I don't generally read much science fiction, though I watch quite a few sci fi movies. Don't know why that is. I prefer, for instance, reading crime fiction to watching it.
While writing the last novel, which had some sci fi elements, I read none, not wanting to pollute the waters. Now that I'm finished I've been reading lots of it - new writers, not the old masters - to get a sense of the current state of the genre. Most have not been very good (though Caitlin Kiernan has some game). But I just finished Charlie Huston's Sleepless, and was impressed with it. I think it's being marketed as a zombie apocolypse, but that's just commerce: there are no zombies, no undead, no brain eating. It's sort of a sci fi/noir hybrid, concernings a mad cow disease type prion finding its way into the food supply. What it lingers on is a crumbling American infrastructure. The growing gulf between rich and poor, the digital and the real. It's a good book. Thoughtful and disturbing. I recommend it.
If anyone out there knows of any other good current sci fi writers out there, gimme a shout.
