Have you tried CJ Cherryh, particularly the Alliance-Union universe? If you'd like to start with a longer novel, I'd suggest Downbelow Station or perhaps Cyteen (though DS is one of my favorites) if you'd like a faster and less deep introduction, I'd suggest Merchanter's Luck or The Pride of Chanur.
I see a number of things on your list I also enjoy (and some I haven’t seen so thanks for the recs!).
I’ve got a pretty long list, but I think only the first three are scifi in the space faring long run series sense. Including some others in the genre more broadly, in case any look interesting too:
A little pulpier in tone, but still very well put together, I’d suggest as well the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers, and especially the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. The latter is a bit more fantastic space opera as opposed to some of the harder sci-fi you’ve mentioned, but Muir knows how to write a setting that is absolutely dripping in gothic horror, and still take you on an emotional roller coaster fully of highs, lows, and humor as you read it. It seems to be a bit of a love-it-or-hate-it series from the other conversations I’ve had about it, but I love it and I’d be remiss not to suggest it.
I’d also suggest, if you’re not averse, dipping your toe into the fantasy genre as well. There’s a broad range of authors there who have done excellent work building fantasy worlds that are structurally deep and compelling, and have many science-fictional qualities. Along these lines I’d suggest Robert Jackson Bennett’s Founders trilogy, or N. K. Jemison’s Broken Earth trilogy – though, fair warning, both of these broke me in the end emotionally. Worth it, though!
This looks a lot like hard scifi and cyberpunk to me and I’m not sure if they fit the “exploring new worlds and places” part I was looking for. When I eventually come back to those genres, I’ll have a great list of recommendations though. Thanks!
I haven’t read a lot of science fiction recently, but if you like adventure and world building, then March Upcountry is a great read. The books are short, but it’s a series, so all together it makes up a thick book. :)
I’ve been plowing through Three Body Problem series by Cixin Liu recently and it’s been really great. I’m on the home stretch of the last book and so excited to finish it.
All about space exploration, first contact, invasion, advancement and philosophy. A really great thinking book and leaves me with lots of uncomfortable feelings to ponder over. The pacing of the book took a little bit to get used to but it does well to help grapple with the time and space scale it is working with.
I’ve read the first and parts of the second book and I think it has one of the best antagonistic characters. I didn’t put it on this list because I was looking more for stories, that explore new worlds and places. Its definitely on the list of books I want to finish at some point. Idk what it is, but it needs to be the right time and place for me to be able to appreciate books like those.
Recently: a friend bugged me until I finally got around to Red Rising
I haven't actually read the series, because it's heavy and I wanted to let it breathe a little. It's dark, and the first one has kind of a feudal setting for most of the book I can't explain without spoiling it, but it's a ride. I always listen to audiobooks at 2x and had to go back and listen to the closing song at regular speed to get the full impact of the emotion.
You’ve got some moderately highbrow and transhumanist stuff in there; have you tried Greg Egan? The two starting places I like to recommend are the Clockwork Rocket books (natives of a universe with alternate physics explore it and figure out what’s going on, kind of Flatland turned up to 11… and then up to 121…), and Permutation City which I think will meet your “some very interesting ideas” and then keep accelerating.
Another vote for Cherryh - pretty much anything by Cherryh. And in the “journey” department, perhaps also look at John Varley’s Gaia trilogy (Titan, Wizard, Demon)? (Probably falls into your “excessive violence and some smut” category)
You might also try the “far future/dying Earth” genre as a way of getting the exploration without necessarily being tied to the space/hard sf milieu. I think the most awarded member of this subgenre (and I liked it quite a bit) is Gene Wolfe’s three Sun series (Book of the New Sun, Book of the Long Sun, Book of the Short Sun).
For nonfiction, I’d have to say How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair. It’s a memoir of a woman who grew up in a strict Rastafari household in Jamaica. Safiya is a poet and she has a beautiful command of language that makes her descriptions lyrical, haunting, or painful as needs be. However, if you generally need content warnings I would highly recommend looking them up for this book because she does not pull any punches.
For fiction, my favorite would probably be Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett (Storygraph went down in the middle of me writing this lol, will edit the link in later). It’s a lovely fantasy novel set in an alternate Earth where fae are real. You follow a Dryadologist as she works on documenting a rare type of fae while she works on her encyclopaedia of faeries (hence the title lol). I enjoyed being in Emily’s head as she worked through the problems presented to her, and as she interacted with her colleague.
I recently finished Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, and while I can see why other people enjoyed it, it was not for me.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow spoilersI’ve heard that the people who love this book tend to not play many video games, and those who dislike it do, and that holds true for me. While the characters are interesting at times and their development was done pretty well, I just could not get over how the video game design itself was described. Like, take Ichigo for example. It was the first game they developed together and described in the most detail. They talk about the art design, and the story, and the gender of the protagonist, but never once do they say what genre it is. Is it a platformer? Action? RPG? The genre of a game is the most important aspect of it, because all gameplay and mechanics play off of it in order to tell the story. Not to mention the fact that some of the games did things that are really just not possible in gaming storylines, like that Pioneers chapter towards the end of the book. You can do that sort of thing in a text-based roleplay forum, but not in an MMORPG as described in the book. Also, while I was very young when some of these games were developed and wasn’t in tune with technology then, some of the descriptions of it struck me as odd. Several times there were references to “burning out” several graphics cards and processors in a short amount of time trying to create certain visual effects in a game engine, for an indie PC game designed in 1997. Maybe computer components were just more delicate back then but… that just feels weird. Finally, Sadie’s vendetta against Sam really bothered me. Not that she found some things that Sam did a betrayal or wrong - I might as well if it were me! What bugged me the most was that she forgave Dov, her abusive ex, much more readily than Sam, her well-intentioned (if misguided at times) friend. And what she was initially upset about was Sam wanting her to speak to Dov! I just don’t understand that, and it wasn’t well justified to me at all. Also, the shooting was unnecessary and only served as “haha gamers are violent” to me.
Your comment about who typically likes and doesn’t like this book is really interesting because I loved the book AND love playing games. I hadn’t heard this criticism of the book before.
I think reading your comment in hindsight, yes that DOES strike me as off looking back on it now but I don’t think it stuck out while reading to me outside of one Metal Gear Solid reference that made me quirk an eyebrow and knew it wasn’t right.
Yeah of course the comment on who likes/dislikes it isn’t universal, it’s just something I heard mentioned at some point.
I’m someone who can struggle with minutae like what I mentioned in the spoiler section, so that’s probably a big part of why I disliked it. Like I said, I do understand why so many people like it - Gabrielle Zevin has great prose and the overall character development is interesting and compelling. I just struggled with some parts.
I really enjoyed the first third of that book. the last third was OK. the middle third was so dreadful that I almost stopped reading. it just abruptly shifted to sitcom style/ depth plot and character development, it was bizarre.
even though it’s functionally a true crime book,[^1] White Hot Hate: A True Story of Domestic Terrorism in America’s Heartland is probably the book that sucked me in the most this year. the ultimate story being told here is effectively copaganda—almost definitionally it has to be, since it revolves around the FBI successfully navigating an infamous domestic terror plot from the past few years. but in between that story this book also really goes intimate into how such plots manifest and take form. you get a real sense of the sort of person who would follow through with white supremacist terrorism—and, perhaps indirectly, how many of these people are pushed to act (or hasten how willing they are to act) with the cajoling of the FBI. i’m not sure a book has ever felt like a peek behind the curtain for me without just actively being a political tract in the way this one was
[^1]: and i very much dislike true crime as a genre—looking at you I’ll Be Gone In The Dark
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