#96

More fantasy than sci-fi but has anyone else read the Malazan series? I’ve just started Vol.8 and as usual it’s taking me ages to fully get into it (it’s 1300 pages ffs!) but I usually end up getting really engrossed so hopefully Toll The Hounds will follow the same pattern!

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#97

this is exactly the kind of opinion i’m looking for

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#98

I’ve only read one Iain M Banks (the one where they’re riding around in a massive mono-cycle or something) and didn’t like it much at all. Would quite like to give him another go though: what’s the best one to try?

#99

Pretty sure that’s Against A Dark Background. Any of the ones I mentioned up thread, but if I were to plump for one to recommend I’d try Player of Games, or Use of Weapons.

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#100

Slightly annoyed I didn’t get the reference until you pointed it out - this book impressed me no end, an all time favourite of mine I’d say (his ‘decadent’ detective mysteries didn’t quite live up to the concept in my opinion) - but M.P. Shiel seems to have been such a highly unpleasant individual that I don’t know how much I want to carry on investigating his work. Have you read any of the other books in the same series?

#101

Per @LastAstronaut, my recommendation for starting out is The Player of Games.

Use of Weapons is harrowing - I think it’s very good but it’s not as ‘fun’ as his others.

Excession is my favourite sci-fi book of all time, but I would advise having two or three of his under your belt first, just to set the scene for its protagonists (not because of plot points, just to get your head in the right place).

Beyond that, they’re all pretty wonderful, with ‘Matter’ generally considered weakest.

There’s also an argument to be made for ‘Consider Phlebas’ as the starting point - that was the first book and where I started, but PoG is an easier read.

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Drowned In Sound’s best books of the 21st century - RESULTS (post 261)!
#102

Brilliant! I really hope you love it😀

#103

Me too! Although I’m only 250 pages into a massive Malazan fantasy novel atm so it might be a while before I dive into it.

#104

Starmaker and First and Last Men are pretty cool - Virginia Woolf was a real fan of what Stapledon was trying to do apparently, and you can see how they both share that need to encompass absolutely everything with their books.

#105

Don’t think anyone has mentioned these three yet…

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr - amazing collection of Sci fi short stories written in the 60 sand 70s by a female author /male pseudonym. Does a lot of very ahead of its time stuff with gender and Sci fi.

Dan Simmons - Hyperion and Alastair Reynolds - Revelation Space. The two best examples of far future world building Sci fi epics I’ve read and I’m including Ian M Banks in that (cut to several dissers spitting out their coffee)

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#106

That’s some high praise indeed! Added to Kindle wishlist.

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#107

I did exactly this but on goodreads! I actually really enjoyed a lot of the series (despite them being stupidly long) but I couldn’t get over the fact that whenever Hamilton wrote about his young female characters he gave the impression that he was typing one handed. Urrghhhh.

Best examples of modern Sci fi where women are treated as actual people that I’ve read, the aforementioned Becky Chambers wonderful Long Way To A Small Angry Planet and Alastair Reynolds’ Pushing Ice (central protagonists and antagonists are female without him making a big thing about it)

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#108

Nice - will check them out.

Remembered that the main guy also trades passage in his spaceship for sex with a reporter.

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#109

Lots of Kim Stanley Robinson stuff is like that - the Mars trilogy (although there’s a lot of calamity / dystopia, but the wider message is more positive), one of the Three California trilogy is about building an ecotopian future, the Memory of Whiteness is a sort of futuristic grand tour of the solar system and all the societies that have sprung up.

(Bare in mind I’ve not reread any of these since I was in my early 20s. But I think they’re all generally still well regarded.)

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#110

Don’t much like pure sci-fi but do like a good post-apocalyptic yarn. My faves are:

The Death of Grass
Ridley Walker (unless you don’t like books written in a made-up version of English, it is a bit of a slog to begin with)
I am Legend (obvs)

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#111

If you haven’t read them, then I’d recommend the Ancillary Justice series for an interesting take on gender. It’s written from the POV of a character from a civilisation which doesn’t define people by gender, so all the characters are given a female pronoun. It really changes and messes with your interpretation as it goes along, and in doing so shows up how silly gendered language is in a way. Plus it’s a good old fashioned space opera in the style of Iain M Banks.

This is a masterpiece IMO.

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#112

Really really wanted to like ancillary justice but it left me cold. Haven’t read the others.

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#113

That’s fair enough - I can definitely see how it could have that effect. I must admit found myself struggling to connect with the first half of Ancillary Justice, but then really enjoyed the latter half and went straight into the other two, which were a lot faster paced if I remember rightly.

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#114

Yeah I gave up about a quarter of the way through.

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#115

I think Use of Weapons is the only essential in The Culture series, or at least of the ones I’ve read. That one has a story and message to deliver and it does so propulsively and brilliantly. The rest are dependent on you enjoying the universe Banks created and farted around in imo. I do, but I can definitely see it being a question of taste.