Just wanted everyone to call it the right thing before anything else was said. Occam,, as you may have met him from philosophy forum. Has read a lot of 'SF'. The natural cunning of 'Louis Wu' To grand vision of 'the culture' The conceptual swamp called 'time' The Question of 'FTL' The horror of the 'Zotl' Occam
Of all fiction genres SF has the largest vocabulary. by far. Both literary and conceptual. Of all fiction.. SF is the only one that may come true. Of all fiction. It is the only one that deals with the concept..'future' Normal fiction teaches us about ourselves and how we HAVE ACTED. Speculative fiction speaks of what we may become. Occam
gnrm23 What if indeed, human made machines orbiting this planet. Could facillitate communication. Pure fiction, becomes reality, and indeed all 'new' ideas meet resistance. It's called inflexibillity. or lack of speculative planning. SP..Speculative Planning It works...prospectus is open...fore-ever. Occam
heh - a c clarke is credited with "inventing" geo-synch satellites... & r a heinelin with the water bed... wells, stapledon, niven, pohl, asimov, doc smith, cordwainer smith... stretch yr imagination, folks...
Spyder Robinson is one of my favorite SF authors. While the people mentioned invisoned technologies, Spyder investigates the possibilites of caring and the possible positive contribution of the hippies.
Mike Yup SF came to prominance on a wave that also carried the hippy culture. One of love and acceptance. That wave was reason rejecting tyrany and greed and historical conformism. Love and acceptance means listening to those who make it their path to understand what we can become. Some wish to fish. Some to love, some to theorise the nature of existance. All are welcome here Occam
What does everyone think about the division between "hard" SF and other types? I tend to read more SF that is written by scientists or engineers. People who get the facts right - no explosions in vacuum - no endless power sources etc
i don't read only sf, i like fantasy too, but everything must have some inner logic. sometimes, too much knowledge or logical thinking can spoil sf for you, lol
I would like to recommend the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. More of a future history than a story. Very much in the 'hard' category - from physics through biology to politics, he has a keen mind and pretty much introduced me to politics, particularly the fact that majority rule is not necessarily desirable, at least not to the exclusion of minorities. If KSR raised the questions though, it was Ursula Le Guin who provided the answers. She has a firm grasp of relativistic physics and the moral implications of physics in general, but her stories (I'm mainly talking about the Dispossessed) are inspiring.
gotta be the I, Robot and foundation series by asimov for me heinleins Citizen of the Galaxy and and Haldemaan's Forever War... for the lighter side of speculative SF
Agree with you and have read some fantasy that I liked some of Niven and Douglas Adams stuff. It is when the line blurs that I get into trouble. If its fantasy fine - I go with the willing suspension of disbelief - but if it calls itself SF then you have to go by the rules.
Just for fun Occam will list his 20 favourite SF novels of all time They are all equal as top 20. #1 aint better than #20. 1.Raft. [baxter] 2.Radix [attanasio] 3.Fire apon the deep [vigne] 4.The Sentinal [clark] [the precursor to 2001/10/61] 5.Forever War. [haldeman] 6.World of the ptavs [niven] [and the ringworld universe. brilliant] 7.Tactics of mistake. [dickson] 8.Maze of death [dick] 9.The world of null-A [van Vogt] 10.Use of weapons [banks] 11.The stochastic man [silverberg] 12.The pillars of eternity [Bayley] 13.Martian timeslip [dick] 14.The war for eternity [rowley] 15.Enders game [card] 16.Hardwired [williams] 17.Memories [McQuay] 18.The man in the high castle [dick] 19.Lightning [koontz] [yes, not a typo] 20.The uplift war [brin] Well thats a way short list. Could have popped 50 more in , all as good. many are parts of a series within a fictional universe. Such fictional universes are often brilliantly imagined. Rowleys 'fenrille' and humanities interation with it. Iain Banks and the culture. Brins universe in the uplift saga Nivens ringword universe. Occam PS.. and because occam is a 'timefreak' he must add as #21 The fall of chronopolis [rowley] Rowley, like occam, is fascinated with the concept.
Sure. Because 'he died with a fallafel in his hand' [birmingham] has no conceptual link to 'inconstant moon' [niven] But for the fact that human beings are talked about. No human being is able to 'understand' reality as a thing in itself. as a single input. Maybe a 'god' can..but we cannot. We must break reality down into bits. Then study the bits. Then put the bits back together. Just as there is 'buddhist thought' and 'neurophysiology' 'Haberdashery' and 'quantum zero point physics' Unfortunately, we often fail to see that the bits must be reassembled into a whole to mean anything... The relationship betwen the bits is just as, if not more important than the bits themselves. Occam
agree with above and would have to add 1. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clark 2. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein 3. Prince by Jerry Pournelle, S.M. Stirling 4. Marching Through Georgia by S.M. Stirling 5. Footfall by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle 6. Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle 7. The Stand: Complete and Uncut by Stephen King 8. The Truth Machine by James L. Halperin 9. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton (he started downhill from there) 10. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein (no it is nothing like the film)
Paul See there you go,,occam forgot 'mote' and 'footfall' The stand is cool too. Is 'marching through georgia' that parralel history one? There was one by stirling set at first morn on day 1 of gettysburg. Occam
