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Science Fiction fans. Your favourite standalone/short-series books?

albireo

albireo

pfm Member
I've recently found some spare time to engage in some reading and have ended up researching old sci-fi classics that I had somehow missed or overlooked, as well as newer stuff. Also, English not being my first language, I'm rediscovering books that I had previously experienced only via translations from English to my mother tongue.

I have found some of the classics particularly enjoyable (I'm deep into the original three volume Foundation series) but I have noticed I enjoy both traditional 'hard' scifi as well as the somewhat more light hearted tradition of British fantasy/scifi (Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, even the first 'His Dark Materials' Pullman).

At the moment I have the following in my backlog
-Finish the whole Foundation series including the later ones
-the Robots series by Asimov
-Dan Simmons - Hyperion
-Re-reading the first three 'Discworld' by Terry Pratchett
-Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
-The original Conan saga by R. Howard

I have just finished 'Rendezvous with Rama' by A.C. Clarke which I found immensely enjoyable. Have also re-read the first Dune, which I adore, and plan on reading at least the first 2 sequels. Another recent great find was Yevgeny Zamyatin - We.

Along these lines, what would be people's recommendations for unmissable SF? In my amazon wish list I have the following:
-Tchaikovsky, Adrian - Children of Time & Children of Ruin
-Heinlein Robert - Stranger in a Strange land

Many thanks for any hints and suggestions.
 
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Charles Sheffield did some short series: e.g.s "McAndrew chronicles" or the "Prometheus" series. Also the "Summertide" or "Divergence" series which got re-written later on. All well worth reading.
 
If you enjoyed "We", you might also enjoy "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. And of course "1984" by Orwell.
 
The warlock series by Christopher Stasheff

+1 Stainless Steel Rat

I really liked the Brian Daley Han Solo novels

I will fear no evil is probably my favourite Heinlein
 
If you enjoy Stranger in a Strange Land (there's a recent version without the original's heavy cuts, which is worth finding), then The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is another Heinlein favourite of mine.

And if you enjoyed Rendezvous with Rama, I think you'd enjoy Childhood's End, and A Fall of Moondust, also by Clarke. Not forgetting, of course, the 2001 series...

More recent stuff I've very much enjoyed includes a trilogy by Becky Chambers, starting with A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet,
and a trilogy by Sylvain Neivel starting with Sleeping Giants.

Hope you enjoy some of these.
 
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Of the contemporary sci-fi I’ve read in recent years it’s Peter Watts’ Blindsight and Echopraxia that have stayed with me. Really bleak. :)
 
Inferno, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle The main character follows Dante's footsteps through Hell and all
famous people he meets and why they are there.

The Martian, Andy Weir Better than the film IMO

The Brass Man, Neal Asher or any of his Polity Universe Books Any of them can be read in isolation and are tremendous reads. Agent Cormac, Spatterjay, Polity are all series and can be read in order to make a longer read. The Brass Man is
not the first but was so good I had to read the rest!

+1 for Disc World Terry Pratchett Loads of laugh out loud moments

Regards Andy
 
Blood Music by Greg Bear
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
The World of Ptavvs by Larry Niven
Dune by Frank Herbert
Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers
Hothouse by Brian Aldiss
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
 
Harry Harrison ‘Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers’

one of the first sci-fi/books I ever read.

My Dad read this book to me when I was very young. He abridged it and left out the Gay Lovers bit :)


Harry Harrison ‘Deathworld 1,2 &3’ are fun as well.
 
I enjoyed all four of the Rama series. Just donated them to an Oxfam shop otherwise I could have sent them to you :(
 
Lots of short series by Peter F Hamilton:

Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained
NIghts Dawn as mentioned by Bob
Salvation Sequence

Fantasy:

Raymond Feist
Riftwar original sequence of 4 books
and with Janny Wurts
The Empire Trilogy

As mentioned above the Culture series but quite a few books in it but the best SciFi ever IMO
 
I'm a big fan of Christopher Priest. Inverted World is his early, hard sci-fi masterpiece. His later work is less technology focused but is intriguing, and superbly crafted. The Prestige (made into a film by Christopher Nolan) is a fantastic novel, in any genre. I've also enjoyed The Glamour and The Affirmation. I want to read more.

I also love the new wave of British sci-fi, centred around New Worlds magazine in the 1960s. Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius books are great fun, if you like a swinging 60s vibe with sci-fi additions. J G Ballard too - Drowned World, Crystal World, etc. John Sladek's another good, quirky writer who deserves to be more widely known (try The Reproductive System).
 
The Bill the Galactic Hero series by Harry Harrison

A humorous military satire. The author reported being approached by a Vietnam veteran
who said that "It's the only book that's true about the military"
 
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