I’m planning on grabbing some more Asimov books and grab most of Martha’s MurderBot series, as well as Hugo and Nebula collections.
Any other sci-fi type stuff you guys recommend? I’m not a huge fan of the more fantasy stuff, although I agree Star Wars falls into that catagory.
My two personal GOATs are A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. Both won Hugos, so they shouldn’t be tough to find.
To give the quick pitch without spoilers, they’re hard scifi space operas, but heavily character-driven and focused on a high degree of grounded physical realism. On top of being a competent writer, the author (recently deceased) was an active compsci and math professor, so the books have this wonderful feeling of rootedness — in that the technology reflects creations that humans might realistically invent in the next few centuries if we don’t nuke ourselves up first. Also captures the vibe of how we ordinary humans would react and adapt to the consequences of our future tech.
It’s the fun adventure-narrative of Star Wars Episode 4 blended with the political intrigue and attention to space physics that The Expanse series leans into.
Might already be on your radar, but I’ll also toss out Vonnegut as a great choice for soft scifi… ignoring Timequake.
Can we recommend our own books?
Blue Are the Hills by Lilly Piper. Character-driven dystopian sci-fi.
Hope you have a great time!
Ursula Le Guin, Jonathan Lethem, Philip K Dick, China Mieville and Iain M Banks are some of my favorites. Can’t go wrong with most anything you pick up by them. Mostly within the scifi or speculative fiction genres
You might be interested in the Revelation Space series by Alistair Reynolds. I think it’s considered semi-hard science fiction, with most technologies being relatively possible according to our current understandings
I loved House of the a Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
The dungeon crawler Carl series by Matt Dinnimin is fun and the audiobooks have great narration and is almost more like a radio play.
Oh shit I haven’t read Nancy Farmer since sea of trolls, thanks for the reminder!
Carl is on my new wishlist for my birthday next month. I’m contemplating if I want to get slightly used if I’m gonna get the rest newish as they come out.
I’ll look into Farmer though. They divide each genre into larger series, like Star Wars/Trek and authors. Is that a series or a standalone book?
Honestly I don’t know if it is a series, if so, it’s the only one I read. It’s a dystopian story set in the slightly distant future where the drug cartels have claimed most of the American southwest.
The Annihilation trilogy (four books) by Jeff Vandermeer. The Expanse series by James S A Corey. The Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds. Murderbot by Martha Wells.
Thank you! I just came back from the fair though.
They were out of most of those series, I’ve read the expanse and their new series too though. All time fav.
Just posted my haul in a post not too long ago.
First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. Not sci-fi, but damn fun!
Three body problem was super good. I’m stuck on the second of the three, it’s a bit boring so far imo, but I’ve heard it’s worth it because of the third. I need to pick it back up and power through
Anything by Peter Watts: the Rifter series, Blindsight; his hard science fiction, prose and moral philosophies examination is stunning and incredibly engaging.
Have you read dune? If not I highly recommend
Iirc from last year, most books are $5 each. On the last days you can get a banker box $20.
