(urth) Other SF writers? (Was: How list works and questions to mailers)

[Fred Kiesche]

Delany: In addition to Empire Star and Babel-17, I'd recommend the short work The Star Pit and the novel Nova.
 
Especially Nova, as it involves the Tarot and stuff and that ties in nicely with...
 
Tim Powers: I got hooked on him with The Annubis Gates. Also good are The Drawing of the Dark, On Stranger Tides, The Stress of Her Regard, Declare, the "Earthquake Weather trilogy" (with Last Call as my all-time favorite part of that trilogy...
 
Powers is a ton of fun. Some people have said that Neil Gaiman is "developing an American mythology". Powers was way ahead of him (I like Gaiman, but like Powers a lot more).
 
(Yes, I am still a couple hundred messages behind...)


F.P. Kiesche III
"When you send a man out with a gun, you create a policymaker. When his ass is on the line, he will do whatever he needs to do...And if the implications of that bothers you, the time to do something about it is before you decide to send him out." (David Drake, Caught in the Crossfire)
Blogging at TexasBestGrok!

--- On Mon, 5/12/08, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Other SF writers? (Was: How list works and questions to mailers)
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Monday, May 12, 2008, 4:11 PM

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 12:35 PM, Matthew Keeley
<matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Perhaps we Wolfe fans should put together a list of other worthwhile
science
> fiction / fantasy writers? I know a few of the people on the thread have a
> list already.

Equally good, but about as far from Wolfe as you can get artistically
or philosophically,
is Samuel R. Delany. Some of his work, incidentally, is <i>not</i>
for
the easily
offended! Good starting places include _Babel 17_, _Empire Star_, and his short
story collection _Aye and Gomorrah_

Anyone who likes Wolfe should give TIm Powers a try: his work is nowhere near
as *dense* as Wolfe's, and certainly less mysterious, but has a
certain similarity
in what he uses SF/F to do. A good stand-alone starting point is the
pirate novel
(h'mmm...) _On Stranger Tides_; his finest work to date is in the
trilogy consisting
of _Last Call_, _Expiration Date_ and _Earthquake Weather_.

Any list like this must include Ursula K. Le Guin, who is another
far-from-Wolfe
but awfully good. Start anywhere but her first three books.

I would recommend, with slight hesitation, James Blish, and especially his
four-volume trilogy (and that's not a paradox) "After Such
Knowledge." The
first book (_Doctor Mirabilis_) is a historical novel retelling the
life of friar
Roger Bacon; the second, in two volumes (_Black Easter_ and _The Day
After Judgment_) a contemporary fantasy/horror novel, and the third (_A
Case of Conscience_) a SF novel. Together they are an inquiry into the
question whether the quest for secular knowledge for its own sake is a
valid goal, or indeed permissible at all, from a Christian (sc. Catholic) point
of view.

As an alternate take on some of the themes in _Case of Conscience_, one
should also read _The Sparrow_ by Mary Doria Russell, an astonishing
book in its own right and one that may appeal to Wolfe fans specifically
for a number of reasons.

Okay, I'll shut up now and let someone else go.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
http://www.danehyoakes.com

I once absend-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a
restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand
Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce. -- T. Pratchett
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