Forgotten Greats of Science Fiction
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Lots of fun in those stories for engineers and hackers: spaceships that can accelerate at six gees but the passengers can't, capacitors charged up in the gigajoule range, walk-in electron guns (why bother with vacuum pumps when you're in space and can just build devices in the "open air"?), stock market manipulation by means of speed-of-light delay, and SLAs.
I’d also note how remarkable the cover art on those old publications is. I’m constantly amazed, even the covers in the present article are extraordinary.
The first couple of books, Shards of Honor and Barrayar, are a superb mixture of futuristic technology, society, and humanity. The protagonist, Cordelia deals with a number of situations that would bring the best of us to our knees, with strength and compassion.
Unlike most "aseptic" or cold SciFi out there, including Star Trek, these works put the human element up front. I cannot recommend them highly enough. The rest of the saga follows different characters and is worthy in itself (I'm especially fond of Falling Free and a couple of the later books) but the first two books shine in my opinion.
She won several Nebula and Hugo awards, but she remains not well known. Several sci-fi friends of mine had never heard of her.
While she's probably best known for her rolicking military SF 'Red' series, her other novels are astonishingly mature and prescient.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Black_Bag
[2] https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/kornbluth-littleblack/kornbluth-...
If you give up annotated lyrics are available [2], but it is more fun to see how many you can figure out without looking.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsVkmC-N3Y
[2] http://members.efn.org/~bch/songs/thereaderframeset.html
Meanwhile, anyone who can manage the sleight-of-hand will ensure that their F/SF books are filed under 'literature', regardless of how shamelessly they pillage the F/SF world for ideas (looking at you, Atwood).
Have you heard of Sully Prudhomme, Theodore Mommsen, Rudolf Eucken, or Eyvind Johnson? All of them won Nobel Prizes for literature and -- if you're lucky -- you'll find one or two of their books in print.
Years of Grace by Margaret Barnes? Guard of Honor by James Cozzens? Both are Pulitzer Prize winners that are out of print.
The Private Life of Helen of Troy by John Erskine? Sold over 500,000 copies, critically praised, even had a movie made out of it that got some Academy Award nominations. Also out of print.
For noir you've got imprints like Hard Case Crime that have rescued dozens of once well known & regarded books from decades of obscurity.
I dunno, I think that F/SF is probably about the same as anything else when it comes to "forgetting their greats".
Who cares what shelf her books are on in bookstores. If she makes more money under "Literature", then good for her. She's not "pillaging" anything; she's adding to the established body of published SF/F with her excellent works, regardless of what shelf they're on at the bookstore. You're free to shelve them properly at home.
Likewise I loved the tales of Old Norstrillia.
And of course Cordwainer Smith was actually Paul Linebarger.
Cordwainer Smith is mentioned in the article: "The Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award was founded in 2001 to draw attention to unjustly forgotten SF authors."
Like the article says, I wish they collected the award winners in an anthology.
His books are available on UK Kindle or other means.
Not sure if it's infringing but I re-read it recently when I searched for the title and found a public PDF of the story.
I think it's hard for many modern readers to digest science fiction that was written before the transistor was invented. Some things just seem ridiculous.
Sure, space rockets with paper printouts (Heinlein's juvenile bildungsroman Starman Jones) may seem silly today, but I find that it adds to the flavor of yesterday's tomorrows.
I don't know why we're supposed to find them laughable. Is it because we are so much smarter than Asimov so we can all have a good laugh at his naive imaginings of then-future technology (never mind our ~50 years of hindsight)?
He was good at drama, detective story, adventure aspects in cool environment. Those work very well.
Maybe this is just me, but I read science fiction specifically because its one of the few genres (when written well, as opposed to the "sturgeons-law" filler based on "tech/fantasy gimmick of the week") that expands themes and ideas above and beyond the themes, ideas and perspectives available in "everyday" literature.
Even in your example, i'm not sure what it is that is laughable or anachronistic.
Perhaps this is just me coming at it from the anthropology/sociological perspective, but since i find so much about our current society and beliefs (including perspectives, beliefs and behaviours of those in the tech sector and those talking about tech) as so comically insane, reading about these alternative technological visions seems like passing the lowest barrier of "suspension of disbelief" necessary.
And since its science-fiction, that's a barrier I thought most people would have passed by the time they've decided they're going to pick up a science-fiction book...
"I read books about (maybe even believe in) strong-AI, but reading a book where a hologram tells humans they can smoke or drink (given that humans are illogical creatures often needing to be pointed out simple logical inductions and that they CURRENTLY smoke and take drugs and have done so for most of human history) is just so laughably anachronistic!"
But you know, I like things like "I, Pencil" so breathless descriptions of automatic train ticket kiosks might just be my thing.
A great story is great despite its setting, not because of it. 'Moby Dick' will continue to be powerful despite the expiry of whale-hunting; 'Sherlock' still spellbinding despite the extinction of persian slippers, pleasant landladies and street-cabs. Quite sure there'll never be an AI character quite as interesting.
So there they have spaceships of 2.5 km diameter that can fly faster than 100 million times the speed of light shooting bombs of teratons of TNT each and have force fields that can withstand those bombs, but when they want to bring data from one computer to another, they put holes in a punchcard and have someone carry the punchcard
Perhaps we'll achieve Ghost in the Shell-style brain encapsulation, and so view any sci-fi story that doesn't feature people trivially swapping bodies as needed - despite having FTL and laser guns - as hopelessly outdated and silly.
Perhaps we'll become increasingly invested in our digital lives and robot servants, to the point we view old sci-fi that involved physically sending humans to other worlds just to stand around on them as extremely dangerous and wasteful?
Though on a somewhat different angle, I've quite enjoyed watching many fantasy stories "update" themselves to be more amenable to a modern audience. For example magic powers have slowly morphed from Gandalf style vague mutterings and the occasional flashlight to basically being programs that a wizard can download, swap, upgrade, etc. It makes me wonder if one day when humanity has achieved immortality, if we'll "backport" it to our fantasy stories and suddenly every human kingdom has some magical doodad that makes them live forever?
That's a poor example, though, because that's closer to the classical depiction of magic than the "vague mutterings" type. The ancient Greeks and Romans had pretty firm rules on how to conduct prayers and ceremonies, how to handle certain mystical phenomena, etc., for example. In Western pop culture, magic being all about unexplainable forces was an invention of Victorian romanticism.
There's a (not particularly good) Russian fantasy book series where the premise is literally that - it's the usual "regular guy ends up in a magic world" kind of set-up, except that the guy is a software developer, and he discovers that magic is a great deal like OOP, and that his skills translate remarkably well. Of course, it's mostly just a Mary Sue story - the author being a Java developer, so far as I can tell - but it's interesting that someone else came up with this metaphor and developed it to that extent.
Light but enjoyable.
Campbell was one of the most influential figures in science fiction history who cultivated a 'stable' of authors; Asimov was his most famous protégé. Campbell's interest in psi was inflamed further by SF luminaries H Ron Hubbard and A E Van Vogt, who started the Dianetic movement a while before Scientology became a 'thing'. (Since Scientology turned into such a cult, it must be pointed out that Van Vogt had nothing to do with its development).
But I'm counter-intrigued: why are so many people in this discussion (and in the article's comments) so vehemently opposed to psi? It's been comprehensively debunked, but Campbell had a neat (and plausible) explanation for that, which no one ever addresses. And many of the most striking anecdotes of psi phenomena have never been adequately explained. This is reminiscent of a consensus reality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality), which SF readers in particular should be less susceptible to...
Being a big fan of Aldous Huxley I was pretty astonished but none the less entertained by his apparent believe in the supernatural which might have been due to him having lost most of his eyesight when he was in his teens.
In case you are interested, there is a lecture where he talks about this stuff over at the psychedelic salon:
https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-578-1-enemies-of-freedo...
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bates_eye_method#Aldous_Huxley
Thus in any demonstration, there's usually someone in the audience who is more than a 'non-believer': strongly opposed to psi, who has the effect of damping or negating the demonstrator.
The other thing that's rarely mentioned is that most psi phenomena manifest themselves in moments of extreme peril or emotion, which (by their very nature) cannot be replicated in a laboratory situation.
Campbell also pointed out that, throughout human history, psi has been misunderstood, and ultimately maligned by religion, that most contagious of memes. So it's a subconsciously suppressed ability, and its suppression (and repression) is the cause of many human ills...
He believed that psi is an emergent phenomenon (like consciousness and intelligence), and - foreshadowing Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind" - that the explanation for psionic phenomena lay in quantum physics and information theory. I've highlighted those last few words, because current information theory does not adequately cover phenomena such as complexity, synergetics and emergence. For a taster of what a new extended information physics should look like, check out Tom Stonier's "Information And The Internal Structure Of The Universe".
> He believed that psi is an emergent phenomenon (like consciousness and intelligence)
I find usually those people tend to avoid the actually really weird/provoking questions staring right at us -- like how does a bunch of neurons firing electrical signals produce our consciousness and all personal experiences, why is our universe and lives like this in particular, or how to reconcile with death and finiteness -- in favor of comfortable wishful thinking, mysticisms and obscurantism (Penrose lately seems to have fallen into this modus).
In the context of SF, Philip K. Dick's claim "It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane" comes to mind (which I deeply disagree with, but understand).
with arguably the biggest scandal of this year being Cambridge Analytica/Emerdata, seizing control of other people's minds was correct in its precociousness.
more broadly, sci-fi inherits from religion (really religious fantasy), which has always been about control of group behavior and group think, power and identity, the relationship between creator and creation, etc. "we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us" was said by mcluhan, but it may as well have been said by victor frankenstein or any other critic of science and industry.
The uplift cycle by David Brin is amazing.
The comment about Asimov misses reminds of another brin novel, Earth, that is known for envisioning several events and technology that appeared after its publication.
They are not big parts of the plot though, except for faster than light travel, which is necessary to write about a galatic civilization.
Uplift for example is a hard sci concept that is too rarely evoked.
Books with psi by forgotten writers that are interesting (to me): Stapleton's 'Odd John' and May's 'Intervention'.
Yet 'every sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'. This presumably applies to fictional tech also.
What exactly is anachronistic about it? Modern society might be full of health freaks, but one hopes that future societies will have gotten over this. Besides, future medical technology might cure cancer and find ways to keep vital organs in great shape whatever you drink/eat/smoke, in which case smoking might see a resurgence.
The captain of a rocketship (that's the word used) is obsessed with finding a supposed miracle-worker. They land on a planet where the locals tell them of a man who healed a child's broken arm with just a touch. The captain demands evidence and is presented with a painting of the child with a cast around his arm. The captain derides the painting, saying that it could be fake, whereupon his next-in-command points out "Photography is an unknown art on this world."
That's right. They have faster-than-light space travel, but image manipulation is unthinkable.
See "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove, where the idea is that humans developed advanced technology only because they failed to figure out the trick for easy FTL travel.
We only know that the visitors on the rocket-ship have it.
It could very well be that the visitors have a rocketship (ie. faster-than-light space travel) and "Photography" (since the next-in-command mentioned it), but the locals don't have either.
* captain arrives in FTL ship looking for evidence of a thing
* captain isn't satisfied with a painting offered as evidence, because it could be fake
* aide says that photography is unknown to the natives, implying that the production of a photograph would be taken by the captain as having more evidentiary value
=> captain knows about FTL but is unfamiliar with the technology required to produce false but convincing photographic images
[1] http://thispageintentionally.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-close-re...
The series also has some unfortunate anachronism in treatment of gender (a future galactic society, but of course women can't be doctors, only nurses), though the author did piece-by-piece retcon that out into more egalitarian social standards as he wrote the sequel books.
One example is my visits to Mystic Seaport, specifically the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan. Inside the museum, you could type in your name and receive a printout of the ship's crew manifest with your name included, all the names written in cursive as if you were there 150 years ago. "But computers murder cursive!" ... well maybe, but I was still there enjoying the experience. "But computers have nothing to do with connecting humans with there past!" ... and yet there I was tapping on a touchscreen and receiving a printout of a "150 year old manifest" of the ship I just walked through with my name on it.
Yes that smoking in a spaceship while you hunch over your portable typewriter the size of a suitcase is outdated, but people still have flexible imaginations which accommodate such things. I don't see the problem.
Tho I disagree that it ruins the story. You have to take any story on it's own terms, and accept it to a certain degree. There is plenty of other stuff in his short stories to enjoy.
So much of what we have is a combination of effort, a personality, a huge dose of luck, and being at the right time. So much is simply fashion. Almost none is inevitable.
A few chance changes and there's no internet, or Babbage completed his Analytical Engine, or the early electric vehicles are the type the world settles on to develop instead of internal combustion. Or a different set of changes and we get Man in the High Castle or Rocket Ship Galileo.
Unlike movie a book let you to do so.
From time to time I read something in bed, I still recall there is a paragraph in H G Well story (a man from mars) which has a television on his watch. Given only then 1 out of 100 has television in my block, it is a shocking future ...
Though, for foundation they do have other cool tech that is definitely still completely futuristic. (i'm thinking about personal shields, psycohistory and shiny spacecraft like int he starwars prequels)
My most intensive SF reading was more in the 70s through 80s/90s but I likewise don't recognize any of the names other than Stapledon's.
> as time passed the mental difference between the two classes increased. Superior intelligence became rarer and rarer among the proletariat; the governors were recruited more and more from their own offspring, until finally they became an hereditary caste. The gulf widened. The governors began to lose all mental contact with the governed. They made a mistake which could never have been committed had their psychology kept pace with their other sciences. Ever confronted with the workers' lack of intelligence, they came to treat them more and more as children, and forgot that, though simple, they were grown men and women who needed to feel themselves as free partners in a great human enterprise.
> Formerly this illusion of responsibility had been sedulously encouraged. But as the gulf widened the proletarians were treated rather as infants than as adolescents, rather as well-cared-for domestic animals than as human beings. Their lives became more and more minutely, though benevolently, systematized for them. At the same time less care was taken to educate them up to an understanding and appreciation of the common human enterprise. Under these circumstances the temper of the people changed. Though their material condition was better than had ever been known before, save under the First World State, they became listless, discontented, mischievous, ungrateful to their superiors.
If in one thousand years one science fiction author will be remembered from our time there is a decent chance it will be Olaf Stapledon.
[0]: http://www.nyrsf.com/2013/11/thomas-f-bertonneau-contact-com...
In the book: African scientists were experts in breeding humans and apes. The Jews were responsible themselves for being hated. And in the long run both groups didn't make it into the next round, the next mankinds. So you can be sure all the following humans had no black or Jewish blood.
>And in the long run both groups didn't make it into the next round, the next mankinds. So you can be sure all the following humans had no black or Jewish blood.
I'm not sure what you are referring to. Do you mean at the end of World State? I don't see any specific exclusion of African or Jewish people from the next chapter of history but the book covers so much I may be missing something. In the long run no present racial groups make it into the next round.
"It happened also that in South America the racial conditions were more favourable than elsewhere. After the fall of the First World State the European element in this region had dwindled, and the ancient "Indian" and Peruvian stock had come into dominance. Many thousands of years earlier, this race had achieved a primitive civilization of its own. After its ruin at the hands of the Spaniards, it had seemed a broken and negligible thing; yet it had ever kept itself curiously aloof in spirit from its conquerors. Though the two stocks had mingled inextricably, there remained ever in the remoter parts of this continent a way of life which was foreign to the dominant Americanism. Superficially Americanized, it remained fundamentally "Indian" and unintelligible to the rest of the world. Throughout the former civilization this spirit had lain dormant like a seed in winter; but with the return of barbarism it had sprouted, and quietly spread in all directions. From the interaction of this ancient primitive culture and the many other racial elements left over in the continent from the old cosmopolitan civilization, civil life was to begin once more. Thus in a manner the Incas were at last to triumph over their conquerors. Various causes, then, combined in South America, and especially in the new and virgin plains of Patagonia, to bring the First Dark Age to an end." -Last and First Men
Hmm. Strange. But I'm sure there was something in the later chapters about the later mankinds. I've only read it on paper but I see no indications that the Project Gutenberg version is different from the printed book.
Maybe I'm wrong. But it really doesn't need any more racism than in the first few chapters. The paragraph after the one I've quoted is terrible.
>Hmm. Strange. But I'm sure there was something in the later chapters about the later mankinds. I've only read it on paper but I see no indications that the Project Gutenberg version is different from the printed book.
According to an amazon review some vandals did release a version of the book in which the first few chapters are changed so that they more accurately reflect 20th Century history:
>"I bought this book because I was interested in Stapledon's depiction of the possible future of humanity. I wasn't aware when I bought the 'Millennium Edition' that the entire section on the First Men- Stapledon's prediction of human society's development between 1930 and the eventual collapse into worldwide barbarism- had been completely rewritten to make it 'easier' for modern readers to digest without excessive disbelief. Yes, Stapledon's predictions of a League of Nations world power and the various wars in Europe and the unification of science and religion in the United States have no resemblance to the reality we've lived through so far, but so what." - https://www.amazon.com/First-Dover-Books-Literature-Drama/dp...
Maybe they also increased the racism of the first few chapters?
It was, indeed, a real slog.
I may never read all the books they mention, but it is entertaining to know about them.
Personally, I don't think I've read more than a novel's worth from any of the authors in the article -- hadn't even heard of half of them -- whereas I've read maybe ten of Vance's? He's maybe more remembered for his fantasy than SF, but I'd say he's frequently mentioned and reprinted.
Part of the problem is that there's no almost no such thing as a uniformly good Vance book (and I say that with regret, as he is one of my favorites). I love him, but one must navigate past a lot of things that maybe someone who didn't grow up reading JV might be less tolerant about. He is quite frequently lazy about plotting (repeating himself or just chucking the story on the floor), many of his main characters are enjoyable omni-competent ciphers who could easily be mistaken for each other, is a bit prone to using rapes and murders of women as a primary plot driver (Araminta Station!) and there's some weird if lightly-worn race and politics stuff that is best not examined too deeply.
After that, I went on to read everything he's ever written :)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Guard-Roc-S/dp/014017060X
Stand on Zanzibar by Brunner -- notable for hip-crime vocab
The last few times reminded me not only how many books I have not read, but also how many books I wanted to reread.
He was certainly well known in the early days of pulp science fiction.