I found this on Twitter. Of all the authors mentioned the only ones I know are China Mieville and Sherri Tepper. I loved Grass by Sherri and most things that I've read by China (Kraken, The City and The City, King Rat very much, Perdido Street Station not quite so much, Embassy Town - umm, impressed by the invention).
I was particularly taken with one comment in the list. The commenter pointed out that, in this group, Arthur C Clarke would not have been shortlisted for his own prize. Interesting and probably true. The last thing I read by Arthur was The Light of Other Days, which, since it has clearly been done by someone who can do characters well enough to write the biros off Arthur, strikes me as being more a book by Stephen Baxter. I haven't read anything solely by him yet, so I don't know, but I have strong suspicions.
One point this brings up is the difference between the writers of the Golden Age and now. I loved Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke when I was a kid, but I wonder if anything but early Heinlein would keep me interested now. Later Heinlein was too full of people who were essentially Heinlein for my tastes. Asimov and Clarke were a bit like Kilgore Trout, great ideas.
Another point brought out by the commentators was that it was good to see a really good rant going on, especially when this was about SF, which they all cared about. I do too, so I like the fact that people are getting up and shouting about this. I might be going out on a limb here, but I would class The Hunger Games as being SF. In the suburbs of the genre at least. It's in the future, has genetically modified animals and a firm view that people are still going to be people, whatever the tech can do. It's also well written, doesn't have shiny boyfriends or girls who have a pathological obsession with guys who can kill them anywhere. (Is it something about teenage girls liking blokes who show restraint? He hasn't ripped your throat out in weeks, it must be love - and that counts).
I like this as a general trend. I'm really happy that the biggest selling film of the times is one that is set in the future, gets people to think about ethics, uses of technology (oppression), has a really strong independent female lead (father of a 12-year-old girl writing here) and is clearly leading towards revolution. I'm going out to buy the other two books to find out if the word 'occupy' sticks up in them in any way, but won't care if it doesn't.
I was particularly taken with one comment in the list. The commenter pointed out that, in this group, Arthur C Clarke would not have been shortlisted for his own prize. Interesting and probably true. The last thing I read by Arthur was The Light of Other Days, which, since it has clearly been done by someone who can do characters well enough to write the biros off Arthur, strikes me as being more a book by Stephen Baxter. I haven't read anything solely by him yet, so I don't know, but I have strong suspicions.
One point this brings up is the difference between the writers of the Golden Age and now. I loved Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke when I was a kid, but I wonder if anything but early Heinlein would keep me interested now. Later Heinlein was too full of people who were essentially Heinlein for my tastes. Asimov and Clarke were a bit like Kilgore Trout, great ideas.
Another point brought out by the commentators was that it was good to see a really good rant going on, especially when this was about SF, which they all cared about. I do too, so I like the fact that people are getting up and shouting about this. I might be going out on a limb here, but I would class The Hunger Games as being SF. In the suburbs of the genre at least. It's in the future, has genetically modified animals and a firm view that people are still going to be people, whatever the tech can do. It's also well written, doesn't have shiny boyfriends or girls who have a pathological obsession with guys who can kill them anywhere. (Is it something about teenage girls liking blokes who show restraint? He hasn't ripped your throat out in weeks, it must be love - and that counts).
I like this as a general trend. I'm really happy that the biggest selling film of the times is one that is set in the future, gets people to think about ethics, uses of technology (oppression), has a really strong independent female lead (father of a 12-year-old girl writing here) and is clearly leading towards revolution. I'm going out to buy the other two books to find out if the word 'occupy' sticks up in them in any way, but won't care if it doesn't.
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