No matter the subject, science fiction genre should be looked upon with different eyes not just as a source of entertainment, but also as an inspiration to the technology we develop today, because you must know that the science fiction of today is the technology of tomorrow.
Years ago the technology we have today was considered science fiction. Then the years of science fiction and alien abduction fever followed. The writers of those stories are long forgotten and the years of science fiction movies started. Being underrated those writers became screenwriters of today's shows. The changes will still happen and will turn maybe to living the movie yourself. Even so, there are many writers that remained faithful to the science fiction genre and offered some good reading for all that stumble upon their novels or who buys it on purpose. One of my favorite science fiction novel writers is David Bartell. I succeeded to interview him and get you an inside view. The following is his interview. " There are many different science fictional settings and sub-genres. I have to admit, I have a soft spot for good old-fashioned space exploration in which the wonders of the universe feature. Having a scientific background, I write a lot of hard science fiction that tends to be near-future. Some of this is cautionary, raising questions that we may find important in our lifetimes. Since deep space exploration is not likely in our lifetimes, I have branched into other sciences that are more pressing today, such as genetics - another big frontier. Space exploration and biology are closely related, and I have discussed both in my recent television appearance, and an upcoming one. My latest story is set in Larry Niven's Known Space universe, and is a hard science fiction space opera set in the distant future. This may be a new direction for me, since I have always loved these kind of stories. I have trouble naming a novel or two as the best of all time for two reasons. First, "best" is subjective, even for me. I may have a favorite for a time, but change my mind later. Also, your question asks what is the best writing. Well, some great SF books actually have pretty poor writing. I think that the best writers are not the ones I have read a lot of. However, I have always admired the prose skills of Arthur C. Clarke and Alan Dean Foster - both can write beautifully, though both have their shortcomings. I can't think of any of the old masters who were actually good writers, in the literary sense. Many modern writers are brilliant but don't necessarily write the kind of stories I like to read. I find them challenging - which is good! I also have to confess to having a historical preference for shorter fiction. I've read tons of shorts, and many fewer novels. But a few of my favorite SF and fantasy novels, for very different reasons, are: Lord of the Rings, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Midworld by Alan Dean Foster, Ringworld by Niven, A Clockwork Orange, The Amber Chronicles by Zelazny... Is SF underrated? Yes, it has been woefully so until about the last decade. To an extent this is deserved; early SF was rich in imagination, ideas, and extrapolations, but short in literary quality and relevance. For a variety of reasons I don't understand, mainstream literature has kept SF in a ghetto. One reason I do understand is the cult of fandom. When SF became popular, as with Star Trek, reaching a mainstream audience, it was easy to label it as a genre appealing to geeks and maladjusted teen boys. The fans, not caring about how they were perceived outside, began the circus of fandom, dressing up as aliens, playacting, etc. This made all of SF victim of undeserved ridicule. Popular SF, including Trek, Star Wars, and others have in some ways been overrated. They tend to be good stories but not great SF as such. A side effect might be that good SF is overlooked. I have always thought that some SF classics are overrated as well, such as Dune, and the movie Blade Runner. (I like them, but they just don't seem to me as great as they are made out to be. I may be in the minority there.) The Discovery Channel interview has had a positive effect on my reputation, as you might imagine. Viewers looked me up, but since I was on vacation, I had not updated my web page in time! I and two other interviewees showed a screening of the extended cut of that show at a convention - two hours of show and two more of discussion. High visibility, to be sure. It opens doors; I am currently working on another show, this time for National Geographic. Will SF be different in the future? That's a fantastic question, rather meta. Here's a question I have asked other SF writers (you can see Larry Niven's answer on my interview of him on YouTube.) What would SF be like after first contact with aliens? It would change everything. Suddenly aliens would not be SF any longer, but mainstream, and everyone will write about them. SF will no longer have a monopoly on that. We do see that SF shrinks as science catches up with it. Captain Kirk's jazzy communicator is now commonplace. We don't have starships yet, but we have a lot of other advances that were once the stuff of dreams. As science moves forward, the fiction surrounding it becomes mainstream. You also allude to the growing amount of SF in the media. I don't see screenwriters supplanting print writers for a very long time. They have very different talents, and write for very different media. A few years ago we worried that kids weren't reading anymore, and feared for writers. That all changed with Harry Potter, Twilight, and the glut of YA fiction out there. To be sure, fantasy is eclipsing science fiction these days, but that may change. But no, I don't see writers going away any time soon. -db " The next is about 3 novels that i consider also underrated. First is by David Bartelle and is actually a novelette and will appear in the Man-Kzin Wars XIII this year. The novelette, called Zeno's Roulette, is about a wormhole, a jinxian and the suicide mission he is sent to along with his girlfriend and a spy. They been sent to a Kzin recreational world by Puppeteer on a suicidal vendetta and to gather information about an exotic wormhole. William Gibson, the writer of Neuromancer is the next writer that is considered underrated. He was born in 1948 in South Carolina and spend much of his life moving arround USA. He ended up living with his mother in Virginia, from where he got his interest in science fiction. After moving to British Columbia he started writing, and never stopped since. One of his novels is called Neuromancer and became a little famous among the readers of this genre. The novel is about Case, a computer cowboy that put his consciousness into cyberspace and gathered information, secrets, data and logic and sold it to anyone that could buy his skills. He ended up back to the physical body after making the mistake of double-crossing and after finding out that the underworld cyber-space could offer him a second change, he also finds out what is the price for it also. The following author is Peter Hamilton. He was born in Rutland and in 1987 started writing. Living in Rutland Water with his family he is writing ever since and being productive. His first novel is called Mindstar Rising and it is about a new power source and the tension raises when the main character, Greg Mandel, is about to do his final test. The action happens is a world somehow similar to ours, a world thorn apart by the global warming and the free market of multi-millions companies. These are just 3 examples of this underrated genre, but there are other writers, less known then this ones. The genre will evolve along with the technology, but it will never disappear because humanity will always think of the future and the technology they can only dream of.
