5 to 10 SCIENCE FICTION Authors you would like to see come out of Obscurity?

[psikeyhackr]

Michael McCollum Gibraltar Earth trilogy.

 

[J-Sun]

Bova's dead, though, sadly, so cannot now get it?

Wow. I've gotten so disgusted with SF news that I've been avoiding it and it turns out I've done an excellent job. I hadn't heard. You're absolutely correct. Very sad news (doubly sad since the author of 94 books(plus 24 more on science) over 62 years, editor of Analog and Omni, past president of the SFWA, and much more, will never be recognized for his lifetime achievements by his fellow writers). Since I see that someone born in 1960 with single-digit books published in less than a quarter-century and essentially no other accomplishments has been awarded this once-hallowed award, I guess I can substitute the somewhat older and vastly more accomplished Bruce Sterling (whose career began 22 years prior) as my new candidate (especially since Gibson got it years ago), unless that would curse him.

I'm kind of surprised at how much this affects me. This is all just deeply wrong.

 

[Bick]

Wow. I've gotten so disgusted with SF news that I've been avoiding it and it turns out I've done an excellent job. I hadn't heard. You're absolutely correct. Very sad news (doubly sad since the author of 94 books(plus 24 more on science) over 62 years, editor of Analog and Omni, past president of the SFWA, and much more, will never be recognized for his lifetime achievements by his fellow writers). Since I see that someone born in 1960 with single-digit books published in less than a quarter-century and essentially no other accomplishments has been awarded this once-hallowed award, I guess I can substitute the somewhat older and vastly more accomplished Bruce Sterling (whose career began 22 years prior) as my new candidate (especially since Gibson got it years ago), unless that would curse him.

I'm kind of surprised at how much this affects me. This is all just deeply wrong.

Agreed. Bova's claim to the award is obvious, but he fell down the pecking order by having the temerity not to belong to a minority. Hopkinson ticked all the important boxes for Kowal (except for the lifetime of famous and award winning SF writing of course, which is an unfortunate miss). Bruce Sterling has no chance of winning I'm afraid , though I agree he should have won before Hopkinson (or Bujold). Indeed all the following are clearly very much more deserving than Hopkinson: Kim Stanley Robinson, Jack McDevitt, Greg Bear, George R. R. Martin, Nancy Kress, Vernor Vinge, Brian Stableford, M. John Harrison, David Brin, Stephen Baxter, Bruce Sterling, etc, etc. I could go on, but this is a political thing, and no longer anything to do with actual cultural value to SF. The next winner will be disabled or transgender and win on the basis of one badly written story in Strange Horizons.

 

[J-Sun]

Agreed. Bova's claim to the award is obvious, but he fell down the pecking order by having the temerity not to belong to a minority. Hopkinson ticked all the important boxes for Kowal (except for the lifetime of famous and award winning SF writing of course, which is an unfortunate miss). Bruce Sterling has no chance of winning I'm afraid , though I agree he should have won before Hopkinson (or Bujold). Indeed all the following are clearly very much more deserving than Hopkinson: Kim Stanley Robinson, Jack McDevitt, Greg Bear, George R. R. Martin, Nancy Kress, Vernor Vinge, Brian Stableford, M. John Harrison, David Brin, Stephen Baxter, Bruce Sterling, etc, etc. I could go on, but this is a political thing, and no longer anything to do with actual cultural value to SF. The next winner will be disabled or transgender and win on the basis of one badly written story in Strange Horizons.

That sounds painfully plausible.

I suspect we feel the same on this: anyone who has the resume should get it, regardless of race, creed, or religion or other non-literary characteristic but that resume should be a very high bar. The only other criteria (due to the nature of the award) should be seniority. To give it out (or fail to give it out) for any other reason devalues the award and does an injustice both to those who don't get it and to those who do.

On your list, there's little or nothing I'd object to and most, except maybe Robinson, Kress, Brin, and Baxter, would actually be ahead in the line compared to Sterling due to that seniority.

It's depressing how many great SF writers are dead. I can't think of anyone to add, either, unless we start putting up Greg Egan to go with "newbies" like Baxter but, as incredible as he is, I don't know that he's actually had the general impact that would be required.

To get the thread back on topic, reprint my list as was (including Sterling in his original place) except put McDevitt (b.1935) where Bova was (again, only if it doesn't curse him). That might actually be possible as it wasn't long ago he was getting an inordinate number of Nebula nominations for his novels (and won one). Here's hoping.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Has time and technology brought us to the point that there are too many science fiction authors/books and the problem for each of us is sorting wheat from chaff however each of us defines those things?