Fast Paced SFF?

[Space Monkey]

I love books, but I have an attention problem.
And I like fantasy and SF storylines, but having read LOTR and Greg Bear and a few others, I'm bored to death with slow starters and long-winded description of hills and vales and histories of every species before the story even kicks in.
I've just started the Sword of Shannara and I'm really enjoying it, but even this still triggers my impatience sensors.

I'm looking for something that doesn't drag on with endless descriptions of moons and stars and landscapes and the entire life history or philosophy of reluctant heroes. Nothing against it all, but is there a unique voice out there that gets straight to the killing and paints the picture in a quirky, fast way?
Sort of, Chuck Palahniuk-ee?
Pratchett is usually fast paced, but his plotlines are written for humour and are typically fairly shallow. I'm looking for something the equivalent of getting hit by a train and waking up on mars covered in porridge with three arms, saying 'WTF just happened?'

Any suggestions?

 

[Circus Cranium]

Someone else just asked this like a week ago...can't remember where the thread is.

 

[Brian G Turner]

If long descriptions bore you, then my personal suggestion would be something like "2001" - it really is pretty short, yet a decent read - if you can handle not being allowed to get too close to any of the characters.

 

[scalem X]

Mmm I have some tekst of my own that are pretty close to: 'all happening few descriptions'.

 

[Lacedaemonian]

Chuck Palahniuk is an excellent author. Then you say you are reading Terrence Brooks and Terrence Pratchett. Sorry I can't help unless you recant your evil.

 

[Circus Cranium]

Speaking of Palahniuk, isn't 'Invisible Monsters' supposed to be coming out as a film soon?

 

[Rane Longfox]

Just avoid The Night's Dawn Trilogy

 

[Foxbat]

If I want something quick and to the point, I tend to go for short stories where word economy is the order of the day.

Asimov's collections, for example, a short, sharp and (sometimes) sweet. There are just too many other collections to mention but most of the big names have one or two out there

 

[dwndrgn]

I'd suggest Jeff Noon, especially 'Vurt'. Very interestingly fast and mind twisting.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I second Jeff Noon. Fast paced sf - a lot of Heinlein's work should do the trick, as also Poul Anderson's.


Ken MacLeod is a recent sf writer whose sense of pace is really good - try starting with The Stone Canal.

Michael Moorcock's fantasy works are less bloated than the genre has been getting at times recently and Fritz Leiber's tales of Fafhrd and Grey Mouser are racy reads as well.

Can't go wrong with short stories, as Foxbat mentioned, and I feel much of the best sf is in the shorter format. Cordwainer Smith and Eric Frank Russel are two old-school sf writers who excelled at short stories - anything by them is worth a shot!

 

[jenna]

i have a couple of friends and one sister with the same attention problems, and they've gotten along quite well with the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. it's not really that well written but it definitely gets to the point pretty quickly. i don't think much of the guy myself, he's a bit of a fantasy basher, doesn't consider what he does to be fantasy even though it's a textbook case if ever i saw one! but he also says he's not a world builder (like that's a good thing) so he doesn't really have a lot of description or histories. might be worth giving a go...