Here's where I post my recommendations for favorite:

• nonfiction books
• fiction novels and authors
• music
• film
• blogs & web sites

Believe it or not, this civilization is just full of bright and exciting thinkers, pushing the envelope in all directions. These are just a few I've come across lately. Send your recommendations to my email address.

Bright New Writers... Science Fiction authors of the latest "wave" who you should take a look at:

• Ken Wharton (Divine Intervention)
• Kay Kenyon (Maximum Ice and Tropic of Creation)
• Syne Mitchell (Technogenesis)

Been around a while... but not to be missed:

• Wil McCarthy (The Collapsium)
• Stephen Baxter (Anti-Ice)
• Linda Nagata (Vast)

Also look up Howard Hendrix, Paul McAuley, James Patrick Kelly, Amy Sterling Casil, Jeffrey A. Carver, Laura Resnick, and Alan Russell. They don't need a plug from me... but I like 'em anyway.

Also get to know Vernor Vinge, Tim Powers, Nancy Kress, Charles Sheffield and my fellow 'Killer Bees' -- Greg Bear and Gregory Benford (and our latest inductee -- Stephen Baxter). The list could go on and on -- proof that we're surrounded by a wealth of amazing minds!

Classics you shouldn't miss: Everybody has his/her own definition. Some works that have grown undeservedly obscure in recent years are After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, by Aldous Huxley and Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Dire Warnings!: Lately, in my role as a futurist/consultant, I've been asked to provide some thoughtful leaders with lists of good extrapolative failure mode fiction -- that is, novels and stories that vividly portray plausible futures in which "something goes wrong." This sub-genre falls into several categories:

1. Successful self-preventing prophecies that persuade people not to let their scenarios happen. Without a doubt, these are the works of science fiction that have best helped to shape the age in which we live. See my essay on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and other self-preventing prophecies.

   

2. Mature gedankenexperiments -- or "thought experiments" -- that portray a present or future society that is progressive and filled with bright people, who nevertheless face dire problems. This category is very sparse and examples are rare. It seems that most authors have an allergy to portraying smart citizens or civilizations that work, despite the evidence in all directions that people are capable of growing and learning. Still, a few examples do exist: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, Brain Wave by Poul Anderson (old but increasingly relevant!), Earth by Yours Truly.

          

3. Dire Warnings that assume future stupidity but nevertheless make good points. We had better turn these into self-preventing prophecies! Some examples are: The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner, Main Street and Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis, Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear, Cosm by Gregory Benford, Bloom by Wil McCarthy, Jitterbug by Mike McQuay (rare/out of print but very relevant to today's situation), The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson, Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling, and The Tempest by William Shakespeare.

              

              

      

4. Utopias you might actually want to live in (the rarest category of all): Pacific Edge by Kim Stanley Robinson... plus a few of the better episodes of Star Trek, and maybe some works by Iain M. Banks and Robert Heinlein. Unfortunately, that's about it for real optimism in literature.

   

Continue on to my recommendations for favorite:

• music
• film
• blogs & web sites