Monday Morning Media: SF and Fantasy Books

Any recommendations for SF and fantasy books? Please post them here. There'll be later posts asking for suggestions about other genres and other media (and see the post several weeks ago on recommendations for TV series).

Please also focus on things that you expect even people who love the genres might have missed.

Comments

[Mr. Bumble]

"Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy from 1888. A socialist fantasy.

[santamonica811]

-Discworld series (Terry Pratchett) [You'll know halfway thru 1st book if this is your style.]
-Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke)
-The Kingkiller Chronicle (Rothfuss) [Surprisingly engaging for me, and my 11 year old niece also really liked it]
-The Gentleman Bastard Sequence (Scott Lynch)
-American Gods (Neil Gaiman)
-The Farseer Trilogy (Robin Hobb)
-The First Law (Joe Abercrombie) [You'll love it or hate it. I haven't met anyone who had a "meh" or "it was okay" reaction. About as polarizing as the "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" series; which is not on this list, as I didn't love the way Donaldson used words as blunt objects, IMHO)]
-The Once And Future King (TH White). (A bit slow in parts. One of the few times with fiction where I tell friends, "Give at least the entire first part a full reading before you discard this." It grew on me over time, as I read more and more.)
-Riftwar Saga (Feist)

[Noscitur a sociis]

I can't believe you forgot about The Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, Foundation, and Dune.

[Mr. Bumble]

Please also focus on things that you expect even people who love the genres might have missed.

[santamonica811]

Bumble,
Are you talking to me or NAS?
NAS,
I didn't mention those (or Narnia, Harry Potter, et al) because everyone here has heard of them, and almost certainly read them. I'd be shocked (and very pleasantly surprised) if more than 20% of the VC readers had read my list beyond Gaiman and Pratchett. 🙂

[Mr. Bumble]

To NAS. Beside an edit button and some sort of filter sytem, I was replies featured who the reply was intended for in the heading.

[Mr. Bumble]

"system", "I wish"

[Armchair Lawyer]

I've read your entire list except for Clarke and (for some reason) White. Only got a little way through Hobb.

-Discworld is quirky, you have have to be in the mood for puns. It's not bad, but sometimes the plot overall suffers a little. Goes in it's own category for ranking.

Rothfuss is good...but the series is short (2 books of a trilogy). My criticism there is, it's been a decade and he hasn't finished the trilogy. Shades of George R. R. Martin there. He takes a knock in my rankings for that. #3

Lynch is good, started on a better note, started to go a little downhill after that. #2

Neil Gaiman is in his own category. unranked.

Abercrombie is....Fantasy politics. There's a trace of magic (not unlike Martin), but it's not overwhelming. Some of his sequences and characters are good. Some I didn't care for. #4

Hobb I didn't read enough of. unranked.

Feist...I have to admit. The first two books, Magician Apprentice and Magician Master are among my favorite books. After that...it drops off in quality. Split ranking #1, first 2 books. #5 rest of it.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I'm being a jerk, but come on. Those are some of the most popular and best know fantasy series around. You're like the people of the TV series thread who were suggesting Breaking Bad or The Wire.

[Kazinski]

Oh come on, that's like asking someone for detective and mystery genre and someone suggesting Agatha Christie, if they haven't read her already it's not because they never heard of her before.

[jb]

I mostly endorse this list (with one caveat), so I'll build on it with some hard SciFi recs:

- Anything by Vernor Vinge, but in particular the Zones of Thought series and in particular A Fire Upon The Deep. It's a somewhat challenging read, but I love the way the writing doesn't pander to the reader with lots of exposition and explanation. You have to work a bit to figure it out yourself. Vinge is particularly good if you're interested in computer science.
- Ancillary Justice and the other two books of the Imperial Radch series. Also a somewhat challenging read with a big payoff.
- The Culture series by Iain M. Banks.
- Much more mainstream and likely that people have read it, but Andy Weir does a great job of making hard Sci Fi accessible, most obviously in The Martian.
- Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I like the take on non-human sentience that is nonetheless still grounded in species we are familiar with.
- Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin. Cool to read SciFi written from a non-Western perspective, and it's thought-provoking along several axes.

My caveat to your list is that although the two Kingkiller Chronicles books are great, there's no third book and it seems like no likely prospect for it to appear, which is super frustrating as a reader. (Similar story to the situation with Story of Fire and Ice.) As a result, I have a hard time recommending that people start in until the third book maybe eventually shows up.

To the extent people are willing to start reading a series that's not yet complete (but has a much higher chance of getting a third book soon IMHO), The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne is the start of a fun fantasy series with a Nordic setting.

[Syd Henderson]

Ann Leckie's novels are all worth reading. Ancillary Justice is a masterpiece.

I really liked Arkady Martine's "A Memory Called Empire", a great exploration of an interstellar culture starting off from Aztec and Mayan cultures.

[natem42]

The sequel (Martine) Desolation Called Peace is better than Memory - she really starts to hit her stride.

[Armchair Lawyer]

A Fire upon the deep is classic and great.

Ancillary Justice is...OK. I always felt it was too highly ranked. I felt David Weber's On Basilisk Station was better.

The Culture gets a little too abstract for my taste. I always felt that Charles Stross (Singularity Sky) and Neil Asher (the Polity series) did it better, with better characterization.

Andy Weir is fine. Audiobooks work nicely.

[Calliope]

Tchaikovsky is solid. Also enjoyed Cage of Souls.

I wasn't sure how I felt about The Three Body problem. Interesting, but also off putting in some way. I ended up just reading the plot summary for the final book and I think I'm glad I didn't bother?

[Kazinski]

My same thought on the Three Body Problem, I read it, but didn't go on to the rest of the series even though it's on Kindle Unlimited.

[CarLitGuy]

Actually, only the first two books are in KU, the thirds is still purchase required. I jumped on the first two last week when I saw them show up in KU. Good read, if not my normal choice of setting.

[Kazinski]

Well I have to admit, he certainly nailed the psychosis of the Gaia death cult, that people are evil and destroying the planet, thus an alien civilization coming to purge us and correct our excesses would be welcomed and encouraged.

[Calliope]

Question about John Gwynne. I've had a lot of people recommend him as fun fantasy but I bought Malice, and I thought it was some of the most amateurish writing I've ever seen. Really over the top telling rather than showing, horrific sentence structure, grammar errors. Gave up maybe 20 pages in. Just a bad book of his or is it a recurring issue?

[jb]

I haven't read any of his other books, but those criticisms don't resonate with me for Shadow of the Gods at least. (Even if you don't ordinarily read on a Kindle, this is a great use of the Sample feature of the Kindle ecosystem. You can just read the first chapter or read.amazon.com and see how you feel about a book before making a commitment.)

[GMUSL Alum]

Liu's writing is so clunky and his characters as low-dimensional as his aliens that even cool concepts can't make the book worth reading. The entire series needs to be redone by someone who actually knows how to write a novel.

[Mike W.]

And knows something about physics, would be nice.

[John F. Carr]

Banks went downhill. I blame it on lack of editing. _Matter_ should have been much shorter and I gave up on _The Algebraist_ when nothing had happened after too many pages.

_Use of Weapons_ is my favorite SF by Banks, _Espedair Street_ my favorite mainstream. Both are from his first decade as a published writer.

[Jokibif0]

I liked _Use of Weapons_ a lot, but also _Consider Phlebas_, which is a good intro to a lot of the Culture universe and the Idiran war.

[SRG]

I very much liked "Against a Dark Background". and there's not a book by him SF or non-SF that I read that I didn't like except Canal Dreams - which I heard was in his own view his worst.

[Dan Lo Pan 2]

I like the Discworld stories but the first two really are not as good, and have a different voice, than the others. And several toward the end also dwindle in quality.

[CarLitGuy]

If you like Donaldson (and really, only the First of the Three Chronicles of Thomas Covenant trilogies need be read), his "Gap Cycle" is more violent, more graphic, and loosely inspired by Wagner's Ring Cycle, only with a Sci Fi backdrop. I don't recommend. For Fantasy lovers, however, his "Mordant's Need" books (2) would be a better, less violent, less graphic choice.

Also, if you like Donaldson, while different in prose (much different), I'd recommend Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone, one of the orginal broken anti-heroes. Yes, its a classic, but one forgotten by those born after the silver age of sci fi and fantasy paperbacks fo the 80s and early 90s.

For new authors of fantasy who take inspiration fom historic events, I'd recommend Jeff Wheeler's "Muirwood" and "Kingfountain" books, with Kingfountain drawing the more obvious historic parallels. They are MUCH cleaner reads than Donaldson.

[Alan Beck]

I've read the Covenant series and honestly they were a tad repetitive. The first book was entertaining to the extent that it was certainly an original concept with the leprosy and white gold but beyond that the novels did not capture my imagination.

[John F. Carr]

I give Donaldson credit for trying something different. In one of his novels, our heroes head off into the mythical unknown on an impossible quest to retrieve the legendary object that will save the world. On reaching their goal they learn the quest is impossible after all and give up and go home.

Maybe "credit" was the wrong word.

[Alan Beck]

I think my biggest critique of his works are his protagonists are not likeable and there situations are bleak. You can either have 40k style grimdark bleakness but heroes that you can root for even if they are flawed or you can have the typical quest where something is gained in the end. When you have unlikable people that are in unlikable situations, the writing is just hard to read.

[AmosArch]

The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich

[Mr. Bumble]

Lacking in science but certainly fiction.

[great Unknown]

political-science fiction. but I am being redundant.

[Brett Bellmore]

Diaspora, by Greg Egan. A really different future history.

A Name to Conjure With, by Donald AAmodt. Good sword and sorcery.

Ole Doc Methuselah, by L Ron Hubbard. He wrote some pretty good "B" SF before he invented Scientology.

Prostho Plus, by Piers Anthony. Space opera about a dentist in space.

The Dragon Knight series by Gordon Dickson. It kept getting better, so sad that he died before it was finished.

[SRG]

Prostho Plus is highly entertaining.

[John F. Carr]

I enjoyed it. Anthony is frustrating because he proved can can write well. He chooses not to.

[SRG]

Yeah. I used to joke that he should have continued one of his series with Qiq the Bucket.

[PeteRR]

Armor by John Steakley. Set sort of in the Heinlein Starship Troopers universe, but its own personal story.

The Weapon Shops of Isher by A.E. Van Vogt. Set 5000 years in the future. Secretive libertarian organization that believes in armed self defense for the individual against government tyranny. Very, very good. Hard to believe it was written in the 1940s.

Dinosaur Beach by Keith Laumer. Known for his Bolo and Retief stories, Laumer contemplates a future where time travel is relatively routine and opposed by different eras of "time police." Also very good.

[Craig Johnston]

Armor is a great story.

[Krayt]

I read Armor. The first half is awesome, the second puzzling and not so much.

I realized after reading it he had no idea where to go with the first half, so he bolted on a second book, then at the end brings back the protagonist of the first half to save the day.

Mild spoilers ********
The first half involves a space marine, complete with armored war suit, fighting in a bug war among the stars. While not the best shot, nor the best fighter, he succeeds, where his buds around him fail, when he gets overcome with some spirit of battling toughness, and, like Bruce Banner, sorta wakes up and all the bugs around him are dead. He calls it being taken over by The Engine.

Anyway, some cool scenes and background, but no further story, so he just goes awol. Bolt on second book, then he appears at the end like Rey stumbling across Luke Skywalker, like a hundred other stories where some fictional ancient superfighter in retirement is run into by one unfortunate store robber too many.

[PeteRR]

I didn't read that from the book at all. They are an integrated whole.

[PeteRR]

BTW, mild spoilers? You gave away the entire book. FFS.

[Krayt]

You mean I gave away two books, bolted together. One didn't have an ending, and the other was deus ex machina.

[PeteRR]

Your awful and nonsensical opinion on the book notwithstanding, you completely gave away the plot of the book. Do better.

[John F. Carr]

_Dinosaur Beach_ is good Laumer. I often think of his Retief series which portrays the galactic diplomatic service as more interested in protocol and making the enemy happy than serving its alleged master. Much like real diplomats. Laumer worked with diplomats and tells it like he saw it.

[GreenLanternCorps]

“The Great Time Machine Hoax” is my favorite Kieth Laumer book

[SAtex]

A good book by a not very prolific Texas author who has since passed. Oddly fortunate enough to see him do a live reading of the first chapter or two at OKon in Tulsa in the mid 1980s.

[apedad]

Anything that DaivdBehar writes.

[Dan Lo Pan 2]

Ah, lack of Volokh's up vote feature strikes again.

[santamonica811]

(To Ape): Heh.
(To Dan): Seconded 🙂

[Nige]

The Dragon Waiting by John M Ford. Recently reissued, tricksy subtle alt-history with magic and vampires.
Ash by Mary Gentle. Bruisingly epic.
The Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer. Widly ambitious and challenging series.
The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle - Beagle finally won the rights back after some harrowing treatment, so there's a new edition out.
Infomocracy by Malka Older, rare science fiction that deals with the mechanics of voting and politics. (Trying to think of other examples - Distraction by Bruce Sterling? Interface by Neal Stephenson? Too long since I read either to remember. Although Palmer's Terra Ignota series above also concerns itself a fair bit with governance.)
The Fractured Europe series by Dave Hutchinson - LeCarre in a near future, but it gets stranger.
The Luna Trilogy by Ian McDonald - Game Of Thrones on the moon, way more original than that makes it sound, superbly written.
The Ministry For The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson - a hopeful vision of dealing with climate change.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - highly recommended for fans of Gaiman and Susannah Clarke.
War Of the Maps by Paul MacAuley. Old-school modern far-future sci fi.

[Nige]

Oh, for the blog that's in it - Rule Of Capture by Christopher Brown, an excellent near-future legal thriller.

[Eric VonSalzen]

Nige, I heartily agree re The Last Unicorn -- indeed, anything by Beagle is well worth reading, and rereading

[Doug Huffman]

*Anathem* by Neal Stephenson 2008

[Calliope]

Came here to post this. If you like science in your science fiction, this one has a short course on orbital mechanics.

[Jacob Grimes]

Oh god, I couldn't even make it 10 pages in that book without falling asleep. Does it just start slow, or is the entire book like that?

[SRG]

Neal Stephenson wears his learning heavily. I've characterised his novels as 250 pages of novel with 500 pages of footnotes inserted into the body of the text.

I do enjoy his footnotes, though.

[Nige]

I love The Baroque Cycle but Termination Shock was a let-down precisely because I feel he didn't unleash his full footnotaphilia or whatever it is on the topic of climate change despite having some very fun and entertaining stuff in it. I thought one wealthy oil baron firing sulphur into the atmopshere with a huge gun and pissing everybody off could have been just one sub-plot in a huge epic of competing/complementary wacky tech climate solutions.

[not me]

As opposed to Susanna Clarke (above), JS&MN has about 250 pages of text spread over about 1000 pages with actual footnotes taking up most if not all of the pages. There are entire short stories in footnotes.

[GMUSL Alum]

It starts slowly but it's probably among the most profound SciFi I've ever read. Absolutely worth it ten times over.

[Milhouse]

Anathem is one of the most brilliant SF novels of its decade. And yes, it starts out on a tiny scale, and then expands, and expands, and expands again, and again. Each time you're convinced you know exactly what the book is about, it suddenly changes perspective and you realize you were only seeing a small piece of the picture, and it's really about something else; and then it does it again, and again, until you realize that what the book is actually about is not just the entire universe but all possible universes.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I like it, but did think it startsd slow. Lots of world building and introducing language in the first 10-50 pages. But it does build momentum, though lots of those in-text footnotes of which I am a fan.

However, better Stephenson: Cryptonomicon. That book is brilliant and entertaining.

[Ridgeway]

I loved Cryptonomicon. I think it was actually a recommendation from Eugene V in one of these sorts of threads that got me to read it some years back.

[Squirrelloid]

Pretty much anything by Neal Stephenson, really.

My favorite is actually The Diamond Age, which is not one of the ones that gets recommended a lot.

[SRG]

Good choice - I just recommended it to my 16you god-daughter for summer reading.

[Sisyphus Rocks]

I agree that Stephenson's The Diamond Age is perhaps his most provocative and predictive work. How I wished my daughters had a Young Ladies' Illustrated Primer during the COVID school lockdowns!

[Boomer]

The Commonwealth Saga and Night's Dawn series by Peter F. Hamilton.

Empire of the East series by Fred Saberhagen.

And I can't believe no one has mentioned Ender's Game yet...

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, he did want stuff people were likely to have missed.

Ditto on Empire of the East! Really enjoyed that series.

[SRG]

Harry Harrison once begged me to ghost-review a Peter Hamilton novel because he couldn't bear the thought of having to read a novel that was the kind of thing he'd spent much of his time parodying...

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, yeah: A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!

[SRG]

Or Bill the Galactic Hero, and the short story Space Rats of the CCC.

The early Stainless Steel Rat books are also highly entertaining.

[Currentsitguy]

Those were a fun ride.

[santamonica811]

Oh, God, I had not thought of those in years.
(Very mild spoiler). But I *LOVED* the idea of a spy (assassin, whatever) hiding tools and weapons underneath his fold-back-able fingernails.

Summer still has a few days left. I think I'll head to the library today, to pick up one of those Stainless Steel Rat books. Thanks!!!! 🙂

[Armchair Lawyer]

A deadly education, Naomi Novik. A rather darker take on the typical Harry Potter-ist situation.

The Atlas Six. Harry Potter with intrigue for adults.

Crescent City, Sarah J Mass. Better than I would've thought.

Fated, Benedict Jacka. Urban fantasy, with wizards (Think Harry Dresden), but the protagonist can't do "everything"...he can just see the future. A fun series of books.

Of course the Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson. Long, epic fantasy. Honestly, it's better than anyone else out there, including Martin and Jordan. Unlike George R.R. Martin, it's pretty clear Sanderson has the overarching plot figured out.

[jb]

Oh, definitely Way of Kings! Even though it's still being written, Sanderson is a very reliable author so high confidence that at least the first sequence of five books will get completed. (Probably the next five two, but that's a 10-15 year endeavor!)

[Calliope]

I think it's probably worth reading some of Sanderson's other series first. Even the earlier works where his writing isn't as good. They're all interesting in some way, and they also all tie in together a little bit.

[GMUSL Alum]

Agree on Jacka and Sanderson

[CarLitGuy]

I find Sanderson strong on the little stuff - interpersonal exchanges and with a solid mechanic behind his magical systems - but his big world changing events fall emotionally flat for me, whether in his own works (Mistborne, Way of Kings...) or in the wrap up of Jordans' WoT.

Agree re: Novik, and have heard consistently good things about Mass, but haven't had time to dig in.

Reading Liu now.

[Syd Henderson]

Naomi Novik's "Uprooted" is also very good.

[Brett Bellmore]

Silverlock, by John Meyers Meyers. Lots of fun figuring out the cultural references.

[The original jack burton]

Silverlock is certainly not recommended for those under 40. They have no chance at all of figuring out those cultural references.

[Brett Bellmore]

There's actually an annotated volume that cheats in that regard.

[John F. Carr]

I will try again to read Gene Wolfe's _Soldier of the Mist_ after I brush up on the cultural references he used.

[jimc5499]

"The Last Centurion" by John Ringo.

[Jerry B.]

"Reboots: Undead Can Dance", by Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin.

Vamps, weres, zombies, etc. in space, along with with a hard-boiled boggart detective and various otherworldly molls, plus a few normie humans. Even a locked room mystery.

Might also recommend some of Ms. Lackey's more recent stuff, like "Jolene", and "The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley", set in an Earth where magic happens.

[Waste93]

- Frontline series by Marko Kloos
- Coldfire and Magister Trilogies by C.S. Friedman (Madness Season and This Alien Shore are also worth a read.)
- Gunpowder Mage series by by Brian McClellan

[GMUSL Alum]

McClellan's books are fun and enjoyable, but the first series is just called Powder Mage. No "gun."

Django Wexler's The Shadow Campaigns is another very good flintlock fantasy series. The first book is The Thousand Names.

[Eugène de Rastignac]

I recently discovered the great French sci fi pioneer René Barjavel. His "Ravage" is a fascinating early (1940s!) sci-fi climate-disaster tale; his "Le Voyageur Imprudent" a great time-travel book set in World War II; La Nuit des Temps an affecting love story and cautionary tale of human greed about an ancient race of people discovered under the antarctic ice. If you want fantasy, his L'Enchanteur is arguably the best retelling of the Knights of the Roundtable myth that you can find. I'm not sure about the quality of English translations though.

[Michael 2]

I second a lot of the names I have seen here and will check out some of them. I'll add the following:

Daniel Abraham's "Dagger and Coin" series. A 5-book fantasy that takes on... banking and economics among other more typical fantasy topics. "The Dragon's Path" is the first book.

On the science fiction side of things, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck have written the recently concluded space opera "The Expanse" under the pen name James S.A. Corey. The first of the 9 books in the series is called "Leviathan Wakes." Books 1 through 6 were made into the excellent 6-season TV series "The Expanse" which is one of the best ever treatments of science fiction in a TV series.

[Currentsitguy]

The Expanse is the best scifi series I have read in like, forever and I agree the TV dramatization is incredibly well done.

[Brett Bellmore]

One of the rare fan fictions that's worth reading on it's own merits: Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality. (Rowlings approved!)

Harry ends up adopted by a college professor instead of an abusive relative, and so when he hits Hogwarts he's an empiricist.

[Harvey Mosley]

I came here to post this. I liked it better than the real version.

[santamonica811]

I LOVED the first third or so. Not only clever, but some genuinely hysterically-funny scenes. Middle third had some *really* long chapters, which I admit that I cheerfully skimmed through. Ending was very good...with some unexpected ending to some characters' arcs.

Note: One of the things I most loved about this was that, in this fan fic, Harry Potter is, quite frankly, a real asshole. A thoroughly unlikable character. I thought it was a risky move by the author (in my writing classes, we were told that you have to make your main character a hero...or, at least, an anti-hero). HPMOR doesn't "pander" to the reader in this way. And, in my opinion, the risk pays off. There were about 50 different times, while reading this, where I thought, "Man, I bet Rowling sorta wishes she had written the original HP books with this change/twist." (If time traveling did exist, and one of us went back; I am sure would could have convinced Tolkien to take a paragraph to explain in the books why a giant eagle could not drop off Frodo/Sam at Mount Doom...or, at least, at the outer edge of Mordor.) 😉

[Brett Bellmore]

They'd have been seen coming?

Anyway, if you had that time machine you'd be better served convincing him to omit Tom Bombadil.

[Ridgeway]

Not to geek out too much over LOTR, but as I recall, don't the eagles kinda do their own thing? I always thought they were supposed to be like angels - they would help mortals when they wanted to, but they were not subject to mortals' commands.

[santamonica811]

Ridge,
Generic Eagle: "I don't take commands from humans or wizards. I'm not afraid of Fellbeasts either, even when ridden by Nazgul. Hey, I think I'll fly over hot deadly lava, and rescue some hobbits, even though the ring of power has already been destroyed. Just cuz I want to--Gandalf has no influence in this decision."

Um, I guess that *could* have been their thought process. But color me skeptical...I think that whatever Gandalf proposes--he don't get no "no-ies." 🙂

[Ridgeway]

Also, if Tolkien had taken the Eagle-Stuka approach, the world would never have met Tom Bombadil.

[Ridgeway]

Tom Bombadillo!

[SRG]

Who also could not be prevailed upon to deliver the Ring yet who would save the hobbits

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, I think their thought process was more like, "I'm willing to help if somebody I like asks, but no suicide missions."; Flying into Mordor before the one ring was destroyed would have pretty much been a suicide mission, I don't think Strider mooning Sauroman would actually have been enough distraction.

[GMUSL Alum]

The recently-released The First Binding by RR Virdi is a masterpiece. It's what Rothfuss should have been.

Travis JI Corcoran's Powers of the Earth and the Sequel, Causes of Separation, won the Prometheus Award in back to back years. Highly recommended.

Karl Gallagher's Fall of the Censor series has been repeatedly nominated for the Prometheus, and is quite entertaining space opera.

[Jimmy the Dane]

World War Z, the book, not the movie which was nothing like the book. I consider that to be a modern classic with many themes that run particularly deep.

[KenveeB]

Seconding this one! It felt like a very realistic description of how the zombie apocalypse would unfold and the different types of people would react.

[ducksalad]

Thirding. It's a good one.

[Craig Johnston]

“In Death Ground” and “The Shiva Option” by David Weber and Steve White. These two books are military science fiction and part of a 10-book series, but they don’t draw much from the preceding books. Very enjoyable.

[Jacob Grimes]

Gateway (just the first book) by Frederick Pohl
And Having Writ by Donald Bensen
Spin series by Robert Charles Wilson

[PeteRR]

Gateway is very good. I read one of the sequels and it made no impression on me.

[Syd Henderson]

I thought it would have better with one book and leave the questions unanswered since that was kind of the point.

[bash91]

On the fantasy side, I can't recommend Elizabeth Moon's series "The Deed of Paksennarion" highly enough. The first 3 books in the series might be the best examination of what it means to become and be a paladin I've ever seen.

In the same vein, I'd also recommend David Weber's "War God" series for a different take on a paladin.

On the hard science side, "Rocheworld" by Robert Forward is a fun and interesting story with real science that really matters to the story.

[The original jack burton]

I came to post about Paksennarioni. Good to see another fan. The first three books are about as good as you are going to get in fantasy writing. The followup books are still quite good, but it would have been virtually impossible to maintain that level of quality for the balance of the series.

[Rick L]

Anything by Gene Wolfe - but his magnum opus is The Book of the New Sun.
The Malazan Book of the Fallen is a great, and huge fantasy series with a bunch of good spinoffs.
Patricia McKillip's The Riddle Master is an excellent short series.
Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry is Tolkien meets King Arthur.
And for a fun world that has books from merely fun, to must read compelling, The Dresden Files.

[GMUSL Alum]

I read the main Malazan sequence and found it way too full of deus ex (often literally!) and magic was an incomprehensible plot device that had no rules other than doing (or not doing) whatever was necessary to advance the plot.

It borders on incoherent as a series.

Dresden isn't deep as a series (though some moments are surprisingly so), but man is it fun. Chekhov's guns pay off 6 books later, rereading is incredibly rewarding.

[Currentsitguy]

The "Year's Best" yearly series that was edited by the late Gardiner Dozois reliably contained tons of excellent work.

[Rossami]

- Space Cadet, Door into Summer, Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Trooper - pretty much anything by Heinlein, though that doesn't meet the "stuff people were likely to have missed" rule.
- The Warlock in Spite of Himself by Christopher Stasheff. The series went too long but the early books will appeal to anyone who enjoys Piers Anthony and Terry Pratchett.
- The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
- It Came from Schenectady by Barry Longyear - a collection of short stories. What makes this one special is that the author explains where he got his ideas. (His joke answer at convention is that you send a self-addressed stamped envelope to a PO Box in Schenectady.) By the end, you feel like you've been walking through the author's brain.
- Passage at Arms by John Cook - submariners in space
- The early Laundry Files novels by Charles Stross. Unfortunately, another series that's gone too long but the early novels stand alone.
- The Fool series by Christopher Moore - though maybe this one doesn't fit your genre criteria
- The Old Man's War series by John Scalzi
- A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking - T Kingfisher. On the young-adult side but fun.
- Orconomics by J Zachary Pike - Venture capitalism in Middle Earth.
- Goblin series by Jim Hines
- Amber series by Roger Zelazny

[Brett Bellmore]

"pretty much anything by Heinlein,"

Except his last few novels, when he was too famous for editors to discipline, and getting self-indulgent. I think Stranger In A Strange Land was probably the last really good thing he wrote.

[Rossami]

That's a fair criticism. I have the same heartburn with David Weber. The first few Honor Harrington books were great. The later ones were a couple chapters of good content buried in hundreds of pages of internal dialog and pontification.

[jimc5499]

Funny. I'm re-reading Weber's "At All Costs" right now.

[Kazinski]

Even stranger in a strange land fell apart in the last half.

[santamonica811]

Yup.

[ducksalad]

You nailed it with "self-indulgent" in his later phase.

[Jokibif0]

I liked Zelazny's Amber books, but I thought _This Immortal_, _Lord of Light_, and _Isle of the Dead_ were much better.

Ben Aaronovitch's _Rivers of London_ series is fantastic. I especially like that there are actual rules to the magic that the protagonist is figuring out via scientific experiments.

[jkdawson]

“Passage at Arms” is by Glen Cook not John Cook his Garrett P.I. Series and Dark Company series are also good.

[Rossami]

Argh - you are of course correct. Clearly not enough caffeine yesterday.

[SRG]

Any Jack Vance - he seems to have fallen out of fashion but there's a delightful wit to his style

Ben Aronovitch's Rivers of London series. Pleasant urban fantasy - possibly modestly inspired by Charles Stross's L:aundry series.

Paolo Bacigalupi: The Windup Girl and the Water Knife - both near-future dystopic SF, rich in detail.

[Kazinski]

Second the Jack Vance, especially Dragon Masters and Moon Moth.

[Currentsitguy]

I know it's a classic, and is therefore probably well known, but if you haven't yet read it "Tau Zero" by Poul Anderson is one of the best, most engrossing "hard" science fiction books ever written.

[SRG]

Agreed - a classic.

[PeteRR]

Excellent choice.

[Brett Bellmore]

David Eddings writes some great novels. Well, really, he writes the same great novel over and over with minor variations, and stretched out to a dozen books, but he writes so engagingly I find it hard to care.

[Sansos]

Fun fact about david eddings he abused foster kids so bad he went to prison for it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Wasn't aware of that, I just read the books, I don't research the writers' private lives.

[John F. Carr]

I only recommend the Belgariad, the first series. The well of fantasy cliches is not deep enough to keep drawing from. If you want a twist on fantasy cliches instead of seeing them done to conventional perfection by Eddings, see Diana Wynne Jones' _Tough Guide to Fantasyland_ and Eve Forward's _Villains by Necessity_.

And there is the well known _Black Company_ series which is a blue collar take on a white collar genre.

[gormadoc]

Agreed on the Belgariad. I know I read all of it but I do not remember the second series much.

[CarLitGuy]

in the same vein, L.E. Moddessitt, Jr "Recluce" trilogies. Its the same story, again and again and again and again. Names change, perspectives change, but the message doesn't. Pick one as a decent fantasy trilogy, skip the rest.

and if you like "classic" medieval fantasy, with simpler politics than GoT and more magic, Katherine Kurtz' Deryni series - though it did go on a bit, I lost interest in the early 2000s, book 11 or 12 by then.

[MarkP]

Robert A. Heinlein "Starship Troopers," "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Asimov "I Robot" the Foundation Trilogy.
Bradbury "Marian Chronicles" "I Sing the Body Electric"

[Publius_2020]

- The Windup Girl (Paolo Bacigalupi)
- The Doomsday Book (Connie Willis)
- Beggars in Spain (Nancy Kress)
- Hyperion (Dan Simmons)
- Startide Rising (David Brin)

The Windup Girl is probably the least known, but is an exceptional novel about a world that has endured food starvation as a result of intentionally introduced pathogens.

The others are part of formal or informal series by well known authors, but get less attention than they deserve. I'm not crazy about the way Simmons and Kress ended their series, but the opening novels are great. The Doomsday Book is a one-off story, but Willis has written multiple stories based on the same world and premise.

[Nige]

To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Willis, set in the same universe, is hilarious and charming.

[Currentsitguy]

That is laugh out loud funny. "Blackout" and "All Clear" from the same universe are also very good.

[John F. Carr]

I tried that one and was unimpressed, much like I found _Three Men In a Boat_ not to be the best in class novel the rest of the English-speaking world describes it as.

[natem42]

Second the Windup Girl and Doomsday Book and Hyperion.
Adding the Craft Sequence - Gladstone - good lawyer/fantasy mix.
Dervish House (McDonald) is a similar note.

[SRG]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellified_man

[gormadoc]

Hyperion is great but I lost interest somewhere in the second book.

[jb]

I liked Hyperion, but found it a hard read (and agree about the later books). Definitely not entry-level SciFi.

[MN2828]

--Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson -- multibook set that starts with The Way of Kings
-- Pen and Desdemona series by Lois McMaster Bujold (really anything by her)
-- The Culture series
-- The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

[Jokibif0]

The Fall of Ile-Rien books by Martha Wells are also good.

[Alan Beck]

Silverlock is my favorite fantasy novel that does not get a lot of attention. It is a fantastic jaunt Western mythology as seen through the eyes of a stranded traveling Englishman who wakes up after falling off his ship in a fantasy realm that has in it the entirety of humanity's myths. The novel is from 1947 but it written in a universal style that stands up to the test o time.

Armor has been mentioned above so I won't say anything other than I agree with those that recommend it.
The same author wrote Vampires and it is also a great novel that has many tie ins to Armor.
The Misenchanted Sword is a great novel that takes a different take on the what happens if you get a powerful magical sword. The main character just wants to live a normal life and does his best to live one despite being gifted with a powerful sword that he can't get rid of.
The Nightside series by Simon R. Green is the best urban fantasy series around imo.
And before I hit submit I'd be remiss to not mention the best anti-hero of all time Elric of Melnibone but you've likely already heard of him. His series really started the anti-hero genre.

[John F. Carr]

I describe Watt-Evans' Ethshar novels, beginning with _The Misenchanted Sword_, as small stories. A man and his magic sword. A warlock and his small kingdom at the edge of the world. They are the length novels used to be, not 800 page bricks. A sentence does not run half a page. A pleasant read, not a chore.

[Currentsitguy]

"The Boat of a Million Years" by Poul Anderson is a great historical drama that follows a group of widely dispersed people who find that they are immortal from the prehistoric past to the distant future. It's epic in scale.

[John F. Carr]

I was thinking recently of James Alan Gardner's "League of Peoples" series, published 1997-2004 and on hiatus as of c. 2010 because his new publisher didn't want a new book in a series if the previous books belonged to another publisher.

It opens with a woman who can't get cosmetic surgery to remove an ugly birthmark because the powers that be want to force her into an occupation where that is not a liability. I suggested the book to a friend who (metaphorically) tossed it aside because she thought that scene was too manipulative (of the reader). I went on to read the rest of the series. It's not for everybody. It was for me.

Humans are allow into the stars among superior civilizations provided they obey the rules. Basically, don't be responsible for the death of a good sentient being and don't be responsible for the conduct of a bad being. (If they think you are bad the rulers of the galaxy define you as not sentient. I think they might be a little racist.)

Some here will have read Larry Niven's "Down in Flames" where he plotted how to pull the rug out from under his universe without unnecessarily disavowing anything he had written. If he ever continues the series Gardner will have a chance to decide if the rules of interstellar society really are as simple as presented. In one book a parasite explains to its host that (in my words) abortion is illegal even in cases of rape. The host is told to put up with the parasite. But is abortion really illegal? The parasite has some self-interest in lying.

He also wrote a short story with the title "Muffin explains teleology to the world at large."

[Rev. O.T. Medal]

Others already have posted a ton of good recommendations. I will try to refrain from re-endorsing books already listed on this thread.
Here are a few that I don't think have been mentioned yet.

Lev Grossman's The Magicians series. The books are terrific and get stronger as the series progresses. There was also a TV version, which was quite good for the first 4 of its 5 seasons.

Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel. Another wonderful book that was made into an enjoyable TV show.

Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver. This is a stand-alone novel, not part of either of her better known series. Give it a try. How often do you get to read a fantasy story with a Jewish girl as the protagonist?

The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. This is a YA novel set in an alternate-universe England run by magicians.

[FilioScotia]

Methusaleh's Children - Robert Heinlein

[FilioScotia]

oops.
Time Enough For Love - sequel to Methusaleh's Children
Time and Again - Jack Finney - Best time travel story I've ever read
Boat of a Million Years - Poul Anderson - Immortals band together to survive

[FilioScotia]

To the above I would like to add
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller - Hugo Award 1961 - Post-Apocalyptic struggle to restore civilization.
After criticizing unrealistic science fiction, Carl Sagan in 1978 listed A
Canticle for Leibowitz as among stories "that are so tautly constructed,
so rich in the accommodating details of an unfamiliar society that they
sweep me along before I have even a chance to be critical".

[Kords]

The "Shades of Magic" trilogy by V.E. Schwab.
"The Murderbot Diaries" by Martha Wells.
"The City & the City" by China Mieville.
"Spinning Silver" by Naomi Novik.
"Uprooted" by Naomi Novik.
"The Broken Earth" trilogy by N.K. Jemisin.
"The Priory of the Orange Tree" by Samantha Shannon.
"Piranesi" by Susanna Clarke.

And for a bit of an anti-recommendation, I'm on the second to last book in "The Witcher Saga" and I am sad to say that I am mostly disappointed. The highlights are great, but not enough happens to justify a seven-book series.

[Sarcastr0]

Sorry - busy Monday, but y'all hit most of the bangers I woulda (Fire upon the Deep, Gateway, Memory Called Empire, Murderbot).

Others I like:
-Currently reading Forging Hephaestus won't have you thinking hard afterwards, but it is quite good low-stakes popcorn.

-Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer. Fun sci-fi space opera.

-The Goblin Emperor by Sarah Monette. Great worldbuilding.

-The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. Well paced, but somehow doesn't feel like it follows standard Western rhythm. Always surprising me.

-To Be Taught, if Fortunate by Becky Chambers is not so well paced, but includes interesting takes on so many object lessons on science policy I can't help but love it.

-Sector General series by James White is like Star Trek but pacifist. But also is a bunch of short stories that can be a bit much all at once.

-Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee is another set of short stories dealing with semiotics and the implications of novel systems. I love it.

-The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin. Well structured and great worldbuilding.

-Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. Chiang's themes are great. My favorite is Hell is the Absence Of God.

[John F. Carr]

Yes, Ted Chiang's short fiction is great. To twist around a friend's summary, it's as if Greg Egan got religion.

[Sarcastr0]

Well, gonna have to add Egan to my list!

[Brett Bellmore]

He does write some mind bending stuff. Though I thought Diaspora read as though he'd run out of stuff to write partway through, and was just rushing to the conclusion, the first part of it made it worth while anyway.

[Syd Henderson]

I must point that "The Goblin Emperor" was published under Monette's pseudonym Katherine Addison, so look for it under the A's. I'm fond of "The Angel of the Crows" as fantasy versions of Sherlock Holmes stories where the Sherlock character is actually an angel. I won't tell you what Watson is, but it's fun. I'd like to see her do a second book with her own plots.

[Mark Regan]

For your semi-libertarian readership, Ursula L.K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed."

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

All Le Guin really, but if you're only going to read two, that one and "Left Hand of Darkness" are both classics.

[Jordan Brown]

At a meta level, an important question is to figure out what you *want*. Do you want one book that's simply awesome, or do you want a series of 20 books, all entertaining but not awesome? I've found that I prefer the latter, because there's a lot more material that I can reliably enjoy.

If I'm reading a one-shot book, then either I'll spend a couple of days finding that I don't like it, or a couple of days being entertained. On the other hand, if I'm reading book one of a series, I either spend a couple of days finding that I don't like it, or I've opened up many times that many days of entertainment.

Similarly for TV shows versus movies. A movie might be great, but in the end it's only two hours of entertainment. A mediocre-but-entertaining TV show can be a hundred or more hours of entertainment.

That said:

David Weber's Honor Harrington series is sf-mil-fic and politics. Sometimes a bit too wish-fulfilment-y, with the good guys easily swatting down the bad guys because they're Just That Good. Two aspects merit particular mention: (a) almost nobody is safe, and so tension is maintained, and (b) for some opponents, the individual opponents are portrayed as good people who are not necessarily happy with their government, but fighting the war is their job. In a lot of encounters, I didn't want either side to lose; I wanted them to figure out how to get together and go after the real problems.

Weber's Safehold series. Sort of a Connecticut Yankee story. Again, lots of mil-fic (though mostly ~1700s-1800s) and politics.

Both Weber series are in some ways like Clancy's Jack Ryan books, with numerous threads that occasionally intersect.

These next few authors are far less known. All are in the "entertaining but not awesome" category. They've given me many hours of entertainment.

Christopher Nuttall is *incredibly* prolific. I don't follow all of his series, but I think he might well average more than one book per month. I've enjoyed all of his fantasy work, with the Schooled In Magic series being the most prominent, followed closely by the Zero Enigma. Not so much the mil-fic stuff; for some reason I found that less engaging.

Blaze Ward is also very prolific. I've enjoyed everything in the Alexandria Station universe (Science Officer, Jessica Keller, and assorted smaller works and sub-series). (Didn't really care for the Star Dragon or Lazarus Alliance series.)

Ilona Andrews, notably the Kate Daniels series. The world has shifted back toward the old ways. Magic works some of the time, tech works some of the time.

Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, and its spinoffs. Steampunk, with vampires and werewolves. Lots of what I perceive to be spoofs of Austen. I found it tons of fun, but I could easily believe that one might not be able to stand it.

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. Noir detective fiction, with magic. (Short-lived TV series.)

Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series. Space opera, politics, wise-cracking ultra-smart hero.

[Brett Bellmore]

She's a sneaky one; I started reading space opera, and five novels in I realized she had me reading romance novels.

Once I got over that shock, I found her Challion and Sharing Knife series very readable. I sometimes speculate that The Sharing Knife world is actually the Challion world, only thousands of years later...

[jkdawson]

Butcher’s Furies of Calderon series is also quite good. Set in a completely different world than ours. He also wrote one novel in another series: “The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass”; I thought it was very good and it was clearly the beginning of a series but there have not been any more.

[GMUSL Alum]

It's in progress.

(I'm one of his beta readers)

[susancol]

Thanks, you saved me from having to dig through my shelves to get the correct titles of those books!

[jimc5499]

"I wanted them to figure out how to get together and go after the real problems."

It happens in "A Rising Thunder".

You hit on the main reason that I like the series. I like people on both sides.

[Duck916]

I enjoyed the Travis Chase trilogy by Patrick Lee. Lee wrote a second trilogy that was good, but the first one was better, in my view.

I love nearly all of Heinlein's work, as well as Arthur C. Clarke's work. Asimov and Bradbury, not so much.

[SRG]

As I get reminded, and sticking to the "less-well-known" criterion...

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Starmaker, and Last & First Men, by Olaf Stapledon
Revelation Space et seq by Alastair Reynolds - this is one of the great modern classic hard SF series, and makes much traditional hard SF seem adolescent
Rogue Moon, by Algis Budrys
Helliconia Trilogy by Brian Aldiss (another old acquaintance RIP)

[John F. Carr]

If you like the puzzle side of _Rogue Moon_, track down Bob Leman's story "Instructions".

[SRG]

Thanks! I also liked Silverberg's "Man in the Maze". The alien maze - whether explicit or conceptual - is an appealing trope.

[Brett Bellmore]

While we're at it, can't beat Lord Dunsany. The Charwoman's Shadow, for instance.

Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice, by James Branch Cabell.

And if you want to read a Lovecraft tale that leans more in the fantasy than horror direction, Dreamquest of Unknown Kaddath. Love to see that as a movie!

[Reallynotbob]

Timothy Zahn: Cascade Point (not a Thrawn book, 15 short stories; quite a bit of physics thrown in)

Frank Herbert: Eye (not a Dune book; short stories; some of them excellent, including the basis for the movie, "Arrival").

[PeteRR]

He wrote a novel, Whipping Star that fascinated me to no end. The protagonist trying to understand the thought processes of an alien race and resolve a potential ongoing crime.

[Currentsitguy]

Let me just dovetail here and say if you are a serious reader an ebook reader is the best purchase you can make. Been carrying around one model or another of my Kobo now for a decade.

[Harvey Mosley]

Gust Front, by John Ringo. Alien invasion with help for us from other aliens. First in a series. Some of the others are better than others.

1632, by Eric Flint. A whole town is sent to back in time. Again, first in a series.

Monster Hunter, International, by Larry Correia. One of my all time favorites.

Each of these guys has many other books if you like any of these.

[CarLitGuy]

I can't speak to E Flint, haven't read his stuff - but the Ringo and Correia books are both populated by supermen. If that's not your thing, skip em. If it is, and you are looking for a quick read, they are entertaining.

[GMUSL Alum]

Son of the Black Sword/Saga of the Forgotten Warrior is excellent.

I saw where he was going at the end of the last book and I laughed out loud.

[William Cheswick]

John Brunner, Shockwave Rider, 1975. Very early cyberpunk.

[SRG]

And so, Stand on Zanzibar

[Nige]

Also, The Sheep Look Up.

[PeteRR]

I'm going to reach way back to H.G. Wells. He wrote The Sleeper Awakes, and released it IIRC in 1910.

Very tired Englishman who'd been unable to sleep for an extended amount of time falls into basically a deep coma for 200 years. When he wakes up, there is a de facto world government run on his behalf based on the wealth he left behind compounding to the point he owns everything.

I read this when I was in HS, and bought a copyright free version just a few years ago. The writing feels archaic, but once you get into it, the story shines. Highly recommended.

[Duck916]

I believe Heinlein referenced this in his "Door Into Summer."

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

THE CHILDREN'S COUNTRY by Kay Burdekin. Available only as a pricey antique (only one edition was ever published, probably because the book came out just before the big crash in 1929 which began the great depression), BUT you can also read it HERE:

https://kayburdekinthechildrenscountry.wordpress.com/2022/04/04/6/

[MK Ultra]

The Gentleman Bastards books are quite good, but like R.R. Martin, the author takes a long time to release new books.

[Squirrelloid]

I'm not sure if Tad Williams is too obvious or not, because I consider Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn to be 2nd in the pantheon of high fantasy stories (after Tolkien). His other work is pretty good too.

Neal Stephenson - ignoring all the obvious stuff that's great, The Diamond Age and The Big U are earlier works of his that are (very different) great reads.

Elizabeth Haydon - Rapsody, Prophecy, Destiny. It's a high fantasy/romance mash-up, but the world-building is really good, and the villain is excellent. She gets the ending wrong, though - it should have been a tragedy. (The 4th book was no so good, and i stopped reading after that, but there's apparently 9+ books in the series now. Probably evidence that if you've only planned a trilogy, it's good to stop when the trilogy is over).

Charles Stross - probably borderline obvious, but his Atrocity Archive series starts as a hilarious office politics satire with a massive amount of Lovecraft injected in its veins. One of the earlier novels is also a great Bond parody.

[gormadoc]

"Probably evidence that if you've only planned a trilogy, it's good to stop when the trilogy is over."
Ouch, feeling that right in the Star Wars.

[Squirrelloid]

Some web fiction, which i'll put in this and a 2nd reply (because of limits on links):

Friendship is Optimal
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/friendship-is-optimal

Yes, it's a My Little Pony fanfic. But it's also a really good 'AI takes over' story. Definitely worth the read.

[Squirrelloid]

Worm
https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/1-1/

It's a superhuman serial web fiction (finished, also has a sequel) that has great character writing, incredible world building, and a great ending. I don't want to spoil any of the plot twists, but if you're sensitive to some 'trigger-warning' thing, it'll probably come up at some point. (And imo still worth the read despite, or even because of, that).

[Kristian H.]

We be been good back to classics, some of which I never read:

Lensmen series by EE "Doc" Smith
John Carter Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Interesting to see where some tropes originated e g "space time continuum" and "inertia less drive" in no later than Doc Smith's first lensmen stories. Probably earlier.

[Brett Bellmore]

There was a moderately recent Mars novel, on the theme of, "What if Burroughs' Mars had been real?" Had a swampy Venus in it, too.

It was really quite good, wish I could recall the title.

[John F. Carr]

"Rainbow Mars" by Larry Niven?

[Brett Bellmore]

Nope. Somebody else did it.

[Eeyore 2]

Oh so many to choose from! I'll stick with some recent memorable ones as many of the classics are already listed above:

Sci-fi:

Sleeping Giants, Waking Gods, by Sylvain Neuvel (waiting for the third in this series to come out). Reminds me of classic sci-fi from the 1960s or 70s.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers. A very different take on space travel.

Fantasy:

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher. I guess this is maybe "young adult," but without the angsty teen drama. I would call it more a kid's fairy tale, for kids with a macabre sense of humor anyway.

(Also endorsing pretty much everything by Martha Wells and NK Jemison, mentioned above.)

[Sisyphus Rocks]

Many great ideas in here. But I didn't see the novel I consider the best hard science fiction ever, Robert Forward's "Dragon's Egg." It's about intelligent life that evolves on a neutron star around the time humanity visits it. Humans are really the background characters in what is a thoughtful attempt at creating an ecology and society of beings living in the crushing gravity, incredible magnetic field, and nuclear chemistry of the surface of a neutron star. It's also relatively short, unlike say The Kingkiller Chronicles or one of Banks' Culture novels (though they are worth the investment of time).

[VT Samizdat]

Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination" originally published in 1958 UK as "Tiger Tiger". For sheer density of new, interesting ideas it cannot be beat.

[Currentsitguy]

I just loaded that onto my ebook reader. Glad I did now. Somehow across the years I missed that one.

[SRG]

One of my favourites. Should have been made into a film by now. Would have suited Oliver Reed then or a younger Vin Diesel

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

All of Bester's short fiction is must read, and his novel "The Demolished Man" is almost as great as "The Stars My Destination." He is one of the absolute greatest SF writers of all time.

[mword]

Many great suggestions here. What I've liked recently that I haven't seen listed:

* Quillifer - Walter Jon Williams - Fantasy/(Book 1 - 3 book series so far)
* Thin Air - Richard Morgan - SF
* Fire with Fire - Charles Gannon - SF/(Boot 1 - Cain Riordan series)
* Red Rising - Pierce Brown - SF/ (Book 1 - Red Rising series).

I'm surprised Red Rising hasn't been listed yet but maybe it's too obvious.

[SRG]

BTW I am reminded of the line that the Golden Age of Science Fiction is what you were reading when you were 15...

[Currentsitguy]

Not sure I'd go along with that. I really didn't start into classic SciFi until I was in my early 20's when a friend turned me on to Asimov's Foundation series. I'm 54 now and between my wife's more varied fiction collection both of our history and science collection, and my ridiculously huge science fiction collection we literally have thousands of books across dozens of shelves in multiple rooms of our house. If there is an open vertical space, guaranteed it's packed full of not art, not knickknacks, not photos, but books of every size, subject, and binding.

Plus I have probably at least another thousand more in the attic, garage, and several cases still at my mom's 30 years after I moved out.

Seriously though, my Golden Age has been going on for decades.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're making me cry: I had a collection like that back in Michigan, but had to move in 2008, and had no room in the moving van for it. I ended up selling about 5K paperbacks to a used book dealer for a few cents each.

Been gradually rebuying them as omnibus editions on my e-reader, but some are probably never going to be in print again.

[Currentsitguy]

I sympathize with you. We had a house fire in 2013 and lost a lot of our original collection. After that I made a point of obtaining an electronic copy of as much of our collection as possible. It might not be a physical copy, but at least I can still read it. We have a ton on our ebook readers, and I have a hard drive I back up to regularly that we keep in a fire safe when not being used.

Damn, though, when I think of all the rare and first editions we lost it kills me.

[SRG]

I had over 5,000 paperbacks back in England before I moved, had them boxed up and in storage, transferred, etc. and when I was finally able to open them, discovered that dust and crud had got into the boxes and I had to throw away about 3/4s of them.

hen last year as I was moving again, I thought, given ebooks, I might as well rationalise my physical collection of newer books and donated a large number to the local Goodwill and got the tax write-off.

[Currentsitguy]

When we rebuilt after our fire I insisted the attic be insulated and incorporated into the HVAC system. I'll be damned if everything we store up there gets ruined by poor storage conditions.

[Eric VonSalzen]

I don't have any recommendations, because others obviously have more experience and taste than I do, but I wanted to say thanks.
I started reading SciFi in the early '50's (I was born in 1943), the era of Heinlein and Asimov and Clark and Van Vogt and on and on. That kind of SciFi suffered a serious blow when the damn' scientists told us that Mars wasn't the "Red Planet" and Venus wasn't the "Water Planet" we'd all been imagining and reading about. So what an earlier generation would have made a Mars story, became an interstellar story in Dune. SciFi evolved and survived (like our early hominid ancestors). I plan to save the recommendations in this comment thread. If I live to 110 and run out of books, I'll get back to you.

[jkdawson]

I am impressed with the Reason readers; I agree with almost every recommendation that I have read. I am going to try not to repeat but cannot guarantee that I haven’t:

Evan Winter’s fantasy series that takes place in a world based on African culture. Starts with “The Rage of Dragons” and continues in “The Fires of Vengeance”. A very different and well done take on fantasy.

Neal Asher’s Space Opera/hard science fiction Polity series. Takes place in future after the Quiet Revolution when the (mostly) benevolent A.I.s took over from humanity. Very well done, space battles, aliens, secret agents and the most imaginative and weirdest alien species I have seen. I would start with either “Gridlinked” or “The Skinner”.

Richard Kadrey’s “Sandman Slim” series. Urban fantasy about a slacker magician in L.A. who is betrayed, sent to hell and comes back. The whole series is very good. The devil, Angels, god, and all manor or weird creatures. Oh, he has to save the world a few times too.

S.L. Huang’s Cas Russell science fiction series about a female P.I. (Sort of) whose super power is her mathematical ability which she uses in the fight scenes. Huang herself is a stunt woman with a Mathematics degree from MIT.

Daniel O’Malley’s Chequey series about a secret government agency in the UK tasked with protecting the country against supernatural threats. “The Rook” is the first book followed by “Stiletto”, a third is on the way. “The Rook” was apparently made into a TV series. I have not seen it and the reviews indicated is was quite changed and not as good as the book.

Glenn Cook’s Garrett P.I. Fantasy series. Very well done. Series starts with “Sweet Silver Blues”.

L.E. Modesitt’s Magic of Recluce series is uneven but some are very good.

Discworld was mentioned above but I want to especially recommend the Tiffany Aching sub-series about a teenage witch on Discworld.

[jkdawson]

Whoops! Since he hasn’t been mentioned Hal Clement’s “Mission of Gravity”. You have to love a novel that takes place on planet with an atmosphere so dense that much of the surface is at the Triple Point of water (where water can exist as a solid, liquid and gas at the same temperature and pressure).

[SRG]

I'm currently on "Perdition Score", #8 in the Sandman Slim series. Still absorbing.

[Bored Lawyer]

Ursula Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness."
It's a mind-bender. (And in light of recent events, prescient.)

[Milhouse]

Seanan McGuire's October Daye series.

Naomi Novik's Scholomance series.

[CEF]

Sci-fi:
Saturn Run by John Sandford and C'tien
The Expanse. The books are better than the TV series, but the TV series is still pretty good.
Anything by Peter F. Hamilton
Gilbraltar Earth by Michal McCollum
Lost Fleet Series by Jack Campbell (the character development is a bit flat, but the descriptions of the space battles and tactics are excellent)
Fantasy:
Age of Myth series by Michael J. Sullivan

[Richard Robertson]

Recently I just discovered the LitRPG subgenre of fantasy and Science Fiction. And of course there are the overlaps between the two as well as overlaps into horror. There are just so many good major and minor writers in both areas to really choose for me. Just go to a book site like Amazon, go into the categories and just start reading synopsis. Your own sense of what you find worthwhile is a much better measure of quality than the opinions of random people on the internet.

[arch1]

Many of the following are decades old and may be unknown to younger readers:

True Names by Vernor Vinge. A gem of a short novel - superbly written, gripping plot and visionary (if not quite oracular) perspectives on certain aspects of technology and society.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbot, 1884.

For hard SF, I second the rec of Dragon’s Egg - it gives one a whole new perspective on time

As does Tau Zero, by Poul Anderson.

Readers who have given SF short stories short shrift shouldn’t IMO dismiss the genre before reading Asimov’s Nightfall, *and* a good ‘best SF short stories’ collection.

Macroscope by Piers Anthony.

[PeteRR]

This was my go to book on short stories. At least a half dozen of them have been made into TV shows or movies.
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765305372/reasonmagazinea-20/
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol 1

Follow-up books covered novellas.

[qetzal]

Niven in his heyday was great IMO. The Mote in God’s Eye is the best “first contact” novel I’ve read. And I really like almost all of his Known Space works.

[arch1]

Also Ringworld

[qetzal]

Yes, I was including that as one of his Known Space novels, but I should have called it out specifically. That and Ringworld Engineers are my other two favorites. (Subsequent Ringworld books weren’t as good IMO.)

His short stories featuring Beowulf Sheaffer, and his ARM stories featuring Gil Hamilton, were also great.

[Currentsitguy]

Don't forget the sequels "The Gripping Hand", and "Outies".

[John F. Carr]

Do forget _The Gripping Hand_. It shows how important Heinlein's role was in making _Mote_ a great novel. It has flaws that Heinlein fixed the first time around and a bit of Niven's distracting editorializing on top. Nobody in the 30th century, recovering after the collapse of civilization, is going to have a strong opinion about late 20th century US history.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Just because I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet, Kim Stanley Robinson, "Red Mars," "Green Mars," "Blue Mars."

Any short fiction by Cordwainer Smith. I cannot recommend this highly enough. If you can get your hands on the NESFA Press volume The Instrumentality of Man - The Complete Short Fiction of Cordwainer Smith, get it. His stories are just unbelievably great. A fascinating person too, worth reading about his life and career.

[SRG]

If memory serves, he was a psych patient of James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon), whose short fiction is superb.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Wow, I've never read that one. A couple biographers have written that Paul Linebarger (Cordwainer Smith) was the basis for a case study in Robert Lindner's 'The Fifty-Minute Hour.'

Tiptree's short fiction is uniformly excellent. Robert Silverberg famously made a fool of himself with an essay saying that the rumors of Tiptree being a woman were ridiculous, he could tell it was a man by the style of the writing.

[Brett Bellmore]

Now, even as a kid, I could tell there was something "off" about the male characters in "Andre" Norton's fiction, and so wasn't even slightly surprised when I found out "he" was really "she".

[The Boss]

Went completely by me. SF (San Francisco) books?

You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words. ...
— Lawrence Ferlinghetti. From Poetry as Insurgent Art [I am signaling you through the flames].

[The Boss]

So Eugene, can you fire up that Cincinnati Milacron you were so fond of on Rosecrans and produce just a list of titles and names. THX.

[The original jack burton]

Baen Publishing is one of the leaders in SF and Fantasy publishing, and has been for several decades. About 15 years ago they started in giving away their back catalog to entice people to read more of their future product.

They made over twenty completely free CDs full of back catalog available over several years, with the understanding that these could be collected and made freely available on the web.

You can find the CD collection here at https://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

There are hundreds of some of the best in SF and Fantasy you'll ever read. These are their top writers, not the B and C listers. Many are complete series with four or five books together. A few series are still continuing even today.

This should set you up for enough reading to last at least a year or four or five.

[The original jack burton]

Let me reiterate this collection is FREE. Free to download, free to read, and free from copy protection. All with permission and the expressed desire from Baen, the publisher.

[ducksalad]

Thanks for posting this, didn't know about it. It's like Project Gutenberg but with modern writing.

[CarLitGuy]

Just favorited that link, thank you! Possibly the most valauble thing I will read all year, given the cost of finding these own works on their own.

[John F. Carr]

Baen moved away from the kind of books I liked. Or I had enough of it. The last Baen book I enjoyed was _Rats, Bats and Vats_.

[Alan Beck]

I forgot a classic from the 70s is the DNA Cowboys trilogy.

[GreenLanternCorps]

Some personal favorites:

SF:

Poul Anderson’s “The High Crusade”, “There Will Be Time”, “Brainwave”, the Hoka stories with Gordon R. Dickson

Any anthology edited by Robert Silverberg, particularly “Worlds of Maybe” “Earthmen and Strangers” and “Mutants”

“Galactic Empires” Edited by Brian W. Aldiss

Any of the Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle collaborations

Fantasy:

The Riftwar Saga starting with “Magician” by Raymond E Fiest

The Deryni books by Katherine Kurtz - read in publication order

The Xanth books by Piers Anthony

The Videssos Cycle by Harry Turtledove

[DC Stone]

No mention yet of Stanislaw Lem - Tales of Pirx the Pilot, His Master's Voice, Solaris, and many more novels and short story collections.

Also Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, and John Scalzi's Redshirts.

Seconding recommendations for Martha Wells' Murderbot series; Connie Willis' Doomsday Book and the subsequent novels/short stories in its time travel universe; N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season; any LeGuin; and any Kim Stanley Robinson.

Nostalgia nod toward Harlan Ellison, who spoke to my angry youth.

[SRG]

Lem's Cyberiad is one of the funniest SF books ever written.

While we're over in Eastern Europe, the Strugatsky Brothers' "Roadside Picnic" (made into the film "Stalker")

[gormadoc]

The Sparrow just feels like torture porn to me.

[gormadoc]

I read KSR's Aurora recently. I enjoyed most of the book, at least until the end.

[John F. Carr]

If you're into torture, read Susan R. Matthews' _An Exchange of Hostages_ and sequels. In the future torture is a formalized part of the justice system. You don't have to enjoy torture to like the books, but I decided not to finish the series.

[Sarcastr0]

The Sparrow just feels like torture porn to me.

Concur.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

CELESTIAL MATTERS by Richard Garfinkle.

[John F. Carr]

Garfinkle's _All of an Instant_ was a fresh take on a worn out theme, time travel.

[blue heron]

Zelazny's Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness and the first Amber books, Corwin, not Merlin, thing got a little flabby at the end.

Ubik by Philip Dick

Snowcrash - Stevenson

Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series was set in an interesting and unique time period.

Martin's mosaic series Wild Cards are interesting, every author gets a chapter, Roger introduces us to the inimitable Croyd Crensen

Dunsany's Tales of Wonder

William Morris - Well at the World's End

[Jokibif0]

For hard science fiction, Alastair Reynolds:
- Revelation Space books
- Revenger universe books
- Century Rain, Pushing Ice, House of Suns
- Various collections of short fiction
Author is a former working astrophysicist.

[raz-0]

There have been tons of great recommendations that I could just repeat, but they asked for stuff you might not have read.

First a classic: More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

Then some fun stuff:
The big sigma series by joseph llalo
The wee free men and sequels by terry patchett
Helen & Troy’s epic road quest by a lee martinez
Also monster by same.
The bobiverse trilogy by Dennis E Taylor

More serious:
Blood music by Greg bear
The infected series by Scott Sigler. Warning, the first book is heavy on body horror and gore. The second two are much more actiony.
When gravity fails and its sequels By George Alec Effinger.
The guardians of the flame series by Joel Rosenberg also his novels hero and not for glory

Absolutely bleak:
Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch. This isn’t the brave little toaster it is seriously bleak stuff.

Detective stuff:
Dome City Blues by Jeff Edwards.
The Municipalists by Seth Fried
Lock In by John Scalzi

Just plain weird:
Dad’s Nuke by Marc Laidlaw.

[lambor88]

Thank you for sharing , this articel its so good

Bonus New Member

[No One Of Consequence]

"The Worm Ouroboros" by E.R. Eddison. A flawed masrerpiece and seminal work of fantasy. Language that is difficult for some and really dumb character names, but overall magnificent.

"Inflation Reduction Act of 2022" By J.R. Biden, Jr., et al. A flawed work by dumb characters and quite implausible, but seems to be where fantasy is headed these days.

[jimc5499]

With this site supposedly being Libertarian I'm surprised that no one had mentioned Michael Williamson's "Freehold" series.

[SRG]

And given all the lefties who supposedly populate this place, no mention of Mack Reynolds!

[John F. Carr]

A few more obscure books I liked 15-25 years ago:

William Browning Spencer: _Résumé With Monsters_

Adam Roberts: _Salt_ (readers of Reason and Volokh may have some opinions on the communist-capitalist friction)

Alexander Jablokov: _Nimbus_

Jasper Fforde: _The Eyre Affair_ (avoid later books; the concept was fun for one book and he worked it to death)

[edbeau99]

Some of the best characterization and the absolutely most believable alien world in decades in the W. Michael Gear "Donovan" series. Humans barely hanging on to a colony on a world which has almost infinite ways to kill them. Don't get too attached to the characters, though; this is a brutal world. Titles so far:

Outpost; Abandoned; Pariah; Unreconciled; Adrift.

Possibly the final book in the series is out this year: Reckoning.

[edbeau99]

Another series that deals with people with honourable motives trying to exist within and overcome an authoritarian system: The Lost Stars series by Jack Campbell.

Campbell wrote a very long (11 book) fairly formula space opera series under the series names "The Lost Fleet" and "The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier". They are okay, fine to fill the time with clever characters and massive space battles. But out of that set of books he wrote another small series called "The Lost Stars" about one system where a couple of people with actual ethics try to overthrow the long standing authoritarian system and bring freedom to their planet. A much better series with more interesting situations and characters. Titles are:

Tarnished Knight
Perilous Shield
Imperfect Sword
Shattered Spear

[CarLitGuy]

Everyone knew about it when I was growing up, but perhaps it is now forgotten.

The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley. The Arthurian Legend, as percieved by the women involved.

and for low fantasy take on Arthur, S Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle

[Alan Beck]

Gene Wolfes Shadows of the Torturer trilogy and the trilogy that comes after that is really one of the most monumental works in science fictions. It takes real imagination to write about a dying world 3 million years in the future while making it plausible and yet relatable at the same time.

[blue heron]

I agree with the person who cited Tiger Tiger (the stars my destination) and Bester, it inhabits its own crown in my pantheon. Kuttner and Moore were also brilliant and early. Ditto the accolades for More than human, Sturgeon giving us an introduction to the group mind concept of Homo Gestalt. I was privileged to meet both he and Zelazny and participate in a film discussion with the former. I liked Kim Stanley Robinson better when he wasn't so orientation fluid, I'm not a homophobe as far as I know but the delivery made me uncomfortable.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

You're singing my tune! Since you're a fan of Kuttner/Moore, you must also admire one of my favorites, C. M. Kornbluth. Maybe the most cynical SF writer of all time.

[blue heron]

definitely.

[Jeremy G.]

Ursula Vernon (also writes as T. Kingfisher) is one of the best new-ish fantasy writers. I particularly like Swordheart, Paladin’s Grace, and Clockwork Boys, and sequels, which all tie in together. Don’t miss her web comic, “Digger,” available free online and in bound form. The story is complete and highly entertaining.

[Redjinn]

For fantasy, i'm surprised no one's mentioned charles de lint, whose stories and novels are usually based on native american folklore and related mythologies.

[Perry Noyed]

Roughly in order of recommendation:
*Roger Zelazny: All of it. If you have not yet read anything by him, you must! Start with the Amber series, Nine Princes of Amber
*Lloyd Alexander: The Prydain Chronicles (inspired by Welsh mythology)
*Ursula Le Guin: Wizard of Earthsea series (it used to be one of the series you didn't need to mention)
*George Alec Effinger: Marid Audran series (3 cyberpunk novels set in the middle east; the best cyberpunk other than William Gibson).
*Glen Cook: The Black Company series (Mercenaries, getting the job done, even if their client is evil. Explores the concepts of good and evil.)
*Diana Wynne Jones: Chrestomanci series, the Moving Castle series
*Pournelle/Niven: The Mote in God's Eye (still one of the best first contact novels)
*Fritz Leiber: Lankhmar, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (sword and sorcery)
* Mike Resnick: Santiago (Space western, where the thing bigger than space is the people who live on the frontier)
*Mike Carey: The Felix Castor series (Protagonist is an exorcist banishes ghosts with a penny whistle. Then decides, maybe it's not what he should be doing)
*Steven Brust: The Dragaera series (15 novels so far, another four planned. The protagonist begins the series as an assassin. The author is a socialist and the series explores the evils of capitalism. You can enjoy the books without adopting the author's biases. Rich world, interesting magic system)
*Katherine Kerr: Deverry novels (the plot is a celtic knot)
*Jonathon Stroud: Bartimaeus Sequence (Young adult. Is the protagonist the demon or the demon summoner?); Locke & Co. series (Young adult. Only teens and children can see the undead. They have to save the rest of us normies)
*Joel Rosenberg: Guardians of the Flame series (RPG players transferred to a world where they are their character. Fun read.); Mordred's Heirs (The author passed away before finishing the series. Don't let that stop you from picking them up used, they are a very fun read.)
*David R. Gerrold: The War Against the Chtorr series (unfinished; alien invasion of earth; we're not winning. The author is still living and has been saying he's still working on the series for the last 30 years without publishing a book. Bitter? Why yes.)
*Brandon Mull: Fablehaven series (Young adult. The adventures of tweens who help run a sanctuary for fairly tale critters).

[Anthony H]

I saw some of these mentioned as I read through the comments, but I’m leaving them in anyway for emphasis. Tried not to duplicate too much, but there were a lot of things up there that I heartily agree with.

Marion Zimmer Bradley - The Colors of Space
George R. R. Martin & Lisa Tuttle - Windhaven
Steven Brust - Vlad Taltos books (Jhereg, etc.), To Reign in Hell
Angela Holder - The Fuller’s Apprentice (Chronicles of Tevenar)
David Palmer - Emergence, Tracking, Threshold
Anne McCaffrey - Pern books
Roger Zelazny - Amber books, Roadmarks
Diane Duane - Young Wizards books
Sylvia Louise Engdahl - Enchantress from the Stars
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - The Mote in God’s Eye
Robert L. Forward - Rocheworld, Dragon’s Egg (Hard Science Fiction)
James P. Hogan - Thrice Upon A Time (interesting time loop book, hard science fiction)
Frank Herbert - Friday
Spider Robinson - Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon (and other Callahan books, with lots of puns, including “Lady Slings the Booze")
Piers Anthony - Xanth books (more puns)
Robert Aspirin - M.Y.T.H series (also puns)

[Nige]

Can't bring myself to watch it, don't know why. On the other hand, I'm finally catching up on Better Call Saul, so maybe soon.

The audio adaptation of Sandman is VERY good, so maybe I'm just Sandbagged.

[BrianL.]

As someone who has all 75 issues of Sandman, I can say that the Netflix series is very good. Gaiman is involved and he likes it. They made some changes, mainly taking out references to other DC characters, but in broad strokes, it follows the comic pretty closely. One caveat: I'm only up to episode 5. I'm not binging, I'm savoring.

[Nige]

It's like too much cake? Lovely cake but... too much right now.

[Squirrelloid]

He follows the comic closely enough that the things he changes are *really noticeable*. (And not just the minor removal of DC characters).

Some of these are definitely improvements. (There's more foreshadowing of what the overarching plot actually is). But then there's weird added moments that undercut that overarching plot. (Yes, I'm being vague, because massive spoilers).