Modern Sci Fi Book recommendations?

[strung out]

I quite liked Ready Player One initially, but it is basically garbage. Not very well written, basically the contents of various nerdy Wikipedia pages, and definitely some slightly dodgy gender tropes which soured my view on it.

 

[campanula]

Um,not exactly sf but have to mention Brian Catling's Vorrh. I rarely stray into fantasy but I bloody loved this trilogy (The Vorrh, Erstwhile and Cloven).

 

[Scaggs]

Recently discovered R R Haywood on Audible. I'm about half way through 'The worldship Humility' and it's been good so far. His stuff doesn't seem to be available in book form yet though?

 

[Idris2002]

It is beyond shit, it's so deeply shit that it transcends shit to become the Ur shit, a shit diamond if you will. Concentrated shit distilled with a heady aroma of incel adjacent gatekeeping,

So it's if Heinlein was a Gen Z guy, is that what you're saying?

 

[A380]

So it's if Heinlein was a Gen Z guy, is that what you're saying?

Fuck off. His politics were shit, most of the time, but his storytelling was second to none and his writing well and truly passed the Orwell test. In his later years he was actually a great writer, passing himself of as a pulp writer to make a point about writing. His politics remained shit however.

Moon is a harsh mistress is unequivocally one of the top 20 SF books of all time and I think one of the top 5 . Starship troopers set up a whole field of SF , and reads like something 20 years before its writing date ( shit politically though it is). Personally I can’t stand Stranger but it was definitely one of the few SF books to influence wider society. His juveniles basically created that genre and 75% of them still stand up today.

 

[Chz]

I don't know how "modern" you could call him (I think he's fairly old school), but I'm going to recommend some Greg Bear on account of he died yesterday.

Greg Bear obituary

US science fiction writer whose novels combined a wide-ranging view of future technical developments with political speculation

www.theguardian.com

 

[Idris2002]

I was going to respond to A380 with a snide comment to the effect that Heinlein sure influenced ol' Charlie Manson, but the Great Gazoogle seems to contradict that old story:

MANSON AND HEINLEIN

Rudy Rucker is certainly entitled to his opinion about the values to be found in Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Dec.23), though the science-fiction fans who voted it a Hugo Award, and its several million readers, obviously disagree.

www.latimes.com

 

[A380]

I was going to respond to A380 with a snide comment to the effect that Heinlein sure influenced ol' Charlie Manson, but the Great Gazoogle seems to contradict that old story:

MANSON AND HEINLEIN

Rudy Rucker is certainly entitled to his opinion about the values to be found in Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Dec.23), though the science-fiction fans who voted it a Hugo Award, and its several million readers, obviously disagree.

www.latimes.com

Seen that before. But I still think Stranger is shit and hate that it is Heinlein's most 'famous' book.