mention category (although I will leave out obvious movie/TV franchises). Larry Niven's 'Tales of Known Space', William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' are good examples with broad appeal.
A note on the 'My Personal Favorite' entry. This quartet, composed of Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion touches on most of the major elements of modern science fiction, from 'hard SF' and 'cyberpunk', to horror-fiction, a la Alien. This series is best described by Peter Falk's monologue from The Princess Bride with monsters, wars on a galactic scale, intrigue, some good dime-novel theology, and even environmentalist themes, while having some really excellent hard SF and being extremely well-written. The universe which spans three major cultures, one of which is a community of AIs, is very rich, with a history spanning centuries, and hundreds of unique worlds. I highly recomend it.
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Geosynchronous satellites were nothing new.. It was the idea that, with them, you could greatly extend your communication range in an easy way that was new.
In a word, no. Most of the female characters in his books were just his libertarian wet dreams. How realistic are super-proficient women, who just happen to dress provocatively and mouth his beliefs perfectly?
Well, I married a super-proficient lady like that, actually. If you think his characters mouth his 'beliefs' perfectly, you weren't paying attention.
It didn't used to be like that. War novels have taken over mainstream SF. Most of them are lousy war novels. Moon, Drake, Cole, Bunch, and Weber know how to write that stuff, but most of the others do it badly.
As an aside, lone heroes don't win wars. It's tough to find a single individual in history not in high command who determined the course of a major war by heroic acts in the field. (Exceptions? Otto Skorzeny, maybe.) SF is lone-hero heavy.
For me the true test of the best sci-fi is this...RE-READABILITY!
If I can't read it at least two or three times without becoming bored or disgusted it's not worth the paper it is written on. More important is the book that makes you WANT to re-read it the moment you are done. Or the kind that has you begging the writer for a follow up book.
Oddly enough, some of the great books a I have read don't generate in me the desire to re-read them. Asimov's Foundation series is a one example. Loved it, but didn't want to go back there. Some of Heinlein's work was the same way, but most I have read three or four times and still love em.
The works of Niven have withstood my best efforts to wear them out. Probably due to the great central characters he creates, the mystery plots, and the hard sci-fi edge he incorporates into his stories. Integral Trees, Ringworld and the Ringworld Engineers, The Mote in God's Eye and following books, the great short stories, all seem to endure without fail. Truly, in my mind, one of the greatest sci-fi writers ever.
Card is another who wites stories that can be re-read obsessively. Treason is a lesser know favorite of mine. Similarly to Niven, Card creates great central characters. Unlike others, Orson's explores his characters weaknesses as much as thir strengths. And, oddly, some of his characters' strengths ARE their weaknesses. Think about it when next you read Card.
One of my other favorites it Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin. Sort of a one hit wonder: it's kinda campy, but the story is so entertaining, and the characters so quirky that it never fails to reel me back in. By the way, this story was originally written as a series of short stories in "Analog" magazine.
Another great series is the Gateway/Heechee series by Fredrick Pohl. Nice hard Sci-Fi with a great cosmoligical twist. Complex, human characters. Describes time dilation from black holes and faster than light travel as an integral part of the story (in my case it was a great way for a ninth grader to be exposed to the concepts).
Last, but not least, Adams. Of course the Hitchiker's Guide and associated books rock, and the humor never ceases to amaze and amuse me. Teatime and Holistic Detective are also wonderful. Worn out a few paperbacks of both!
Oh, The Godmakers, by Herbert(and many others Dune and such included), and Catseye By Norton are also great re-readers.
I haven't included any Tolkien here because I don't consider his books Sci-Fi.
Any suggestions on other books that I can read (and then re-read!) would be helpful. Thanks!
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I enjoy stories that contemplate, in a scientific way, the ramification of a single change to how the world works. To me, great science fiction is written by exploring in depth a single scientific concept, and at the same time resisting the urge to change every law of physics to serve new plot devices.
To me, stories that make liberal adjustments to reality are more of a fantasy genre than science fiction. I think that movies like Groundhog Day and GATTACA are successful science fiction stories because they have only one significant change to scientific truths. Whereas shows like Star Trek are just fantasy worlds, full of adjustments and modifications to physics and reality.
Don't get me wrong, I love the fantasy genre too, but not for its science; mostly just for its artistic impressions of scientificly creative worlds.
Obviously, both good and bad stories can be written with either technique, but I gain special satisfaction from the stories that change only one thing, and explore it in depth. To me, the science is the the exploration of the concepts, not the invention of them.
- Wyck
Is the best SF author ever!
Revolutions are never about freedom or justice. They're about who's going to be top dog. -- Kilgore Trout
A Boy and His Dog. A truly awesome film based on a novelette by Harlan Ellison. Stayed true to the book and has a great ending.
I like sci-fi that focusses on the near-future or an alternate-future. Preferably with cool, useful, potentially dangerous tech that enhances humanity in some way.
Which is why I like William Gibson so much. Also Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, and I recently started reading Eric S. Nylund ("Signal to Noise") and Neil Gaiman ("Neverwhere"), both of which absolutely rocked my world.
I have to say my first mind-expanding moment happened when I first read Gibson's "Neuromancer" when I was in high school. It let me think about "why can't I?" rather than "I can't do that"...
The Liaden Universe by Steve Miller & Sharon Lee and
The Vorkosigan Series by Lois McMaster Bujold.
This guy was an unsung master of the written word. I have read Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov, Pohl, Vinge, Bain and many more and have enjoyed them all. But there is just something brilliantly thought evoking about Mr. Daley's use of language and topics.
His now out-of-print SF series The adventures of Alacrity Fitzhugh and Hobart Floyt are probably more aligned with Space Opera and were very adventurous indeed. They were laced with all the good stuff that fills a James Clavell novel - family fortunes, love, betrayal, duels-to-the-death, redemption - and much more. Add a dash of grand and subtle humor that few will grasp and a rich history and universe populated with many believable characters (well, believable for SF anyway) and you have a trilogy masterpiece fit for re-reading many times.
His newer, posthumously published series GammaLAW is just as good, if not better, but not so lighthearted. GammaLAW is a grim depiction of conflict on a throwback waterworld lightyears from civilization - its rife with military action, slang and all the good stuff mentioned above. A lot darker but, still engrossing with a common thread of mysteries-of-the-universe-yet-to-be-solved.
And that I think would have to be the KEY to a good SF novel. An grand unsolvable mystery that the protaganist and his cronies are destined to reveal even just a smidge of. Plus all the other good stuff (love, betrayal, death, etc.) If you're missing any of these elements, you're not going to keep my attention for long. I've slogged through novels by Vinge and Bova and god were they painful. Miles of reading rhetoric and mind numbing prose only to have the 'good stuff' happen in a sentence or too, leaving the reader to conject 'wha?!?' Sure the science is great but not terribly fun to read.
I had the privilege to maintain a brief friendship with Brian shortly before his death in 1996. He was a fantastic person with profound insights on the world we live in and worlds beyond and an unmeasured palate for words. The open letter I received from him shortly after he passed is one I will keep to the end of my days.
Cheers, Brian!
jt
She blinded me with science, she tricked me with technology. ~ Thomas Dolby
Good posting, except for the mis-spelling of the word Lotus. :)
Don't know that I'd classify The Iliad or The Odyssey as science fiction and you make a good point in questioning that. I suppose Icarus comes closest to Old World science fiction - at least in Western culture.
My fave, though, remains Herbert's Dune.
I think That albeit disparate universes, the novels written by this man are some of the most truly hardcore scifi. the best of them in my oppinion are "One Man's Universe", "Cold As Ice",
"Mind Pool"("Nimrod Hunt"). and "Godspeed", as well as any other book by Charles Shefield, I would have to say though that if it comes down to just a scifi universe then I would have to go with the Startrek one simply because it is believable from a human point of view, wether it be making you fall in love with Uhura or making you Idolize James Kirk for his person skills and leadership skills, or sympathise with Chekov and Sulu because they remind you of certain friends.
even the the enemies (Klingons, Romulans, etc)are just really cool, and can be reasoned with.
The Startrek Universe is really just a projection
of who we want to be as humanity always looking to better ourselves, and understand those who are different, and yet at the same time realising that there are those who would love to see themselves in control.
Any Sci-fi that caters to the multiverse theory should work just fine. Also world as myth (world as myth? See Heinlein[sp?])...what was that book...The Cat That Walked Through Walls. There we go. He did tie them all together...one of the great heros was a fictional character, he existed because he was so well written and rounded out... apparently that is enough to make anything "real" in the setting of that novel.
May the force be with you ;)
The mainstream Asimov universe is linked in, by implication, in TEOE itself:
SPOILER FOR END OF THE END OF ETERNITY:
In the last few pages, one character describes the universe that will result from the actions in the book. The universe as described there is very generally the one in which the rest of Asimov's books take place -- humans everywhere, as opposed to an alien-dominated galaxy.
END SPOILER
If you really like "hard" science fiction -- that is sci-fi that is deeply technical, believable, and thought-provoking, you should check out Forward. He is mostly a scientist, and thus isn't as prolific as other authors and is often forgotten. But how many sci-fi authors do you know who have received funding from NASA for ideas they are working on?
His books will keep you up at night wondering just how possible what you just read might be. And astonishingly, he is also a very good storyteller! Think Asimov meets Hawking here...
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
My other favorite is "Stranger in a Strange Land". The universe in this case is our own, in the possibly-near-future; just wait until you see what the martian hero of the story accomplishes during by the end of the story.
I've left a lot of the detail out intentionally. Those of you who've read these stories know how cool and amazing they are. The rest of you, well, what are you waiting for: go out and read these stories!
My favorite SF universe is that of Iain Banks' "Culture" novels. His triumph is to blend some serious gosh-wow old school superscience (gigantic artificial worlds, hypersentient AIs, near-godlike control over energy and matter) with richly nuanced characterization and deftly crafted cultures.
The most interesting question he asks -- many times, in many different ways, throughout his work -- is how a being can find meaning and purpose when all material needs can be met effortlessly, and all desires fulfilled nearly as easily.
Newcomers to the Culture books should start with _Consider Phlebas_. His most recent work, _Look to Windward_, is a sort of tonal sequel to Phlebas, revisiting some of the same themes in a more reflective, somber mood.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Once you've had a robot lover, you'll never want a REAL man again ;)
--from A.I.
Funny how some writers get stuck in a Genre - I was going to mention some HP Lovecraft sci-fi, but I can't remember the names (most of his stuff was horror or horror-on-earth sci-fi).
I particularly liked a short he co-wrote about a bunch of non-fighting aliens that trapped a soldier hunting them in an invisible maze on mars. It interested me more than most Lovecraft because it was a psychological horror that was descriptive from the soldier's point of view, not a 3rd person point of view as in most Lovecraft.
His dad enlisted because his wife was killed by the bugs. His platoon was rico's new family. He was happy to have his father as part of that family. Its as simple as that.
Rico joined up for less than noble reasons. He was rebelling more than anything.
Re-read the book. Thanks be praised that it is not as lame as you make it out to be.
The Heliconia series is pretty cool - and touches on a world that just begs for expansion. He's written lots of cool books, but another two are "Son of Man" and "Hothouse".
Check them out.
EXORDIUM Universe by Sherwood Smith and Dave Trowbridge is by far superior to all the rest. But, I believe, the pentalogy is sold to some Russian publisher. Hope you all can still enjoy it.
Samuel R. Delaney's "Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand" is surely one of the best science fiction novels of all time. And his bibliography show him to be one of the most profound and innovative writers of our time.
The same thing that makes any novel great is what makes a great science fiction novel. Just my cents worth.
For me, at least, great sci-fi has to be realistic and believeable, and the tech has to be correct (at least, I have to be able to believe it could function and have some idea of how it is supposed to work).
I think the most wonderful genre is near-future science fiction. A lot of Asimov's work falls into this line, involving space exploration, etc... James P. Hogan was pretty good with his "Inherit the stars" trilogy, which I thought was pretty good. I like Heinlein a lot, because although some of his fiction goes pretty far into the future, at least the tech is handled in a very believeable way and he tries pretty hard to "get it right".
The whole cyberpunk genre is just awesome, Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, et al... I like the fact that they're very tech-centric, and make some pretty good predictions about the near future (some of which are already coming true).
I'm not into the "faraway galaxy" thing at all, I recoil at fantasy stuff like sword-and-sorcery, and if a story is too far in the future, and the tech is just completely pulled out of the author's butt I generally ditch the book and write the seven bucks off as a loss. I think this sort of thing is a sign of laziness on the part of the author; instead of researching, and figuring out how something could work if it was happening in real life, the author just says, "it's fiction" and pulls the whole thing out of his ass. It's crap, you know?
What pisses me off more than anything else is when an author has no understanding whatsoever of computer science and tries to make up a situation without researching it. I've seen a couple of novels about how a "biological virus" is "infecting the internet", or how someone caught a biological virus by looking at an infected system's VDT -- usually with some hackneyed explanation about how the flashing on the screen "hacked the person's brain". Don't get me wrong, it's fun to laugh at some joker lit major who saw "the Matrix" and figured he'd cash in, but reading the tripe he puts out is too painful.
I know, I'm judgemental. But, Jesus, a guy's gotta have his standards.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
and pretty much anything else he's ever written .
Cyberpunk is about atmosphere and cool factor. Baxter writes about what humans can achieve with science and how this will alter human life. This is drama. Highly recommended
I guess most of the /. audience hasn't heard of the Hyperion universe yet.
It isn't "science fiction", its "science fantasy".
;)
ok, now that THAT is out of my system, to the main issue.
I think people are so dogmatic about sci-fi for the same reason people get so riled about religion...both are about belief. Now, I'm not comparing the validity of religion to sci-fi, just our responses. If something really "gets" you, it is down on the gut level, and it isn't something that can be truly explained. You can't convert someone to your taste in sci-fi, no more than you can "convert" soemone to a new religion. People must find their way to what they like.
So, to simplify....no wait, lets sum up.
Arguments about sci-fi are interesting but they will never actually change people's minds. If they don't like David Brin, they don't. Maybe some day they will have a change in taste and suddenly like David Brin....but this can't be forced on them. So, just remember the next time you argue which is a better author of whatever genre...you can't change a person's mind.
Thanks for listening. This argument available for religion, polotics, and family gatherings. Just cut and paste. Enjoy!
"/. =
Its such a subjective question. Especially since there are so many different types of SciFi styles. Hard SciFi, Cyberpunk, Space Opera, etc... One person's masterpiece is anothers eye rolling schlock. Just think of someone who digs on Arthur C. Clarke giving an opinion of Star Trek or vice versa. As well, should we take into consideration the usually deleterious effects that franchising can have on what was once a respectable SciFi series. Like Dune used to be before Herbert's son and Hollywood decided to make some quick cash. Or the latest and embarassing additions to Star Wars (I swear Lucas has something wrong with him). Should this tinkering with respectable material count towards it? Its apples and oranges for the most part. I love Philip Jose Farmers World of Tiers series, but I also have a real thing for Gibson's Sprawl series and Dick's dysfunctional, paranoiac worlds. Do I find Heinlein and Zelanzy to be authors of uninteresting (being diplomatic here) pulp stories? Yes. Do I still have a thing for Tolkien and Herbert after the bastardizations of their respective sons? Sure why not, but the meddling has tainted the work of their fathers? All IMHO of course. S.
I"m the 790 robot head with the love-slave treatment and Lexx, the show, is my Xev/Zev or Kai later. Check out the great interview with on the Lexx founding fathers: http://www.sadgeezer.com/lexx/interviews/gigeroff- 01.htm
Good points abou the show-
-790's snappy poetry in honor of his one true love.
-Xev's lizard costume and black boots were pretty cool too.
-Kai's Hair!
-Stanley was the poster-child for dork. That's a compliment.
Lexx was just plain awesome science fiction!!!
Period.
I remember an ex-roommate who was a sci-fi junkie, who owned a lot of crap books about women with beehive hairdos and silver skirts. Yawn. Dune. Double yawn. The 1st ep. of Star Wars, about trade alliances, taxation, etc. Yawn.
1984 was a good book because it was a good story, asking "what if" and talking about how humanity would deal with a given situation.
The book that my ex-roommate was working on, was not. I made the mistake of asking him to tell me what it was about: 45 minutes later, he was still going on about the physiology of the alien inhabitants and the political-eco whatevermajig construct societies these people lived in.
When I cut him short and asked him to describe the STORY, he went back to his diatribe about 2G cephalods and gas plasma treaties and whatnot.
A "world" only appeals to people as a vehicle for a good story. Luke wants to avenge his father's death, and goes to find some weird hermit in the woods to teach him how to kick ass: the black knight is a fallen hero in search of redemption. The same story that's been told in one form or another since the dawn of time. Frodo needs to find the courage in himself to take on basically every evil entity within a three thousand mile radius. THAT makes for a story, engaging characters, and a world we can believe in. We want Gandalf to have magic because if there's magic there's the kind of heroic quest you just don't get in a 9 to 5 kinda job. Problem is, too many sci-fi writers try to be Faith Popcorn on steroids and ignore the need to tell us something about ourselves, yeah?
Gibson: We're fundamentally evil capitalist grubbing SOBs.
Orwell: We all fundamentally want freedom and will fight for it to the bitter end.
Lucas: Within every farm boy, there is a hero. And buy my toys, fanboy!
Any questions?
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
First, I'd like to disagree with what many folks have said. Science fiction is not like ordinary fiction. I've read good SF that's lousy fiction; I've also read stuff billed as SF which wasn't, even though it made good fiction. Of course, SF is better if it's good fiction as well, but it's not vital. For example, SF benefits from realistic, subtle characterisation, but some of the great SF works have paper-thin, ludicrous characters, and they still work. Why? Because of the ideas.
IMO, SF is about ideas. They don't have to be about hard science, though many of the best ones are. They don't have to be physically possible, though again they often are. They don't even have to be fully comprehensible. They only have to be interesting and imaginative, and worked through with the other prerequisite: logic.
Good SF, like good humour, takes an idea and works through the consequences logically. It asks "What if?", and then goes on to tell us. This is where I think it diverges from fantasy; fantasy isn't interested in the consequences of the initial idea, merely using it as a device on which to hang a story. In SF, the plot is bound up with the idea itself. Some of the best SF takes the idea to its ultimate extreme; this may present us with a cautionary tale or dire warning, or conversely hopes or goals.
Some good SF uses the consequence of that idea to tell us about ourselves; the differences from the world of the story highlight aspects of our own world. Some great SF uses it to discuss the nature of the universe, of time, perception or reality itself. But none of these are essential. As I said, to me the essence of good SF is simply a good idea, followed through logically.
To take a few examples: I don't consider Star Wars to be real SF; it might make great fiction, but all the SF trappings are merely devices to tell a story that could be told just as well, though less spectacularly, in other ways. OTOH, I do consider The Truman Show to be great SF, for the sheer audacity of the central idea, and the wonderful logic with which it's followed through. I count some Star Trek episodes as SF; many not (though not all of those are bad stories). Blade Runner isn't good SF because it features androids; it's great SF because it uses them to ask questions about what it's like to be an android, how we develop emotions, and whether we can trust our memories.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
If you want some really excellent SF, I'd suggest checking out Lois McMaster Bujold (well, not really checking her out, but try reading her books). She has won multiple Hugos and Nebulas. Her characters are about the best I have ever read, bar none. The stories are basically space opera, but so well written that I bet anyone who gets around to reading them will love them.
As far as hard SF goes, there aren't really any worlds that I find consistently good. Dune is incredible, but I thought the later books in the series were pretty bad. Starting with about the second one.
Ender's Game is another excellent book, but again, the later books in the series don't do it justice. They were still pretty good, but just nowhere near the level of the first.
The Star Wars books by Timothy Zahn are very enjoyable, and the universe is fairly well fleshed-out and familiar, but practically every book in the universe besides Zahn's are trash.
Another universe I have enjoyed a lot is that created by Iain M. Banks. It is sort of hard to describe, but if you haven't read Consider Phlebas, you haven't read SF.
Just my $.03
*Sigh* Nobody even mentioned R.A. Lafferty.
Phistines.
You had me all through the crackhead interpretation of his work---that Heinlein wrote his characters as cautionary examples---but I think the gratuitous reference to "M$" was a bit much.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The Reality Dysfunction series is the best Sci Fi I have ever read, and I have read quite a bit. Very complex storylines, very interesting technology, lots of diverse scenery.
I didn't enjoy his detective novel series as much, but Fallen Dragon was very good (a recent novel he wrote).
Heinlein hated the idea of women-as-cattle that conventional culturalists consider "proper".
Err... I'm a little fuzzy on what you mean here. Could you explain?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Ye gods only about 3 people rated above 3 even mention Heinlien ?
.. is a large part of what science fiction is about.
Asimovs Foundation ( seems the most common nomination )series was good but it just isn't nearly thought provoking enough for me, one response put it very well in that Foundation was a thinly veiled modern world exploded across a universe with some names changed.Great epic story but the world came across as very stale/sterile to me.
Heinlien posited truly new changes in culture brought on by changes in technology, ie
The concept of loonies and their culture.
The whole concept of the Howards.
The impact on sexual customs that would come with full genetic manipulation and eternal youth with no fear of unplanned pregnancy or disease. Some people take issue with his female characters, but I ask only that you posit why they would not be the way they are given his world. In recent history, freedom from pregnancy and equal rights have made women display far more open sexual agressiveness than in the past society of America.
As for Mamma Maureen in particular in " To Sail Beyond the Sunset " and 19th century Kansas, I think many peoples jaded view of old peoples sex and the hard to swallow odiepal relationship explorations get in the way of truly examining what Hienlien is saying about sexual custom. Sex and in particular Incest are 'untouchable' Sacred Cows in our society. Just ask Freud what its all about. Just like with other Sacred Cows Hienlien willy nilly sacrifices it and opens it up for discussion.
At anyrate, are there any more fundamental underpinnings of society than those which govern Sex and Procreation ?
In general he sacrifices sacred cows left and right to disect them and take a look at how they tick ( stranger in a strange land, job ). Many people have a knee jerk reaction to his casual discussion of taboo topics I think whithout truly exploring what he has to say.
He takes a historical point of view with regards to the advancement of science... IE that someone will stand current theory on its head but even so he deals with the implications of his science developed for plot devices ( multiverse, Time travel, libby drives ). But most of his tech is so mundane, so beliveable most people simply don't understand its far reaching implications, nor the true advancement most of his seeming simple ideas would present. Very little of his tech has been caught or rendered ridiculos by time.. boggle that for a while when recalling he worte the basis of most of it in the 50's and 60's. His take on genetics is on its way to becoming a reality.
True enough he is at turns dirty old man, heretic, comedian and satyre. but I think few people truly embraced the future as something that would be different and familiar all at once culturally as well as technologically the way he did.And I firmly belive no one intermixed or explored the possibilities as well to date.
Also of note for me are
Frank Herbert 'Dune' and the rest.
Clarke and Asimov.
Sagan
OSC 'enders game'
Turttledoves alternative history look at the civil war 'Guns of the south'.
The Illearth series by Donaldson.
Gordon Dixons 'Wolf and Iron'.
Verne
Kinda surprised no one mentioned Michale Flynn's recently completed series regarding the near term future of space travel and the threat of asteroids. Perhaps the main stream dreck in regards to that subject turned people sour on it? It wasn't the best written series but it was thought provoking. Especially his ideas regarding education.
For pure fun the Zahn starwars continuation trilogy. While Starwars is long on fiction and short of science I do consider it science fiction. But Star Wars is to science fiction what Treasure Island is to mainstream literature.
Just for the pure explosiveness of it, Imannuel Velikovsky. Of course his books are not stories in the genearl sense ( the earth and planets would be the characters, man is pretty secondary ) and He claims his speculations based on historical research are fact, not fiction. To date he hasn't become science either. If nothing else his books are incredible works of speculation which after all
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
As many in this topic have pointed out, character development goes hand in hand with plot and general 'world' vision in creating a great series. Herbert's Dune series, Stephenson's Snow Crash, Gibson's various books, all of these display these elements. I'm surprised no one has voted for Dan Simmons' Hyperion series. Although I must admit it starts off great with the first book and slides as you work your way to the fourth, it still makes an entertaining read. The first book in particular I thought was highly entertaining. Of course, someone else could have already brought this up ... scrolling through 900+ comments isn't something I have time for now.
His middle name was "Kindred". That's just weird.
There's a lovely biography of him here. Note the highlights: dead twin sister inspiring themes of duality, depression leading to meth addiction leading to incredible productivity but also debilitating paranoia. Also, the incredibly weird beliefs. "This system took the form of a ship in outer space, delivering highly concentrated doses of information to him through beams of pink light."
Also note the suggestion that Mulder's search for his sister on The X-Files is one big PKD homage.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Cordwainer Smith wrote some of the strangest science fiction of his day (the 1950s + 1960s, mostly) set in a relatively coherent future history. There are several things that make his work unique:
--many of his central characters have values and beliefs that differ significantly from the dominant value systems of the past or present. You would expect that people living in the far future would have significantly different values than we do, but this is extremely rare in sf.
--his inventive use of language. He was remarkably skilled at inventing new words that were both poetic and convincing. (His knowledge of foreign languages helped a lot with this).
--his odd, sometimes bizarre, future societies. (See "A Planet Named Shayol" for a good example.)
Smith managed to convey the potential alienness of the future better than any other sf writer I've come across.
From the article poster...
So tell Slashdot what your favorite is, and what the most important part of a science fiction universe is to you.
You are a dumbfuck.
Isaac Asimov!
Foundation and the Robot books (he coined the
term robotics!)
Philip K. Dick!
Asked: What is human? What is reality?
Orson Scott Card!
Asked: When technology advances faster than humans
how will we adapt to the situations that arise?
Definitely one of the best new(ish) sci-fi writers out there. Snow Crash was an absolute masterpiece, I've even gotten several sci-fi haters to admit to loving it. His ability to introduce unknown technologies into the storyline without distracting the reader from the story is amazing (Diamond Age anyone?).
He's also got a few less sci-fi ish books out there, Zodiac is a great read, not to mention Cryptonomicon. I can't wait for the next two books in the Cryptonomicon epic to appear.
Oh yeah, and as to the original subject, a good sense of humor is a great addition to any story.
In the future, the technologically super-advanced pass themselves off as gods creating a new political agenda, accelerationism.
That's forward thinking.
I really agree with you about 1984. That book was truly a masterpiece. But I've always disagreed with the people who place Brave new World up there with other sci-fi masterpieces. Huxley commits one of the more serious sci-fi errors with that book -- he focuses way too much on the world he has created, and not enough on the characters. I thought all the characters were very shallow, and inconsistent with themselves in places. He had a very good reason for doing this -- growing up when he did, seeing the rise of fascism in Germany, Communism in Russia, and Socialism in the US; but the story would be much more effective if he would've also added a lot of depth to the characters and not tried to hit you in the head with the immorality of his world.
Fantasy and Science fiction share in one grand theme and that seperates it from regular fiction. That is that environment is a character. Usually an extension of an idea taken into the future or blown up to emense proportions like tyrnany as in the Star Wars or bureaucracy as in Brazil or plague as in Andromeda Strain or artificial intellegence as in The Forbin Project and AI .. and what the concequences and/or peoples reactions to it and its reaction to them. This is as opposed to the Character development of the Novel.
You of course can combine both, but without the environment as character you don't have the genre.
Bad Sci Fi is agenda laden and preachy while good
Sci Fi is more balanced and agenda's are hidden and seductive. Certainly they are a soap box and of course the best Science Fiction is the one that
I agree with the authors agenda.
(Or at least that is the view I came away with from my Social Science Fiction course in college *s*, ah those required fill courses, ya gotta love em).
In the books Rowan, Damia, etc. which outllines a series of worlds connected by super telepaths and teleports is my kind of world. The level of detail provided in each character makes me want to be a part of it all.
I can't frikkin belive anyone hasn't mentioned Ken Macleod. Some of the best sci-fi I've seen, and his style is incredibly unique.
Plus, the guy even mentioned Slashdot in one of his novels. (in passing, 2046, by oldie webbies in a bar)
Be ashamed. All of you.
I believe that what science fiction allows an author to do is explore the human condition using a perspective or metaphor that is not available in any other form of literature. Regardless of whether a great science fiction book or short story is idea driven, plot driven, character driven or whatnot, the technological/cultural/social advances described in a story provide the context which serves to illuminate things about ourselves (and human society).
The Culture of Ian Banks, the Ousters of Dan Simmons, the Edenists of Robert Forward, the Cybernetic Samhadi of David Zindell, and the New Sun of Gene Wolfe can all be seen as metaphor portraying the conflict between and a resolution of religion/spirituality and science/technology. If and how we resolve this conflict will determine the future of the human race. That makes great Science Fiction!
All that aside, I love sci fi because it makes me think and lifts me above the day-to-day. My favourite authors are those described above plus many more.
Those who have not understood his work labelled him a fascist, but he was, if anything, a libertarian. The quality decayed towards the end, but his early and middle years were extraordinary.
In addition to his SF, he wrote some very good fantasy.
What can I say? His work, both on his own, e.g., Flandry, and in collaboration, e.g., Hoka, was first rate, he was a master of both SF and fantasy, and I sorely miss him. He was a master of the language, never more so than when he kept his tongue firmly in cheek, e.g, Uncleft Beholdings.
Old School--Jack Vance's Alastor Cluster is easily on a par with Larry Niven's Known Space.
New School--The Liaden Universe of Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
Take a read, you won't be disappointed.
I pick this novel as my favorite for Zelazny's ability to seamlessly blend myth and science fiction to create a novel with real characters that have real strengths and weaknesses. Dune is a close second but no one can evoke so many emotions in the reader like Zelazny. The main character, Sam, is as human as you or I not larger than life.
On a side note, I regret seeing what type of person bought the film rights to Lord of Light (www.lordoflight.com). This guy thinks he can make a theme park out of the idea and has a few other wild money making schemes. I think he's crazy as a shithouse rat but read the book and then check out the site for yourself.
This guy is way out there
Other writers with interestingly different worlds:
-----sharks
It's true about the chop together , unfollowable feel, but the extra crap that lynch put in is pretty annoying. He could have left out the Baron's disease and the antidote cat and put in something usefull to the plot. Still, it's a lot prettyer then the mini-series. :)
I'm a little dissappointed that I have not seen any mention of Orson Scott Card. I should start out by saying that I have probably not read as much SF as many here, since I read a lot of fantasy mixed with other fiction, but I think that the Ender Quartet and Ender's Shadow (haven't gotten to Shadow of the Hegemon) contain some of the best writing I have ever experienced, especially in Speaker for the Dead.
Most of these books would not be classified as hard SF, but the depth of the psychologies of the characters is wonderful. There are a lot of very intelligent characters in these books, as well as alien creatures with thought patterns very unlike humans and Card is masterful at taking the reader through their minds.
In addition, the books contain an excellent mix of history and breadth of culture that mixes very well with interaction with alien species and civilizations, contrasting our own culture clashes with differences between advanced civiliations and species.
The ultimate plays for Madden 2006
When I was little (mid-late 80s) I saw a fantasy comic that featured cyborg dinosaurs. I remember a panel with a T-Rex with half of his face borgish. It looked very detailed, but then again Zoids did at that time too. It was definetly not DinoRiders. Does anybody here have a clue as to what it was?
Neuromancer paved the way for later SF like the Matrix (and, woefully, Johnny Mnemonic) and he coined the term 'cyberspace.' Plus his writing style is fast, tight and in-your-face. He, along with Bruce Sterling and other 'cyberpunk' writers, brought SF out from the old school and made it fresh. Any list has to include Gibson, imho.
Not only is the science, well, scientific, but the characters are also complex and grow through the length of the books. Kim Stanley Robinson manages to give us a glimpse of the near future in much the same depth as Clarke did in the Space Odyssey series.
Also Herbert's Dune series, at least the first 4 books.
What makes great science fiction:
Interesting, complex characters, not cyphers or infallable gods, like much of the pre 1960's science fiction, with dialog that doesn't sound like it came from a Buck Rogers/Star Trek/Star Wars Eliza-bot.
A realistic but fantastic setting. The setting must be believable, but at the same time it must be awe-inspiring.
Getting the Science right and making the science fiction believable and internally consistant. I'll allow suspension of disbelief concerning faster than light travel or time travel.
Making me (the reader) think, not just about the science but the social ramifications of the science. Bonus points for accurate scientific and/or societal predictions.
A plot that twists and turns and is not some boring retread, or predictable as a TV shit-com, yet complete believable. A resoution at the end of the story (this rules out Stanislaw Lem).
Extra credit for humor, anti-hero protagonists, or stories that let the antagonist win.
Some personal favorites:
In General: Issac Asimov, Ben Bova, John Brunner, Arthur C. Clarke, Lester Del Rey, Harry Harrison, Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Murray Leinster, George Orwell, Kim Robinson, Spider Robinson, Robert Sawyer, Theodore Sturgeon, Jack Vance, A.E. Van Vogt, Roger Zelazny
Computers: William Gibson, Neil Stephenson
Hard Science: Hal Clement
Alternative History: Eric Flint, Harry Turtledove
Space Opera: Lois McMaster Bujold, Sharon Lee/Steve Miller.
Space Warfare: David Drake, Joe Haldeman, Steve Weber
Social Commentary: Harlan "I don't write science fiction!" Ellison
a simpler definition to sci-fi and fantasy, and the differences between them, can be found in the preface to David Eddings' book "The Rivan Codex". in it, he writes something along the lines of: science fiction writers take three pages to tell you about the inner workings of a wristwatch, fantasy writers just tell you what time it is and move on.
basically sci-fi is characterized by the presance of explanations and explorations of technology, fantasy is charactarized by the complete lack of same.
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
If you can't relate to the people, it sucks. It does not matter how bizarre or mundane the situation is, it's about people.
That being said, what makes good SF? The application of stimulating concepts, whether they be technical or social, and usually not possible in out time and place - to story and people.
I have read a lot of SF, most recently (sort of) I enjoyed David Brins' Startide Rising universe and Tad Williams' Otherland series.
There's a lot of extraodinarily good SF out there. Makes you wonder why we don't see more, or mabey any, of it on TV and in the movies.
Yes, I was trolling, looks like it worked :). I was expecting a Karma Hit, not a Karma Gain. Check out my rant on trolling slashdot!
as an addendum, since it was mentioned in the title, Star Wars is _not_ sci-fi. it is fantasy. we have no idea how hyperdrive works, how lightsabers are put together, how everyone seems to understand r2d2 and chewie, etc. and we're not supposed to care how they work...we just accept that they do work and move on with the story
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
For an excellent essay on what defines great SF, read Ursula K. Le Guin's introduction to The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness. The basic gist? Great SF is descriptive, not predictive.
I've read sci-fi that bored me to tears. Flat characters, a lose plot that seems to drift aimlessly and an unsatisfying conclusion. I'm learning what good sci-fi is, along with crossing into new territory by reading horror. The best authors to date; Dan Simmons, and Stephen King. I've read many others that I've enjoyed; Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card, Frank Herbert. I've also read some that are considered genius and didn't click with them; Asimov, Niven. It's all a matter of personal taste, but I agree that without good characters, good plot, and good narative you've got a pretty boring story no matter what the genre.
I think B5 was out before Space: Above and Beyond, but that series also used close to "real world" physics for its space "flight" scenes also.
People like to think that Neo-Fascism is "the best parts of fascism," and they like to think of a military-centralized government as fascism. You do the math. It's mostly the movie (with the "Master Race" overtones that have Heinlein spinning in his grave) that prompts the "hey, that's fascist!" flag.
I like Heinlein's plug for enlightened democracies and rational anarchism. More accurately, stage 1 should be called "Heinlein turns politics upside-down."
William Barton: Dark Sky Legion
Now, this is not High Art(tm), but its premise is very original, and Barton manages to pull it off: a galaxy-wide civilization of human colonies, established and held together solely by slower-than-light space ships. Currently out of print, but well worth tracking down.
David Brin: The Uplift Trilogies
Space Opera at its finest. If you read Brin's other works and didn't like them, try it anyway. If you read Sundiver and didn't like it, keep going anyway. Featuring truly alien aliens, insights into the thought patterns of space-faring dolphins, psi weaponry, privacy wasps, and more ways to cheat Einstein than Tesla would've dared to imagine - and all that in impeccable prose. Dune looks positively deserted in comparison.
Stanislav Lem: Golem
Lectures on life delivered by a machine vastly more intelligent than any human could hope to become. This should rightly be impossible to do convincingly, given that the writer is human after all, but at least in the German translation he is frighteningly convincing. So, until I find the time to learn Polish to read the original, I have to operate under the assumption that Lem is either an alien or a time traveller. For me, that makes our own universe a lot more interesting than any of the above.
made the greatest work of science fiction ever. Unfortunately, it's more tragedy than comedy.
IMHO, Ayn Rand is overrated. At a friend's urgent coaxing, I finally read Atlas Shrugged a few years ago. That book is certainly not SF, as the technological "innovations" that help propel the plot are extremely bland and mind-numbingly unimaginative. The book is pretty much just a heavy-handed parable that repeatedly bludgeons the reader with its points long after they have become obvious and tiresome.
If Rand were a more talented writer, she could have written Atlas as an allegory or a compelling story in its own right with the subtext of her political message woven subtly into its fabric. Instead, the book is a hamfisted piece of propaganda which bored the hell out of me. And I'm an unabashed pseudo-laissez-faire capitalist!
Friday wasn't conceived and bred as a sex slave, she was conceived and bred as the best possible human short of the "supermen" (from the original short story) that went off to Olympus. Circumstances forced her into the lowest social order that did include women (and men) bred as sex toys, but she rebelled. In many ways, the entire story is about her "father's" attempt to undo the damage caused by those early experiences. Had he not gone to jail unexpectedly, she would have had the best education available, etc.
In many ways, I see this thread as a plea to the reader to not let our own opportunities go unanswered. We all (or almost all) had our own shitty childhoods, but we have free access to libraries and the web, low-cost access to physical conditioning facilties, etc. How much of it do we use, how much do we just wallow in self-pity at our pityful educations, poor choices on TV and television, etc.?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Leaving aside the rest of the novel, Friday has the best opening line, paragraph and chapter of any book I have ever read.
I can't remember the exact words off the top of my head, but the opening line was something like "I killed him as the door dilated closed behind him." You immediately knew that this novel would have action, violence, and a futuristic setting. I can only compare this to "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" that gives you humor, horror and violence in just four words.
The opening paragraph reinforced all of this. We learned that the speaker was an agent of some kind - not just a brutal murder, that the setting was the "Kenya Beanstalk" so it's definitely set in the future, and that there's a heavy police presence in the form of floating cameras.
The opening chapter had our hero running across a world very different from our own ("Alaska Free State?" "Illinois Imperium?" and a world with space travel, beanstalks, underground tubes... and horsedrawn transportation on the surface?!), and the betrayal of our heroine as she returns to her home base.
The writing was incredibly tight, it got you hooked and at least slightly familiarized with the universe without giving away much of the ultimate story.... No matter what you think of the rest of the novel, the opening chapter is stunning.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I loved Heinlein's earlier works and as a kid, I absolutely devoured his juvenile stuff.
I enjoyed much of his later work until I began to realize that it was virtually all the same. I Will Fear No Evil is basically The Number of the Beast but with a few changes thrown in. Well, all right, that's an exaggeration.
Fear explores gender roles and what happens to them when a person quite unintentionally undergoes a sex change, while Number explores the nature and origin of social mores and how unquestioned adherence to them could actually become detrimental at some point in the future, but essentially, they're both just ways for Heinlein to say that sexual taboos and stereotypes are all artificial constructs and we should just drop the pretense and fuck anyone we want (men, women, siblings, clones, parents, animals, machines, etc.) because it feels good and disease and mutant children aren't really a concern any more.
Obviously, this all began with Stranger In A Strange Land, but everything after Stranger was just variations on a theme and it got old. Perhaps if he'd bothered to actually flesh out new characters for each book, instead of putting a fresh coat of paint on the same supermen and superwomen that appeared in nearly all of his later books....
A couple names that i haven't seen mentioned often/enough that i feel manage to do this:
Vernor Vinge in his "Zones of Thought" books ("A Fire upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky") and his "Bobble" series ("Marooned in Realtime" and i believe "Peace War" though i haven't managed to find a copy of it yet) The first postulates that the amount of advanced technology and sentience possible varies depending on where you are. (in general, the greater the concentration of stars in the area, the "stupider" everything gets) The second deals in large part with the results of a technology that allows the user to temporarily stop time for everything in a small area.
S. M. Stirling's "Island in the Sea of Time" trillogy, which handles the idea of a medium sized group of people getting sent back in time far better than any other attempt i've ever read, dealing with both psychological and techological issues in great depth.
Michael Flynn's "In the Country of the Blind" is one of the the best conspiracy books i've ever read, and also one of the best books dealing with psychohistory/cliology.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
If you haven't read Stations of the Tide or The Iron Dragon's Daughter then you need to (the latter is a sci-fi/fantacy mix, but of the highest caliber). Swanwick's visions (The Spiral Castle, maniacal mechanical dragons, surrogate bodies for communication, proscribed technology) are amazing and it just gets better on the second (...) read.
Admittedly my all-time favorite is Dune by the incredible Frank Herbert, but Swanwick is really good. And for the POS prequels, for #$@!'s sake, the author said "bear hug" in the second one, I almost threw up.
-mentat
Actually, one of her most obscure non-sf books--Very Far Away From Anywhere Else has a sort of proto-/.-er as the main character. Owen's a serious student dreaming to go to MIT... very smart, but also very isolated and confused sometimes. He meets a girl and they're sort of "just friends" for a while... then things get even more confusing. It talks a lot about being different, being alone, being afraid of who you are and losing yourself and your friends. Might be too angsty in the hands of a lesser writer, but it's by LeGuin so it's not. I don't know if there are any Owens any more, though. Maybe they all turned into script kiddies and gamers before they had a chance to be as sensitive and thoughtful as he turns out to be. But maybe I'm just being unfair. I don't know.
~*~
riv {who had a login but forgot it and doesn't feel like getting a new one just yet}
Quality science fiction is more than just entertaining; it is a way to explore the could haves, should bes, and what ifs in a context where there are fewer consequences for ideas.
Fahrenheit 451 showed us a truly terrifying image of extreme censorship; Brave New World and 1984 denounced the evils of excessive government control. Dune painted a picture of a vicious political and economical battle over a valuable resource.
All of these stories were more than entertaining; they gave us a message. The best science fiction of all is more than a fanciful tale of adventure--it leaves you thinking, observing the world around you, and noticing that you are closer to the make-believe world than you thought.
War does not determine who is right, war determines who is left.
For a completely realized world that has a unique ecology, culture and history, try Brian Aldiss' Helliconia trilogy (Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Winter and Helliconia Summer). These three novels comprise his longest single work, and are remarkable for many reasons. He has written many influential books and stories (and essays, for that matter), but these three stand out in my mind as being worthy of listing here alongside all the praises for Dune, the Foundation series and Heinleins Future History series.
Agree with a lot of what has been posted. Lots of good SF, fantasy, whatever.
I have read a lot (yeah, saw the post about Tom Swift. Good series. Dates you though : )
Don't read near as much as I used to, so I probably miss a few good authors/books. One thing I'd like to point out before I list some missing authors/books is that I think this is a failing genre. Why? Because you read books for entertainment/escapism/etc. But they are SO linear. And, you have NO effect on the outcome. What if you could BE the book? Actually be in the world and effect it. Change the outcome. But it would still be more than what you do in real life (so, escapism). Most of you probably see where I'm heading. MMORP games. Most time when I have free time (late at night, bad weather on the weekends, etc.) I like to get everything I ever got from a book (OK, most everything) and much more by jumping into DAoC (insert favorate MMORP here : ). And the next year or two it's only going to get better (after that, it's Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash time : )
Anyway, BOT (back on topic). Important things for me are;
-Immersion in the world
-Book presents ideas/etc. that change my life and/or way of looking at life.
-I have to be able to understand/connect to/agree with some of the main reasonings/thinging of the main character(s).
Tolkien - had to repeat, sorry
Mellisa Scott - When you get tired of Gibson, Neal, etc.(or, just want a change). Jazz was good.
John Norman's "Gor" series - Not for everyone (was blacklisted for a while), but very well done. Good change of pace from the current PC (politically correct)world.
Ken Goddard's books - particuarly First Evidence and Outer Perimeter. Really nice.
Sage White(?)- Really upsetting because this person (don't even know if I got the name right) wrote a novel about virtual reality (from wearing a full cover suit) that was incredibly realistic. Very well done commentary on near future business, relationships, etc.
Dahlgren - If I just HAD to list my best books on only 5 fingers, this would probably be on one. Also, not for everyone. But it was good for me : )
Movies - most of the good ones have been list. Here are some others : )
Banzai Buckaroo
Tank Girl
Aliens (the second one)
See yah
Whenever a book comes out that changes the perception of science fiction. After all, isn't that what Science Fiction is all about? Nothing has affected Science Fiction as did the Dangerous Vision books. They redefined the genre, influencing just about every SF author out there, pushing them to see farther and to come back and tell us what they saw.
Dangerous Visions
ISBN: 0743452615
Again, Dangerous Visions
ASIN: 0425061825
Enjoy...and be careful.
Olaf Stapledon novel from the thirties. It starts with a man on a hill and crosses the Universe, stopping along the way to visit planets and beings. The feeling I want from SF is a sense of wonder. Even after 30 years of reading science fiction, this book still made my jaw drop. Short on plot, long on ideas. Someone once suggested that other writers have made whole careers out of single sentences from "Starmaker".
Have a look.
Ok, this isnt real techy scifi, in fact its not fully scifi. "The Many Colored Land" series is my favorite of all time. It has pretty much everything, but can be a tough read. It has a very slow start, but once past that, I could not put it down. It has Scifi, fantasy, mythology, Romance, timetravel, firstcontact, and quite a bit ethnic stuff. I have read the 4 book series perhaps 10 times. I do not think I would like it made into a movie, it could not be done justice. RANSOM
And the US are the Harkonnen?
Heinlein has to be up there as a major componet of the "best" sci-fi is how science interacts with our way of living. The Science must be necessary however the human part of life is what makes his writing some of the best. Curiously, he seems to be one of the only sci-fi writers that actually started off quite conservative and went more liberal as he aged. His first works (Farmer in the Sky) eventually turn into human introspection later on (Time Enough for Love).
Well, As someone who is trying to break into SF I can say if is far easier to define what makes SF truly awful.
-- Sexual Fetishisim: Any story written to legitimize the authors sexual fetishism will be awful beyond words.
-- The "Tacky Document Theory": Any time the full purpose of the story is to extoll some great historical document, the story will suck. ("we sought out the great ancient secret, and it began 'we the people...'"
-- Mmmm, Cruchy: The old "to serve man is a cookbook" was a great idea. It doesn't need to be written again folks.
-- The Dragon Ball Z effect: Any story where each heroic feat must out-do the previous until each character is destroying planets with a glance, simply must suck.
-- Did I mention sexual fetishisim? Really. It's bad. Don't do it.
Consider This Authoratative Guide to all thigs wrong with SF and SF fandom...
For instance, I will probably never be able to sell my novel unless I subtitle it "Not Gay Porn". The problem is that I have a character who's story arc, to be believable, has to start "very low". To that end, he starts the book naked in a cage. My intent is to make the reader think of him as property. It works quite well. But I know in my soul that any editor will see that and think "oh, god, another 'slave naked in a cage' book" and fire off a rejection without guilt.
(There is no explicit, and less than 100 words of implicit sex in the book, but how do you say that believably to editors that are being burried in alternate-star-trek-universe furry porn? 8-)
There really is a huge body of bad sexual frustration out in the SF community, at least among the "I'll become an author, then people will finally see my mind and accept me, and that will finally show my parents that I'm NOT a freak" crowd.
So, what makes SF "good SF"? The presense of thoughtful insight into the human condition, the presence of internal consistency in the authors vision, the presence of something to say, good punctuation, and the utter absence of Spock-as-a-wombat having sex with the dophinan Captian Kirk.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Philip K. Dick: Solar Lottery; Now Wait For Last Year
Robert Heinlein: The Puppet Masters; Methusaleh's Children
Greg Egan: Quarantine; Diaspora
Greg Bear: Eon; Queen of Angels
Isaac Asimov: I, Robot; Foundation
William Gibson: Neuromancer; Idoru
Day of the Triffids. Chocky. The Chrysalids. Need I say more? Brilliant mind, and he wrote in the early 20th Century too (iirc). Some of his stuff is a tad dodgy, but I'm sure it's hard work being wonderful all the time
Well, I usually break a book down into 5 categories, science fiction or not.
setting
plot
characterization
speed
ideas
Asimov books have fantastic plots, and he explores lots of interesting ideas in his books, but his characters tend to fall flat. And for me, his books drag a little due to the complete lack of engaging characters. (This hasn't stopped me from reading just about everything he's written)
Steven King fans usually rave about his great characters. He even gets into some interesting ideas about human nature, but the ending in most of King's books are kind of flat. His plots are merely a mechanism for putting an interesting character in an interesting situation. (This hasn't stopped me from reading about 15 of his books)
Rand tends to preach, so her books tend to drag. Her characters are like carictatures (sorry about spelling) but her ideas are fascinating. (This eventually did stop me from reading her stuff)
Heinlein has great ideas, and a generally a better plot, but his characters are like paper cutouts, totally unbelievable. (I've read just about everything he's written)
Orson Scott Card is a fantastic writer, but I think they lack any deeper meaning. The characters are interesting, the pages turn themselves, the settings are engrossing, but I don't feel like I've been given some insight into human nature. Just a great story. (I've read nearly everything he's written too)
So you figure out what you like, you figure out the strengths of various authors, and you pick those most suited to your likes. There ain't no right answer. You pays your money and you makes your choice.
If you've read any of his books, you'll realize why he is a definite contender. He is able to attract the science fiction fringe and the mainstream audience.
His combination of legitimate scientific fact with off-the-wall imagination is without equal.
If I could tell you what was really going on, why you are here, what you are doing right now and why you are doing it, would you believe me?
You do not know me, you may know me in the future, I am the destroyer of fiction and the revealer of truth.
I have the answer, I wonder if anyone will listen to me? I know the answer to that as well.
Yet, I am only human.
-DeNardis
I'm actually surprised there hasn't been too much "but that's not science fiction, it's cyberpunk, fantasy or horror!" in this discussion.
I find it interesting that Neal Stephenson's novels are almost always in the bookstore together, under Science Fiction, though only Snow Crash and The Diamond Age are really science fiction, right? Big U., Zodiac and Cryptonomicon seem to me sort of sci-fi flavored contemporary fiction.
It's probably no accident that some of this really good science fiction is hard to categorize as such, because stories that fit so neatly into a genre probably aren't very good.
demi
Damn! Someone here with taste.
There's no modern writer who can come within 1000 miles of this book.
ps. Anyone remember who was the author of novel "Greenhouse" (or whatever it was in english... only read the translation)? I remember it was written decades ago, and still it's got to be one of best sci-fi novels written... the idea of humans brains actually being just a parasite is at the same time funny, scary, and deeply ironic. And the idea of global warming (which lead to humans brains leaving human skulls as it became too warm for them!) wasn't much of a theory back then.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Lest we forget H.G Welle's ability to see into the future to envision things such as super highways and genetic manipulation and time travel.
But the Foundation/Empire Asimovian universe had a great charm due to what it lacked: specifics. Very little technology was described so none of it became outmoded(like some of the wacky gadgets from yesteryear's storytelling). Asimov just kept to conversations and witted confrontations:)
The features of great SF that really turn my crank and that have shown real endurance either in the marketplace or in the realm of influencing later writers have are things like Internal consistency--rules the effects of which impact the world and the characters Accessibility through the story first. So that rather than having to read a hundred page index on the rules of interstellar travel (one of my favorites, David Weber, does this kind of thing--it's cool enough in it's own way) you experience the rules of the world as the characters do. So you're plunged into the story and understanding the "rules" is emergent, *as long as you keep reading*. William Gibson loves this technique where the story is already underway and you're thrilling to the adventure before you fully grasp the implications of the methods/tech his characters are using. Unique vision-- something new, something original (not just the ideas, but the plotting too!) For example: In _The Diamond Age_ Neal Stephenson wrote what I consider an original plot that was also innovative in the ideas and technology, wherein to the question 'what would happen if nanotech worked?' his story responded with, 'a new Victorian era would result of course!' --- BUT, in the laundry lists of writers and their universes we've seen here, I think we're missing some of the greats like Brian Aldiss, James Schmitz, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. LeGuin, and many many other. I wanted to be among the first to add a special nod to Alfred Bester whose Tyger! Tyger! (aka The Stars My Destination) and The Demolished Man showcased consistent worlds were recognizably human while wildly imaginative and often more fun and exciting stories in 200 pages than the first 950 pages of the totally admirable but glacial _Dune_ . And of course Samuel R. Delany whose _Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand_ showed a universe of vast scope and rich ideas and intriguing technology beneath a deeply personal and intimate storyline with powerful characterization. (While you're at it, buy his Neveryon!, Trouble on Triton!, Dhalgren! Buy now!)
yes. that's all I'm going to say in all comments from now on.
You want the ultimate SCI-FI universe? How about the same high art, highly geometric, high contrast, high breed of cyberspace brought to life in the movie TRON and the first System Shock game? Or how about the cyberspace as imagined in Johnny Mnemonic where in order to connect to a remote computer, you had to strap on the 'trodes, tweak a few shapes in a 3D virtual space, blast past a big octagon that represents Citybank or American Express in a sort of similated sensory projection, that is, only if the intrusion countermeasures (ICE) don't fry your synapses to fuck first.
Now BOOM -- that kinda of shit strikes me as the real deal SCI-FI universe!
Icephreak
Artiste Extraordinaire!
OK, possibly Fantasy, but it's very well thought out. Almost scientific, if magic was real (I know, BIG "if") Pratchett would definitely be sci-fi.
The Science of The Discworld wouldn't have existed otherwise.
Although I agree with many of the opinions here both on great authors and what makes scifi writing memorable.
But there are some other, less notable and equally talented authors, such as Gene Wolfe, who has authored the Long Sun and New Sun series'. Wolfe combines a twisted sense of fantasy and bleak scifi futures.
Also Jeff Noon has some of the most original and far seeing scifi novels I've ever read. Noon's approach is similiar to Neal Stephenson's, in that he manages to twist reality into a familiar yet totally odd and foreign version of itself. Both cultures and characters are totally engrosing.
But personally the universe created by Niven and Pournelle (co-authors), which provides an indepth history and a believable level of technolgy. Also there are several novels and short stories all based in the same universe over an extended amount of time.
Plus Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, has to be one of the best sci-fi books ever.
Just my two cents...
You people need to get the current monthly short story sci-fi mags to get up to date. Analog (http://www.analogsf.com) and Asimov's (http://www.asimovs.com) are great, but also the Brit Interzone is excellent as well. Amazing Stories too...
The guy is fantastic - his books, almost without exception, meet everyone's criteria for what a good book should have:
- A great concept:
*Earth: A miniature black hole is in the earth's core - no one knows where it comes from, or how to keep it from killing everyone. People want to use it as a weapon, as our savior and as a God. Fantastic concepts of environmentalism, applied technology, personal relations and struggle.
*Heart of the Comet: Astronauts go to Halley's comet to explore and mine. Racial tensions between genetically altered people and 'normal' people plague how the people on the comet interact for the years as well as the aggressive, bacterial/viral/worm like life forms that live in the comet's Core. Full of good, hard sci-fi with all sorts of well-researched technical concepts and terms.
*The Uplift Trilogy: Humans begin the process of genetically altering Dolphins and Chimps so we can work together on space travel and science. By coincidence, the rest of the Galaxy does this as well, but according to a strict set of rules. Human spacers come across a drifting wreckage that apparently contains the last remnants of the legendary Progenitors of all the species.
- Believable characters (Many people are fallable and not all the hero's live and triumph... there is suffering along the way)
- Struggle, Adversity, Death and Triumph (who likes it when you know exactly what's going on?)
with good points to..
end troll
Stanislaw Lem and Solaris forever. Not some Asimov and Clarke junk.
If you like distant future, and have not read Arthur C. Clarke's "The City and the Stars", I would recommend it highly.
Good posting, except for the mis-spelling of the word Lotus. :)
Nice try, but according to the fons et origo:
Ou)d' a)/ra Lwtofa/goi mhdonq' e(ta/roisin o)/leqron
h(mete/rois, a)lla/ sfi do/san lwtoi=o pa/sasqai.
Odyssey, Iota 92-93
Yet the lotos-eaters did not determine upon destruction for my companions, but to them gave lotos to eat.
(The Greek is represented using betacode, a long-standing way of doing Greek in ASCII).
lwtoi=o is the Homeric genitive of lw/tos, as per Richard John Cunliffe, p. 253 of A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect. Outside ascii, lw/tos is spelled lambda,omega,tau,omicron,sigma, or as transliterated, 'lotos'. This is also how e.g. Tennyson spelled in (in his poem, "The Lotos - Eaters", the title of which translates the word Lwtofa/goi (Lotophagoi) in the first line I cited from the Odyssey). "Lotus" is the Latinized spelling, and so is not incorrect, but is less correct than "lotos". If you want to be pedantic.
Not that this matters, but hey, I couldn't let that one rest, man. I'll take the karma hit.
To get back on topic, the earliest genuine science fiction is Lucian (Greek, about 2nd c. ad, to Homer's 8th c. bc.). And of course there's that Kepler story about going to the moon the earliest "modern" SF story (though hardly SF by our standards).
For recent science fiction, though, you can't beat Dune, you're right.
"In five years, the penis will be obsolete," the anouncer said. I stifled a yawn.
Most of the Sci-Fi universes that I have read that end up encountering aliens or involving aliens always have 99% of the time, bipedal aliens.
Is this really a needed limitation?
On Earth, Humans are one of the few bipedal animals, birds being the second that come to mind although they seem to rely on flying to do most things. Now if we look at the animal world, we see animals with no-legs(snakes, slugs), two feet(birds, humans), four feet (being the most common in large animals), and of course the legs contine being multiples of 2 from then on.
If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
Brian Aldiss would fume at your use of 'SciFi'. It used to send him completely mad- I've seen and heard a few interviews with him, talking about either his own work, or the Sprees where he gets quite emotional about the use of the phrase. I think this attitude came about initially because it was used as a term of belittlement, by 'outsiders',back in the days of the pulps to around the 70s or so, when more of the general population started catching on that there were more ideas involved in a lot of works than your standard 'cowboys in space' type shit. But I think that now this pedantry in a bit superfluous- SF (or whatever) is taken much more seriously as literature, whether you're talking about individual writers, or as a whole genre. Because now moral crusaders have loads more things to wave a finger at if they want to blame the state of the world on evil/immoral 'Others', who are easily influenced by Communist/libertine/Muslim/anti-capitalist plotters, than just books. Incidentally, 'Billion Year Spree', or 'Trillion Year Spree' (by Aldiss) are both pretty good intros to classic science fiction. And 'Interzone' (short sf stories mag)was named after a William Burroughs story, who definitely should not be forgotten in this context. (...Ramble)
Everything I've ready by Williams rocked. He did Cyberpunk better than almost any other. The only book that comes close to Hardwired was Bad Voltage.
-- There is no truth. There is only Perception. To Percieve is to Exist.
Among the most enjoyable SF I've read has been the Chanur series by C. J. Cherryh. Interesting universe, characters, story -- and she's not a bad writer.
ELJ
that is the kind of sci fi i like best, the one that make you feel there or want to be there.
;) but was credible.
Reading Hyperion, i.e. I was each one of the characters it it own time, even when each one were very different from the others. Also the universe itself was very believable, and with special attention to the details. Maybe is not the most peaceful future universe available (a religion based in an Alien-like monster?
Of course, the best universe in scifi (? at least it touches a lot of scifi topics, in its own way) is Discworld
There is no argument... the _Dune Chronicles_ are the messiah of science fiction. Long live Dune!!!
I would have to say Asimov closely followed by Arthur C Clarke.
Although one of the best reads of sci-fi books I've read was an effort between Stephen Baxter and Arthur C Clarke, "The light of other days".
Don't read further if you haven't read the book yet, go read it because it's good. Basically The End of Eternity ties up with the rest by using an alternate timeline, its not part of the plot but at the end of the story like a wink for his fans. Here is a reminder of how it links with the Robot/Empire/Fundation series:
In the timeline of the book the A-bomb wasn't discovered in the 20th century and space travel thus didn't occur, Eternity occured instead and once Humanity attained it (when they can't change time) they found a galaxy filled with other lifeforms, with no uncolonised planets for Humans to expand, thus leading to stagnation, decay and death for Humanity.
At the end of the book, an anonymous letter is sent to Fermi (the RL physicist) that helps him form his theories and leads to the discoveries of the bomb, thus leading to space travel (because of the cold war space race maybe? I don't remember and maybe it was written before that?) 70 000 years or so and giving the opportuniy of the Robot/Spacers Universe (which will lead to the Empire stories and then to the Foundation).
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
A ballence of reality and hummor
Dr Who for example was always sereous but the Dr was a clown.
Bumbling with out seeming idiotic makes for a nice character makes the hero less than the viewer in the phisical but bestoing him a brain to give us advanced soltions.
Shurlock homes in the 22 century was an intresting cartoon while short of greatness becouse on the face of it you lose on two aspects...
Reality and Homes lacks a sense of hummor.
But it has that whole "using the brain to solve things" going for it.
Using high tech gadgets to solve a problem is kind of like "I was a god all along I smite you now" type answer.. it really blows the story.
Using high tech in creative ways is even better.
But the greatest is defeating the dualtronic hypermind with a logic puzzle, a bucket of water or a paper clip.
Again make it a smart.. Pulling the plug seams dumb and runs right back to the "I am god I smite you" solution.
Using the force may not be an inspired solution to targetting it's a smart one and given the whole introduction to the story it's a logical solution that dosen't come off as godlike.
Thow it wouldn't have pulled off so well if Darth Vader had not been kicked off Lukes butt by the unexpected (but think about it could he really do anything else?) return....
I think that could have been better played and make it seam more inspired.. But it's still a great example.
The "overwhelming odds leading to death" on the surface with a very obscure but knowable rabbit to pull out of a hat in the form of a smart action.
I don't actually exist.
What makes great science fiction? Great authors make great science fiction!
I list a few of them from the non-English speaking world that I happen to know and appreciate; I'll let the reader (if any this late in the discussion) check them on the web if s/he's interested:
Of course, authors need not write only, they can also draw or direct. So I'd like to add to these previous those of names Moebius (writer and artist) and Enki Bilal (writer, artist and film director), France.
As for Japanese science fiction, I'd like to know it more, but all that get translated around here is manga and anime. But I have to say that Ootomo Katsuhiro is great, and Anno Hideaki is wicked.
Xavier
Do I make sense? Please report if not.
Because Virginia Heinlein could still stomp your ass before breakfast, speaks multiple languages, has three degrees, is a redhead and a great dancer and skater. She also is ex-military in an era when women were not allowed combat roles. Sorry, bucko. Try meeting some women. They'll rock your world. Heinlein's people were drawn from his own experiences and acquaintances, which included serving with L. Sprague de Camp and Isaac Asimov in Philadelphia during WWII.
A 3 year old can understand geosynchronous orbits. Its a 24 hour orbit. Ohhh.... complicated...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.