SF book recommendations
What are good recent-ish scifi books to read?
I've realised I've almost entirely stopped reading purely for fun, rather than for curiosity or Improvement, and so don't read much fiction at all. I'd like to try changing that, so I'm looking for good reads. I re-read Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat and enjoyed it, but it is really showing its age now, and I know it backwards.
I'm thinking of something not too heavyweight and self-consciously Literary in terms of its prose. Somewhere easier to read than Finnegan's Wake, then, and more up the Dan Brown end of the scale. Though perhaps not quite that far from what a competent editor would suggest.
I like scifi more than fantasy; a good straight-up novel would be fine as well but I often find those slow to grip me. I do find the harder sf more satisfying than the fluffier stuff (e.g. I very much like Kim Stanley Robinson and Neal Stephenson in that regard) but that can be slower going. Here I'm thinking that a good fun read is more important so as long as it's not jarringly implausible it'll be fine. More of a rip-snorter page-turny plot is better. Iain M Banks was about the right balance, or maybe more up the Connie Willis end.
My world is filled with the worldview of (other) older/middle-aged upper/middle-class Western white men, so I don't think I particularly need to have additional exposure to that sort of perspective in my leisure time.
I'm almost entirely out of touch with the actually-reading-books part of the fandom world from the last 10 years or so. I am aware of all the fuss about the Hugos, but recognise almost none of the names involved apart from Farah Mendlesohn, Charlie Stross and John Scalzi, and those more as friends-of-friends than anything else. Although I have read (some of) Charlie and John's novels and quite enjoyed them.
So - what are your recommendation for sf novels?
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/324048.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.
I've realised I've almost entirely stopped reading purely for fun, rather than for curiosity or Improvement, and so don't read much fiction at all. I'd like to try changing that, so I'm looking for good reads. I re-read Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat and enjoyed it, but it is really showing its age now, and I know it backwards.
I'm thinking of something not too heavyweight and self-consciously Literary in terms of its prose. Somewhere easier to read than Finnegan's Wake, then, and more up the Dan Brown end of the scale. Though perhaps not quite that far from what a competent editor would suggest.
I like scifi more than fantasy; a good straight-up novel would be fine as well but I often find those slow to grip me. I do find the harder sf more satisfying than the fluffier stuff (e.g. I very much like Kim Stanley Robinson and Neal Stephenson in that regard) but that can be slower going. Here I'm thinking that a good fun read is more important so as long as it's not jarringly implausible it'll be fine. More of a rip-snorter page-turny plot is better. Iain M Banks was about the right balance, or maybe more up the Connie Willis end.
My world is filled with the worldview of (other) older/middle-aged upper/middle-class Western white men, so I don't think I particularly need to have additional exposure to that sort of perspective in my leisure time.
I'm almost entirely out of touch with the actually-reading-books part of the fandom world from the last 10 years or so. I am aware of all the fuss about the Hugos, but recognise almost none of the names involved apart from Farah Mendlesohn, Charlie Stross and John Scalzi, and those more as friends-of-friends than anything else. Although I have read (some of) Charlie and John's novels and quite enjoyed them.
So - what are your recommendation for sf novels?
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/324048.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.