For a while I thought I really liked sci fi novels and short stories, and maybe that's somewhat true. But I've started wondering if maybe I just liked Asimov's writing in particular. Other writers in the genre are more hit or miss. Can anyone recommend other writers that are on his level?
It wasn't until I discovered I was on the spectrum that I realized why it clicked so much. >.< I'm masking all the time, running conversational simulations to anticipate the societally-expected response to any given situation (and am high on the IQ spectrum).
It's not really sci-fi but I also really enjoyed The Merchant And The Alchemist's Gate, and the one about the tower of babel, I forget the name at the moment.
Have you tried Arthur Clarke? I would say he is close to Asimov in many ways, being from the same time.
For others who share some similarities, though with a greater emphasis on character and adventure, perhaps Hal Clement, Larry Niven or Robert L. Forward.
As someone who loves the Big Three (Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein) and have read a lot of SF, I pretty much despise Bradbury. There’s no science in his science fiction.
Or even Star Trek to be honest. I don't know why Star Wars always gets passed off as "science fantasy" when it's a more grounded universe than Trek by far - space wizards notwithstanding (which Trek has plenty of.)
Even in a lot of hard SF, a lot of the science is wonky if it falls outside of the author's special interest or area of expertise. Relevant to Asimov, the only reason robots have "positronic" brains in his stories is that positrons were a new discovery at the time and it sounded cool and futuristic to him.
Space opera is still a subset of speculative fiction and science fiction, saying "just" dismisses its influence on the genre as a whole.
A lot of classic science fiction is basically "x with spaceships" where x is the Napoleonic Wars, or feudal Europe or the Wild West or what have you, and the "science" is little more than set dressing.
> saying "just" dismisses its influence on the genre as a whole.
Well, it was meant to be parsed as:
Star Trek is speculative fiction and space opera.
Star Wars is just space opera.
Some space opera is also speculative fiction, but I wouldn't say it is a subset. I wouldn't call some space opera stories speculative fiction at all.
They're all classified as science fiction.
(Yes, yes - there is no consensus on these terms...typically science fiction is considered a subset of speculative fiction, and here I inverted a lot of things).
Early Heinlein e.g. Have Spacesuit - Will Travel, Farmer In The Sky, The Rolling Stones or for non-juveniles, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress have lots of science.
ted chiang if you haven't already. story of your life, exhalation, the lifecycle of software objects. same thing asimov does where the sci fi premise is really just a frame for a very human question. except chiang does it in like 30 pages and you feel it for a week
>> But I've started wondering if maybe I just liked Asimov's writing in particular.
A less commonly mentioned Asimov book that I really enjoyed and will read again is "The End of Eternity". If you've not read it, the ending is IMHO amazing and unique.
Last Question reminds me of it because of the style.
Also worth reading, although a very different style is The Gods Themselves. Although, to be honest, I'm not sure there's a single Asimov book I haven't enjoyed and I've read almost all of them.
Depends what you consider on his level really. Some find the writing too dry, but maybe you like that? Have you read Dune? What about The Forever War? They are different styles but definitely enjoyed by someone who also likes Asimov.
I didn't get on with Neuromancer or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? at all, though. Suspect you wouldn't either.
I also find stuff like Andy Weir way too literal, like you're basically reading a film script. Asimov leaves a lot more room for imagination.
perhaps Fredric Brown? He and Asimov were in my primary school reading anthology, and I will never thank enough the people who put the book together.
Also, I am not sure he's translated in English, but Sessanta Racconti[0] by Dino Buzzati is high on my list of fantastic short stories (not sci-fi, just.. I don't know).
A Fire Upon The Deep is a fantastic novel for programmers to read, and I think the prequel A Deepness In The Sky is even better. There are some amazing old-school coding jokes in there, like that everyone thinks the universal time counter started at the first moon landing, but programmer archaeologists know it was really 15 megaseconds later.
Neal Stephenson's work is outstanding in my opinion, although some find it polarizing. My favorite of his is _Anathem_, followed closely by _Seveneves_.
Iain Banks's science fiction novels (mostly set in the Culture, but he does have others) are also great.
And the liver creates cholesterol. It even senses and reduces cholesterol output when we have too much. Except saturated fats interfere with this process.
> It’s also mighty interesting how it’s always the male division that’s open, until you happen to have a sport where women are beating men at it, and then suddenly it’s the women’s division that’s the open one!
Hypothetically you could have three divisions: open, men, and women. In many contexts it's more practical to have two, where one is open. In those cases, if the sex that didn't win more was also the open division, then people would complain because both divisions would be dominated by players of one sex.
Quoting this without context, people might think someone from the case said this about the expecting mother. Instead, this quote comes from a law professor (that the author interviewed maybe?), who was, I guess, projecting the thought on to those of the legal system. The author kind of stuck this right in the middle of the story, so I don't blame readers if they confused the quote with someone from the trial saying it.
I have no doubt that blackberries will go this direction because it's annoying to get seeds stuck in your teeth. On the other hand, compare the fiber of blackberries (8g in one cup) to modern grapes (1g in one cup).
It depends on the season, but they tend to have too much acid at first. Leaving them in the fridge reduces the acid over time improves the flavor profile. But really you should refrigerate all citrus.
There are dekopon trees that give fruit with the bump and without the bump. You may be finding the ones without the bump. But satsumas have a different enough flavor that you should be able to tell. Also, satsumas are smaller, more oblong, and tend to have a thinner skin.
Similarly, the Tango variety is becoming more commercially available. It has a zipper peel, seedless, and outstanding flavor. It's usually marketed as "Mandarin", though. You kind of have to know what it looks like to be able to tell what's a clementine or not.
Others to watch out for are Gold Nugget (my favorite, but I very rarely see them at the store), and I also saw Kishu at the grocery store for the first time this year.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3809034/
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