[Closed] Recommend me some Sci-Fi books along the lines of...

The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey and the Takeshi Kovacs Trilogy by Richard Morgan are worth reading. The Expanse gets bogged down slightly around book 5, but is still worth it for the main characters.

Any of the culture books by Ian M Banks are great too

Anything by ken macleod

I’m assuming you’ve read everything by Conn Iggulden? If not - do.

Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds.

I just finihed the Fifth Season trilogy by N.K.Jemisin. It took a little bit of effort to get into the 2nd person style of writing that most of the chapters used but was ace.

Hamilton Dreaming Void series was also excellent and is set in the same universe as some of his other series (but not the Dawn Triloigy).

S.A. Corey is all good, I just need to read the next one.

Neal Asher's stuff is also good.

The Long Earth series (Pratchett & Baxter) is worth reading. If you like the video games you have to read Ernest Clines books, simply amazing.

I like books 😀

The Rama series by Clarke... And another guy I can't remember.

Truly great SF.

The Culture Series is what happens when a truly great author decides to write space opera.

Enjoying the expanse series.

Ian m banks
Alistair Reynolds
Dan Simmonds Hyperion, ilium
Dune is still good
Seveneves wasn't bad
Children of time had best ending!

I just finihed the Fifth Season trilogy by N.K.Jemisin. It took a little bit of effort to get into the 2nd person style of writing that most of the chapters used but was ace.

I started that but struggled to get into it and haven't touched it for ages.

Roadside picnic is the best sci fi I have ever read.

Southern reach trikogy as well by Jeff VanderMeer I’d also highly recommend

I loved Seveneves. Stephenson books are brilliant but flawed. I love the brilliance but my wife hates the flaws.

I think it's because he thinks like I do - but better - so I focus on what he focuses on and I ignore what he ignores.

Having said that Seveneves wasn't that flawed that I could see. But my wife would probably have seen the whole thing coming and looked at me with those sceptical eyes when I said how surprised and excited I was.. oh and it is a little slow I terms of plot progression. But for the same reasons that didn't bother me.

I'll do my best to answer, but the wine is clouding my brain more than a bit:

I’m assuming you’ve read everything by Conn Iggulden? If not - do. - read a lot of this guy - fantastic writer maybe not everything, but i cant be far off.

Haven't played video games since street fighter II - these came for free from a colleague and i thought they were brilliant. Am I wright in saying the books were commissioned by the video game manufacturer?

The Culture Series is what happens when a truly great author decides to write space opera - is that a yeah or nay? I loved Blakes 7 when i was a kid, Servilan was awesome.

Dune is still good - i didn't enjoy it as much as i thought i would, maybe over-hyped (i haven't seen the film)

Everything else - thanks for the recommendations, I know where i will be spending my Christmas money!

Banks was a fantastic author. It just flows. Apart from the bits that really don't. Culture is all good. Neal Asher also.

Not all of Niven's stuff is good, but I liked Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers. Also The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring.

The Culture Series is what happens when a truly great author decides to write space opera - is that a yeah or nay?

It's a yes. The books themselves are great or less great, but then after a few you start to realise what they are really about and that moved me more than anything else I've seen or read, I think.

Conn Iggulden

I was thinking I'd never read any books by this author, but a quick scan of my book shelf proves me wrong. I have a couple of Emperor series books, I did like them, I will buy more...

...after I have actually read the Bernard Cornwell books that I keep buying when on sale, but never getting around to read!

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

First book of his that Ive read and it's very good. Great world building and one of the best ever "aliens"

I guess as Halo was basically based on Ringworld, then the Ringworld series by Larry Niven 😀

Great world building and one of the best ever "aliens

Amusingly I work in a lab with a Bianca and Viola

the seafort saga by david feintuch- think hornblower in space

If you like historic fiction, then the Pliocene Saga by Julian May is worth a go. That leads on to the Metapsychic rebellion books which are more Sci-Fi but it's better to read them in the order they were written.

Iain Banks non Culture Sci-Fi book Transition is very good too.

Another vote for Seveneves and Children of Time too...

If you like historic fiction that's more near-history, try the Lonesome Dove series by Larry McMurtry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonesome_Dove_series

pandhandj - Member

I have been reading historic fiction for a while now - vikings, mongol hordes, Romans, Greeks, etc and started this earlier in the week https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00SN93AHU/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o03_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and Im really enjoying it, so can anyone recommend anything along these lines?

The barking mad Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny.

And yes, all of The Culture. If Peter F Hamilton could actually write, you'd get something like Consider Phlebas.

I would advise against starting with Consider Phlebas. It's cool in a grungy Scifi movie sort of way, but Player of Games (second book) is far better in terms of learning about the Culture. And a better book IMO; Consider Phlebas is less proficient.

Mmmm. But Phlebas is definitely more Hamiltoney, with its big setpieces and that. More space opera-ish.

Yes like I say it was good, but just another good Scifi book. The others are more than that I reckon 🙂

Am I the only person who really didn't like Seveneves? Love the rest of Stephenson's work (and if you're into historical stuff his Baroque Cycle is brilliant) but Seveneves reads like he thought of the concept and clever spaceships first and then tried to fit a plot around them. It seemed contrived and very predictable.

Just to be a pedant, surely Hamilton is more 'Phlebassy', since it was published twelves before Hamilton started? (Just found out that Hamilton lives in Barry!) I always thought that Hamilton really wanted to write like Banks. And who wouldn't!

Nope Bencooper, well it's not that I didn't like it*, more that he done other stuff that brilliant and laugh out loud funny, I just didn't find seveneves particular engaging.

Not sure there much i can add to the list, though none of them really seem very historic. Kimbers list (unsurprisingly) seem the has the big hitter for me, though add James SA Corey to it, and John Scalzi for more humor..

*along with zelazny.. shh don't tell anyone

Am I the only person who really didn't like Seveneves?

To me, it seems to be a sort of thought experiment - take the random event of the beginning of the book then extrapolate, see where it leads. I thought it did this pretty authentically. If you'd asked me what I thought was going to happen I might've guessed something along those lines if pressed, but probably not taken that far. But I didn't care. I loved the sub-text, which was basically social commentary on a subject that is actually completely hypothetical and represents a total inversion of the social issues of our world.

So I view it more like a piece of art than most novels, as I did with Anathem.

It's not historical fiction but historical fact... I've just finished Dynasty by Tom Holland, about the first few Caesars. It really does beat any historical fiction I've ever read.

Yeah, that's it - it's a theoretical essay hiding in a novel. Some of it is very clever - the launch system for example. But it's not fun the way his other books (with the possible exception of Anathem) are.

I've not been moved to read the Baroque cycle. Cryptonomicon was meh.

Cryptonomicon was meh.

Burn the heretic.

TBH I found those two Stephenson books and Banks to have a good deal of intellectual heft. Struggling to find much else to match them in 'alternative' fiction. I don't care for spaceships and robots particularly. I just want something different, challenging, possibly weird, but not self-consciously so. Needs to be a good entertaining read too.

I enjoyed Cryptonomicon, hated the first book of the Baroque Cycle and gave up about halfway through. (After a very, very long description of a carriage ride, which was then recounted in depth by one character to another.) Lovely books if you enjoy pages of scene-setting. And pages, And pages.

Neal Asher the Polity Agent Series, The Skinner and following books in that line.

Richard Morgan the Kovacs novels starting with Altered Carbon (being made into a TV series)

Joe Abercrombie the First Law series "I'm still alive" Logen Ninefingers, Inquisitor Glokta brilliant characters.

For a totally unique slant on time travel and a 'moebus strip' of a paradox I can't recommend Adrian Dawson's sequence. Awesome debut novel that made The Times top 5 novels of that year. Read it! I cant recommend it enough (and I'm well read in most of the authors mentioned on this page)

"I can't recommend Adrian Dawson's sequence [u]enough[/u]"

bencooper - Member

Am I the only person who really didn't like Seveneves?

I loved parts of it. The disaster novel stuff is fantastic. Hated the last third where it goes all 1960s Poul Anderson. I mean, we know Stephenson can't write endings but [i]seriously[/i]?

I've been listening to the space opera that is [url= https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B01H8RNXWO ]Expeditionary Force[/url] by Craig Alanson. It's not as high brow as some listed here (but thanks, I've added a few to my wish list) but it has an interesting premise, a pretty big scope, likeable characters and many twists and turns.

Hated the last third

.. I liked it.. bit preposterous, but I kind of like that. He just doesn't give a shit 🙂

Shhh monkeyboy, a tincan can only please so many people.
Edit: @alex

Aniclliary Justice by Ann Leckie.
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee.

As per Northwind's suggestion if you haven't read Lord of Light you should. I recall it took me a while to get into it but once I did I loved it.

I agree that Neal Stephenson really can't do endings. I think that Cryptonomicon and Interface were his high points for me. I made it through to the end of the Baroque Cycle a while back but that pretty much filled up my Stephenson tolerance from then on.

Could I recommend a return to roots with the twelve volumes edited by Judith Merill? The best of SciFi and Fantasy.
These are all short stories from 1956 onwards and very much of the time but reading forward you run into the sixtees when things got weird.
I have got Martian Chronicles and Foundation Series listed for a reread along with Aldiss and Bradbury.
Surprised Philip K Dick is not listed unless I missed a recommendation.

Shhh monkeyboy, a tincan can only please so many people.

I didn't get the ending of Anathem at first. Then I read it again much more carefully and I realised what was going on. Or rather - I realised what I should have been concentrating on the whole time. So I'll have to read it a third time. During which I may make notes and use them to research all the Earth maths and philosophy that it refers to. It might take me a few years but I should come out the other side much cleverer 🙂

I'm finding Seveneves reeeeeeaaaaaalllllllyyyyyyy....
S
L
O
W.

I'm at the Hard Rain Chapter and I'm kinda hoping it picks itself up out of the wordyness and gets into some kinda plot..

And the Mrs's has just bought me the Book of Arrival.. which I'm keen to read and may sideline Seveneves for it..

@Alex @z1ppy Trust The Awesomeness

ChrisL - Member

Aniclliary Justice by Ann Leckie.

I ****ing love these. Don't know why, I think there's barely a single page I [i]like[/i] after the first 50 pages or so, but put it all together and it's just gorgeous, it all goes around. I am susceptible to ships who sang I guess.

Here's a risky choice, the Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. It's a total mess, barely coherent at times and just ridiculously too wordy at others but it's glorious when it works. And I'm not just saying that because I suggested one of the plot points 😆

And if you've not read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, do. And even though it's completely irrelevant to your actual question, Flowers For Algernon, everyone should read Flowers For Algernon. And if I've not completely lost you by now, Stand On Zanzibar.

I'm a re-reader. I've read the Baroque Cycle three times ffs!

I think Seveneves gets better the more you read it...

Anathem is my favourite (probably read it a half dozen times.... 😳 ).

But even I have to admit there are some bits in Stephensons books that draaaaaaagggg....

Anyways, I enjoyed The Mongoloid series (only read the first three) of which Neal is a 'co-author'. Talking about the Mongol hordes and that.

The Long Earth series (Pratchett & Baxter) is worth reading.

Oh, so it's you!

Like most I found it utter drivel, never read Baxter but fail to see how Pratchett had any involvement given he wrote some decent sci-fi himself.

Just finished Ken MacLeod's Corporation Wars trilogy, like Nights Dawn it ends rather suddenly but if you can get over that it's really rather good as per the rest of his output (Newtons Wake is sci-fi whilst The Night Sessions is more of a crime book set in the future along the same lines as Paul Johnstons Quint Dalrymple books and Descent is a sci-fi thriller).

I started with The Player of Games and god I found it hard. It's good but does drop you in it somewhat. Still less of a slog to get going than Feersum Endjinn though. I'd imagine Use of Weapons or Consider Phlebas* would be easier going.