MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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Any interesting ideas? MrsD loves sci-fi, but generally not the '700 page technical manual' stuff, and more the 'what would happen to society in this situation' stuff. Her favourite book is probably The Dispossessed but she loved the recent N K Jemisin and Ann Leckie books too.
Doesn't have to be recent - early C20 stuff is good too!
I would suggest other books written by Ursula LeGuin
We've got a whole shelf of them! 😀
edit to add: perhaps also, after the year we've had, not a gruelling dystopia in the Handmaid's Tale mould...
Also try her on Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke and Asimov - they were my Sci Fi D-O-C
edit - misread what you're asking - ignore
Anne McCaffrey?
Stephen Baxter Flux is one of my fave sci-fi books. Amazing imagination combined with some really interesting physics. Other books in the same series also awesome.
doris5000
Free MemberAny interesting ideas? MrsD loves sci-fi, but generally not the ‘700 page technical manual’ stuff, and more the ‘what would happen to society in this situation’ stuff. Her favourite book is probably The Dispossessed but she loved the recent N K Jemisin and Ann Leckie books too.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars is what jumped to mind. It does "what would happen to society in this situation" in a way that makes you feel like it already happened and he was there. It's about a million pages long and probably half of them really move the story but that's half the point.
And Chris Beckett's very odd Mother of Eden. I still don't know if it's any good, but I love it.
N K Jemisin- if she's not read Zelazny's batshit mental Lord Of Light then she should. It's a bit of a fever dream, quite hard to follow at times but Hundred Thousand Kingdoms reminded me of it a lot at times. As did Crashing Heaven by Al Robertson
I'd like to recommend Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series... I think she might well love Closed and Common Orbit. But it's a 4 book series and they're so different in style and feel that it's a pretty hard recommend, and I don't think it stands well so alone. (I loved Closed and Common, absolutely loved it, despite some flaws... And there's some really strong similarities with the human side of the Ancillary series... But I thought Record of a Spaceborne Few was just bad)
And Murderbot Diaries, just on general principles.
Piranesi by Susannah Clarke is v good for something recent (author of Jonathan Strange). Didn't put me in mind of Le Guin in particular, but it's top drawer.
Le Guin was an original and had quite a varied style over the years istm, hard to really pin down in the sense of if you like that you'll like this.
Is Ian M Banks 'Culture' series not the answer you seek here?
Cory Doctorow? He’s got some great short story collections and novels. Most are black mirror-ish, near-future sci-fi I suppose. Great ‘what if?’ Stories but pretty easy reads. Check out Walkaway and Unauthorised Bread.
Katharine Kerr, Julian May, Kate Elliott, Janny Wurts, Robin Hobb. All great. Jacqueline Carey for something a bit left field
Chris Beckett’s very odd Mother of Eden. I still don’t know if it’s any good, but I love it.
I know what you mean, I read all threee of the Eden books, uncomforable reading at times but having started book 1 I knew I'd finsh it quickly then had to read the rest. Not read his other works yet
I enjoyed "The Fifth Season" by N. K. Jemisin, it veers a bit into the world of fantasy but it's an odd book and definitely not ‘700 page technical manual’.
Other authors that spring to mind: JG Ballard, William Gibson, Greg Bear.
Plus 1 for Iain M Banks.
Some of the Iain Banks stuff plays across the line too eg Transition (was published as Iain M Banks in the US).
Left Hand Of Darkness was great from LeGuin.
Try Childhoods End. 🙂
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Never Let me Go, Klara and the Sun ,and the Buried Giant by Ishiguro
Machines Like Me - Ian McEwan.
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Edit: I see other's have recommended William Gibson. For me, he strays into the technical manual a bit, but in his favour if you get on with his prose style, they are at least, decent stories buried under the "tech speak"
Also try the the Annihilation Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer
Ray Bradbury eg Fahrenheit 451 - he does a load of dystopian future stuff...
Edit: I see other’s have recommended William Gibson. For me, he strays into the technical manual a bit, but in his favour if you get on with his prose style, they are at least, decent stories buried under the “tech speak”
I did doubt when recommending him: the Neuromancer trilogy does get a bit more techy on occasion, but they're a long way from a space opera nerdfest which I assume is what the OP's wife isn't keen on.
(And BTW I enjoy space opera nerdfests, but they are what they are 🙂 )
but they’re a long way from a space opera nerdfest which I assume is what the OP’s wife isn’t keen on.
Yes they are, reflecting on this a bit, rather than tech-speak about giant space traversing star ships and how they do that, I think the issue with Gibson is that he just says things, and you either just go with the flow, or just get wound up by all the jargon...(Virtual Light is bad for this) there's passages where the characters will "proj their keepsies, and scan the disc on their skinviews.." (I'm making it up, but you get what I mean)
A Memory Called Empire.
Cant remember who it's by, but I'm just finishing Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie and there are definitely parallels. Lots about language and (unsurprisingly) memory. Would highly recommend.
If you're willing to go mid-20th century, John Wyndham wrote some excellent "what would happen if..." books. Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, Village of the Damned. Quite dated in style but great stories
She might like to check out the Matthew Swift Urban Magic series by Kate Griffin, starting with ‘A Madness Of Angels’, there are six books altogether, but they’re not 800-page doorstops! There’s also an unconnected series of books by Claire North, starting with ‘The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August’, which take some classic SF tropes and take them into some unexpected places. Kate and Claire are the same person, pen names of Catherine Webb, who wrote about ten YA books, starting the first at 15 during her summer holidays, and that book, ‘Mirror Dreams’ shows a lot of Roger Zelazney influences. Well worth a read, and Cat’s other YA books, they’re a lot of fun, and nice and compact, like old-fashioned SF novels used to be!
John Wyndham definitely. Try 'The Chrysalids'.
Ray Bradbury short stories - From memory 'The Golden Apples of the Sun' was good.
I've never met anyone who like UKLeG who didn't like Frank Herbert's 'Dune'.
Very different, but perhaps 'Forever War' by Joe Haldeman.
Thanks for all the suggestions. They seem to be all in the right ballpark, as she's already got a lot of them!
So I plumped for The Buried Giant and Piranesi. And when they arrived I noticed she already had Buried Giant too...
I'll grab another. But there should be a good few options here to keep in reserve for Xmas / future birthdays too 🙂
Just came back to this thread. Goldmine!
Piranesi was a big hit, and first 15 Lives of Harry August went down pretty well too. Just bought 'A Memory Called Empire' now.
Some great suggestions above. The Kraken Wakes by Wyndham is very good, not read the Crysalids yet.
I'd also recommend what I've just finished... The Mote in God's eye by Niven and Pournelle.
Try Childhoods End. 🙂
I'm currently reading this and loving it. Rama was also very good.
I'd recommend anything by Hal Clement. Also M. A. Foster, especially "The Warriors of Dawn", but all his are good.
Thanks for the suggestions, have to try some of those...
Didn't realise this was a resurrection thread!
I'm still working through the suggestions from here...
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/definitive-sci-fi-and-fantasy-book-list/
There’s a popular set of books that mimic the Earthsea series premise of a young wizard learning to control his power and having a frightening nemesis.
Excellent short story by UKLG here:
Link should take you to pdf but if it doesn't it's called 'The ones who walk away from Omelas'