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Top 10 New Sci-Fi/SF Authors?
Dukebytes asks: "I am looking for the new RAH/Piers Anthony/Roger Zelazny/Weis & Hickman etc..., of the world. I have read just about everything I could find on King Aurthur, all of the Dragon Lance stuff, and all or most of the 'old school' hardcore. I don't know, I have maybe 4000 books at home, most of them Scifi/SF. I am looking for some new stuff. I haven't bought any kind of book other than techie for more than 2 years. I just keep reading the ones that I have over and over and over. What are you guys reading? If it is a series, please list ALL of the books in it!"
I've found a rather good liking for some of Gregory Benford's work. If I'm not mistaken, he's a Physicist, so he approaches his work in the same sort of manner. The characters might not be all that great, and his main characters are almost always University professors who end up facing tenure issues, but it's an interesting read.
I've also found, for things that are sort of out there philosophically, that Greg Egan is pretty cool. I haven't seen any new books by him recently, but I'd suggest Permutation City, Diaspora, and Quarantine as some interesting things to check out.
yours,
kbs
Anyway:
There you go!
grib
maybe
I know how you feel. I own about 2000 books, so there are a lot of times when I go into my local second-hand bookstore and don't find anything I want to read at all. The posters who suggest you branch out have a good point, and I can provide some input as to "Mainstream for Science Fiction Fans" (remember that anthology, "Science Fiction for People Who Don't Like Science Fiction"?)
:)
Note that some of these authors are not new, but you may not have gotten around to them (or heard of them) yet:
W.P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe Comes to Iowa, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, and If Wishes Were Horses, which are sort of "magic realism" fantasy (no orcs, elves, or swords to be seen!).
Stephen King, (bear with me!) The Dark Tower series, which is sort of dark, parallel-world fantasy drawn from contemporary popular culture, and not really like anything else King's ever written.
Tom Holt, Only Human, Snow White and the Seven Samurai, and Ye Gods!, which is sort of similar to Douglas Adams, only with less philosophy and more social skills.
Douglas Coupland, Girlfriend In A Coma, which is a complete departure from Microserfs.
Donald J. Skal, Antibodies, a very overlooked little tome on people who want to become machines.
Frank Norris, McTeague, written in 1899 and has probably one of the scariest endings ever written. Ok, so it's not SF, but it might count as horror, and it's definitely a classic book. I love this book and think it's a really great read. Norris doesn't pull any punches, so it's really gritty without any flowery phrases to be found.
Theme anthologies are also a great way of discovering "new" authors, as are subscribing to SF magazines. But I'm sure you knew that already.
Adviso: Keep in mind that I'm heavily into Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad, Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Stephen King, and Cordwainer Smith (among others), and I despise Tolkien and all the other sappy fantasists who take themselves seriously, so take with the appropriately-sized grain of salt.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Banks isn't entirely new, but he remains largely and undeservedly undiscovered. You can read all about him on my Iain Banks website.
I would also say that if you have not already read Greg Egan, especially his book, Diaspora, do so. This is first-rank hard sf at its best!
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