What happens with Science Fiction?

If you can only buy one Vinge, I recommend Darkness of the Deep. A
Fire Upon the Deep and Rainbow's End are less plot driven, but
Darkness of the Deep manages to have a tight plot, authentic and
sympathetic characters, and hard science.

Jan

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Omar E. Vega"
>
> Hi Lucio:
>
> > Well, I disagree completely, and I think that perhaps you
> > unfortunately had no contact with recent good authors of hard
> science
> > fiction. Have you ever read Vernor Vinge or K.S. Robinson? Indeed
> > their SF tends to be *harder* than old classics of the genre from
> > authors like Asimov and Clarke.
>
> I have not read Vinge or Egan, what a shame!! Is a mistake I am
> correcting now.In the case of K.S. Robinson, for same reason I
liked
> more "Mars" of Ben Bova.
>
> Yes, hard S.F. exists, thanks God!
>
> My point was that general S.F. is so crowded of "softies" (crap
> Science Fiction) that is hard to find the right stuff. More of
which
> is published right now is soft, like Matrix and Ninja futuristic
> cartoons.
>
> > As for the bad stuff, there is that saying telling that "90% of
> > anything is crap", or something like that, and that also applies
to
> > science fiction. In the old times classics of science fiction
were
> > produced, but also lots of pulp science fiction with ludicrous
> > content. Of course, "natural selection" by readers preserves
only
> the
> > good stuff, and that may give the that false impression of "good
> old
> > times".
>
> You are optimistic. That's good. I believe the public, though,
went
> away from science.
>
> > Finally, a science fiction can be "soft", having no connection
with
> > the known reality of science, and nevertheless be good. See a
> >classic
> > like H.G. Wells "The Time Machine", for instance. Wells did not
> >bother
> > to invent technobabble or find physical justifications for the
> > artifact, but nevertheless he constructed a timeless story about
a
> > machine able to travel through time.
> >
> Wells also produced excelent hard science fiction. In "the world
set
> free", for instance, predicted the atomic bomb, a novel that also
> inspired to Szilard himself.
>
> > Indeed, I think that a good author can take any absurd premise,
> >build
> > suspension of disbelief and write a good story. That's why good
> > fantasy - not science fiction - literature works. And the same
> >happen
> > with the genre known as fantastic realism.
> >
> That's the point, Lucio. In Latin America, for example, we got
tons