Hi all, Need a little (okay a lot) of advice for a Christmas gift for my sweetie. He likes to read a lot of sci fi and it’s not a genre with which I have a lot of experience. (I tend to read non-fiction.) Anyway, he’s a big fan of Clark, Asimov and Bradbury. He’s read some of the Dune series, mostly the earlier stuff. In recent year’s he’s read some Neal Stephenson. He loved *Cryptonomicon * and Snow Crash, liked Seveneves and neither of us could get through Quicksilver. So, any science fiction lovers out there have any suggestions for a book he won’t be able to put down.
I recently finished the Imperial Radch trilogy and can’t recommend them enough. Good writing, interesting story, really bummed I finished it.
I also very much liked Aurora and Luna. I’m not a big Kim Stanley Robinson or Ian McDonald fan, but both of those stand out in my mind as “Good sci-fi I’ve read this year” so I figure that’s saying something.
I recommend these books by Lois McMaster Bujold: Falling Free and The Warrior’s Apprentice.
The Sten series by Bunch and Cole.
If he reads a lot of SF, you run a big risk of buying something he already has. Why not pick a book or two that you already knows he likes and buy a fancy hardback limited edition? Something silimar to this?
I’ve thought about getting him a nice leather set of Clark or Asimov, but I am afraid it will sit on the shelf and he will continue to read his beat up paperbacks. But your right, a lot of his books are still in boxes and I don’t know what all he has.
The only recent things he’s read are the Stephenson books, so that’s why I was wondering if there were any new things out that he would like, but hadn’t stumbled across.
Andy Weir (who wrote The Martian) just published a new novel Artemis, which is good.
Alan Steele is pretty good. If he’s never read “Coyote”, it’s a good read and if he likes it there’s more in a series.
Do some research at Goodreads, for example:
The Hugo Winners (Volume I & II): Twenty-three Prize-winning Science Fiction Stories
by Isaac Asimov (Editor)
Robert A. Heinlein’s the Virginia Edition (The Complete 46 Volume Collectors Set) Leather Bound – 2010
People don’t really write books like Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, and other classics these days–and not a lot of younger readers read them. They really haven’t aged that well in views of the future, characterization and even writing skill (much older writing seems so much clunkier than today.) So “like them, but recent” is a tough ask. I’ll toss out a few IMHO good works (which aren’t necessarily much like the writers of the mid-20th century) though. Those four Dan Simmons books (in more sanely priced editions.) The Culture books by Iain Banks. The Commonwealth books by Peter F. Hamilton. The Takishi Kovach books by Richrd K. Morgan (coming soon as a Netflix series.) The Engines of Light books by Ken McLeod.
I just released one 
Gibson and Sterling’s The Difference Engine might be appreciated.
For more classic but (comparatively) lesser-known sci-fi, you might try Cyril Kornbluth. His Share of Glory collects all his short works, including the unforgettable “The Marching Morons.” (“I’d buy THAT for a quarter!”)
Boy, there’s an open-ended question. Does he want new stuff, or older/ Does he have a big classic collection, or not?
If he appreciates older SF but doesn’t have a big collection, the Science Fiction Hall of Fame is still in print, and is still a superb collection of stuff written 1929 to 1964.Volume I is short stories, and includes a lot of classics. Volume II (in two parts, A an B) is longer stuff. Don’t even think about getting volumes III and IV, though. (Don’t confuse these with the Hugo Winners that Dr. Deth recommends above. Those are good, too)
Larry Niven writes classic “hard” sf, and he’s still cranking it out. Highly recommended.
Curious that no one’s yet recommended John Scalzi. I think he’d definitely like his stuff.
If you’re looking for good “classic” stuff, look at the publications of NESFA Press. They’ve gathered together a lot of the best of the best. It’s a bit pricey, but they’ve also issued the definitive editions of works like Cordwainer Smith’s Norstrilia and his “Rediscovery of Man” Future History. They also just released Harlan Ellison’s approved biography, A Lit Fuse
Too bad you guys couldn’t get through Quicksilver. I would have recommended that to a couple who is in to sci-fi and non-fiction! TBH I only really read Neal Stephenson sci-fi books, and ones that I picked up as a recommendation for people who like Stephenson so…
If he liked the “cyberpunk” aspect of Snow Crash I can recommend William Gibson’s *Neuromancer *and, as some super fun fluff Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. And further fluff is the recent *Otherworld *by Jason Segel (of movies and TV).
Okay, if he likes Neal Stephenson, here’s a recommendation that’s both obscure and wonderful: The Gone-Away World, by Nick Harkaway. It’s a complex post-apocalyptic world with plenty of humor somewhat similar to Stephenson’s; it’s very well-written; it’s by the son of John Le Carre, if that matters. I really enjoyed it a lot, but not many people know about it IME.
A lot of good recommendations here. Second the Scalzi, who has been held up as a successor to Heinlein but is worthy in his own right. Harkaway is fun. I liked Artemis and thought it was a good second novel from Andy Weir.
If military sci-fi is what he likes, try the Frontlines series by Marko Kloos.
If he likes Clarke and does not have it, try the massive Collected Short Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. Amazon has it in paperback. But be warned it is weighty. I have it and have read it cover-to-cover several times. Well worth the twenty bucks.
Niven may still be cranking them out, but his recent quality isn’t anywhere remotely close to what he used to write.
Hi all! Thanks for all the input. I’ve been reading with great interest. Think I may either save this list for future presents or show him the list and let him explore on his own.
I should have know that I was opening a Pandora’s Box, but I kind of hoped that there would be consensus or at least some author that lots of folks recommended. Silly me.:smack:
Anyone read any Charles Stross? He’s one of the writers listed in the “goodreads” link that PastTense linked to as a similar read to Stephenson. Stross sounds like he could be interesting.
Thanks again for all the suggestions. I will put this all to good use. His birthday isn’t too far off, so in addition to Christmas there will be many more book purchases.
I can’t recommend Hannu Rajaniemi’s Jean le Flambeur series often or highly enough. There is very little expository information, especially in the first book; it is up to you to paint a picture of this highly complex, very old civilization and culture as best you can from the information gleaned as you go. My own first conception is so different from what I picture now after half a dozen readings I have a hard time mentally reconciling them as resulting from the same story. But I pull more details out each time I read them, so the book has, for me, the curious quality of always being something somewhat new.
The Quantum Thief is the first book of three.
I’m surprised there aren’t already a bunch of recs for The Culture, so I’ll give one. I started with a later book, one that I’m told is just about the worst for a Culture noob to read, but I loved it. Very complex story, excellent narrative structure, fantastic characters… it’s all here. This is another book with very little expository information, tho, and I know many people find that off-putting. What was really great was that I didn’t need to know anything about The Culture for the story to work. The book I’m talking about is The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks.