A lot of people who’ve read Dune associate it with a Piers Anthony novel called Terra-Eye, even suggesting the former is required reading to understand the latter. I disagree; the Anthony book is uselessly incoherent whether or not you’ve read Dune.
So *Dune *or Dune-not, there is no Terra-Eye.
I do :). Although I actually prefer The Dispossessed, thinking it among the best utopian novels ever written, despite not really being a utopian novel.
If you click, you see there’s way more than 100 books on that list. Even with the full list, I was a bit surprised not to see Octavia Butler anywhere on it. She’s a big enough deal to have gotten the Google Doodle of the day not too long ago.
I’m not saying this as a personal recommendation—I’ve only read one of her books, and it wasn’t entirely my cup of tea, but I do mean to get around to reading more of hers.
Stuff that isn’t on that list, but should be: C.J. Cherryh - Downbelow Station
Sheri S. Tepper - The Gate To Women’s Country
I’m a big Asimov fan myself. One writer I like for hard SF is James P. Hogan. He was a real weirdo in real life, and some of it filters into his writing (particularly late in his life/career). But I truly enjoyed reading his stuff from the 70s, 80s and 90s. On reviewing one of his early works, Asimov said something like (paraphrasing from memory, sorry), “Move over, Arthur Clarke, the new star of hard SF is here.” When Clarke reviewed a later Hogan work, he said something like, “Alas, I think Isaac is right.”
The Giants series (starts with Inherit the Stars), Thrice Upon a Time, Code of the Lifemaker (and its sequel The Immortality Option), and Bug Park are the ones I’d mention in particular.
There are others, but you are taking the chance of straying into his semi-crazed philosophical positions. Cradle of Saturn, for instance, is overtly Veilikovskian, which I didn’t like as much as the other complete rewrite of the Solar System’s history he did in Inherit the Stars.
JC’s list is the place to start.
Give us some sub-fields you like of think you’ll like. Do you want the science hard or soft or non-existant?
My go-to recommendation is to try the Sten series by Chris Bunch and Alan Cole.
My recommendations would be:
David Brin - Startide Rising and The Uplift War. The first book in the trilogy “Sundiver” is good but not essential. And as another noted, the second trilogy is harder to get into.
Jack McDevitt - Really anything he has written. The*** Priscilla Hutchins*** novels are great, as are the Alex Benedict Novels. His one-offs are also good.
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - most anything they wrote, either together or separately. If you’re not sure, start with The Mote In God’s Eye or Lucifer’s Hammer.
If you like space opera, Dave Weber’s Honor Harrington series is very good. As is Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet series.
Gordon R. Dickson wrote some interesting stuff, including his Childe Cycle and The Way of the Pilgrim.
Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon stories are a whole lot of fun.
Steven Brust tends more towards swords and sorcery type fantasy (but done a bit differently than most), but Cowboy Feng’s Spacetime Bar and Grill is more sci-fi-ish. I’m a big fan of his Vlad Taltos books. Also his Khaavren romances, while set in the same world as Vlad Taltos, are written in an Alexandre Dumas-like style, and are fun if you like over-blown dialogue.
If you’ve been living under a bush and didn’t see The Martian, definitely read the book by Andy Weir.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. A gripping take on man’s first contact with aliens.
Steve Perry’s Matador series is excellent, especially if you are a fan of the Martial Arts.
There’s a lot more, but this list would keep you busy for quite a while.
I’ve always loved David Brin’s Uplift series, which has been mentioned above.
I agree with other posters that Dune alone is sufficient. My second favorite in the series was God Emporer. BUT, if you read two good books in a series, you might be tempted to think that the others might be worth reading…
I also agree that Le Guin is s great writer. I haven’t seen most of her more recent stuff (last few decades)- maybe I should check it out.
Lucifer’s Hammer is very good (much better than Footfall IMHO) and the Motie stuff as well for the Niven/Pournelle pair. You might try out Inferno from them, if you like their style.
I recommend it all the time, but I can’t summon high enough praise for Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince and The Causal Angel, known collectively as the Jean le Flambeur series. Many people find them somewhat difficult due to their uncompromising show-don’t-tell style but they are immensely rewarding and the first in the series is particularly wonderful, IMO.
I also recommend Richard K. Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs books and his excellent stand-alone novel Thirteen. Again, the plot is complicated but it involves a genetically engineered human, who’s type by law cannot be created anymore, helping a detective find someone who escaped from Mars back to Earth, eating the passengers on the ship to sustain himself. That nutshell description doesn’t do it justice, of course, but I figured a nutshell description is better than none, eh.
Someone already mentioned Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, which is great and you should really read that.
Someone else also mention Forever War by Joe Haldeman. It’s probably my favorite book, excellent fairly hard sci-fi. In fact, I can recommend just about any book by Haldeman – Mindbridge is great, All My Sins Remembered, and on and on. For something short and fun by him, read The Accidental Time Machine.
Cat’s Cradle, by Vonnegut, is biting and great.
In terms of Dune books, the first three are good, then it goes downhill fast.
Uh, no. The dates alone disprove it:
*
Dune* 1965 (published first by Chilton Press, incidently, known primarily for their car repair manuals).
*Dune Messiah *1969 (since the original book was a big success, why wait four years to publish the sequel if it’s already written?)
Children of Dune 1976 (a NY Times Best seller)
God Awful . . . God Emperor of Dune 1981 (Again, why wait five years if you have the book in hand?)
And Jonathan Chance is right. Children is the best, but it’s never better than a potboiler. God Awful had Herbert straining to make things work (another clue that he hadn’t written it as a single book.
My choices are a bit idiosyncratic.
Davy by Edgar Pangborn – The adventures of the king of the fools (which takes wisdom) in an post-apocalyptic world.
Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. Not his best, but better than 90% of the work out there. His most traditionally SF.
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. Pure brilliance
Anything by Octavia Butler, but especially The Parable of the Sower
Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg. The story of a telepath losing his powers.
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. Ahead of its time, and great space opera.
Anything by Jack Vance. Vance was a mediocre plotter, but brilliant at creating alien societies and outre characters. Try The Demon Prices and The Dying Earth series.
I was very impressed by Norman Spinrad’s Bug Jack Barron, though I haven’t read it in awhile and it may not hold up.
Fredrick Pohl had a great streak in the late 70s, with Man Plus, Gateway, Jem and Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
First, let me join the chorus encouraging you to read Heinlein’s pre-1960’s stuff, almost all of which is good. About half the stuff he wrote in the 60’s and 70’s was good. You can skip the rest.
Also, two comments on the Honor Harrington series:
I’d call that military sci-fi, not space opera. You want space opera, go with the Lensman seriesby EE Smith. It’s dated, sometimes comically so, but it’s great space opera.
For those (which is about everybody) who think Weber is just milking the series, I have a wonderful gift for you:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11500916/1/Honor-Among-Thieves
It’s fan fiction, but it’s better than Weber. Seriously. It brings the series to a very satisfying conclusion, with better dialog and less bloat than the Weber books.
Lots of great stuff in here, folks. Thank you. I’ve got about six hours of free reading time tomorrow, so I intend to take advantage of these suggestions immediately.
Feel free. I’m definitely interested in current writing, as well. Most of the short story compilations I’ve read in the last few months have been from the last couple of years, and there’s definitely still good stuff out there.
As best as I can recall, the only thing I’ve ever read of Brin’s was his contribution to Asimov’s “Foundation” series, and for the life of me, I can’t recall if his was the one I hated or not. Still, it has been a couple of decades, at least, and I’m willing to give him a shot.
I’ve read and enjoyed “Snow Crash,” so that bodes well for the rest of your list. Thank you!
I’ve read “Ringworld,” but nothing else that I can recall. So added.
Noted. I like hard sci-fi, and I like time travel. I also tend to like appropriate doses of dystopian novels.
I actually read “The Quantum Thief” about five years ago, and struggled with it for exactly the same reason you identified. I had intended to re-read it, and never did. I’ve still got the physical copy around, and may well do that.
My two cents on Niven, his short story collections, like* Neutron Star* and Tales of Known Space, are better than his novels, although *World of Ptavvs *is very good.
“I like hard sci-fi, and I like time travel.”
Go read Charlie Stross’s, “Palimpsest,” now. Won the Hugo for Best Novella, IIRC.
Let me know afterwards if you could follow the plot. If you could, maybe you could help me to.
To that end, try Robert Asprin/Janet Evans’ Time Scout novels. Also good are Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol books. For old school read H. Beam Piper’s Paratime stories.
And, in honor of our own Qadgop the Mercotan, read E. E. Smith’s Lensman series, where rockets thunder through the ether and they use planets as KEWs.
I seem to recall George RR Martin saying in 2005 that his new book was too large, so the publisher wanted to split it up. The two halves came out six years apart. So it’s entirely possible Herbert said something similar, and meant it when he said it, but just couldn’t stop rewriting.
Interesting coincidence… I decided to read through Dune again recently and I’m about a third of the way through Children.
It’s been many years… I find that I enjoyed Messiah quite a bit, but Children is really tedious right now. I have actually been thinking about giving up.
I don’t remember much about God Emperor, Heretics, or Chapterhouse, but I’m looking at them on the shelf and wondering if I shouldn’t just start something else.
Greetings, fellow Asimovian. I started reading SF at age 13, but I have been doing it steadily for 68 years.
Nearly any book by William Gibson. Stephanie Saulter’s Evolution trilogy. If you go for the gruesome, Charles Stross’s laundry series. If you don’t, you might enjoy his family trade series. Courtship Rites and Psychohistorical Crisis by Donald Kingsbury, both of which took place in Asimov’s universe (under different names, although the second is obviously a sequel to Second Foundation). Sherri Tepper, especially Grass and Gate to Women’s country, although I thoroughly enjoyed her True Game series (I think 9 books). Melissa Scott, especially her “Roads” series.
If you go for fantasy, there are a number of female writers I have fallen in love with: Laura Anne Gilman, Patricia Briggs, Sharon Shinn.
Hmm…have you heard of Claire North? Her first book (under this pseudonym: she’s disgustingly accomplished for someone like fifteen years younger than me), The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, is one of my favorite takes on time travel. Spoiler: there’s no real time travel to speak of. Which is part of why it’s one of my favorite takes.