Sci-Fi Top Ten

While reading Neal Asher's blog I saw this. Here's my take on those authors mentioned. Rating scale - 1 to 10 plummeting sheep.

Charles Stross- 8 sheeps. Accelerando is one of the few books in the last few years I've read multiple times.

Richard Morgan- 4 sheeps. Good writing but I just could never quite get a feel for the flow in his Kovacs novels.

Alastair Reynolds- 9 sheeps. Reynolds books are what got me back into hard scifi after a 5 year hiatus.

Ken MacLeod-5 sheeps. Another one I could never quite get into.

Peter Hamilton- 7 sheeps. Unlike everyone else it seems I loved the Neutronium Alchemist (or whatever the whole sequence was called) except for the crappy deus ex machina at the end. Parts of it were almost sublime. However, I agree with the reviewer. His last two books have really stepped it up a notch.

John Scalzi- 8 sheeps. Clear, concise. Never a wasted page. Like Asher one of the few that you can pick any book in his series and feel like he earned every penny without reading any of the others.

Neal Asher- 9 sheeps. When God created a balanced writer he later split that person in two. On one side is Asher. I read the Skinner first and had no clue about his universe, series, etc. And loved it. Every subsequent one is better. Can't wait to buy them. Can't wait to read them. Can't wait to donate to the library for those who maybe can't afford them. I may even read some short stories by him (given my dislike for short stories this is still up in the air). Of course if you haven't guessed it the other evil side of the balanced writer is none other than fantasy author Robert Jordan. Ugh. Filler, too many books, etc. Enough said.

Chris Moriarty- 8 sheeps. In direct contrast to some of Peter Hamilton's first books the ending of Spin Control was enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Peter Watts- 10 sheeps. Blindsight has to be one of the most absurd, depressing, mind wrenching, fucked-up books I have ever read. Those are words I rarely associate with scifi. (Fantasy is different. I use those words all the time with it. And not in a good way like this either) I will probably read it 2-3 more times this year. His vampires are so believable that it's laughable that I used to believe vampires were for fantasy not scifi. Stupid Keith.

David Marusek- unknown quantity of sheeps. Haven't read anything by him yet. But I will now.

And yes, I know it's sheep not sheeps.