Things I've noticed: I need to read some recent Science Fiction

Today I finished reading the 1969 novel Bug Jack Barron byNorman Spinrad (I'll do the review on Monday) and was happy to find an afterward written by Michael Moorcock. As I worked my way through his five page essay on the book, he mentioned a large number of popular science fiction books written in the late sixties, and I realized that over the last couple of years I had read 95% of them.

This isn't actually a problem as the late '60s had all sorts of great Science Fiction being published. It's just that as I was congratulating myself for being so familiar with the books written in the decade before I was born I realized that with the exception of books written by the authors I follow and a couple recent Hugo winners suggested to me by my BFF Mike, I haven't really read any of the great science fiction that has been published in the last ten years.

In a way I feel like the music lover in 1969 who says "I'm a huge folk and rock music lover, and am totally familiar with all the classics of yesteryear; no I didn't go see that Woodstock thing earlier this year, even though it was playing just down the road, but let me tell you all the great things that were happening fifteen years ago."

Okay, not exactly like that, as '50s rock and roll (like '60s Science Fiction) is definitely some of the best, but mostly I mean that I need to get into some stuff that is still available in regular bookstores.

So I guess I'm going to try to swap out every month - first a science fiction classic, then something written after my youngest daughter was born (1997), and hopefully this will get me a little more balance in my reading.