Science fiction recommendations please

The Enders Game sequels are IMO much better books than Enders Game itself.

The Iain M Banks Culture books are superb.

My favourite Sci Fi series is probably Stephen Donaldson Gap sequence however they are somewhat gory. I'm very fond of Asimov's Foundation series even though the early books are now pretty dated.

Christopher Priest's books are good.

Anything by Jerry Pournelle or Larry Niven.

You can't go wrong with Douglas Adams of course.

Thanks for reminding me about Woman At The Edge of Time - have been meaning to get hold of that for ages.

Ugh to Never Let Me Go. Gosh, I hated that book.

John Wyndham
Day of the Triffids
Midwich Cuckoos
Chrysalids

Marge Piercy
Woman at the Edge of Time

Margaret Atwood
Handmaid's Tale

My problem with Wool was two-fold:

1. None of it made any sense

and

2. Not much happened, except at the end of each novella. It felt like a mediocre tv show where a little something happens at the end of an episode to make you watch the next.

Iain Banks' books fall in a sub-genre of sci-fi called "space opera", which comes from soap operas of daytime TV. To each their own and all that, but I have found his books to be not terribly realistic (yes, good sci-fi is very realistic) and rather superficial. I read about 8 of them in quick succession and gave up.

I have to say that sci-fi isn't really the place to look for rich character development and emotional journeys of each character. The few sci-fi books that tried this like Never Let Me Go have failed as sci-fi imho.

Personally, I read sci-fi for the complexity of the ideas, the sheer intellectual pleasure of reading a well-developed and internally consistent universe of 'What if's, rather than character development.

I do love Philip K Dick, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson but I wouldn't say that emotionally complex characters were necessarily the strong point of any of them. Cracking stories, fantastic ideas, but often fairly two-dimensional characters.

Iain Banks did good character development although I do find some of his books hard work. His Use of Weapons is an incredible book with a stunning denouement but the work he had to put in as an author to bring that ending about made it tough going in places. Well worth the effort though.

I couldn't read, 'Wool.' Too clunky. It failed my 30 page rule.

Wool is good, but it takes Howey a while to get into his stride. Shift is better.

I wouldn't recommend Wool for a first adventure into Sci-Fi.

I have to say I wasn't impressed by Wool. It is a pretty OK first novel, but not among the best sci-fi out there at all.

You really need to want to suspend your disbelief to get over the glaring inconsistencies and lack of credible detail, imho. (Apologies to its fans)

wool is good

Meanwhile, I recently read an amazing near-future sci-fi book called Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Really awesome.

The best of Harry Harrison (short stories) is a good place to start.

Ah, I just asked about Dune on your other thread.

Hi Cote. I hoped you'd show up on here. I have finally bought 'Dune' and intend to start it tomorrow. Watch this space. :)

I don't fancy the, 'Ender's Game' sequels, as it was the battle stuff / kid relationship stuff which interested me.

Remus - Ender's Game has a sequel where the ending is explained & continued. (It has quite a few sequels, actually but I stopped reading after #3)

Have you read any "old school" sci-fi like 2001: A Space Odyssey , Stranger In A Strange Land, and Foundation books? The authors of these 3 books (Arthur C Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov) were all scientists and quite a few of their books are classics.

The classic book of sci-fi, which you have to read if you haven't already, is Dune. Forget the movie and the tv series, this is one book you must read.

I really like Philip K Dick, too. His wit & mind-boggling plots are truly singular.

Sci-fi has taken a different turn in the last 20 years or so, starting with William Gibson's book Neuromancer (where he coined the term "cyberspace"). His initial books are very good (Idoru , Mona Lisa Overdrive etc) although he went off the rails with the last few, imho.

Then came Neal Stephenson and he is now probably the most consistently brilliant sci-fi writer out there. His Snow Crash was selected into Time magazine's "100 Best English Language Books of All Time" list (there wasn't much sci-fi there). Among his books, Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and more recently Anathem are all masterpieces.

If you've got an e-reader I recently read a pretty good one called Wool -I liked the suspense of it. (OMG, I just found out there's some more to read - I'd only read the first 3)

I'm currently working my way through the Iain M Banks Culture series (I think you can read them in any order) which I'm finding not too hard going but not too simple either.

Philip K. Dick for sure.
Anyone read the scifi by Iain Banks?

'Ender's Game' is fantastic, except for the ending imho.

'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep' is good and I enjoyed, 'The War Of The Worlds' (again, apart from the ending).
John Wyndham is generally v readable.

Try John Wyndham The Crysalids. It has a good human story, is well written and has stood the test of time. It was one of the books that made me interested in science fiction.

Try The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey. It's a YA book so very accessible. I'm a hardcore SF fan and I loved it.

How about something by the grandfather of science fiction - H G Wells? I read The War of the Worlds recently and enjoyed it and I wouldn't normally pick a sci-fi book to read. It is very good without being too complicated.

Omg yes Ender's game is amazing!

I also rate Cities in Flight, tiger tiger (also published as the stars my destination), the hope sequence by feintuch, The vorkosigan sequence by bujold, orphans of the sky by Heinlein, the sea and summer by George turner. Random list of my faves, but hope it helps.

If you look for the masterworks sf series, they republished a load of science fiction classics.