Masterworks 2030

[Hypnos164]

What works from the last couple of decades (1980-2010) do you think will have the appeal, endurance and influence to appear in a future "Masterworks" series?

Nominations, with reasoning please.

To start:

Hyperion - Dan Simmons - 1998

A SF epic with a structure that is a homage to The Canterbury Tales - 7 travellers exchange tales during a final, and probably deadly, pilgrimage.

Each character's tale slowly unveils parts of Simmons' universe and the "hidden" conflict between mankind and the AI techno core. The individual characters all have very distinct voices and the way the events of the stories overlap and re-define each other as they are layered together is amazing.

It is clear that a large amount of research lurks behind the text (as with most of Dan's work), but it's never "dumped" on you. Key concepts in the overall narrative are extrapolated from the work of French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

One aspect of the work that frustrates some readers is: all of the narrators are unreliable, even the god-like AIs.

 

[iansales]

Only Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, though. The Endymion books were disappointing.

 

[Fried Egg]

Maybe something by Jeff Noon, like "Vurt" or "Pollen"?

 

[Connavar]

The only modern sf i have read that i think will appeal in the future is :

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. Not because its award winning,his most famous book but i think it managed to be thought-provoking and have exciting action,hardcore characters. A great hybrid of Noir,SF.

 

[iansales]

Noon is a good candidate. How about - and none of these are on the current Masterworks series - these...

The Mars trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson
Take Back Plenty, Colin Greenland
The Time Ships and Voyage, Steve Baxter
A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge
Neuromancer, William gibson
Use of Weapons, Iain M Banks
Life, Gwyneth Jones
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds

 

[jojajihisc]

Stations of the Tide - Michael Swanwick
Snow Queen - Joan Vinge
The Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
The Uplift War - David Brin

Reasoning being they were all received well by critics and award winning books much like the current roster of SF masterworks.

 

[AE35Unit]

Hmmm basically future classics!
so going by what I've read, stuff like Iain M Banks's CONSIDER PHLEBAS, Alastair Reynolds's PUSHING ICE,
and Neal Asher's PRADOR MOON.

 

[AE35Unit]

Only Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, though. The Endymion books were disappointing.

So Hyperion IS sf then! I always thought it was heroic /historic fantasy.

 

[iansales]

I take it you've not read them then.

 

[AE35Unit]

I take it you've not read them then.

Hyperion? No not yet. One they look huge books and Two they're part of a series and Three our library doesn't have them all in and I don't want to read book one if I can't find the others.

 

[Hypnos164]

Only Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, though. The Endymion books were disappointing.

Until I "re-read" them on audiobook recently I'd have agreed - but I've now revised my opinion of those last two books up somewhat (though Raul is still a fairly annoying narrator).

 

[AE35Unit]

Hmm, it seems these are like a retelling of Chaucer!

 

[Hypnos164]

Noon is a good candidate. How about - and none of these are on the current Masterworks series - these...

The Mars trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson
Take Back Plenty, Colin Greenland
The Time Ships and Voyage, Steve Baxter
A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge
Neuromancer, William gibson
Use of Weapons, Iain M Banks
Life, Gwyneth Jones
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds

Red Mars et al I can certainly see as shining example of large scale near-future "hard" SF.

Take Back Plenty? - I have read it, can't remember anything about it - care to remind me why its a future classic?

Neuromancer is hard to argue with; (sub-)genre defining book.

Use of Weapons or Consider Phlebas from Banks? - UoW is the more polished work but CP's energy and exuberence was the absolute poster child for "New Space Opera".

Life, Gwyneth Jones - only one on your list I don't know ...

 

[Fried Egg]

I would be more inclined to nominate "Player of Games" for Banks, although I haven't read "Consider Phlebas".

 

[Hypnos164]

Hmm, it seems these are like a retelling of Chaucer!

Well the first book borrows the "form" of the Canterbuy Tales - in that a groups of travellers thrown together by circumstance take turns recounting their stories.

Doesn't borrow much else, unless Chaucer had more time travelling AI weapons than I recall from school...

 

[iansales]

Take Back Plenty? - I have read it, can't remember anything about it - care to remind me why its a future classic?

There was a big fuss made when it was first published. While Banks had been churning out widescale space opera for several years, Take Back Plenty's clever reuse of pulp tropes arguably started British New Space Opera. It's still as good a read now as it was back in 1990 - and not many sf novels can say that.

Use of Weapons or Consider Phlebas from Banks? - UoW is the more polished work but CP's energy and exuberence was the absolute poster child for "New Space Opera".

British New Space Opera as a "movement" wasn't identified as such until the early 1990s, several years after Consider Phlebas. Although a lot of those writing it named Banks as a primary influence.

Life, Gwyneth Jones - only one on your list I don't know ...

It was published by Aqueduct Press, a small press in the US, but it certainly deserves a much wider audience.

 

[GOLLUM]

It (Life - Gwyneth Jones) was published by Aqueduct Press, a small press in the US, but it certainly deserves a much wider audience.

Indeed...going on the brief online comments I've seen about this book and the fact she's a previous winner of awards including the World Fantasy Award I would like to know more about this book and its author.

To this end, could you give us a brief synopsis of what the book is about and perhaps some of the strengths of Jones as a writer?

 

[iansales]

There's review of the book on sfsite.com here. That does a much better job of explaining the book than I could.

I like Jones' writing a great deal because she's an excellent writer, has a very literary style, yet is steeped in the genre, but refuses to approach her premise in an obvious way.

 

[Connavar]

Gwyneth Jones sounds like an important writer of sf,fantasy winning several World fantasy,PKD award,ACC award. Never heard her name before somehow.

Seeing the future classics according to the fans in this thread i was wondering where were the contemporary sf books that are in the vien of Philip K Dick,JG Ballard etc and not Space Opera,Hard SF in far future.

Life by Gwyneth Jones sounded different than the popular British SF that is mentioned in this thread.

 

[iansales]

Some more suggestions:-

Light, M John Harrison
Ash: A Secret History, Mary Gentle
The Sea and the Summer, George Turner