Who are the new good authors of say the last five or ten years? Off the top of my head I like David Brin, Iain Banks, Terry Pratchett, William Gibson and Vernor Vinge. I'm a little tired of rereading the same treasured stories though and I'm not ready to revisit Asimov/Pournell/Clarke/Niven/etc... (Sorry if I left out your favorite).

Who's good lately, help me out here. Or at least, where's a good place to go for reviews?

I'm very pleased with Harry Turtledove and William Fortschen. Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child, despite being targeted at the thriller market, are good s.f. in some of their work.

Ditto on William Fortschen. Especially his Lost regiment novels. [He is supposedly working on a new one but was sidetracked by his Grant series.]

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"It takes Thousands to fight a battle for a mile, Millions to hold an election for a nation, but it only takes One to change the world."
G'Topia

Eric Flint - great revisionist histories.

John Birmingham - first use of quantum foam in a novel I've read.

Matthew Hughes. Stories about the Penultimate Age of Old Earth. He's got quite the touch for terminology.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

Stephen Baxter is a good new author that I've found in the last 5 years or so.

Nice list of likes there One Skunk Todd, they're all on my shelves!
May I recommend Alastair Renolds, Peter F Hamilton, Richard Morgan & Greg Egan (ok, Hamilton & Egan have been publishing novels for over a decade now, but they may be new to you).
They all have simple to find websites as well.

Thanks for the answers, I'll be sure and look for these the next time I'm in a book store.

Eric Flint is a pretty good Fantasy writer, but I'm not sure if the stories could be sci-fi. Try Mother of Demons.

Also, Bats, Rats, and Vats is pretty good, by Flint and David Drake (I think it's him anyway.) If you can't find it by that title, try mixing up the owrds- they rhyme so well that I forget the order. XD

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True. I think it's important to be able to laugh at one's self. But I also think it's important to not be fueled by an overwhelming amount of material.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

-Dr. Seuss

"It's just a fact of life no one cares to mention,
She wasn't good, but she had good intentions."
- Lyle Lovett

I must confess... to have read an "AWFUL" lot of Piers Anthony.

Moved from OTB to SM@L.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Almost right - Rats, Bats and Vats. And, you can read it online for free, here:

http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm

Mother of Demons is also available there.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Eileen Gunn and Ted Chiang: short-story specialists who haven't written much, but it's all in the very-good-to-brilliant range. Chiang's Story Of Your Life is one of the half-dozen best stories I've ever read.

China Mieville has some interesting stuff which I've just found out belongs to a sub-genre called "New Weird"

List so far:

Stephen Baxter
John Birmingham
Ted Chiang - Story Of Your Life
Lincoln Child
Greg Egan
Eric Flint - revisionist histories, Mother of Demons, Rats, Bats and Vats (w/David Drake)
William Fortschen - Lost regiment novels
Eileen Gunn
Peter F Hamilton
Matthew Hughes - Stories about the Penultimate Age of Old Earth
China Mieville - "New Weird"
Richard Morgan
Douglas Preston
Alastair Renolds
Harry Turtledove

David and Lee Eddings I have always found to be good, and though their books did feel a little Cookie cutterish with some of the same character concepts reappearing in each of the series, their latest series actually seems to have mostly broken out of that mould which has been good.

The latest few series of Terry Brooks' Shannara saga have been pretty good as well after it sort of bogged down for a few books.

I'm not sure as to his books from the past 5 years, but David Gemmell's books were pretty good, though don't expect anything new, he died last year.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

I'm really enjoying the 'Grand Tour' books by Ben Bova. He's been around a while, though. I recommend:

Orion Series (start with Orion)
Moonwar and it's sequel Moonrise
The Precipice and its sequels, The Rock Rats and The Asteroid Wars
The Grand Tour series (they are connected, but it's not required that you read them in order, Mecury is the latest in the series I believe):
Mars and its sequel Return to Mars
Jupiter
Venus
Saturn
Mercury

And for a good time, try Sam Gunn Unlimited and Sam Gunn Forever

Two of the novels by Neal Stephenson that I've read I really liked (Snow Crash and The Diamond Age). I've not begun to read his historical SF (Cryptonomicon, Baroque Cycle etc.) yet, so I can't give a rating on them.

Wil McCarthy is pretty imaginative, and writes hard SF.

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If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson
I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo.-Enoch Root, The Confusion
When I was a kid, if someone brandished a shrink gun he'd get a little bit of respect!-Myron Reducto, Harvey Birdman

My wife bought me the 'Sam Gunn Forever' colllection by Bova and I sort of agree. It felt very good to set it down, realizing I would never have to read it again. Mental image of Ross Perot wearing a jet pack.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

Robert J Sawyer is my favorite science fiction author. I've read nearly all of his novels and have never been disappointed.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

John Scalzi and Robert Charles Wilson. Actually let me rephrase that: John Scalzi and Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (I haven't liked a lot of his stuff but that blew me away).

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When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror, like his passengers.

I'm looking forward to seeing the heroic haze that is "300" today. Here is a little somethng for you:



----------------------------------------"How I Killed Leonidas"-----------------------------------------

I have entered my 500 Euros by card into the First Person Shooter/Holochronicle today.

I need diversion.

The first option is the Turtledove scenario where I play the Persians with the Battleship Missouri (as if the battle were not one-sided enough). The 'atomic annie' shell bursting upon Athens isn't satisfying enough for me...nor are the Harriers. The Spartans are still taunting me as they die.

I try to play as a one man mass of Zombies, hoping to hear them yell "They are still coming!" but they oblige me not. My point of view shifts from one beheaded shambler to the next. The Running Zombies aren't much better.

I try an army of instant clones, (not the real kind---delayed twins--but the movie kind). I instruct my other selves to keep pushing forward--to not actually engage--to use sheer mass numbers to force the Lacedaimonians back--to not give in to hand to hand combat.

No change....the bodies still pile up.

So I do a Jim Kirk with this no-win...and cheat. With my mind link.

The Spartans advance on me--but I have the video quality reduced. The sepia tones are gone. No HDTV/70 MM quality--but 35, and then 16. (I don't use the 8MM yet, as it makes them more bloody, grainy...)

The haze of history fades, and they stare at one another in shock--abdominal muscle definition vanishing as I replace their body types with Endomorph mesh's by the score...

--then the video quality moves to the hyperreal videotape. The armor of the Spartans I replace with wife-beater shirts, as police cars drive like ghosts out of the cliffs. I have a politician behind a podium call them "illegal combatants," and the choke point of Thermopylae dissolves into a street filled with needles and trash.

Welcome to MY battlefield.

The men are in Paddy Wagons now, and I've reduced King Leonidas to a flabby shirtless drunk being shoved into a police cruiser.

"WHERE ARE MY MEN?!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME???!!"

I cackle with glee as I reduce him further--to a super low-res digital computer-camera image of a small, low figure in a corner of a drunk tank.

Now I even take his screams from him.

He was able to sneak aboard the Iowa and kill me. He slew me as a zombie, and as a clone.

But he was no match for my depression, and the age I live in now.

But I am merciful. I left him some familiar elastic bands in the cell before the holochron chirped off.

I go outside into my own nightmare, to go to my cell of an apartment...to join King Leonidas.

I hope he can forgive me...

Rudy Rucker

I recently became addicted to the Honor Carrington series from David Weber, (though I'm appalled by the relationship he put her in in the last few books. blech). They're a little technical but I'm still hooked.

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'I understood everything up to the word "A"' -Mike Nelson

In the Fantasy realm must say I really enjoyed Robin Hobb's Assassn and Tawny Man trilogies.

Jon

Another vote for Stephen Baxter.


Who has read the newly released SF novel Project Mars by Wernher Von Braun??

It's Reynolds, not Renolds, and I absolutely recommend him. Combines hard SF with well-developed (and developing) characters, terrific plots, mysteries, and some absolutely mind-blowing Big Ideas. One thing I loved about his Inhibitor series* is how human species has split into branches which are basically different species, yet relationships between (and within) these branches are neither consistently friendly nor consistently hostile: people remain peolpe, with all their good and bad traits, whether they are half-machine, half-pig, or brain in a box.

[Edit]: I have to point out that all Reynolds' books have dark (or "noir") aspects, and most books have parts which are downright classic horror and/or quite gruesome. A spaceship with all aspects of a malevolent haunted house is quite something. Novella Diamond Dogs is pure gothic horror.

*OK, many things, but have to point this one out

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

I think you mean Honor Harrington. I wont comment about the relationships. But the recent books do highlight some of the stupidity of war.

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Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. The bartender says "You're all idiots", and pours two beers

I haven't seen him mentioned, so...

Anything by Allen Steele is worth reading although I haven't read his latest (the coyote series), but I very much enjoyed his first few books. (Orbital Decay, and Lunar Descent are my 2 favorites.)

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Oops! Yes, my goof there, sorry about that folks (fortunately google is smart enough to suggest the correct spelling ).

Agreed! I read Diamond Dogs for the first time just a week or so back, very dark(reminded me of Edgar Allen Poe, could be just me getting confused there though) .
Mind you, if you think Reynolds is dark, try Morgan!! Lots of very scary, sometimes downright nasty goings on with a generous splash of cyberpunk, not suitable for younger readers IMO.
I should mention that all of my recommendations here are hard SF.