JasonZavoda wrote:
Peter S. Beagle wrote The Last Unicorn (I think)

Cordwainer Smith wrote science fiction (a series of books that are slightly absurd). It is a strange future history series wih a planet settled by australians who raise giant (100ton sheep) for an immortality serum.

Yeah, Beagle wrote The Last Unicorn in 1968, and then fell off the map for about 25 years. More (relatively) recently there was The Innkeeper's Song, which is a lot edgier (there are sword fights, assassins, and the only tastefully done group sex scene in SF and F I've seen since Heinlein), and a slew of short stories in the 2000s which are quite good.

Cordwainer Smith IS a strange bird, and there is definitely some (intentional) absurdity in his stories. Norstrilia (short for Old North Australia, pronounced NorSTRILia, LOL) is the name of the novel and the planet featuring the 100-ton sick sheep that produce the immortality serum. He's sort of a thinking person's Douglas Adams.

Adams is right up there as an all-time great.

The Gently books are superb. I have both on audio-book too, read wonderfully by Adams himself, which seems to add something

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:
I liked the Dirk Gently books, too, better than Adams' other stuff. Yes, Smith's style is something that'll either immediately turn you off or suck you in. I do think his stuff repays repeat readings, but his output certainly was somewhat uneven in quality (Norstrilia, for instance, is not the place to start). I'm happy to agree to disagree about him.

I'm with you 100% on Jordan, Goodkind, Martin, etc. I knew I wasn't into the Wheel of Time when about halfway through the second book I was desperately hoping that Ran-alwhatshisface would die soon, and knew he wouldn't because there were like 8 books left to read. It's never good when you want the main characters to perish because you're so bored with them. One thing I will say for GRRM is that this isn't the case with him--in his books, it seems like everyone dies eventually, usually when the character in question is just getting interesting... I was okay with him until his boneheaded move of putting out half of a book 5 years ago (A Feast for Crows) and promising the second half the following year and not delivering (still no release date for A Dance with Dragons). He's been relegated to my, "Yeah, maybe I'll read something by him again someday, if there's literally nothing else left," shelf.

You seem to have a good background in SF, Jason. Any authors from the 50s/60s/70s I might have missed that you particularly like? I've read most of the "big names" (Asimov, Niven, Heinlein, etc.), but not so many of the lesser-known guys.

Glad you asked.

H. Beam Piper

Piper is my favorite sf author. His output was minimal (about 7 books and a few anthologies).

He has a future history series and a time travel series. His universe makes sense (and the TRAVELLER rpg uses some of it for their campaign. His future history stories have inspired (or been used) by several authors including Pournelle (who is Piper's disciple in SF writing).


Space Viking - It is the best sf interplanetary war novel I have ever read. It is too freaking short like all his novels. His ship to ship combat is straight fifties ideas but they make great sense and are wonderfully consistent.

Uller Uprising - It is a SF version of the Sepoy Mutiny. It is fun, bloodthirsty and not politically correct.

Cosmic Computer - This novel always makes me want to go and clean out my garage and rebuild a car engine, or start an engineering company. This is a kind of take on the world novel.

The Fuzzy books - these are incredibly good books. They aren't children's books. They have some pathos but I find it balanced very well. There is action in them, but they aren't military or action SF. The first is the best, the third is the worst, but they are so thin that you can read all three in a day.

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen - This is an incredible novel. It has inspired a ton of other time travel stories and series (including that SOB Flint who says he hates Piper, may Flint burn in Hell, yet takes the concept for his 1632 series, the bastard). Do not read the sequels by Green and Carr. They are a like reading a castrated version of the series. Robert Adam's did a good book that used this concept (though Adams went freaking insane and crazier with each book in the series). Leo Frankowski did his version with his crosstime engineer series, and Turtledove with several of his including a direct Piper tribute.

Again this is short book but it is Piper's way of showing how one man in the right place at the right time can take hold of history and shape it.

Paratime - which is not a Lord Kalvan story but covers the time/dimensional travelling society.

Federation - an anthology

Empire - another anthology.

Worlds of - which covers some non-sf writing

there are a few more including continuations by other authors (at least two awful Fuzzy books) and at least one partial manuscript completed by someone else, and a recently discovered mystery novel Ive never read.
Its been awhile and I am probably forgetting a few books

As for other authors, you've probably read them and Im missing bunches (and not mentioning the bigger names like Moorcock, Leiber, Zelazny, Heinlein...)

A.E. Van Vogt
Clifford Simak
Theodore Sturgeon
Poul Anderson
Larry Niven
Jerry Pournelle
John Wyndham
John Myers Myers
Gordon R Dickson
Robert Silverberg

Anybody else read the Asprin books with Skeeve? I found those very amusing.

Another comedy series was the Cineverse cycle by Craig Shaw Gardner, but I did read that just after I left school, so memories may be diluted to its quality.  

I'm guessing Pratchetts Discworld has been covered earlier in the thread, but with his illness, its a shame those will stop too early.

ashmire13 wrote:Anybody else read the Asprin books with Skeeve? I found those very amusing.

Another comedy series was the Cineverse cycle by Craig Shaw Gardner, but I did read that just after I left school, so memories may be diluted to its quality.  

I'm guessing Pratchetts Discworld has been covered earlier in the thread, but with his illness, its a shame those will stop too early.

That's Sir Terry Pratchett, knave!

Alzheimers, what a freaking waste.

Intentionally Being able to write humor is a rare, rare gift. For some reason British writers received more than their fair share.

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:
I like funky and philosophically surreal, otherwise I wouldn't be a Cordwainer Smith "enthusiast" . Seems like you meant it in a disparaging way... I'm getting the impression that our tastes don't overlap too much , which is of course fine. You seem to go more the hard scifi and space opera side of things, whereas I'm at the other end of the genre spectrum. I'm guessing you're not a huge fan of Philip K. Dick? Tom Disch?


Yeah, I've read a bunch of Foster over the years, mostly a loooong time ago.. The Flinx and Pip (or is it Pip and Flinx?) books, the humanx stuff, and some of his early Star Wars tie-ins (Splinter of the Minds Eye comes to mind, I think that was him). I tend to put him in the same category, perhaps unfairly, as Kevin Anderson...sharecropper.

I enjoy surreal as well as funky philosophy if it is done well. You should try Tim Powers and Blaylock (if you haven't already) or Neal Gaimen who should never have wasted time on comics (which were good) because he is much, much better with his novels (American Gods and Anansi Boys are two of his best).

It has been a long time since Ive read Sturgeon and while I liked some of his ideas and the way he said them his stories didnt stay with me. Disch I tried and didnt like and Phillip K. Dick, I've read more about him than I've read of his writing. What I did read I didn't care for, which is sad because from what I understand he was truly insane and that can result in some memorable writing (or not in the case of Heinlein and his descent into madness and bad fiction).

For funky and surreal I like a number of non-sf/fantasy writers. Hesse, Pynchon, Salinger, Kerouac, Kesey. Huxley, Dalmas (though he also writes SF) Shea & Wilson, Kafka, Dusty-Evsky the Russian cowboy...

I do think you are giving Foster a bad rap. He can be a decent writer, but he also writes for the bucks sometimes, especially novelizations. I found Splinter of the Minds Eye (the first Star Wars novel, and one that took a completely different spin on the first movie) to be a good book, and some of his other novels are decent as well, Icerigger comes to mind, and in the same setting Mission to Moulekon (sp). I think he is worlds better than Anderson  could ever hope to be, though not what I'd call a great writer by any means.

JasonZavoda wrote:

I enjoy surreal as well as funky philosophy if it is done well. You should try Tim Powers and Blaylock (if you haven't already) or Neal Gaimen who should never have wasted time on comics (which were good) because he is much, much better with his novels (American Gods and Anansi Boys are two of his best).

It has been a long time since Ive read Sturgeon and while I liked some of his ideas and the way he said them his stories didnt stay with me. Disch I tried and didnt like and Phillip K. Dick, I've read more about him than I've read of his writing. What I did read I didn't care for, which is sad because from what I understand he was truly insane and that can result in some memorable writing (or not in the case of Heinlein and his descent into madness and bad fiction).

For funky and surreal I like a number of non-sf/fantasy writers. Hesse, Pynchon, Salinger, Kerouac, Kesey. Huxley, Dalmas (though he also writes SF) Shea & Wilson, Kafka, Dusty-Evsky the Russian cowboy...

I do think you are giving Foster a bad rap. He can be a decent writer, but he also writes for the bucks sometimes, especially novelizations. I found Splinter of the Minds Eye (the first Star Wars novel, and one that took a completely different spin on the first movie) to be a good book, and some of his other novels are decent as well, Icerigger comes to mind, and in the same setting Mission to Moulekon (sp). I think he is worlds better than Anderson  could ever hope to be, though not what I'd call a great writer by any means.

I've read American Gods, and thought it was pretty good, though maybe a little bit like a reworking of concepts already mined by previous authors; I kept thinking to myself, "Zelazny could have written this," and such. I guess all authors do this to some extent, but I find Gaiman more derivative than most.

Tim Powers' name keeps coming to my attention; I think I need to check him out.

I do need to broaden my horizons outside of the genre, too. Not that I haven't read anything outside of SF, but not much.

PKD - Yeah, there's a reason Dick was once widely referred to as, "the best science fiction author on any planet." His best stuff is truly great. His worst stuff is so crazy that it's still worth reading just because only he could have written it. Try Counter-clock World (You're full of food!) or Clans of the Alphane Moon sometime, preferably while on something psychedelic.

Bester's The Stars my Destination is hands-down the best standalone SF novel ever written, IMO. I still try slogging through The Demolished Man once in a while, but for whatever reason it hasn't grabbed me yet; maybe I'm just not giving it enough of a chance. I haven't given his later work a chance, yet, mostly from reputation (the story being he was so deep into his alcoholism at that point that they're total trash--evidently not completely true).

Varley's another name I've seen and heard often, and should try out.

Oh yeah, I'm all over Ellison; small doses are best, though. Bad things could happen if one read too many of Harlan's tales in too short a time-frame. Almost everything is depressing, but almost everything is brilliant, too.

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:PKD - Yeah, there's a reason Dick was once widely referred to as, "the best science fiction author on any planet." His best stuff is truly great. His worst stuff is so crazy that it's still worth reading just because only he could have written it. Try Counter-clock World (You're full of food!) or Clans of the Alphane Moon sometime, preferably while on something psychedelic.

Bester's The Stars my Destination is hands-down the best standalone SF novel ever written, IMO. I still try slogging through The Demolished Man once in a while, but for whatever reason it hasn't grabbed me yet; maybe I'm just not giving it enough of a chance. I haven't given his later work a chance, yet, mostly from reputation (the story being he was so deep into his alcoholism at that point that they're total trash--evidently not completely true).

Varley's another name I've seen and heard often, and should try out.

Oh yeah, I'm all over Ellison; small doses are best, though. Bad things could happen if one read too many of Harlan's tales in too short a time-frame. Almost everything is depressing, but almost everything is brilliant, too.

It is amazing the difference in tastes. I read Bester and will have to reread him, but I barely remember the story, so I couldn't call him memorable let alone great. PKD did absolutely nothing for me. I found his writing to be fragmented and his storys unlikeable. Ellison falls into the unlikeable story category for me as well. I have a couple of his Ive been moving around my shelf avoiding, I will have to give these guys another try (though I sold off most of my PKD when he was hot (he went cold on ebay a few months back). I still have a few left.

I cant stand Pohl, so if it turns out we have fairly opposite tastes you may want to give him a try.

Did not care for Varley's trilogy either.

Currently the best SF writer I've come across is Lois Bujold. Her break into fantasy is mixed. Hallowed Hunt is an amazing book. She has created an incredible fantasy setting with Chalion series. Curse of Chalion is good, Hallowed Hunt is fantastic, Paladin of Souls is very good.