Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

It's been a while since I regularly followed cutting edge science fiction. And now that things like a dystopia ruled by mega-corps and enviornmental collapse are considered current events I wonder what science fiction writers see for our future?

is there a single view dominating these days?

As far as I know, Science Fiction is still kind of in the post-New Wave/Cyber Punk era. As a reader, about the only significant genre change I've seen is a move away from "CyberPunk is always dystopian." Series like Ghost in the Shell, and The Diamond Age for example have moved the theme away from the Neuromancer model. They deal with themes like corporate greed and post-industrial society without automatically assuming it's doom and gloom.

There is an emerging field of novels though that are kind of alt-science (I guess that's what I'd call it?). Stuff like SteamPunk, DungeonPunk, and DieselPunk are rising in popularity. You could say that the genre has moved away from just thinking about the future to contemplating the alternatives of the past/present.

Yeah I should have noted the alt genere, alternate fiction, modern fantasy, steam punk etc, worth noting. It's not the sort of sci-fi I was thinking of but that might be an important point.

Maybe we've gotten a little scared to look into the future?

And Ghost in the Shell has to be 20+ years old by now, Diamond Age at least 10 if not 15.

I don't think its that we're scared of looking into the future so much as the set pieces we've traditionally associated with sci-fi are no longer used to define the genre. I think especially in a post-modern world the idealism of much early sci-fi has died down a bit, but there's also I think that interest has waned in seeing yet more stories about spaceships, aliens, and going to other planets (not that those things are cliche, they're just not as fresh as they used to be).

It's not that interest in those things is gone, but the optimism that drove the Genre in the time of Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov is. There were lofty dreams back in the 50s, ands 60s that we'd make it to the moon (suck it moon we won!).

Now, people are a lot more concerned about life here on Earth, and sci-fi has expanded to include those concerns.

I don't think there is a notable new wave.

There seems to have been a lot of military SF in the past 15 years, possibly prompted by Gulf War 2, etc. A lot of it is a bit crap.

Steam Punk is a big thing but a lot of it is a bit crap, though to be fair a lot of everything is a bit crap.

Space Opera made a come-back through authors like Iain M Banks and Alastair Reynolds. These are not fresh new authors now. (Iain M Banks of course died fairly recently, and his oeuvre is complete.)

The relatively stuff I have been reading over the past couple of years, that I think is actually pretty good, includes Charles Stross, Chris Beckett, Gary Gibson, and Richard Morgan. These authors span various genres.

As to hard-sf topics (in contrast to various alt-science/alt-history genres mentioned above), there is a lot of writing in post-humanism/trans-humanism and simulation hypothesis areas. From english writing authors take a look at Peter Watts and his Blindsight (2006) and "sequel" Echopraxia (2014).

Unfortunately, the most interesting XXI century s-f books I read and could recommend to you are by Polish author Jacek Dukaj, and weren't translated to English... But they are definately worth the effort of learning the language (be prepared to have your brain f...ed hard though, if you try to accept this challange, as they are very demanding even for polish native speakers and the longest one is over 2000 pages long (a single novel, not a saga or series and every page is important...)). He is one of those guys, who will eventually be translated long after he dies...

A bit wider picture is that most of cutting-edge s-f novels presently are usually based on a common "meta concept" - take one of the emerging new science areas and try to figure out some extrapolation of cultural/evolution impact on future society. Or try to illustrate some neuro-sciences findings with a quasi-philosophical story...

There are no such "dominating topics" like nuclear fear of '50 and '60, totalitarian dystopias of '70 and '80 or corporate/cyberpunk nightmares of '90 and most of (broadly defined) s-f genre books are "young adult adventures" or iterations of old-but-gold "settings" - post apocalyptic, space opera (but usually with naive, space wild west approach) etc...

And lot of typical s-f adventure storytelling went from novels to computer games (I know of one (quite good) Polish writer who even explicitly stated this as his reason to cease writing).

A lot of current SF is about the haves vs the have nots. Race and class issues are quite prevalent.

 Breotan wrote:
A lot of current SF is about the haves vs the have nots. Race and class issues are quite prevalent.

This is true, but many of such use the s-f content as a decorative layer only, not a true "futurology made popular" analysis of future trends. More like "current left vs right wing" clash illustrated. And usually offer nothing new on the subject (in some cases since H.G. Wells really - some of his ideas have been picked up by theorists only recently).

The haves versus the have-nots was also a common theme in cyberpunk.

I'm not very up-to-date as far as subgenres go, but I have found a new-found interest in some recent science fiction novels/authors.
Top of the list right now would be Neal Stephenson. He's (apparently) been around a while, but still writes.
Very broad capabilities as a writer; from cyberpunk (Snow Crash) to filosophical/quantum mechanical alternate reality novel (Anathem - very good!) to Apocalyptic event-forces humanity-off-the-earth (Seveneves), and all of it's well worth the effort of the at times somewhat dense prose.

For somewhat less brainpower requirements I quite enjoy David Brin (who's apparently also been around for a while already). The Uplift books are a Space Operatic breath of fresh air among all the near-future stuff that's thrown out these days.

I loved Stephenson's Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon but his steam punk thingy left me cold.

I should try him again.

This goes back 20 years but I have fond memories of Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction series, but that was cyberpunk/space opera (with Space Demons thrown in).

William Gibson is still writing, but the stories keep getting less cyberpunk and more near-future. It is though he is still writing for the year 2020, but as it gets closer, the tech gets less futuristic and more 'already here'.

Pattern Recognition is the last one I read, which is a few years old, and it didn't seem like science fiction even then.

That's part of the reason I stopped reading him.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I loved Stephenson's Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon but his steam punk thingy left me cold.

I should try him again.

This goes back 20 years but I have fond memories of Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction series, but that was cyberpunk/space opera (with Space Demons thrown in).

I never read the steam punk thingy. The concept just didn't appeal to me very much. The wee un, wife, and work combined leave me little time to read, anyway, so I have to be pretty selective with what I pick.

I like Stephenson’s earlier work, (Zodiac, Snow Crash, Diamond Age) but he’s been going slowly downhill. Seveneves was OKish. Started out interesting, ended up in world I felt was just a mash of old tropes.

David Brin remains one of my favorite authors, but his last few books were not his strongest. In a cyberpunk vein, read his Kiln People

Gibson, while writing less cyberpunky books, continues to bang out quality ones. One of the few authors I’ll grab books in hardcover for.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I loved Stephenson's Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon but his steam punk thingy left me cold.

I should try him again.

This goes back 20 years but I have fond memories of Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction series, but that was cyberpunk/space opera (with Space Demons thrown in).

Hamilton's Commonwealth series is even better, and more purely sci fi (although not hard sf).

I'm not on the cutting edge of sci fi right now, but I've seen a few trends in the last 10 years or so. A lot of the more traditional space opera has a darker tone these days, with an underlying tension that everything will not be alright. There is a focus on FTL being impossible and humanity either being trapped in our system, prey to the same old conflicts and sufferings, or else humanity has changed into or been superseded by creations that only vaguely resemble us. Both of these branches focus on the inescapable situation of modern day humanity, although the post-humanist and post-humans sci fi seems to be expanding if Amazon blurbs are anything to go by. It seems pretty odd to see a book published today about far future space travel that involves happy people going to interesting places.

On the other side, there seems to be a sort of renaissance of old-timey "The A-Team in Space goes to Space Vegas" style adventure sci fi series, as well as a continuation the post 9/11 "Liberals! Liberals! Liberals! in Space" Hard Men Making Hard Choices milsf. I'm not sure how much of either of those subgenres are the imaginings of new authors or the still-thriving careers of the genre's old B-list bread and butter authors. I suspect that the escapism in these subgenres, as well as Urban Fantasy, Alt Hist, and Steampunk, will continue to attract fans. I know I'd rather see Star Wars rather than Soylent Green.

A lot of older sci fi authors have turned their hands to fantasy and other, less forward-looking subgenres, which I see as a bad sign in general. I liken steampunk and victoriana SF to the people of Watchmen seeking solace in pirate stories of the past.

Gibson's last trilogy (Pattern Recognition, Spook Country and Zero History) aren't really SF. They're ... just fiction, I suppose. Techno-thrillers if you need to crowbar them into a genre.

There's certain common themes running from the Sprawl and Bridge series to those, but then even his cyberpunk books were more about human society, consciousness and the nature of "humanity" than a lot of the mirrorshade-wearing followers.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I loved Stephenson's Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon but his steam punk thingy left me cold.

I should try him again.

This goes back 20 years but I have fond memories of Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction series, but that was cyberpunk/space opera (with Space Demons thrown in).

Peter F Hamilton is still doing some great stuff, the latest 'Chronicle of the Fallers' series is well worth reading and almost touches on horror, in the same way that parts of the Reality Dysfunction and Judas Unchained did (albeit more so).