Science Fiction

Dune is an example of massive world-building with a tons of jargon, but you still liked it? It seems that this post is saying you don't like books like Dune, so how did you manage to enjoy it?

Try some cyberpunk stuff, it’s great “local” sci-fi, with hardly any of that muck you don’t like.

“Neuromancer” - William Gibson
“Snow Crash” - Neal Stephenson
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” - Philip K Dick

Have you tried Asimov's short stories? 'I, Robot' is mostly logic problems presented in a dramatic way. Good read.

I suggest Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. The whole series is good but each is stand alone. There is a world and it’s in space but the stories are people scale.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

I’ll throw in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Both classics that are great page turners. Take place against the backdrop of an intergalactic society but remain focused on singular planets and their societies (well if you include their anarchic moons). Great characters with meaningful relationships. Left Hand has more of an interpersonal focus, Dispossessed more societal, but both amazing in their own way.

Ursula K. Le Guin is an example of a writer that does deep but focused worldbuilding. Her sci-fi books tend to be about a single planet, sometimes two like in The Dispossesed. You could try that one or even better start with The Left Hand of Darkness. I like how she sets up various unusual alien factors (geopolitics, biology, society, natural environments) and lets them interplay but also without forgetting a plot.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Red rising

Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are both classics with little world building.

Maybe take a look at post apocalyptic sci Fi (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction), as it includes a lot of interesting futuristic tech, but it is mostly limited to earth. There's probably another category where things like blade runner fit too

I’m surprised no one has mentioned The Culture series by Iain M. banks. Much like Dune there is a ton of world building that occurs in the novels but it’s not the focus of any one novel. You can read them independently and still enjoy them. The concepts he tackles in the novels were way ahead of their time and his prose and s second to none. The novel Consider Phlebas is typically where most people start, but I started The Player of Games.

Oh there's just so many. A favorite of mine is Replay by Ken Grimwood. It's a kind of a time travel book, but different from most, and a lot of fun - written in 1986, so not new. Broad plot is that the main character, a middle aged man, dies on the first page and wakes up back in college, back in the 50s, I believe. It gets more interesting from there.

You might enjoy the Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells, which is a series that starts with All Systems Red. The first couple are novellas, and the first one was published in 2017, so much more recent. They won a lot of awards. It takes place in an unspecified time in the future, told from the perspective of a cyborg of sorts who is a security bot who has hacked his control unit and doesn't have to do what he's told, but he doesn't want people to know that so he can watch soap operas when he can. He's guarding a small group on an alien planet when things get weird.

I'll recommend one other, very different: Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge. I believe that was 2007. It's told from the perspective of a guy in near earth future who had late stage Alzheimer's but was given a cure, so is slowly getting back his mental function. Wearable computers are ubiquitous at the time. Also a big award winner.

I hope you find something you like.

Guant's Ghosts - Dan Abnett

it's warhammer 40k but it doesnt really focus on space too much, other than they always travel through space to get from one battlefield to the next. lots of mud & blood trench warfare.

Dungeon Crawler Carl

Aliens destroy earth and the protagonist must compete in an rpg style dungeon created underneath the earth with his (ex) girlfriends cat.

Funny, heart warming, and blood pumping

Stranger in a Strange Land.

It relies on a scifi premis for the first chapter then takes place on earth. It's a fun look at human culture from an outsider's perspective.

You also listed fantasy, so I'd like to recommend N.K. Jemisin. She won the Hugo award for a novel 3 years in a row for her first 3 books, and has I think 2 more? So 5 Hugo's on 7 years?

I enjoyed the Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison - they're short, reasonably light comic sci-fi.

Nexus trilogy. It takes place on Earth, present day, a young neurologist discovers that a drug is actually nano machines and gives people the ability to share thoughts, communication, memories, and experiences. The researcher struggles to decide if this is good for all of humanity. Very good descriptions of technology, hacking, programming, exciting action (US gov is trying to reign in the nano machines.

The ultimate topic is transhumanism as technology gives us bigger than human abilities and posthumanism, where the changes we make now qualify us as so different in skills and abilities that we are no longer human.

I just finished the first book and I enjoyed it a lot.

Avoid Alastair Reynolds imo. Lots of jumping around and meeting new aliens but not engaging on the character level well.

Oryx & Crake by Maraget Atwood was very interesting and fun to read. Dealt mostly with biological-related technology and human-scale drama. No spacemen.

Any of these?

• The windup girl
• roadside picnic
• God's war
• sand
• High Rise
• a scanner darkly

Just some non-space novels that have stuck with me.

I really enjoyed Red Rising by Pierce Brown. I recommend it.

I'd recommend finding collections of short stories. You often don't have a lot of time to write expansive world building details when you've only got a few thousand words and a brief plot to get through. And a collection of different authors can make sure you have a variety if some of the authors aren't your preference and then you can look at longer works by the authors you do like.

If you like grounded sci-fi that elicits a "it could happen in a few years" vibe firmly rooted on Earth, check out William Gibson. Most of his stuff is excellent, but "The Peripheral" and its followup "Agency" are recent highlights. From his older stuff I very much enjoyed "Virtual Light" the most. More than his acclaimed "Neuromancer" (he invented the word cyberspace in 1982 and popularized it in this 1984 novel) even.

Neal Stephenson - "Seveneves" One of my all time favorite sci-fi books. It is set mostly in space, but very realistic and never leaves the Earth's influence. Time setting is basically now or a few years from now.

Also by Stevenson: "Anathem" Marvellous alternate universe story with a few twists. It's on Earth, just ... different.

If you wanna go for the classics (1960 roughly), look into Stanislaw Lem. "Solaris", "Eden" and "Transfer" all left a lasting impression on me.

I've read memory of empire lately, which is a political intrigue in a Sci Fi setting. It's centered around one city palace.

I second Lebowitz, the expanse and Ursula especially. Left hand of darkness is amazing.

If you enjoy project hail Mary and the generational aspect of 1000 years of solitude, you might enjoy children of time which has similar themes. It's my current favorite.

Rainbows end, windup girl and scanner darkly are also great suggestions with no space travel.

An oldy, but The day of the triffids by John Wyndham

My recommend is Semiosis by Sue Burke, it's very different.

Also the commonwealth saga which is big but not overwhelming

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

You might like the Innkeeper Chronicles by Ilona Andrews. It's a series of 6-9 books but they are good by themselves. Kinda fantasy, kinda sci-fi. The books are short and fun and will keep you entertained. My other favorites are Brandon Sanderson and David Dalglish.

I'm really enjoying the Wool Trilogy my Hugh Howey. It's maybe more dystopia than sci-fi but in the same vein for sure.

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