Non Trek scfi novels?

[rfmcdpei]

I don't know if it'd really be Sci-Fi, but Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is awesome. I think it's generally considered fantasy, but it does deal with some sci-fi concepts like dark matter, parallel realities, and features some steampunkish tech in one of the worlds.

It even features in Trek literature: in Children of the Storm, when the crew of the Demeter discuss how to insert O'Connell's seeds into the bubbles of the Children of the Storm, the "ancient myth" of the subtle knife is brought up.

 

[Yevetha]

This thread needs to go to the Sci Fi boards.

 

[Christopher]

I really liked the Rama series from Arthur C. Clarke (last three of the four books written w/ Gentry Lee)...

It would be more accurate to say they were written by Gentry Lee with Clarke consulting. And they're so profoundly different from Rendezvous with Rama in tone, content, and approach that I think it's misleading to lump them together as a unified whole. A lot of people who love Clarke's novel (myself included) loathe Lee's sequels. And the reverse is probably true as well. So caveat emptor there. (There were also two further books in the series that Lee wrote entirely by himself.)

 

[Therin of Andor]

This thread needs to go to the Sci Fi boards.

Why? The OP is a ST reader, but curious about recommendations of non-ST SF novels enjoyed by fellow ST fans. If the post was over on a Sci Fi board, many of us wouldn't have even noticed it.

 

[Causchy]

I found The Sparrow and Children of God, both by Mary Doria Russell, to be extremely interesting and fairly disturbing.

 

[Patrick O'Brien]

Robocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson.

I just started reading this book, so far so good. It is presented in a similar format as World War Z, which I like

 

[j3067]

A Fire Upon the Deep & A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge
The Peace War & Marooned in Real Time, also by Vernor Vinge

The Vinge books are paired because, although they are not direct sequels, they share some secondary characters characters and occur in the same universe.

I'd also recommend Marsbound & Starbound, by Joe Haldeman (I did not care for Earthbound at all though).

I'll also echo the recommendations of the Old Man's War books by John Scalzi.

 

[Christopher]

^Vinge has recently published The Children of the Sky, which is a direct sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep. So the "Zones of Thought" series is up to three books now.

 

[jstern2]

Are there any really good Firefly- or BSG-esque books that are less science-fictiony and more about just great drama that happens to occur in a spaceship setting?

Or to make another comparison is there a novel that does for spaceships what Zone One did for zombies?

 

[Timewalker]

There are some pretty decent Babylon 5 novels. I read the trilogy about Bester (the Psi Cop played by Walter Koenig) and found it really enjoyable - if a little disturbing, which is fine because Bester is a really disturbed/ing character.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Speaking of Bester, I can't believe no one has mentioned Alfred Bester's 2 great classics: The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination.

I also really liked Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. (Imagine an Ayn Rand novel in outer space, but with shorter political rants.)

All of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's books are great.

I am also a big Michael Crichton fan. His stuff may not be quite the same kind of SCI-FI your are talking about. He may be more in the science based thriller category. His books are really fun to read and he has been a big influence in my life.

I've only read one of his books, Rising Sun, and that's more of a straight-up murder mystery than sci-fi. But it was a helluva lot of fun! I've never read another author who was as engaging and whose prose was so thoroughly readable. I breezed through it as if it were a book less than half as long.

 

[Timewalker]

Speaking of Bester, I can't believe no one has mentioned Alfred Bester's 2 great classics: The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination.

I also really liked Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. (Imagine an Ayn Rand novel in outer space, but with shorter political rants.)

Who do you think the Babylon 5 character was named after?

I absolutely LOVE The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. I've read and re-read my copy until it's nearly falling apart - time to replace it so I can read it some more! Of all the Heinlein novels I've read, this is the one I've most wished could have been made into a movie. A friend and I used to spend a lot of forum conversations (on another board) "casting" it...

 

[Sci]

Are there any really good Firefly- or BSG-esque books that are less science-fictiony and more about just great drama that happens to occur in a spaceship setting?

Or to make another comparison is there a novel that does for spaceships what Zone One did for zombies?

I'm not sure what you mean by "science-fiction-y." Are you saying you're looking for science fiction stories that focus on characterization rather than the science fiction aspects of the setting?

 

[Yevetha]

If you are looking for Space Fantasy try Star wars books.

I recommand the Thrawn Trilogy for start.

 

[backstept]

Peter Watts' Rifters trilogy and Blindsight
one thing to note: Feedbooks has the second and third Rifters books labeled wrong . . . Maelstrom is #2 and Behemoth is #3

Arthur C Clarke's The City and the Stars was great

 

[jstern2]

Are there any really good Firefly- or BSG-esque books that are less science-fictiony and more about just great drama that happens to occur in a spaceship setting?

Or to make another comparison is there a novel that does for spaceships what Zone One did for zombies?

I'm not sure what you mean by "science-fiction-y." Are you saying you're looking for science fiction stories that focus on characterization rather than the science fiction aspects of the setting?

Pretty much. I've been searching for a couple days now and it's interesting how hard it is to find a novel that's just about humans in space - no aliens, no technobabble, etc. - just great characters in a tense setting in space.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, if you're not interested in the speculative elements, why do you want it to be in space at all?

 

[jstern2]

^Well, if you're not interested in the speculative elements, why do you want it to be in space at all?

I'm interested in the speculative elements, but in the same way that Firefly or BSG are. There are still sci-fi elements, but they aren't necessarily at the forefront of what the story is about.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I recommend anything and everything in Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth milieu.

 

[Sci]

Are there any really good Firefly- or BSG-esque books that are less science-fictiony and more about just great drama that happens to occur in a spaceship setting?

Or to make another comparison is there a novel that does for spaceships what Zone One did for zombies?

I'm not sure what you mean by "science-fiction-y." Are you saying you're looking for science fiction stories that focus on characterization rather than the science fiction aspects of the setting?

Pretty much. I've been searching for a couple days now and it's interesting how hard it is to find a novel that's just about humans in space - no aliens, no technobabble, etc. - just great characters in a tense setting in space.

I'd recommend picking up Robert J. Sawyer's Starplex.