Jochen -
I thought of you more than few times on my long walkabout through
Red/Purple-state 'murrica... mostly your concerns a year or two ago
about traveling to the US "because gun violence". I was in the heart
of "gun country" through this trip and saw a few artifacts of that which
would naturally be *very* disturbing (methinks) to someone not already
innured to it... but not nearly as many as you might expect. On the
other hand I just saw a news item that Canada and many other first-world
countries have in place "travel warnings" for not the US proper, but
many of the more egregious "red states". I believe you may have
already made your 'murrican sojourn so the point may be moot... but I
couldn't help thinking "how would Jochen see this?" as I stumbled
through a landscape of bison, hay bales, corn fields, motorcycles, strip
malls, and gun shows.
I have read "Highway of Eternity" from Clifford D. Simak this weekend,
one of the books from the golden age of science fiction which is
comparable to "The city and the Stars" from Arthur C. Clarke and "The
end of eternity" from Isaac Asimov. Both belong to my favorite books.
Modern authors don't write like this anymore. Their books are often
gloomy and depressive, and do not span millions of years. What is your
favorite science fiction book? Will the AI breakthrough in large
language models lead to more optimistic science fiction books again?
Back on topic: I grew up on a lot of "Golden Age" works/authors which
includes Simak/Clarke/Asimov of course. I would claim that this time
was naturally one of "Utopianism" that came with the rapid development
of industry/technology/science. I think the Dystopianism ramped up with
PostModernism and Cyberpunk. I'm a big fan of Cyberpunk (esp..
Gibson/Sterling/Stephenson/Cadigan/etc.) and *some* post-Apocalyptic
works... now almost exclusively "CliFi" (Climate Fiction), but I get
your yearning for "the good ole days". I'd say Elon Musk grew up on
"too much Utopian SF" as well and (unlike me) hasn't outgrown it?
My *favorite* golden-age author is Jack Williamson
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Williamson> who I've mentioned here
before and had the distinction of being somewhat elder when he published
his first work at age 20 (1928) in Hugo Gernsback's first-of-kind
Amazing Stories (1926). I feel like he hit his stride after WWII where
he had been a (civilian, not military due to age) Weatherman in the
Pacific and reacted to a dawning self-awareness of the flip side of
techno-Utopianism (exemplified by Hiroshima/Nagasaki)... His (re)entry
into publication after a long hiatus (during/after WWII) was With Folded
Hands <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands>, a reflective
dystopian view of techno-utopianism as well as work presaging Asimov's
Robot series as well as a plethora of concepts like
Borg/Cylon/Replicant/Terminators/Cybermen/Sentinels, etc... and of
course all of this was preceded by Lem's Trurl and Klapaucius
(wizard-robot constructors) and the Hebrew Golem (and Frankenstein's
Monster and... and and.) He wrote over 50 novels ultimately in his 98
year long life as well as myriad short stories, novellas and a 3 year
run of a comic strip (early 50s)... He also penned a reflective
autobiography late in life (70s) but with nearly 20 years worth of
career following that! He taught writing at Eastern NM University well
into his 90s as well.
For the most part I'm thankful to be beyond the flat-character
cardboard-cutout, misogynistic, stoicly independent/capable (white-male)
hero-worship classic SF tropes but I hear your interest in more positive
grand narratives that the Golden Age also carried. For the seminal
Epoch-spanning humanity I offer Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men"
(1930) and "Starmaker" (1933). The former spans 2 billion years and 18
human species...
Robert Heinlein is the avowed Master of Human Chauvanistic
technoUtopian/Libertarian fantasies which even satisfies some of us
reformed/anti-Libertarians sometimes. Many of his more minor novels
are a fun romp in near-future techno-utopianism (e.g. Moon is a Harsh
Mistress) as well as epoch and dimensional spanning works such as /Time
Enough for Love /and /Job/ (respectively). /Stranger in a Strange Land/
stood up well next to Herbert's /Dune/ in the 60s to satisfy Hippies and
non-Hippies alike.
Larry Niven's /Ringworld /series are pretty
far-flung/futuristic/optimistic epochal. He does post-Apocalyptic well
too (e.g. /FootFall/, /Mote in God's Eye/)
I did enjoy Simak's work "back in the day" and his 1968 "So Bright the
Vision" gestured toward what ChatGPT is today.
A.E. Van Vogt offers some great classics as well... /The Worlds of Null
A /and /Weapons Shops of Isher/ stand out.
Poul Anderson simultaneously created/celebrated and lampooned the
canonical pulp hero with his Nicholas van Rijn characters in a series of
works and his /PsychoTechnic League/ is a Future History to rival
Asimov's /Foundation/ series.
I know you asked for "_*A*_ favorite" but I'm not so good at narrowing
such things down... hope you made it through my romp of recommendations
and at least one is useful! If you lived closer (same continent?) I
would bequeath you a few boxes of pulp from that era <grin>...
- Steve
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