# OK, I finished "Dune": now what? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 6, 2018, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404 "2018-07-06T18:45:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/41 "2018-07-07T01:44:13Z")
Do you really want just recommendations for science fiction, or do you want recommendations for fantasy too? You mention that you like Stephenie Meyer’s books and that you like _American Gods_. Both are fantasy (or maybe horror) rather than science fiction. Yeah, you can say that I’m being picky, but I need to know exactly what you want. My twenty favorite science fiction works more than 25,000 words in length are Olaf Stapledon’s _First and Last Men_ and Starmaker, Philip José Farmer’s Riverworld series, Frank Herbert’s _Dune_, Walter Miller’s _A Canticle for Leibowitz_, Alfred Bester’s _The Stars My Destination_, Ursula K. Le Guin’s _The Left Hand of Darkness_, Philip K. Dick’s _The Man in the High Castle_, Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth’s _The Space Merchants_, Theodore Sturgeon’s _More than Human_, Roger Zelazny’s _Lord of Light_, Arthur C. Clarke’s _Against the Fall of Night_, Ken Grimwood’s _Replay_, Stanislaw Lem’s _Solaris_, H. G. Wells’s _The Time Machine_, Joe Haldeman’s _The Forever War_, Clifford Simak’s _City_, Michael Frayn’s _The Tin Men_, Samuel R. Delany’s _The Einstein Intersection_, Isaac Asimov’s _The End of Eternity_, and Robert Heinlein’s _Stranger in a Strange Land_. I can give you a list of my favorite fantasy if you prefer. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/42 "2018-07-07T01:52:39Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Do you really want just recommendations for science fiction, or do you want recommendations for fantasy too? You mention that you like Stephenie Meyer’s books and that you like _American Gods_. Stephenie Meyer was a joke; I figure most people could figure out who my favorite author was based on my user name. I’m not actually a Stephenie Meyer fan. As for American Gods, that was in response to a suggestion someone else made. I like fantasy, but not nearly as much as I like sci-fi, and I’m aiming strictly for sci-fi recommendations in this thread. From your list, I’ve read (and enjoyed) The Man in the High Castle and The End of Eternity. I’m getting a number of recommendations on The Forever War, and will probably move that up pretty high on my list. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/43 "2018-07-07T02:08:22Z")
Lot of votes here for “The Stars, My Destination”. Maybe it’s just me, but I preferred Bester’s “The Demolished Man”. Another vote for “The Forever War”, and I have read “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August” and enjoyed it but there are many better books out there. When it comes to SF, I’m a classicist at heart. See if you can find some Leinster. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/44 "2018-07-07T02:12:26Z")
OK, so there really is only one choice to me: **The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe** Dune isn’t the Lord of the Rings of science fiction. BotNS is. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/45 "2018-07-07T03:51:48Z")
If you do want a fantasy suggestion for a lover of science fiction, try _Master of the Five Magics_, by Lyndon Hardy. He’s a PhD physicist, and it shows. _Stranger in a Strange Land_ is the absolute worst place to start with Heinlein, and I cringe whenever I hear anyone starting with it. Everyone either loves it or hates it. If you love it, then you’ll also enjoy other Heinlein works… but if you hate it, you’ll still probably enjoy other Heinlein works. Read any or all of the juvies, read _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, _Double Star_, and _Starship Troopers_, read a few others, and then maybe try _Stranger_, and if you turn out to hate it, don’t feel bad about it. I recently read a volume titled “The Science Fiction Hall of Fame”, full of classic short stories. There’s a few stinkers in the bunch, and some authors got short-changed by the policy of only including one from each author, but most of the decisions were very good. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/46 "2018-07-07T03:59:54Z")
I second the remarks about most of Heinlein’s juveniles, and would add that _Glory Road_ is a great novel. I also recommend Poul Anderson, my favorite science fiction writer; Stephen Baxter, Kim Stanley Robinson, Leigh Brackett, and Roger Zelazny. The first novel is on that list, but I would read the entire _Cities in Flight_ quartet by James Blish. It’s a graphic novel, but I consider Alan Moore and David Gibbon’s _The Watchmen_ to be one of the best SF novels. _The Maker of Universes_, the first of the World of Tiers series by Philip Jose Farmer, is the first SF novel I ever read, and I still think it’s first rate. The next three books in the series are all right, but I quit reading the series after _The Lavalite World_. The late Harlan Ellison wrote quite a few short stories worth reading. I second CalMeacham’s remarks about Frederic Brown, Cordwainer Smith, and the Sting in the Tail writers. Tenn and Sheckley are hilarious. Fritz Leiber wrote wonderful fantasy and science fiction. For SF, I recommend _The Silver Eggheads_, another hilarious novel, and for fantasy I recommend _Conjure Wife_ and the series about Fafhrd the Barbarian and the Grey Mouser, at least the first five books. He’s usually considered a horror writer, but many of H.P. Lovecraft’s later stories are science fiction. I especially recommend “The Shadow out of Time.” I second Jack Vance, one of the best writers, IMO. _To Live Forever_ and _The Blue World_ are excellent novels. When it comes to Herbert, I think _Dune_ is the best SF novel ever written. However, _Dune Messiah_ blows chunks the size of a whale. _Children of Dune_ and _God-Emperor of Dune_ are worth reading, I think, but they are turgid at times. You might consider reading his books _Under Pressure, Whipping Star,_ and _The Santaroga Barrier_. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/47 "2018-07-07T04:58:57Z")
Add another vote for David Brin. He’s probably the biggest post-Golden Age writer in science fiction. His _Uplift_ series is great but I don’t know if I’d recommend starting out with a multi-volume series like that. Instead I recommend either _The Practice Effect_ (if you enjoy the lighter end of SF) or _Kiln People_. Peter Hamilton: Like Brin, he’s written some huge series. So I’d recommend starting with a single novel like _Fallen Dragon_ or _Great North Road_. Robert Charles Wilson: I’d recommend _The Harvest_ or _Last Year_ as good places to start with him. Robert Silverberg is, in my opinion, the greatest living SF author and arguably the greatest of all time. He’s also incredibly prolific; he’s literally written hundreds of books. Some I would recommend to check him out are _The Book of Skulls, Dying Inside, Hawksbill Station, Lord Valentine’s Castle, Nightwings_, and _Up the Line_. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/48 "2018-07-07T05:14:42Z")
John C. Wright’s Golden Age trilogy ought to appeal to an Asimov fan; it’s hard sci-fi with a very methodical writing style and a hint of puzzle-solving. It’s also some extremely creative world-building. John Barnes has written several short fun novels. Start with The Sky So Big and Black for hard sci-fi or Kaleidoscope Century for an elaborate puzzle structure. I will second the recommendation for Robert Charles Wilson but suggest starting with The Chronoliths. It’s a novel of time travel and world politics that fits together perfectly on its own terms. Vernor Vinge’s Peace War novels have an Asimov-like style. However, his space-opera classic, A Fire On The Deep, is way overrated in my opinion. The only Niven I have enjoyed are his collaborations with Pournelle; they seem to have complemented one another. The Forever War is a bit of a period piece, in my view. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/49 "2018-07-07T05:50:52Z")
Metrophage by Richard kadrey a must read …when my english teacher gave it to me she said “it’s a great book but the politics are way out there” Almost 30 years later the perdictions he made are awlfully damn close to coming true… ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/50 "2018-07-07T15:22:46Z")
For Poul Anderson, I like _Fire Time_. You might enjoy _Three Hearts and Three Lions_. The lead character is an engineer, and he spends much of the book trying to explain fantasy tropes with hard-sci-fi terminology. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/51 "2018-07-07T16:09:33Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > His _Uplift_ series is great but I don’t know if I’d recommend starting out with a multi-volume series like that. Although it’s a connected series, _Sundiver_,\* Startide Rising\* and _The Uplift War_ all work well as standalone books. It’s just the Jijo/“Uplift Storm” trilogy that doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/52 "2018-07-07T16:47:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > …snipped… > > I recently read a volume titled “The Science Fiction Hall of Fame”, full of classic short stories. There’s a few stinkers in the bunch, and some authors got short-changed by the policy of only including one from each author, but most of the decisions were very good. Do you have a link? I haven’t read an anthology in a long time, but it’s a great way to “collect” a lot of small gems. If the anthology is good. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/53 "2018-07-07T17:05:48Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > Do you have a link? I haven’t read an anthology in a long time, but it’s a great way to “collect” a lot of small gems. If the anthology is good. I’m guessing this is the anthology in question: [The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time](https://www.amazon.com/Science-Fiction-Hall-Fame-Greatest/dp/0380007959/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530982711&sr=1-5&keywords=science+fiction+hall+of+fame+mass+market+paperback). It really is a good anthology, and one that several of us have recommended here on the SDMB before. I might even go so far as to recommend it as my “If you only read one science fiction book…” selection. The downside is that it’s fairly old: it was originally published in, I think, 1970, and all of its stories are from well before then, so it doesn’t show you what’s been going on in science fiction since then. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/54 "2018-07-07T17:56:13Z")
A Canticle for Leibowitz - Three dystopian stories in one! The first part is a post-apocalyptic (6 centuries post) anti-intellectual dark ages and an abbey that still copies small amounts of knowledge, and shopping lists, preserved from before the nuclear war. The middle sees that society a couple centuries later about to break out of those dark ages. It’s marred by competition and war between the city-states that have emerged. The final sees an even more technologically advanced society with two major world coalitions building towards yet another nuclear war. Repeat as necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/55 "2018-07-07T18:18:10Z")
If you simply want a fairly complete view of science fiction short stories over the past thirty-five years, read all of Gardner Dozois’s best of the year anthologies, including the one that just came out. Yeah, that’s a lot of work, but you can learn all about short science fiction from 1983 to 2017. Also, note that there are three volumes in the series _The Science Fiction Hall of Fame_, one volume for short stories and two for novellas. Those cover 1929 to 1964. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/56 "2018-07-07T18:19:08Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’m guessing this is the anthology in question: [The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time](https://www.amazon.com/Science-Fiction-Hall-Fame-Greatest/dp/0380007959/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530982711&sr=1-5&keywords=science+fiction+hall+of+fame+mass+market+paperback). > > It really is a good anthology, and one that several of us have recommended here on the SDMB before. I might even go so far as to recommend it as my “If you only read one science fiction book…” selection. The downside is that it’s fairly old: it was originally published in, I think, 1970, and all of its stories are from well before then, so it doesn’t show you what’s been going on in science fiction since then. If you can find it somewhere, [Adventures in Time and Space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_in_Time_and_Space) is the definitive collection of Golden Age stories, and shows where a lot of things originated. Good reading also, if not exactly modern. The wiki entry says it is out of print again, though. Much better than the Treasury of Science Fiction, also mentioned. Read it with the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, not instead of. That is good also. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/57 "2018-07-07T18:36:32Z")
No love for Ray Bradbury here? I loved _The Illustrated Man_ and _The Martian Chronicles_, for starters. (I didn’t read the whole thread, but did a search for “Brad” and didn’t get any hits). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/58 "2018-07-07T18:52:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Although it’s a connected series, _Sundiver_,\* Startide Rising\* and _The Uplift War_ all work well as standalone books. It’s just the Jijo/“Uplift Storm” trilogy that doesn’t. My personal opinion is that you’re better off introducing somebody to an author in a work that is self-contained. Any book in a series, even if it’s a stand-alone story, will refer to events that happened in other books. This is especially a factor with Brin who has left several large gaps in the Uplift setting that he’s never written about. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/59 "2018-07-07T18:56:58Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > My personal opinion is that you’re better off introducing somebody to an author in a work that is self-contained. Not sure I’d agree. I mean, for example, I wouldn’t introduce people to Banks through _Feersum Endjinn_ or even _Against A Dark Background_. Sometimes, an author’s most fully realized universe is the best hook. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404/60 "2018-07-07T19:53:33Z")
If I was introducing someone to Peter F Hamilton, I’d give them Pandora’s Star, the first in a series. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-finished-dune-now-what/817404.md?page=4)