Your favorite authors?
Your favorite authors?
Mine, not in an order of preference: Jack Vance, Van Vogt, Asimov, Arthur C Clarke and Frank Herbert.
Pierce Brown, though book 6 was a little rough
Keith Laumer, Gordon R. Dickson and Jack McDevitt are probably the ones I re-read the most.
Hmm. Lately, Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Neal Asher, Mike Carey, Octavia Butler.
I read a lot of fantasy too, if I had to pick a favorite writer it might be Ian McDonald, but Mike Carey is so good, the comics he worked on are so good.
Iain M Banks, Peter F Hamilton, Asimov, Neal Asher, and Alastair Reynolds.
I like space operas if you can’t tell.
Neal Asher! I just fall into his books. I'm never even sure if it's good writing but I do love his stuff so much.
To push it a bit more contemporary: Peter Cawdron and his "First Contact " series, which is infinite variations (about 30 as of now) of making first contact with an alien sentience of any type.
It's excellent, and despite being excellent only available on kindle / kindle unlimited because as an independent author, that's the only way for him to publish & make a buck out if it.
Peter Cawdron is on Mastodon btw
Iain Banks
With or without the "M"? :)
Both, tbh.
Definitely Jack Vance first.
After that it's all over the place from day to day. Really enjoying Adrian Tchaikovsky lately, "The Final Architecture" series is just perfect.
Benedict Jacka has scratched my itch for urban fantasy.
I keep being impressed by Ian McDonald, his Luna series was such a tidy read.
Other than that, Samuel Delaney, LeGuin, Harry Harrison, Heinlein, and several others. I don't have a list, just authors :)
I'm getting into Adrian Tchaikovsky myself. He certainly loves painting the future as a capitalist hellscape, doesn't he?
I'm part way into Shroud, where whole solar systems are being strip-mined for resources, and the people doing the work are skinny because they can't afford to eat well but they get auto-dosed with drugs to help them focus when hunger is distracting them.
Ursula K Le Guin, Alaistair Reynolds, Margaret Atwood (For the Maddaddam trilogy,) Jules Verne, John Windham.
Asimov, Clarke, Niven obviously.
For more modern authors:
- Christopher Hinz
- Jon Scalzi
- Brandon Sanderson
- Neal Stephenson
- Hugh Howey
Not a purely sci-fi author , but checkout "Octavia E Butler". She uses sci-fi to explore other thematics. The fact that I didn't see her name once here says a lot about how underrated she is
Her main book "parable of the sower" is a must read today for anyone living in the USA nowadays. So many points of today's politics make me think back about that book.
I don't really have a fav, but I've enjoyed lots of sci fi authors over the years.
- Frederick Pohl (especially Gateway, but not the sequel)
- J. G. Ballard
- Phillip K Dick
- Alfred Bester
- William Gibson
- George Orwell
- Andy Weir
- Strutgasky Brothers (Loved Roadside Picnic)
- Paolo Bacigalupi
- China Meiville
The list goes on
- Robert Silverberg
- Peter Corris
- Hammond Innes
- Dick Francis
- Arthur Ransome
- Nevil Shute
- Robert Heinlein
- Isaac Asimov
- Hergé
Asimov, Clarke and Frank Herbert are, of course, in the top 3, but I particularly enjoy Dan Simmons as well. I loved both Hyperion and Ilium, he has a knack for weaving together half a dozen tales that have seemingly nothing in common. Downside is that you spend an entire book reading the buildup to the actual story, but I'm a Robert Jordan fan too, I'm accustomed to that.
Isaac Asimov, Roger Williams