Don’t really know how to explain this. I like sci fi and would love to dig deeper into it. Am avid reader and enjoyed Project Hail Mary (though set in space, this book is just amazing), Dune, short stories by Ray Bradbury and TV shows like Raised by the Wolves, Westworld, From (love From!). But e.g. Foundation I really disliked. Wheel of time is massive and I lost interest. Even the guide through galaxy I appreciated but was not really into it. Somehow, all those lots of traveling, lots of worlds, lots of many novel/invented names and terms render reading laborious for me.
Can you help me pin what is that I like and perhaps offer me a suggestion where to start? Thanks!
EDIT: thanks everyone for your excellent suggestions! So happy to be a part of lemmy community. I might make a follow up thread in couple of months so we can discuss some of the works. And lastly, if you been reading this far: have a good weekend.
How about The Expanse or The Martian? They’re both relatively hard sci-fi that focuses mostly on our own solar system.
The Martian tells the tale of a man stuck on Mars and his ability to survive on his own whilst those back on Earth figure out a way to get him back. Both the book and the film are great so you can’t go wrong with either.
The Expanse covers more of the local system. Earth and Mars are on the brink of war, whilst others live out near the asteroid belt, Jupiter and beyond. It goes a little sci-fi later on but it’s an inherently human story that has some great characters living in a time when space travel is still dangerous but achievable by humanity. It starts a little slow but ramps up brilliantly and has a nice conclusion that wraps everything up pretty neatly. You’ve got 9+ books, a 6 season TV series on Amazon Prime, and a newly released TellTale video game, all of which are well produced and worth investing time in.
My immediate thought was Expanse too. A fairly manageable scale to everything, for the most part, with space travel within relatively strict bounds.
Have you tried Asimov’s short stories? ‘I, Robot’ is mostly logic problems presented in a dramatic way. Good read.
I haven’t. I thought I wasn’t really into short stories… Till I discovered Ray Bradbury. Now I am very much into short stories. So will give Asimov a try for sure.
Try the short story The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster.
Philip K Dick, too. You’ll be amazed at how many movies his short stories and novellas have been adapted into.
VERY different genre, but if you’re digging short stories, i really dig earnest hemmingway’s stuff.
Check out Ted Chiang as well – his two short story collections (Story of Your Life and Others; Exhalation) are some of the best I’ve ever read. He wrote the story upon which the film Arrival was based. Lots of things about time, consciousness, free will, humanity, all beautifully done.
Try some cyberpunk stuff, it’s great “local” sci-fi, with hardly any of that muck you don’t like.
“Neuromancer” - William Gibson
“Snow Crash” - Neal Stephenson
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” - Philip K DickWhy is it always those 3? Is there no other cyberpunk books people read? They are very heavy reads. Heres a few “mediocre” cyberpunk books I found entertaining, everyone takes place on earth:
- “A cyberpunk saga” by Matthew Goodwin, if you prefer teamwork and strong friendship. And a VERY stereotypical cyberpunk world.
- “Daemon” by Daniel Suarez, a techno triller, if you enjoy overly “smart” villains who think multiple moves ahead.
- “Immortality Upload” by Patrick Fell, if you like MMOs and VR.
- “Neo Cyberpunk”, a genre anthology book. Multiple short stories. I found Matthew Goodwins books because I enjoyed his short story.
I just read Nexus, which is called post cyberpunk.
I assume its this one by Ramez Naam? Looks cool.
Yes, that’s it
It’s really good, especially if you like technothrillers.
Even better, The Big Book of Cyberpunk comes out next month.
Cool! Thanks for the tip, choomba!
I suggest Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. The whole series is good but each is stand alone. There is a world and it’s in space but the stories are people scale.
Love that cozy sci-fi. The Last Gifts of the Universe was also really good. Mostly a story about people in space.
Seconding Becky Chambers. Her books are more character driven, with lots of development and the plot advances around the characters.
I was hoping someone would mention this series!
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I believe it was advertised as a trilogy before the third book got published. And frankly, third book is written as the final book of a trilogy. The newer books should’ve been a separate saga, and there’s a chance that they were initially planned as such.
I started on the fourth book, it just doesn’t hit quite as well as the first three. I feel perfectly content stopping the series after the third book, it finishes Darrow’s story really well.
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I’ll throw in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Both classics that are great page turners. Take place against the backdrop of an intergalactic society but remain focused on singular planets and their societies (well if you include their anarchic moons). Great characters with meaningful relationships. Left Hand has more of an interpersonal focus, Dispossessed more societal, but both amazing in their own way.
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This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Maybe take a look at post apocalyptic sci Fi (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction), as it includes a lot of interesting futuristic tech, but it is mostly limited to earth. There’s probably another category where things like blade runner fit too
Hey thanks for this, excellent resource! (Cozy catastrophe is def my new favorite genre name)
If that’s the case, try The Road.
Just finished it a week ago. That prose… From another planet.
He’s so good. Too good - reading Blood Meridian was like having my face dragged across fresh gravel, but in a good way, somehow?
Is really The Road a science fiction book? It is definitely post-apocalyptic, but I don’t remember any sci-fi elements on it.
Solid recommendation though…
I read it as a post apocalyptic story, but I think mcarthy described it as a near future, non specific “ecological catastrophe,” which retrospectively recolored the story for me - tipped it from “The Walking Dead, except people” to “cautionary/exploratory speculative fiction on human survival in the face of collapse,” for me
Try Paolo Bacigalupi. The Water Knife and The Windup Girl are pretty rad.
Red rising
Ursula K. Le Guin is an example of a writer that does deep but focused worldbuilding. Her sci-fi books tend to be about a single planet, sometimes two like in The Dispossesed. You could try that one or even better start with The Left Hand of Darkness. I like how she sets up various unusual alien factors (geopolitics, biology, society, natural environments) and lets them interplay but also without forgetting a plot.
She keeps popping up so I think I really have to check her out. :)
I’m surprised no one has mentioned The Culture series by Iain M. banks. Much like Dune there is a ton of world building that occurs in the novels but it’s not the focus of any one novel. You can read them independently and still enjoy them. The concepts he tackles in the novels were way ahead of their time and his prose and s second to none. The novel Consider Phlebas is typically where most people start, but I started The Player of Games.
Against a Dark Background from Banks is good too, much less space travel, a very adventurous plot and worldbuilding which is dense but doesn’t overtake the book.
Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead are both classics with little world building.
An oldy, but The day of the triffids by John Wyndham
I have a massive soft spot for his stuff. I’m still hoping that someone will adapt The Kraken Wakes for film or TV one of these days.
Oryx & Crake by Maraget Atwood was very interesting and fun to read. Dealt mostly with biological-related technology and human-scale drama. No spacemen.
You also listed fantasy, so I’d like to recommend N.K. Jemisin. She won the Hugo award for a novel 3 years in a row for her first 3 books, and has I think 2 more? So 5 Hugo’s on 7 years?
Those three books are called the Broken Earth trilogy, starting with The Fifth Season, and it’s probably my favourite trilogy. (Not correcting, just adding detail so they are easier to find). The magic system here always feels very specific and ‘grounded’ (heh), so it doesn’t feel like the fluffy magic of more “high fantasy”, and maybe connects more with sci-fi sensibilities? Anyway, i agree that it’s excellent.
OP could also look at Ursula Le Guin. The Earthsea books are amazing, very low-key and character focused. More in the fantasy space too though, but so is Dune pretty much. She also has Left Hand of Darkness, which was great and more on the sci-fi side (no actual space travel or other planets, aside from references), particularly if they have any interest in a kind of meditation on cultural differences and gender.
Ugh just read Fifth Season and am reading Obelisk Gate now. Just SO good.