So, playing Stellaris has me in the mood for some great Science Fiction. I’ve read Asimov, and loved, and tons of the other older classicals in Science Fiction, but am probably interested in something more modern.
I’ve read some Black Fleet, and while I enjoy it, that is more on the naval action setpiece type of science fiction, and I guess Im more interested in books about politics, wars, strange aliens, future empires and so on.
I’ve purchased, but not yet read Alastair Reynolds Revalation Space, and Ian M. Banks Consider Phlebas.
In no particular order:
David Brin (Uplift novels)
Peter Hamilton (Night’s Dawn, Commonwealth novels)
Banks (already in your OP)
Vernor Vinge
Herbert (Dune, of course)
Scott Westerfield (Risen Empire)
Neal Asher (Polity novels)
Oh wow, I just realized this thread was one of the major victims of the switch-over timing. Most of the great recommendations in this thread were lost to the old Qt3 board now, since they happened in the two weeks of the switchover.
Well, this is the thread (on the old board) that I found out that Vernor Vinge had recently written a sequel to Fire Upon the Deep, one of my favorite science fiction books of all time that I read back in the early to mid-90s. I’ve introduced the book to a couple of my friends, and my family. But I even re-read it once around 2000. But it’s been about 16 years, and I’m pretty fuzzy on what happened in the book.
So now that I’m done reading all the Game of Throne books beginning to end, I was thinking of starting over Fire Upon the Deep before I read the new sequel. I also read Deepness in the Sky back when it came out. Should I be re-reading that too before I read the new one? I don’t remember what happened in that one at all, and when I read it, I didn’t understand why there was supposed to be a connection between that one and Fire Upon the Deep.
Children of the Sky is a direct sequel to Fire Upon the Deep. Deepness in the Sky is a “same universe” novel that has almost no direct connection to Fire Upon the Deep. Reading it prior to reading Children of the Sky is really not necessary. There is a connection involving a shared character but that connection is really just an Oh Wow! moment and not really important to the other two books. Now rereading Fire would definitely be beneficial to getting into Children.
I just wanted to add all that aside, Deepness in the Sky was a fantastic read and I enjoyed it very much.
I love Vinge with a passion, but Children of the Sky is a bit of a let-down. It was more-or-less a direct sequel to Fire, but it didn’t manage to deliver too much of the cool galaxy-spanning awesome of the first book, preferring to explore the Tines in more detail.
Deepness in the Sky was spectacular though… a great book. It is also more focused and less galaxy-spanning than Fire Upon the Deep (actually far less galaxy-spanning than Children), but the characters are better, the tech at the center of the story is more interesting, and the plotting is a bit tighter.
I think that if the order in which the books came out had been Fire, Children, Deepness, the series would have justly been recognized as an all-time great. It’s funny/sad that the release of Children actually reduces the overall quality.
