What book are you reading?

[Flying_Monkey]

You're right there with Stross. I would actually really like to see the results of a collaboration between Morgan and Stross - Morgan could temper down Stross's geek tendencies / Stross could provide some inspirational and outlandish paradigms - it could be very interesting.

However, with SF I think it's getting ridiculously hard to come up with a simple, bold idea that's never been done before.

And I would still like to see sympathetic and realistic females in SF novels - they seem to be ridiculously gung-ho and unfeminine, a kind of idealised, shallow and synthetic 'liberated woman' from the viewpoint of the novelist. Witness the Culture women in any of Iain M Banks' books, or the soldier/mercenary types in Richard Morgans books, or the dominent 'mistress' types in Charles Stross books.

There's plenty of decent female characters in novels written by women... most recently Tricia Sullivan, Pat Cadigan, Maureen F. McHugh, Gwyneth Jones (and of course the great Ursula Le Guin).

But it is undoubtedly true that a lot of male mainstream genre SF authors have a very geeky view of what constitutes a realistic woman!

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

There's plenty of decent female characters in novels written by women... most recently Tricia Sullivan, Pat Cadigan, Maureen F. McHugh, Gwyneth Jones (and of course the great Ursula Le Guin).

But it is undoubtedly true that a lot of male mainstream genre SF authors have a very geeky view of what constitutes a realistic woman!

Possibly because many of them have never encountered one that they don't have to blow up first.

 

[NickM]

I've just started something I picked up in Stanfords the other day (gasp! I bought a book in a bookshop ) - New Boots in New Zealand.

Somewhat irritating prose style so far, but at least it's escapist...

 

[Kirstie]

Recently I have read 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini which was absolutely brilliant, and 'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell which took some getting into, but in the end was really thought provoking and interesting. Currently on 'Seven Pillars of the Earth' which I love and can't put down (as seems to be the case with everyone else who has read it)!

 

[Paulus]

The Sprouts of Wrath, the 4th book in the Brentford trilogy series, of which there are eight books. By Robert Rankin.