Any good science fiction written in the last two years?

[MaxDepth]

I have a great used book store just up the street from me and lately I have been reading scifi and fantasy paperbacks going back into the late 40s and early 1960s. Neat stuff like "The Roads Must Roll" story about giant conveyor belts like the ones at the airport that progressively get faster as you step on the next one as a means of moving people without using automobiles. Also, later stuff like Zelzany's "Nine Princes in Amber" is about fanatasy worlds, which given the current level of CGI tech, would be able to pull this off.

But I have not kept up with anything new. I have been reading Harry Turtledove's alternate world series on what if the South had won the Civil War. His newest book in the series will be out late July. But back to scifi...what is the newset thing? What is being extrapolated into the future? I still don't have my flying car, by the way. But is there anything good being written in the last two years?


Thanks.

 

[pontifex]

i haven't been keeping up with new sci-fi. i ordered a sub to sci-fi magazine (still waiting on the 1st issue) to help me keep up with stuff.

i've been reading a lot of older books (sci-fi and fantasy) from the 20s-60s or so. some really good stuff. for sci-fi, i recently read the Lensman series and the Skylark series by E. E. Doc Smith. The first Lensman book is slow but after that they really pick up. The SKylark books can be really slow and very technical but overall a good read.

for fantasy - Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series by Fritz Lieber and I'm currently reading the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard.

 

[lokiju]

Phillip K. Dick

 

[MaxDepth]

Originally posted by: lokiju
Phillip K. Dick

Yeah, I loved everything he wrote. I knew he must have had some metal problems or societal issues to come up with all those paranoid, loss of indentity stories. But he's been dead for 25 years. So unless he was scientologist, I don't think we will see anything new come from him.

I wonder if scifi is truly moribund? Are there any new frontiers to write about? Are we just recycling older issues?

* 50's - stories about great expansionism, and belief in the inherent goodness of humanity.
* 60's - stories about internal workings of man, more discussions of the future and how man can and cannot cope with changes
* 70's - dys-utopias and the negative side of the future (probably blacklash from Vietnam war and Watergate)
* 80's - pop culture stories. video games and computers become more personal.
* 90's - ??? (anybody know?)
* 21st century - ???

 

[sao123]

Go back and read Ender's Game...

and then all 7 of the sequel books for it...

Speaker for the dead
Xenocide
Children of the mind
Ender's shadow
Shadow of the hegemon
Shadow puppets
Shadow of the giant

 

[cKGunslinger]

For a decent short story, I'm a fan of Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom".

It's available as a free download in multiple formats.

The story is about the near-future, in which death has been "cured" - ie, people can now live forever. If they do die, they can regen a body and download the mind from the user's last backup.

Also, they is no money system. Eveything is based on a constantly changing "respect and reputation" hiearchy. Every time you meet someone, you can pull up a HUD with that's person "worth" represented as a numerical value. A person who spends his time doing "good " deeds and such earns the respect of others, and this respect is accumulated. If you fvck up, your score drops and people are less inclined to "give" you things. There is really no concept of ownership. If you are really respected, you have a nice car. If you reputation drops, someone else can simply take it with no repercussions. Everyone has a base-line score, so you can always get a meal and a cramped place to live, no matter how much people dislike you.

It's pretty interesting, IMO.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
For a decent short story, I'm a fan of Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom".

It's available as a free download in multiple formats.

The story is about the near-future, in which death has been "cured" - ie, people can now live forever. If they do die, they can regen a body and download the mind from the user's last backup.

Also, they is no money system. Eveything is based on a constantly changing "respect and reputation" hiearchy. Every time you meet someone, you can pull up a HUD with that's person "worth" represented as a numerical value. A person who spends his time doing "good " deeds and such earns the respect of others, and this respect is accumulated. If you fvck up, your score drops and people are less inclined to "give" you things. There is really no concept of ownership. If you are really respected, you have a nice car. If you reputation drops, someone else can simply take it with no repercussions. Everyone has a base-line score, so you can always get a meal and a cramped place to live, no matter how much people dislike you.

It's pretty interesting, IMO.

sounds somewhat interesting. i really don't understand the whole reputation-as-money concept though. kinda weird. i don't get how it determines when you do a good deed or bad deed...

 

[DaveSimmons]

A little older than 2 years, but good:
Stephen Baxter - Manifold: Time
David Brin - The Kiln People

For fans of Doc Smith, Brian Daley, James Schmitz:
Sharon Lee & Steve Miller - Partners in Necessity

 

[Kadarin]

Current:

Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star and its sequel, Judas Unchained. Very intense.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
For a decent short story, I'm a fan of Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom".

It's available as a free download in multiple formats.

The story is about the near-future, in which death has been "cured" - ie, people can now live forever. If they do die, they can regen a body and download the mind from the user's last backup.

Also, they is no money system. Eveything is based on a constantly changing "respect and reputation" hiearchy. Every time you meet someone, you can pull up a HUD with that's person "worth" represented as a numerical value. A person who spends his time doing "good " deeds and such earns the respect of others, and this respect is accumulated. If you fvck up, your score drops and people are less inclined to "give" you things. There is really no concept of ownership. If you are really respected, you have a nice car. If you reputation drops, someone else can simply take it with no repercussions. Everyone has a base-line score, so you can always get a meal and a cramped place to live, no matter how much people dislike you.

It's pretty interesting, IMO.

sounds somewhat interesting. i really don't understand the whole reputation-as-money concept though. kinda weird. i don't get how it determines when you do a good deed or bad deed...

"It" doesn't, other people do. There's lots of imbedded nano-techonology involved. You can call someone simply by thinking (and then sub-vocalizing to talk) due to communcations devices implanted in you.

Basically, whenever you "admire" or "respect" someone, your little devices and microprocessors figure out what that is worth, and transmit this to that person's account.

 

[wyvrn]

Fantasy: George RR Martin's A song of Ice and Fire series. (you also mentioned fantasy in your OP).

 

[TheNinja]

Ted Dekker

 

[mundane]

Kind of cyber-punkish and sci-fi combat is Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies.

 

[everman]

The singularity is near. Futurist/Scifi fun stuff, not a novel.

 

[lokiju]

I'm reading Eragon right now and it's pretty decent IMO.

 

[BatmanNate]

I have my doubts that PK Dick wrote anything in the last two years, since he's been dead for the last 24.

 

[lokiju]

Originally posted by: BatmanNate
I have my doubts that PK Dick wrote anything in the last two years, since he's been dead for the last 24.

Think your sarcasm meter needs new batteries.

 

[TheAudit]

I'm a fan of John Ringo and David Weber.

 

[Zolty]

Originally posted by: sao123
Go back and read Ender's Game...

and then all 7 of the sequel books for it...

Speaker for the dead
Xenocide
Children of the mind
Ender's shadow
Shadow of the hegemon
Shadow puppets
Shadow of the giant

QFT

and the prequal book First Meetings isnt that bad either.

 

[xit2nowhere]

I would HIGHLY recommend Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series (7 books in total). It is not really sci-fi, but more of a fantasy with a mix of old western
I think it is his best work so far, even to or even greater than "The Stand" and "It".
A must read for all fantasy fans !!! :thumbsup:
Also, if you are a sci-fi fan, you must definitely play the "Fallout" games
Best RPG ever !!!

 

[Lumathix]

Originally posted by: diegoalcatraz
Kind of cyber-punkish and sci-fi combat is Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies.

:thumbsup:
Excellent author, and novels.
I was going to post this

 

[Lumathix]

Originally posted by: wyvrn
Fantasy: George RR Martin's A song of Ice and Fire series. (you also mentioned fantasy in your OP).

This is my current favorite fantasy author

 

[destrekor]

depends on how 'deep' you want to dive into the science-fiction genre.. a light refreshing dip into it would be stuff by Michael Crichton, although its more thriller fiction with hints of science-fiction than pure science-fiction. his last book, State of Fear.. actually was really good. at least I thought so. i also liked Prey, but a lot of people compared it as jurassic park on a microscopic scale.

 

[sao123]

Originally posted by: Zolty

Originally posted by: sao123
Go back and read Ender's Game...

and then all 7 of the sequel books for it...

Speaker for the dead
Xenocide
Children of the mind
Ender's shadow
Shadow of the hegemon
Shadow puppets
Shadow of the giant

QFT

and the prequal book First Meetings isnt that bad either.

Oooooh... aint seen that one yet.