Anyone got good suggestions for decent recent SciFi books ? The only modern SciFi I’ve read and enjoyed recently is Iain M Banks…
Any ideas ?
Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon.
From Robert Sawyer, Starplex and Illegal Alien.
The Ring of Charon and The Shattered Sphere by Roger MacBride Allen.
The Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold.
The Belisarius series by Eric Flint and David Drake. The first three books can be downloaded free and legal at the Baen Free Library; they are An Oblique Approach, In the Heart of Darkness, and Destiny’s Shield.
1632 and sequels by Eric Flint. Mother of Demons, also by Flint. 1632, 1633, and Mother of Demons are in the Free Library.
If you like military sci-fi, I suggest David Weber. Several of his books are in the Free Library; I recommend trying On Basilisk Station, March Upcountry, and/or The Apocalypse Troll; 2 series starters and a standalone, respectively.
I’d like to second David Weber’s books, particularly the Honor Harrington series and it’s spinoffs.
Right now I’m digging Elizabeth Moon’s “Vatta’s War” series, starting with “Trading in Danger”. These books are basically about a space freighter captain who is the youngest (and recently disgraced) daughter of a large shipping cartel family, who gets caught up in an expanding interstellar conflict while trying to make a profit with her cargo.
The Wing Commander books, published by Baen and written by various authors (mostly William Forstchen and Mercedes Lackey, I think), are rather fun, though hardly high-brow sci-fi. For these, start preferably with Freedom Flight (while Action Stations is chronologically the first book, it’s best read later on in the series, some time after End Run). The best books of the series are Freedom Flight and End Run, although all of the books are worth reading if you like those first two.
“Alien Secrets” by Annette Curtis Klause, is an interstellar murder mystery, centered around a young girl traveling from Earth to live with her parents, researchers on a distant planet, after getting kicked out of boarding school. It’s written for the “Young Adult” market, but I liked it a lot.
You could maybe try his friend, Ken MacLeod. Or Charles Stross, Alastair Reynolds or Jack McDevitt. They’ve all had paperbacks out recently… (well, back in June for Reynolds).
The Academy Series by Jack McDevitt. Great SF that follows woman exploring the galaxy and doing heroic things as she also manages to get through, and eventually, find a place in, the bureaucracy of the Academy on Earth. Great stuff.
Best science fiction book of the past ten years: The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach. One of the few that doesn’t suffer from the problem of most modern SF: lack of imagination.
Kit Reed’s Thinner than Thou is also a very good one.
I like McDevitt, but was disappointed by his last novel. Have his current one and will give it a try.
Oh, and check ou the Hoka books by Gordon Dickson and Poul Anderson. About a planet of very intelligent and very imaginative teddy bears who decide that the key to success is to embrace human culture wholesale, with hokas taking on the roles of Sherlock Holmes, Blackbeard the Pirate, the French Foreign Legion, and James Bond, along with many many others, much to the distress of the human official in charge of keeping them out of trouble. Such a silly and hysterically funny book.
raguleader, those are good, but not exactly new. Anderson started doing those in the 1950s.
I’m woefully behind in my modern SF, but I’ve really liked Harry Turtledove’s stuff (his WorldWar/Colonization series combines both his signature Alternate History with more traditional SSF) and Dan Simmons
Stross’s *Accelerando * is available online (free)
Light by M. John Harrison and Air by Geoff Ryman are fine books by excellent writers. There’s a sequel out to Light that I’ve just ordered.
Robert Charles Wilson has done a string of good books for the past decade.
Neil Stephenson hit big with books like Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. He’s moved on to Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle of books (published in eight volumes in paperback), which technically are not sf but read exactly like sf. (Which is instantly apparent if you read the books but hard to describe in words.)
Bruce Sterling’s books are all about ideas, fascinating near futures of every variety.
China Miéville has won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best novel published in the UK for Perdido Street Station and Iron Council.
Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is fantasy but hard fantasy: it’s an alternate history of England in which magic works.
These are far more literary writers than the military sf guys. Not that many people are big fans of both groups of writers so it would really help if you came back and told us more about your tastes.
The Locus Index to Science Fiction Awards has every nominee and winner for every f&sf award that ever existed worldwide. And you can search and sort in all sorts of ways. If you read Iain Banks, here’s the list of novel winners for the BSFA Awards and for the Clarke Awards.
I’d like to piggyback on this thread, for recommendations for a reader (my husband) whose favorites are Asimov and Turtledove.
Alan Steele’s good for near-future hard SF – stories about astronauts and industrial workers in near-Earth orbit, the Moon, etc.
I’ll third Weber’s Honor Harrington Series. Military Sci-Fi; follows one officer mostly from Midshipmen to Admiral. Excellent series!
Peter F. Hamilton’s Nightdawn Trilogy is good if you like Space Opera with a twist. Biotech, spaceships and ghosts, oh, my!
Stephen Baxter is good for hard Sci-Fi. He has a couple of series, all good. If I had to break them down I’d call them the Xelee Books (far future), the Evolution Books (past to future) and The Fermi Paradox books. He also co-authored A Time Odyssey two book set with Arthur C. Clarke I thought was excellent.
Alastair Reynolds also has a series I like, a far flung humanity has just figured out why we haven’t found evidence of other life and the news ain’t good. I can’t recall the name off hand, but the books all look alike.
If you like a War of the Worlds sort of thing, try William Dietz. He has a two book series about a Independence day like encounter.
Jsgoddess You might try Eric Flint, he does alternate history, not really my cup of tea though.
Heh, yeah. One thing I like about the later books (especially the Saganami Island series and the Wages of Sin series) is that they begin to follow OTHER characters, like Lieutenant Abigail Hearns and Victor Cachat, while still relating it all to the bigger plot of the steadily expanding war between the Republic of Haven and the Manticoran Alliance. At this point, the only way Honor could rise much higher in rank, short of marrying into a Royal Family, is if she was declared the Space Pope. 
Still, my favorite current series of books, and very much worth reading, especially any of the books or stories involving Victor “Goldenboy” Cachat and Anton “The Full Nelson” Zilwicki.
Paksenarrion in space or is it different?
She could be declared God-Empress of Humanity - that’s even higher than Space Pope ! After all, being goddess is higher than being head priest, and she’d get secular leadership too.
Or as I heard him referred to elsewhere, Victor “Iron Fist of the Revolution” Cachat. One of my favorite characters.
To the OP : How “recent” is “recent” ? Last 5 years ? 10 years ? Do the 80’s count ?
I like Joe Haldeman. He’s still writing - *Camouflage *and Old Twentieth are pretty recent, and I enjoyed those.
I’ll second Dan Simmons (Hyperion series) and Peter F. Hamilton (Night’s Dawn series).
I quite enjoyed The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. It’s not for the squeamish or those who can’t bear bad things happening, but I suspect if you like Iain Banks this isn’t a problem. Its sequel, Children of God is also quite good, but is much less sci-fi - it’s really her chance to carry the philosophical/theological points from The Sparrow to their conclusion.
No idea what Paksenarrion is, but the plot of Vatta’s War, as of the third book, seems to involve…
An alliance of pirates coordinating intersteller campaigns against various weaker star nations, while being supported by corrupt government officials and a rogue group within the InterStellar Communications higher-ups who are sabotaging the existing ISC FTL communications network.
Oh yeah, I’m sure her opponents on Grayson who already consider her to be a heathen would LOVE that.
I like to use that one a lot, applied to him in the short story “From the Highlands!”. He has also been called “The Fanatic” and “The Inquisitor”, the man collects nicknames like Honor’s enemies collect mortal wounds and spent ammunition.
BTW, Der Trihs, you wouldn’t happen to be a Schlock Mercenary fan, would you?