🤔Now I need to buy two IMAX tickets worth of sci-fi books written by authors that aren't anti-woke, just to put my part of the universe back in balance.
🤔Actually to properly balance things out, I have to keep reading new sci-fi books until I find one that I can recommend to thousands of people.
☝️ As an SF (science fiction) buff this has been one of the best threads lately, and demonstrates what an amazing community we have here on Mastodon. Good on ya, all!
But, seems like we missed one stand out SF writer and they're actually on Mastodon! Today the New Yorker is featuring Cameron Reed @LateOnsetGirl and their prescient 1996 queer cyberpunk tale, “The Fortunate Fall”.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-sci-fi-novelist-who-disappeared-for-decades
Cameron only has 400 followers here, so maybe give them a follow
-more-
☝️ As an SF (science fiction) buff this has been one of the best threads lately, and demonstrates what an amazing community we have here on Mastodon. Good on ya, all!
But, seems like we missed one stand out SF writer and they're actually on Mastodon! Today the New Yorker is featuring Cameron Reed @LateOnsetGirl and their prescient 1996 queer cyberpunk tale, “The Fortunate Fall”.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-sci-fi-novelist-who-disappeared-for-decades
Cameron only has 400 followers here, so maybe give them a follow. 🤷
-more-
"The book portrays an authoritarian near-future Russia where most entertainment and all news comes through Cameras, people wired to transmit their experiences directly from their brains to the internet... Our tragic hero, a Camera named Maya, uncovers... [and] social media’s incessant threat to our inner life. What if we could replace our lived experience—our self-image, our values, our sexuality—with immersive videos, delivered fresh every day?"
-more-
And here's something interesting, “The Fortunate Fall,” was published in 1996. After this they wrote a short story, but then nothing for twenty-seven years...
"Then she reëmerged, posting on Bluesky and Mastodon as @LateOnsetGirl in 2024, her work’s lasting impact led Tor Books to reissue “The Fortunate Fall” in a series of modern sci-fi and fantasy classics..."
https://torpublishinggroup.com/the-fortunate-fall/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-fortunate-fall-cameron-reed/1143881569
-more-
"And now Tor is set to release a new novel from Reed, “What We Are Seeking,” that’s longer, more joyful, more ambitious, and at least as devoted to cognitive estrangement, making new worlds whose structures and societies let us see ours with fresh eyes."
https://torpublishinggroup.com/what-we-are-seeking/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/what-we-are-seeking-cameron-reed/1147243934
So, maybe give Cameron a follow and re-welcome them to Mastodon.🤷
Here is a preview post by Cameron for "What We Are Seeking" written back in 2023...
Just about everything you say makes sense to me, Mekka.
And, at the risk of wading in where I shouldn't - because I'm a nerd who doesn't know how to read the room - I want to weigh in.
Also because I've been struggling with this issue of The Work vs The Author for some time now.
E.g. I enjoyed the puns in Harry Potter but then JK Rowling came out as a TERF. I loved Ender's Game but Orson Scott Card is an anti-LGBTQ nasty. And so on.
What do I do with that?
It's a genuinely complicated question to answer. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what to do. I can only say what I do, and say that as long as you're pausing to think about it and asking yourself before you make a decision to or to not support something or someone, that's in the right direction. ♥️
[Edit: I removed the CW, as I felt the post was just as meaningful without examples, so I removed the examples.]
Ah me and my cluelessness.
When I said "Just about everything you say makes sense to me, Mekka" I meant to add "but why do I feel itchy about this post?"
You did make me pause to think!
It's a long pause, I mean a long thread, I hope you read the third-to-last post, I thought it was amusing.
Like I said, I'll keep struggling with this.
@mekkaokereke
Firstly, thank you for kicking off a great thread on finding deserving sci-fi authors, there's some great additions to my reading queue.
Secondly, does anyone have any links to good news sources about this? Most I've found are right wing rags that I wouldn't trust to fold a sheet. The one source I could find that seemed balanced thinks this is being mis attributed?
https://bsky.app/profile/parkermolloy.com/post/3mi4oudz7yk2h
Was this s case of an author doing a promo tour and making a bad choice of who to be accepted by? Or is this a reflection of his real character?
I'm hoping more the former, but fear it's closer to the second (I liked his books and found them promoting inclusivity and a more progressive world view than what this sounds like)
I might have to bring myself to listen to the actual podcast so I can answer those questions myself.
Don't read the right-wing rags that try to exaggerate how anti-woke Weir is. Don't read Parker Malloy trying to downplay how anti-woke he is either.
Just listen to his own words and make your own determination.
@mekkaokereke thank you for providing that context, I'll listen to it.
It always makes me sad when we find out some of our icons (and authors are often mine) are like this...
I'm all for that they're allowed to be human - even make mistakes and have a chance to grow and learn - but sometimes 🤷♂️
@mekkaokereke any book by Connie Willis, but Bellwether is a personal favorite.
@GreatBigTable @mekkaokereke Bellwether is fun, and of course To Say Nothing Of The Dog is great, but I may never recover from the narrative fuckery of Passage (in a good way).
Kind of weird. I just finished his previous book, *Artemis*, which has a melting pot on the moon, run by a Kenyan (who turned Kenya’s position on the equator into an advantage getting to space), with a young woman born in Saudi Arabia as its heroine…..
I suppose Weir could argue there’s no “identity politics”, just lots of people’s identities.
But, book recommendations (you’re getting lots of good ones, here are a few I haven’t seen):
Ruthanna Emrys’ *The Half-built Garden* is about a post-dissolution Chesapeake Bay run by a “rhizomal democracy”. Who establish first contact with the aliens when they go out to investigate a change in the water quality (alien space-ship is stranded and leaking). Would sit comfortably next to Leguin’s *The Dispossessed*.
Emrys also has some great stories told from the point of view of a survivor of the people who lived in Lovecraft’s Innsmouth, and who were the first occupants of the camps where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during WWII.
Annalee Newitz’s *Automatic Noodle* is about some down-and-out robots that squat in an abandoned restaurant and start serving hand-pulled noodles. It’s joyful. Any of Newitz’s fiction is great (so is her non-fiction).
*Cahokia Jazz* by Francis Spufford. An alternate history in which Cahokia continued to exist in the American Midwest into the era of the European invasion, and maintained its political independence west of the MIssissippi. The protagonist is a mixed-race (Native American and Black) police detective investigating a murder. Takes place during the 1920s. Would sit comfortably next to Michael Chabon’s *The Yiddish Policeman’s Union*.
Spufford’s *Red Plenty*, a blend of history and fiction about the development of linear programming and mathematical economics by Kantorovich in the 1930s Soviet Union and how human foibles basically kept it from working out.
Let's see what he had to say about that character in Artemis:
"Just, writer to writer... what I did on that one... was... I tried for a female main character, and this was kind of in the peak woke era, so, a lot of people were just like, 'oh, this is a female character written by a man!' and they were just right from the beginning not willing to accept that."
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ezZ_QGBpaDo&t=1577s
So he dismisses criticism of the character as just "peak woke era🤡." But then immediately afterwards, he acknowledged the real problems with the character.
He could have made all of the good points that he made, without punching down at the "peak woke era."
Again, the anti-woke pushback has resulted in 300,000+ Black women being fired from the federal government, thousands of Black men and women being purged from the military, the number of Black journalists with national reach being decimated, and scientists having funding cut for using words like "bias" or "diversity" or "gender," in their papers. So this isn't just how a few white men feel about things.
@mekkaokereke @lain_7
That's an odd connection to make - there are a lot of ways to be anti-woke (which I'm not sure he is) without firing a bunch of people.
No it's not an odd connection to make at all. It's odd that you can't see the connection, when even the people that sparked the anti-woke backlash said explicitly that this was their end goal.
The anti-woke pushback is directly responsible for Black people being pushed out of media, higher education, government employment and more. It requires deplorable people to say "Woke is a bad thing!" and misguided people to fall for it and say, "Wait, pushing back on woke doesn't sound that bad?"
And if Weir going on an anti-woke podcast and knowing the in-jokes, the anti-woke host saying anti-woke things, and him saying "we're on the same wavelength" and "you don't have to worry about THE MESSAGE" and him complaining about "peak woke era" isn't enough to convince you, then that's fine. I don't argue with y'all, and I'm not here to change anyone's mind. I say what I say, and I collect my receipts later.
@mekkaokereke @lain_7 And yet other cis het white sci-fi dudes somehow succeeded at writing engaging diverse women characters (at least IMO).
Kinda reminds me of Naomi Klein’s explanation for Naomi Wolf’s turn to the dark side: the reaction of an injured ego to crticism she viewed as unfair.
There were a few points in *Artemis* where I wondered about the internal dialogue of the young woman: “this sounds like a guy writing what he thinks a whip-smart young woman would sound like.” Criticism along those lines is perfectly fair, but not to a fragile ego.
@mekkaokereke I fell for it and started reading the book. I'm definitely not a philologist but it feels like i'm reading some Dan Brown book more than anything else.
I don't know if the story has at least some satisfying climax and closure but might never find out because the author is a right wing douchebag.
Also, am i the only one who seeing this?
Whatever.
@mekkaokereke Wow. I'm just catching up with this, having attempted to be offline more for the last week or so (mental health).
I have an astrophysics background and loved The Martian. Then read the book (so did my daughter, in school), bought his second book and was all over Project Hail Mary as soon as I saw that it was being made into a film. Alas, it's sat on my reading pile of shame since then, but I've got it on my desk in front of me here as my daughter wants to go see PHM this afternoon.
Honestly, I've been avoiding the cinema and buying discs so I can own films and wasn't going to go see his, but I value the time with my daughter too much to do that. And now I find your post from earlier today, and have been sifting back through your profile to soak it all up.
"Why was that necessary" is spot on. Sigh.
I watched Altered Carbon on Netflix when it came out because that was *really* up my street. Liked it so much I bought the book and the two sequels. I'm watching the second season when I start to see the online discourse about the author and I feel a bit ashamed to have those on my bookshelf. Here I am again, doing the same thing.
I think I finally need to get around to properly reading Iain Banks and then browsing the extensive suggestions in for authors in your threads here (luckily, I already have the entire works of The Expanse).
Thanks for bringing this to light, I really don't think I would have found out otherwise.
@mekkaokereke
Sounds like he hasn’t read his own books.
@mekkaokereke Why is everything like this? Thanks for letting me know
@mekkaokereke Has anyone mentioned N.K. Jemisin yet? I haven’t read all her work, but the Broken Earth trilogy is extremely inclusive, Afro-centric, and most importantly, beautifully written.
@mekkaokereke Noooo! I am so disappointed. And now I feel like a bit of a fool for recommending his books to everyone.
Thank you for this thread. As sad as it is, I needed to know. And I love how you’ve sparked so many great book recommendations! Time to find some new favorite authors.
@mekkaokereke He didn't, the quote was from someone else
https://bsky.app/profile/parkermolloy.com/post/3mi4oudz7yk2h
@mekkaokereke I bought tickets for this last week before this broke. It's frankly the first movie I'm going to see in 6 years. I'm going in to watch the movie. Then put the author in the trash bin until further notice.
@mekkaokereke Dammit. Really liked PHM, and just picked up the book. Fck. And the Martian was a great read, and film. Fck! Fck.
@mekkaokereke milkshake duck strikes again
@mekkaokereke yikes. I was stressed over watching it before it left theaters, and now I find myself with more time.
There are those of us who really dislike Weir for promoting that what he does is 'scientifically accurate', when in fact it has lots of fantastictical aspects.
https://freethought.online/@pzmyers/116286803833013305
This type of dishonesty and self serving disinformation seems consistent with being an anti-woke jackass.
Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with including impossible elements in SF, just don't present your work then as being scientifically plausible.
@mekkaokereke ah fudge I was looking forward to this one
That said, I was in a different thread saying I don’t normally like media where the author and/or fan base maintains a slavish devotion to “reality” because the authors and fans wind up being pro fascism or at least fascist adjacent.
This author was in an interview talking about how realistic the book was from a physics perspective and I had multiple recommendations from people I trusted so I felt good about it
Welp
@mekkaokereke
Andy Weir: “Oh thanks, man. Well, I never - I think you and me are kind of on the same wavelength there when it comes to fiction writing. I never put any politics or messaging in any of my stories at all. There's no, you know, there's - there's no deeper meaning. There isn't even any symbolism. My book, even non-political, there's just no symbolism at all. My books are always just purely to entertain.”
Wait, what? This is an absolutely insane thing to say as a writer. “My works are hollow fluff.”
https://www.resetera.com/threads/andy-weir-author-of-project-hail-mary-does-interview-with-right-wing-content-creator-shitbag-the-critical-drinker-to-promote-the-film-adaptation.1475038/
@c0dec0dec0de @mekkaokereke Not to mention, "I have no idea about the values expressed through my stories and the way I tell them."
@KatS @c0dec0dec0de @mekkaokereke I keep being baffled by SF fans and writers who apparently think that an inherently political genre like SF can be non-political.
@mekkaokereke I guess it was important to show people that even though it resembles a great story it just has no depth, the author has no spine, and he lacks the intellectual ability to live in the present moment.
@wronglang @mekkaokereke Just because he thinks he’s not using symbolism and talking about politics doesn’t mean that’s true. It just means he’s talking about the politics and using the symbols he is too incurious to realize are part of his own language and identity and political views. Not the sort of shallowness you’d expect from an author. But I guess it takes all sorts?
@wronglang @mekkaokereke The comment is spineless – but the story itself is very political whether he intended it or not. Simply giving a main character a core of empathy and decency towards someone seen as alien IS political today.
@trezzer @mekkaokereke he totally had the opportunity to ask the interviewer to interpret the story and lead it in a direction that wasn't fawning. The trouble with many authors tends to be that they don't do well in the moment seeing how meaning is made without revisions... so yeah of course we can read the work separate from the author... but then he should stay away from podcasts and shush... 🤷♂️
@trezzer @mekkaokereke 😭 I just want people to live up to the political moment, but I work in academia where fawning is the easiest route to success so this pattern has gotten very old for me.....
@wronglang @mekkaokereke that sounds like he's fucking with the interviewer, but maybe I'm giving him too much credit.
I wish that were true. It's not, but I wish it was.
@mekkaokereke @wronglang it's wild. What self-respecting author would ever say, "No I don't use themes or symbolism. I don't think about what I'm writing at all."
@mekkaokereke @tess I'm ok with mourning this loss and moving on. It's become such a common pattern and I hope he doesn't go full jk Rowling but that's up to him.
@wronglang @mekkaokereke when you said that "the author has no spine" I remembered something. I liked the film "The Martian in spite of the obvious political message of one good man surviving "in the wild".
but then I read that it was a book adaptation and you could get it with or without swearwords, the censored version being for schools.
You just have to be very shortsighted not to realise you're writing educational YA and adapt your style accordingly (or you just despise YA readership)... or you just have no style and no respect for your finished work, just dollar signs for eyes.
@laguiri @mekkaokereke I imagine the reason this happened is he was nudged by the publisher to go make the book/movie well received by fascists and he was just a little too excited to comply and not principled enough to say "guys, it's a book, you have to interpret it yourself". He had many ways to avoid this but he chose to prioritize the 🤑
@mekkaokereke can I ask where you found/heard about this? I couldn't find it.
I don't like the guy's writing - preferred the Martian in film form (don't make me read about how a guy is "raping" a ship for parts, you POS).
I thought I'd go see PHM but... Mebbe not
looks like you are getting a ton of great recs already, one i don't see mentioned yet that i've been reading a lot of is Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts is a good one to start with
@mekkaokereke huh, that's disappointing. What do i look for to get the story?
@mekkaokereke Ugh, that is so disappointing. I broke a 2-year streak of “only books not written by cis het white dudes” to read PHM.
Got tons of great recommendations for you though! Anything by Ursula LeGuin, Octavia Butler (the Xenogenesis trilogy is my personal fave), Becky Chambers, Annalee Newitz, Nnedi Okorafor, Charlie Jane Anders (esp. The City in the Middle of the Night). RF Kuang’s “Babel” is more fantasy than SF but it’s anticolonial and brilliant.
@mekkaokereke Well, removing this book from my “to read list”. Granted I was going to get it from the library and having bought and read the first book the only thing that made me curious about this one has been the hype. I don’t think Andy Weir is that talented of an author. He seems to be the Dan Brown of science fiction
@mekkaokeIreke@hachyderm.io This disappoints me but it doesn't surprise me, I guess. I think it's because I see him as someone driven by technical cleverness rather than any moral center. That means (to me) that his peer group is Neal Stephenson and one million redditors on r/engineers instead of principled SFF writers like @annaleen, Ann Leckie, @scalzi@mastodon.social, or @cstross.
Either his values have always been those of the kinds of techbros who proudly gamed and brigaded online spaces to get Trump elected in 2016 or he has adopted them since his fame is on their terms. "If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?" or something.
As a bonus, he @mekkaokeIreke@hachyderm.io This disappoints me but it doesn't surprise me, I guess. I think it's because I see him as someone driven by technical cleverness rather than any moral center. That means (to me) that his peer group is Neal Stephenson and one million coders and engineers on reddit instead of principled SFF writers like @annaleen, Ann Leckie, @scalzi@mastodon.social, or @cstross.
Either his values have always been those of the kinds of techbros who proudly gamed and brigaded online spaces to get Trump elected in 2016 or he has adopted them since his fame is on their terms. "If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?" or thereabouts.
As a bonus, he might even believe his opinions about moral, social, and political issues are more correct than other people's because he has technical knowledge.
@mekkaokereke Goddam that is depressing
@mekkaokereke got a link? We were gonna go see this on Monday.
@mekkaokereke so I had to look that up for confirmation, and could sadly confirm that. Apparently on The Critical Drinker, whoever that is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezZ_QGBpaDo
Additionally, he seems to have been eaten by the genAI slopworm as well, which makes it easier to cut him off now since any upcoming production is likely to be slopware anyway (in addition to the MAGAfication)
@mekkaokereke
“Supposedly”? Share them if you got them.
@mekkaokereke thanks for the heads-up, I had an unread book of his in my ebook library I've now moved to the 'meh' (ie no longer interested in reading) shelf.
Nameless by @Impossible_PhD and The Mune by Sue Dawes are a couple of excellent inclusive sci-fi books. And Becky Chambers' books and Murderbot, but I think most people know that 
@mekkaokereke Damn it! This was an author I enjoyed. I was going to watch the movie.
I will keep then reading only women that are explicitly trans-inclusive feminist with characters that are not only white.
Explicitly anti racist is harder to find, for some reason... No one asks that question explicitly on interviews.
@delawen @mekkaokereke ooh, Light from Uncommon Stars is a good trans-inclusive scifi read :)
#bookstodon
But it will cost him money?
@mekkaokereke He's hoping the anti-woke crowd brings him more money than the woke crowd will lose him. He's reading the zeitgeist and cynically taking a knee to the fascists and racists (but I repeat myself). He may also be banking on the fact that most of his woke crowd won't hear about this, so losing even less from that camp.
I didn't say he was right. I'm just highlighting his motivation.
@mekkaokereke ah yes, a story about contacting and understanding a completely different culture, learning and respecting their habits, and cooperating in order to fight a common threat is definitely not a woke message. totally.
I'm not saying don't watch the movie or read the book. Do whatever makes you happy.
I'm also not interested in debating how much inclusion is in his stories, whether he realizes it or not.
And I'm not interested in comparing even bigger, "super woke" sci-fi franchises like Star Trek or Star Wars.
I'm just saying that I personally watched the last one (The Martian), and I watched this one (Project Hail Mary), but you can guess if I'm watching the next one.
So many choices in entertainment.
The actions that attract the MAGA customer base will probably alienate me, and vice versa. That's OK!
@mekkaokereke Thanks for the warning about Weir and the ensuing discussion with such a wonderful recommendations. Now updating my reading wishlist.
@mekkaokereke thanks for this post and I’m loving the thread- saving all the suggestions for future reading!!
Robert Sawyer has many awesome books I keep re-reading… Calculating God was the first and I loved it!
@mekkaokereke Oh no. Andy Weir is a dbag? I was going to watch that movie but no longer. Thank you for the thread.
Whether or not I watch his next movie doesn't really matter that much to him. He's not going to go broke and that's okay. Good actually!
But it's so hard to be an author, let alone a woman author, in sci-fi, who tells stories with good representation? Those authors don't need to be punched down on.
🤔Now I need to buy two IMAX tickets worth of sci-fi books written by authors that aren't anti-woke, just to put my part of the universe back in balance.
🤔Actually to properly balance things out, I have to keep reading new sci-fi books until I find one that I can recommend to thousands of people.
@mekkaokereke I suggest Alex White if you’re looking for a cool transfem nonbinary author with excellent world building and big spacey stories, including some Aliens books and original series.
@mekkaokereke Adrian Tchaikovski’s Tyrant Philosopher series is quite good fantasy with SF flavored aliens.
@mekkaokereke I suspect @cstross will be your jam, if he isn’t already. Superb writer.
@mekkaokereke The Murderbot Diaries are great. Quite a diverse group of people and social structures exist within them. Plus interesting ideas of personhood and freedom sprinkled throughout.
@mekkaokereke
Mate. Your education to the masses already puts you in credit. Your post is the balance.
There is no work you have to do because of a racist. You have already felt you had to explain it to us and you did.
I am educated by you. Thank you.
_Plans for the Apocalypse And Other Possible Situations_ (short stories) by S.B. Divya
https://sbdivya.com/contingency-plans-for-the-apocalypse-etc
Then their novels.
@mekkaokereke Great recs in this thread! I like following @hrb because I love her review style, but also because I'm constantly learning about new authors and works, especially of African speculative fiction!
@mekkaokereke Cixin Liu - and beyond the three body problem - lots of wonderful essays and speculative short fiction
@ptoothfish @mekkaokereke Isn’t their writing super misogynistic and sexist?
@hazelweakly @ptoothfish @mekkaokereke Same can be said about Andy Weir. At least Cixin Liu’s short stories are highly imaginative. Whereas, Andy’s Artemis was really bad
Oh... good scifi books that would probably get a recommend after reading?
NK Jemisin "Broken Earth" series
Nnedi Okorafor "Binti" series @nnedi
Ian Banks "The Culture" series
Adrian Tchaikovksy's "Children of Time" trilogy
MR Carey "Rampart" trilogy
Chana Porter "The Seep"
Zig Zag Claybourne "Afro Puffs are the Antennae of the Universe" @zzclaybourne
@mekkaokereke since people are posting recommendations I'll contribute my own: Culture saga by Iain M. Banks and Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. 2 white dudes with, in my (admittedly fallible) white-dude opinion, decent representation politics. First is space opera. Second more hard sci-fi
@javitel @mekkaokereke Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future is amazing too, but traumatized me badly
@mekkaokereke I highly recommend the Salvagers series by Alex White. They have a an ability to create a fast paced narrative, with deep characters, the world is barreling toward destruction with no way out, as a reader you think you know where this is going, it never happens the way you expect, yet it’s still very satisfying.
And they incorporate diverse characters into their writing without it seeming like they had to use a crowbar to fit them in
@mekkaokereke Pip Adam! The New Animals (2017), Nothing to See (2020), and Audition (2023) were all lifechanging for me. meBooks sell DRM-free e-books of the original New Zealand editions: https://mebooks.co.nz/product/search?search=Pip+Adam
@mekkaokereke You may be interested in this thread:
@mekkaokereke If you haven't read Kuang's Babel, please do.
Read the Murderbot series yet? (And/or watched the Apple TV show.)
@mekkaokereke love the responses sharing all the great “woke” sci-fi authors!
PHM was a fun read but let’s be real: it’s not great literature. It always seemed like nerds got seduced by the astrophysics stuff. Not saying it’s terrible or anything but there are many much better. But as you say, read whatever tickles your fancy.
@mekkaokereke are we doing book recommendations? ❤️ Not sure if these all exactly qualify as "woke", but they are probably in the right direction.
Mostly from the top of my head
- Ann Leckie, Imperial Radch
- Martha Wells, Murderbot
- Becky Chambers, Wayfarers
- Arkady Martine, Teixcalaan
- Elizabeth Bear, White Space
- Kate Elliott, Sun chronicles
- LM Sagas, Ambit's Run
- Megan O'Keefe, Protectorate
@mekkaokereke wow that sucks about Weir. Seems inconsistent to be all sciency about delta V and relativity but then subscribe to race or gender "science" (or whatever the beef with liberatory writing is); a recommendation: less hard Sci Fi but excellent reads with fascinating innovative ideas, Nnedi Okorafor. Used to be on twitter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nnedi_Okorafor Largo is probably most SciFi ish but all of it is good tho perhaps slightly more suffering than straight US fiction tends to be.
Second Okorafor. Very unique and a lot of fun!
@mastodonmigration @jayalane @mekkaokereke Also highly recommend, and Okorafor is on Fedi!
@mekkaokereke There's an abundance of excellent author recommendations in this thread already, but I don't think fedi's own Charlie Jane Anders (charliejane@wandering.shop) has been mentioned yet? Fantastic author, highly recommend! I believe she's been known to write reviews of other peoples' SFF books, too.
@mekkaokereke I'll keep beating the drum for Catherynne Valente's Space Opera. It's fun and lighthearted softer sci-fi, a bit like Hitchhiker's Guide had a one-night stand with Eurovision.
There's also Martha Wells' excellent Murderbot Diaries series. Lots of heavy themes in a very enjoyable read.
Not a woman, but John Scalzi's Old Man's War and Interdependancy series were both good reads and he's always demonstrated very, very little tolerance for the bigots and chuds.
@mekkaokereke Check out Samuel Delany if you haven’t
@mekkaokereke I've been reading more fantasy recently, but Autonomous by Annalee Newitz might fit your criteria.
Also interested in what others recommend.
@mekkaokereke I suggest "Our Better Nature" by James C. Porter. Not space sci-fi; techno-pagan sci-fi mostly grounded in reality.
Full disclosure, the author is my father. So I'm biased in my recommendation, but can vouch that he is not anti-woke.
@mekkaokereke late to the party, but recommend @adapalmer 's brilliant _Too Like the Lightning_...
@mekkaokereke so many good suggestions on this thread! (Seconding Connie Willis and Ann Leckie). I just started reading again in December after a long hiatus (kids). One author I don’t see mentioned is the short stories by Ted Chiang, helped me get back in the habit. :)
@mekkaokereke If you're open to fantasy, Babel, by R. F. Kuang, was excellent. This reminds me to read her new novel, Katabasis.
@mekkaokereke Harlan Ellison?
@mekkaokereke Martha Wells' Murderbot books are my current faves.
I can recommend "Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh" as a book that consistently (and delightfully) wrong footed this middle-aged-majority-male-scifi reader.
@mekkaokereke Yoon Ha Lee’s Machineries of Empire books are excellent.
@mekkaokereke A Memory Called Empire is an award winning reflection on colonialism and cultural identity, besides being a well written and entertaining sci-fi mystery. The second book in the duology is equally good.
Agree with this. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine is brilliant.
Check out Martine's CV as well. Fascinating personal history.
@mekkaokereke can I piggyback on the great recommendations that have been rolling in on this thread? I'm looking for kid-friendly science fiction (say, for ages 6-10).
I absolutely adored the Tom Swift III series around first and second grade, but the portrayal of the sole female character (Anita Thorwald, the "volatile redhead," who was actually one of my favorite characters) turns my stomach now. (You can find a PDF here: https://ms.z-library.sk/book/yqvB1m0Vj1/terror-on-the-moons-of-jupiter-tom-swift-third-series-book-2.html?dsource=recommend and search for "redhead" to get an idea.)
@Fourth_Dogma @mekkaokereke I heartily second _A Memory Called Empire_. One of the best SF books I've read in the past 20 years. Easily the equal of NK Jemisin's _The Fifth Season_.
Bonus points because the hegemonic colonials in _A Memory Called Empire_ are *not* European-based (they're Mayan!).
@mekkaokereke
Fave authors since I stopped reading stuff made by cis men:
Kameron Hurley (The Stars Are Legion, The Light Brigade, Belle Dame series)
Cassandra Khaw (The All Consuming World)
Nghi Vo (The Chosen and the Beautiful, Siren Queen)
Zen Cho (Black Water Sister)
Neon Yang (Tensorate series as JY Yang)
Aliette de Bodard (Xuya Universe series)
Ruthanna Emrys (A Half Built Garden)
N K Jemisin (The Broken Earth series, Dreamblood Duology, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
I don't have a bright line between fantasy and scifi for a lot of these. I'm very attached to Hurley's books since she's localish to me.
@mekkaokereke
Fave authors since I stopped reading stuff made by cis men:
Kameron Hurley (The Stars Are Legion, The Light Brigade, Belle Dame series)
Cassandra Khaw (The All Consuming World)
Nghi Vo (The Chosen and the Beautiful, Siren Queen)
Zen Cho (Black Water Sister)
Neon Yang (Tensorate series as JY Yang)
Aliette de Bodard (Xuya Universe series)
Ruthanna Emrys (A Half Built Garden)
N K Jemisin (The Broken Earth series, Dreamblood Duology, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)
I don't have a bright line between fantasy and scifi for a lot of these. I'm very attached to Hurley's books since she's localish to me.
@mekkaokereke
I loved every single book of N.K. Jemisin and think she’s the best SFF writer I’ve read in a long while.
Inheritence Trilogy & Broken Earth series is amazing. I find her writing so visual & visceral.
I second LeGuin.
I thought Leckie’s first book Ancillary Justice really unique and brilliant, but didn’t like the second book at all, couldn’t finish it.
I think the complete Ann Leckie trylogy of Ancillary is amazingly good, one of the best things I've read (along with NK Jemisin and some other authors named in this thread).
Victoria Goddard is another incredibly good author, with very interesting world building, focus in care, friendship and kindness, and diverse characters (fantasy, not SF).
@k_purpose @JoBlakely @mekkaokereke The first book of the _Ancillary Justice_ series by Leckie is hands-down, the best SF book I've read in decades.
Woman SF writers have been absolutely *ascendant* for the past 20 years or so.
@JoBlakely @mekkaokereke
Great set of recommendations, except that I’ve loved all of Leckie’s books.
@mekkaokereke I'm an automatic pre-order for at least these woke AF spec-fic authors:
Nghi Vo
C. L. Polk
Rebecca Roanhorse
Charles Stross
Naomi Kritzer
Alix Harrow
Tamsyn Muir
Emily Tesh
Ann Leckie
The list is heavy on the fantasy but sci-fi is just an aesthetic layer on top of other genres anyway. I read Project Hail Mary and it is more of a fantasy than most of the "fantasy" books I've read.
@vaurora @mekkaokereke of those, I’ve only heard of Stross, Roanhorse, and Leckie. Any books from the others I should particularly start with, especially ones that aren’t too pessimistic or dour?
(And bonus points if i can buy ebooks with no DRM. Trying to free my library from the big platforms.)
@lkanies @vaurora @mekkaokereke
Naomi Kritzer has a bunch of her short fiction free to read online:
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-year-without-sunshine/
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_05_23/
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_11_15/
@vaurora @mekkaokereke I also recommend John Scalzi ( @scalzi )
@mekkaokereke I don't know why C. J. Cherryh's Morgaine Cycle isn't a movie or TV series yet. It's visually stunning sci-fi with a fantasy aesthetic and complex characters making difficult choices from a range of not-good-to-very-bad options... it would make a zillion dollars
(I know why)
I have wondered by Cherryh's Alliance-Union books have not gotten a TV adaptation.
(Her aliens would admittedly strain a live-action effects budget.)
@mekkaokereke Fantasy rather than sci-fi, but I can’t recommend Marlon James’ “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” highly enough.
The sequel “Moon Witch, Spider King” is equally good, if not better. It has the fiercest female protagonist I’ve ever read.
Recommendations from my reference librarian son:
- Ancillary justice by Anne Leckie
- A psalm for the wild built by Becky Chambers
- The last murder at the end of the world by Stuart Turton
@joeinwynnewood @mekkaokereke Ancillary Justice is the best book I've read in ages.
@tedmielczarek @joeinwynnewood @mekkaokereke +1 for ancillary Justice. Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, too! Also, books 4 & 5; Provenance, and Translation State, respectively.
The first 3 are the greatest story of 1/20,000th of an enby protagonist in any story ever!
@joeinwynnewood @mekkaokereke I'm on book 3 of Anne Leckie's Ancillary trilogy and can heartily recommend them 🤘
@mekkaokereke for example, @older and @cstross are here and have great works out there.
@KarlHeinzHasliP @mekkaokereke @older @cstross Martha Wells obviously (although she lives on bsky)
@KarlHeinzHasliP @mekkaokereke @older @cstross
And
@charliejane and @annaleen
Huh. I only just noticed they are all on wandering.shop. Hmm....
@ohmu @KarlHeinzHasliP @older @cstross @charliejane @annaleen
One day, Mastodon will be less punitive about artist self-promotion, and will more easily recognize the difference between artistry and capitalism, and authors will be able to talk about their works with less fear of committing a social media faux pas. 🤷🏿♂️
Mastodon has the potential to connect even more of the best sci-fi writers on the planet (pun intended!) directly with the fans that read their books. The authors are already here! They just don't want to feel sales-ey. Self-promotion is already awkward enough, especially for an author. Authors aren't influencers, but increasingly they're being asked to be, just to get a book deal.
If we're talking sci-fi, I get to imagine a future where even more authors have a little home on Mastodon, safely behind good moderation, where they can talk to their fans and say things like, "Hey friends! Here's a new book that I wrote! I'm proud of it and I hope that you will like it. No, it's not free, because I have to earn a living, and I am a professional author. Please buy my book here [link]."
@mekkaokereke Nicole Kornher-Stace Firebreak was a fun read. Yoon Ha Lee’s adult books are mind benders but extremely well done. Also, Tade Thompson.
@D_J_Nathanson
@mekkaokereke I was reading through the thread and wondering why Yoon Ha Lee seems forgotten, good to see him mentioned! Machineries of Empire is one of my favorite sci-fi series from recent years.
@mekkaokereke I want thousands of people to read "Automatic Noodle" by Annalee Newitz (they're on Mastodon but not tagging). It's a book about robots running a noodle kitchen but it's a lot more, I can't write a better byline than Martha Wells so I won't:
This is a story—about building community despite adversity, fighting for your rights and individuality, and creating art that you want to see in the world—that I didn't know I needed right now. And it was so much fun to read!
@mekkaokereke My old friend Naomi Kritzer did a lot of information distribution and organizing against the ICE invasion of Minneapolis.
And I realize this is stating the obvious but if you haven't read N.K. Jemison, the Broken Earth series remains the best thing I've read in over a decade.
@mekkaokereke My old friend Naomi Kritzer did a lot of information distribution and organizing against the ICE invasion of Minneapolis.
And I realize this is stating the obvious but if you haven't read N.K. Jemison, the Broken Earth series remains the best thing I've read in over a decade.
Have your read Martha Well's Murderbot books?
The Raksura books are also great (but not SciFi).
@CelloMomOnCars @mekkaokereke Also, anything by Ann Leckie, Aliette de Bodard. Female-led, gender-ambiguous & LGBT+, not to mention great reads.
@mekkaokereke
You definitely need to.
Just grab one of each at sistahscifi.com
But like others have said: jemisin, due, okorafor
Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Scalzi both also have lots of great books.
@mekkaokereke The was a good thread on women sf/f authors here
@mekkaokereke Martha Wells’ MURDERBOT stories and novellas are a great series with an anti-capitalist, pro-egalitarian bent, very diverse cast of characters, and a protagonist who’s like the Terminator but with a TV addiction and crippling social anxiety.
N.K. Jemisin’s BROKEN EARTH trilogy is great too
@mekkaokereke
"Venomous Lumpsucker" by Ned Beauman deserves to be recommended to tousands of readers.
@mekkaokereke I never cared for the book that much (tho I enjoyed The Martian a great deal). It's disappointing that he went on a fascist podcast to support his movie.
I'm not going to listen to the podcast itself, but I found coverage of the podcast from a fascist blog, and being "apolitical" in a time of fascism means you're at least condone fascism.
I looked for other interviews, and he seems like a generic "libertarian" and "I don't see race" white guy. I can definitely understand not supporting someone with that kind of racism.
@mekkaokereke it took me a while to get past my own "I don't see race" views. Mainly bc that's how I was raised, and I think this is probably common among people raised in conservative white America. I imagine Weir may not even identify as conservative.
@heathborders @mekkaokereke I stopped reading Weir's second book and returned it to the bookstore for a refund when I got to his phrase, "blonde as a Hitler wet dream."
I'd love for all the Weir fans out there to read that aloud in front of a camera and see how it comes across. There are too many books clamoring for my reading time. Weir lost his chance to get any more of it.
Earlier in the thread folks mentioned Banks. I've enjoyed his stuff, and I liked the non-SF/non-M book of his I read. I've got another non-M book queued. It's always struck me that Neal Asher follows Banks' style. I expect it galls him that his idols prefer Banks, hence his dedication of his recent (latest? dunno) novel to Musk.
Finding upbeat science fiction is hard. I can say that so far Brin has not degraded in re-readings, and at this point I suspect he never will.
Fair. Additional thoughts:
The "I don't see race" is misguided, but is often in good faith.
The "I'm hiding anti-woke feelings behind I don't see race" is not.
https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/116306705116284257
As a Black person, it's really easy to tell the difference between the two, even though the vocabulary often sounds the same. And the anti-woke ones almost always go mask-off at some point. Conversely, the "I don't see race" ones often start seeing their former position as harmful. 👍🏿
In both cases, their true values are eventually revealed.
@mekkaokereke I recently read “A Half-Built Garden” by . @r_emrys and loved it — first contact solarpunk, so some overlap with the Weir, but proudly woke. Also diaper changing is a plot point.
You may have read Adam Oyebanji’s Braking Day but if not, great generation ship book — and I’ll also recommend my other recent generation ship favorite, . @lizmonster ‘s Arkhangelsk. These “fragile worlds-in-a-bottle where everyone must work together” stories are hitting the spot for me lately….
@mekkaokereke if you haven't read Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy, it deserves the hype (and triple Hugo). It's 'science fantasy' really, but so good.
@theta_max @mekkaokereke I will put another thumbs up on Broken Earth. Hell, anything by Jemisin is incredible. Read it all.
@mekkaokereke The Expanse series if you haven't read it.
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi or any of his books really. Near future post climate apocalypse stuff with lots of good science.
@mekkaokereke If you like detective stories give the Midsolar Murders series by Murr Lafferty a shot. Woman moves to a sentient space station where only two other humans (and a lot of different alien species) live, because somehow there’s always a murder happening near her, and she wants to get away from that.
The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein
It's a bit difficult to recommend because one of the best things about the series is the pacing with which you discover the world it's in and spoilers would get in the way of enjoying that aspect
@gbargoud @mekkaokereke A Steerswoman never lies, and if you don't answer her questions, they will never answer yours again.
It's very good.
@gbargoud @mekkaokereke
Can you please stop all theses suggestions? When am I supposed to read all this stuff? It's still only 24h per day. Even after years of high level capitalism.
Nghi Vo’s The Singing Hills Cycle, starting with The Empress of Salt and Fortune
I would also recommend the audiobook version, read incredibly by Cindy Kay.
@mekkaokereke
My go-to expert concerning progressive literature is @catrinity
She can recommend a lot of good books.
@mekkaokereke you've given me my mission for today. Going to buy a few books from living authors in the comments below to do my bit to help right the balance.
I don't see @annaleen mentioned yet, but very much enjoyed Automatic Noodle.
@mekkaokereke I can recommend the half build garden by @r_emrys
It's near future science fiction where we're trying to cleanup the earth, but then aliens arrive.
I think that's "Half-Built Garden?"
@mekkaokereke I can recommend the half build garden by @r_emrys
It's near future science fiction where we're trying to cleanup the earth, but then aliens arrive.
@mekkaokereke The entire Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. It started addressing many of the issues we're seeing in the 80s.
@mekkaokereke Underground Airlines by Ben H Winters?
Modern era but the US civil war never happened and a (genuine) proposed settlement still in force, US internationally isolated as South Africa was in the 1980s. Protagonist is an escaped save captured and forced to assist the US Marshalls in their (genuine pre civil war era) task of capturing slaves who has escaped to the "free states"
@mekkaokereke if you haven’t read them yet, Malka Olders Centenal Cycle is pretty good @older
@mekkaokereke Do you know the Binti series by @nnedi ? Big recommendation!
And so sad to read about this. I watched the Hail Mary movie without knowing anything about the book and author. I mostly liked it, except for the whole "this one average guy is the only one who can save the world" part ^^"
@ditsch42 @mekkaokereke @nnedi +++++ to the Binti series! So good. Also saw Ancillary Justice recommended above and would co-sign that. I’d toss “A Memory Called Empire” in the list too, by Arkady Martine. All fascinating worlds.
I had a similar reaction to the Hail Mary movie - hadn’t realized the author was an anti-woke jerk, enjoyed it, thought it was kinda dumb that there’s only one (cis, het, white) kinda average guy who can save everything. But now that I put these different bits of info together, it’s less surprising.
Too bad, but there’s plenty of other good fish in the sci fi sea.
@mekkaokereke For more recent SciFi, have you read mary robinette kowal?
I love Julie Cznerneda's Species Imperative trilogy, mainly because a scientist is taken seriously, and then she goes on to save all life in the universe by being a scientist who thinks through things. And yeah, there is a sexy-to-her intergalactic secret agent academic who shows up now and then. What can I say, I love a male character who believes and supports a female character.
@mekkaokereke Ok not sci-fi. But if you like historical stuff, around Bletchly Park...I really loved Rose Code by Kate Quinn.
@mekkaokereke I find it difficult to understand why so many white-cis-het-men find it so difficult to understand that there are so many amazing people who are not white-cis-het-men
And that this diversity is a wonderful thing!
I can't imagine such a lonely existence.
@mekkaokereke looking forward to your list/discussion suggesting some.
A few that come to mind:
Matt Ruff (“Lovecraft Country” and sequel)
Octavia Butler - I’m particularly fond of the recent graphic novel versions of Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. Hard to improve on or even just adapt a masterpiece but Damian Duffy and John Jennings did so
I haven’t yet finished it but Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift is wildly ambitious and tackles racism directly
I'm thrilled that Matt Ruff got known with "Lovecraft Country." If you haven't dug into his back catalog, check out "Sewer, Gas, and Electric," which really established his intention to write woke sci-fi.
@Rycaut @mekkaokereke Tade Thompson's Rosewater trilogy, about an alien invasion of Lagos, is fantastic, lots of exploration of colonialism, lots of background on Nigerian culture and history, and loads of action and ideas.
@mekkaokereke I have quite some afrofuturism books in my collection and enjoy them tremendously. Definitely a collection of worlds worth exploring. Looking very much forward to your experience!
@jwildeboer @mekkaokereke ooh yes, Nnedi Okorafor (africanfuturism) and NK Jemisin's (science fantasy rather than africanfuturism) work is tops, I see others have recommended, excellent
@noodlemaz @jwildeboer @mekkaokereke seconding both these writers. They're so good. And it's so awesome to get stories that don't sound like the same story you've been reading since you were 15 years old. Different cultural traits. A different way of thinking. All the good things about diversity basically only now it's made an awesome book.
@mekkaokereke I recently finished Claire North's _Slow Gods_ which is really good and definitely takes a stand about people over wealth, along with some good old cosmic horror.
@mekkaokereke must they be new?
You're right! They don't have to be new!
Most to the ones I'd rec have already been covered, so I'll mention Joan D Vinge. Sorry I'm not up on newer stuff.
(Note the her ex Vernor Vinge was very good too.)
@mekkaokereke @s_wilson I can recommend Connie Willis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Willis
@mekkaokereke @s_wilson
Objection: If they're not new, the author wont get any money.
I often buy used books, and always buy used if I don't want the author to get money from me (like the Hillbilly book from that Hillbilly VP).
@mekkaokereke @s_wilson In that case, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (her other books are mostly fantasy) and anything by Octavia E. Butler.
@mekkaokereke really? Sad.
why do they do this? So sad.
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