I read the first 3 Dune books after seeing the movie and hearing about the challenges of getting that story on the screen. Love the first 2, the ending of the 3rd was ok.
I’m 3/4ths through the 4th and final Hyperion books. Absolutely incredible, I’m disappointed knowing I’ll be done with it soon. I highly recommend it if you’re at all curious. The author does an excellent job sneaking deep references into the colorful narrative; Keats and Ancient Greek mythology among them. The characters are vivid, varied, and somehow all relatable.
When I was younger I liked Vonnegut, specifically Galapagos, cats cradle, and slaughter house 5. I recently read Philip K Dicks “do androids… electric sheep” and wasn’t a fan. I loved the film blade runner, but the book kind of trudged on for me with, what I felt was, a let down of an ending. Asimov’s foundation was ok, but it lacked action and the characters seemed thin; I do like the concept a lot, it was just missing something for me.
So what’s next? I read a few classics in school and wasn’t terribly moved by most of them. I’ve considered giving Philip K Dick another chance, and possibly exploring the Dune books not authored by Herbert. I’m not a big fan of fantasy- at least in the horse riding, sword wielding, magic and sorcery vein.
Thanks for any suggestions
Simmons’ books “Illum” and “Odessey” are pretty great and feel like the same universe
I second these if you want more Simmons.
They’re on the list thanks!
Blindsight by Peter watts.
Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.
So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?
You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,” recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist – an informational topologist with half his mind gone – as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.
Blindsight is the ability of people who are cortically blind to respond to visual stimuli that they do not consciously see due to lesions in the primary visual cortex, also known as the striate cortex or Brodmann Area 17. --Wikipedia
It’s blind sight the one that has vampires in it for absolutely no reason? I couldn’t get through it.
If you haven’t finished it how can you know they’re there for no reason?
I just said i couldn’t get through the book, so no i did not get far enough to see the point in it.
Right, my point is that you didn’t get far enough to learn why they’re there so you can’t say they’re part of the story for no reason.
I found the book to be a fascinating thought experiment on the evolution of human consciousness, how we think and interact, and what it means for us as a species. If you can suspend your disbelief about the vampire I think it’s worth the read, it’s one of those books that made me stare off into space lost in thought after I finished it.
Correct. I did not like the book. It happens. Move on.
It’s kind of weird you even have an opinion on it since you didn’t read it in the first place. Like, why even comment if you didn’t want to talk about it?
Are you daft?
You missed the point of, everything about Blindsight? Did you think they were sparkly vampires?
They’re a forgotten anciant race of vampires that suddenly woke up and are now piloting space ships lmao it’s incredibly cringy.
I just said i couldn’t get through the book, so no i did not get far enough to see the point in it.
Awesome book. Text rarely gives me such impressions of genius artistry as Blindsight does. It’s clever without being obnoxious.
My all-time favorite book, read it 14 times or so.
It’s been long enough that I can reread it. East of eden is on the list as well
I didn’t really like the Hyperion series much myself, but both Dune and Hyperion are sci-fi with religious elements. Maybe A Canticle for Leibowitz.
I loved Canticle. I recommend it to everyone
Maybe Flowers for Algernon? I read this for the first time near when when I read Canticle. I much more connected to Algernon.
MaddAddam trilogy also touches close to home for me, not least because Atwood is Canadian.
I was also late to Childhood’s End and The Chrysalids.
Flowers for Algernon is one of my top books of all time.
That being said, it’s definitely a different vibe than Hyperion or Dune. It’s a lot more personal and almost doesn’t read like scifi.
Just bought that book, you will be hearing from me when I am 12 beers in after finishing it
After the end of that book you’ll probably need 12 drinks.
12 more drinks.
Honestly, now — not promoting binge drinking or alcohol consumption at all — but that book tears something in you. It can’t be undone.
Similar in nature, but a bit more space focused would be the Foundation Series. It’s a series by Issac Asimov where a mathematician sets up a planet to try to speed up a galactic dark age due to an empire collapsing.
Apple TV has a series on it, but it actually focuses on what happens leading up to the main story of the first book.
Foundation Series and the Caves of Steel series are so good.
I suggest the Commonwealth’s saga by Peter F. Hamilton (Pandora’s star, Judas unchained).
Been on a Peter Hamilton binge since I started Pandora’s Star about 4 months ago, and have since gone through all 7 of the Commonwealth books (Commonwealth duology, Void trilogy, and Chronicles of the Fallers duology) Exodus: Archimedes Engine, and am almost done book 1 of the Salvation trilogy.
So far my favourite is probably the Commonwealth duology, followed by Exodus. All of the books I’ve read have been amazing IMO, this is the first time I’ve read based solely off the author rather than recommendations. He can be pretty horny at times which is the main thing about his books that annoy me, but the world building is top tier IMO and the ideas he presents are fascinating.
Highly recommend giving the Commonwealth duology a try, it’s a bit slow going at first but once it gets going, I found it hard to stop. Amazing books.
The Nights Dawn series is good too. Love his stuff.
Great books, I recently re-read and they don’t stand up as well as I remember, some characters in particular, but still good.
Maybe Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, if you’re not familiar with his work already. The books are generally standalobe stories, but there are some recurring side characters and references to earlier books. Consider Phlebas is the first one I think.
Honestly, I tell people to pass on Consider Phlebas a lot of the time. The first book is worth reading, but The Player of Games is a much better book and is a better introduction to the series.
I’ve only read Consider Phlebas so far. If OP is looking for action then this is a good choice.
I don’t usually read sci-fi for laser fights and starship chases, but it feels justified in this one.
If you liked the first book, you’re going to absolutely LOVE the second one. It’s so much better. I’ve been reading sci-fi for 25 years now and nothing has topped The Player of Games for me.
I’m just starting this series now. Looking forward to it
They are absolutely amazing books.
Very surprised I haven’t seen Red Rising mentioned.
If you’re wanting a break from the serious sci-fi, take a look at Expeditionary Force, it’s hilarious.
The second Hyperion book. Immediately followed by Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks. It has the same approachable writing style, doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, has similar deliciously out-there sci-fi, and I think may also be inspired by touchstone poetry.
Ursula K. LeGuin’s Always Coming Home is an intriguing approach to novel writing. Some can’t get into it because it looks more like an ethnologist’s report, but there is a story there (and I don’t mean the segments with Stone Telling: the entire novel has a story that rewards those who pay attention).
The Book of the New Sun (really 4 books) gave me the feeling of reading Dune, Hyperion, and Lord of the Rings kind of wrapped into one.
I would also recommend the 4th Dune book (God Emporor), as it wraps up where the first 3 books were going with the Golden Path. After that, he starts a new trilogy, which doesn’t get finished, so results may vary.
Second The Book Of The New Sun - it’s dense and really rewards re-reading.
There’s also the Urth Of The New Sun, which sort-of concludes the story.
I liked Urth of the New Sun, but I can also see why it is separate from the others. For me it felt like a step back for the main character.
I second the finishing of the quatrology. I think one could stop at the first book, maybe even the second, but if you’re in for the third you should be in for the fourth.
If you’re into a rich narrative and deep references, don’t miss Cryptononicon and the whole Baroque cycle by Neal Stephenson.
I fucking did not like that book. I did not like any of the characters. Grrrr to that book. That is all. I guess in saying I wouldn’t go more Hyperion. Do Revelation Space Series. Much better.
I’m with you. I was pretty close to giving up on it several times, but slugged through it at first because so many people said it was so great, and then because the next book was meant to be better, and then because I was over halfway so I may as well finish it. I wish I hadn’t.
I felt the Culture books by Iain Banks were a similar tone and style, but I found them much more enjoyable.
I gave Hyperion about 200 pages and they were STILL world building and offering leading secrets the author didn’t think the reader needed to know. So I just gave up.
Couldn’t agree more. I guess what baffled me was all the years it was pushed on me. Canterbury Tales in space. Got it. Didn’t much care for the thing when Mrs. Baker was pushing allegorical shit and what not and I’m not digging it now that everyone is nothing I’m interested in rooting for. Harumph!
Yeah, if there’s not a character I can relate to, sympathize with, or cheer for within 200 pages, I’m not going to keep reading.
It really comes together at the end in an amazing way. However it’s such a chore to get there. Simmons doesn’t ever write characters I care about.
I loved the first two books, it felt like an adventure and a puzzle piece. Then the last 2 are 😬
Same. Simmons fucks up a landing. Idk what it is. I like Ilium and hated Olympos.
I liked the series until the point OP is at. The third book was okay but I just could not like Raul Endymion no matter what.
The ending fourth of Rise felt like Disney wrote it. “Oh but you see it’s bittersweet and–” okay but ::: spoiler plot spoilage Anea fucking died and now she’s back in Disney “everything’s okay!” fashion for like 2 years or whatever, yeah she’ll be gone but the book doesn’t bother making even an ounce of progress towards that happening. “And Earth is back, and no one is allowed to visit it while it’s just you and I and then and then and then”. It’s like a fucking 8 year old wrote the ending. :::
I also didn’t like Hyperion. Just couldn’t get into it for whatever reason and I gave it a fair whack. Thank you for the recommendation. I’ll check it out.
Yeah revelation space is what I’m reading now. The series is great
- Octavia Butler
- Ursula K Le Guin
E: Markdown
I’ve heard of Le Guin, thanks for the recommendations
The Dispossessed is a really interesting look at anarchism in practice
Also may I recommend the Culture series by Iain M Banks.
People, please. Don’t sleep on Butler either. A truly visionary artist. She’s incredible. I hate how late in life I heard of her. Genuinely alien aliens. And she cooked up Make America Great Again for her neofascist fiction party decades before their lizard brains could copy it. It’s literally in the books. She predicted the future with basically 100% accuracy. The series is Earthseed.
Btw this is not a criticism of your UKLG rec, I love her too and have read many of her books. She’s incredible. I wanted to rec some non-male, non-white authors as well as the other good recs in this thread. Both authors are incredible
Edit: Got Le Guin’s initials wrong 😓
I recommend you start with the Hainish series’s trilogy (Rocannon’s world, planet of exile, and city of illusions). The Left Hand of Darkness is better, and it doesn’t require any of them, but those books will do a lot of world building so you can just focus on the story rather than ask what the hell the Ekumen is.
City of illusions is also just hard-core payoff and that made it really interesting
Immediately thought about Le Guin. Probably my all time favourite author. So many great novels and short story collections to choose from. Even her YA novels are thoughtful, wise and the prose is pretty much flawless. OP, let me know what you’re in the mood for and I’ll recommend a few books.
Did you read The Word for World is Forest?
Cuz damn_son.jxl
Edit: I haven’t read all of it (i.e., all of her work), but I think The Left Hand of Darkness is my favorite, if I had to pick
Yes. Both are brilliant and although I’m not sure, I feel like the former had a big influence on Cameron’s Avatar (much more so than Pocahontas tbh). Hard to pick a favourite but I really like the Western shore trilogy.
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. If you like it (and I think you will) there are more in the series.
Really just anything by bruh, tbh
Did you read the short one about the puzzle-tower? Wild.
Roadside Picnic is awesome. It inspired the film stalker. I loved it.
