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Old-school scifan looking for new authors.

I find Jack McDevitt kind of meh. If you want an old-fashioned SF fix on a rainy weekend, he'll deliver, but none of his books are all that great.

Others have already mentioned Iain M. Banks, Aleister Reynolds, Charlie Stross, and Lois McMaster Bujold, so I'll mention them again.

CJ Cherryh's been mentioned too, though I'd suggest The Pride of Chanur to begin with.
 
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Wudang said:
I read a couple of McDevitt's books (Talent for War was one) and I think he needs to work on his endings. Otherwise very good reads just the endings were a little hmmmm underplayed?
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Actually, that's one of the things I like about McDevitt, his stories don't simply start and end where the books do. There's back story, and life goes on after the end of the story, you just get a chapter in an ongoing saga. He introduces even minor characters with a short history, and even major characters die in ridiculously mundane ways. His heroes and heroines are most often accidental and reluctant, and they can easily die because they do something stupid, or they're just unlucky. It feels like real life, not someone's ideal of how things should be.

One of the things I've always hated about a lot of Sci-Fi books is that they end with a huge and overwhelming triumph for the big hero, and you can tell from the way characters are introduced and the part they have in the story whether or not they'll die. McDevitt doesn't do that, and it's refreshing.
 
I'd like to second the recommendation of Richard Morgan, though the rather hard-boiled plots may not be to everyones taste. Also, check out David Brin for some old-fashioned and rather friendly sci-fi (with superintelligent dolphins)!
 
tomgv15 said:
Pick up the new issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine at the Barnes and Noble magazine stand. Full of long and short stories, plus book reviews. I also enjoy Robert Silverbergs's monthly editorial. Back in the day Asimov wrote great entertaining essays.
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Don't forget Analog magazine, it's the original, been in continuous publication since 1930. I have every issue published since 1964, and have been subscribing since 1978.
 
Can I add the Stealing Light trilogy by Gary Gibson. Very entertaining and some fabulous ideas.
 
Wudang said:
David Feintuch Midshipman's Hope etc - Hornblower in space, what's not to like?
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The first few books of the Hope series are great, but:

Killing off pretty much every person Seafort has any kind of personal relationship in every book just started to look like the author only had one idea to create drama and got quite predictable after a while
 
Depends what you mean by new and whether or not you just mean new for you but here are a few good writers, some of whom are newish (I haven't read much sci-fi for about five or ten years now):

Stephen Baxter

I've read,

Anti-Ice - an entertaining alternative history novel set around the turn of the 20th Century.

The Time Ships - the "official" sequel to H.G Wells' Time Machine.

Raft - The first (?) in some distant-future series.

Greg Egan

Good if you like philosophy and hate relgion and spiritualism. I've read a collection of his short stories.

Iain M Banks

Best space opera ever is Consider Phlebas and the rest of his Culture novels. Against a Dark Background is also good. Shame about his demented politics.

Friends tell me that M John Harrison and China Mieville are also supposed to be excellent although China Mieville has even more demented politics. Ken Mcleod also comes highly recommended. Demented as well though.
 
angrysoba said:
Depends what you mean by new and whether or not you just mean new for you but here are a few good writers, some of whom are newish (I haven't read much sci-fi for about five or ten years now):
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For me, it would be anything over the past 25 years. I got out of scifi in the mid-80s, couldn't find anything that interested me at that point.
 
Gawdzilla said:
Analog and Fantasy and Science Fiction are both available through Amazon's magazine service, @ about 36/year.

Are there better deals out there?
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Not that I know of, the publisher (Dell Magazines) charges $35, but the rates are a little lower if you subscribe 2 or 3 years at a time.
 
I'm currently working my way through the Honor Harrington series by David Weber (and yes, the parallels between her name and a certain 18th century British Navy person with the same initials are purely intentional).

This is not by any means more than space opera, but it is a rich and dense story that covers decades and numerous planets.

Think E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series crossed with a good dash of Pournelle/Niven realism.

Lots of it is on Baen's Free Library site, IIRC.
 
lionking said:
Your tastes coincide with mine. I love all these authors, and thought good sci fi was dead. Until I discovered Iain Banks
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Technically should be Iain M Banks

You get something different with Iain Banks, even if it is the same author:)
 
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