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Playing around with the quiz, they have Jerry Pournelle in there. I've never read anything just of his, but a lot of stuff he wrote with Larry Niven. (Dad's a big older Niven fan.)
If you haven't tried him yet, Footfall is cold war-tastic and Legacy of Heorot is my favorite. The sequel got into too much sex and weirdness for me, but Legacy has interesting characters, wild scenery, and a great plot.
The quiz describes Pournelle as one of the most commercial sci-fi authors. He brings a widely appealing action-adventure feel to his books that I love.
Edit to add: I also managed to get Mickey Spillane. Apparently he wrote detective novels and a few bad sci-fi pieces. I love playing with the quiz.
A good introductory book of his to pick up is Slaughterhouse Five. Cat's Cradle is also famous, but imho not as good.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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I'm apparantly John Brunner (who I must admit I've never heard of) - who writes dystopias about futures that we want to avoid. This is kinda interesting, as I'm currently about halfway through writing the second book of a trilogy about (you guessed it...) a dystopia that we want to avoid.
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Answering all the questions as honestly as possible got me Isaac Asimov. That makes me happy. That's the highest compliment I've ever received from a cheezy online "which are you?" test.
Anyone who has never heard of Jules Verne is hereby forbidden to read anything else until they have gone to a bookstore, purchased at least three of M. Verne's books, and read them in their entirety. Some would say you can't call yourself an SF fan if you've never heard of Jules Verne. I say you can't call yourself literate if you've never heard of Jules Verne.
Kurt Vonnegut. I definitely know the name, but I'm not sure I've read his stuff. Was he the guy who wrote that dumbass story about a guy who goes back in time and kills a bug, then returns to his own time to find that the ripple effect has changed history, but the sum total of the changes are that English is spelled differently and some candidate who previously lost an election won it instead? If so, then yeah, I hate Vonnegut. If it wasn't him, then I hate whoever it was that wrote it.
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I'd seen plenty of Verne turned into movies, but I only bought and read a couple of his books after watching The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I loved Captain Nemo so much I bought 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island.
Nemo is in both, but not very much. I was disappointed, but they were still pretty cool.
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I am, apparently, William Gibson. I can deal with that. I've only read "Pattern Recognition", and liked it a great deal. I've been trying to find some of his other stuff, but my local library is sadly lacking.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Bizarre... In this list, There is not Greg Egan. Why ? He is one of my favorite SF Writer. He is perticularly great about his vision of futur, isn't he ?
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the last two novels I read were his?!
For those of you who don't know him he's a hard-SF writer - which isn't a surprise really considering he's a physicist too. I was very much into physics until my obsession with computers kicked in - like going to national contests for 6 years in a row - so I think that's why I appreciate very much what he writes. I thought "Timescape" was excellent - the Romanian translation of the title was nice: something like "Still nature with time" (I think it's "still nature" that you call for example a painting of a vase with flowers, no?). But I can totally see how someone not very interested in physics might consider it boring or something.
The two novels I've read recently are: "Heart of the Comet" with David Brin (another interesting author, I've read "Glory Season" and it's good) and "Foundation's Fear" and they're both interesting though some things he has written in the latter are "imported" and modified from another series. It was kind of annoying at the beginning but I managed to get over it.
As for whom have I read or heard of from the other authors:
Isaac Asimov -- read all the Robots, Empire and Foundation books and some others too. While he admits that he combines hard SF with police-like investigations I love his way of writing. I also like the way he died, saying "I love you [name of his wife]". Way to go!
Frank Herbert -- read the Dune series and also the Pandora series. The White Plague is not really SF, but it's a good one too. Awesome and very complex author!
LeGuin -- read The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Word for World Is Forest. She's ok.
William Gibson -- read Neuromancer & Virtual Light, but although I like computer worlds and stuff, I think he's kind of complicated just for the sake of being complicated...
Robert A. Heinlein -- read and liked all that I read. Kind of a "realistic", "satirical" mind. Definitely not an author for everyone though...
Arthur C. Clarke -- read a lot, liked a lot. Especially the "Odysseys" and "Rama" series, but others also come close (Childhood's End for example). Usually very "science" and less "character devellopement", with some exceptions. Still have to read Richter 10 - I was reminded about it by the recent Asian disaster.
Jules Verne -- you must be kidding, he was my first favorite writer! In my grandparents' village there was this old lady who had a big collection of his novels. Imagine this: a 300 family peasants village and someone has Jules Verne novels!!! Boy, was I lucky!
Stanislav Lem -- read Solaris, some short stories - hillarious! -, The Cyberiad, The Star Diaries and a totally crazy novel for which I don't know the title, about a spy that tries to find out what his job is. That last one is totally nuts, and when I say "totally" I mean it! I'm the only person I know who managed to read it in full.
Gregory Benford -- see above
John Brunner -- Stand on Zanzibar, The Squares of the City (not SF, about chess & human society ). Interestingly weird and psychological. Still have to read The Sheep Look Up (nice title, huh?!).
Samuel R. Delany - read The Einstein Intersection but didn't like it very much...
Olaf Stapledon -- heard of, didn't read anything Kurt Vonnegut -- heard of, never read, planing to read! Ayn Rand -- heard of, didn't read
E.E. "Doc" Smith -- never heard of Philip José Farmer -- never heard of Cordwainer Smith (Paul M.A. Linebarger) -- who? James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice B. Sheldon) -- "Tiptree"?! Get a real name! Hal Clement (Harry C. Stubbs) -- no bells ringing
Of those who are missing: - Ph. K. Dick, though I suspect that no one here is really that crazy to be Ph. K. Dick (be glad people!!!). Probably my favorite author, though someone "very opposite" to me. - A. E. van Vogt - one of the "greats", together with Clarke, Asimov, Herbert & Dick. In my opinion, of course. - Ray Bradbury - because of his little green man & stuff - O. S. Card, but I might be biased - Joe Haldeman - the "Forever" books are superb! - René Barjavel - I agree with Choobak, he's very good - Gérard Klein - plays a lot with time & space; and chess. Lovely! - Dan Simmons - didn't read anything YET, but I know he's good - Greg Bear - in the same league with Gregory Benford. I've read only Eternity, but it was aaaawesome! Even if I had to read it twice before I understood something out of it! - the Strugatski brothers - definitely Russian style
I'd also give you some Romanian authors but unfortunately they aren't translated to English...
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Verily, the story you're talking about is "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury. Now you can go on hating the right guy! Me and other experts consider that one a classic though... Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I loved Captain Nemo so much I bought 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island. ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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