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!"

Too obvious?

[dmah]

Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, Diamond Age.

My Scifi picks

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are my picks. I'm sure you already have most of the books if not all.
TV Series

Babylon 5: The best TV series ever
Futurama: Eat Bender's shiny a.. FOX!!!!

Books

Asimov's any book, but especially Nightfall
Tolkien's "The lord of the Rings"
David Brin's Uplift series
Frank Herbert's Dune series
C.J. Cherryh's "Finity's End"
Catherine Asaro's Skolian universe
Orson S. Card's "Ender's Game"
Dan Simmons' "Endymion" and "The Rise of Endymion"
Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series (especially Watch series)
Ursula K. LeGuin's "A Wizard of Earthsea"
Roger Zelazny's "The Chronicles of Amber"
Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee's "Rama" series
Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep"

Neil Gaiman

[demi]

His books are better than they have a right to be. Don't know about series, but I really enjoyed American Gods [amazon.com], Stardust [amazon.com] is a great adult fairy tale, and Neverwhere [amazon.com] was the book that got me reading fantasy again after a decade-long break.

Tad Williams: Great Fantasy AND Sci-Fi

[backlonthethird]

Tad Williams "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" trilogy is probalby the best fantasy I've read, period (apologies to J.R.R.). Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell, To Green Angel Tower are the book titles.

He also is writing an epic sci-fi cycle called "Otherland." A cross between the Matrix, classic cyberpunk, and Alice in Wonderland. High, High quality.

more info on his website [tadwilliams.com]

Re:good hard sci-fi stuff

[Bondolo]

Benford's endings are horrible. Often it seems that things are moving along with the plot and then suddenly the writer hit a deadline so wrote 5 more pages to conclude the book.

In one case, after 3 books of a series he introduced a tie-in to his other series in the last 2 pages.

But then again, a good book with a bad ending is better than a bad book any day.

Dozois anthologies

[Onan The Librarian]

Gardner Dozois edits a yearly anthology of science fiction that has turned me on to a variety of excellent new (and not-so-new) authors. To name a few whose work I'll read anytime: Lucius Shepard, William Sanders, Michael Swanwick, Robert Reed, Howard Waldrop, Terry Bisson, Ursula LeGuin, Mike Resnick, Kathryn Rusch, Karen Fowler... well, just about anyone he selects. I know there are other interesting yearly anthologies out there, and occasionally I buy one, but I've been purchasing Dozois's every year for the past 8 years. Worth checking out, might even be at your local library.

Internet Top 100 List

[chandoni]

As much as I hate to do this to the site, check out the Internet Top 100 list [geocities.com]. Google it if it's slashdotted.

Not hard SF, but still excellent

[DaveQat]

Check out China Mieville [panmacmillan.com].

I haven't read his first novel, King Rat [barnesandnoble.com], yet, but the reviews are good.

I can say, however, that Perdido Street Station [barnesandnoble.com] and The Scar [barnesandnoble.com], both set in the world of Bas-Lag, are incredibly good reads.

Mieville's writing has been described as slipstream - a new genre that incorporates steampunk, SF, and gothic horror. I'm not sure about the classification, but I'm eagerly awaiting his next book.

Re:My Scifi picks

[Kong the Medium]

For Dan Simmons better start with "Hyperion" and "Fall of Hyperion". "Endymion" and "Rise of Endymion" are the 3rd and 4th book of the series.

Some Recommendations

[haplo21112]

1. Elizabeth Haydon
2. David Drake
3. Terry Goodkind(although perhaps not exactly new)
4. George RR Martin(again not exactly new but you didn't mention him)
5. Tim Zahn
6. Brian Herbert - son of Frank

My Sugestions

[Thauma]

One good way to find new Sci-Fi and fiction authors is to follow the awards. I generaly like many of the Hugo and Nebula canidates... (The winners are not always the best of the bunch imho)

You can also try short fiction available electronicly, FictionWise.com generaly has free stories available as well as a good selection of new authors as well as classics.

Terry Pratchet

[dubbreak]

I love douglas adams and this guys writing style is very similar (very humorous yet full of amazing inovations). His big book "Theif of time". Of course if you haven't read every Isaac Asimov book yet that could keep you busy for a few years.

Re:Neil Gaiman

[swordgeek]

Damn! As soon as I saw the subject, I was going to jump in and recommend Neil Gaiman. However, SOMEONE beat me to it!

So the best I can do is second it. I'm reading American Gods right now, have read Neverwhere, and have the entire Sandman series of comics. (As a friend said, Gaiman disproves the statement that all 'adult comics/graphic novels' are written by (and for) horny 20-year-olds who never got laid. Neil is simply one of the best authors alive today.

Re:Tad Williams: Great Fantasy AND Sci-Fi

[Anonymous Coward]

Otherland is more accurately described as a cross between shit and boredom.

Benford is new?

[Paulo]

Gregory Benford has been around since at least the early 80s. "Timescape", his most famous novel, is from 1980.

I'll second the recommendation about Greg Egan, though. The guy is wicked cool. You can read some of his short stories in his web page (don't have the link handy, just google).

The last 'new' author I read

[drinkypoo]

Or at least new to me, was Storm Constantine. At the time I had no idea who she was and I dropped like twenty or thirty bucks on a single-volume trilogy called Wraethu. I think the first book is called something like The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, or maybe that's me somehow combining more than one title from the series... Anyway, quite a good read but the characters are a sort of new transhuman third gender so if you're squeamish about that sort of thing, try something else she's written. It's brilliantly depicted and has a lot of depth and is really quite entertaining.

A Sci-Fi author people tend to miss somehow who I really like is C.J. Cherryh, she's amazingly prolific and has quite a large body of interconnected work. Much like most of the works of McCaffrey, everything takes place in the same slice of reality, which is something I've always enjoyed in a sci-fi author. I started with The Pride of Chanur (first of four? books in a series) and I think the next series I read was Cyteen (a trilogy). 40,000 in Gehenna would be a good step after cyteen... Then run around and fill in with other books :)

As for people who you shouldn't have missed, and probably didn't, but really ought not: Vernor Vinge, and Walter Jon Williams. WJW has written some fairly trashy cyberpunk (Hardwired) which is basically a stroke-piece in the same way as Snow Crash (but also entertaining in many of the same ways - WJW isn't NEARLY as flowery as Stephenson, which is frequently a good thing) and also a fairly thought-provoking novel called Aristoi which is heavy on the nanotech, and far future. Vernor Vinge is amazing, the first book of his I read was a fire upon the deep; also check out a deepness in the sky.

Hopefully you've already read everything here; If not, hope this helps. Regardless, for everyone else and posterity, my statements stand.

Peter F. Hamilton

[Anonymous Coward]

Peter F. Hamilton

this is one of my favorite recent authors

he wrote :

the Greg Mandel series
Mindstar Rising
A Quantum Murder
The Nano Flower

The Night's Dawn Trilogy
The Reality Dysfunction
The Neutronium Alchemist
The Naked God
A Second Chance at Eden (same timeline)
The Confederation Handbook (Fact book about the Night's Dawn books)

also
Fallen Dragon
Mispenth Youth

I've read all his books, they are like crack :)

I first discovered his books with the Reality Dysfunction wich is the start of the Night's Dawn trilogy (about 3k pages in total)

I can recommend all his books but I especially enjoyed the Nano Flower and the Night's Dawn trilogy (sixtology in the US ?).

He combines nice characters with real identities and some cold hard sience fiction, nice plot's and a golden touch.

K. Langley

Now with formatting

[markh1967]

Iain M Banks
The Culture series
Consider Phlebas
Player of Games
Use of Weapons ---best SF book I've ever read
Excession
Look to Windward
Other SF
Against a Dark background
Feersum Enjin

His non-SF books written as just Iain Banks (no M) are also strange, thought-provoking, and very well written.

Peter F. Hamilton
The Night's Dawn trilogy
The Reality Dysfunction
The Neutronium Alchemist
The Naked God
Not really a series but with recurring characters
Mindstar Rising
A Quantam Murder
The Nano Flower
Other
A second Chance at Eden
Fallen Dragon

If either of the above have passed you by then you're in for a treat
--
Input error. Replace user and press any key to continue.

How about...

[metlin]

...David Zindell?

I'm surprised that I've not seen any Slashdotters mention Zindell at all.

He has written a really wonderful series, which stemmed out of Shanidar [infinityplus.co.uk] - an award winning short story of his.

Then came Neverness [deepamber.com] , which was truly breathtaking. Splendid mix of story telling, science, philosophy and strong character portrayal with a touch of sarcastic humour. Truly amazing SF.

After Neverness came a series of 3 books under the series called Requiem for Homo Sapiens, following the storyline of Neverness.

This contains The Broken God [deepamber.com] , The Wild [deepamber.com] and War in Heaven [deepamber.com] .

You might just want to try a few sample Epigraphs [aol.com] from his book as well as visit this fan site [deepamber.com].

Truly awesome, truly inspiring.

My suggestions

[oh2]

I always seem to happen upon new and exciting books in this Genre. This is some of what I like. (YES I like Military SF) Here goes :

David Feintuch : Midshipmans Hope, Challengers Hope

David Weber : Anything, he is brilliant.

David Drake : Hammers Slammers and, well just about anything

Steve White : Insurrection, Crusade, In Death Ground, the Shiva option

Eric Flint : 1632, 1633, the Belisarius series

Peter F Hamilton : Nights Dawn trilogy, A quantum murder, The Nano flower, Fallen Dragon

John Ringo : Gust front, When the devil dances, A Hymn before battle, March Upcountry, March to the sea, March to the stars

Alastair Reynolds

Harry Turtledove

SM Stirling

Well, that's a few at least. Should keep you occupied for a few weeks. Have fun!

David Brin

[AuraSeer]

David Brin is one of the best writers I've seen in a very long time. His most recent book, Kiln People, was reviewed on /. not too long ago.

Re:sf? sci-fi?

[RedWizzard]

"SF" is what "serious" science fiction people (authors, SF journos, fanatics, etc) like to call the genre. They consider "Sci-Fi" to be a slightly derogative term for it.

George R.R. Martin

[guyo26]

The Song of Fire and Ice series. Highly recommended.

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/

David Weber

[Lechter]

I wouldn't call him a "new" author, but he seldom seems to be in the traditional top-10 or 20. Even so, Weber writes excellent books in the military-sci-fi vein. They're seldom "high art" or particularly thought provoking, but the characters are generally pretty good and the stories themselves are fun reads largely due to Weber's approchable style.

Of his books, I'd recommend the trilogy that begins with The Armageddon Inheritance [amazon.com] is a lot of fun. If you like that then you should check out his Honor Harrington Series [amazon.com], which is also excellent

Re:Harry Potter

[vortmax(OU)]

Nah, book 4 is the best one in the group! And it's true, the books are much better than most of us would think: My friends had to convince me to read these "kids' books", and I'm quite happy they did!

By the way, book 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix [cnn.com], is supposed to be coming out June 21! We'll see whether that actually happens or not...

Re:good hard sci-fi stuff

[Ray Dassen]

I've also found, for things that are sort of out there philosophically, that Greg Egan is pretty cool

AOL on that. On the hard SF front, I also enjoy
Alastair Reynolds [tripod.com]'s work (e.g. Revelation space). Other writers I'd recommend are Peter F. Hamilton (in particular the Night's Dawn [tripod.com] series - wide-vista space opera with a touch of horror), Allen Steele [sfwa.org] (Clarke-esque near-future SF), Robert Charles Wilson [robertcharleswilson.com] and on the more slipstreamy side, Michael Marshall Smith [michaelmarshallsmith.com] and Jeff Noon [jeffnoon.com].

My recent reading list

[pogle]

-Peter F Hamilton's Nights Dawn Trilogy

-George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series (book 4 coming soon!)

-Jack Whyte's Camulod Chronicles (Historical fiction on King Arthur's grandparents, very very good)

-Tom Clancy's Red Rabbit (been reading bits and pieces for months)

-Robert Jordan's WOT #10, Crossroads of Twilight (his slowest read ever though, and not too good IMO)

-Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series

-Orson Scott Card's Shadow Puppets, the latest book in the Bean series (Enders Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon preceeding)
-Also the rest of Card's Ender series (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the mind)

-Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash

-Search for an online book, The Heretic. Got it from a friend, he said there was free downloads--very cool hacker type book, equates it to spellcasting and such

-Tolkien's LotR, Silmarillion, etc

-Anything by Robert Ludlum

-Clive Cussler novels

Some of these are oldies, but still good. Not all are fantasy or scifi. I've got a ton of others, but these are all the more recent ones (although in most cases it was re-reading them for the millionth time).

Lois McMaster Bujold

[gorilla]

Winner of 4 Hugo's, 2 Nebulas, and oodles of nominations.

Encyclopedias...

[RedWizzard]

You should consider checking out the Encyclopedia of Fantasy [amazon.com], and the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [amazon.com], both edited by John Clute. They won't get you onto the very newest stuff (check out the SF magazines and awards for that), but you're bound to find some good older authors you haven't read.

Not "new", just better.

[Doktor Memory]

I couldn't tell you who the top ten "new" science fiction authors are, but I can tell you one thing: you've been cheating yourself by consuming a lot of churned-out-by-committee crap, one identical "novel" after the other.

Instead of looking for the next endless, pandering "series" a la Weis & Hickman or (shudder) Piers Anthony, why not investigate some of the actual artists in the field? As about a dozen people above have already pointed out, we have these things called the Hugo and Nebula awards -- we give 'em out every year, and it's usually a safe bet that at least a few of the winners are worth your time to read.

A few authors and books you owe it to yourself to check out if you actually think you like this genre:

"A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge
"White Light" by Rudy Rucker
"Gun, with Occasional Music" by Johnathan Lethem
"The Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe (this one's actually part of a "series", but Wolfe is a strong enough writer to make me forgive that)
"The Shockwave Rider" by John Brunner
"Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" by Haruki Murikami
Any of Harlan Ellison's mid-to-late 1970s short story collections. "Shatterday" is probably the strongest.
Anything by Thomas Disch (start with "Camp Concentration")
Everything by Alfred Bester.

And, god forbid, you could consider reading something other than SF&F occasionally. Non-genre "literature" needn't be a soul-crushing Lit 101 experience: grab a copy of "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez or "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter Thompson and go to town...

Where to start?

[Nicholas Schumacher]

Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Cyrptonomicon, The Diamond Age)
Guy Gavreil Key (The Fionavar Tapestry)
Lois McMaster Bujold (the Vorkosigan books)
Mercedes Lackey (the Valdemar novels)
Michael A. Stackpole (Dragoncrown cycle)
Spider Robinson (the early Callahan books)

and a must read:
Terry Pratchett (Diskworld novels)

Those should keep you busy for a while :-)

Seriously good sci-fi

[yawble]

I am also a big sci-fi buff, end up reading about one book/week. My personal favorite is Nancy Kress, she has a serious on geneticlly altered children and how they cope. VERY good stuff.
Also if you like sci-fi w/ a good sense of humor, try Steven Brust. He has a "Taltos" series thats kinda fantasy, but still damn good. Brust also has some more hard core sci-fi titles, but i'll let you find those on your own ;)

Robert Asprin is pretty good, but again, hes more of a fantasy tilt. The best place to find new good sci-fi IMHO would be the Issac Asimovs monthly magazine [asimovs.com]. They have short stories, novellas, and novellettes. Thats where i've found most of the outstanding authors i've come across.
Happy hunting!

Re:Tad Williams: Great Fantasy AND Sci-Fi

[Malacca]

While Otherland began well, the rest of the series became a plodding exercise in frustration. The second and especially the third failed to develop the plot in a timely fashion and to me, became more of a chronicle of someone's roleplaying game sessions. A shame as Williams has the ability to write better.

In contrast, "Donnerjack" by Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold explores similar themes and concepts and manages to do so, and well in a single volume novel.

At the time of his death, Zelazny had a couple of unfinished books, the other is "Lord Demon". Both were completed by Jane Lindskold who succeeds in capturing the Zelazny voice which is no mean feat.

James Morrow & Michael Bishop & Christophe

[millia]

Two names there that don't get enough credit. Both will stretch your mind, and both do stuff that runs along the border of SF & Literature.
Morrow is the most savagely satiric writer i've ever read. His Godhead trilogy (google for it) is so full of humanity, that summarizing it (what happens after god's body crashes to earth) is trivializing to the nth degree. Although I would say that any of his stuff is brilliant, good starting points are the trilogy and the book of short stories, "Bible Stories for Adults"
Michael Bishop's work encompasses both straight and SF subjects. My favorite is entitled "Brittle Innings" and is about minor league baseball during WW II- but there's a twist. "Close Encounters with the Deity" is a book of short stories all dealing with religion in SF.
Finally, for pure humorous writing, do check out Chris Moore. While it's not SF, or even really fantasy, it's absolutely hilarious stuff with a touch of the fantastic. "Practical Demonkeeping" is a great starting point.

A different stroke

[Anonymous Coward]

Four different authors that I've found particularily refreshing after the usual scifi mumbo jumbo:

1/ Jack Whyte
http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Litera ture/Au thors/W/Whyte,_Jack/
Incredible "historical fiction" about "king Arthur" which you've read everything about - but never written or explained like this man does it. No magic but man, what a wicked story about the fall of the roman occupation of britain and the evolution of Camolud. In order: The Skystone, The Singing Sword, The Eagles Brood, The Saxon Shore, The Sorcerer: The Fort At Rivers Bend, The Sorcerer: Metamorphisis. Uther is the latest and the new one will be called "The Spear Thrower" (title in progress).

2/ Janny Wurts
http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Litera ture/Au thors/W/Wurts,_Janny/
The cycle of fire is pretty traditional - for a one off romp try "Master of Whitestorm" or, for a less traditional series (but an amazing read), try the series: Daughter of the Empire, Servant of the Empire, Mistress of the Empire.

3/ Glen Cook
http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Literat ure/Ge nres/Fantasy/Authors/C/Cook,_Glen/
Definately dark and grim, his Black Company series has you rooting for the "bad guys" - a company of mercenaries working for evil: The Black Company, Shadows Linger, The White Rose, Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel, Bleak Seasons, She Is The Darkness, Water Sleeps, Soldiers Live

4/ Guy Gavriel Kay
http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Literatu re/Ge nres/Fantasy/Authors/K/Kay,_Guy_Gavriel/
Haven't read all his other works, but the Sarantine Mosaic was really, really good. Sailing to Sarantium, Lord of Emporers.

Enjoy.

Re: Internet Top 100 List

[Black Parrot]

> As much as I hate to do this to the site, check out the Internet Top 100 list [geocities.com].

Nice site, but kind of odd. Frinstance, I've read most of the Vorkosigan novels and either "enjoyed" or "really enjoyed" almost all of them... but #3 on the list?

You get similar oddities if you grep for an author (say, Jack Vance) and look at the order his books show up relative only to each other.

I think the problem is that there doesn't seem to be any sort of weighting by the total number of votes cast, with the result that a few avid fans of one book or series can put it far out of sequence.

OTOH, I suppose that if you filtered out all the older stuff then this method of ranking might be useful for answering the question posed by the Slashdot query.

BTW, O geeks, there's a juicy patent waiting for whoever solves the problem of internet polling. If you don't like software and business method patents, do it first and get that prior art!

Spider Robinson

[kent_eh]

For light, fun reading: any of the Calahan's books.
I also enjoyed the Lifehouse/Deathkiller/Time Pressure series. An intersting, if optomistic future view.
And finally, Stardancer, co-written with Jeanne Robinson was good for a bit of a mind bending.
Oh, here's his web site [spiderrobinson.com]

Re:don't forget

[rgmoore]

And The Big U, which is even earlier than Zodiac and, IMO, even funnier and more interesting. Both Zodiac and The Big U also seem to be from before Stephenson developed his every so annoying tendency to end his novels without wrapping up loose ends decently.

The "heirs" of Heinlein & Zelazny

[doofusdan]

Ok, I hate that "this writer is so and so's spiritual heir" thing, but if you really like an author, reading stuff by another person who really likes that author can be a good thing. A lot of good suggestions have been made already, so I'll name two that I haven't seen yet.

If I had to pick someone for Heinlein, I'd say check out John Barnes. A good one to start with is Mother of Storms.

And for a big Zelazny fan, Stephen Brust's Jhereg/Taltos series is excellent. Some of the earlier books have be republished in 3-in-1 editions. His non-Taltos stuff is even better, but it's hard to beat the Taltos books for sheer fun.

In the fantasy world, Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy is one of the best new fantasy I've read in ages.

Also, Guy Gavriel Kay is INCREDIBLE. Start with the Fionavar Tapestry, then read everything else he's ever done.

Some other newer folks:
Wilhelmina Baird (start with the clipjoint trilogy)
C.J. Cherryh, esp. Cyteen - though the new Foreigner series is great.
Last, I really liked Tim Powers' Declare.

Check out http://www.fictionwise.com, they have lots of micropayment short stories; great way to check out an author. (US$0.50 for a short story, read it on your PDA...)

That High-Pitched Keening Sound You Hear...

[RobotRunAmok]

...is dear Roger Zelazny twirling about beneath the ground as a result of being separated by a mere comma from Weiss & Hickman.

That being said, allow me to throw my support behind the Tad Williams fantasy and SF, mentioned elsewhere, as well as the standalone books by Guy Gavriel Kay: "Tigana," "A Song for Arbonne," and "The Lions of Al-Rassan." These are all self-contained, yet have the "epic" feel that most authors only achieve in trilogies or better. (If I'm not mistaken, it was Kay that was tapped to finished off some Tolkien fragments prior to their posthumous publication; when you read his stuff, you'll understand how he got that gig.) Kay also wrote something called "The Fionavar Trilogy" which I tried and couldn't get through, but which the reviewers said was a modern re-mixing of Arthuriana, so maybe you read it and are familiar with him...

Even though cyberpunk is so-o-o-o-o 1994, you should probably hit up the Gibson 'Sprawl Trilogy," or at least "Neuromancer."

Baen Books has just released David Weber's newest Honor Harrington book, "War of Honor," and for the price of the hardback you get the print version, and the entire rest of the series that preceded it on CD-ROM, along with artwork and a bunch of maps and stuff. I highly recommend the series, and supporting Baen's brave and innovative efforts in digital distribution.

The Goerge R R Martin trilogy (kings... thrones... swords... sump'n like that) is better than most (I've only read the first one so far).

Look, we could be here for days. "Fantasy and SF" covers a lot of ground. You want to narrow it down to Sword&Sorcery, Cyberpunk, Empowered Lesbian Telepaths, Space Opera, or some other popular sub-niche, we can really get down to brass tacks...

Some less obvious suggestions

[Dr. Smoe]

There have been plenty of good suggestions (like Gaiman and Stephenson), but here are some less obvious ones:

1. Syne Mitchell - There's a reason she won the
Compton Crook Award for her debut novel.
2. China Meiville - "Urban" fantasy may be the
best term for it, but the writing is simply
brilliant
3. Susan R. Matthews - an exceedingly talented
SF author
4. Kristine Smith - another great new SF writer
5. P.C. Hodgell - the best fantasy writer you
never heard of

And, while I think the anti-SF people who tell you to dump the genre are insufferable snobs, I do think that doing some reading outside of the genre stuff is a good idea.

Good luck.....

Iain M. Banks -- this time with formatting!

[Xeger]

MODS AND READERS: Please note that this comment is a duplicate -- the original appears somewhere below, and was posted without formatting because of a slip of the mouse. In that state it was unreadable, so I had no choice but to repost. (When, oh when, will we be able to edit our posts?)

Despite his wacky first name (just say "Ian"), Banks is really worth a try. He isn't originally a sci-fi author by trade; his first book (The Wasp Factory) was a contemporary novel, but we've seen some of his very best work since he started writing his Culture series of novels. And Iain Banks, even at his worst, is better with prose and with ideas than many sci-fi authors at their best.

His primary science fiction offering is a series of novels set in the distant future (perhaps 10,000 years from now), chronicling the adventures of humanity's descendents. The Culture is a vast interstellar civilization, a pseudo-anarchic meritocracy comprised of dozens of humanoid and nonhumanoid races -- it's unclear whether homo sapiens were founding members of the Culture, or if they joined the Culture sometime after its development, or even if they exist at all. Members of the Culture are referred to as "human" throughout the books, but Banks follows the panspermia hypothesis, so many of his races share the same basic biochemical and physiological traits.

The Culture has spread to perhaps 10,000 systems, filling space with planets, starships and Orbitals -- immense, ringworld-like structures that house as many as 100 billion people. In all, the population of the Culture is probably around 500 trillion (that's 5.0x10^14) souls. Of these, a sizeable fraction are plain old biological humans, and the rest of them are digitized people, Minds, or group minds.

The lifespan of a human is somewhere from 200 to 500 years; Culture citizens, the result of thousands of years of genetic tinkering, could conceivably extend their lives indefinitely. But human existence is seen as a sort of gestation period, and after a few hundred years of life, most biologicals get bored and euthanize. After death, they are converted into electronic form and continue to pursue an active and vigorous life in the collective virtual reality that forms the real meat-and-bones of the Culture.

Many of the Culture's most powerful citizens are Minds, vast, artificially-created intelligent constructs with dozens or hundreds of threads of consciousness. Typically, any structure or vehicle larger than a personal transport is inhabited by a Mind.

The Mind doesn't merely control the machine, the Mind is the machine, able to interact with the physical world using its "body" which is the ship, or house, or city, or Orbital, or whatever. Of course, a Mind could also be simultaneously inhabiting a dozen different android "avatars," manifesting itself as a holograph in front of an audience, and corresponding with other Minds in a virtual reality.

OK, all this is well and good -- but what can you expect from a Banks novel?

• No strife. Material wealth is meaningless when resources are unlimited. In the Culture, social reputation counts more than money. There is no standard form of money; rather, Minds operate factories in every habitat to provide (quite extensive) basic goods and services for free, and luxuries are traded through the social network.
• No death. People (and other entities) die in Banks novels, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Despite the fact that nobody is ever in any danger, and would just end up being restored from backup if he were to die, there is still plenty of suspense in a Banks novel -- I can't describe it; you'll just have to read and find out for yourself.
• Fantastic combat. Banks has a magnificent style when it comes to combat, both space- and ground-based. He runs the whole gamut, from exotic antimatter weapons and computer metaviruses, to simple bladed combat and projectile weapons.
• Intensely cerebral discourse. Because so many of Banks' characters are hyper-intelligent Minds, you'll often find a few paragraphs of calm discussion between Minds in the middle of an intense combat sequence.
• Great human characters. Whenever Banks introduces a character, you come to care about the person, his likes and dislikes, his motivations -- even if he's only a minor character. Banks' characters really come alive like no other.

Sarah Zettel ; James Alan Gardner ; C. S. Friedman

[Samrobb]

Suprised no one's mentioned them yet...

Sarah Zettel:

• Fool's War
• Playing God
• Kingdom of Cages

Highly recommended: Fool's War.

James Alan Gardner:

• Expendable
• Vigilant
• Ascending
• Trapped

Highly recommended: Expendable, Trapped.

C. S. Friedman:

• Black Sun Rising (Coldfire book #1)
• When True Night Falls (Coldfire book #2)
• Crown of Shadows (Coldfire book #3)
• In Conquest Born
• Madness Season
• This Alien Shore

Highly recommended: The Coldfire trillogy (fantasy), This Alien Shore (SF).

Re:Tad Williams

[aardvarkjoe]

I've read most of the Otherland series -- however, mostly because there are just enough good ideas to keep my attention. They're not good books by a long shot. My biggest complaint is that I haven't read about a more boring set of characters since Jane and Spot. If you want to find something interesting to read, I'd recommend you look elsewhere.

Gene Wolfe

[devphil]

Is one of the absolute best SF authors currently writing, and one of the reasons is that his longer works (the multi-volume The Book of the {New,Long,Short} Sun series, to throw a little shell expansion into the discussion) do not follow anything like what people usually think of when they think "SF".

Also, Wolfe isn't like the current crop of writers that assume you have no imagination nor brain. Or rather, he doesn't write for the current crop of readers who have to have everything spelled out for them. Your brain will be required to work to understand what's happening in his books, and you will love it.

I recommend The Book of the Long Sun if you're new to Wolfe. He's more famous for New Sun, but that one can be a hard introduction for new Wolfe readers (i.e., people whose brains are still mush from reading Robart Jordan).

Here [clara.net] is an essay he wrote on Tolkien. Here [op.net] is a randomly-chosen Gene Wolfe page with links to other GW pages, but with spoilers for the books, grrrrr. Turn your brain on and have some fun. :-)

Re:good hard sci-fi stuff

[jovlinger]

> AOL on that

cute. Took me a while to get.

Anyways. Jeff Noon is one of those fantastic authors who resists classification into either fiction, SF, or just plain enjoyable. Highly recommended.

For a more litterate approach, I'd recommend some Borges. John Brunner can often be found in bargain bins. Get "Stand on Zanzibar" and "Squares of the City". Both good. I've read "The Infinitive of Go", but couldn't tell you what it was about. Forgettable.

I'd like to unrecommend Baxter, whose superb Xeelee series lured me into buying the deplorable Manifold series. Titan also blew. These books are bad enough to have me contemplating demanding a refund. Yes, I do have a bone to pick with him.

Similarly Greg Bear started very strongly with two or three Eon books, the great children-revenging-earth series, and some really good near-future detective stories, but recently has severely dissapointed with both "Darwin's Radio" and "Vitals". He has yet to earn a blanket disrecommendation: two duds out of 10 odd books ain't bad, but it is worrying that both duds were in a row. This suggests that like Baxter he may be searching for a new twist/style , and is not finding one.

Perennial favorites (by virtue of liking all their books) are Ken Mcleod and Iain Banks. Both write fairly unchallenging, but very fun, space opera. Watch out for Mr. Bank's non-SF output, which is not up to the level of his SF (IMHO).

Bugger the "amerikano's" - UK & Aussie top wor

[Facter]

Top ten of the "newer" scifi authors. (not in any particular order)

1) Jeff Noon - top. seriously. wow. every single person that reads slashdot must read this guy. Im warning you!! Read him or suffer the fate of never having read him!! Im serious!
2) Sean Williams and Shane Dix - man. Aussie authors rock, vast space opera. Nice guy too.
3) Sean McMullin - more aussie rightness. any of them, but Souls in the Great Machine is fukin awesome.
4) Alystair Reynolds!!!! Tech space opera.
5) Ken McLeod!! OMG serious slashdot geek lover conspiracy gone mental writing...
6) Greg Egan - dont get me wrong, I love his stuff...but I love his earlier stuff where he wasnt trying so hard to make "a political difference" in some way with his stories much better,,plus I have issues with his feelings on immigartion and his boring anti-"cult of personality" thing..but, regardless...read Permutation City or Quarantine. Wow. Eh, Teranesia is good too...
7) China Mieville - Holy shit! The Scar and Perdido street staion. Mind blowing.
8)Iain M Banks - with the M. Need I say more?
9) Jon Courtney Grimwood - the Arabesk stuff. Amazing alt-history series. Blow go boom.
10)Interzone Magazine - okay, so I'm cheating, its not one author - but the stories and the format are fukin amazing - seriously, it is my favorite scifi magazine, and gives a wonderful cross section of non-amerikan-centralised works. A lot of Australian and British etc authors. Go get a copy and subscribe, you wont be disappointed.

Just wanted to throw this in to keep away fromt he us-bias that makes up the majority of this list =P

F.

a huge sf and fantasy author list, with comments

[Ludoo]

http://sfandf.owlcroft.com/authors.shtml [owlcroft.com], many of them may be found as ebooks, either legaly or ehm you know what I mean =)

noticed nobody mentioned the Assassin series by Robin Hobb (aka Megan Lindholm), one of the best books i've read in the past couple of years.

3 new guys

[Anonymous Coward]

I may not have scrolled far enough down but I can't believe nobody so far has mentioned these 3 guys:

Alastair Reynold (Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark)

M. John Harrison (Light)

Karl Schroeder (Ventus)

And I would agree with the above suggestions of:

Neal Stephenson
Ian M. Banks
Vernor Vinge (especially the old stuff like 'Marooned in Real Time')
William Gibson
Ken McLeod

Oh, and stay away from Lesbian SF writers; they never get anything right (tech, people, character development).

Re:good hard sci-fi stuff

[orthogonal]

jovlinger's recommendations are on target. (Though I can't say I've heard of McLeod.)

Ley me also say that I just finished, and pretty well enjoyed David Brin's Kiln People, despite its flirtations with Dr. Roger Penrose's "quantum mind" silliness. (No, I'm usually far to respectful of hard-science Ph.D.s to call their theories "silly", but for Penrose's speculations outside his own field, I'll make an exception.)

I'd mod jovlinger's post up, except I wanna make my own recommendations too. (Sorry. It's not all about Karma, is it? Oh.)

Re:Too obvious?

[jovlinger]

The best part of Snow Crash was the nuclear-powered railgun called Reason, because everyone listens to Reason...

That and rat-thing.

The best: Lois McMaster Bujold

[penguinland]

If you're going for Sci-Fi, one of the greatest authors out there is named Lois McMaster Bujold. Although few people have heard of her, she has won several Hugo awards and at least one Nebula award for her wonderful science fiction. Her Vorkosigan series starts with a book called Shards of Honor, although the first two books in the series have been grouped together in a book called Cordelia's Honor. I enjoy her work because it has most things you can want in a story: war, political sneakiness, a love story, action, adventure, etc. But above all, I like Bujold because she writes about round, dynamic, believable characters. They have strengths, fears, insecurities, everything that real people have. It makes the stories more believable than most other writers (who have great stories, but characters with little or no background). Give Bujold a look - she is easily my favorite writer.

Try a more relevent site?

[Xtifr]

Why "ask slashdot"? Wouldn't it make more sense to check out some SF related web sites for information and suggestions about SF?

Now I have an unfair advantage in that I live near not one, but two, high quality stores specializing in SF (Other Change of Hobbit and Dark Carnival, both in Berkeley CA), and I get a lot of recommendations by going in there and looking at their recommended shelves, or asking people who work there what's new and good.

If you aren't lucky enough to have a good SF bookstore nearby, then you might want to try some SF websites. This year's Hugo voting included the category of web site (a "one-shot" category that I hope will become permanent in future).Locus Online [locusmag.com], the Hugo winner, and SF Site [sfsite.com], which came in third, are my two favorites. Both are full of book reviews (and author interviews, and links to other interesting sites. (The second place Hugo vote went to the SciFi Channel's [scifi.com] website, which is more oriented towards TV and movies than written SF, but still might be worth a look).

And speaking of awards, the various SF & Fantasy awards are a great place to look for recommendations. Check out the nominee list, not just the winners (it really is an honor just to be nominated), and don't forget to check out other works by the same authors. If you don't like short stories, you should still check out the winners (and nominees) in the short-story categories; they may have written some good novels too. Locus Online (link above) has extensive listings of the major SF awards.

That said, here's a few authors who have been high on my must-read list recently: Lois McMaster Bujold, David Brin, Orson Scott Card, C. J. Cherryh, Greg Egan, Tom Holt, Guy Gavriel Kay, Nancy Kress, Jane Lindskold[1], Ken McLeod[2], Wil McCarthy (yes, one 'l'), Jack McDevitt, Patricia A. McKillip, Robert Rankin, Allen Steele, Neal Stephenson, and Connie Willis. I probably included a few that qualify as "old school", there, and left out a few thinking they were "old school" that you may never have heard of, but such is life.

HTH

[1] Lindskold is an associate of, and collaborated with Zelazny, and is well worth checking out if you like Zelazny, IMO.

[2] MacLeod is the only SF writer I know of who has mentioned Linux in his SF. Others, most notably Stephenson, have mentioned it in non-fiction writings, but only MacLeod so far has embedded it in his fictional future.

Re:Miles Vorkosigan

[steveha]

Arrgh. Wrong link. The above link points to the Baen page on Bujold; here is the correct link to the Baen Free Library page for Bujold, with "The Mountains of Mourning".

http://www.baen.com/library/lmbujold.htm [baen.com]

steveha

Re:Iain Banks & The Culture

[JPRelph]

He seems to be pretty popular over here in the UK, I have no idea how much he sells, but most high street bookstores tend to carry a fair selection of his work. His books all tend to be very good, but some really do shine out, Excession and Feersum Endjinn are absolutely superb.

Reading List

[VoidEngineer]

So, here's my 2 cents worth:

Jordan, Robert
Wheel of Time Series
Books: Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, The Shadows Rising, The Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, A Crown of Swords

Herbert, Frank
The Dune Series
Books: Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emporer of Dune, Heritics of Dune, Chapterhouse: Dune, Dune: House Atraides, Dune: House Harkonen, Dune: House Coronin

Gaiman, Neil
The Sandman Series
Preludes and Nocturnes, The Dolls House, Dream Country, Seasons of Mist, A Game of You, Brief Lives, Fables and Reflection, World's End, The Kindly Ones, The Wake

Rice, Anne
The Vampire Chronicles
Books: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil, The Vampire Armand, Merrick, Blood & Gold, Blackwood Farm

King, Stephen
The Dark Tower Series
Books: The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, The Waste Lands, Wizard and Glass

Rollings, JK
Harry Potter Series
Books: Sorcerer's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Pheonix

Stephenson, Neal
Books: Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon

Dick, Philip
Books: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The Man in the High Castle, The Dark Haired Girl, Confessions of a Crap Artist, Divine Invasion, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, Galactic Pot-Healer, The Game-Players of Titan, Martian Time-Slip, A Maze of Death, Radio Free Albemuth, A Scanner Darkly, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, We Can Build You, The World Jones Made

OLDER / HARDCORE

Gibson, William
Books: Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive

Brooks, Terry
The Shannara Series
Books: The Sword of Shannara, The Elfstones of Shannara, The Wishsong of Shannara, The Scions of Shannara, The Druid of Shannara, The Elf Queen of Shannara, The Talismans of Shannara
The Landover Series
Books: Magic Kingdom For Sale -- Sold! The Black Unicorn, Wizard At Large, The Tangle Box, Witches' Brew

Tolkein, J.R.R.
Fellowship of the Rings, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales

Hubbard, L. Ron
The Mission: Earth Series
Books: The Invaders Plan, Black Genesis, The Enemy Within, An Alien Affair, Fortune Of Fear, Death Quest, Voyage Of Vengeance, Disaster, Villainy Victorious, The Doomed Planet
Also: Battlefield Earth, Dianetics

Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Series
1600+ other books and articles.

Wells, H.G.
The Time Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Monroe, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds

Verne, Jules
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Around the World in 80 Days

OTHER

White Wolf Publishers
Mage: The Ascension, Vampire: The Masquarade, Wraith: The Oblivion, Werewolf: The Apacolypse, Hunter: The Reckoning
(I figure that if you're reading DragonLance, that you're also probably playing some D&D or AD&D. If so, you may want to consider switching from TSR to WhiteWolf. I only suggest this because you've asked slashdot for some new reading.)

Doctorow, anyone?

[cel4145]

These have been mentioned on Slashdot before, but worth mentioning again here:

Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom [craphound.com] is a fun read. Besides, the "true" first edition seems to be the online one available for free download. The print edition is still unavailable on amazon.

You might check out salon for his stories Ownz0red [salon.com] and Liberation spectrum [salon.com]. Both are somewhat didactic, but they contain messages that most of this crowd will appreciate.

Re:Iain M. Banks -- this time with formatting!

[theCulture]

I thought thanks to my /. name I had to reply to to this post!

I can more than recommend Iain Banks' novels. The society of the culture is a fascinating study in what might be. I really agree with the previous post, but in fact think [s]he's sold Iain Bank's SF credentials, and the idea of the Culture itself, somewhat short.

He displays good understandings of physics, underpinning his plots with intense realism - you can believe that what he writes one day may come to pass. The Culture does not descend from humanity (at least not from earth), as evidenced by one short story included in 'The State of the Art' [amazon.com] (Although amazon.com says that it's out of print?) where the culture are examining earth (and us) and evaluating us. This seperates them nicely from us, giving Banks more freedom of expression, in my opinion.

Also, Banks actually started out as a SF author. In an interview I saw with him a few months ago on BBC 4, he admitted that he had written several SF short stories (a few of which are published in TSOTA [amazon.com] mentioned above) before turning to conventional fiction.

He also has a wicked sense of humour, instantly recognisable. The ship's ideosyncratic names illustrate this nicely (meatf*cker anybody? :)

All in all, do take a look. Well worth it - and his 'normal' fiction too, while I'm at it. I would write all day about his books, but the best way is to just take a look yourself. Happy reading.

Re:The new Piers Anthony?

[yossie]

My favorite authors, in no particular order, of recent years:

Greg Egan - well, OK, he is my FAVORITE, by far, of the lot. Permutation City is incredible, Diaspora is fantastic too. Of the lot, Distress is the least well done (only relatively so).

Wil McCarthy - only read one of his, The Collapsium, but already bought two more - expect them to be equally fun.

David Brin

Greg Bear

Gregory Benford

Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky are both great - incredible alians

Paul J. McAuley - the Confluence trillogy is wonderfully fun to read

Stephen Baxter - The Time Ships, Ring, etc.. All good

Enjoy - Yossie

Re:good hard sci-fi stuff

[Mandi Walls]

To the "hard sci-fi" list i'd like to add

Peter Watts - Starfish and Maelstrom

Eric S. Nylund - Signal to Noise and A Signal Shattered

Someone else in reply to this post suggested Noon, but I just can't get through his stuff. Anybody wants my mostly unread copy of Vurt, you're welcome to it.

--mandi

The human factor

[JPRelph]

Just to clarify on the human thing. The books are set at varying times, Consider Phlebas was set about 3000 years ago, and the rest of the books are not too far removed from our time, just far more advanced species of humanoid. One of his short stories, "The State of the Art" is set during the 1970s, and involves a Culture "Contact" ship and crew visiting Earth, and is mainly about their decision whether or not to contact us. They decide not to, but do in the next century or two (although that's mentioned in a different book). For human just read humanoid really. Also, while people can be transcribed into electronic form, if they do decide to auto-euthanise, they do actually die, completely. As for the Minds, I always remember that quote, the "If god did not exist, then we would have to create one" one (Voltaire, probably misquoted but it was like that). The Minds are basically created Gods in the way that WE would make them. Almost infinitely powerful, caring, fair, but with their own very unique personalities.

Re:good hard sci-fi stuff

[Snorlax]

For hard science fiction, I liked Vernor Vinge's work, particularly "A Fire Upon the Deep", and his Across Realtime series ("The Peace War", "Marooned In Realtime", etc...).

David Brin's Uplift series ("The Uplift War", etc...) was also good, but not really hard-core hard science fiction.

Re:Iain M. Banks -- this time with formatting!

[cosmosis]

Wow, I posted about Iain Bank early on in this story, see above. But I thought I'd mention it again here. I would love to do more with the site, but I just don't have the time. Here it is, Culture Shock [floatingplanet.net]

Xeger - Nice comprehensive overview of Banks by the Way!

Planet P Blog [planetp.cc] - Liberty with Technology.

Re:Too obvious?

[billstewart]

Cryptonomicon was more fun if you knew half the people in it :-) The "Secret Admirers", the small company offices in Los Altos, an awful lot of inside jokes. Some of the jokes were inside for a much broader Silicon Valley audience ("Enhancing Shareholder Value....") and people who live near leftie-academia ("War As Text"). And, ok, Stephenson's never been that good at endings.

Re:King Aurthur?

[DeComposer]

And since when did Fantasy get classified the same as Science Fiction? The two are very definitely NOT the same! It's fine to read one, the other, or both; but don't lump them into the same literary category.

Modern Sci Fi Classics

[arrogance]

Neal Stephenson (who also wrote under the name Stephen Bury, title Interface: great book). I know he's been mentioned here, but it's worth reiterating. All of his books are great reads. Speaking of polymaths, it's amazing the number of people who say they've read everything good but have never read Stanislaw Lem (not recent I'll admit, but worthy of mention). He's the Ultimate sci-fi author: totally bleak, compelling, funny as hell. Other somewhat more recent stuff: William Gibson (Neuromancer et al), Bruce Sterling (The Difference Engine), Cory Doctorow (haven't read it but it's a free distro and was just mentioned on /. [slashdot.org]). The Culture novels by Iain Banks are wonderful. Have you read all of Orson Scott Card?

Didja Google [google.com]? The tenth result lists: "2000 Thunderhead, D. Preston & L. Child: not sci-fi, but a standard southwest American Indian-based mystery with a smattering of archaeology Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson: excellent!, but an acquired taste, massively long; essentially two parallel tales of the Southwest Pacific, the Philippines and Indonesia split between World War II and today, with characters in the same families figuring in both threads; a long treatise on cryptography, with such characters as a young Alan Turing, and an invented Scottish Hebridean island; a bit of a treasure hunt spiced up with borderline criminal intent Darwin's Radio, Greg Bear: biological sci-fi, a rare sub-genre Enchantment, Orson Scott Card: not sci-fi, on the border between folk-tale and fantasy; this is not Card's normal genre, and he has immense fun with it; quite humorous, with an edge 2001 The Silk Code, P. Levinson: another entry in the genre of biological sci-fi, with a focus on the Amish and the Mennonites, with a bit of Neanderthal thrown in Perseus Spur (v1), Julian May: a trilogy with attitude, her characters are in the Dashiel Hammett or Humphrey Bogart vein, true smart alecks that have lots of odd and bad things happen to them; mixed up with planetary corporations gone bad, and other familiar villainy; she has always written well, but her humor is in the fore here Orion Arm (v2), Julian May: Sagittarius Whorl (v3), Julian May: Pegasus in Space, Anne McCaffrey: if you're familiar with her short stories about "Pegasus" (contemporary and a little in the future attempts to study and control real human psi powers), this is the first full-length novel in that series The Book of Q, J. Rabb: very good; not sci-fi, but another "hidden document" mystery/adventure with (again) the overtones and background of early Christianity, this time with conspiracies and Ludlum-esque action starting in contemporary war-torn Eastern Europe The Eye of Horus, C. Thurston: not sci-fi, but a cross between Egyptology, archaeology, and a forensic mystery; a surprisingly good first novel, parallel threads between ancient Egypt and contemporary events Wheelers, Ian Stewart & J. Cohen: a cross between the "mysterious alien artifact" genre and warring academic factions and "save the world" situations"

Re:Too obvious?

[Wiwi Jumbo]

Diamond Age *killed* me... there was so much cool technology in the book and just when it seemed like something was actually going to happen the book ends.

It's because of Diamond Age that I haven't read Zodiac yet... I don't want to be let down.

here's a good list

[on the 8ball]

I have also read thousands of SF books and these are some of my favorites. Try reading one book by each author and you will be happy for months. Not all are new, but all are good to great (IMHO).

==A==

Kevin J. Anderson, Poul Anderson, Patricia Anthony, Isaac Asimov, Robert Asprin

==B==

Kage Baker, Iain M. Banks, John Barnes, William Barton, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Ben Bova, David Brin, John Brunner, Lois McMaster Bujold, Chris Bunch

__C__

Orson Scott Card, Jeffrey A. Carver, Jack L. Chalker, C. J. Cherryh, Arthur C. Clarke

__D__

John Dalmas, Philip K. Dick, Gordon R. Dickson, William C. Dietz, Stephen R. Donaldson, David Drake

__EFG__

George Alec Effinger, David Feintuch, Alan Dean Foster, Robert Frezza, William Gibson

__H__

Peter F. Hamilton, Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, James P. Hogan

__KL__

Nancy Kress, Henry Kuttner, Keith Laumer, Fritz Leiber, Ursala K. LeGuin, Paul Levinson

__MN__

Ian MacDonald, Ken MacLeod, Susan R. Matthews, Julian May, Anne McCaffrey, Jack McDevitt, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Elizabeth Moon, Larry Niven

__PR__

H. Beam Piper, Frederik Pohl, Terry Pratchett, Mike Resnick, Kim Stanley Robinson

__S__

Fred Saberhagen, Robert J. Sawyer, James H. Schmitz, Charles Sheffield, Robert Silverberg, Dan Simmons, Norman Spinrad, Allan Steele, S. M. Stirling

__TV__

Sheri S. Tepper, George Turner, Harry Turtledove, John Varley, S. I. Viehl, Vernor Vinge

__WZ__

David Weber, James White, Connie Willis, David Wingrove, Timothy Zahn, Sarah Zettel

Stephenson and King

[dekraved]

Stephenson may not be the deepest writer out there, but they are fun, imaginative stories. I especially recommend "reading" them in audio form [audible.com] - the people who read Snow Crash and Diamond Age do a great job and they keep you entertained without requiring absolute attention.

Also, it's not quite sci-fi, but I highly recommend the novellas Stephen King wrote under the name Bachman: Running Man (better than the Arnold movie, not that the movie was bad), Long Walk (both quite presciently anticipating the reality television craze), Roadwork, and Rage (which got nailed a while back when some kid really did hold his classroom hostage). More than any books I read when I was a kid, these really stuck with me. They're very well executed, and much better that his terrible Everything's Eventual.

Terry Brooks

[JS7773]

Terry Brooks is one of my favorite authors.

from www.terrybrooks.net...
The Original Shannara Trilogy
The Sword of Shannara
The Elfstones of Shannara
The Wishsong of Shannara

The Heritage of Shannara
The Scions of Shannara
The Druid of Shannara
The Elf Queen of Shannara
The Talismans of Shannara

A Shannara Trilogy Prequel:
First King of Shannara

The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara

Ilse Witch
Antrax
Morgawr

The Ard Rhys of Shannara
Jarka Ruus (forthcoming September 2003)
Book Two (untitled, forthcoming September 2004)
Book Three (untitled, forthcoming September 2005)

The World of Shannara
The Sword of Shannara Trilogy

The Magic Kingdom of Landover
Magic Kingdom For Sale -- Sold!
The Black Unicorn
Wizard At Large
The Tangle Box
Witches' Brew

The Word & the Void Trilogy
Running with the Demon
A Knight of the Word
Angel Fire East

Other Works
Imaginary Friends (short story)
Hook (novelization)
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (novelization)
Sometimes the Magic Works (forthcoming March 4th, 2003)

Some Great Authors...

[Matrix2110]

No particular order.

Neil Stephenson (any book)

Leo Frankowski (Adventures of Conrad Stargard series)

Terry Pratchett (Discworld series)

Simon R. Green (Deathstalker series)

L.E. Modesitt Jr.(most any book)

C.S. Friedman (Coldfire Trilogy)

Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series)

Steve Perry (Matador series)

Orson Scott Card (Ender series)

Terry Brooks (Sword series)

Robert Jordan (Wheel of time series)

Terry Goodkind (Sword of truth series)

Alan Dean Foster (most any book)

Eric Frank Russell (most any book)

Keith Laumer (Retief series)

Glen Cook (Black company series, Garret, P.I. series)

Pick up most any book by these authors and you are in for a treat! I included the "old school" authors Russell and Laumer because they tend to get overlooked. I promise you that Hamilton and Goodkind books are almost impossible to put down.

Cory Doctorow is an impressive newcomer as well with "Down and out at Disneyworld" Located here: (for free!) http://www.boingboing.net/

Enjoy!