SF Book Recommendations

[Starbreaker]

I'm looking for something to read that is just completely awe inspiring. I want something with interesting characters, cool technology, intriguing aliens, and engaging plots.

I'm open to series, trilogies, or standalone novels. I really like military science fiction / space opera. I'm also a real sucker for xenoarchaelogy stories though. Hidden artifacts and other mysterious alien devices do it for me!

My favorite books, to kind of help you get a feel for what I specifically like to read:

Dune by Frank Herbert
Exultant by Stephen Baxter
The Dark Beyond the Stars
As On A Darkling Plain by Ben Bova
Deepsix by Jack McDevitt
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

 

[sojourner]

Arrival in Deepspace -

Back cover :

Richard Lock had no time to settle into the command of the UNS Federation, first ship in the newly formed fleet. The Federation's arrival at the star colony Forge's Hammer, has dropped it's crew into the middle of an unexpected conflict between two unknown powers - one human and the other alien! With the fate of the colony at stake, Richard must fend off two superior forces, rescue the colony, and bring his ship back to earth intact!

A first in a trilogy of stand alone novels in the ongoing "Dropspace" series by Richard Haley.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman and The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

 

[Pilot Ace]

Old Man's War by John Scalzi is a great, fun take on a Starship Troopers style novel, though more focus on the action than the lectures. Lots of cool tech, aliens, and witty characters.

Part of a Quadrilogy, though I thought the 3rd book in the series was a bit lacking, would have been better if some of the 4th was incorporated into it rather than making it separate.

 

[Maestro]

The Outback Trilogy from Sandra McDonald is a great spin on the traditional space opera. It has mysterious alien devices, and they aren't necessarily explained in a way that is "definitive."

The latest Titan novel, Synthesis might also be up your alley.

 

[Kegg]

Rendezvous with Rama? The sequels not so much (they are the equivalent to tie-ins, really) but the first is a classic.

Also Childhood's End. And most Clarke titles.

 

[Hyperspace05]

Hyperion by Dan Simmons. The beginning of the ultimate epic space opera.

 

[Mistral]

Santiago-A Myth of the Far Future by Mike Resnick
Characters like you have never seen before, a bounty hunter and the odd folk he meets looking for the galaxy's greatest criminal

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen-H Beam Piper
One of the first alt-hist stories, and still one of the best

The Coming of the Quantum Cats by Fredrick Pohl

The multiverse theory as a practical application, action, adventure, and some mind-bending plots

Allen Steele's Near-Space saga-
Orbital Decay (Ace, 1989)
Clarke County, Space (Ace, 1990)
Lunar Descent (Ace, 1991)
Labyrinth of Night (Ace, 1992)
A King of Infinite Space (Harper-Prism, 1997)
a practical look at tomorrow, Steele has been called the new Heinlein

Forever by Peter Hamill
What if you lived for 400 years or more-but could never leave the island of Manhattan?
Amazing book.

The Instrumentality of Mankind by Cordwainer Smith
um, dunno how to describe-the future? Where we might be in a thousand years?

Time and Again by Jack Finney
the most believable recreation of another era in a time-travel story ever.
Also amazing.

Earthblood by Keith Laumer
one true Earthling in a universe that has forgotten what that means...
total space opera of the best kind

Lest Darkness Fall-L. Sprague DeCamp
a '30s archeologist ends up at the cusp of the Fall of Rome-and tries to stop it

Little Fuzzy-H Beam Piper
yeah, same guy. In this story a miner on a far-out planet comes home and finds his door ajar. What's waiting inside changes his life-and the entire planet he lives on

If you need anything else to read do a search on this forum for similar threads-there have been a few over the last couple years...

 

[SalvorHardin]

Pretty much anything by Peter F. Hamilton
His Night's Dawn Trilogy is a must read, with The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God.
His Commonwealth books with Pandora's Star & Judas Unchained as well as the new books set in the same universe 1500 years later with The Dreaming Void, The Temporal Void and the upcoming The Evolutionary Void.
Also his Fallen Dragon book is very good and similar to the also excellent The Forever War by Joe Haldeman.

Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe books are great and on the hard side of sci-fi. Revelation Space, Redemption Ark & Absolution Gap.

Dan Simmons' Hyperion/Endymion books. Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion.
Don't miss these.

 

[Pilot Ace]

Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe books are great and on the hard side of sci-fi. Revelation Space, Redemption Ark & Absolution Gap.

Tried Revelation Space a number of weeks ago, got about 25-50 pages in when I just couldn't make it any further. It was all so dry and lifeless.

May return to it someday because all the concepts people mentioned seemed interesting, but there was no emotion to any of the characters. Sure, people were doing emotional things, but I didn't believe or feel a word of it.

 

[stonester1]

I'm looking for something to read that is just completely awe inspiring. I want something with interesting characters, cool technology, intriguing aliens, and engaging plots.

I'm open to series, trilogies, or standalone novels. I really like military science fiction / space opera. I'm also a real sucker for xenoarchaelogy stories though. Hidden artifacts and other mysterious alien devices do it for me!

My favorite books, to kind of help you get a feel for what I specifically like to read:

Dune by Frank Herbert
Exultant by Stephen Baxter
The Dark Beyond the Stars
As On A Darkling Plain by Ben Bova
Deepsix by Jack McDevitt
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

Ian Banks' stuff, Peter F. Hamilton's stuff (especially the Night's Dawn books). And since you said Starship Troopers, check out David Sherman's "Starfist" series as well as Jack Campbell's "Lost Fleet" saga.

 

[Sky]

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman and The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

I was just coming to recommend these two. But don't read Forever War's sequel Forever Free, it doesn't work.

 

[Mistral]

Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe books are great and on the hard side of sci-fi. Revelation Space, Redemption Ark & Absolution Gap.

Tried Revelation Space a number of weeks ago, got about 25-50 pages in when I just couldn't make it any further. It was all so dry and lifeless.

May return to it someday because all the concepts people mentioned seemed interesting, but there was no emotion to any of the characters. Sure, people were doing emotional things, but I didn't believe or feel a word of it.

Thank you! I've kept quiet because so many people around here rave about Reynolds's books but I felt/did the same thing. I forced myself through Revelation Space and just couldn't face any more of his garbage. I wanted to like it but...

I found an author who writes similar stuff with ten times the life injected into his characters. Ken MacCleod. Try The Stone Canal. Try any of his stories-they are, IMO, far superior. And for Starship Trooper-like stories Michael Z Williamson. One is called Freehold-great tale.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

I'm looking for something to read that is just completely awe inspiring.

I want something with interesting characters, cool technology, intriguing aliens, and engaging plots.

Hidden artifacts and other mysterious alien devices do it for me!

May I recommend for you, on that basis, Frederick Pohl's Gateway.

Basically (and without spoilers) a ruined Earth finds an alien spaceport in the solar system. Docked are a great many ships, no signs of their previous pilots. Humans can work the ships, get them to fly, but have no control over where. All they know is that some of them leave, many don't come back and those that do come back, might not next time.

I liked Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy, but I tired a little from the descriptions and abundant use of technology he enjoyed. So much so that I gave up reading anything after Fallen Dragon.

 

[Demiurge]

Another vote for Hyperion, one of the best scifi series ever.

A Mote in God's Eye is excellent, a wonderful first contact story.

I really enjoyed Hamilton, I'd give his Commonwealth series a bit of a nod over the Confederation series but they are all excellent.

The Uplift War by David Brin (especially Startide Rising).

Old Man's War is commonly called the new Starship Troopers, and there's some validity to that. It has a similar feel without being totally derivative. Not nearly as philosophical however.