What are you reading right now?

[Nameless One]

20th Century Boy the perfect edition.

 

[Tomo]

lmao fag

Fair

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Can anyone recommend some good scifi stories? My dad is looking for something to read and is really big into scifi. He's read a lot of the "classic" authors that I know about at least so I figured I'd ask here.

There's a LOT of classic authors. But I'm just gonna presume we're talking about the classic Hugo and Nebula winners from back in the day. If they've appeared as a winner, I won't note them.

• Edmond Hamilton- 1930s era SF writer. Did Campbellian SF sorta before Campbell got started. Big world saving type of stories with explored ideas. Also wrote the Captain Future hero pulps.
• Leigh Brackett, Otis Adelbert Kline, Edgar Rice Burroughs- All 3 are known for "planetary romance" tales. I.E. go sword and sandal on other planets. Burroughs is a major old writer for adventurous speculative fiction. Brackett's also known for her classic '50s novel The Long Tomorrow and for The script and story to Empire Strikes back. Kline was a '20s-'30s pulp editor that had some early SF.
• Olaf Stapledon- More of a philosopher that used science fiction to explore ideas. Very well-regarded as one of the "high-literature" sci-fi guys but hasn't become that well known. Well worth reading if your dad likes more philosophical exploration of ideas. Very cosmic. Also Odd John and Sirius are famous.
• Stanley Weinbaum- Only wrote for a year and a half before he died. However, his work was really good. Martian Odyssey is a famous tale that got added to the Sci-Fi Hall of Fame volumes as the first tale of vol. 1. He was great at infusing a sort of early "hard sci-fi" into his work. Easily available on kindle and there's a 4 volume TPB collection of his works.
• Murray Leinster- A golden age SF writer that was fairly well respected. Known for Forgotten Planet and Med Ship. A fun writer that's almost forgotten today.
• C. L. Moore & Henry Kuttner- A husband and wife duo that wrote together. Moore's debut work, Shambleau, was praised by Lovecraft. She's also known for Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry. The former's a proto-Han Solo and the latter's a female sword and sorcery heroine. Kuttner's died early but he had plenty of decent works like Fury, Mutant, and Mimsy were the Borogroves. You can get "the best of" volumes of their works easily on ebay or kindle. Moore also wrote a bunch of novels in the '50s that dealt with the more apocalyptic. Kuttner had some variety to him.
• George Stewart- Earth Abides. A 1940 post-apocalyptic novel. It does some interesting stuff that hasn't been replicated or addressed since.
• John Brunner- Known for his "Rome Quartet" iirc. Deals with post apocalyptic/dystopian topics. Well-regarded and your dad may not have read all of his stuff as it's long. Don't recall if he won an award.
• Theodore Sturgeon- Famous golden age writer that took breaks in his writing SF. Very solid. There's a lot of collections of his short stories.
• Fredric Brown- a master at short fiction. Wrote "Arena", the short tale that Star Trek ripped off. A humorist SF writer. Solid and semi-forgotten.
• L. Sprague de Camp- An author more known for his time travel and historically oriented fiction. Wrote Lest Darkness Fall, a banger of an alt-history novel. His work's easy to find and not in high demand. Wrote the Enchanter books with Pratt.
• Damon Knight- more known for being an editor. Solid writer.
• Ben Bova- see above
• Harry Harrison- Stainless Steel Rat, Deathworld, Bill the Galactic Hero, and many other famous series. Also did Soylent Green.
• Hal Clement- classic '50s era hard sci-fi writer. Mission of Gravity was the first of his Mesklin novels.
• Algis Budrys- More known for his written criticisms than most of his work. Wrote Rogue Moon. Solid piece
• Jack Williamson- had a 77 year career. still kept his old school adventuring style into his final work.
• Jack Vance- think he had a Hugo but he's also underrated. Worth reading everything.
• Lester del rey- never quite known for his writing, but his editing was noteworthy and he did start del rey books.
• Fritz Leiber- a fantasy/horror writer that executes SF well due to his skill level. Easy to find his works on ebooks.
• Andre Norton- classic portal fantasy/sf and time travel. Known to have been prolific.
• A. E. Van Vogt- the golden age writer that's allegedly been the inspiration for Star Trek and Aliens. Very proto-PKD energy
• Richard Matheson- Horror writer that also did a lot of SF like I am Legend.
• Philip Jose Farmer- Classic writer that could get weird. Did Riverworld and Dayworld and World of Tiers series.
• Jack Finney- Did Body Snatchers & Time and Again
• Lloyd Biggle- More known for being an editor iirc. But still a decent read.
• James Blish- classic writer more known for his criticism and commentary. Still has plenty of good books. Think he won a Hugo but he's only known for that Hugo.
• Fred Saberhagen- Fun writer from the 60s onwards. Sorta pulpy but still solid. Berserker series inspired Terminator. Empire of the East inspired a lot of DnD.
• Kurt Vonnegut- Famous writer that used sci-fi.
• Stanislaw Lem- famous eastern european writer during the late 50s-early 60s that's become honored as one of the greats. Wrote Solaris and The Invincibl.
• The Strugatsky Bros- Soviets that did Roadside Picnic and other works. Good rep.
• Robert Sheckley- A good writer that did a lot of more humorous tones. Widely reprinted nowadays.
• C. M. Kornbluth- Another guy who died young. Intelligent satire and solid writing.
• Cordwainer Smith- the glownigger. Died before his time. Everything he's written is highly respected. In his day job, wrote the foundational textbook on psychological warfare for the CIA. Good fuckin' writer though.
• J. G. Ballard- classic new wave brit writer that became known. Disaster trilogy's well loved. He also had more transgressive works so be careful.
• John Wyndham- British and wrote Day of the Triffids and a bunch of other sci-fi. Solid writer and worth reading.
• I'm going to presume I don't need to sell you on Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Silverberg, le Guin, Bradbury, Herbert, Zelazny, Anderson, PKD, Gibson, Verne, Wells, Pohl, and etc.

 

[Betonhaus]

Can anyone recommend some good scifi stories? My dad is looking for something to read and is really big into scifi. He's read a lot of the "classic" authors that I know about at least so I figured I'd ask here.

is there anything in particular he's interested in about scifi? scifi has a lot of subgenres, such as mystery or psychology or marine tactics or romance or revenge or strategy or horror and so on, anything in particular?

 

[Berserker Armor]

I have been on a weird holy crusade through the young adult section of my local library. Happened on accident. I find young adult fiction fun to read because it’s either well written or inspiration for fanfiction writers everywhere. I always find the edgiest fanfiction like for fun then fantasy ones here and there to remain sane.
What started my crusade was I decided to reread books by Ellen Hopkins. LOVED them as many emo teenagers did and wondered if they were still even readable as an adult. They are readable.. kinda.. if you like edge and wondering why you were allowed to read this as a teenager.

Spoiler: Me musing about Ellen hopkins

Reading tilt and impulse right now. They are just as edgy as i remember so far. I love this style of writing but hate it at the same time. Not awful but not great. Some of the characters give me second hand embarrassment but most of them are teenagers. Some characters are decently written.. despite the bad plot lines. The plot lines are like.. well just fucking edgy. Tilt starts off kinda dirty and weird considering the character it starts with is barely 18. Sometimes it gets confusing on what is going on cuz there’s an egregious amount of time skipping it feels like. Impulse I found at goodwill near my house. The library didn’t have this one. It was like a dollar so why not. My older sister has the second book (Perfect) so I’m borrowing it from her when I finish it. Haven’t started it yet but remember it destroying me emotionally as a teen. So either it will make me make fun of myself or feel the same way. Most likely make fun of myself at that age.
I also read identical to start off. Library had that one, That one threw me for a whirl. Forgot it had a DID plot line then remembered half way through it did. It kinda made me feel gross to read. Not going to lie.
Read what about will. It’s a newer one. It’s extra fanfiction-y feely but tame. in its own way is a decent read. The MC is written as his age more than most of the other books.

Also read this as I saw at the library. I will let the short description on the goodreads page speak for itself. It was.. an interesting read as some points made me forget how cringy it was then it brought it right back. The MC is very much a 17 year old boy though. Lots of random mentions of porn.

I also did the liberty of rereading hush, hush. I had to stop in the middle of reading and cringe a lot. I can see the appeal.. I can. I ate this shit up when my sister let me borrow her copy at 12. MC is basic. Patch is the basic dark mysterious love interest. I read most of it in a night. Just don’t ask which is the most cringe trying to be edgy love story.. Angel twilight vs actual twilight. It’s not a fair fight. In some ways hush, hush might have twilight beat.
I also read this is where it ends which is an American school shooting fanfic by a European author. I think that sums it up enough. I had to sit there and wonder what I was reading a few times. Especially when I finished it. The edition I read was the deluxe and at the end it had a playlist with the most basic white woman music. Didn’t even leave the library with it just read it right there. Good thing I didn’t. Thanks to good reads I found out that the author does/did a lot of stuff with marvel. weird but fitting.

Going to read some of the fantasy books I got on my list of books to read next. These books really did me in and I need a cleansing. My brain hurts. I hate reading (I love it)

 

[Jewthulhu]

is there anything in particular he's interested in about scifi? scifi has a lot of subgenres, such as mystery or psychology or marine tactics or romance or revenge or strategy or horror and so on, anything in particular?

He likes space stories (space operas I guess?). He's a big trekkie if that helps.

Last book he read was The Martian and really enjoyed it.

Stanislaw Lem- famous eastern european writer during the late 50s-early 60s that's become honored as one of the greats. Wrote Solaris and The Invincibl.

I keep meaning to read Solaris after watching the movie. Maybe I'll get it and loan it to him.

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

I've been reading works from my favorite Yaoi artist. (Who I once hated but now I love). Perceptions of Noushintou Hoshi's works by many people are mixed but those who love it like I do really recommend it. Although erotic, characters feel actually really well rounded here. They're really intense and shows the darkest parts of human nature. It's hard for me to obtain those books in physical form but if you do support her on Fanbox. She'll give you the full story. Her characters look amazing as well.

 

[Susanna]

Last book he read was The Martian and really enjoyed it.

He should take a look at the rest of Andy Weir's works then. Artemis is a similar hard sci-fi story about a smuggler on a moon base, basically a heist story with a surprisingly large amount of plot-critical welding, while Project Hail Mary is a bit softer and focuses on a first contact situation and the invention of humanity's first interstellar vessel. Neither one was as well-received as the Martian, but I think they're both quite good. Artemis in particular was clearly written with the idea that it might be adopted for a screenplay one day (which was announced a couple years ago, but nothing came of it).

The Expanse is also a series he might be interested in. It starts out as fairly hard sci-fi in a working-class space setting but evolves into a kind of whodunnit.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

He likes space stories (space operas I guess?). He's a big trekkie if that helps.

Last book he read was The Martian and really enjoyed it.

I keep meaning to read Solaris after watching the movie. Maybe I'll get it and loan it to him.

take a look through the list I posted.

But, regarding Space Operas. Look up Poul Anderson's Space Operas. The Flandry/Van Rijn books are neat.

Van Vogt's Space Beagle is the inspiration for Star Trek.

Aside from all that, I really think Jack Vance's Demon Prince quintology would be good here. And Vance has other space operas. Niven's work like Ringworld/Lucifer's Hammer/ etc. would be good too. Cherryh's Downbelow Station, etc.

If you want an out of left field pick for stuff, maybe E. E. Smith's Lensmen/Galactic Patrol/Skylark stuff. Also consider Gateway by Pohl, Rendezvous with Rama by Clarke, and Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Man/Norstrillia. Cordwainer Smith has a concise library of SF works because he died suddenly. It's all available from NESFA in a big set.

Poul Anderson's Tau Zero would be great too. Asimov/Heinlein also had their space opera type stuff iirc.

 

[AnOminous]

C.S Lewis is one of the only Christian apologetic writers I have found worthwhile (aside from Theophilus of Antioch). If there are others in the same calibre, I would be up for some recommendations.

I'd say St. Augustine. Also Kierkegaard, although I'm not sure I'd call what he wrote apologetics. He has a very eccentric view of religion.

 

[AnOminous]

• C. L. Moore & Henry Kuttner- A husband and wife duo that wrote together. Moore's debut work, Shambleau, was praised by Lovecraft. She's also known for Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry. The former's a proto-Han Solo and the latter's a female sword and sorcery heroine. Kuttner's died early but he had plenty of decent works like Fury, Mutant, and Mimsy were the Borogroves. You can get "the best of" volumes of their works easily on ebay or kindle. Moore also wrote a bunch of novels in the '50s that dealt with the more apocalyptic. Kuttner had some variety to him.

He also used "Lewis Padgett" as a pseudonym for his works with Moore so if you like him you should also look for that. He's partly not well remembered for having died young, but also for using a LOT of pseudonyms, many in one-off works, so we probably don't know all the pseudonyms he used.

Kuttner himself also did a couple Lovecraft pastiches and both of them were in the "Lovecraft circle."

 

[Alexander Thaut]

He also used "Lewis Padgett" as a pseudonym for his works with Moore so if you like him you should also look for that. He's partly not well remembered for having died young, but also for using a LOT of pseudonyms, many in one-off works, so we probably don't know all the pseudonyms he used.

Kuttner himself also did a couple Lovecraft pastiches and both of them were in the "Lovecraft circle."

Kuttner, for some reason, is being "rediscovered" by some of the circles of SF/F fans I'm in and it's pretty interesting seeing Kuttner-Kornbluth-Cordwainer Smith get "rediscovered" and now people are telling me to read Kuttner's horror works, Kornbluth's Syndic, and just get Smith's works.

anyways, does anyone have thoughts on Edmond Hamilton, the old SF writer?

 

[Hazel Motes]

C.S Lewis is one of the only Christian apologetic writers I have found worthwhile (aside from Theophilus of Antioch). If there are others in the same calibre, I would be up for some recommendations.

Ronald Knox is bang on if you like CS Lewis. They are both from the same era, were friends, and share perennial concerns.

Knox, unlike Chesterton, is direct in his arguments. It makes him far more entertaining and convincing.

Some books by him:
Broadcast Minds: About pseudo-scientific beliefs, usually a mask for an unwillingness to argue religious beliefs and arguments.

Caliban in Grub Street: About the emotional based arguments for a deistic conception of God. The 'spiritual but not religious' crowd.

Enthusiasm: About the long history of 'enthusiasm', the idea of being possessed by God.

He also wrote a brilliant translation of the Bible. Evelyn Waugh wrote his biography.

Two quotes I like:

Spoiler: two quotes I like by him

What we mean, in the last resort, by 'an answer to prayer', is that from the beginning of time, before he set about the building of the worlds, God foreknew every prayer that human lips would breathe, and took it into account. That, and nothing less, is the staggering claim which we make every time we say the 'Our Father'.

If I could have collected all the symposiasts in a room, this is the issue I would have put to them, to 'try their spirits'. By all means (I would have said) let us leave dogma on one side, let us take no notice of all the secular disputes which divide the sympathies of Christian people, let us refrain as far as possible from prying into the mysterious secrets, too high for our ken. But- do you believe that God runs the world, and cares what happens in the world? For, if so, you will have to find something better than a pale, pantheist abstraction to satisfy your notion of God. And if not, you may spare your inkstands; nothing you can tell us about your religion will ever strengthen an infirm purpose or heal a broken heart.

Spoiler: two quotes I like by him

I may be a bigot, I may be a pedant' but I believe I have the ordinary Englishman with me here. He does not want 'religion'; he wants God.

And if you tell him that he knows God by an intuitive perception, you will only make him unhappy. He is fully conscious that the word came into his vocabulary when he was a child, when he was accustomed to accept from his elders a multitude of traditions, some of which his riper mind has discarded; that he has lived with the idea and grown accustomed to it, that it has formed part of a fairyland which he would like to find true. Precisely for that reason, he distrusts the sentiment; he suspects himself of fostering a grateful illusion, suspects that the wish was father to the thought. The notion of God fits in with his higher ideals, with his dearer hopes; all the more reason to surmise that it has been coined, by successive ages of mythology, for that purpose. The very reason why you ask him to believe in God, namely, that he wants to believe in God, is his main reason for doubting. The elders, when they heard Helen plead, made allowances for the beauty of her voice, lest they should be spellbound by its influence; what if this hope, too, should be an illusion of the Sirens?

The Englishman wants truth of fact; you will not get him to replace it by artistic values. The pressure of fact is all around him, reflected in the daily urgency of living; you must give him a metaphysic of fact, for the alternative is despair.

 

[White Trash Motorsport]

The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodward.
A history of the golden age of pirates. I had no idea that a couple of unfortunate (if you were Spanish) hurricanes and the Treaty of Utrecht were so pivotal.
Shiver me timbers.

 

[cold comfort]

I read Jack Glass by Adam Roberts which aims to combine golden age sci-fi with golden age crime but in my opinion it doesn’t do either very well. From the first page:

One of these mysteries is a prison story. One is a regular whodunit. One is a locked-room mystery. I can’t promise that they’re necessarily presented to you in that order; but it should be easy for you work out which is which, and to sort them out accordingly. Unless you find that each of them is all three at once, in which case I’m not sure I can help you.

In each case the murderer is the same individual – of course, Jack Glass himself. How could it be otherwise? Has there ever been a more celebrated murderer?

That’s fair, I hope?

Your task is to read these accounts, and solve the mysteries and identify the murderer. Even though I have already told you the solution, the solution will surprise you. If the revelation in each case is anything less than a surprise, then I will have failed.

I do not like to fail.

As you can already tell there is something annoyingly affected about the tone. Two of the endings are surprising but only because they’re so dumb. Around ten pages from the end something is revealed about one of the characters that is so ill-judged I lost whatever faith I had left in the author. And to top it all off, there’s some worldbuilding and an overarching story across all three parts but the book ends at what would be the end of the first act in a normal narrative so you get zero pay-off to all that. I’ve read books less enjoyable in the moment than this one this year, but this is the one that pissed me off the most upon finishing.

Also read Against Decolonisation by Nigerian philosopher Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò. He argues that once a colony becomes politically and economically independent decolonisation is complete, and that the concept is useless or counterproductive when applied more broadly to music, literature, language, (political) philosophy, medicine, psychology, etc. I thought this was a very interesting subject and he made some great points. Most of the book centres around the use of English vs local languages, and the decolonisers' view of modernity and liberal representative democracy as suspect and tainted and in need of ‘decolonising’. In a nutshell:

Here is the deal: the world, the so-called West or Global North, does not owe Africa. And I fail to see—unless we grant that white supremacists are right and we are permanent children whose will is forever at the mercy of our erstwhile colonisers—why after 60 plus years of independence, Africans are willing to accept that we are still colonised and that we have no will or strength to defeat our oppressors and, therefore, do not have the wherewithal to expunge modern institutions and practices inspired by the so-called West from our lives.

There were a few niggles I had. Apart from the first chapter (on language) it didn’t flow very elegantly and had quite a bit of repetition. Maybe because it was adapted from a paper. A few tangential points he made annoyed me, like talking about ‘the welfare of transgender and queer Africans’ in the same paragraph where he discusses how in most African countries homosexuality is still a criminal offence, or describing what happened with George Floyd as a ‘wanton killing’ by police officers. There’s even a minor outbreak of TDS with “as in other societies, liberal representative democracy in Africa is a self-correcting mechanism, as long as no-one takes power and uses it to make it impossible for them to be removed, as did the Nazis in 1930s Germany and as Trump attempted in the United States in January 2021.”

 

[Flaming Carrot]

He likes space stories (space operas I guess?). He's a big trekkie if that helps.

Last book he read was The Martian and really enjoyed it.

I keep meaning to read Solaris after watching the movie. Maybe I'll get it and loan it to him.

Books by Ian M. Banks, Peter Hamilton, Neal Asher, Charles Stross, Robert Reed, and Alistair Reynolds might fit the bill. If you know any other books he really likes that would help narrow it down.

Kuttner, for some reason, is being "rediscovered" by some of the circles of SF/F fans I'm in and it's pretty interesting seeing Kuttner-Kornbluth-Cordwainer Smith get "rediscovered" and now people are telling me to read Kuttner's horror works, Kornbluth's Syndic, and just get Smith's works.

anyways, does anyone have thoughts on Edmond Hamilton, the old SF writer?

From what I understand, Moore's second husband was the literary executor for Kuttner and Moore's work and wasn't authorizing reprints for whatever reason, so they were out of print for years. Moore's stepdaughter ended up with the rights after her father died, and she allowed reprints to go forward. Also, some of Kuttner's material has fallen into the public domain, which has increased his visibility a lot. It's great that people are find out about them again, because they were very popular authors in the science fiction during their lifetimes.

If you're reading Kornbluth, check out his novel Not this August. He's another great author who died too young.

I haven't read a lot of Edward Hamilton, but I did enjoy his books A Yank in Valhalla and The Haunted Stars. He also wrote a great short story called "What's it Like out There".

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Books by Ian M. Banks, Peter Hamilton, Neal Asher, Charles Stross, Robert Reed, and Alistair Reynolds might fit the bill. If you know any other books he really likes that would help narrow it down.

From what I understand, Moore's second husband was the literary executor for Kuttner and Moore's work and wasn't authorizing reprints for whatever reason, so they were out of print for years. Moore's stepdaughter ended up with the rights after her father died, and she allowed reprints to go forward. Also, some of Kuttner's material has fallen into the public domain, which has increased his visibility a lot. It's great that people are find out about them again, because they were very popular authors in the science fiction during their lifetimes.

If you're reading Kornbluth, check out his novel Not this August. He's another great author who died too young.

I haven't read a lot of Edward Hamilton, but I did enjoy his books A Yank in Valhalla and The Haunted Stars. He also wrote a great short story called "What's it Like out There".

I'm surprised at how much decent science fiction (and, some fantasy) there was in the 30s-60s that slips under the radar of the dozen or so "greats".

Moore's work is largely in print nowadays, I think. Not sure about Kuttner's. I know his two novels, his "best of" collection, and his Thunder Jim Wade stuff is all in print right now. I did see a few "Early Kuttner" collections on ebay going for like 100 bucks a pop. Probably won't go for those as I'm not a diehard fan. . . yet.

Fritz Lieber is my jam and I wish more people knew about him beyond the sword and sorcery stuff. He's just a consistently enjoyable writer. Stanley Weinbaum and Murray Leinster also feel underrated.

I think around Christmastime or whenever the big influx of used books goes out, I'd probably wind up picking up all those Asimov "Golden Age of Science Fiction" anthologies he did. I'd love to pick up some Gold/Derleth/Conklin anthologies but I'd guess those might be pricier.

Kornbluth's novels haven't been collected for reprints as far as I know. NESFA has compiled his short fiction, at least. I think I can get Syndic for reasonably cheap, but not sure about the one you mention.

Hamilton's cool. Hell, I tried to read some E.E. Smith and I stopped because I fell asleep. His style's a little dry, but it's interesting enough. A writer I don't see many people talk about is Fredric Brown.

I found a book of Loren Eisely's works at a used bookstore and thought it was sci-fi book. Looked at the stuff and bought it. It's a genuinely interesting book called the Star Thrower.

Honestly, with how crap modern media feels, I keep finding older stuff I like that seems to have been almost forgotten.

 

[AnOminous]

Honestly, with how crap modern media feels, I keep finding older stuff I like that seems to have been almost forgotten.

Even total pulp from the "Golden Era" is top tier compared to the absolute crap that literally wins Hugos now.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Even total pulp from the "Golden Era" is top tier compared to the absolute crap that literally wins Hugos now.

I mean given that the SFWA is melting down and the Hugos have been rigged for a while, I'd honestly consider Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle to be better than BIPOC power fantasy #329.

 

[Gilgamesh]

Does anyone have any tips for Pynchon or recommendations for books to get into his style? I got around halfway through Gravity’s Rainbow and while I was invested I had to disregard several paragraphs just because I didn’t see how they related to the story or just couldn’t parse it. It was a library copy that had been paged so I had to return it but it left me thinking if there were easier introductions to him.