I am about half way through this book and enjoying it. I am only just dipping into the water with SciFi (abandoned many years ago). I have also read 'I Robot' and loved that. Where should I go after I finish The Space Merchants? Suggestions for a novice, please.

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9 years ago
7 answers

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Vincenzo Iuppa It's hard to base a recommendation off of just this book because it is admittedly unique in the genre. If you are interested in more positive sci-fi (because even though the world in this book is dystopian it's from a pretty positive angle) I would suggest Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. If you are interested in more fiction from the time, you may really like the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov (you can always start with I Robot to just dip your toes in the deep end). If more stories about ad-men is where it is at, Philip K. Dick had a rather psychedelic take in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Good luck in your journeys!

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Stas' Wiatrowski In terms of old school SF I would suggest the following:

The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester and The Demolished Man, also by Alfred Bester. He was an extraordinary writer whose work still holds up today.

Vincenzo Iuppa's suggestions are really worth exploring.

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Rhonda Hankins A sci-fi classic I LOVED was Arthur C. Clarke Childhood's End.

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Gena Kukartsev I realize it's been three years since the question but still: the obvious follow up to The Space Merchants is Market Forces by Richard Morgan. Beyond that, if you like to stay with the modern hard SF, consider

"Seveneves" by Neal Stephenson,
"Blindsight" by Peter Watts,
"Surface Detail" by Iain M. Banks,
"Revelation Space" by Alastair Reynolds
"Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan

Then everything else by those authors.

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Jim Davis This is difficult because I don't know what it was about these two books you enjoyed. What is interesting also is I would be interested to know why you are starting out with classic SF.

But based on your enjoyment of the Frederick Pohl/C. M. Kornbluth collaboration you may want to try one of their other collaborations like "Search the Sky" (1954), "Gladiator at Law" (1955) or "Wolfbane" (1959).

C. M. Kornbluth died young so there isn't much out there by him to read but it is all excellent. If you like short stories you might want to try one of his collections.

Frederick Pohl is a SF legend published his first short story in 1940 (ironically a collaboration with Kornbluth) and continued until shortly before his death in 2013. You can't go wrong reading Pohl. You might want to try one of his Nebula award winning novels "Man Plus" (1976) or "Gateway" (1977).

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Seán For humorous sci-fi I'd go with Douglass Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy. For classic sci-fi, if you haven't read Frank Herbert's Dune you are in for a treat.

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