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Old-school scifan looking for new authors.

Gawdzilla Sama

121.92-meter mutant fire-breathing lizard-thingy
Gawdzilla Sama
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
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Northern St. Louis County, Missouri.
Thousands of titles out there, too many for me to sort out. So, here goes. I loved:

Niven
Pournelle
Heinlein
Andre Norton
Jack Chalker
Harry Harrison
Those kind of guys.

Given that, what would you recommend? (I'm not fond of thud and blunder, btw.)

And that should be scifi fan in the subject line.
 
I've found no straight successor to Niven. He has a tight, set piece-based style that is well-grounded in physics - no one seems to do quite that kind of thing right now. If you enjoy a slight injection of the baroque, Iain Banks might be your man: indulgently expansive, fearlessly inventive, smart space opera, in beautifully crafted stand-alone volumes. Peter F. Hamilton takes similar directions - a bit less well-packaged, tends to trilogies of door-stoppers, but can chuck the Lagrange point + neutron star situations around with the best of them.

Harry Harrison - Neal Asher does a good job of writing One Man against the World scenarios that remind me of Deathworld and To the Stars. Very good with real-feeling alien bestiaries.
 
H. Beam Piper. All his work was good, so you can't go wrong. I'd start with the Paratime stories (they're collected as "The Complete Paratime"), or "Space Viking". "First Cycle" and "The Cosmic Computor" are excellant as well.

Robert
 
I've taken a liking to Ben Bova. He's got a book out for each planet just about, and many others besides, all set in the not-too-distant future. I particularly liked the one on Jupiter.
 
Definately Hamilton, and I am as old school as they come. Niven has written three prequels to Ringworld. Stephen Baxter, be a little selective - Raft is wonderful as is his manifold series.

I would suggest getting a couple of the years best anthologies. Hartwell leans a little more to hard science, either way they will give a compact view of a lot of author's styles.

I have another suggestion, but you will need to PM me for that
 
A. Bertram Chandler, his maritime background showed in his books.
How do you feel about ebooks?
 
Gawdzilla said:
Thousands of titles out there, too many for me to sort out. So, here goes. I loved:

Niven
Pournelle
Heinlein
Andre Norton
Jack Chalker
Harry Harrison
Those kind of guys.

Given that, what would you recommend? (I'm not fond of thud and blunder, btw.)

And that should be scifi fan in the subject line.
Click to expand...

Your tastes coincide with mine. I love all these authors, and thought good sci fi was dead. Until I discovered Iain Banks
 
in addition to those already mentioned:

Ken MacLeod
Adam Roberts
Alastair Reynolds
Charles Stross
 
Gawdzilla said:
I'm okay with them, if I can read them on a laptop. I'm not buying another damn gadget.
And thanks for the info folks, this will simplify my next trip to the used book store.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree with you more.... until I bought my Kindle! Try to lend one from someone, and be prepared to be won over, they actually do work as they should!
 
Floyt said:
I've found no straight successor to Niven. He has a tight, set piece-based style that is well-grounded in physics - no one seems to do quite that kind of thing right now.
Click to expand...
Alastair Reynolds.

He does exactly that, and cites Niven and Greg Benford as his inspiration.
 
Try C J Cherryh's Mechanter novels-
In chronological order of events (though Downbelow Station is the key novel in the series).

Heavy Time
Hellburner
Downbelow Station
Rimrunners
Tripoint.
40000 in Gehenna
Cyteen
Regenesis

Cherry has other series, but the Merchanter universe is her best in the space opera genre.
 
IMHO, there are only two scifi authors in the past 20 years that have written anything worth more than a bucket of warm spit--

Iain Banks (probably best sci fi writer of all time)
Vernor Vinge (probably second best sci fi writer of all time, for A Fire Upon The Deep)
 
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