The 21 best science fiction books of all time – according to New Scientist writers | New Scientist

Muscular imagination

Robin Sloan on The Culture:

The Culture is a utopia: a future you might actually want to live in. It offers a coherent political vision. This isn’t subtle or allegorical; on the page, citizens of the Culture very frequently artic­u­late and defend their values. (Their enthu­siasm for their own politics is consid­ered annoying by most other civilizations.)

Coherent political vision doesn’t require a lot, just some sense of “this is what we ought to do”, yet it is absent from plenty of science fiction that dwells only in the realm of the cautionary tale.

I don’t have much patience left for that genre. I mean … we have been, at this point, amply cautioned.

Vision, on the other hand: I can’t get enough.

The other side of egoism | A Working Library

Mandy takes a deep dive into the treatment of altruism in Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed.

Science Fiction and Philosophy - Five Books Expert Recommendations

I’ve only read three of these five books, but after reading this rollicking interview with Eric Schwitzgebel, I’ve added the other two recommendations to my wishlist.

Sci-Fi & Me – Jeremy Keith – Stay Curious Café by beyond tellerrand - YouTube

Here’s the video of the talk I gave on Wednesday evening all about my relationship with reading science fiction. There are handy chapter markers if you want to jump around.

In search of the new

Robin asked a question:

What is a work of science fiction (a book, not a movie, thanks) that could only have been written in the last ten years? AND/OR, what’s a work of science fiction that hinges on experi­ences and feelings new in the last ten years? AND/OR, what’s a work of science fiction that repre­sents the current leading edge of the genre’s specu­la­tive and stylistic devel­op­ment?

The responses make for interesting reading, especially ahead of Wednesday’s event.