
Forgotten Greats of Science Fiction - walterbell
https://www.tor.com/2018/09/04/who-are-the-forgotten-greats-of-science-fiction/
======
jloughry
George O. Smith's _Venus Equilateral_ stories from 1942–1945 are wonderful—if
you like the idea of vacuum tube technology taken to extreme lengths.

Lots of fun in those stories for engineers and hackers: spaceships that can
accelerate at six gees but the passengers can't, capacitors charged up in the
gigajoule range, walk-in electron guns (why bother with vacuum pumps when
you're in space and can just build devices in the "open air"?), stock market
manipulation by means of speed-of-light delay, and SLAs.

~~~
marktangotango
I’ll piggy back on this and point out H Beam Piper wrote some really great
action adventure sci, that although dated is a hell of a lot of fun.

I’d also note how remarkable the cover art on those old publications is. I’m
constantly amazed, even the covers in the present article are extraordinary.

------
etatoby
Not forgotten, but not well known either, Lois McMaster Bujold's science
fiction series, the Vorkosigan Saga is one of the best reads I ever found.

The first couple of books, Shards of Honor and Barrayar, are a superb mixture
of futuristic technology, society, and humanity. The protagonist, Cordelia
deals with a number of situations that would bring the best of us to our
knees, with strength and compassion.

Unlike most "aseptic" or cold SciFi out there, including Star Trek, these
works put the human element up front. I cannot recommend them highly enough.
The rest of the saga follows different characters and is worthy in itself (I'm
especially fond of Falling Free and a couple of the later books) but the first
two books shine in my opinion.

She won several Nebula and Hugo awards, but she remains not well known.
Several sci-fi friends of mine had never heard of her.

------
fractallyte
This is a modern thing too: current SF also has long-time authors that are
completely neglected, who are on a par with the great authors of the past.
Case in point: Linda Nagata
([https://mythicisland.com](https://mythicisland.com)), who started in the
80s, but has yet to win a Hugo Award. Her most recent (and arguably finest)
novel, 'The Last Good Man', wasn't even nominated.

While she's probably best known for her rolicking military SF 'Red' series,
her other novels are astonishingly mature and prescient.

------
wyldfire
Kornbluth's "The Little Black Bag" [1] [2] is another good read.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Black_Bag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Black_Bag)

[2] [https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/kornbluth-
littleblack/kornbluth-...](https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/kornbluth-
littleblack/kornbluth-littleblack-00-h.html)

~~~
mast
"The Little Black Bag" was also done as an episode of Night Gallery. I saw
this first before reading the story.
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0660832/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0660832/)

------
tzs
A few of the authors mentioned in some comments here, or in comments on the
article, are referenced in Blake Hodgetts song "The Reader" [1]. It's an
interesting challenge if you consider yourself a well-read science fiction
reader to see how many you can catch.

If you give up annotated lyrics are available [2], but it is more fun to see
how many you can figure out without looking.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsVkmC-N3Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsVkmC-N3Y)

[2]
[http://members.efn.org/~bch/songs/thereaderframeset.html](http://members.efn.org/~bch/songs/thereaderframeset.html)

------
glangdale
F/SF, as a publishing field, seem hell-bent on 'forgetting their greats'.
Until the excellent Fantasy Masterworks and Science Fiction Masterworks series
appeared, it was more or less routine that books considered 'classics' of
these genres would be out of print more often than not.

Meanwhile, anyone who can manage the sleight-of-hand will ensure that their
F/SF books are filed under 'literature', regardless of how shamelessly they
pillage the F/SF world for ideas (looking at you, Atwood).

~~~
CydeWeys
I don't understand the hate against Margaret Atwood.

Who cares what shelf her books are on in bookstores. If she makes more money
under "Literature", then good for her. She's not "pillaging" anything; she's
_adding_ to the established body of published SF/F with her excellent works,
regardless of what shelf they're on at the bookstore. You're free to shelve
them properly at home.

~~~
glangdale
It's not the fact that she is shelved in fiction. It's the fact that she
openly derides SF as “talking squids in outer space” while freely pillaging
the SF treasury of ideas for her (imo increasingly schlocky and lurid)
writing.

~~~
drb91
I can’t see a lot of harm in this. Writers talk shit across genre boundaries
(in this case, maybe in an attempt to define one!) all the time. The
“arguments” they present are almost always terrible.

~~~
glangdale
I can't see that much "harm" in it either. I'm not asking for Atwood to be
arrested. I'm just explaining one of the reasons I don't like her (that, and
her increasingly schlocky writing, jmo of course).

------
Flenser
And if you haven't heard of him, Cordwainer Smith is well worth reading too.

~~~
JoeDaDude
Agreed, Cordwainer Smith made quite the impression on me, not only for the
ideas, but for his writing style.

Cordwainer Smith is mentioned in the article: "The Cordwainer Smith
Rediscovery Award was founded in 2001 to draw attention to unjustly forgotten
SF authors."

Like the article says, I wish they collected the award winners in an
anthology.

~~~
CydeWeys
Unfortunately Gardner Dozois died recently -- he would have been the ideal
person to put together such an anthology (given his background of already
having produced dozens of SFF anthologies).

------
fractallyte
An article about Murray Leinster came up on HN a few days ago
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17882571](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17882571)),
which, sadly, passed everyone by. Another great author who deserves
rediscovery.

------
abecedarius
A Lafferty story linked from the comments:
[https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781618249203/9781618249203___...](https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781618249203/9781618249203___2.htm)

~~~
walterbell
Six Lafferty stories:
[http://ralafferty.com/category/read/](http://ralafferty.com/category/read/)

His books are available on UK Kindle or other means.

~~~
ttctciyf
Here[1], have another: "Been a Long, Long Time"

1: [https://pastebin.com/raw/d9ZXakAB](https://pastebin.com/raw/d9ZXakAB)

------
andyjohnson0
Surprised not to see Theodore Sturgeon in there. _Microcosmic God_ is a good
story from the "golden age" era.

~~~
justin66
He's not a household name, but he's definitely not forgotten.

------
russellbeattie
Older sci-fi can be great until it starts being laughably anachronistic. I'm
re-reading the Foundation series and there are some howlers. From a hologram
continually insisting that his viewers can go ahead a smoke cigarettes (as he
won't mind), to a breathless description of what is just an automatic train
ticket kiosk, to a machine that 'types' by translating voice into neatly hand-
written words on a page (where if you misspoke, you need to start from scratch
again like a typewriter.)

I think it's hard for many modern readers to digest science fiction that was
written before the transistor was invented. Some things just seem ridiculous.

~~~
dfan
Science fiction futures exist in a two-dimensional space; one axis is the time
the story is set in, and the other axis is the time the story is written. You
just have to get used to the fact that "2000 as written in 1950" is different
from "2000 as written in 1990".

~~~
Freak_NL
Honestly, I find it very refreshing to read SF from different decades — if
only to occasionally get away from the dystopias of today's tomorrow.

Sure, space rockets with paper printouts (Heinlein's juvenile bildungsroman
_Starman Jones_ ) may seem silly today, but I find that it adds to the flavor
of yesterday's tomorrows.

~~~
CydeWeys
And there is still a lot of paper used on the space station in the form of
manuals. You need documentation that you absolutely, positively can always
read, regardless of whether your computers go down from cosmic rays,
electricity goes out, etc.

------
sizzzzlerz
Although my heavy scifi reading occurred many years ago, during the 60s and
70s, I must admit I've never heard of any of those authors. Granted, I focused
on a smallish group of the more well-known authors, its still a bit surprising
that I'd never come across at least some of these people.

~~~
ghaff
Olaf Stapledon I've heard of and gave First and Last Men a try at one point
and gave up as I recall. Ambitious but a real slog.

My most intensive SF reading was more in the 70s through 80s/90s but I
likewise don't recognize any of the names other than Stapledon's.

~~~
EthanHeilman
Olaf Stapledon is amazing but he isn't writing adventures or even narrative in
the traditional sense. He is very well known among science fiction authors
because they use his material heavily [0]. I often wonder if there is some
secret argument among some scifi authors never to speak of Stapledon. For
instance one interesting line was that C.S. Lewis was inspired heavily by
Stapledon to write "That Hideous Strength" which in turn inspired George
Orwell's 1984.

If in one thousand years one science fiction author will be remembered from
our time there is a decent chance it will be Olaf Stapledon.

[0]: [http://www.nyrsf.com/2013/11/thomas-f-bertonneau-contact-
com...](http://www.nyrsf.com/2013/11/thomas-f-bertonneau-contact-communion-
and-the-marriage-of-minds-olaf-stapledon-in-context.html)

~~~
fractallyte
Arthur C Clarke wrote frequently of him, crediting Stapledon as one of his
earliest influences!

------
skookumchuck
I've randomly picked up a number of these over the years by buying boxes of
cast-off scifi from ebay.

------
JoeDaDude
Folk here might enjoy the "Foundations of Science Fiction" videos from Extra
Credit:

[https://youtu.be/CIG6I_SpYs4](https://youtu.be/CIG6I_SpYs4)

I may never read all the books they mention, but it is entertaining to know
about them.

------
skookumchuck
It's too bad that eternal copyright has doomed these authors to oblivion.

------
ur-whale
Not a single mention of Jack Vance in the article ... disappointing: Jack
Vance was one of the most profilic yet under-rated sci-fi author of the so-
called "golden age"

~~~
colomon
This sort of question is hard, because ... is he under-rated (or "forgotten",
as the original article had it)? I would have said he was both well-respected
and still remembered.

Personally, I don't think I've read more than a novel's worth from any of the
authors in the article -- hadn't even heard of half of them -- whereas I've
read maybe ten of Vance's? He's maybe more remembered for his fantasy than SF,
but I'd say he's frequently mentioned and reprinted.

~~~
glangdale
Vance is found increasingly rarely on shelves since his death, I've noticed.
It's easy to find the spot now; look for the enormous Vandermeer section :-)
but in my experience there will be a token 1-2 Vance books there if that.
Often it begins and ends with the books of his that made the F or SF
Masterworks.

Part of the problem is that there's no almost no such thing as a uniformly
good Vance book (and I say that with regret, as he is one of my favorites). I
love him, but one must navigate past a lot of things that maybe someone who
didn't grow up reading JV might be less tolerant about. He is quite frequently
lazy about plotting (repeating himself or just chucking the story on the
floor), many of his main characters are enjoyable omni-competent ciphers who
could easily be mistaken for each other, is a bit prone to using rapes and
murders of women as a primary plot driver (Araminta Station!) and there's some
weird if lightly-worn race and politics stuff that is best not examined too
deeply.

------
itbeho
F.M. Busby was pretty good.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._M._Busby](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._M._Busby)

------
deepnet
The Death Guard by Chadwick -- fleshy robot armies

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Guard-
Roc-S/dp/014017060X](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Guard-Roc-S/dp/014017060X)

Stand on Zanzibar by Brunner -- notable for hip-crime vocab

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_on_Zanzibar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_on_Zanzibar)

------
fractallyte
Arthur C Clarke's 'Astounding Days' was a nostalgic tour of the 'Golden Age'
science fiction world. He mentioned many stories and authors that have been
neglected by modern readers. But then, I'm finding that even he's gradually
fading from the modern collective memory...

------
mast
Judith Merril might be familiar to anyone from Toronto. The Toronto Public
Library holds the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation & Fantasy

[https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/merril/](https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/merril/)

~~~
ecpottinger
I dare not go there anymore.

The last few times reminded me not only how many books I have not read, but
also how many books I wanted to reread.

------
GeekyBear
One of my favorites from just after world war 2 is "With Folded Hands ..." by
Jack Williamson.

He was certainly well known in the early days of pulp science fiction.

------
jejones3141
By all means, get Lafferty's collection _Nine Hundred Grandmothers_, and if
you read nothing else, read the stories about the Camiroi.

