Looking for some good hard SF authors

[Hussar]

I love hard science fiction. I really do. Unfortunately, I have no access to a library and must rely on Amazon for all my reading needs. Amazon's good, don't get me wrong, but it's pretty hard to browse in Amazon, particularly when I am using Amazon Japan and don't read Japanese.

Who are some good hard SF authors. I mean contemporary authors, not golden age. Yeah, of course I know Heinlein and Asimov and Clarke, I want some new authors.

Thanks.

[Shura]

try Julian May

[Hussar]

I liked him. The Pliestocene Saga was really well done. I guess if I'm looking for suggestions, I should rhyme off who I have read:

Julian May
Greg Bear
Gregory Benford
Greg Egan (Lots of Gregs heh)
Kim Stanley Robinson
lots of stuff by the older writers.
more when I think about it.

[KromeLizard]

Eh, I'm just going to recommend my favorite Sci Fi authors, not sure how many of them would be classified as hard.

William Gibson
Neal Stephenson
Alfred Bester, apparently his only good novels were The Stars My Destination (Which I think is one of the best books in the genre I've ever read) and The Demolished Man.
Philip K. Dick

[CosmicHorror]

Larry Niven, author of Ringworld
and
Frank Hurburt auther of Dune

[Hussar]

Thanks for the ideas guys... You do realize that every author you've listed published about 15 years ago. I was kinda hoping for something a little more current. Like in the last 3 years.

[Merkuri]

A month or two ago I read Starfish by Peter Watts. I thought it was pretty good. It's fairly unique in that it takes place under water. Deep under water. It's a really dark story that deals about how these troubled characters learn to live in the blackness of their sea station. There's a section in the back of the book where the author outlines each real-world theory he took ideas from. It was published in 2000. Fresh enough for you?

Oh, BTW, I just read Amazon.com's review of it, and there's a bit of a spoiler, so don't read it. Course, if you don't read Japanese and you're looking at the Japanese site you probably won't have a problem.

[LadySally]

Hussar said:

Thanks for the ideas guys... You do realize that every author you've listed published about 15 years ago. I was kinda hoping for something a little more current. Like in the last 3 years.

Try Tad Williams' "Otherland" series.
www.tadwilliams.com/volume1.html

I found this series just after the first book was published. The wait for the entire four book series was painful. All four are now available in paperback.

[Merkuri]

Ooh, awesome books. But I'm not sure Otherland would be considered "hard" scifi. Most of it takes place in virtual reality. I guess most of the non-virtual stuff is based on realistic science, though.

[khyron1144]

Ben Bova has a good series not sure of the order, but some books include:
Moonrise
Moon War
Mars
Return to Mars
Jupiter
The Precipice
The Rock Rats
Jupiter
Venus




The science is reasonably hard, but the guesses as to when some things will come along seem a little wild. Things like nanites that can assemble a diamond anything out of coal dust within three hundred years, also within a similar timespan, a device to translate dolphin language, and brain surgery and genetic engineering on a gorilla allowing it to speak like a human of limited intelligence.

[Hussar]

Loved the Otherland books. Extremely well done. Like his fantasy too. The Dragonbone Chair series is excellent. My homebrew campaign drew heavily from it. (Heh, no PC elves)

Bova's good.

In the middle of the Year's Best Anthology (number 20) and am liking it a lot.

SF really does lend itself to shortstory more than novel much better.

[aaronp]

Ive found anything by Orson Scott Card is good.
In particular Enders Saga
You might want to try James P Hogan too-hes very scientific hard sci-fi, but a little older (10 years ago). His main book is
"Inherit the Stars"

turjan