Ok ok, I might not get a lot of support with this list, but SciFi is actually what turned me into an avid reader…now it’s not just SciFi but also non fiction (gasp!). So the list below is somewhat the path I followed, with some mods
Ready Player One
Project Hail Mary
Murderbot
Bobiverse
Pandora’s Star
The list starts off with some quick, punchy brain candy then graduates into big ol’ operas :-)
Pandora’s Star really is just part one of a two part book. That said, there’s a chapter in there where MLM is introduced that, if read alone without any context, might be the single best chapter ever written in sci fi. If that doesn’t hook a reader, I don’t know what will.
Agreed, that intro to MLM is pretty epic. I also found the prologue to the first book super memorable…basically an intro to the gateways. The whole series is around 7 books, but I had a tough time with the few Judas books. A friend and I were reading them at the same time, and he just skipped all Judas chapters, hehe.
Project Hail Mary is so good! It’s a great example of sci fi that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but has a lot of actual science involved. I was just getting the itch to re-read it the other day!
I’m pretty sure I read Look to Windward without realizing there was an entire series of books set in the universe. Excellent book, I ploughed through the rest of them shortly after. I’d definitely recommend starting with Player of Games, most folks like it more than Consider Phlebas and I found Phlebas a bit weak compared to the rest of the series.
Thank you for writing this up. Blindsight to me is exactly as good as it is hyped up to be. I think it crops up in all recommendations lists because regardless of what you’re looking for, it is something one should at least try to read. It’s one of the only books that I will actually reread every now and then. But I won’t pretend that Watts’ pros or character work is what brings me back. It’s purely the scope and delivery of his ideas that makes the book so fascinating and the atmosphere of the novel completely supports the abstract nature of his arguments.
The fact that Echopraxia is not as praised as Blindsight has always led me to believe that the book was missing the parts that made blindsight so great, and frankly without those parts blindsight would be a below average sci fi novel. I will move this up my TBR list based on your recommendation.
I read them in published order, starting with Consider Phlebas, and I have no regrets. But if I only had one book to convince someone the series was worth it, it would probably be Player of Games. Did you enter somewhere else?
Honestly, I didn’t read much in 2023. Malazan, but it isn’t new. I kept hoping I’d get book #9 of The Spiral Wars, but it’s still pending. Played (or replayed) a lot of sci fi video games, and played in a pen and paper D&D campaign for my fantasy fix.
Yeah, finding the new stuff by authors you like can be tricky sometimes. I basically use this list to help me track new releases. It’s doesn’t cover 100% of new releases but it does get quite a few. Plus, my library lets me request/place holds on books 2 months before they release so usually I can be one of the top 3 in line for pretty much anything new (although it can take them a couple weeks to a month to actually get the book).
Is Scalzi’s Red Shirts considered to be tied to a franchise? 😹
It’s a lot of fun regardless.
You also might try Bloom by Wil Mccarthy and Pushing Ice by Alistair Reynolds. They’re pretty much one offs that take place on ships, although definitely not in a Star Trek/Star Wars vein. And if you can stomach a generation ship, there’s Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson.
Ah! Started reading that a few years ago and it got lost in the shuffle. Can’t remember the ship-vs-crew aspect, but then i can’t remember much. Maybe I didn’t get that far. Will have to start over with it again one of these days.
Expedtionay force series by Craig Alanson is fun romp around the galaxy. The start in first book is a bit slow and the tone of rest of series is very different.
Lost fleet by Jack Campbell is nice as well. Its more about fleet action and battles.
Terran Republic series by Charles Gannon is also quite good.
Icarus Hunt series by Timothy Zahn was very interesting.
Good suggestions. I’ve read the first three in your list. Liked Old Man’s War, was neutral on Expeditionary Forces (but still read like ten books so…), and didn’t like Lost Fleet.
Haven’t read the latter two series though, so good suggestions! Got a short synopsis for either of them?
Terran Republic series is about Earth fianlly meeting some alien races after it had expanded to a handful of planets. There is lots of politics and maneuvering among the races and earth is kind of caught in that. A secret org on Earth tries to guide earth through all the mess and the protagonist is recruited into this org.
Icarus hunt is about a pair with an old spaceship (Icarus) being hired to take some cargo to a different planet. However, major corps and races start looking for their ship trying to get hands on the cargo.
“The Gripping Hand” was a direct sequel and while not as good, it was still an excellent story. As far as I know there are no more Mote stories but the “Known Space” set of novels, created by Larry Niven and others, are very much in the same vein.
I’ve read parts of a few of his series and always enjoyed it. His output rate is amazing, considering the quality. But I haven’t gotten around to this one yet.
Actually, Children of Time is everyone’s darling, but I really like the Bugworld stuff based on his D&D campaigns :)
I’m feeling a little old school tonight so I’m going to boost Rimrunners by C.J. Cherryh. May say #3 in a series, but all the books stand alone (they just share the same universe).
Is it part of Alliance-Union? I’ve read a couple of hers and always enjoyed them, but they never felt ship-and-crew. Rimrunners, you say (… heads to Wikipedia… )
I was just looking over some reader reviews of the first book in this series, and I noticed this: “Really nice story setting, oddly enough the background story reminded me of C.J. Cherryh’s Chanur novels, which is a good thing.” So maybe that is a recommendation after all?
Yes, it is. Cherry writes about different topics in that universe. Some books are ship-and-crew like Merchanter’s Luck and Heavy Time, some like Cyteen or Downbelow Station aren’t. The Chanur books are as well, but they are a series.
Also, Becky Chambers’ Long Way To A Small Angry Planet.
Yeah, most Cherryh is not ship-and-crew in the sense you are talking about (though I loved the duct-tape feel of the ships in Heavy Time, iirc). Rimrunners might be the closest to what you are looking for though. And yep, it is Union-Alliance. For Cherryh, I guess maybe The Pride of Chanur would be ship-and-crew adventure? I can’t quite remember as it was long, long, long ago I read that stuff – who knows how well its aged. It’s cover doesn’t look super compelling to me these days. So I’m not recommending it. Ha ha.
Very, very late to the party but ship and crew ones she’s written in the A-U universe are Rimrunners, Tripoint and Merchanter’s Luck. Heavy Time almost falls into the category too but it takes place mostly on-station after a mining expedition gone wrong with a little bit of flashback to ship and crew.
The Expanse does have a show tied to it, but the book series is excellent. And frankly, the show is great too. A shame it only covers a bit more than half of the books.
Read them already. Fantastic recommendation, particularly early on when it’s more about them galavanting around in their stolen ship haha. I really enjoyed the last three but it got very wide ranging space opera.
So I flew through this read but I’m not sure I enjoyed it. Also my first read of a Culture novel. Some stray thoughts:
-The initial presentation of Azad as a meritocracy through performance at essentially a competitive test a la the SAT, ACT, A levels, only to be revealed again and again how it’s set up to enforce the class structure. Elite schooling and training to perform better, performance enhancing drugs, and just straight out blocking people from participating at a certain level.
-Gurgeh got played begining to end by Special Circumstances. This coupled with the heavy handed commentary about the utopian possibilities offered from having the same virtues as the Culture I think are somewhat at odds? Also a surprisingly high number of people die in the Culture (like at the end) after spending a chunk of time talking about how that rarely happens.
I think whenever you start messing with Special Circumstances, you in for a wild ride and can pretty much count on being played, if not by the drones, then by the Minds running things behind the scenes. That’s kind of a signature aspect of Culture novels in some respects.
A lot of Culture novels contrast aspects of authoritarian societies vs the utopian Culture, and PoG is definitely no exception to that rule because Banks absolutely loathed authoritarianism/fascism and wasn’t very fond of capitalism either, IIRC. But in a lot of ways that is what makes his books so fun (for me). Quite a few very rich or very powerful people who think they can get away with things because The Culture is the good guys and have to play nice are quite surprised by what a benevolent society can get up to when it puts its mind and tech to it in Banks’ Culture novels. Such as finding a guy who just absolutely loves games amongst their zillions of happy citizens and partly manipulating/partly just pointing him in the direction of a game he hasn’t played before and weaponizing his idea of fun into a tool to take down an empire.
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