"SF Grandmaster"

[j d worthington]

Yes, I recognized Powers' work -- it's one of the reasons I mentioned him. My point, as noted, is that so much of the more recent cover art is so damned bland and forgettable. My contention is that sf (or, for that matter, fantasy) art should never be forgettable, but should always intrigue and draw one in. It should be alien enough to catch the eye, but accessible enough to not repulse or repel... and should always have the property of providing an entrée to the world within, without telling us all about it.

Dr. A: I envy you. While I did have the pleasure of being able to sit and talk with de Camp for a good while, that's the only one of the list I've ever met. Wish I'd had the opportunity to meet more....

 

[HardScienceFan]

Yes, I recognized Powers' work -- it's one of the reasons I mentioned him. My point, as noted, is that so much of the more recent cover art is so damned bland and forgettable. My contention is that sf (or, for that matter, fantasy) art should never be forgettable, but should always intrigue and draw one in. It should be alien enough to catch the eye, but accessible enough to not repulse or repel... and should always have the property of providing an entrée to the world within, without telling us all about it.

Dr. A: I envy you.

Ye Gods,"Worthy",are you still there?Think of the implications man!We can still save Earth.Quick,to the matter transmitter!
Seriously,good point though.The possession of books with some of the covers I've seen ought to be punished by 10 years in Leavenworth,at least.I suppose SF art should be like any other art.It shouldn't be trivial,
it should be original,it should be heartfelt,and there has got to be some agreement between style and subject matter.
Personal taste: I can't stand Vincent di Fate's covers,but DE GUSTIBUS...

 

[Dr. Atomic]

I think di Fate's got three distinct styles of art -- (a) the kind that reminds me of John Berkey's work from the early and mid Seventies (of which I'm a fan -- distinctly massive space ships with lots of personality); (b) very slick work which predates the Danato-esque stuff common to sf today (which I hate); and (c), for lack of a better term, "classical" stuff -- as he often does for the covers of FilmFax magazine. (From what I've seen, he limits this third style to monsters and stuff... I've never seen it in his technologically oriented paintings.)

So I've got mixed feelings about his painting. I'd gladly hang the first or third style of stuff on my wall -- the second style of work I'd sell in order to buy one of the others.

But Powers, Meltzoff, Lehr, Gaughan, Valigursky, Emsh, Eddie Jones, Robert Stanley... They're giants in the field who influenced so many artists that came after them. They've got a distinct style that stands out from the pack and created sf's visual identity for a generation of fans. (Including those of us who weren't even born when they were working!)

Is it me, or is this topic completely derailed?

 

[HardScienceFan]

Is it me, or is this topic completely derailed?

Yes ,U're right.The topic originally definitely was not "covers".
I tend to agree with everybody who thinks Philip.K.Dick deserves the accolade grandmaster.He was very "mainstreamish".My firm favourites :The Penultimate Truth,and the justly acclaimed The Man in the High Castle.Was it just me,or was Mr.Dick a master in tampering with the reader's sense of reality?

 

[Dr. Atomic]

I think the problem is that Dick's acclaim took too long to catch up with the weird politics against him. And by the time it did, he was dead -- too late to become a Grand Master, given the rules regarding it being awarded to living writers.

Oh well. There are many writers who probably deserve the honor, but died before they could get it. So it goes. I think everyone agrees that it doesn't diminish the quality of the work. (Though it might affect book sales, sadly -- not that it seems to make a difference in Dick's case. His books sell like hotcakes!)

 

[j d worthington]

On PKD -- yes, he does. I'm not sure where I came across the term (it was too long ago) but my first encounter with him, he was labelled as "the master of rubber reality"; one of his main themes being epistemology -- a wonderful theme in sf, and one that seemed to be very popular with the writers of the Golden Age through the New Wave -- makes his work, I think, endlessly fascinating.

And I agree. Dick should have been made a Grand Master. But -- in his case, at least -- it doesn't seem to have hurt the sales, at any rate....

 

[Urlik]

Serious? Asimov's the most easily available sf writer as far as I know. Any decent bookstore or library should suffice. Try a book of short stories first, possibly I, Robot. I'd say The Gods Themselves is his best novels, but Caves of Steel is great too and the Foundation novels are of course sf essentials.

if you get Caves of Steel, be sure to see if they have The Naked Sun (the sequel) as well

another great yarn is Currents of Space

 

[Connavar]

In that Grandmaster list i have only read Assimov. I should read more of the old greats.


Lucky me i became Assimov fan just a couple years ago cause those covers looked horrid. My collection of Foundation has awesome and much more vanille covers. Assimov is prolly my fav writer cause i fell so much in love with Foundation. Should start collectiong The Robot books soon.

Whenever i see or read a space story i think Foundation.



I have a question, was Assimov the first to write about Robots like he did?

 

[j d worthington]

I have a question, was Assimov the first to write about Robots like he did?

Depends on what you mean... He was the first, I think, to use them so extensively as genuine mechanical devices rather than a metaphor... that is, he used them as metaphor, but he also wanted them to be seen as genuine machines, not "Frankensteinian" or "pitiful" creations....

But even there, Eando Binder wrote a series of stories on Adam Link, a robot (most of which were collected together and revised for the novel Adam Link, Robot, but some were left out), and there were plenty of robots in sf before then... usually they were a sort of "soulless machine" that turned on its master, but sometimes they were there as objects of sympathy. And there's the play, R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), by Karel Čapek (in fact, it was -- according to Karel -- his brother Josef who coined the word "robot").

 

[Connavar]

Thats what i meant cause how he wrote Robots as the genuine mechanical devices that do the humans bidding is how Robot's are usually written today.


I wasnt asking if he was the first use the word or the idea of a Robot.

 

[Dr. Atomic]

And the Binder brothers actually called one of their short stories "I, Robot."

I still need to read "Adam Link, Robot."

 

[HardScienceFan]

C.M.Kornbluth is still underrated,I think
Shark Ship,Two Dooms,Altar at Midnight,Little Black Bag
By the way:a stylist,just like Dick,Avram Davidson,Richard Wilson....
Hang on: Two Dooms->Man in the High Castle??

 

[j d worthington]

C.M.Kornbluth is still underrated,I think
Shark Ship,Two Dooms,Altar at Midnight,Little Black Bag
By the way:a stylist,just like Dick,Avram Davidson,Richard Wilson....
Hang on: Two Dooms->Man in the High Castle??

Hmmm... possibly.

As for Kornbluth... there's been a rerelease of his complete short work a few years ago over here, His Share of Glory; and from what I've seen, it was thought highly of.

Yes, Davidson... interesting choice, and one we don't hear much of these days... quite a wonderful stylist, and rather varied.

 

[rimworlder]

my personal favorite for people who were passed over for grandmaster status is A. Bertram Chandler.

Check out the stats: one of the top-rated authors throughout Astounding/Analog's run based on the reader's poll

in print continuously from the 40's through the 90's

one of the few author's to have an author's award named after him

nominated for and/or received numerous international awards - from the Hugo through the japanese Seiun

one of the few 'golden age' authors to be asked to contribute stories to the Dangerous Visions project (Ellison is still in posession of an unpublished novellette)

roundly praised by his contemporaries

and yet, he's completely over-looked and of those readers who remember him, most relegate him to the 'space opera' branch of the field. If you take the time to read and critique, he was deeper than that.

Of course, I'm partisan and biased here. He is one of my favorite authors (in fact the third SF author I ever read, after Heinlein and LeGuin) and I'm deeply immersed in chandlerania as I'm currently putting together a concordance of his 'Rim Worlds' works (hence the nick). He was one of the first to deal with sex in a mature manner, one of the first to delve into parallel universes/alternate realities, one of the first to play with the 'world as myth' concept, etc., etc.

 

[Briareus Delta]

It's a shame that Bob Shaw wasn't given this honour before his untimely death in 1996.

 

[HardScienceFan]

No i haven't forgotten light of other days,Medusa's children,Orbitsville

 

[Briareus Delta]

No i haven't forgotten light of other days,Medusa's children,Orbitsville

To name but a few.....

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

It's a shame that Bob Shaw wasn't given this honour before his untimely death in 1996.

Yes I will go with that and also add James White to the list.

 

[gully_foyle]

Gully Foyle's Grandmasters' of Science Fiction

Douglas Adams
Isaac Asimov
Alfred Bester
Ray Bradbury
Arthur C Clarke
Phillip K Dick
William Gibson
Joe Haldeman
Robert A Heinlein
Frank Herbert
Aldous Huxley
Ursula K Le Guin
Stanislav Lem
Michael Moorcock
Larry Niven
Orson Scott Card
A.E. Van Vogt
Jules Verne
Kurt Vonnegut
H.G. Wells
Jack Williamson

 

[Connavar]

Good list 90% of them are SF legends.


My list of the ones i have read so far:


Robert A Heinlein
Douglas Adams
Isaac Asimov
Arthur C Clarke
Phillip K Dick
Jack Vance
Jules Verne
H.G. Wells
Fredrick Pohl