3 ms·

Greg Bear, I think, may be the last of the major classic scifi authors. Author C Clarke is gone, so is Frank Herbert and Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. I can

Greg Bear, I think, may be the last of the major classic scifi authors. Author C Clarke is gone, so is Frank Herbert and Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. I can't think of any who are still alive who belong to that club.

dcminter 4y ago
He was writing a bit later. Take a look at the Wikipedia article[1] on the "Golden Age" writers - looks like Robert Silverberg is the last of that era still with us. (Edit: Not to belittle Bear if you grouped him with them on the quality of his writing rather than contemporaneity) [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Science_Fiction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Science_Fictio...
- DiabloD3 4y ago
  I don't exactly group them the way most would. I blend what Wikipedia calls Golden Age and New Wave together, where you had a ~40 year block of amazing authors cranking out most of today's top 100 list. Then, after that, you have this fade in of where cyberpunk themes start developing a new age of scifi. So, I consider "classic scifi" ending vaguely around the year 2000, and cyberpunk and modern scifi starting in the mid 80s, clearly these overlap. Also, I think we're transitioning into yet another new age of scifi that is post-cyberpunk; smaller in nature, less grandiose, less "living amongst the stars and living a space opera", less "living in a dystopia with extra steps", more "the AI winter will never end and we have to live with the promise never being delivered" and more "oops, we left someone behind on Mars and now he has to eat potatoes to survive". Whatever this new era will be called, it started roughly in the early 2000s, starting when the classic scifi era ended, overlapping with the middle of the cyberpunk era.
  - CydeWeys 4y ago
    > "oops, we left someone behind on Mars and now he has to eat potatoes to survive". You should read his most recent book Project Hail Mary then. It's a much grander concept than that, and I absolutely would put it up against books from the great sci-fi era that I read growing up.
  - morelisp 4y ago
    I don't get it, I think today space opera is probably the most vital it's ever been. You have everything from Wayfarers to Teixcalaanli to Machineries of Empire to Xuya to Three-Body Problem. > I blend what Wikipedia calls Golden Age and New Wave together Well, you do you, but nobody will understand what you mean and I don't think there's any thematic, aesthetic, literary, or social basis for this.
harshreality 4y ago
Everyone else seems to be either younger, or if not at least they're known for works that were published slightly later. However, these authors are in roughly the same generation: Brin, Bujold, Card, Cherryh, Gibson, Simmons, Vinge, Willis
morelisp 4y ago
It's weird to see Bear (1951) lumped in with Clarke (1917), Herbert (1920), Asimov (1920) and especially Heinlein (1907). Much (maybe even most?) of Bear's generation is still alive! Even in terms of "what would a 30-50yo today have found on the local bookstore's sf shelf as a child to whom all past is equally distant?", Niven, Delaney, Robinson and Silverberg (who actually published in the final days of the "Golden Age", unlike Bear) are still with us.
- kthejoker2 4y ago
  Also in the "Silver Age" crowd that Greg Bear is part of Joe Haldeman, William Gibson, Piers Anthony, David Brin. Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, KW Jeter, George Lucas, George RR Martin, Phillip Pullman, Rudy Rucker, Dan Simmons, Harry Turtledove, John Varley, Connie Wilson, Timothy Zahn are all around Though it is sad he joins the ranks of authors from his generation who died earlier than expected - Pratchett, Iain Banks, Robert Jordan ..
  - Eric_WVGG 4y ago
    I still can’t get used to not-looking-forward-to the next Banks novel
    - mattkevan 4y ago
      It really sucks. Last year I discovered I hadn’t read Surface Detail, which came as a real shock as I was sure I’d read everything he’d written many times. Considered never reading it so there’d always be a new Ian M Banks, but the temptation was too great. Glad I did too as it was excellent.
  - com2kid 4y ago
    Piers Anthony was born in 1938, quit a bit older than the other authors you listed. His science fiction is much more golden age in style, robots and bug eyed monsters, though he often made fun of both tropes.

dcminter 4y ago

He was writing a bit later. Take a look at the Wikipedia article[1] on the "Golden Age" writers - looks like Robert Silverberg is the last of that era still with us. (Edit: Not to belittle Bear if you grouped him with them on the quality of his writing rather than contemporaneity) [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Science_Fiction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Science_Fictio...

DiabloD3 4y ago
I don't exactly group them the way most would. I blend what Wikipedia calls Golden Age and New Wave together, where you had a ~40 year block of amazing authors cranking out most of today's top 100 list. Then, after that, you have this fade in of where cyberpunk themes start developing a new age of scifi. So, I consider "classic scifi" ending vaguely around the year 2000, and cyberpunk and modern scifi starting in the mid 80s, clearly these overlap. Also, I think we're transitioning into yet another new age of scifi that is post-cyberpunk; smaller in nature, less grandiose, less "living amongst the stars and living a space opera", less "living in a dystopia with extra steps", more "the AI winter will never end and we have to live with the promise never being delivered" and more "oops, we left someone behind on Mars and now he has to eat potatoes to survive". Whatever this new era will be called, it started roughly in the early 2000s, starting when the classic scifi era ended, overlapping with the middle of the cyberpunk era.
- CydeWeys 4y ago
  > "oops, we left someone behind on Mars and now he has to eat potatoes to survive". You should read his most recent book Project Hail Mary then. It's a much grander concept than that, and I absolutely would put it up against books from the great sci-fi era that I read growing up.
- morelisp 4y ago
  I don't get it, I think today space opera is probably the most vital it's ever been. You have everything from Wayfarers to Teixcalaanli to Machineries of Empire to Xuya to Three-Body Problem. > I blend what Wikipedia calls Golden Age and New Wave together Well, you do you, but nobody will understand what you mean and I don't think there's any thematic, aesthetic, literary, or social basis for this.

harshreality 4y ago

Everyone else seems to be either younger, or if not at least they're known for works that were published slightly later. However, these authors are in roughly the same generation: Brin, Bujold, Card, Cherryh, Gibson, Simmons, Vinge, Willis

morelisp 4y ago

It's weird to see Bear (1951) lumped in with Clarke (1917), Herbert (1920), Asimov (1920) and especially Heinlein (1907). Much (maybe even most?) of Bear's generation is still alive! Even in terms of "what would a 30-50yo today have found on the local bookstore's sf shelf as a child to whom all past is equally distant?", Niven, Delaney, Robinson and Silverberg (who actually published in the final days of the "Golden Age", unlike Bear) are still with us.

kthejoker2 4y ago
Also in the "Silver Age" crowd that Greg Bear is part of Joe Haldeman, William Gibson, Piers Anthony, David Brin. Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, KW Jeter, George Lucas, George RR Martin, Phillip Pullman, Rudy Rucker, Dan Simmons, Harry Turtledove, John Varley, Connie Wilson, Timothy Zahn are all around Though it is sad he joins the ranks of authors from his generation who died earlier than expected - Pratchett, Iain Banks, Robert Jordan ..
- Eric_WVGG 4y ago
  I still can’t get used to not-looking-forward-to the next Banks novel
  - mattkevan 4y ago
    It really sucks. Last year I discovered I hadn’t read Surface Detail, which came as a real shock as I was sure I’d read everything he’d written many times. Considered never reading it so there’d always be a new Ian M Banks, but the temptation was too great. Glad I did too as it was excellent.
- com2kid 4y ago
  Piers Anthony was born in 1938, quit a bit older than the other authors you listed. His science fiction is much more golden age in style, robots and bug eyed monsters, though he often made fun of both tropes.