[gmw]

I see Greg Egan has been a busy boy since I last looked his way, I'll be sure to check some out (there's even a short in one of the books Meeera suggested). Thanks.

As for the "insanely" and "diamond" hard labels (but not saying anything about Greg Egan) I do expect even hard science fiction to have an accessible and entertaining story and reasonable characters. A few authors guilty of forgetting this are among the reasons why I parted ways with hard SciFi for so long.

Rizla, I'm certainly be interested in getting some more David Brin. William Gibson wasn't so much to my tastes last I tried, but I probably should give him another go. For some reason The Compleat McAndrew rings a bell with me, couldn't tell you why, pretty sure I've not read any Charles Sheffield - maybe it's time I did. Thanks.


One of the reasons for starting to look for more recent SciFi was sitting down to some older stuff and finding myself amused and saddened by various aspects that relate to their age. A common (sad) one is there was a time when it was confidently believed we would be in space and colonising the moon and Mars long before now. (It seems that anyone thinking otherwise just wasn't being realistic.) As I understand it, the reasons why this hasn't happened are mostly societal - social sciences being among the sciences sadly missing from the old SciFi (except, occasionally, as related to aliens). I'm curious to read some recent stuff as a direct contrast and comparison to that - the view then vs the view now.