intelligent, character-driven sci-fi recommendations, please

[MilkMoon]

I know virtually nothing about sci-fi at all, and it's not my usual thing -- but I happened to pick up Becky Chambers' The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet recently, and liked it (and its less-good sequels).

Could people please suggest intelligent, character-driven sci-fi that isn't eaten by its own world-building? 'Other than Becky Chambers, I've literally only read Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, Frank Herbert's Dune (not for me) and Iain M Banks' Consider Phlebas (too many battle sequences for me).

All and any thoughts appreciated. Oh, and not YA.

Thank you!

"Working from home in a wreck of a house we've only just moved into, and juggling homeschooling a tempestuous eight-year-old, and this sounds to me utterly blissful. Where do I sign up?"

So true (They also have fabulous music, great libraries & not single sex + relationships allowed of all degrees from casual through to lifelong monogamy. And no children!)

Oh, thanks -- I don't know where I got the idea LMcMB wrote YA.

@Sadik, you had me at 'great libraries'.

I’d recommend “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.”

"Ancestral Night" by Elizabeth Bear and "A Memory called Empire" by Arkady Martine are good with female protagonists.

I second Margaret Atwood. The Oryx and Crake trilogy is the most obviously Sci-Fi but most of her work could be argued to fall into SF classification. She calls them "speculative fiction" rather than sci-fi.

The Expanse series by James SA Corey are very good too.

Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and Children of God

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

The Wool trilogy by Hugh Howey

There's a series about ta female astronaut and mission to mars. Starts off set in the 1950s. The first book is great but by the end of the final (3rd?) Book of the series it does sort of end up a bit lacklustre.

Can't remember title or author. That's unhelpful. I'll come back to this though!

‘Woman on the edge of time’ by Marge Piercy. When I first started reading it I thought it was modern but was written in the 70s. My favourite book - v feminist, positive, though-provoking. (On the Banks front, I love ‘The Bridge’.)

@DowntheTown

‘Woman on the edge of time’ by Marge Piercy. When I first started reading it I thought it was modern but was written in the 70s. My favourite book - v feminist, positive, though-provoking. (On the Banks front, I love ‘The Bridge’.)

Oh, I really liked Woman on the Edge of Time! I'd forgotten I read it for an MA class a million years ago. Two classmates who were in a relationship got into a fight in a seminar about the non-monogamous relationships in Mattaspoisett (sp?).

Hugh Howey's Wool trilogy perhaps.

Seconding The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

I'd also recommend Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

I like David Brin’s books. Uplift saga, Earth,Glory Season (about matriarchal planet).
www.bookseriesinorder.com/david-brin/

MilkMoon - read it again!! Well worth multiple readings IMO 😀

I'd second Lois McMaster Bujold for character-driven science fiction, that just seems to get better and better through the series. She's probably the best writer I know about parenting and motherhood and how it changes people.

One of my favourite bits is when one of her characters tells her son: “You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your God, if you possess or are possessed by one.

"The family economy evades calculation in the gross planetary product. It's the only deal I know where, when you give more than you get, you aren't bankrupted - but rather, vastly enriched.”

The Invisible Library series is worth a look too - some very vivid characters and the main character, Irene, is a delight - a master-planner and action hero, who changes worlds but would still always rather curl up in a corner with a good book. Plus for a keen reader the power of words and books in the stories is delightful. It has a mix of magic and technology.

Finally you might also like the Steerswoman books. Not much I can say about them that wouldn't spoil them but well worth discovering.

I came to say
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
And The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell and the sequel.

Second the Ann Leckie recommendation.

I also loved the NK Jemisin Shattered Earth trilogy, all the books won the Hugo award, they're very original. The first one is called The Fifth Season. Recommended it to my book club who aren't really into SF and they loved it too.

If you want something a bit older I remember enjoying Julian May's Galatic Milieu trilogy (she's female) a long time ago, but unsure how it"s aged.

@DanielODonkey

There's a series about ta female astronaut and mission to mars. Starts off set in the 1950s. The first book is great but by the end of the final (3rd?) Book of the series it does sort of end up a bit lacklustre.

Can't remember title or author. That's unhelpful. I'll come back to this though!

Are you thinking of the Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal, starting with The Calculating Stars?

Like you, I enjoyed the first one, didn’t think the second one was as good, and I’m not sure if I’ll read the third one.

Dan Simmons Hyperion series

Peter F Hamilton Void and Nights Dawn Trilogies, The Commonwealth Saga

Anne McCaffery Talents Series

Not sure if it's Sci fi or dystopian, but Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguru is one I enjoyed.

@EllieQ that's It!

Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man or the Martian Chronicles. You'll never look back.
Asimov's short stories, too.
I like Philip K Dick's stuff, too.
Hitchhiker's guide to Galaxy is marmite (maybe not clever enough for OP).
Friend says The Martian book is far better than the movie.

Arthur C. Clarke's stuff is intelligent... but too complex for me.

DD has lots of Young Adult sci-fiction. I could recommend some. It's definitely "character driven"

Becky Chambers. I can't see if anyone's mentioned it, sorry.

@hidingmystatus

Becky Chambers. I can't see if anyone's mentioned it, sorry.

Yes, it was in my original post! I happened to read it and that's what prompted me to post -- I know that a new book in the series is due out fairly soon, but actually I don't think any of them have approached the first volume in quality.

Just as in stressful or insomniac moments I often find myself reading parts of Mn that are completely irrelevant to me (I read The Tack Room religiously, although I have never owned a horse and can't remember the last time I rode one ), I find plotlines about punching wormholes through space and humans falling in love with their ship's AI and trying to acquire an illegal body it can be downloaded into kind of soothing.

Thanks again for all recommendations. I am looking up all suggestions.

I second Ann Leckie’s books, a Memory called Empire, The Sparrow and Elizabeth Bear - all great books/series..
I would also add - the Planetfall series by Emma Newman, the Mother Code by Carole Stivers, the Future of another timeline by Annalee Newitz, the City in the middle of the night by Charlie Jane Anders, and everything by Kameron Hurley!