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Looking to start a new series of books after consuming a ton of the many Dune books.

Thanks.

Larry Niven's "Ringworld" books, and their "Known Space" companion volumes.

I rather liked the Forever War, Forever Peace and Forever Free by Joe Haldeman.

Or

I'm also a fan of the Red Dwarf series of books if you want a little British sci-fi comedy.

I know you said one but I really can't decide between the two :s

The "Culture" novels by Iain M Banks.

The "Hyperion" novels by Dan Simmons. (Two sets of two.)

The Revelation Space novels by Alastair Reynolds.

If you want to go old school, the Foundation novels by Isaac Asimov are rather jolly.

It's been years since I read the Foundation series!

Asimov really did make some classic books - most memorable are The Caves of Steel, I Robot and Foundation and Earth for me!

The Hyperion Codex by Dan Simmons are fething awesome...

As is the Known Universe work by Larry Niven..

If you are looking for more "cyberpunk" work though check out the Otherworld Series by Tad Williams.

The Hainish books by Ursula Le Guin? If they count as a series, I guess.

I've seen the Culture and Ringworld series mentioned fondly in other threads. Perhaps I'll start with one of them. What makes them stand out from the crowd?

Talking about cyberpunk, Burning Chrome, Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson are major classics of the genre.

Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties are a near future cyberpunk series (called the Bridge series) also by William Gibson.

Gibson's novels after this became so near future -- Pattern Recognition and so on -- that they barely count as SF any more.

 Eldarain wrote:
I've seen the Culture and Ringworld series mentioned fondly in other threads. Perhaps I'll start with one of them. What makes them stand out from the crowd?

Well for Ringworld I won't go into specifics for fear of spoilers, but it's a very unique and well thought out setting with some very colorful characters who often find themselves in very... interesting situations

 Eldarain wrote:
I've seen the Culture and Ringworld series mentioned fondly in other threads. Perhaps I'll start with one of them. What makes them stand out from the crowd?

Good characters, good plots, well written, huge scope, loads of adventure but still with an excellent literary sensibility (more of this in Banks than Niven) but both series are streaks above the run of the military Military SF that has become so popular in the past 20 years.

Given you have read all of Dune, you won't be afraid of a series than isn't all about the minutiae of Missile XF399s and Plasma Cannon BD77s, and all that.

If you want some quite good space combat and don't mind a bit of Mary Sue power creep through the series, the Honour Harrington series is reasonably enjoyable.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
you won't be afraid of a series than isn't all about the minutiae of Missile XF399s and Plasma Cannon BD77s, and all that.

Oh come on now, you gotta admit the BD77 Plasma Cannon is way better than the BJ69. That one sucks.

Not if you add the PFF299B constrictor coils and use an MFV4000X fire direction computer coupled to HNN Corp Tachyon Sensor array.

I too really enjoyed the I, Robot books.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
If you want some quite good space combat and don't mind a bit of Mary Sue power creep through the series, the Honour Harrington series is reasonably enjoyable.

My problem with Webber is he doesn’t know when to stop. I start reading his series, and enjoy them. But sometime around book 3-4 I start to see the pattern of his formula (again). And I wonder how many more books that are more or less the same I’m going to have to read before the series ends. Which is, of course, a trick questions as it will never end. He’ll just keep cranking them out. So I drop out. I’ve got a shelf full of his stuff, you think I’d learn.

If he could promise a trilogy, and stick with it and wrap it up in 3 books, I’d be all over that. But frankly, I’ve been burned enough by him that I’m not in any rush to pick up more of his work.

It’s not bad pulp opera, but I’d not recommend it.

I’ll second a recommendation for pretty much anything by Gibson. Neromancer/Count Zero/Mona Lisa Overdrive is classic cyberpunk. But any of his trilogies are worth reading.

David Brin’s Uplift series is another one of my favorites.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The "Culture" novels by Iain M Banks.

I have one of those sitting on my shelf.... How early in the book do they really start to pick up, because I think I got about 10-15 in, and I was thoroughly bored (plus had other things to read, like school stuff) so I put it away... Ohh, and that particular book (I think it was Surface detail or surface something) was all but destroyed by the wife, so I replaced it with another one:

I have "The Hydrogen Sonata" Is there a different one that I should start with?

The Book of the New Sun.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The "Culture" novels by Iain M Banks.

I have one of those sitting on my shelf.... How early in the book do they really start to pick up, because I think I got about 10-15 in, and I was thoroughly bored (plus had other things to read, like school stuff) so I put it away... Ohh, and that particular book (I think it was Surface detail or surface something) was all but destroyed by the wife, so I replaced it with another one:

I have "The Hydrogen Sonata" Is there a different one that I should start with?

It starts with Consider Phlebas. The reading order after that is:

The Player Of Games
Use Of Weapons
(The State Of The Art, short stories)
Excession
Inversions
Look To Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata

I think reading the later novels is easier if you have read the earlier ones first, though there aren't really any linked stories between books. If you try them and don't like them, there is plenty of other stuff.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The "Culture" novels by Iain M Banks.

The "Hyperion" novels by Dan Simmons.

Definitely those...!

And then all of Neal Asher's "Polity" series - start with 'Gridlinked'!

I want to read the Culture books, but it's a very big commitment.

Right now, I've just finished reading "The Atrocity Archives" by Charles Stross.

Best way I can describe it is, "James Bond VS Cthulhu with elements of 'Yes, Minister.'"

It depends what you like. Iain Banks' Culture novels tend to be very far future and a little ...is cheeky what you would call it? Peter F Hamilton's pandora 'so Star/Commonwealth series is more straight-faced, but also a bit more action packed. Dread Empire's Fall is a trilogy that tells a very old fashioned style space opera story with modern trappings and prose. Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are amazing literary sci fi, so long as you stop there. What are you looking for in a series?

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Larry Niven's "Ringworld" books, and their "Known Space" companion volumes.

I'll put a vote against that. By all means, read Ringworld since everyone else has, but remember that it's Niven's best solo novel. His short stories and collaborations have aged much more gracefully than his Known Space and Gil Hamilton series.


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 Compel wrote:
I want to read the Culture books, but it's a very big commitment.

Right now, I've just finished reading "The Atrocity Archives" by Charles Stross.

Best way I can describe it is, "James Bond VS Cthulhu with elements of 'Yes, Minister.'"

There's a lot of Dilbert in the mix, too.

As for the Culture, some books are better than others. Consider Phlebas was not my favorite.

A Fire Upon the Deep is not a series, but worth reading if you want New Space Opera that isn't about the military.

Good books already mentioned, definitely go Lovecraft, if you like Tanks, the bolo tank books by Keith Laumer are a very fun read.

Keith Laumer's bolo stories are great, as are his Retief stories.

Lovecraft's sci fi stuff is a trip for the scope and scale, which pales compared to the scale porn in Ringworld or the Culture books but much more effective at making mankind feel small, ignorant and unimportant, mere fleas unable to comprehend the dog, let alone the rest of the planet and the universe that swallowed it. His prose is a bit of an acquired taste, though. I enjoy the interactions between the various entities in At The Mountains of Madness, The Whisperers in the Dark, the Shadow Out of Time, and Dreams in the Witch House.

1 Sci-fi series to recommend eh? I would then have to recommend the Safehold series by David Weber. There are other series from fantasy, to alternate history to some that I don't know what in the hell would this be classified as, but for Sci-fi the Safehold series is a solid series. Long read but still solid.

Lovecraft would be above Ringworld on my list, but I guess I was considering it Horror more than Sci-Fi. It fits both genres though.

I recently read Stark's War by Jack Campbell (the first of a trilogy) and found it to be a pretty fun read. I've got some books by the same author which are also Sci-Fi but haven't got around to reading them yet.

I also recommend The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. I picked that book out of one of those free libraries, where you bring a book, leave a book, simply because it had an interesting Hieronymus Bosch cover but it turned out to be a near future sci-fi story and it was pretty awesome!

If you're thinking of space sci-fi, I recommend John Ringo's Troy Rising series: Live Free or Die, Citadel, The Hot Gate. Not sure if there are going to be any more in the series, but a good read. I could also recommend the Halo books, they are excellent.

If you're looking for any sort of sci-fi and not just space stories, I would highly recommend Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen series. Very interesting books about the adventures of a WWII destroyer crew that end up in an alternate-history Earth where humans never evolved, but other intelligent creatures did.

 Commissar-Danno wrote:
1 Sci-fi series to recommend eh? I would then have to recommend the Safehold series by David Weber. There are other series from fantasy, to alternate history to some that I don't know what in the hell would this be classified as, but for Sci-fi the Safehold series is a solid series. Long read but still solid.

My Dad swears by that series. I'll wait until it's finished before I start it...

Since it was recently mentioned in another thread I'll give a shout for the Takeshi Kovacs novels, Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies by Richard Morgan.

Or for space opera try the Eschaton novels, Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross.

For weird sf I'm always going to recommend the Bas-Lag novels, Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council by China Miéville.