Ian M. Banks is definattly worth a look for any Sci-Fi fan. Try the "Player of Games" as a good start.
Ian M. Banks is definattly worth a look for any Sci-Fi fan. Try the "Player of Games" as a good start.
Well, I support the Ian M Banks vote - he's not well known here in South Africa at all (I have a parttime job in a bookstore, and his books just does not seem to move at all.) Try them, his Culture novels are amazing, the man simply writes on a different scale than anyone else.
I am surprised Banks doesn't sell well in South Africa. SF of all forms seemed very popular when I used to live there.
Robert Charles Wilson... he's a really good author, and I'm going to read more of his stuff in the future. He really doesn't get talked about much, though.
Wilson has won several awards, but seems to be just off kilter with the mainstream. Excellent stuff. Only one weak one (BIOS) in the lot.
More people should be reading Cory Doctorow and Paul Di Filippo as well.
-Neil
Corwainer Smith was English, not American. Born in Hong Kong, he moved to Australia after the Chinese Marxist revolution. Mostly short stories, yes, but he did have at least one sci-fi novel, "Norstrilia". Very good stuff.
For my underrated I think I'll throw a little love in Brian Aldiss' direction. Nobody is better at writing 'sociological' sci-fi.
Underrated writers:
Frederik Pohl (well known but still underrated)
Jack Williamson
James P. Hogan
Robert Sheckley
Jack Vance (should be at the top of the list)
C.J. Cherryh
John Brunner (an overlooked master)
Overrated writers:
Phillip K. Dick (excellent writer,but some of his stuff should have never been published)
Sherri S. Tepper (Tepid I have the distinct impresssion she doesn't like men.)
Jack Chalker (Well World books good, but the rest pretty formulaic)
David Drake
Piers Anthony (Have never finished a book by him.)
I'd like to second Paul di Filippo as underrated. I read one of his collections of short stories, "Strange Trades." It was absolutely fantastic, full of big ideas. However, in all the hype about Ted Chiang (also a phenomenal writer), di Filippo seems to have been lost a little bit.
Don’t you mean sociopathic sci-fi? <grin>Originally Posted by ironchef texmex
Some of my favorites:
Peter Watts
Susan R. Mathews
Marge Piercy (her 2 SF books)
Phyliss Gotlieb
Gwyneth Jones
Karin Lowachee
Elizabeth Lynn
Authors that haven't continued to publish:
Carolyn Ives Gilman
Wilhelmina Baird
Valerie Freireich
S.C. Sykes
Keith Roberts. Pavane is one of the most beautifully written SF books I've read.
According to his daughter, Cordwainer Smith was born (as Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger), on July 11, 1913, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I agree that he should be much better known, especially for his short stories.
I've read Norsillia, which was good. I've got the rediscovery of man, but i havn't read it. I'm not usually a fan of short stories, although i do prefer them to all be set in the same world, as these are.
I don't think Tepper dislikes men as much as she dislikes organised religion, most of her 'evil men societies' have an evil patriachal religion at their centre.
In beauty the church was stealing all the magic from the world, leaving it drab. In grass the evil religion is sanctity, which plans the genecide of all humans except a select few. Fresco shows that societal values are more important than religion, which is just fake. In the true game, the shapeshifter religion says women are only for breeding etc. In the awakeners the religion is controlled by evil male birds. Of course in each case men are the ones to blame, and women have the solution
They are well written and IMO worth reading, but if a man wrote similar things about women so invariably i doubt he would be too popular.
Last edited by Yobmod; July 22nd, 2005 at 04:41 AM.
I agree about Cordwainer Smith. He completely flew under my radar until I picked up a used pb of Norstrilla, principally because it had a Grey Morrow cover. I was really surprised when I read it how unique it was.
The other author that nobody knows about (and is consequently underrated) is T.J.Bass. He's a doctor who wrote only 2 books- The Godwhale, which was up for a Nebula and is one of my favorite SF books of all time, and Half Past Human which I hope to get to read this year.
The Godwhale is way ahead of it's time in it's use of biotech, and it reads sort of like a Vonnegut novel, with more real science. It's a grim, satiric view of humanity set in a future when the earth is polluted to the point where the surface has been unhospitable for centuries and, the majority of humankind live underground and are gene engineered for specific tasks. The food source is processed from the scavenger worms that live on human sewage.
The Godwhale of the title is a giant plankton harvesting robotship from earlier times when the oceans of the earth still teemed with life. The Robotship has been inactive for centuries and is only now,at the time the novel takes place, reactivating, because the seas are starting to come alive again.
I'm talking myself into a reread here.
I suspect that the reason why both authors are not well known/underrated is that they have such a slim output.
Last edited by ArthurFrayn; August 21st, 2005 at 11:28 AM.
Going back to the original post . . . for years, my brother in law had urged me to find and read the Daniel Keys Moran "Tales of Continuing Time" books, and I eventually broke down and bought a couple through www.abebooks.com at somewhat inflated prices. I thought that Emerald Eyes was just OK, (albeit with a couple of great scenes), and I thought that The Last Dancer was very, very good. I am keeping my eyes open for The Long Run, as well.
Last edited by clong; August 3rd, 2005 at 06:29 AM.
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