OT: Sci Fi novel recommendations

bigalsworth

Looking for some SF novel recommendations.  I have read Larry Niven ring worlds, all Orson Scott card, most Frank Herbert.  I enjoy pretty much all space exploration types as well as SF thrillers like Richard Morgan. Thanks in advance!

Ozzie_Isaac

Peter Hamilton
Alistair Reynolds
Greg Bear
John Scalzi
Ramez Naam
Neal Stephenson
Eric Brown
James Corey

If you liked Altered Carbon try Embedded by Dan Abnett

bigalsworth

Great! Thanks @Ozzie_Isaac, they are all being added to the list.  I'll start with Dan Annette since I have been jonesing for something similar to altered carbon for a while.

Ozzie_Isaac

bigalsworth said:

Great! Thanks @Ozzie_Isaac, they are all being added to the list.  I'll start with Dan Annette since I have been jonesing for something similar to altered carbon for a while.

Altered Carbon was awesome, Broken Angels was ok.  Haven't read Woken Furies yet.  Read a review that said it was terrible.

Gulfcoastguy

David Weber
S.M. Stirling
Michael Z. Williamson
Dan O'Malley is a recent one "Rook"

Botch

Arthur C. Clarke's novels have always been favorites of mine, he was always very up to date on recent science theories.  

Ozzie_Isaac

Gulfcoastguy said:

David Weber
S.M. Stirling
Michael Z. Williamson
Dan O'Malley is a recent one "Rook"

Rook was really good!  More fantasy than Sci-fi but really good and worth a read.  David Weber Honor Harrington series is pretty good military sci-fi too.

Never read the other two.

Gulfcoastguy

Michael Z Williamson's best is Freehold
S M Stirling start with Dies the Fire
David Weber try Off Armageddon Reef

bigalsworth

Ozzie_Isaac said:

bigalsworth said:

Great! Thanks @Ozzie_Isaac, they are all being added to the list.  I'll start with Dan Annette since I have been jonesing for something similar to altered carbon for a while.

Altered Carbon was awesome, Broken Angels was ok.  Haven't read Woken Furies yet.  Read a review that said it was terrible.

I enjoyed Woken Furies, it was better than Broken Angels but not as good as Altered Carbon imho.  These series brought me back into the Sci-fi fold after a long hiatus so I have a bit of a soft spot for them.

bigalsworth

All added to the list.  Thanks for the recommendations.  If anyone enjoys fantasy these authors are decent:

Patrick Rothfuss 
Adrian Tchaikovsky
David Dalglish
Elizabeth Moon 
R.A. Salvatore (demon war series is his best even though I grew up on the dark elf series and will continue going back to no matter how many books he writes for it)

Ozzie_Isaac

bigalsworth said:

All added to the list.  Thanks for the recommendations.  If anyone enjoys fantasy these authors are decent:

Patrick Rothfuss 
Adrian Tchaikovsky
David Dalglish
Elizabeth Moon 
R.A. Salvatore (demon war series is his best even though I grew up on the dark elf series and will continue going back to no matter how many books he writes for it)

Thanks for the names!  If you like Fantasy you might try Chuck Wendig.

bigalsworth

Ozzie_Isaac said:

bigalsworth said:

All added to the list.  Thanks for the recommendations.  If anyone enjoys fantasy these authors are decent:

Patrick Rothfuss 
Adrian Tchaikovsky
David Dalglish
Elizabeth Moon 
R.A. Salvatore (demon war series is his best even though I grew up on the dark elf series and will continue going back to no matter how many books he writes for it)

Thanks for the names!  If you like Fantasy you might try Chuck Wendig.

Fantasy has been my staple for years, but then I read "enders game" 3 years ago plowed through all of the related books by Orson Scott Card.  I didn't come back to sci-fi until altered carbon was recommended to me last year, now I've plowed though heavy weights like Frank Herbert and Larry Niven and am craving more.

Ozzie_Isaac

Check out Heinlein too.  I cut my teeth on him.

nolaegghead

Gulfcoastguy said:

David Weber
S.M. Stirling
Michael Z. Williamson
Dan O'Malley is a recent one "Rook"

The Rook was creative, I really liked it.  There's a sequel out that I also read, also very good.  I don't know if I consider that sci-fi as much as urban fantasy.

nolaegghead

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Check out Heinlein too.  I cut my teeth on him.

I read just about everything Heinlein wrote.  Excellent.

Gulfcoastguy

nolaegghead said:

Gulfcoastguy said:

David Weber
S.M. Stirling
Michael Z. Williamson
Dan O'Malley is a recent one "Rook"

The Rook was creative, I really liked it.  There's a sequel out that I also read, also very good.  I don't know if I consider that sci-fi as much as urban fantasy.

It's hard to find true classic science fiction for the past 10 or more years so I have had to branch out. David Weber's series that begins with Off Armageddon Reef is probably the closest as well as a mix with military history. Michael Z. Williamson's Freehold is classic sci fi military. S.M. Stirling's Dies the fire and it's eleven sequels are a sort of alternate history of what if technology is taken away. Dan O'Malley's The Rook is better than it's sequel in my opinion. I wouldn't call it urban fantasy since there are no elves, vampires, werewolves, or unicorns exactly, more of an alternate universe sort of thing. Anyhow taste vary as much as peoples preference for rubs, charcoal, and sauces.

nolaegghead

@Gulfcoastguy  I agree - the Rook was better than the sequel.  It did have vampires and magic....

I like urban fiction, dystopian fiction, sci-fi, pretty much all fiction.  I come here to get my dystopian reality, and sometimes reality is stranger than fiction (often unfortunately)...

Mad_Wally

Everything from Isaac Asimov is a must.

Cookbook_Chip

+1 John Scalzi.  Laugh, laugh, laugh and cool stories.  Try Red Shirts or Old Man's War.  First line from Old Man's War "On his 75th birthday John Perry did two things. First, he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army."

YukonRon

Dune - Frank Herbert
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Moon is a harsh mistress - Robert Heinlen
Neuromancer - William Gibbons
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

those 5 come to mind.

gdenby

bigalsworth said:

Looking for some SF novel recommendations.  I have read Larry Niven ring worlds, all Orson Scott card, most Frank Herbert.  I enjoy pretty much all space exploration types as well as SF thrillers like Richard Morgan. Thanks in advance!

If you like Niven, you might like the collaborations he did w. Jerry Pournelle, notably the "Mote in God's Eye" and following related books.

A contemporary of Herbert, Roger Zelazney, was quite good, tho' quite different. More on the fantasy side. "Lord of Light" is one I remember, and the chronicles of Amber series. Don't recall anyone writing along the same lines as Herbert when Dune came out. It was way ahead of the curve.

Along the lines of Card, Gordon Dickinson's Dorsai books I recall were pretty good. Check out Keith Laumer for future war, particularly the stories about the giant "bolo" tanks. Of course, as above, "Forever War" is fundamental.

To go back farther in time, look for "The Stars My Destination," by Alfred Bester. Published in '57, it remains ASTONISHING. A little dated because many of the notions, such as bionics, and world corporate gov't  have often been used, the prose itself is pure pulp. Insanely fast paced, lurid, the protagonist a major anti-hero. Lucifer and Prometheus. There is an audiobook version at the Internet Archive.

He wrote more, such as "The Demolished Man," many short stories (1 I think was adapted for the Twilightzone). He didn't write for some years, but there were some late works that were pretty good.

jabam

Years ago a read a series of books by Anne McCaffrey, about The Dragonriders of Pern. More fantasy than sci-fi, but I enjoyed them very much. 

pgprescott

Sci-fi novels are like pumpkin beer, you throw them in the trash and move towards a better target!

Ozzie_Isaac

@gdenby The Mote in God's Eye was great.  Footfall and Lucifer's Hammer were also very good.

gdenby

pgprescott said:

Sci-fi novels are like pumpkin beer, you throw them in the trash and move towards a better target!

Fie! Sir!

The Star Slammers of the Galactic Patrol are on your plasma NOW!

bigalsworth

well i have read more than a few from the suggestions here, they have been excellent thanks very much.

@nolaegghead you had mentioned dystopian fiction, any recommendations?  i think that is something I would be interested in as well.