Sci-Fi Recommendations - current reading slump

[JT]

Hi all, I’m in a bit of a reading slump at the moment and looking for some suggestions. I wouldn’t say I have a particular ‘genre’ I am fixed on and I’m willing to give most things a go but that being said my favourite book of all time probably is George Orwell’s 1984 (cliche I know!). I’ve struggled recently to find a good book to get into although two books I recently read and absolutely loved were Station Eleven and A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet so I guess you could argue that I’m more in the sci-fi/dystopian camp than anything else.

Has anyone got any books they can recommend which are similar to Station Eleven/Long Way to a Small Angry Planet? At the moment I’m not looking at getting into some great epic series of books and would like just some great one off novels to really get into and help me get out of this read slump I’m in!

Just a few other notable mentions of books I have read fairly recently just incase any of the following are any that get recommended:

Handmaids Tale
Cloud Atlas
Dune
The Chrysalids
The War of The Worlds
Fahrenheit 451
Neuromancer
Children of Men
The Road

[Sarah]

Wool by Hugh Howey got me out of my slump of DNF’s.

[CBRetriever]

Sarah wrote: "Wool by Hugh Howey got me out of my slump of DNF’s."

and it's part of today's Daily Deals in Kindle format on amazon.com

[Cheryl]

Other books by Becky Chambers of course, including the not-exactly-sequels in what is referred to as the Wayfarers series. Station Eleven is more unique as it's kind of an optimistic dystopia; I'd love more like that. I've read that book, and many of Chambers' books, several times, so you might want to friend me.

Some keywords that help when I'm searching are Optimistic, Hopepunk, Solarpunk, Post-Scarcity. Stories about colonists and generation ships sometimes qualify. The Word for World Is Forest is a not-too-old classic that shows up on some lists.

Another speculative fiction that I've read many times is hard to classify, but just, ah, read my review... The Bees

Then there's those that I read because of my interest in exploring different perspectives, like those of robots or aliens. Like The Murderbot Diaries (ask someone else to clarify where to start, as the first stories were online only when I read them), Today I Am Carey, and The Humans

Stars Uncharted is supposed to fit my key interests, but it's collecting dust on my nightstand until I get a chance to read it for group. (Maybe I should post in the Buddy Read discussion.)

I have more but I think I've given you enough to start with. :)

[Cheryl]

Oh, and fans of 1984 should absolutely read the short fable Animal Farm; that and The Pushcart War impressed me a lot, and got several rereads, when I was a too-bright teen.

[Becky]

Here are some good ones:
The Windup Girl - Future society dystopian SF
Oryx and Crake - ditto + cli-fi
A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World - post-apocalyptic coming of age quest kind of story
Leviathan Wakes - near future space opera. (I know that this is the start of a long series and you said that you weren't really into that, but... it's excellent, does work as a standalone novel if you can resist the pull of the rest of the series when you get to the end.)
Anything from Andy Weir (The Martian, Artemis, & Project Hail Mary) - Of these, I much prefer The Martian. I found it very funny and compelling and tense and exciting and loved pretty much everything about it. PHM was pretty good, but very different, and Artemis was my least favorite, but all are worth the read, I think.
Brave New World - recommending in case you haven't read it, since you mentioned some classics but not that one.

[Ann-Marie]

I have to recommend a favorite sci-fi for my in person bookclub next month and I am going to nominate The Kaiju Preservation Society, enjoyable standalone that doesn't make you think too much and the audio was very well-done.

[Colin]

Let me toss in three for consideration:
1) From classic SF, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein, a great companion in the days of ChatGPT.
2) Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh. Great world building and culture building, pretty hard SF. Yes, it is part of the Union/Company universe, but it can be read standalone.
3) Since you like Orwell's 1984, try the granddaddy of dystopian fiction (it may well be the first): Pictures of the Socialistic Future by Eugen Richter. This was published in 1893. I cannot find either of the translations I have in the Goodreads library. I would recommend the translation by Henry Wright (note that the author's name appears as Eugene Richter on this and some others).

[David]

Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

Second for Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh

Anything by China Mieville if you want something weird.

[Chris]

Children of Time - It's a series, but the first book is a complete story and the best of the series.

Pushing Ice - It features some friendly aliens.

[Jacqueline]

I’d definitely suggest that you read the other Wayfarers books by Becky Chambers. A Closed and Common Orbit follows the AI that ran the ship in her new life. Record of a Spaceborn Few follows the Captains family on their big generational ships. Galaxy and the Ground Within follows his girlfriend. They are connected but very different.

Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series is great too. Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy. The series starts with Ancillary Justice.

Charlie Jane Anders writes some great dystopian stuff but not necessarily sci-fi. All the Birds in the Sky I think is one. Something like that. They’re all stand alone.

If you haven’t tried the Murderbot books by Martha Wells you’re missing out in my (and a lot of peoples opinions. Love Murderbot. All Systems Red is the first one. They’re mostly novellas.

Since I’m doing this on the app I have no idea what else has been said up above but anyhoo….I do remember you said no long series but these books aren’t too long. I can handle 3 books in a series normally but more than that I lose interest. Except for Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. 5 was fine.

Oh and I enjoyed A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. It has a sequel A Desolation Called Peace.

[Cheryl]

(Ah, thank you for revealing that people using the app don't see what's been said upthread. Or at least not easily? Anyway, that explains a lot [in many other discussions I've had on GR]. Like how many things you recommend you're actually seconding. :)

[DivaDiane]

I usually use the app to read threads and it’s usually not a problem (on iOS) to see the posts. If a thread is one comment over 50 comments then a new page starts so you only see the one comment, but I just reverse the order so I can see if I missed anything. Not sure what the problem was (maybe an Android thing?) because this thread is not that long. Hope that helps Jacqueline.

[Jacqueline]

DivaDiane wrote: "I usually use the app to read threads and it’s usually not a problem (on iOS) to see the posts. If a thread is one comment over 50 comments then a new page starts so you only see the one comment, b..."

Yeah DD I'm fine with reading threads but it's just when you comment on them in the app you can't see what is above you.

Cheryl wrote: "(Ah, thank you for revealing that people using the app don't see what's been said upthread. Or at least not easily? Anyway, that explains a lot. Like how many things you recommend you're actually s..."

Yeah the app just takes you to a box to comment on the thread and you can't actually see any other comments while you're actually commenting. You can read them ok before you press "comment" but you can't see them while you're commenting. I did look at them but my head is like a sieve and I can't remember anything I read.

[Cheryl]

Thank you both for the clarification. Yeah, my head is like sieve too and I would not like this feature. Sticking with my laptop. :)

[DivaDiane]

Ah, yes! I should’ve realized, because that’s a problem for my own sieve-like memory!

[Nadine in California]

The Girl with All the Gifts grabbed my attention and held it tight all the way through. Recently read The Spear Cuts Through Water with a GR group (I think this one!) and everyone loved it. Also loved the author's first book, The Vanished Birds.

[Cheryl]

Hey, Goose, did you get any rec's you like? If you give us feedback, we can refine our suggestions.

[Bnz]

May I suggest that you try The State of the Art, the only story collection by Iain M. Banks, especially the novella of the same title. It is, IMO, an excellent introduction to his (let me borrow the phrase from Ursula K. Le Guin) ambiguous utopia, "The Culture". If you turn out to like it, there is lot where it came from, mostly set in the same rich universe, but all pretty different.

[JT]

Sorry for the delay in my response everyone (family emergency and been in hospital since). Thanks for everyone’s suggestions!

I’ll try and catch up with all of the above but apologies if I miss something.

I’ve added Wool to my list of ones to check out next so thanks for that suggestion! Animal Farm is another one of Orwell’s I read (straight after I read 1984 way back when). And although I said I wasn’t looking for a series I will most certainly be checking out the rest of the Wayfarers series (as they are essentially stand-alone with some references only to the other ones). Im also looking into Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility after reading Station Eleven as apparently they are also part of a ‘series’ like Wayfarer with some interconnecting elements but stand-alone novels (if anyone can confirm or give me their thoughts on them).

I’ve also read Brave New World (though it was a long time ago and I don’t really remember it so I may give it another go). I have added The Martian to my list although someone did reference Leviathan Wakes which is actually the culprit behind why I don’t want a series at the moment. I thought Leviathan Wakes was excellent and I bought the whole expanse series but I lost interest in them as I found that particular series followed a too similar story structure in each book and became stale quite quickly (sorry for any fans!). Since then I’ve just been happier with reading a self contained book that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.

I also read The Girl With all the Gifts a while ago too which I enjoyed.

I haven’t had much opportunity since being in hospital to go out and research or look into many more books although I did randomly pick up How High We Go In The Dark which, unbeknownst to me at the time, turns out to be recommended for fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven. Really enjoyed that book which I finished today since I’ve had a lot of time sat by the hospital bed.

Someone else recommended Babel to me by R F Kuang and lent me a copy so I might read that soon just simply because it’s here with me and saves me having to leave the hospital.

Phew! Sorry, long update and again apologies for the delayed response. Sorry if I didn’t quite cover someone’s post/recommendation above and thanks for everyone’s input!

[JT]

Side note: I’ve finally got around to updating my profile with all the books I’ve read (that I can remember) to help with any future recommendations. Made a profile for good reads ages ago but this is the first time I’ve really used it so only just getting round to working out how to use it and update my profile now!

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Nice! It can definitely help to have that. Hope all is well, JT :)

[L]

If anyone is looking for a good SF book, try "The Flight Of The Aphrodite", "Where It Rains In Color", "Velocity Weapon" or "Ancillary Justice".
Hope that helps!

[Becky]

JT - sorry to hear you've been in the hospital. Hope you are better soon!

[Omar]

Read Pandora's Star (Commonwealth Saga, #1) by Peter F. Hamilton. Its awesome.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...

[Kaladin]

Hi JT. Hope you're feeling better. Wayfarers is such a great series. Not sure if it has been recommended yet, but I find the Whitespace books by Elizabeth Bear just as enjoyable. 2 in series so far. 3rd in the works. Great worldbuilding, intersting and likeable character, plus a good mystery. :)