The SF Signal gang have been running another of their ‘Mind Meld’ pieces. This time they asked a bunch of genre notables which up-and-coming writers they thought would be the next generation of sf’s big hitters. Here’s the final list, based on frequency of mentions:
- Paolo Bacigalupi (4 mentions)
- Darryl Gregory (4)
- Benjamin Rosenbaum (3 mentions)
- Cory Doctorow (3)
- Jay Lake (3)
- David Moles (3)
- Chris Roberson (3)
- Vandana Singh (3)
- Elizabeth Bear (2 mentions)
- Alan DeNiro (2)
- Alex Irvine (2)
- Ted Kosmatka (2)
- Paul Melko (2)
- Naomi Novik (2)
- Tim Pratt (2)
- Jason Stoddard (2)
- Karen Traviss (2)
- Scott Westerfeld (2)
We’re pleased to see two Futurismic alumni in that list – Jay Lake and Jason Stoddard. No mention of Tobias Buckell, though, which seems surprising to me – and not just because he used to blog here, either.
There’s also a lively discussion thread going on, with plenty of other writers pitching in with their suggestions and refutations. What about you guys – who would Futurismic‘s readers add to (or remove from) that list?
How to distinguish someone who’s “of today” from someone who’s “of tomorrow”? I mean, Cory Doctorow is not exactly an unknown rising star. His first novel was a good 7ish years ago. He’s certainly not much newer than Charlie Stross, who’s pretty good and maddeningly prolific.
That was one of my thoughts, Dave – the criteria are pretty ambiguous, so it kinda became a “big up them what deserves it” thing, didn’t it? Hmmm … maybe I should run a poll here with some set limits. Maximum one published novel, maybe?
There three or four there that are already more then up and coming but your right about T.Buckley and there is also Jayme Lynn Blaschke who I think is up, running and coming.
On that list, I would definitely say that Vandana Singh, Paul Melko,
Benjamin Rosenbaum, Paolo Bacigalupi are rising stars.
-A.