So I'm working on a 3 different books right now.
Phillip K. Dick's
A Scanner DarklyRay Bradbury's
Something Wicked This Way ComesWilliam Gibson's
Neuromancer And I just finished John Scalzi's
Old Man's WarThe thing is, with the exception of Scalzi I've read all of these books before, though it's been many years. I wanted to see if something I kind of suspect to be true was actually accurate. I know sci-fi wasn't well regarded as a genre up until the 80's or so, and even up to now it's looked upon with some disdain. Popular sci-fi works are labeled as something else entirely in many instances, with scant acknowledgement that they might dare be science fiction. On the other hand, every time I go back to read older sci-fi novels, I kind of feel like the genre has done some things to deserve it.
One of the things that I know a lot of sci-fi nerds do, including myself, is forgive a hell of a lot of problems in a work as long as there is an interesting premise. Lower quality writing and many tropes are regularly ignored, or even celebrated, as long as the interesting shinies the story promises deliver. Prose is generally a background consideration at best, as long as the internal logic of the "science" is intact. I feel like this is especially evident with writers like Robert Heinlein, Larry Nivel and William Gibson, though it's certainly not unique to them. These faults of the genre are part of why I just love Ray Bradbury so damn much. His prose is basically sex in the form of literature. He basically ignores the things that hardcore sci-fi lovers demand and just writes amazing stories, which is incredibly refreshing. He also does something that I wish more sci-fi would do, which is to get rid of the fucking white male Libertarian baggage so much of sci-fi loves to bandy about.
There are many others who get around these problems, though strangely enough it seems to be mostly female sci-fi authors in my experience. Margaret Atwood, Ursula LeGuin, Melissa Scott especially come to mind. In fact, here is a list of female sci-fi writers someone on my G+ shared if you are interested.
For XXX specifically, but really for anyone out there who doesn't think that women write Science Fiction. Because not only do they write SF, they write some of the best SF.
Elizabeth Bear -- her Jenny Casey trilogy is a great place to start.
Lois McMaster Bujold -- the Vorkosigan Saga is her magnum opus, a series of books in theory starring (or at least based around) the eponymous family.
Emma Bull -- Bone Dance probably should've won the Hugo.
Octavia Butler -- many reccomend her Patternist series, but I like the Xenogenesis books better.
CJ Cherryh -- Oh, where to start; she's written over sixty novels, about fifty of them SF, about two-thirds of that in one continuous universe. I adore the Foreginer series, which is currently at 14 books and waiting on the next one.
N. K. Jemisin -- The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was gobsmacking, considering it was her debut novel. Look for better stuff to come.
Nancy Kress -- XXX mentioned her Beggars trilogy, but I liked the Probability books better.
Madeline L'Engle -- seriously, she single-handedly introduced an entire generation of readers to SF, me among them; before I read RAH, I read MLE. And glad I did.
Ursula K. LeGuin -- nevermind her Earthsea books, since they're Fantasy; set aside one of the single best essay collections by a writer about writing, The Wave in the Mind; if you read nothing else, read The Lathe of Heaven and then you'll know why she's a Grand Master.
Elizabeth Moon -- She wrote not one but two of the best Military-SF series ever written, and if you don't like Mil-SF then you can console yourself with Remnant Population or Speed of Dark and be happy.
Andre Norton -- You owe it to yourself to read Sargasso of Space if you have any adventurous soul in you. Or, you could pick from any of the 100+ other works she wrote since 1936 .
Melissa Scott -- Everyone raves about how much they loved Neuromancer and how it introduced them to cyberpunk and how it changed their lives. But for my money, Trouble and Her Friends was the book that really made me want to live in the future. And Night Sky Mine made me want to be a writer (I was later disabused of that notion).
Alice Sheldon -- You probably don't recognize this name. That's because she wrote under the name James Tiptree, Jr. and as 'Tip' was one of the most influential short-form writers of the 20th Century. She wrote only two novels, but Up the Walls of the World is one of the greatest meditations on what it means to be a thinking being ever written.
I've ended up leaving a bunch of names off this list; Naomi Novik, because she only writes Fantasy; Anne McCaffery because I can't stand her, Margaret Atwood because she doesn't "consider herself a Science Fiction Writer", and others I'm sure. There is a huge well of talent out there. When the Hugo Awards were handed out at ChiCon 7 this year, 10 of the 18 awards (including Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Novellette, and both Best Editor awards, as well as the Campbell Award) were given to women. Any time someone talks about SF being a boys club, kick them in the junk. Then go read some really excellent work by women.
