The Hammer of God

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1. petitmiamOct 2015
   Arthur C. Clarke's 'The Hammer of God'
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2. asharkJan 2015
   TL;DR: Bradbury, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and Vonnegut, sort of.

   Bradbury, unreservedly.

   I remember really liking Dune through God Emperor, but I read it so long ago that I recommend it only tentatively. I do recall that the one non-Dune book of Herbert's I attempted to read seemed like it was written while on acid, and not in a good way.

   A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of the best sci-fi novels I've read. Its author wasn't very active, though, so there's not much else from him. I haven't read any of the rest, but none of it has the reputation that Canticle does.

   I'd put forward Vonnegut, but a) he's often not classed as a sci-fi writer for some reason, and b) I personally think he's at his best when his sci-fi tendencies are kept to a minimum (Dead Eye Dick, Bluebeard, Galapagos, which is as more fantasy than sci-fi if one must stick a genre label on it). I'd class Atwood as similar to Vonnegut in this regard, but even more so—her sci-fi work is just OK, from what I've seen of it, and I prefer her "straight" fiction.

   If found Clarke's The City and the Stars deeply affecting (though, for long stretches, a bit of a chore), but the other couple novels of his I've read I wish I hadn't. A couple interesting ideas that stick, but not much substance. They were The Hammer of God and The Songs of a Distant Earth, for the record. They weren't even very entertaining. Both were late novels, so maybe his earlier stuff tends to be better? Mere speculation. I've been put off trying more of him by his current 1-for-3 record. I do like the movie 2001, though :-)

   Bester's probably my biggest blind spot among the sci-fi greats—I've read nothing by him.

   I can recommend The New Hugo Winners collections over The Hugo Winners, pretty much universally, if you're looking for short stories. Asimov all but sneers at them in his torch-passing introduction, but the reason he feels out of touch with those authors' work is because they're way better than what he was used to. However, I've yet to find a contemporary sci-fi author I can rely upon to deliver an entire novel that doesn't fall apart at some point, one way or another. I haven't tried Murakami, who seems well regarded and is, by reputation, my greatest remaining chance.

   (Just to be clear, I enjoy plenty of other sci-fi in a guilty-pleasure, lazy weekend sort of way, in the same way that I genuinely like watching [some] crappy movies on Netflix)

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