Best living sci-fi author

[jbcohen]

My vote goes to David Weber. What's your oppinion?

How about the best new sci-fi author who has published three or less books? I have never run into any new sci-fi authors as yet, all the ones I have read are very well established.

[DrNefario]

I sometimes think the best living writer of any kind of fiction is Gene Wolfe, but I guess it's a little hazy whether you'd classify his stuff as SF.

Iain M. Banks or Alastair Reynolds, perhaps, for someone who is definitely SF.

I get a lot of enjoyment from Weber's stuff, but it doesn't really show the breadth of imagination I want from the best SF.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I sometimes think the best living writer of any kind of fiction is Gene Wolfe, but I guess it's a little hazy whether you'd classify his stuff as SF.

Iain M. Banks or Alastair Reynolds, perhaps, for someone who is definitely SF.

I get a lot of enjoyment from Weber's stuff, but it doesn't really show the breadth of imagination I want from the best SF.

I second this :-). I like Stephen Baxter as well (just read his Flood and Ark)

[HoopyFrood]

Jack McDevitt or Neal Stephenson, although Stephenson isn't just strictly a SF writer. I guess for pure SF, I would have to go with McDevitt.

Man, I forgot Larry Niven and/or Orsen Scott Card. Rats, I hate making decisions. However I'll stick with my original pick.

[Belfaborac]

For me it would probably be Peter F. Hamilton and Iain M. Banks, although I wouldn't dare claim they're the best, only my favourites. Stephen Baxter is certainly up there as well, as is Ben Bova and Brian Aldiss (who is still alive, I think?). The latter primarily for his Helliconia trilogy, which is one of the all-time greats in my opinion. Many others too, I'm sure, if I started going through 30+ years of Sci-Fi reading.

[DiapDealer]

I hope the best living sci-fi author is either still in diapers or flipping burgers somewhere anxiously hoping someone will finally accept their manuscript. That way, there's always room for improvement.

But in the spirit of the thread...

I have a great respect for Richard K. Morgan and Peter F. Hamilton's stuff.

As for relatively new authors, I'll go with: Paolo Bacigalupi, Hannu Rajaniemi, Will McIntosh

[jbcohen]

Hoopy is probably right, most likely Orson Scott Card for his ender series.

[bill_mchale]

Its hard to name a best... I imagine it depends on what you are looking for. Certain authors are really fun, but others, though perhaps less fun, have a depth to them.

--
Bill

[jbcohen]

How about the best new author? Some one that has written three or fewer books. This one I might go get a novel from the winner. I am always interested in new tallent, but thus far the only thing that I haev come across is well established authors.

[aecardenas]

Ursula K. Leguin is still alive and her science fiction work was incredible, from books like The Left Hand of Darkness to the The Lathe of Heaven.

Also, Samuel R. Delany's science fiction work was really great, but I don't think he's writing anything in that genre currently. The Einstein Intersection, Dahlgren, Nova and Babel-17 are really great works of science fiction.

Orson Scott Card is also good. I remember enjoying Ender's Game, but really liking his books the Speaker for the Dead and also Xenocide. But i stopped during Children of the mind as it started to get a little hokey.

[BillSmithBooks]

Ray Bradbury.

There is no way anything I could write could do any justice to his amazing contributions to sci-fi, fantasy and horror.

[HoopyFrood]

I dunno about Ray Bradbury, he always seemed much more fantasy than hardcore sci-fi. He was definitely on the cusp of the two, but I read him when he was one of the "Big Three" and I was a kid, and even then considered him not really sci-fi.

Maybe he should have a category of his very own, he certainly deserves it IMO.

[BillSmithBooks]

Originally Posted by HoopyFrood

I dunno about Ray Bradbury, he always seemed much more fantasy than hardcore sci-fi. He was definitely on the cusp of the two, but I read him when he was one of the "Big Three" and I was a kid, and even then considered him not really sci-fi.

Maybe he should have a category of his very own, he certainly deserves it IMO.

As a kid/teen, I wasn't into Bradbury at all. But as I got older, I really developed a love for his poetry-prose style.

That's always been the discussion about Ray, "is he or isn't he" a sci-fi writer? But he clearly IS a sci-fi writer judged by Farenheit 451, Martian Chronicles and countless short stories.

Hard sci-fi? No, clearly not.

But definitely sci-fi (although not limited to that realm).

Honorable mention for Joe Straczynski for Babylon 5 while I'm at (even though they were scripts and not prose in the traditional sense). He wrote the entire Season Four, numerous episodes of all other seasons, most issues of the short-lived DC comic...and gave us such immortal quotes as "Once the avalanche has started it is too late for the pebbles to vote." (Boy, a line of Babylon 5 ebooks would be a very profitable product line...they'd never hit the best-seller lists but boy could they be cool.)

[aecardenas]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

Honorable mention for Joe Straczynski for Babylon 5 while I'm at (even though they were scripts and not prose in the traditional sense). He wrote the entire Season Four, numerous episodes of all other seasons, most issues of the short-lived DC comic...and gave us such immortal quotes as "Once the avalanche has started it is too late for the pebbles to vote." (Boy, a line of Babylon 5 ebooks would be a very profitable product line...they'd never hit the best-seller lists but boy could they be cool.)

I think Babylon-5 constitutes as a Television Novel and a really great one at that.

[crich70]

I think Travis S. Taylor is pretty good at writing SF. His "Warp Speed" and its sequel "The Quantum Connection" are pretty good.