I wasn’t going to write about popular sci fi authors I haven’t read yet because I feel like every sci fi author I read is a first timer for me. I have authors I follow and read all their books in other genres but I don’t have that in sci fi except for maybe Becky Chambers and Nnedi Okorafor.
After all, I just read John Scalzi for the first time this year.
I love his books though so I’m definitely going to go back and look at others.
I read a book by Connie Willis recently. I enjoyed it so I decided to see if she had written anything else. Oh, 256 distinct works on Goodreads and this in the bio – “Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis is an American science fiction writer. She is one of the most honored science fiction writers of the 1980s and 1990s.
She has won, among other awards, ten Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards. Willis most recently won a Hugo Award for All Seated on the Ground (August 2008). She was the 2011 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA).”
You don’t say. I had no idea.
I guess this just goes to show that I am obviously out of the loop with popular sci fi authors.
Here are a few other authors I’ve heard of who I have never picked up.
- Brandon Sanderson
- Adrian Tchaikovsky
- James S.A. Corey
- Kim Stanley Robinson
- Shirley Jackson – I know, I know. I always see articles that say that everyone knows her story The Lottery. I do not. I have no idea what happens. I assume it is really bad from the context but I don’t know. I almost don’t want to destroy the mystery.
I don’t know if I will ever pick up some of the most popular sci fi authors (even if I figure out who they are). I’m not really into hard sci fi – think space battles and lots of math. I like more slice of life and cozy books which you don’t always find in sci fi like you do in fantasy. I want positive books. Think more solar punk than grim dark. I’d gladly take suggestions.
Redshirts is a great Scalzi book. And I love Connie Willis! Doomsday Book, Blackout and All Clear are excellent. Her books are fun reads, definitely not heavy sci fi. I really want to read more of Octavia Butler. I’m reading Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time right now, my husband has been suggesting that for a long time.
“The Lottery” is a popular school read. I read it in high school and again in college. It’s definitely an interesting one. Even though I’m not much for SFF, I do love Sanderson’s Mistborn books. His world building is exceptional.
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
I loved what John Scalzi I’ve read and I still need to get caught up!
Willis’s Doomsday Book is very funny and very dark at the same time, and extraordinarily good. For lighter Willis, look for her Christmas stories.
Have you read Martha Wells?
I read the first Murderbot book. It was ok but I wasn’t in love with it.
I love your take on not reading The Lottery to keep it a mystery.
It was one of those stories I read in school as an assignment.
Oh, I love Connie Willis! She is so fun. I’m not up on current hard SF writers (or John Scalzi). Brandon Sanderson is very expansive, likes to invent complicated new magic systems, and sometimes indulges a silly sense of humor. Lots of inter-personal stuff and hope, so I think you’d like him. Shirley Jackson is amazing and also a sharp knife. The Lottery is a classic, but she is the opposite of cozy.
I haven’t read any of these, but have heard good things.
I haven’t read Brandon Sanderson either but would like to sometime.
The Lottery was a good story but it had a very dark ending. Just FYI if you decide to read it.
Here is my Top Ten Tuesday post.