Anyone know any good new SF writers?

Kim Stanley Robinson - Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars)

- explores the colonisation of a new planet (Mars), and all the problems / issues inherent in establishing a new society struggling to survive in a hostile environment, with a growing population, attempting to devise a new way of living that is a 'clean sweep' from the 'earth' way of doing thing, but continuously subject to encroachment from the old ways, with power struggles, pathological individuals, people attempting to work out how to live freely and fairly - how to defend a new way of living in a new community against budding pathology, descriptions of how new initiatives get undermined by entropy etc. Is something akin to the 'Building a New World' thread.
 
Dan Simmons Hyperion serie and most of Alastair Reynolds books are great especially the Revelation space serie.
 
I also vote for Kim Stanley Robinson, A. Reynolds and Dan Simmons (who is sci-fi/horror). They are all great writers with intriguing plots and enjoyable writing styles.
 
Rockimedes said:
It is nice to take a break form the Work every once in a while [...]

Having just finished 2 Martha Stout books, one from Robert Hare, and Barbara Olsen's Operators and Things, I was ready for a bit of lighten up. My Brit neighbors had recently offered up a stack of Terry Pratchett books. I had never heard of him and the cover art was almost corny, but what the hey. I started on the one on the top of the pile. It was like Monty Python meets Tolkien and Rowling.

Pratchett writes stories about life on Discworld, a flat circular planet supported on the backs of four very large elephants who are standing on the shell of a 10,000 mile long turtle which swims through space. The laws of physics do not apply there, as the entire planet runs on magic.

The Pratchett books are great fun and they deliver an STO moral... in a round about way. The Work need not be all heaviness.
 
I didn't read a lot, but I was invited to read Orson scott Card.
I really appreciated The Homecoming saga and the Ender saga for instance.
 
Nathan said:
Greg Bear - not really sci-fi, more techno-thriller, but Vitals was good

I love Greg Bear (no relation) ;) His older stuff is -very- hardcore sci-fi...by older, I'm talking mid-80's stuff. Blood Music, The Forge of God, Eon.
A newer book that you might find very Paleo-interesting is Darwin's Radio.
 
Anything by Arthur C Clarke

especially the Odyssey Series. 2001: Space Odyssey the movie by Stanley Kubrick was made from his first book 2001. There was a movie also made about 2010: Odyssey Two. But 2061, and 3001 remain without flicks but are both super awesome (especially 3001 which is my favorite of the series)

Child Hood's End is another good one and Tale of Ten Worlds.

I will soon start reading some of his new ones Time's Eye and Sun Storm.
 
What a great topic for a thread. I have always loved Sci-Fi and Fantasy, although lately, I have found that all I ever read is related to the Work. However, reading many of my favorite authors listed above definitely evokes a sense of nostalgia :).

So many fond memories of immersion into imaginary worlds: the Hyperion Series (I preferred book 1 and 3 but those were very powerful, indeed).

The Gap series (and if you like Donaldson, don't cheat yourself to his fantasy work, The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Coventant. He is currently working on the final trilogy of the Thomas Covenant series).

Enders Game and Speaker For The Dead were outstanding. It should be no surprise that this is one of the few times that an author (Card) has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards during the same year. Also I believe it was the only time that sequels have won the award. Richly deserved. The two last books to the series were weaker in my opinion. Also Ender's Shadow about Bean and Shadow of the Hegemon were quite worth reading.

I really like many of the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks. In my mind Excession and The Player of Games stand out as the best.

I highly second and third the recommendations of the Reality Dysfunction series (Hamilton) and Alastair Reynolds (Revelation Space, ect.) as well as Vernon Vinge.

When we're speaking Asimov it all has literary interest as he was one of the founding fathers of Sci-Fi who you can't skip. I highly recommend the Foundation Series although it's many years since I've read it.

However, I find that my two current absolute favorite authors have not been mentioned and that has to be remedied! They are genre-transcenders and therefore not classical Sci-Fi or Fantasy but just phenomenally good. Firstly do yourself the favor of reading China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station" and "The Scar". He is imaginative beyond description and his style and language is hard to describe. It is as a sensory overload where you're left with your jaw hanging at your chest, thinking "what just happened". I believe that those are his best novels to date. His latest "Kraken" is also good but in a completely different setting and in my opinion, not quite the tour de force of the others.

If you haven't read any Neal Stephenson, you're in for a treat. He just keeps getting better and better. His book Snowcrash is a genre-definer and just as seminal and important as Gibson's NeuroMancer - just better written. The Diamond Age is probably a bit outdated by now. Cryptonomicron is a great read but not really Sci-Fi at all. It'd be more accurate to label it near-fiction and the trilogy called the Baroque Cycle is nothing less than breathtaking in scope and an accomplishment that rivals Tolstoy in depth and quality. It is about the development of natural science, finance, the European Royal houses, adventure, alchemy from the 1600s to the 1800s. It's massive but well worth the read.

Lastly, I can not recommend his latest book Anathem enough. It is about a sort of what-if world that resembles Earth and is very interesting with many mathematical, philosophical and spiritual aspects that I found very rewarding while on my own Path.

Check out China Mielvill and Neal Stephenson and you won't be disappointed :)
 
Not new, but Stanislaw Lem is probably the best Sci-Fi writer I have ever read.

Some of his that are well worth reading

The Cyberiad
His Masters Voice
Memoirs found in a Bathtub
The Futurological congress

Very funny, smart, and deep books. Can't recommend him enough.

Also not new, but quiet mind bending is the Kinda Sci-fi book 'Voyage to Arcturus' By David Lindsay
A kind of progression of different philosophical ideas from a scifi/fantastical viewpoint.
 
I had lots of fun reading Julian May's Saga of The Pliocene Exile; read it more than once and still enjoy it.
 
Thor said:
If you haven't read any Neal Stephenson, you're in for a treat. He just keeps getting better and better. His book Snowcrash is a genre-definer and just as seminal and important as Gibson's NeuroMancer - just better written. The Diamond Age is probably a bit outdated by now. Cryptonomicron is a great read but not really Sci-Fi at all. It'd be more accurate to label it near-fiction and the trilogy called the Baroque Cycle is nothing less than breathtaking in scope and an accomplishment that rivals Tolstoy in depth and quality. It is about the development of natural science, finance, the European Royal houses, adventure, alchemy from the 1600s to the 1800s. It's massive but well worth the read.

Lastly, I can not recommend his latest book Anathem enough. It is about a sort of what-if world that resembles Earth and is very interesting with many mathematical, philosophical and spiritual aspects that I found very rewarding while on my own Path.

Check out China Mielvill and Neal Stephenson and you won't be disappointed :)

Thor, I totally agree with you on Neal Stephenson. I hesitated posting about him here because although he is shelved under SciFi not everything he does is. Unless you consider that he writes fiction and science always plays a big role. The Baroque Trilogy and Anathem are awesome. I advise reading the Baroque Trilogy before Cryptonomicon, because the characters in Cryptomicon (which takes place in the 1990s) are all descendants of characters in the Baroque Trilogy.

Also, Stephenson's sense of humor is top-notch. He is hilarious, IMO.
 
Ah thanks Thors, I forgot about China Mieville as well but it's not really sci-fi at all, more like a fantasy world with magic and some steam-punk technology thrown in it.

I really like the world he created through his Perdido Street Station and The Scar books.
I thought that he described some kind of police state overshadowing the city but it's more a background than anything else if I recall correctly.
 
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