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Another under appreciated SF author who was actually quite fun to read, was L. Ron Hubbard. His SF works were a lot of fun and generally what I would call somewhere between hard SF and just good old SF...either way, Battlefield Earth was a fun read. So were the first 5 or 6 "Mission Earth" novels...never did I associate the whole Scientology thing with what I was reading.
One of the joys I had as a kid and likely WHY I was drawn toward SF was the idea was always to think and look at the world from a POV that could be very different from your own. The idea was to break through and beyond the propaganda of the day...apparently many here prefer to see the political agendas of today in current novels as well as still going strong 1000 years from now. I find that depressing and, well a sad indictment of the world today.
I keep saying it, we need an ELE to happen so maybe the surviving inhabitants of this planet might finally remember what life is all about...and that we are genuinely becoming those "rats in a cage" that turn on each other. We are a bored species possessing a level of hubris that has never been seen in recorded history.
FYI, nothing turns me off more than writers with a polarized agenda...it's one thing to take a POV or belief system and grow it to see where it could go, see an interesting novel The Unincorporated Man and the follow-up which I have only glanced through, The Unincorporated War. Some say it has one agenda and others say it is coming from the exact opposite direction...to me that makes for good writing when people walk away from it with different perspectives.
One of the big turn offs I have over the direction of Baen these days is the John Ringo's of the world...fine because I did enjoy a couple of his earlier works but every title with the same POV is, well, I'll just say not interesting.
Not classified as SF by some but Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a read that will truly challenge your values. OF course I LOVED the TV series Re-Genesis as I thought it was one of the most creative series on TV in years. Until they too had to "jump the shark"...hmmm, I wonder of there were any novels from which the series was based?
I always tell friends who ask be for SF recommendations the same answer...just go and grab a few books that look interesting...read them all the way through then try and decide why you liked or did not like them...after than you can start hunting for titles more toward your personal tastes.
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