[quote]Grimnuruk wrote:
kroby wrote:
Gheez, you guys. Not a single Robert E. Howard? How about some HG Wells? Oh! How about Timothy Zahn? Michael Moorcocks’ Von Beck series.
well, REH isn’t SCIENCE fiction but his stuff is by far the BEST weird fiction and sword and sorcery/fantasy out there. (can you tell he is my favorite author?)
be sure to get only the stuff which hasn’t been edited/destroyed by de Camp.
REH’s writings and Frazetta’s paintings are what got me started lifting and still sustain me twenty odd years later.
[/quote]
YUP. But, REH is in the Science Fiction secion of your friendly neighborhood bookstore. Howard and Lovercraft were before their time. My first love is Howard, but the author which inspires awe is Herbert. Lovecraft touches the fantasic otherworldly with nuance and IMPLICATION, not gross overdescription. All three: brilliant. No self respecting science fiction reader would be without their collections. Oh, and I include King Kull, Bran Mac Morn, Cormac MacArt in with Conan. God, Howard had imagination and a flair for writing!
I prefer the more philosophical sci-fi rather than the hard science of Asimov or Clarke, a distinction that was made by the great writer and theorist, Stanislaw Lem (RIP). Known mainly for Solaris, some of his other works like Cyberiad - a series of stories about and told by intelligent robots - and Futurological Congress, are friggin’ hilarious. He was also a great sci-fi critic and Microworlds, is wonderful.
He also loved Dick, Philip K., that is, and the Valis trilogy, has been mentioned many times for good reason.
Other than those, try some Japanese stuff by Haruki Murakami or Kobo Abe. Not all of their works would qualify, but Abe’s Ark Sakura and Inter Ice-Age 4 are worthwhile. Murakami is just a hoot.
And Frankenstein, perhaps the first of them all, is still a great read.
“Stations of the Tide” Michael Swanwick
“City on Fire” and “Metropolitan” Walter Jon Williams
The Gaean Trilogy by John Varley
Lots of stuff by Jack Vance
Alhazred first wrote it several centuries ago (yes, it’s an old book). It’s quite old, but worth reading if you can get your hands on it.
I think the original text is in Arabic. There is an English translation by John Dee, but I don’t know if he finished it before he was consumed by madness.
Alhazred first wrote it several centuries ago (yes, it’s an old book). It’s quite old, but worth reading if you can get your hands on it.
I think the original text is in Arabic. There is an English translation by John Dee, but I don’t know if he finished it before he was consumed by madness.[/quote]
Hmm… I thought he was talking about Neal Stephenson’s Necronomicon. Check out one of his early works, the cyber/skate-punk classic Snow Crash.
Hologaming and Virtual Worlds (long before those things became cyberpunk cliches) and Ninjas — what more could you ask for?
I was thinking of Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, not to be confused with THE Necronomicon, written by some mad Arab centuries ago…Alhazred is not the name I remember, though as you see, I’ve been wrong before!