Stellar Fiction

[Kronikarz]

I've been recently enthralled by a sub-genre of SciFi I call "stellar fiction". It's basically stories about the things that fascinate us about the cosmos: exploring new worlds, seeing the wonders of the universe with our own eyes, being able to travel at immense speeds, the freedom of 3D space movement, opening ones eyes on the beauty of cold space etc. etc.
I've never looked up on a starry night with so much awe before.
It's weird, but for me, the more pulp-y Sci Fi, the better it conveys that feeling. A good example is the Deck Gibson "series" down at Decoder Ring Theatre. Sure, calling every technology more advanced than a wristwatch a "matrix" is a bit of a stretch, but the feeling of being alone in a spaceship with nothing but space for thousands of miles around you with nothing but a voice of your (somewhat sexy) superior to keep you company, is picture brilliantly there.
Of course a more popular show like Firefly is also a good example.

I don't know, maybe I'm just crazy But what do you thing? Do you prefer the more "crowded" scifi - with more interpersonal action, or maybe concentrated on other aspects of advanced technology like bioengineering?
Do you sometimes get the feeling I do? Like you'd want to say the same thing Mal did...
- We're still flying...
- That's not much.
- It's enough.

[Alasdair5000]

Oh God yes.  Love stellar fiction (Nice name by the way) to absolute tiny pieces.  One of my earliest memories is of watching Star Trek II for the first time (And, of course, the English emotional reservation genes kicking in at aged 7 and NOT CRYING AT ALL when Spock died.) and being fascinated by the 3D combat.

   A couple of decades later and Firefly, Farscape, the bits of Trek that aren't awful, B5...Throw in books by authors like Jack Mcdevitt and Allen Steele and to a lesser extent the Serrano series by Elisabeth Moon and I'm neck deep in the stuff and loving every minute.

[Planish]

Y'all might enjoy Robert L. Forward's "Flight of the Dragonfly", aka "Rocheworld"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocheworld

[wakela]

Vernor Vinge's "A Fire in the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky." 

Is Stellar Fiction different from Space Opera?

[Kronikarz]

Is Stellar Fiction different from Space Opera?

Yeah, they overlap frequently, but it's something separate.

If you want to get the feel of what I'm talking about try games like Elite (there's a free GBA ROM floating on the web somewhere), Allegiance or Freelancer (last one is $).

[Simon]

I love Robert Forward.. Although much as I like the twin world's of Dragonfly, that book isn't a patch on Dragon's Egg... Now THAT is serious ideas fiction that makes you go "holy cow".

[SFEley]

Vernor Vinge's "A Fire in the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky." 

Once upon a time, in my newsgroup days, I did book reviews.

I tried to be balanced, and had sections in the review for good stuff and bad stuff.  My approach was to try to help people decide if this was a book they, with their own personal tastes, might like.  I did numerical ratings, but it wasn't on "how good is this book" or any bullshit like that.  I assigned Wow Factor. 

Wow Factor was on a scale from 1 to 5.  1 meant "go outside and watch your grass grow instead."  5 meant "this book will unscrew your head, extract your brain, scramble it, fry it, season it with habanero sauce, and put it back in after you no longer remember who you are or what you were doing before you read this book."

Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep was the one book that made me wish I hadn't ended the Wow Factor scale at 5.

This book didn't just blow my mind.  It went fucking Tantric on my mind.

Read it.

[Alasdair5000]

(Al adds book to list of things he'd like for his birthday)

Sold!

[Heradel]

(Al adds book to list of things he'd like for his birthday)

Sold!

(Heradel adds book to his NYPL hold list, curses the 10 others ahead of him in line for the 2 copies)

Er, Borrowed!

[Listener]

I'm not sure this really counts, but Christopher L Bennett's recent Star Trek novels, "The Buried Age" and "Orion's Hounds" are both very cosmic in nature, lots of science and stuff as well as Trek goodness.