What Classic writer(s) Do The Best Job of Portraying Space Travel ?

[BAYLOR]

And in which books ad stories?

 

[Vince W]

One of the best I've found is The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. The physics of time dilation is not only interesting, but crucial to the story.

Also The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, does life aboard a space craft pretty well.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

It would like being on a Nuclear sub, without a war.
Very boring.

 

[BAYLOR]

A bit of a typo in my title , It's job not Bob.

 

[J Riff]

Simak, Cherryh, Vance...

 

[BAYLOR]

Arthur C. Clark 2001 A Space Odyssey. and Rendezvous with Rama

 

[BAYLOR]

Ben Bova

 

[Vertigo]

Poul Anderson - Tau Zero

 

[Clockworkbot]

One of the best I've found is The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. The physics of time dilation is not only interesting, but crucial to the story.

Second that - Haldeman really gets under the skin of the physics of space travel. Particularly memorable are the liquid chambers that the crewmembers have to be suspended in so that their bodies aren't destroyed by the sheer forces. He had a degree in Physics and Astronomy which helps I guess (although a lot of SF writers have that background I know!)

 

[Ray Pullar]

Starman Jones, Citizen of the galaxy - Heinlein
Star Viking - H. Beam Piper
Commodore Grimes stories - A. Bertram Chandler

 

[Ray Pullar]

It would like being on a Nuclear sub, without a war.
Very boring.

The Daleth effect/In our hands, the stars (1970) by Harry Harrison depicts a modern sub going into space using a special drive.

 

[clovis-man]

I'm going to assume that "Classic" is loosely defined. If so, I'd add Alastair Reynolds' space operas. His insistence on slower than light speed travel adds some interesting astrophysics wrinkles into his tales.

 

[Vertigo]

Yeah, that definition of classic is a bit grey, but I don't think I would include Haldeman as classic SF and, though I love his books, I'm afraid I certainly wouldn't include Reynolds as his first book wasn't published until 2000. Incidentally I've just recently finished House of Suns and that is just brilliant space opera.

 

[clovis-man]

Yeah, that definition of classic is a bit grey, but I don't think I would include Haldeman as classic SF and, though I love his books, I'm afraid I certainly wouldn't include Reynolds as his first book wasn't published until 2000. Incidentally I've just recently finished House of Suns and that is just brilliant space opera.

Okay. In the words of Emily Litella (Gilda Radner), "Never mind".

 

[Vertigo]

Okay. In the words of Emily Litella (Gilda Radner), "Never mind".

That's not to say he doesn't do a excellent job of portraying plausible space travel

 

[clovis-man]

Oh, I'm not taking umbrage. It's just that most of the Golden Age authors played fast and loose with physical science. Just push a button and the latest quark drive gets you where you want to go in a week or less (sometimes just in time for dinner). I'm thinking of the rigors of actual travel between sometimes unthinkably distant points in the universe. Some of our more recent writers tend to be more realistic. Niven wrote "Mote" in the 1970s. I'm also thinking of C. J. Cherryh in both her Alliance/Union and Chanur tales, many of which were written in the early 1980s. I found her descriptions compelling. But it's hard for me to think of many SF space travel tales written any earlier which give me the same sense. I'm sure there are some that just haven't been named yet.

 

[Vertigo]

Oh, I'm not taking umbrage. It's just that most of the Golden Age authors played fast and loose with physical science. Just push a button and the latest quark drive gets you where you want to go in a week or less (sometimes just in time for dinner). I'm thinking of the rigors of actual travel between sometimes unthinkably distant points in the universe. Some of our more recent writers tend to be more realistic. Niven wrote "Mote" in the 1970s. I'm also thinking of C. J. Cherryh in both her Alliance/Union and Chanur tales, many of which were written in the early 1980s. I found her descriptions compelling. But it's hard for me to think of many SF space travel tales written any earlier which give me the same sense. I'm sure there are some that just haven't been named yet.

Actually I think that's exactly why I prefer (sacrilege) more recent writers; as you say they tend to have much more plausible settings (not just the spacecraft); for me much of the classic SF, particularly space opera, might be well written and have great characters and plots but the science tends to be just a little too wild and unlikely. There was a sort of naïve enthusiasm with which many (though not all) often allowed themselves to be carried away. But then, who knows, maybe in 50 years time the current crop of writers will be looked back on as being equally wildly implausible.

Actually I don't really expect that, at least not for most of the quality contemporary writers.

 

[clovis-man]

Now I think of it (neurons moving very slowly), Murray Leinster's Med Service tales seemed to try to make sense of space travel technology. They were enjoyable, one way or another.

Murray Leinster Series

 

[hitmouse]

Simak, Cherryh, Vance...

Vance is a peerless describer of planets and cultures, but in the majority of cases, Vancean space travel is a fairly cursory excuse to get from A to B.

 

[J Riff]

Problem is - there is no space travel technology that makes sense. Wasn't in the 60s either, so the best writers worked around it. There are tons of hacks - in comics of the 40s-60s especially, of crazy spacetravel systems. A 'thought/force' projector was used in the MetalMen comic I perused just yestidday, and I believed it. They make this holographic image see, of the Moon, say... then use a combination of thought, force, and errr... rocket engines... to zip thru the image to the Moon. Then there's all those EC comics, in which: ( TBC)