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.

  • _pete_@lemmy.world
    241·
    11 months ago

    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.

    • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
      2·
      11 months ago

      My immediate thought was Expanse too. A fairly manageable scale to everything, for the most part, with space travel within relatively strict bounds.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
    16·
    11 months ago

    Have you tried Asimov’s short stories? ‘I, Robot’ is mostly logic problems presented in a dramatic way. Good read.

    • giriinthejungle@lemmy.worldOP
      3·
      11 months ago

      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.

      • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        11 months ago

        Philip K Dick, too. You’ll be amazed at how many movies his short stories and novellas have been adapted into.

      • p_diablo@lemmy.world
        2·
        11 months ago

        VERY different genre, but if you’re digging short stories, i really dig earnest hemmingway’s stuff.

      • case_when@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        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.

  • OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world
    16·
    11 months ago

    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 Dick

  • MoonManKipper@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    11 months ago

    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.

    • Slotos@feddit.nl
      3·
      11 months ago

      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.

      • DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        11 months ago

        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.

  • wrath-sedan@kbin.social
    9·
    11 months ago

    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.

          • karmiclychee @sh.itjust.works
            1·
            11 months ago

            He’s so good. Too good - reading Blood Meridian was like having my face dragged across fresh gravel, but in a good way, somehow?

        • massive_bereavement@kbin.social
          0·
          11 months ago

          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…

          • karmiclychee @sh.itjust.works
            1·
            11 months ago

            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

  • Teodomo@lemmy.world
    8·
    11 months ago

    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.

  • Zeram@lemmy.mlEnglish
    7·
    11 months ago

    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.

    • jantin@lemmy.world
      2·
      11 months ago

      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.

    • charlytune@mander.xyz
      2·
      11 months ago

      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.

  • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    11 months ago

    Oryx & Crake by Maraget Atwood was very interesting and fun to read. Dealt mostly with biological-related technology and human-scale drama. No spacemen.

  • somethingsnappy@lemmy.world
    5·
    11 months ago

    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?

    • Zerfallen@lemmy.world
      2·
      11 months ago

      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.