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79 Comments
- sjbdallas, on 06/27/2009, -1/+39When you come up with a genre called "Posthuman space opera", you validate the feelings of people who think those of us who read science fiction are weird.
- skjalff, on 06/27/2009, -0/+30Steampunk was not pioneered by any K.W.***** in 1987! Jules Verne people, come on!
- vogelshock, on 06/27/2009, -1/+25Dugg for Starship Troopers!
- inactive, on 06/27/2009, -0/+22What would the genre be? Bat-***** insanity?
- okayokayokay, on 06/27/2009, -2/+18Dugg for Steampunk.
- nascentia, on 06/27/2009, -1/+16Neuromancer (and it's two sequels, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive) are ***** amazing books. I've read Neuromancer about ten times, and it blows my mind every time. It's also awesome to see where Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix were born (that, and Gibson invented the term cyberspace.) I'd love to see a kick-ass movie version of Neuromancer.
- Elranzer, on 06/27/2009, -0/+14Dugg for so much more than just steampunk.
Also, Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" basically invented steampunk... but not the term, just the genre. - jjvors, on 06/27/2009, -3/+13I have to disagree with the use of "Childhood's End" instead of "War of the Worlds" for the first alien contact. His reason doesn't even hold up--I found Childhood's end far darker than War of the Worlds, where the aliens are defeated. In Childhood's End, humanity is absorbed into the overmind.
- seeanimal, on 06/27/2009, -0/+9Dugg for Banks' 'Culture' books. But "posthuman space opera"?? Srsly?
- Tetec, on 06/27/2009, -2/+11No Philip K. Dick ?
- Elranzer, on 06/27/2009, -1/+9We *are* weird, though.
- alwilson, on 06/27/2009, -2/+10WTF, how come no Isaac Asimov and his Foundation Series?
- kenlaw, on 06/27/2009, -0/+8Please will the aliens come and get Tom Cruise and get his ass of our planet. He really makes the rest of us look pretty bad.
- rocknog, on 06/27/2009, -0/+7I have mixed feelings. I agree that it should be about peaceful contact to count. I also agree with you that "Childhood's End" was an incredibly dark and disturbing book, if looked at from the perspective of humanity. But that was never supposed to be the intention, I don't think. The ending of the book was supposed to be an incredible achievement, the fulfillment of our destiny as a species, becoming something greater than we had ever imagined. It's just that from our limited perspective, it can't come across as anything but utterly horrific because we have no way of understanding it.
I don't even know why I'm defending it. "Childhood's End" was an incredibly disturbing book for me, but I guess I always recognized that I wasn't seeing it the way I was supposed to see it. - mojoel, on 06/27/2009, -1/+8"The Sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel"
Neuromancer - William Gibson - Elranzer, on 06/27/2009, -2/+9L. Ron Hubbard may be credited for creating a fiction story that many people believe to be so true that they'll do bat-***** crazy things in real life to defend it. But that credit might have to go to the Bible.
- AndrewDB, on 06/27/2009, -1/+8What didn't Halo rip off?..
- AndrewDB, on 06/27/2009, -4/+10Am I the only the only one who would like to see a properly done movie version of Starship Troopers by Heinlein?
Not the crappy one we got treated to in the the late 90s. I'm talking one that follows the book to the word. - donnyloggins, on 06/27/2009, -0/+6I've read the book and loved it but I think the movie is pretty awesome. Got to hand it to Paul Verhoeven who said he got 20 pages into the novel and "got bored and depressed" so just kind made his own movie. A properly done adaptation would be nice though.
- kaosethema, on 06/28/2009, -0/+5what? Frank Hebert's 'Dune' didn't spark any genres?
multigalactic empire space opera? - santiago1, on 06/27/2009, -0/+5 A Boy and his Dog FTW!!! (Romance Genre!)
- superkeer, on 06/27/2009, -0/+5Dugg for Banks. Best sci-fi writer most people have never heard of. The Culture = brilliant.
- Evocati, on 06/27/2009, -2/+7Hops on bandwagon. Dugg for William Gibson.
- ibeetle, on 06/27/2009, -0/+5That is true about almost every book listed. However, I believe (hope) the point of the article was books that "popularized" or made "commercially viable" for publishers to publish additional works in the genre.
- gmuslera, on 06/27/2009, -0/+5When you feel "touched" by a person, means something i.e. intellectual/emotional or that that person punched you?
The contact here wasn't about being hit like with an asteroid, ants or some "could be mindless for what it matters" alien, but was about knowing, learning about culture, something intellectually bidirectional between both sides. The meeting meaning that don't implies a ring. - gmuslera, on 06/27/2009, -0/+4Wonder in which subgenre would fit PJFarmer's Riverwold series, if any of that list or if should have started its own.
- Elranzer, on 06/27/2009, -0/+4So basically, Halo (the Xbox game) was a rip-off of Consider Phlebas.
- Greengoo, on 06/27/2009, -0/+4Where the hell is Snowcrash?!?
- kaosethema, on 06/28/2009, -0/+4thanks zombies
- inactive, on 06/27/2009, -0/+4Stephen Baxter
(anything he has ever written) - Elranzer, on 06/27/2009, -0/+4I also didn't consider Ringworld, which is older than Consider Phlebas.
- Cyberdactyl, on 06/27/2009, -0/+4What irritates me is how Bungie totally and blatantly ripped off Larry Niven's 'Ringworold' series (first pick in the article) with the game HALO and I have yet to ever see an acknowledgment of the book.
- zombies187, on 06/27/2009, -0/+4I would argue that Shelly & Verne are the leading writers of Proto Science Fiction and that Wells gets the credit for the first invasion story as well as the first true 'scientist plays God" story and the first Dystopia. I would go on to suggest that Philip K Dick is the father of Cyberpunk.
- zombies187, on 06/27/2009, -0/+4Space opera is a legitimate sub-genre of scifi. Star Wars was inspired in part by the likes of Flash Gordon & the work of Dr. E.E. Smith. If there is an earlier example of Space opera than The Skylark series I'd like to know about it. And if there is a better one than Piers Anthonys Bio of a Space Tyrant.
"Posthuman" is a sub-sub genre. - Neiby, on 06/27/2009, -0/+3It did not launch its own genre, so it doesn't qualify. Pretty obvious if you read the title of the page.
EDIT: But I agree that Ender's Game pretty much freaking rocks. - Elranzer, on 06/27/2009, -0/+3The version of Frankenstein's monster with the flat-top head and green skin (basically Herman Munster) was created and owned by Universal Studios.
- justok, on 06/27/2009, -0/+3I try to pretend the book and the movie are not related.
- inactive, on 06/27/2009, -0/+3I've read them several times myself. It's interesting to note that in recent years, he's been writing novels set in contemporary times (Pattern Recognition is excellent, btw), because everything he ever anticipated is all here now, and also because he senses some some huge, monumental developments in human history right around the corner, and just doesn't know how to project into the future anymore.
I follow his twitter feed: twitter.com/GreatDismal - burningrobot, on 06/27/2009, -2/+4So, did you read past the first page?
- SalmonGod, on 06/27/2009, -1/+3So where does Zelazny fit in with these genres? I don't see any proper matches. The guy deserves a mention, and personally I think his work can't be described as anything but a genre all its own.
- skjalff, on 06/28/2009, -0/+2yeah, especially cyberpunk.. and warfare sci-fi and alternative history...
- orangefly, on 06/27/2009, -0/+2i didn't know the cover art of Frankenstein was inspired by randy quaids character in kingpin....
- Spoomeister, on 06/28/2009, -2/+4Buried for Steampunk.
- Cyberdactyl, on 06/27/2009, -1/+3Because like most every "Top 10" article, it is some author pulling his biased favorites out his or her's ass.
Hell, he freely admits it in this last paragraph. . . - SirBruce, on 06/28/2009, -0/+2Jesus, this guy needs an editor badly.
"Jeter not only invented the term steampunk, in an interview around the time this 1987 novel came out."
Jeter not only did that, he did... what? What's the other part? The rule of thumb is "not only" must be accompanied by a "but also". Presumably he meant something like this:
"Jeter not only invented the term steampunk in an interview in 1987, but published this novel at around the same time."
But even that is rather awkward. Better would be:
"Jeter published this novel in 1987, and during an interview the same year coined the term steampunk." - burningrobot, on 06/27/2009, -0/+2A really good sci-fi author to check out is Alastair Reynolds. For a quick read check out his novella Diamond Dogs.
- SirBruce, on 06/28/2009, -0/+2Twilight is the worst sort of Mary Sue fanfic, and yet it's a hit. There are no rules any more.
- zombies187, on 06/27/2009, -0/+2Foundation didn't really start a genre.
- SirBruce, on 06/28/2009, -0/+2Vernor Vinge's "True Names" was years before Neuromancer, and was 10 times more accurate.
- infectthefrets, on 06/28/2009, -0/+2"Good artists innovate, great artists steal."
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