The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion
2000-2014
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What SF are you reading now, 2000-2014?
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Jim
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May 07, 2017 04:18AM
For books you're reading now that fit this definition of Modern SF, post 1971.
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Alliance by S.K. Dunstall is the second of his linesman trilogy (so far). It's an SF book in the future where humans are using a strange, incompletely understood technology to travel among the stars. I gave it a 4 star review here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
At the moment I'm halfway in Children of Time. It's a great tale of the decay of earth and mankind and the struggle of the last group survivers, trying to find a new home while fighting their ongoing conflicts. They find their green planet, populated with spiders and ants, led in their evolution by a sattellite containing the last surviver of earth's glory-days, ages ago. Fascinating.
Leo wrote: "At the moment I'm halfway in Children of Time. It's a great tale of the decay of earth and mankind and the struggle of the last group survivers, trying to find a new home while figh..."This is on my to read list so i'm glad it's good. I'm doing so little reading at the moment, I can probably nominate it when we get to modern day again in a few months!
Isaac Asimov's Forward the Foundation, a 1993 prequel to his Foundation Trilogy. And next I plan to start Becky Chambers' A Closed and Common Orbit. I really enjoyed her debut novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
I'm reading Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. It seems awfully long for the amount of story, but it's pretty good. A lot of interesting ideas & twisty plot lines.
I finished Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds & gave it 3.5 stars in my review. Huge, rich, & pretty fantastic story, but it took too long. I wonder if the writing is any tighter in his later books or if this is just his style. Anyone know?
Jim wrote: "I finished Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds & gave it 3.5 stars in my review. Huge, rich, & pretty fantastic story, but it took too long. I wonder if the writing is any tighter in his later books or if this is just his style. Anyone know?..."Revelation Space is the only Alastair Reynolds I've read. I found it meandering and a little hard to follow in places. It had some good parts but overall I didn't much care for it. I gave it two and a half stars and haven't jumped into any other Reynolds novels on the assumption that Revelation Space is an example of his writing.
Buck, a comment on my review says "...swears for #2 [[book:Redemption Ark|89190]] "This book is a huge improvement on Revelation Space in term of writing and characterization."However, another friend notes that it also has the "glacial" pace you seem to be noting here."
I'm not in a rush to read another now. I'd like to know what happened, but the only other thing I read by him was the novella Sleepover & I only gave it 2 stars. I don't think I care for his style well enough to invest so many hours at this time.
Case and the Dreamer and Other Stories by Theodore Sturgeon are 3 longish short stories that are all good, but the middle one "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?" probably made a bigger impression on me than any other story I've ever read. I gave it a 5 star review here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Currently reading Grass by Sheri S. Tepper(1999). I've also got Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds (2006) and Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton(2005) in my TBR pile.
I'm reading Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die which is a collection of short stories about a machine that predicts your death and gives you the reason. The stories are of differing styles and quality with quite a bit of humour.Also reading One Second After which is probably post-apocalyptic rather than sci-fi.
Should be reading Solaris but have got side-tracked :-)
Right now I'm reading Rama II by Arthur C. Clarke, A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge and Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson. The last two should be finished in the next 2-3 weeks but Rama II is going to take a while. It's pretty dull so I'm just picking at it bit by bit.
Randy wrote: "Right now I'm reading Rama II by Arthur C. Clarke, A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge and Aurora by Kim Stanley Rob..."</i>How are you finding Aurora? I've got this on my bookshelf.
I'm reading The Plague War's series by [author:David VanDyke. I'm struggling a bit with the third (well 2nd in series as there is a zero) Skull's Shadows but as they are all in the same Kindle book i'm determined to finish!
Jo wrote: "How are you finding Aurora? I've got this on my bookshelf."I like it. It gets better as it goes along. KSR did a good job of writing a hard SF novel populated with actual characters who experience emotions, something lacking in a lot of hard SF. It's not exactly Russian literature but still impressive. And the plot has a lot of twists that I didn't see coming. There are times when the narrative gets bogged down while the author explores ideas tangential to the story (similar to Neal Stephenson I think, although I've only read one of Neal's fiction books) but it's not too distracting. I should be done in the next couple weeks and I'll post a formal review then.
Randy wrote: "I like it. It gets better as it goes along. KSR did a good job of writing a hard SF novel populated with actual characters wh..."Sounds good, I will maybe have to move it up in my to read pile. I look forward to your final review.
Right now, I am reading Endymion and The Martian.Hyperion Cantos Series is really amazing. The world the author describes and all the AI concept that he put in place for the sake of the story is really good.
On the the other side, The Marian is freaking good. I am an egineer and all the nerd/geek stuff is a plus for me. I really love the resourcefullness of the main character when facing problems and the ironic humor he has during he entire book.
Pablo wrote: "Right now, I am reading Endymion and The Martian.Hyperion Cantos Series is really amazing. The world the author describes and all the AI concept that he put in place fo..."
Endymion is my favorite of the Hyperion Cantos, and The Martian is just plain good.
The Free Lunch by Spider Robinson was fun, light read. Very reminiscent of Heinlein's juveniles. It was well narrated by the author, too. I gave it a 4 star review here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Jo wrote: "Randy wrote: "I like it. It gets better as it goes along. KSR did a good job of writing a hard SF novel populated with actual characters wh..."Sounds good, I will maybe have to move it up in my t..."
I finished Aurora and gave it 3 stars. Here's my review if you're interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Randy wrote: "Jo wrote: "Randy wrote: "I like it. It gets better as it goes along. KSR did a good job of writing a hard SF novel populated with actual characters wh..."Sounds good, I will maybe have to move it..."
Thanks - I think i'm going to read it when I have a bit of time.
Buck wrote: "Pablo wrote: "Right now, I am reading Endymion and The Martian.Hyperion Cantos Series is really amazing. The world the author describes and all the AI concept that he p..."
You know in your heart you are still a sci-fi geek when you realize how much you are simply enjoying "The Martian". Just good clean sophomore physics fun!
I am finding it difficult that you gave a Neo-classical work like "Aurora" only a three-star rating, Randy.Did you just hate it or were disappointed in its rejection of Gernsback positivism?
Yep, your review answered my question. Here is my spin on it:
"This is not Red or Green or Blue Mars but rather a very focused work with one, well, singular objective. It is a grand debate on the balance between the rational and the emotive. The motif for this is the first human colonial expedition out of the solar system. The central character is the starship's AI, and the novel focuses on its evolution from servant to the colonists to being their guardian.
It is also a story of human dynamics and the sociology of a multi-generational interstellar journey. It is classic hard science fiction dating from the Golden Age period of the genre and the works of the gods of the ghetto like Arthur C. Clarke in "Rendezvous with Rama" and its sequels. But Robinson genius is in combining classic SF with the higher questions that trouble humanity and therefore, in many ways this work is Voltaire's "Candide" writ large upon the firmament and, especially, in the AI's early naivete and the novel's surfer denouement.
It is a wonderful read, just not Kim's finest work. But if you read it and figure out why Freya is taller than every other person on the ship please let me know..."
It is clear that many readers had issues with the pacing. I felt the global warming section and the island population basis were good science and correctly utilized in a science fiction story.
I am still looking for the answer to the Freya question. Any help folks?
EDIT - just wanted to point out that there might be some spoilers of Aurora in this post, although I covered up the main stuff. Proceed at your own risk if you haven't read the book yet. Hi Gregg,
That's a very well-worded and carefully considered opinion of Aurora. My compliments! When I finished Aurora, I thought more of Jurassic Park, which had a similar plot of "hey, look at our big scientific achievement, we've thought of EVERYTHING...oops! except for a couple things that turned out to be really important." Crichton's message, which he actually stated somewhere in the book if I remember correctly, was: "just because science CAN achieve something, doesn't mean it SHOULD." KSR was trying to make a similar point in many ways. His message seems very clear: (view spoiler) Huh? I found this logic fallacious, not only because the choice in this case is hardly binary, but also because, as history has shown again and again, as soon as we think we know our limitations with regards to the physical universe we are proven wrong. In Aurora, the generation ship is launched over 500 years from now. Looking back 500 years ago, the world was quite a bit different from the world of today. Copernicus was decades away from advancing the radical idea that the Earth might not be the center of the universe. And technological advances have accelerated at an exponential rate - we may see more changes in the next 50 years than in the last 5,000. I read an entry on KSR's website in which he made it clear that he believes it may be impossible to exceed 10% of the speed of light (read it here: https://boingboing.net/2015/11/16/our...) which reminded me of the movie/book The Right Stuff - no one thought we would ever break the sound barrier...until we did it. I'm not upset that KSR can't accurately predict the future, but I can't subscribe to his argument of futility, especially when it seems so agenda-driven. I grew up in the shadows of the Baby Boomer generation, with their "drop buds not bombs" mentality. I'm glad KSR lives in a co-op. He's probably better at recycling his trash and living green than I am. I'd just prefer he not jam his viewpoint down my throat when I'm supposed to be reading a science-fiction novel.
Also, I should mention my 3-star rating doesn't have anything to do with the novel's literary achievements or contributions to the genre. I don't believe I'm qualified to make those judgments. My ratings are based solely on how much I enjoyed the book since I read mostly for the pleasure of reading. In this case, my 3-star rating means that I enjoyed parts of the book, but would probably not re-read it, or recommend it heartily to others.
I did start reading Downbelow Station but have subsequently got sidetracked by Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel. It's rather good so far, it's written as a series of interviews and diary entries so far. This means it's compared to World War Z and The Martian but storywise nothing like them.
Mod
I just read that with a different reading group. We mostly enjoyed it, but there are a few places where the plot feels really contrived.
Mod
A few weeks ago, I found The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon. I'd never heard of it, but the premise sounded interesting. It tells the story from the point of view of a high-functioning autistic man in the near future. Society is mostly accepting and he has a good life. When an experimental treatment becomes available, he has to think long and hard about whether he wants it.
I found this to be a fascinating read. Probably my favorite of this year, and I love that I just found it randomly.
Ed wrote:"I just read that with a different reading group. We mostly enjoyed it, but there are a few places where the plot feels really contrived.."I've just reached one of these points! I hope there won't be too many as to spoil the book as overall it's pretty good so far and the idea's good.
Ed wrote: "My neighborhood is chock full of "Little Free Library" boxes. There is basically one every 2 blocks. I always stop and check what is in them. I love the randomness of discovery...."I've often thought of putting one up, but I live out in the country & think it would more likely be a target for bored kids. I'd discussed that with my wife & had almost decided to chance it when the mailbox became a hit & run.
It's one of those plastic ones the last owner put up. It's only in the ground a foot, so it wound up getting knocked 50' away & had the top knocked off, but was easy enough to fix & put back. The road is pretty straight both ways, but makes a slight bend about at our mailbox, so I guess someone hadn't had enough coffee one morning. I'd hate to see a little library ruined, though.
Ed wrote: "A few weeks ago, I found The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon. I'd never heard of it, but the premise sounded interesting. It tells the story from the point of view of a high-functioning autistic man in the near future. Society is mostly accepting and he has a good life. When an experimental treatment becomes available, he has to think long and hard about whether he wants it.I found this to be a fascinating read. Probably my favorite of this year, and I love that I just found it randomly. "
I just started reading The Speed of Dark. I haven't read Elizabeth Moon before, and I had no idea what it was about before I read your comment above.
Mod
The cooy I had had some ideas for book group discussion in the back. I had wanted to deduct a point from my rating because some of the non-autistic characters are very 2 dimensional, but the back matter suggested that was an intentional choice by the author. I don't understand that decision, but maybe there was a point to it.
I've read a few books by Moon & thought she was pretty good. Her Vatta's War series, starts with Trading in Danger. Somewhat similar to the Honor Harrington series which I also liked so I gave all the books 3 & 4 star reviews. She also writes fantasy that's pretty good, but I've only read one, Surrender None. I gave it 4 stars, too.
I finally got around to reading Baltic Gambit: A Novel of the Vampire Earth, the 11th book of the series. The first couple are old favorites. Very neat idea for a post apocalyptic Earth scenario that is SF, but seems quite like a fantasy in many ways. Knight did a great job following one man's life in these trying times, but the last 2 books were from other character's view points & were choppy. I gave this one a 3 star review here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
It's a series that needs to be read in order starting with Way of the Wolf.
I just started Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I'm hoping to wrap it up later this month or early August - it's not very long. Earlier this year, in addition to Aurora (see above for my thoughts on that one) I read The Circle by Dave Eggers, which I liked a lot but it's barely SF, and also The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley which was awful.
I usually don't read much recent fiction but since I have gotten more involved in GR I have started reading more in this category. Let's just say it's a mixed bag at best. The nice thing about reading older fiction is you have a chance to see what books really stand the test of time and continue to attract readers even though they aren't on the best-seller lists.
Randy, my apologies for missing your follow up post. Clearly, you know what you are talking about and should voice your opinions and lay them out whether you feel literary or not because you are insightful. Thanks for the feedback.
And I, too, often defer to reading old words so I can use the consensus of time to separate the "wheat from the chaff".
Gregg wrote: "Randy, my apologies for missing your follow up post. Clearly, you know what you are talking about and should voice your opinions and lay them out whether you feel literary or not because you are insightful. Thanks for the feedback."No worries. I liked parts of Aurora a lot, just had some issues with it too.
On another note, I finished Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer and gave it 4 stars. The pace is a little slow, especially in the beginning, but it builds tension throughout. It felt more like a modern homage to Lovecraft than a SF novel.
Now I'm starting The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon.
We read Annihilation as a group read last year. I liked it enough to read the two other following books after it. If you liked Annihilation, I think you will appreciate these too. Just read there's going to be a movie made after the book.
I just finished the New Annotated Lovecraft this spring. It was a fun read and gives lots of insight into how his physical environment impacted his storytelling. I had previously read a biography that did the same with his personal life. Quite the Yankee he was but most interesting was how much SF versus horror writer he really was. His integration of scientific equipment and discoveries was central to the stories.
Randy wrote: "Now I'm starting The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon."I expect to finish The Speed of Dark this evening, my first Elizabeth Moon. It's told from the point of view of an autistic man. It has a few soft spots, but overall I have enjoyed it.
Leo wrote: "We read Annihilation as a group read last year. I liked it enough to read the two other following books after it. If you liked Annihilation, I think you will appreciate these too. J..."Thanks! I bought the 2nd book Authority and I'll read it whenever I can fit it in to the schedule.
Buck wrote: "I expect to finish The Speed of Dark this evening, my first Elizabeth Moon. It's told from the point of view of an autistic man. It has a few soft spots, but overall I have enjoyed it."
I tried to start it last night but couldn't keep my eyes open after a long day at work. I should knock off the first chapter tonight.
I'm reading, A Lovely Way to Burn by Louise Welsh. Has anybody else read it? I read the review of the final part of the trilogy in the sci-fi section of the reviews in a newspaper and decide to try it. While the book itself is quite good, the first 85% is clearly a murder mystery in the midst of a plague. I've got 15% left to read, but so far at best you could classify it as apocalyptic but sci-fi? I really don't get it.
Mod
I've not heard of it. But I'm not surprised it would be considered SF. Plague-related stories often are. Remember "The Andromeda Strain"? But, yet, Camus' "The Plague" isn't usually considered SF.
I'm reading Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. I'm only about a quarter of the way through and so far, I'm thinking I like it better than Parable of the Sower of which it is the sequel and which I read several years ago. It fills in enough of the back story, so that it reminds of what I had read before and had semi-forgotten. I also read Butler's Kindred a few years ago. Very good.
Oops. I thought Talents was published in 2001, but now I see that it was first published in 1998. Sorry 'bout that.
I'm starting Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. It was nominated for a Hugo this year and won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and got lots of good professional reviews.French is my native language, so the subtlety of the title (Why star with "Too"?) escapes me. Can anyone explain?
The Evolution of Science Fiction
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