Just finished the Hydrogen Sonata by the dearly beloved and sadly departed Mr Banks. Any reason I should’t just download another Culture book? Is there anything else that will not leave me thinking ‘yeah but it’s not as awesome as the Culture’ ?

Neal Stephenson managed it, who else?

Or.. I could avoid the problem by not reading another scifi book. There are some normal books that are clever and inventive, but they are hard to find amongst bloody thrillers and crime and all that crap.

clever and inventive,

Jasper Fforde. Try “Shades of Grey”, closest to sci-fi from him. If not, “The Big Over Easy” is a brilliantly clever and inventive murder/police procedural, in which the victim is a large, ambulatory egg with a penchant for sitting on walls.

Alistair reynolds

For something else take a look at the First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie starting with The Blade Itself.

The Reality Dysfunction by Peter Hamilton is quite good for general Awesomeness. As in Very Big spaceships, AIs and the like. Be warned that although the first trilogy (starting with the aforementioned book) is pretty good, his latest aren’t particularly…

Possibly not quite sci-fi as you’re thinking of it but “The Martian” by Andy Weir is well worth a read.

Or Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan a different take on how to go about interstellar travel.

WEll my bloody tablet is out of battery now and my Kindle’s still lost – so I’ve got nothing to bloody well read on the plane anyway 🙁

And I can’t work cos I need a network connection. Arse.

Peter F Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga duology and Void trilogy are a great read. Pandora’s Star, the first book in the Commonwealth Saga, is only £1.19 for Kindle at the moment.

Another vote for The Martian”

Just finished -good read

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie is pretty decent.

Saturn’s Children and Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross.

Quality hard sci fi.

One book that really made me go ‘wow’ in the same way Banks did was the Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi.

I’ve recently read the star carrier series by Ian Douglas. OK in a space opera style, but not iain m banks.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/61745-star-carrier

Joe Haldeman – Foreverwar trilogy*

*kind of, only the first two are linked.

All of Charles Stross’s books are worth reading, the two listed are very good, then there’s Accellerando, Iron Sunrise, Singularity Sky, Halting State, the Laundry Series, a genius mix of James Bond spies and Lovecraftian eldritch Elder Gods.
There’s also the Merchant Princes series as well.
I also recommend without hesitation anything by Roger Zelazny, if you can find it, one of the most lyrical SF authors ever, I just adore his books, since I first discovered them forty-odd years ago.

Ken MacLeod’s Fall Revolution novels are brilliant – SF set in Scotland (sort of). His other books are good too – and he was best mates with Iain Banks.

Or Adam Roberts. Lots of good books, “On” is perhaps my favourite.

molgrips – Member
There are some normal books that are clever and inventive, but they are hard to find amongst bloody thrillers and crime and all that crap.

Well, if you’re going to be so narrow minded, no wonder you can’t find anything to read.
🙂

This is quite good:

Although I suspect you may have already finished it.

Richard K Morgan’s Altered Carbon and follow-ups… Very human scale in a very big sf universe, very Consider Phlebas at times imo. Love these.

If you’d like some batshit crazy then Zelazny’s Lord of Light. It makes me think of the sort of thing Minds would get up to in infinite fun space.

Quantum Thief is very good, and I think pretty Banks-inspired, Mieli and her ship were so SC. Hard to read in places I thought, it felt like picking up part 2 of a series, a bit sink or swim the way he just uses ideas and terms without introducing them. But loved it despite that and it feels like there’s a huge depth waiting to be tapped.

Er, hmm. Peter F Hamilton, man most in need of an editor… I love the Night’s Dawn series despite themselves but talk about bloat. The big setpieces are fantastic, and I think incredibly Banksish, so much like Consider Phlebas at times. The earlier Greg Mandel ones where he was still on a leash are so much tighter imo, he wasn’t as developed a writer though. I gave up on him after a couple of Commonwealths, just felt like a slog.

Natural Banksy link is Ken Macleod, they were good mates- Banks credited Macleod with “arguing the old warrior out of retirement” and making him rewrite Use of Weapons. I love his Fall Revolution series but the earlier ones are pretty earthbound and near-future sf, rather than big ****-off space opera. And I think maybe the space opera stuff, Cosmonaut Keep etc, is not quite as good. And now he’s into horrible paranoid near-future dystopian nightmares it seems.

Maybe Red/Green/Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, a much slower pace and different read than a Culture novel but the same sense of wonder. Greatest living sf author imo, when these 3 are at their best they’re just phenomenal, it feels like he’s lived through what he’s writing about.

Bit of Sundiver/Uplift War? Feels a bit dated now but still good. Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Flowers For Algernon, Stand on Zanzibar? Not that much like Banks but incredibly good.

Oh well that’s all very positive. I can’t get into Charlie Stross’s space opera stuff at all, it just doesn’t work for me. I charged through the Laundry but again, similiar, I enjoy it but there’s lots about it I really don’t like at all, some terrible characterisation, not much coherence of concept. But I love the basic pitch. Also I have to credit him, I accidentally slated Singularity Sky to his face, not knowing who he was and he took it incredibly well 😳 (come to think of it, I think it was Hannu Rajaniemi that set me up for that!)

One book that really made me go ‘wow’ in the same way Banks did was the Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

I read that. I don’t think I’d done enough drugs to fully appreciate it. It was all a bit rambly meh, too smart-arsed for its own good. Not a bad read but could not move me anything like IMB.

Have you read the Banks non genre stuff?

Hyperion, Dan Simmons.

half way through I thought it was going to be one of the best books I had ever read, trailed off a bit at the end, bit like Cryptonomicon – in the trailing off sense not in the content sense.

Claire North’s “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August” is a very good read, not so much hard SF, and the basic premise isn’t that original, but she puts an interesting new spin on it: Harry August, when he dies, returns by being repeatedly reborn, over and over again, but he remembers each life. And he’s not the only one.
I’ve just received her latest book today, “Touch”, and I’m 22 pages in, and really enjoying it so far. Again, the idea isn’t new, (but then, how many are?): an entity has the ability to inhabit the bodies of other people, and does so by touch, but in doing so shares the body, leaving the original personality intact when she leaves it fo another.
But someone/thing is trying to kill her…

The Descent, Ken Macleod’s latest is marvellous

Is there anything else that will not leave me thinking ‘yeah but it’s not as awesome as the Culture’ ?

Nope. The Culture novels are the pinnacle so far.

I found Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ series to be similar to the Culture, although it’s a bit chauvinist (there are virtually no women protagonists) and the robots/droids are nowhere near as well developed as Banks’ – typically more robotic/less “human”. I enjoyed them though.

Pete F Hamilton’s “Great North Road” is a fantastic stand-alone book. Like others I was utterly enthrealled when I started the Night’s Dawn trilogy, but bewildered by the end. GNR puts that right

Justin Cronin’s “The Passage” and “The Twelve” should be on your list too. The third boo kin the trilogy is due out later this year, eagerly awaited.

Alistair Reynolds is the nearest thing I’ve found.

Any reason I should’t just download another Culture book?

None at all, go for it and just be sad when you’ve read them all (a dozen times) and know there won’t be any more…

I read of lot of the above, and throughly enjoyed loads of them, but think the the Dan Simmons Hyperion series* edges above the rest for me, but much like China Mieville or Neal Stephenson stuff, it’s their story telling style that I enjoy, as I’ve yet to find a series that’s as “awesome as the Culture”
Reynolds is worth considering but his Revelation Space is dystopian, and get a lot of flack for his meandering/rambling ground work.

*Did not get on with Ilium/Olympos

Capt FH needs a slap for suggesting Jasper Fforde in an Iain M Banks thread.

oooh i loved ilium olympos, possibly more than hyperion which wandered

reynolds does ramble a bit but worth it in the end
mievile can be hit and miss but still good
nights dawn/ void trilogies are a bit pulpy
The Blade Itself is definitely worth it though, didnt quite get it at first but soon got hooked on abercrombie!

I love Reynolds when he’s good but there’s bits that are like typing “wait” and then seeing “time passes”… And the ending of the revelation space series, zomfg, I wanted to beat him with sticks. Won’t talk about it at all because of epic spoilers but considering he once spent about 500 pages describing a spaceship chase in which basically nothing happens… But for that hard/bleak/coldness of space sf epic his older stuff is all a great choice.

Though, he’s changed direction a lot with the current series, I always said he wrote like Iain Banks without a soul… now with Poseidon’s Children he’s more like Kim Stanley Robinson without a heart. But, still well worth the read I think

I think Flash might be onto something though. The best way to avoid disappointment might be to change tack altogether.

I don’t really need scifi, what I want is something clever, original, properly imaginative and unusual, but still a good read. There are “normal” books like that but they are hard to find.

I’ve just ripped through the first few books in the Expanse series by James S A Corey, good fun but a bit more ‘lightweight’ perhaps than Ian Banks etc. Some well thought out future world-building though.

Second for Richard Morgan as well, the 3 Takeshi Kovacs books are well worth a read.

Kind of excited by the Expanse coming to sci-fi channel, great bit of pap with big warships & scary alien monsters, what’s not to like?
(have you read the 2 short stories too Mr.S?)

Love Mr. Morgan and reckon his “A Land Fit For Heroes” (bit more fantasy but still a sci-fi vein) is just as good as the Kovac’s books

Expanse series has beensigned up to a TV series supposedly. Could be good if it happens. I enjoyed the books.

I’m another Hyperion fan. Loved the series and the worlds it pictures.

I’m trying to slowly work my way through the culture series as like OP started with the HYdrogen Sonata and loved it. Not rushing them as obviously there will be no more 🙁

My most surprising reads were the Progenitor Series by Dan Worth. A self published author on Kindle but don’t let this put you off. The storys are well paced and very imaginative. Well worth a try for anyone who loves a good space opera.

Kind of excited by the Expanse coming to sci-fi channel, great bit of pap with big warships & scary alien monsters, what’s not to like?
(have you read the 2 short stories too Mr.S?)

No, I’m usually not keen on sort of backfilling stuff. I’ve got a few other things unread on my Kindle, maybe I’ll have a look after those.

Not sci-fi but I’ve just finished the End of the World Running Club and thought I’d recommend it!