james_davis_nicoll | Reviving a 15 yr old John Scalzi thread in modified form

(Modified because the thread is 15 yrs old):

Good, recent science fiction for people who don't read science fiction.

A: Audience is adult, intelligent, and literate.
B: No YA
C: No books before 2010.
D: Book has to be primarily SF, not fantasy.
E: Recommend a book that you would actually recommend to someone.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dsrtao

Naomi Novik, Uprooted.

If the definition of SF excludes fantasy, then Nathan Lowell, Quarter Share.

Edited Date: 2020-11-04 02:23 pm (UTC)

From:

dsrtao

Let's dance, James.

From:

penndavies

Murderbot. Suck them in with the novellas and go from there.

From:

beamjockey

This happened to me.

From:

sturgeonslawyer

Delany. Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. Subtly science fiction, featuring one of the most powerful (gay) love stories I've ever read.

From: (Anonymous)

The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey

Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

Providence by Max Barry

(My tastes run a bit to space opera.)

--Janice in GA

From:

cgbookcat1

A Pale Light in the Black -- K.B. Wagers

Finder -- Suzanne Palmer

From: (Anonymous)

Murderbot series
Ancillary Justice series
Dark Eden (trilogy, but first one stands alone)

Ray

From:

rpresser

The Martian -- Andy Weir

The Silo series (Wool, Shift, Dust) - Hugh Howey

From:

pfflyernc

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Reads like litfic.

The Murderbot series by Martha Wells, if they've got a sarcastic sense of humor.

One Way, by S.J. Morden. It's "And then There Were None" on Mars.

From: (Anonymous)

Your soooooooooooooooo right

From:

petrea_mitchell

Depending on where they're coming from, maybe one of...

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
Goodbye For Now by Laurie Frankel
Provenance by Anne Leckie
Stupid Computer by Mark Niemann-Ross
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis C. Chen

I'd prefer not to recommend entire series if they're just looking for something to try out, so no Expanse, Hexarchate, or Ancillary series.

From: (Anonymous)

The Quantum Thief trilogy by Hannu Rajaniemi, whose name I have never managed to spell correctly on the first try, even with the book in front of me. Also, very good 8-)

Riderius

From:

sraun

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison

Anything by Glynn Stewart - it's all less than ten years old.

Penric's Demon and sequels - Lois McMaster Bujold

From:

penndavies

The Goblin Emperor is polarizing, it's certainly not for everyone. I love it but many people want something with some action and overt conflict. Maybe it'll do better with non-SF readers... also it's fantasy, not SF. :)

From:

keith_morrison

I'd second Stewart. Some nice, fun reads.

From: (Anonymous)

I would have thought that Penric is fantasy.

I thought about any sufficiently recent Follyverse book, but the genre there (urban fantasy crossed with police procedural, with an SF vibe) is also arguable.

From:

helen_keeble

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time (and the sequel, Children of Ruin)

From:

helen_keeble

Whoops, just saw the “for people who don’t read SF”.

In which case, I switch the recommendation to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s The Doors of Eden, which is solid SF (initially) wearing the skin of a mystery/thriller

From:

helen_keeble

Also, The Martian by Andy Weir
(most of the non-SF readers in my family/friends have already watched the movie)

For non-SF readers who enjoyed the movie Hidden Figures, The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (arguing that it’s SF-lite in its exploration of something-plausible-that-didn’t-actually-happen)

From:

gingicat

Murderbot. The themes are universal and the technology is oddly recognizable.

From:

jreynolds197

Another voice for Murderbot. Hench is good if you consider superheroes SF rather than fantasy.

From: (Anonymous)

Unconquerable Sun, Kate Elliott

I’d love to recommend Lockstep by Karl Schroeder, but I think it is YA.

From:

jessie_c

Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy;
If you're okay with a bit of queerness, Alex Acks' Murder on the Titania and Wireless Steampunk short story collections;
Chuck Wendig's Aftermath Trilogy or for a Pandemic thriller story complete with an utterly loathsome US President, Wanderers;
Rebecca Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning;
Another vote for Murderbot;
Becky Chambers' A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and the follow-up A Closed and Common Orbit

From:

sushiflop

The Stars Are Legion, by Kameron Hurley, especially if body horror is your jam.

From:

fred_mouse

If they are a reader of so-called 'literary' fiction, Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch, which I finished and immediately turned around and shoved under the nose of a friend.

For a mystery reader, Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty.

From:

voidampersand

That is a tough question because much of what we consider to be good in SF is an acquired taste, or requires specific reading protocols, or both. Here are three novels that I highly recommend, that are absolutely SF but not typical, and might be accessible to the right reader:

The City & The City, by China Miéville
Among Others, by Jo Walton
Arctic Rising, by Tobias S. Buckell

One more that is classic space opera SF, but it is so excellent in every way, I would recommend it anyway:

Finders, by Melissa Scott

From:

davidgoldfarb

As much as I love Among Others, I have trouble seeing how a book in which fairies do magic is SF rather than fantasy.

From:

voidampersand

Guilty as charged! Not only that, The City & The City is a police procedural and Arctic Rising is a techno-thriller. Only Finders is straight SF, except it's queer.

But I would recommend Among Others anyway, because it is a novel about SF, even though it isn't SF technically.

From:

drplokta

The City & The City is also out of scope. It was published in 2009.

From:

voidampersand

That's what I get for starting with 2010 Hugo finalists.

From: (Anonymous)

Actually, I think the 2 Lock-in books by Scalzi are pretty strong contenders. And if they're reasonably sophisticated, Gibson's Peripheral, while kind of challenging, is rewarding. And, of course, Murderbot.

From: (Anonymous)

Jacob’s Ladder series by Elizabeth Bear

The John Varley Reader by Varley (Eight Worlds stories)

Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams

Distraction by Bruce Sterling

Permanence by Karl Schroeder

Burning Bright by Melissa Scott

From:

drplokta

All of those are too old, generally by more than a decade.

From:

davidgoldfarb

Echoing a number of others:
Well, Murderbot series
Leckie, Ancillary Justice.
Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.
"Corey", Leviathan Wakes.
Sanderson, Skyward. (Has a teenage protagonist, but is at least not marketed as YA.)
Palmer, Too Like the Lightning.
Scalzi, The Collapsing Empire.

From: (Anonymous)

The red trilogy from Linda Nagata: near future, accessible to a variety of readers.

From: (Anonymous)

ooh! I'd forgotten about those.

From:

cathrowan

Echoing The Peripheral & A Memory Called Empire.

Kameron Hurley, The Light Brigade.

Yoon Ha Lee's short story collection, Conservation of Shadows, might be a good way for a reader to check out their style without committing to a trilogy. I love it.

Also if your test subject is willing to read shorter work, any of Ted Chiang's novellas.

From: (Anonymous)

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse (The Thorne Chronicles, #1) by K. Eason
Reading the sequel now. Not quite as good as the first, but still fun.

Lots of fun with many kick-ass females.

From:

jsburbidge

Stross, Rule 34

Harkaway, Gnomon

Older, Infomocracy and sequels.

If it weren't out of scope by a couple of years I would add Stephenson's Anathem.

From: (Anonymous)

Really? Anathem? I've liked a fair amount of Stephenson's work, but for my taste Anathem veers too close to turgid to grab a non-SF reader. After a couple of hundred pages I suspect most people would just go 'meh' and pitch it.

From:

ffutures

The Second Sleep by Robert Harris (2019, and already a bit depressing considering recent events)
The Hydrogen Sonata (2012) and possibly Surface Detail (2010) by Banks.

From:

jreynolds197

Yes! The Light Brigade is a keeper - I've read it twice so far. The second time through let me see things I'd missed the first time around.

Nobody's voted for Heinlein's The Pursuit of the Pankera (2020). I can't think why...

(Note: I haven't actually read TPotP - I don't think it would be my cuppa these days. So I'm a snob.)

From:

bravolimapoppa3

Patrick Tomlinson 's Gate Crashers and Starship Repo
Karl Schroeder - Stealing Worlds
L.X. Beckett's Gamechanger
Max Gladstone's Empress of Forever
Derek Künsken's Quantum Magician
Sam Hughes Ra (grim, but good)
Todd McAulty's The Robots of Gotham
Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire
Linda Nagata's Red series

From:

petrea_mitchell

I put this question to the military sf fan in my household, and the answer was "whichever of David Drake's Republic of Cinnabar books have been published since 2010", plus an assurance that the series is episodic enough that starting in the middle doesn't matter.