Pointing at Science Fiction, part III

Part I

Part II

Other writers who deserve more recognition...

I haven't read a lot of James H. Schmitz, but there's a sample of his work in the anthology The Good Old Stuff. Schmitz wrote a ton of books, some of which are still in print thanks to Baen. I keep meaning to look up the rest of his work, but I gather it's hard to find. What I've read, I've really liked. His female characters are decades ahead of their time. Smart, funny, independent women—very different than the dependent baby factories most of his contempoararies were writing.

Diane Duane wrote the best treatment of the Romulans in Star Trek, and it's a damn shame that Paramount ignored her work in favor of... whatever they ended up using. Denise Crosby clones, vague allusions to Spock and revolutions, something like that, but not anywhere near as good. Plus, her non-Trek fiction is good. (And I give her extra double bonus points for writing some of the best Trek comics ever, including the inspired Ajir/Grond storyline.)

Armor was written by John Steakley back in 1984, and it's still one hell of a read. Aliens, the futility of war, lost princes, hidden identities, armor suits, it's got a lot of stuff worth reading. They adopted his novel Vampire$ into a James Woods vehicle back in the day, but I've not read that one.

Richard C. Morgan's book Altered Carbon has an intriguing premise: what is everyday life like when you can download your consciousness, memories, and skills into any body. Part murder mystery, part thriller, part cyberpunk, part dystopia, part utopia, Altered Carbon is the tale of Takeshi Kovacs, ex-UN Envoy, ex-criminal, ex-lots-of-things, downloaded into a double-cross deal where he has to find out why a wealthy guy killed himself. By the wealthy guy. There's also a sentient hotel called the Hendrix, lots of shooting, and a bunch of more shooting. Not for the squeamish.

If I could live in any one society in a book, it would have to be Iain M. Banks's Culture series. The best place to start might be Player of Games, where the Culture (a galaxy-wide civilization with mile-long starships, worlds, hypersmart AIs, and a bunch of rivals) sends one of its citizens to troubleshoot what to do with an alien society. The Use of Weapons and Excession are also quite good. (Fun fact: Banks writes his regular fiction under the name "Iain Banks" and his SF under the pseudonym "Iain M. Banks.")

Downbelow Station is probably my favorite C.J. Cherryh novel, telling the story of a multi-faction struggle, spacestations, and human societies at the breaking point. It won the Hugo award, so it's perhaps fairly known...

The new Dozois anthology was just published, so I should have some thoughts about it as soon as I get my mitts on it.