I want to read some sci fi

[Kayano]

I read a lot and generally all genres... I have however not read much sci fi (apart from the odd short story)

So please MN recommend me a good sci fi with starships and a rip roaring adventure please x

Another vote for Ender's Game, excellent book!

I'd recommend John Scalzi's books - Old Man's War, The Ghost Bridgades, The Last Colony, and Zoe's Tale. They're traditional 'space opera' science fiction (space travel, aliens, wars), and very entertaining. A lot of modern sf can be hard to read if you've not read much sf before, but these are easy to get into.

The Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold is also great - again, a 'space opera' type setting, though some of the plots are more political thriller/detective stories. The books can be read as stand-alone stories, but you get more out of them if you read the whole series.

Jo Walton has a great sf review blog on the Tor website which is an enjoyable read, and has alerted me to a whole lot of writers I didn't know (including Jo Walton). She often covers classic SF - the current front page has books published in every decade since 1950.

Off my own bat I reccommend Lois Mc Master Bujold (the Barrayar/Vorkosigen books rather than the fantasy ones), Connie Willis (start with Doomsday Book), David Weber (the Honor Harrington series), Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (start with Agent of Change) and Sharon Shinn (Archangel).

Harry Harrison's (RIP :( ) Stainless Steel Rat, and Bill, the Galactic Hero series are good - they are easy to read and amusing and "proper" Space Opera iykwim.
You could get the "Mammoth Book of..." anthologies to find authors you like, they do ...Apocalyptic Fiction, and several volumes of other sci-fi ones too - they are usually under a fiver on the Kindle and have loads of stories in them.
Andre Norton wrote hundreds of proper 'ripping yarns' with all the space ships and ray guns and excitement you could ask for, and some of hers are free/dirt cheap on Kindle in anthologies. I recommend the Solar Queen series - I think Dane Thorson was my first ever crush many years ago...

Asimov is good - if you accept his cultural context isn't entirely his fault - and I think his work is underrated now.

Ray Bradbury's Illustrated Man is amazing.

I was also going to recommend Elizabeth Moon's 'Vatta's War' series if you're looking for adventure and spaceships!

Player of Games v good also. I then went back and read Consider Phlebas but didn't like it so much. I don't think it matters if you start with Player of Games even though it is not first.

Timothy Zahn does some good si-fi with interesting aliens - The Icarus Hunt is a good sci-fi / detective mix, also Alan Dean Foster has some great world building stuff. Otherwise I think I am more on the fantasy side though I have read loads of Asimov, Clark etc in the past.

Another vote for Iain M. Banks ('Look to Windward' is a great stand-alone Culture novel) and William Gibson. Can also reccomend Richard K. Morgan - 'Altered Carbon' is a cracking good read, although somewhat derivative of Gibson.

When DH tried to convert me to sci-fi he chose Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds. Its a blinding story and it does have spaceships :) I also second Oryx and Crake, and Cryptonomicon, although I wouldnt class that as sci-fi and it needs concentration - if you read infrequently its hard to follow. I think its one of the best books I've ever read