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What are the great sci fi/fantasy out there?

Cardinal

Cardinal

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I'm looking for some new sci fi/fantasy books to get addicted to. I've already gotten into authors such as Peter Hamilton and Patrick Rothfuss, if that helps to provide any clue of my likes. Though I'm not a crazy fan of Peter Hamilton's writing style, his vision of the future beginning with Pandora's Star strikes just the right balance between optimism and pessimism. Outright pessimism being defined as "Wool" by Hugh Howey and outright optimism as essentially anything by Isaac Asimov (though we sci-fi fans all love him just the same). And though I'm not quite sure what happened to Rothfuss's third book, his first two, The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear were some of the most extraordinary fantasy writing in modern history.

For the record, here's my pet peeve: I just want a story. Don't dump the entire history of the universe/kingdom/whatever on me and expect me to memorize a thousand goddamn names and dates in the first chapter. Not even Tolkein did that in the Hobbit. In fact, Tolkein especially didn't do that. The proper way to introduce a reader/viewer to an entirely new universe is to start with the main character that's a hick in some backwater of the galaxy/kingdom. Think: The Hobbit and Luke Skywalker. Both characters are introduced into the larger narrative of the story through other transitional characters (Gandalf, Obi Wan Kenobi) and continue their growth thusly. The worst (or at least most tedious) stories tend to begin like homework assignments combined with Wiki pages. Spare me that crap, if you can.

Thanks. And if you haven't read The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear, seriously, read that **** already.
 
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Clarification: I'm looking for something recent. I'm well aware of Foundation, 2001 and Ender's Game.
 
I love the Furies of Calderon series by Jim Butcher. It's Pokemon in a cool, Roman setting. Also Dune, if you haven't already, read Dune.
 
Redress said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosigan_Saga

Remember to thank me later.

Also, for free: On Basilisk Station by David Weber - WebScription Ebook
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Your predilection for anime fills me with trepidation, but...okay.

spud_meister said:
I love the Furies of Calderon series by Jim Butcher. It's Pokemon in a cool, Roman setting. Also Dune, if you haven't already, read Dune.
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Read all of Dune. The Furies of Calderon has that "I'm going to dump a billion points of historical minutiae on you before you're even allowed to begin the story" look to it. Am I wrong?
 
Cardinal said:
Read all of Dune. The Furies of Calderon has that "I'm going to dump a billion points of historical minutiae on you before you're even allowed to begin the story" look to it. Am I wrong?
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Absolutely wrong. It starts out fairly Hobbit-like, you don't get historical minutiae until the 3rd book, and it's not too much.
 
Why do these book covers always have to be so horrible? I feel like I have to hide them inside High Times magazines to save face.
 
Cardinal said:
Your predilection for anime fills me with trepidation, but...okay.
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Neither is anything at all like anime. Also, probably no series in SF has ever won as many awards. From the provided link:

[h=3]Awards and nominationsEdit[/h]
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And best of all, Most are available in omnibus editions, 2 books plus a short story for the price of one, but the ebook versions from the publishers, that is 5 bucks for most of the omnibus editions.
 
Cardinal said:
Why do these book covers always have to be so horrible? I feel like I have to hide them inside High Times magazines to save face.
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Which book covers? And yeah, Science fiction does tend to have some terrible covers.
 
PoS said:
I prefer the older classic sci-fi/fantasy books, it seems to me the new stuff just isnt up to par.
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A lot of authors have retreated into the pessimistic, either to stay relevant or to reflect the modern sentiment of where technology is taking us. As in my OP, I would recommend Peter F Hamilton's series, beginning with Pandora's Star, that takes a relatively pragmatic approach to the path technology will lead us on in the distant future. It's one of the few great "space operas" in sci-fi today. I feel his writing style lacks flow, but his scope is truly great.
 
And since I love to spam threads, a few more recommendations:

First, one of my all time favorite authors is CJ Cherryh,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyteen - one of the more important novels in SF. Right up there with Dune and Foundation. Covers some really really heady themes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chanur_novels - maybe my favorite series of all time(and the first three books available in one volume!). Space opera with a lot of politics between alien races, a big part is figuring out how the alien races kinda think. Remarkable in that there is one human in the series, and he is not the viewpoint character, and after awhile his actions seem weird because you get used to the alien viewpoint.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreigner_universe - while this series does have some depth to it thematically, it is mostly high adventure done right.

On the fantasy side, you might try Glen Cook

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Company - very dark fantasy that starts out as a decent fantasy military series and later becomes something pretty special.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_P.I. - hard boiled detective novels in a fantasy setting. Can be hilariously funny and kinda sad all at once. Very true to the noir detective type novels.
 
Redress said:
Which book covers? And yeah, Science fiction does tend to have some terrible covers.
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The illustrator for Pandora's Star and Ender's Game (pretty sure they're the same person) are passable, but nearly all other sci fi/fantasy covers look like middle-aged women's romance novels, but with some guy holding up a sword or magic stone or something.

Redress said:
Neither is anything at all like anime. Also, probably no series in SF has ever won as many awards. From the provided link:

And best of all, Most are available in omnibus editions, 2 books plus a short story for the price of one, but the ebook versions from the publishers, that is 5 bucks for most of the omnibus editions.
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I already bought Furies of Calderon, book 1, and Falling Free. No e-books for me: the ability to web surf plays hell on my ADD, and the light from LED devices reinforces the bejeezus out of my insomnia.
 
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Cardinal said:
The illustrator for Pandora's Star and Ender's Game (pretty sure they're the same person) are passable, but nearly all other sci fi/fantasy covers look like middle-aged women's romance novels, but with some guy holding up a sword or magic stone or something.



I already bought Furies of Calderon, book 1, and Falling Free. No e-books for me: the ability to web surf plays hell on my ADD, and the light from the devices play reinforce the bejeezus out of my insomnia.
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Falling Free not a good place to start, but oh well. It's not bad, but about her weakest book to my mind. Does play interestingly with the effects of technology on medicine and how it would play out. In Falling Free it is Quaddies, genetically engineered for free fall, 4 arms, no legs. Later a big one for her is Uterine Replicators and other birth technology. Also a bit with cryofreezing.
 
Redress said:
Falling Free not a good place to start, but oh well. It's not bad, but about her weakest book to my mind. Does play interestingly with the effects of technology on medicine and how it would play out. In Falling Free it is Quaddies, genetically engineered for free fall, 4 arms, no legs. Later a big one for her is Uterine Replicators and other birth technology. Also a bit with cryofreezing.
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Amazon said Falling Free was the first in the series.
 
Cardinal said:
I'm looking for some new sci fi/fantasy books to get addicted to. I've already gotten into authors such as Peter Hamilton and Patrick Rothfuss, if that helps to provide any clue of my likes. Though I'm not a crazy fan of Peter Hamilton's writing style, his vision of the future beginning with Pandora's Star strikes just the right balance between optimism and pessimism. Outright pessimism being defined as "Wool" by Hugh Howey and outright optimism as essentially anything by Isaac Asimov (though we sci-fi fans all love him just the same). And though I'm not quite sure what happened to Rothfuss's third book, his first two, The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear were some of the most extraordinary fantasy writing in modern history.

For the record, here's my pet peeve: I just want a story. Don't dump the entire history of the universe/kingdom/whatever on me and expect me to memorize a thousand goddamn names and dates in the first chapter. Not even Tolkein did that in the Hobbit. In fact, Tolkein especially didn't do that. The proper way to introduce a reader/viewer to an entirely new universe is to start with the main character that's a hick in some backwater of the galaxy/kingdom. Think: The Hobbit and Luke Skywalker. Both characters are introduced into the larger narrative of the story through other transitional characters (Gandalf, Obi Wan Kenobi) and continue their growth thusly. The worst (or at least most tedious) stories tend to begin like homework assignments combined with Wiki pages. Spare me that crap, if you can.

Thanks. And if you haven't read The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear, seriously, read that **** already.
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I always liked William Gibson's ten minutes in the future stuff. And I enjoyed Iain Banks very much.
 
I know you're looking for something more recent, but the Star Wars Extended Universe stuff was a fun read back when they were new and canon.
 
Cardinal said:
I'm looking for some new sci fi/fantasy books to get addicted to. I've already gotten into authors such as Peter Hamilton and Patrick Rothfuss, if that helps to provide any clue of my likes. Though I'm not a crazy fan of Peter Hamilton's writing style, his vision of the future beginning with Pandora's Star strikes just the right balance between optimism and pessimism. Outright pessimism being defined as "Wool" by Hugh Howey and outright optimism as essentially anything by Isaac Asimov (though we sci-fi fans all love him just the same). And though I'm not quite sure what happened to Rothfuss's third book, his first two, The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear were some of the most extraordinary fantasy writing in modern history.

For the record, here's my pet peeve: I just want a story. Don't dump the entire history of the universe/kingdom/whatever on me and expect me to memorize a thousand goddamn names and dates in the first chapter. Not even Tolkein did that in the Hobbit. In fact, Tolkein especially didn't do that. The proper way to introduce a reader/viewer to an entirely new universe is to start with the main character that's a hick in some backwater of the galaxy/kingdom. Think: The Hobbit and Luke Skywalker. Both characters are introduced into the larger narrative of the story through other transitional characters (Gandalf, Obi Wan Kenobi) and continue their growth thusly. The worst (or at least most tedious) stories tend to begin like homework assignments combined with Wiki pages. Spare me that crap, if you can.

Thanks. And if you haven't read The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear, seriously, read that **** already.
Click to expand...
Literary science fiction is abbreviated as SF, not sci-fi.
 
Cardinal said:
A lot of authors have retreated into the pessimistic, either to stay relevant or to reflect the modern sentiment of where technology is taking us. As in my OP, I would recommend Peter F Hamilton's series, beginning with Pandora's Star, that takes a relatively pragmatic approach to the path technology will lead us on in the distant future. It's one of the few great "space operas" in sci-fi today. I feel his writing style lacks flow, but his scope is truly great.
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Im currently reading Gene Wolfe's Urth of the New Sun, it was written in the 1980's so I dont know if it fits your recent criteria but its a mildly entertaining fantasy set in the dying earth subgenre.

For recent space operas I would recommend Dan Simmon's Hyperion cantos, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep, also Niven and Pournelle's A Moat in God's Eye though that might be a bit too old.

I just finished Andy Weir's book the Martian too. If you like good old fashioned hard science then that book is a must read.
 
PoS said:
Im currently reading Gene Wolfe's Urth of the New Sun, it was written in the 1980's so I dont know if it fits your recent criteria but its a mildly entertaining fantasy set in the dying earth subgenre.

For recent space operas I would recommend Dan Simmon's Hyperion cantos, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep, also Niven and Pournelle's A Moat in God's Eye though that might be a bit too old.
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I read the Hyperion series. Twice.

Neal Stephenson, that sounds really familiar. Didn't he write these really downer books about the fusing of people with virtual reality?
 
Cardinal said:
I read the Hyperion series. Twice.

Neal Stephenson, that sounds really familiar. Didn't he write these really downer books about the fusing of people with virtual reality?
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Stephenson's works are similar to William Gibson's but he seems to have more action in his books.
 
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