Engine Summer
From back cover Bantam paperback March 1980: RUSH THAT SPEAKS Born into the community of Truthful Speakers one thousand years after the Storm, he was raised on stories of the old days -- a world filled with saints, a world in which all things were possible, a world which finally destroyed itself. In love with a beautiful woman, Rush journeys far and learns much. Taken into the society of Dr. Boots's List, attached to the old mysteries, Rush grows closer to a sainthood he could never have imagined.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
5mentions
4people
2018–2026years
80% recommend20% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Maybe not the most discussed author on HN, but still thought I would post.
John Crowley was a rare breed among American writers in that he was an accomplished science fiction and fantasy writer who was also recognized by the mainstream establishment. Harold Bloom included Little, Big in his "The Western Canon", for example.
I've not read the later Crowley works, but The Deep, Engine Summer, and Little, Big are all among my favorite books.
- I wouldn't call it unpolished at all. I would characterise PKD's prose as workmanlike. It's very effective, just not what anyone would ever call lyrical or stylish. Stephen King once described his own writing as "the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries", and there's some of that in PKD, at least on the surface level.
I do think PKD improved as a writer in the 1970s, once he kicked his drug habit and slowed down his hyperactive output; from this era, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, A Scanner Darkly, and the VALIS trilogy all has some beautiful writing and show Dick as a deeper and more mature writer.
As for the rest of the sci-fi genre, there's a lot of talent among his contemporaries. I would especially suggest:
* John Crowley. Widely recognized as actual an Author of real Literature, though only his earliest works could be called science fiction. Start with The Deep and Engine Summer.
* Harlan Ellison. Some of his stories ("I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream", "Jeffty Is Five", etc.) are simply masterfully written.
* Samuel Delaney. He's an acquired taste and certainly gets a bit self-indulgent, but novels like Babel 17 are often beautifully written.
* Ursula LeGuin, e.g. The Left Hand of Darkness.
* Gene Wolfe. Increasingly also recognized as a genius, I also particularly like his short stories. Start with The Fifth Head of Cerberus; graduate with the monumental The Book of the New Sun, which has no equal in or out of the genre.
* J. G. Ballard. A consummate stylist, he eventually drifted away from SF, but his earlic works are fantastic. My favourite is The Crystal World, as well as his numerious short stories, including one of my favourite stories ever [1]).
Of later writers, William Gibson, China Mieville and Iain M. Banks come to mind.
[1] "Report on an Unidentified Space Station": http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~kite/doc/roauss.htm
- Yes, John Crowley is great, "Engine Summer" is one of my favorite futuristic novels.
- "Engine Summer", by John Crowley, about 15 times so far.
- To save you some scripting:
Alan Moore - dystopian graphic novel V for Vendetta (serialized 1982–1989) Alejandro Jodorowsky Jean Giraud (Moebius) - graphic novel The Incal (1980–1988) Anna Kavan - Ice (1967). Anne McCaffrey - The Ship Who Sang (1969) Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - Пикник на обочине (1972; Piknik na obochine; translated as A Roadside Picnic) Barry N. Malzberg - Beyond Apollo (1972) Brian Aldiss - Barefoot in the Head (1969) Brian Aldiss - Greybeard (1964). Chester Anderson - The Butterfly Kid (1967) Christopher Priest - Inverted World (1974) Cordwainer Smith - Norstrilia (1975, in complete form). David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) Frank Herbert - Dune (1965) Frank Miller - graphic novel Rōnin (1983–1984) Gary Panter - comic Jimbo (serialized 1977–present) Gary Panter - comic strip Dal Tokyo (1983–2007) Gene Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972) Harlan Ellison’s (ed.) Dangerous Visions (1967) Jack Kirby - Fourth World comics (1971–1974). Jack Kirby - pre-Fourth World sci-fi comics (1964–1970) James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World (1978) Jane Gaskell - A Sweet, Sweet Summer (1969) J.G. Ballard - Crash (1973) J.G. Ballard - High-Rise (1975) J.G. Ballard - The Atrocity Exhibition (written 1967, published 1970) J.G. Ballard - The Burning World (1964) J.G. Ballard - The Crystal World (1966) Joanna Russ - We Who Are About To… (serialized 1976; in book form, 1977) John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar (1968). John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up (1972) John Crowley - Engine Summer (1979) John Crowley - The Deep (1975). John Sladek - Roderick at Random (1983) John Sladek’s - The Müller-Fokker Effect (1970) John Varley - The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977) John Wagner, Alan Grant, and Carlos Ezquerra - Judge Dredd adventures Block Mania (serialized 10/31/1981 to 12/26/81) and The Apocalypse War (1/2/82 to 6/26/82). Josephine Saxton - The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith (1969) Katsuhiro Otomo - manga series Akira (1982–1990) Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) Michael Moorcock - The English Assassin (1972) M. John Harrison - The Pastel City (1971) Moebius-s Le Garage Hermétique (The Airtight Garage, 1976–1979) Octavia E. Butler-s Kindred (1979) Octavia E. Butler - Wild Seed (1980) Philip K. Dick - A Maze of Death (1970) Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly (1977) Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974). Philip K. Dick - Martian Time-Slip (1964) Philip K. Dick - Now Wait for Last Year (1966) Philip K. Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) Philip K. Dick - The Unteleported Man (1966) Philip K. Dick - Ubik (1969). Philip K. Dick - VALIS (1981) Richard Brautigan - In Watermelon Sugar (1968). Robert Heinlein - Friday (1982). Robert Silverberg - Dying Inside (1972) Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light (1967) Russell Hoban - Riddley Walker (1980) Samuel R. Delany - Babel-17 (1966). Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren (1975) Samuel R. Delany - Nova (1968) Samuel R. Delany - The Einstein Intersection (1967) Samuel R. Delany - Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia (1976) Stanislaw Lem - Ze wspomnien Ijona Tichego Kongres futurologiczny (The Futurological Congress, 1971) Thomas M. Disch - Camp Concentration (1968) Thomas Pynchon - Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) Ursula K. Le Guin - Rocannon's World (1966) Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed (1974). Ursula K. LeGuin - The Lathe of Heaven (1971) Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) Vladimir Nabokov - Ada, or Ardor (1969) Vonda N. McIntyre - Dreamsnake (1978) Walker Percy - Love in the Ruins (1971) William Burroughs - Nova Express (1964)
