I haven’t had any luck in finding sci-fi books recently. I’m looking for a longer story that takes its time to establish the world/universe and the characters living in it. I like the idea of exploring space or futuristic cities/landscapes and being on a journey together with the protagonist. The story doesn’t have to have a happy end or flawless characters, but I also don’t like it when everything is hopeless/dystopic and all the characters stumble from one flawed decision to the next one. Some examples of what I enjoyed so far are:
- Dune
- Project Hail Mary
- The Expanse Series
- Hyperion Cantos Series
- Bobiverse Series
- The Murderbot Diaries Series
- Tuf Voyaging
- Night’s Dawn Series (Might not be for everyone… contains excessive violence and some smut, but also some very interesting ideas)
- Vatta’s War Series (I usually don’t like military sci-fi, but this one wasn’t bad)
- The Interdependency Series
- Falling Free
If you enjoyed some of these stories and have any similar suggestions, feel free to share them here. If not, maybe consider checking out the list above… I highly recommend each of these entries.
Frank Herberts ‘WorShip’ trilogy is one of my personal favorites after Dune. Although the first book in the series, ‘Destination: Void’ is a hard slow burn.
All the 3 books can be read as individuel stories, but just give a “bigger picture” if read as a series.
There’s also something to be said about some of the more ‘Classic’ Sci-Fi books, like: ‘Starship Troopers’, Do Androids Dream…’ and ‘2001’.
‘Annihilation’ is another really good book. I haven’t read the sequels yet, so I can’t speak on those.
‘The Void’ trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton is another series that might interest you. It’s sci-fi with a hard ‘S’ if remember correctly.
I have to admit that I’ve never really gotten into other books by Frank Herbert. I’ve tried Messiah and a few of his short stories but nothing came close to Dune. I haven’t tried the ‘WorShip’ trilogy yet (which is the same as The Pandora Sequence I’m guessing?.. I can’t find anything with that name tbh)
Yes, the second book in the series “The Jesus Incident” is very Dune-esq. I’d recommend that one above the others.
Edit: There’s four books! I forgot about “The Lazarus Effect”
The Annihilation / Southern Reach sequels were short enough books that I figured I might as well read them despite some people not liking them. They’re definitely different from the space related stuff I normally pick up, but I’m glad I read them.
I thought they were good! They both made me not want to put them down and kept weaving the horror and mystery together, closed out some of the loose ends and answered questions, but also opened a lot of new cans of worms.