Monday, 4 April 2022

What I Like

What I Like In SF
time travel
future histories
cosmological sf

What I Like In Other Fiction
substantial novels in series, trilogies or tetralogies

I need hardly spell out yet again that Poul Anderson excels in all these categories:

the Time Patrol series and more
the Technic History and more
Tau Zero
The King Of Ys (with Karen Anderson)
 
- and also does much more than I have not listed here.

(I would like to see a Complete The King Of Ys.)

6 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Two older non-Andersonian SF writers you seem to esp. like is H.G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon. And you give an occasional look at the Space Trilogy of C.S. Lewis. And you liked best the pre-STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND works of Heinlein. Last, among older SF writers, you are esp. fond of the works of James Blish.

And I think you would include many of the works and collaboration of Jerry Pournelle among those "substantial" SF stories among those other SF authors you read. And those of Larry Niven, of course.

But I don't think you've read anything by Walter Miller, Avram Davidson, H.Beam Piper, Ray Bradbury?

And of course I was the one who urged you to try out the stories of S.M. Stirling! And I'm glad you've found them enjoyable and thought provoking. Two other living SF writers I've heard of, but not yet read would be David Weber and Larry Correia. And I have some of the books of John Wright.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

I have read and liked A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ, THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES and FAHRENHEIT 451. I could not get into Piper's Paratime Police and have never read or even seen copies of his future history. Avram Davidson has passed me by.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I've read, and enjoyed, the first two titles you listed. But I've found Bradury's FAHRENHEIT 451 harder to get into. I've read enough of Piper's short stories to think I would like his work.

And I loved some of Davidson's stories! Esp. the ones featuring Dr. Engelbert Eszterhazy.

And you can get a complete one volume version of THE KING OF YS, if you don't mind it being MASSIVE. Also, I don't think it includes the notes written by the Andersons.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

But those notes add to the appreciation of the work. I have seen a one-volume Lord of the Rings with small print on thin paper lacking most of the Appendices.

Paul.

Jim Baerg said...

I did like pretty much everything by H. Beam Piper.
I really think 'Omnilingual' is a classic everyone should read.
I have a paper copy, but I also found it online at the Gutenberg Project
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19445

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Jim!

Paul: I'm not disagreeing! I have the annotations written by the Andersons in my copy of THE KING YS offered by the SFBC in two volumes.

I too have a one volume edition of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, a 50th Anniversary version painstakingly edited by Christina Scull and her husband Wayne Hammond (including all the Appendices). AND a copy of their massive volume of LOTR annotations called THE LORD OF THE RINGS: A READER'S COMPANION. Both of which should be obtained by all fans of Tolkien!

Jim: I'm almost sure I Have "Omnilingual" somewhere in my shelves of SF books!

Ad astra! Sean