In article <1c585ac0.36c9e1a5@aol.com>, <Jfvirey@aol.com> wrote:
> I wonder if A.A.Attanasio has even been discussed in Extropian circles. I
> personally consider him the best science-fiction and fantasy writer ever, and
> many of his themes are typically extropian. [...]
Hmm, interesting. I've avoided Attanasio so far because I was under the impression that he(?) wrote simply fantasy pretending to be far-future novels, and I'm not big on non-technical speculative fiction. (Yes, it's kind of silly to judge an author before reading him, but OTOH you somehow need to make a choice on what to read.) I think I'll now give him a try.
> In the original Extropian fiction list, [...] the worst being *Inherit
> the Stars* and *The Great Explosion*.
BTW, _The Great Explosion_ has recently come into print again, I just ordered a copy. My understanding is that it's a (very funny) political book with strong anarchist/libertarian leanings. We'll see.
Now, _Inherit the Stars_ is a fine piece of hard SF and perhaps the most suspenseful book I've ever read, but I fail to see what's supposed to be of particular extropian interest about it. If we're talking Hogan, _Voyage From Yesteryear_ (just re-issued by Baen) as a Libertarian utopia would fit the bill better.
-- Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de >H Deutsche Transhumanismus-Mailingliste echo 'subscribe trans-de' | mail majordomo@lists.rhein-neckar.de