: In Red Russia government predicts future of sci-fi writers.

The reason this otherwise ordinary and terrible futurist made it to NPR is that he substituted a Cory Doctorow piece of crap for Snow Crash.

Nice blow job there, Brian David Johnson, at least you know what levers to shove to get the puppets to dance.

Oh thank goodness, a sci-fi book thread. I'm prepping an Amazon order for some other stuff and require suggestions. (will take fantasy as well)

Windup Girl is on the list.

RexTalionis: What is a futurist but a person who lays about and makes predictions that, in the future, would sound ridiculously stupid in hindsight?

No, that's futurologist

List fails without

It Can't Happen Here
1984
Atlas Shrugged
Brave New World
A Clockwork Orange
Contact

How does one get a job as a futurist? Of course if I don't know how to land the gig, I probably won't/haven't because I don't know enough to know whether or not I'll already have gotten the job by future me. All I know right now is that there will have been a poop taken shortly in the past of my future.

List fails without Greg Egan.

That is all.

RexTalionis: What is a futurist but a person who lays about and makes predictions that, in the future, would sound ridiculously stupid in hindsight?

A futurist is a guy with no degrees and no real world experience who still manages to command speaking fees from dumbass management types by telling them what they want to hear.

List fails due to omitting my favorite books and/or including books I do not particularly care for.

Is it wrong that I liked China Mieville's Embassytown?

RoyBatty: The reason this otherwise ordinary and terrible futurist made it to NPR is that he substituted a Cory Doctorow piece of crap for Snow Crash.

It's no Snow Crash but I enjoyed Little Brother for what it was.

Mentioned this in another thread recently but I also enjoyed:

Daemon - Daniel Suarez (and sequel, FreedomTM)
Zero Day - Mark Russinovich (sp?)

Both are sort of cybercrime thrillers I guess? But Daemon especially points to a lot of cool stuff that might be right around the corner once those Google Googles, augmented reality and the like take off. And some concepts relating to a hive-mind mechanical turk of sorts, where masses of people each are incented to provide individual tasks that eventually create a whole that none of the individuals were aware of.

IrateShadow: RexTalionis: What is a futurist but a person who lays about and makes predictions that, in the future, would sound ridiculously stupid in hindsight?

A futurist is a guy with no degrees and no real world experience who still manages to command speaking fees from dumbass management types by telling them what they want to hear.

I thought a futurist is a guy who gets paid for smoking pot.

Arkanaut: IrateShadow: RexTalionis: What is a futurist but a person who lays about and makes predictions that, in the future, would sound ridiculously stupid in hindsight?

A futurist is a guy with no degrees and no real world experience who still manages to command speaking fees from dumbass management types by telling them what they want to hear.

I thought a futurist is a guy who gets paid for smoking pot.

You mean I have been working for free all these years??

/KHAAAAAANNNNN

brigid_fitch:

If you haven't read them already, I highly recommend:
Hyperion Cantos (4-book series, incredibly well-written. The first is like Cantebury Tales in space)
Canticle for Liebowitz
Ringworld (don't bother w/the sequels)
Snow Crash
Song of Ice & Fire (the George R.R. Martin series Game of Thrones is based on)
The Hunger Games (Young Adult but pretty damn good)
World War Z

If you're looking for stuff, check out Ted Chiang. He pretty much only writes short stories, but they're pretty breathtaking.

- for space opera: Alistair Reynolds
- grandmasters: Pohl (esp. Gateway), Silverberg (Tower of Glass, Nightwings). . . and Bester varies between interesting and weird as fark.
- for softcore fantasy: Sharon Green's "The Blending" series and The Far Side of Forever.

unlikely: Here. Here's a realistic book about the future. Still kind of optimistic, but probably not too far off in the setting:

[photo.goodreads.com image 311x475]

Farking brilliant read. My wife read it, and she hates sci-fi.

brigid_fitch: mark.jms: Oh thank goodness, a sci-fi book thread. I'm prepping an Amazon order for some other stuff and require suggestions. (will take fantasy as well)

Windup Girl is on the list.

I just got done w/Green Mars and have no interest in finishing the trilogy (52 pages on Maya's bi-polar disorder and 4 pages on the Antarctic ice shelf falling off & causing worldwide chaos on an Earth already at war? What the fark? It's like reading friggin' Tolkein). Looking for a new book, myself.

Windup Girl looks good & someone suggested Geek Love in another thread, so they're going on my Nook later.

If you haven't read them already, I highly recommend:
Hyperion Cantos (4-book series, incredibly well-written. The first is like Cantebury Tales in space)
Canticle for Liebowitz
Ringworld (don't bother w/the sequels)
Snow Crash
Song of Ice & Fire (the George R.R. Martin series Game of Thrones is based on)
The Hunger Games (Young Adult but pretty damn good)
World War Z

Have you been in my library? Seriously, I have every one of those out on my shelf right now, except for the Hunger Games, which is on my daughter's kindle.

Hyperion is especially good. I just picked up some more Dan Simmons at Powell's in Portland last week. No idea what it's about, though.

unlikely: Here. Here's a realistic book about the future. Still kind of optimistic, but probably not too far off in the setting:

[photo.goodreads.com image 311x475]

I guess Intel isn't going to develop a calorie driven processor any time soon. Bummer.

brigid_fitch: The Hunger Games (Young Adult but pretty damn good)

Disagree. Maybe it was the hype for it, but I just read the first and was very disappointed. The setting is a sloppy mess, and instead of exploring the impact of the theme the author spends a lot of time describing food and the love interests of a teenage girl.

It's like Battle Royale: OMG Boyz edition.

I agree with the read of your choices though.

RexTalionis: What is a futurist but a person who lays about and makes predictions that, in the future, would sound ridiculously stupid in hindsight?

In the context of "works for Intel"? A futurist is a marketing researcher with a cooler-sounding job title. Same job (try to figure out what products people are going to find desirable in the near future) better buzzword (because calling marketing research "futurism" means that you can get the idiots in the media, i.e. most of them to take your word as an expert opinion, which is the marketing equivalent of tilting the pinball table).

SphericalTime: I agree, I haven't really been able to get into his other books though

I really enjoyed The Hollow Man.

Was gonna do Wind Up Girl next, but decided on Anathem instead. So far I'm diggin it.

brigid_fitch: Rent Party: I just picked up some more Dan Simmons at Powell's in Portland last week. No idea what it's about, though.

When I was in college, I read a pretty cool novel about psychic vampires--a really well-written, suspenseful story called Carrion Comfort. 2 years ago, I read Hyperion. You can't imagine my surprise when I discovered both were by the same author. Do you remember the title of the Simmons novel you picked up?

I don't, but I can guarantee it wasn't about vampires. In Rent Partyland, there are only three vampire stories. "Nosferatu" (and by implication "Shadow of the Vampire"), "Dracula, (and derivatives)" and "Let the Right One In."

Anne Rice and that sparkly vampire lady kind of ruined the genera for me.

I don't know what a Futurist is. And I don't know who Brian David Johnson is.

But I do know my opinion of that man's taste in literature. And it's less than favorable.

SphericalTime: turbidum: - for softcore fantasy: Sharon Green's "The Blending" series

Really? . . . I just . . . it's so repetitive and sorta homophobic.

You'll have to forgive me. I read them once in 9th grade and once again some other time in high school. And this gay nerd didn't catch onto the homophobia, but I totally could have missed it.

Still, I have to admit I really enjoyed those books.

brigid_fitch:
Thanks--Not a big space opera fan, I've read some Pohl, who was okay, and Bester, whom I hated. My thing w/sci-fi is how the characters act/react in completely unrealistic situations. That's why Hyperion, Ringworld, & Snow Crash are my all-time favorite sci-fi novels. They're all character-driven; sci-fi in those books is more of the backdrop, not the driving force. Probably another reason why I struggled through 2/3 of Robinson's Mars series.

I enjoy good fantasy but I'm REALLY picky. Tolkein was a genius at universe-building but his actual writing style sucks. Song of Ice & Fire is well-written (and, again, character-driven) and pulls you right in. Yet I read Discworld books as mind-candy.

Anything along those lines ("realistic" fantasy or character-driven sci-fi) is more up my alley.

Ahh, gotcha. I'd still recommend Ted Chiang. And Silverberg is great at his best but pulp-y at his worst (like Pohl and many other grandmasters).

Also check out Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and Oryx and Crake by Atwood (I thoroughly disliked Handmaid's Tale, FWIW).

brigid_fitch: Remember, Hunger Games is Young Adult--it's supposed to be Battle Royale: OMG Boyz. Remember back to the first Harry Potter novel--kid living under the stairs finds out he's a wizard & is whisked off to the magical land of Hogwarts & Diagon Alley. Lots of fluff w/a focus on how Harry interacts w/Ron & Hermione before throwing them into the mystery of the Sorcerer's Stone. Same audience.

Hunger Games is a perfectly fine set of kids' books, I mostly just wish it wouldn't pretend to be science fiction. Science fiction is changing how the world works and then exploring the impact of that change. What Hunger Games does, continually altering the universe in order to push the narrative along, is called "Fantasy".

Basically, if you've decided that your government is going all coliseum for the bread + circuses because dystopian future, fine, great. If you're seriously going to posit that they're going to use random children as gladiators just because the government are total dicks rather than, you know, prisoners or something, you might as well make the lead female an elf and require them to break the wicked president's staff of vile power, because you're not in a SciFi setting anymore. Nothing wrong with that, but you should be honest with your readers.

brigid_fitch: Remember, Hunger Games is Young Adult--it's supposed to be Battle Royale: OMG Boyz. Remember back to the first Harry Potter novel--kid living under the stairs finds out he's a wizard & is whisked off to the magical land of Hogwarts & Diagon Alley. Lots of fluff w/a focus on how Harry interacts w/Ron & Hermione before throwing them into the mystery of the Sorcerer's Stone. Same audience.

But at least we agree on everything else, regardless. Seriously, I'm really glad you & Rent Party agree w/my choices. My husband & a lot of my friends are sci-fi & fantasy snobs who think I have weird tastes. I probably do, but that doesn't mean it's not a GOOD kind of weird

True, but it just bothers me that there are huge ethical issues and the writing just skirts around it. Ender's Game, or even Little Brother (as recommended in the article) I'd consider young adult fiction and they both address this much better.

Certainly a good kind of weird, and hell, even if I didn't agree it shouldn't make a difference. I may disagree about Hunger Games, but I'm not trying to say you are wrong at all for enjoying it, just that I personally found it disappointing. Really, if they're scifi/fantasy snobs and have trouble enjoying Simmons, Martin and Stephenson, they're the weird ones.

GIS for futurist

My daughter made me read Hunger games. It was a good read and enjoyable. For me a great book is one that gets you thinking and even after you have finished it you keep thinking about it Hunger Games didn't do this for me.

Now back to the main subject of this thread sci-fi novels as future predictions. Now I really like Hunger games because I think I might enjoy watching teens kill each other for sport.

AiryAnne: GIS for futurist

[www.lucknet.com image 334x350]

I'd be more likely to trust her vague and cryptic prognostications than those of anybody who uses 'futurist' as a job title.

I saw a commercial recently, where a series of scientists and inventors talk about their various discoveries. Then it cuts to Ray Kurzweil who says "and I'm Ray Kurzweil".

That pretty much sums up the way I feel about futurists.

unlikely: Here. Here's a realistic book about the future. Still kind of optimistic, but probably not too far off in the setting:

[photo.goodreads.com image 311x475]

yeah.. i liked that one.

Also, Cory Doctorow can go suck a butt.

brigid_fitch:
Remember, Hunger Games is Young Adult--it's supposed to be Battle Royale: OMG Boyz. Remember back to the first Harry Potter novel--kid living under the stairs finds out he's a wizard & is whisked off to the magical land of Hogwarts & Diagon Alley. Lots of fluff w/a focus on how Harry interacts w/Ron & Hermione before throwing them into the mystery of the Sorcerer's Stone. Same audience.


I haven't read Hunger Games (probably won't) but I like it for one reason. It displaced my 12 year old daughter's obsession with Harry Potter. Potter was the first series she ever really got into, and she went full retard with it. Anything else I would recommend to her was "That's not Harry Potter." Xanth? not Harry Potter. LOtR? Not Harry Potter. Wrinkle in Time? Not Harry Potter.

But she read all the Hunger Games, and now she's starting to broaden her horizons a bit. She wants to go see the movie when it comes out, and I'm happy to take her.

No Heinlein? Then I will say good day to you, sir! I SAID GOOD DAY!