Best Written Hard SF?

[Coragem]

Okay, I'm not necessarily looking for "enjoyable" reading here. Rather quality prose and ideas. Science fiction at the literary end, if you like.

So far my top picks are Peter Watts, M. John Harrison and Ian McDonald. All three have flashes of genius and exceptional prose in their own very different ways.

Further ideas much appreciated.

Thanks!

Coragem.

 

[neopeius]

I was very impressed with Clarke's writing in "Childhood's End."

David Brin's stuff often waxes poetic, as does the author in person.

 

[Gramm838]

Richard Morgan, especially" Altered Carbon", and almost everything by William Gibson

 

[Danny Franks]

I was just about to say Richard Morgan.

Altered Carbon is a great book, and Woken Furies, the third in the Takeshi Kovacs series, isn't far behind.

And then there's Ramez Naam, whose first book, Nexus, was a great take on the idea of nanotechnology and human augmentation. And the follow up, Crux, is supposed to be as good.

 

[farntfar]

Not so modern now, but I would suggest almost anything by Ursula Leguin, but especially The Left Hand of Darkness.

 

[Coragem]

Thanks very much everyone.

I'm thinking David Brin's Existence might be a good bet. Ideally I am looking for hard SF.

I couldn't agree more that Morgan and Le Guin are amazing writers, although I'm almost trying to get away from their work! It'd be pretty tenuous to call them hard SF – I'm after plausible and well researched scientifically as well as being very well written.

Coragem.

 

[neopeius]

Thanks very much everyone.

I'm thinking David Brin's Existence might be a good bet. Ideally I am looking for hard SF.

I couldn't agree more that Morgan and Le Guin are amazing writers, although I'm almost trying to get away from their work! It'd be pretty tenuous to call them hard SF – I'm after plausible and well researched scientifically as well as being very well written.

Coragem.

I have not read Existence. I enjoyed his Uplift series very much, particularly Startide Rising.

 

[Vertigo]

I'd agree that Morgan and Le Guin are not really hard SF and I'd also say that William Gibson isn't either. Even though many of his ideas are very realistic and in fact anticipated a number of technological developments, much (most?) of his science is pure speculation.

Much of Arthur C Clarke's work is definitely hard SF and (mostly) very well written.

Some others I'd recommend:
Asimov's The God's Themselves
Kim Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars books; certainly hard and not a very easy read, but I'm not sure I'd give any stars for his prose.
Poul Anderson's Tau Zero (one of his best)
Gregory Benford is certainly hard SF (his day job is an astrophysicist) but again I'm not so sure about the quality of his prose; he tends to get a bit carried away with his science ideas.
Greg Egan's work is primarily hard SF but he tends to get very, very techie and can be heavy going.
The Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle collaborations are pretty good hard SF

 

[David Selig]

M. John Harrison is an amazing writer, but I don't think he writes hard sci-fi. Best one for me would probably be Stanislaw Lem. He was an amazing stylist and a very creative writer and wrote plenty of stuff which is definitely hard sci-fi.

 

[Parson]

Hard Science Fiction and great prose rarely go together. I suspect that a mind wired for the one, struggles a bit with the other.

Arthur C. Clare "Rendezvous With Rama?"

 

[Bick]

I tend to think of Aldiss whenever I'm asked about a literary SF author. Much if his output was soft SF or fantastical, but a good deal was hard SF too. Wyndham is in a similar bracket I think. Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein etc tended to write in a spare uncluttered manner which is a style I consider good, but it's not "impressive" prose the way more literary authors manage. I think Kim Stanley Robinson writes pretty good prose. I see others find him a bit hard to get along with, but I found his Mars books to be very well written. Iain M. Banks could write pretty darn well too. Was it really hard SF though, not sure.

 

[Bick]

Addendum; now I think of it, Clarke's writing in Fountains of Paradise was really good. Some really nicely constructed images of the mountains and the monks etc.

Oh and how about Joe Haldeman?

 

[Vince W]

I've always enjoyed Ben Bova's books quite a bit. The Grand Tour series would fall in the hard sf category.

 

[Bick]

I've always enjoyed Ben Bova's books quite a bit. The Grand Tour series would fall in the hard sf category.

Yes, but is it classy, literary writing? I feel he's a pretty straightforward writer of the genre (which is not to say I don't think he's pretty good at what he does).

 

[ralphkern]

Stephan Baxter: Voyage, manifold time and space are great.

Alistair Reynolds: Anything but my fave is Pushing Ice

(Redacted) by (Redacted): An author on here not a million miles away might have written a hard sci fi but hasnt got enough posts to say

 

[Nerds_feather]

Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky.

 

[JoanDrake]

Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. A bit dated as it's written in the 1990's about computer designers and so gives us hackers who don't use Twitter or Facebook and have laptops instead of Smart phones. Then again, maybe the people he depicts would be beyond such things, particularly as the book's plot gives them heightened concerns about Security. Also loooonnngg. but I saw that as getting my money's worth rather than boringly padded.

Not an easy book either and I had to simply resolve myself to not understanding a lot, but extremely interesting.

 

[Grunkins]

No one has mentioned Stephen Baxter yet. His writing can be very good, and can sometimes be a bit off. His science is often very sound, and his handwaving (every SF author does it) is usually pretty believable. I'd say Baxter does Big Ideas better than anyone else.

 

[Vertigo]

I'd agree with you Grunkins, though it should be mentioned that Ralphkern did mention Baxter's Voyage.

 

[ralphkern]

Arthur C Clarke of course too. and the collaberation between him and Baxter, whilst neither of their best works is still good