Hi! I’m looking for recommendations of modernish (2010s – 2023) sci-fi novels. I’m specially looking for stories that don’t feel grounded in the present as much, but I’m not against them.
Themes I like would be space travel, aliens (as heroes or antagonists, I don’t care), planetary wars, trans humanism (cybernetic implants and stuff like that), exploration, A.I., cosmic entities (cosmic gods like marvel’s celestials, or other form of cosmic creatures, not necessarily gods), high tech, impressive/incredible cities, futurism, and I can’t think of other themes I like so I’ll leave it at that for now.
Movies I like include: treasure planet, some Star Wars films, some marvel films, alien, knowing, mother/android, the thing, the war of the worlds, her, bird box, terminator, I am mother, snow piercer, district 9, Elysium, Godzilla (modern US version and shin Godzilla), matrix, nope, oblivion, dredd (modern one), in time and splice, among others.
I also like the more apocalyptic/dystopic kind of sci-fi like I am legend, the last of us, mad max fury road or the purge anarchy
I’ve given you an idea of what I like, but I am open to stuff that doesn’t fit what I’m looking for too.
I just want good sci-fi that’s preferably a standalone but I don’t mind if it’s part of a series.
Thanks! 🙂
by Alwriting
5 Comments
The Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio, book one is Empire of Silence (long series, contains space travel, aliens, planetary wars, transhumanism, AI, cosmic entities, basically most of what you listed lol)
The Infinite series by Jeremy Robinson – It’s a series of mostly standalone books that come together in a couple of crossover novels and then completely collide in the finale. So the good thing is: if you don’t like one novel, you might like the next.
Robinson also has a series of Kaiju novels. I haven’t read them and so cannot recommend them, but John Scalzi has a book called The Kaiju Preservation Society which I have read and enjoyed. Scalzi in general might not be a bad place to start. He has a series called Old Man’s War that is pretty good and a trilogy called The Collapsing Empire which I also enjoyed.
Scalzi has some good standalones, too.
-Locked In – paralyzed humans operating androids remotely to be able to live a normal life)
-The Android’s Dream – Guy basically says “fuck you” to a group of hostile aliens and so to prevent war, the humans have to find a special sheep…or something. It’s been a couple of years since I read it.
– Agent to the Stars – Friendly alien race wants to be friends with humans, but they’re ugly and they stink, so a PR guy helps improve their image.
There are more I’ve read by him, but I won’t get into all of them.
Andy Weir is good, too. The Martian (same one as the Matt Damon film) is really good, but I prefer the more recent novel, Project Hail Mary. Artemis? Not so much. I mean, I didn’t dislike it, but I wouldn’t really recommend it.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is a little older (80s), but is very accessible and is a very, very good novel. You can read it as a standalone or a launch point for his other series. Ender’s Shadow is good, too, but maybe don’t read them back to back. Same plot, different character focus, written a decade or so apart. I like both and would recommend someone reading both.
Hopefully that gives you a good start and doesn’t bog you down. I read almost exclusively sci-fi and fantasy.
Try Salvaged by Madeline Roux. About a person who travels into dance to salvage shipwrecks. It’s very good. There’s a sort of sequel set in the same universe called Reclaimed.
“[Neuromancer](https://amzn.to/3rsLWWM)” by William Gibson: A seminal cyberpunk novel that follows a washed-up computer hacker hired for one last job in a world of advanced technology and artificial intelligence.
The Captain by Will Wight. It is a scifi/fantasy mix. It is the first book of a series. It’s about a space wizard who finds the most powerful ship in the universe and he is going to use it to stop multiple threats to his universe. He becomes the captain of the ship. And we follow him as he puts his crew together. It came out this year.