Postby Tanga » Mon Nov 16, 2020 8:31 pm
Ooooh. This is good. I'm a huge sci fi fan and a few years back reread Assimove, Heinlein and Clarke. Then I discovered Peter F Hamiltion--Wheee!! Massive books about 1,000 pages each, with 3 to 9 in a series with heavy duty smart science, galaxy building, and culture building. I spent the last few years reading all of his and just started his new book, Saints of Salvation, which is the 3rd book in a series.
I am also on She-Fi Ladies who Love Science Fiction Facebook group and get a lot of good recommendations there, especially female authors because I haven't read many. I did read the two Octavia Butler Sower books, which was BRUTAL, over the summer, because they are set here where I live and WAY too close to what was going on in the country and where we were heading. I did one chapter of Jemison, which was way too similar, so I had to put that away for awhile.
So I started I read a few "lighter" less real sci fi women and really liked them. I am way into Sara King and the Zero series--very warlike and rough, but all about many different aliens and cultures. I am looking forward to the rest of the books.
If anyone's interesting, here are the notes I have for future reading, if you like sci fi!
Octavia Butler - Parable series, N.K.Jemisin - Broken Earth Trilogy and everything, Nalo Hopkinson - Brown Girl in the Ring
NK Jemisin's short stories How Long Til Black Future Month is a great way to get a taste of her writing style. Then jump into The Broken Earth trilogy. (I recommend it as audio)
Gini Koch's Aliens
Anne Leckie Ancillary Justice
Martha Wells Murderbot Diaries
Lois McMaster Bujold's "Cordelia's Honor"
Adam Roberts Stone
Ursula LeGuin
THE CALCULATING STARS BY MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL
SPACE OPERA BY CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Alastair Reynolds Revelation series,
Dan Simmons Hyperion and Banks
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Kameron Hurley Stars are Legion (F) all female world building
Ann Leckie Ancillary Justice
Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk
Noumenon Series Marina Lostetter
Straight sci fi
Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice series was phenomenal. Becky Chambers' book The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is space based, but generally kind of light and fun. I
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough? I love their Powers That Be series. It’s about a partially disabled soldier sent to spy on a company community only to find out the planet they are terraforming is actually sentient.
Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Well
The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz
Ursula K LeGuin
Sara King. The series was called Zero.
Vonda McIntyre’s Starfarers
Becky Chambers novels, the first of which reminded me of Firefly
C.S. Friedman. My favorite is "In Conquest Born", but the Coldfire Trilogy is also very good, admittedly heading toward Fantasy in that series.
C.S. Friedman. My favorite is "In Conquest Born", but the Coldfire Trilogy is also very good, admittedly heading toward Fantasy in that series
John Scalzi “Fuzzy Nation,” “ Agent to the Stars,” and “Android dreams”.
Becky Chambers. C.J. Cherryh— the Chanur series is good, as is her current one with aliens sort of based on feudal Japanese society— the Atevi. Cherryh’s stuff is complex but not depressing. Elizabeth Moon. You might also look at Bujold’s Chalion and Sharing Knife books.
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden series is excellent. Linnea Sinclair has written some good ones. Tanya Huff’s Valor books.
Elizabeth Moon's sci-fi series, Vatta's War and Serrano Legacy.
Space opera, with a slightly more militaristic bent for Vatta's war, strong female protagonist, decently hard sci-fi though they do handwave FTL travel.
I think Vatta comes before Serrano chronologically. They're written in almost identical, if not shared universes.
She also wrote a book in the Planet Pirates trilogy with Anne McCaffrey, titled Sassinak which I enjoyed thoroughly.
Jack McDevitt. A male author but Priscilla Hutchins is strong female character who blazes her own path. I highly recommend his Priscilla Hutchins series but I love all of his books. The Hutch series is a lot of searching for clues to finding current alien life, researching past alien civilizations, and a mystery arc that covers the entire series that just kept me turning the pages so I could see what happens next. I
EM Foner's EarthCent series is also feel-good, intelligent, and has interesting future science details. Set on a space station with millions of inhabitants, including aliens from civilizations much older than human civilizations,
CJ Cherryh,
Julie E. Czerneda -- excellent space SF, non-mil type
Marge Piercy's *He She and It* is more cyberpunk than dystopian and an early entry in the genre,
Ursula Le Guin of course,
Madeleine L'Engle is supposedly written for YA but wonderful,
Connie Willis is excellent,
PD James (The Children of Men) can be dystopy but is good,
Nancy Kress is also excellent
Martha Wells (have not read yet but in TBR, Murderbot series)
Nalini Singh writes SFR, but I love her Psy-Changling series
Nalo Hopkinson is excellent
Nnedi Okorafor is stellar