Read all of Iain M Banks 'Culture' novels... what now?

[Arjimlad]

Picking up on your liking for Sharpe novels can I recommend the Mathew Hervey series by Allan Mallinson, commencing with A Close Run Thing, at Waterloo, then leading through various post-Waterloo campaigns. There are about ten books in all. Less predictable than Sharpe, the characters are well developed.

I have also enjoyed Peter Smalley's books about 18th century naval warfare.

Also, George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman books are an absolute scream of a read whilst giving some tasty historical background too.

 

[ArDee]

Could try the Safe Hold novels by David Weber on book four of five at present.

 

[Rezillo]

Not much help to the OP but the character of the ship "Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints" in Surface Detail is just brilliant. As is the book imho.

John

 

[Norm]

I went through a long fantasy period especially Juliam May and Stephen Donaldson, but find them difficult to read now.

Yup, and loved all the other stuff commented above like Asimov and Clarke and Heinlein.

Not yet commented but I also loved the Riverworld series by Philip José Farmer, quite clever at the start as you try to figure out what's going on and who is who, by that time you are hooked on his creation.

And loved the Pern books by Anne McCaffrey. And Katherine Kerr and Raymond E Feist have also done some good (i.e. readable without your brain in) series.

Mrs Norm reads Dick Francis, but I can't complain as I read Ben Elton. It's ok, though, as we've both promised not to tell anyone else.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Ah Rich don't start a what is fantasy/scifi debate mate they get painful.

I know William Gibson did Necromancer, the daddy of Steampunk(I think that's the term, I don't pay a lot of heed to the phrases reviewers like to coin) and all the offshoots, if you listen/read that sort of analysis. I only know that because the book is part of a pile next to me that I'm yet to decide whether they stay or go to the charity shop. I've been having a clearout trying to make room. I've read the book twice, first time in the distant past when I bought it. Second time last year, after I'd read so much about how great and influential it was and then finding it in one of the bookcases. It will never get a third read, but if anyone wants it drop me a note.

Yes please, it's been on my reading list for years.

 

[Canrider]

I know William Gibson did Necromancer, the daddy of Steampunk(I think that's the term, I don't pay a lot of heed to the phrases reviewers like to coin)

O.M.G.

William Gibson wrote Neuromancer, and is considered the 'father' of Cyberpunk. (although he did write a steampunk novel with...Bruce Sterling?). The texture of language and imagery in his first trilogy (Neuromaner, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Count Zero) is some of the best I've seen, I still reread Count Zero every year or so.

I no longer rate Ian M Banks after The Algebraist. Complete phone-it-in junk, he writes (all) aliens as if they were comedy humans instead of truly Other. Having said that, The Use of Weapons is another yearly reread.

If you like Bernard Cornwell, and you want an SF series, you might try David Weber's Honorverse novels. They're a bit potboiler-guilty-pleasure, but their conceit is Horatio Hornblower In Space, so they fit into the Sharpe idiom that way.

 

[MacB]

Yes please, it's been on my reading list for years.

Send me a PM with your address(or it's start a new conversation in this software) and I'll pop it in the post

 

[ASC1951]

Science fiction? For me, Arthur C Clarke above anyone else - not so much the short stories as the novellas Against the Fall of Night and The City and the Stars; or his Childhood's End.

Going back to a writer from my childhood, John Wyndham was truly innovative and greatly under-rated: try e.g. The Chrysalids, or The Midwich Cuckoos, which IMO are much better than Day of the Triffids. Or Olaf Stapledon, whose Last and First Men is a dense sweeping narrative.

 

[MacB]

O.M.G.

William Gibson wrote Neuromancer, and is considered the 'father' of Cyberpunk. (although he did write a steampunk novel with...Bruce Sterling?). The texture of language and imagery in his first trilogy (Neuromaner, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Count Zero) is some of the best I've seen, I still reread Count Zero every year or so.

I no longer rate Ian M Banks after The Algebraist. Complete phone-it-in junk, he writes (all) aliens as if they were comedy humans instead of truly Other. Having said that, The Use of Weapons is another yearly reread.

See, you made me fetch it from the pile, yep it's Neuromancer, dodgy eyesight on my part. Labels, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, whatever.....I did point out that I don't pay a lot of heed to the labels they invent. To be fair I don't tend to read for the texture of language or imagery either...it's the ideas I like. Too much of what I like to term 'skim read passages' and I get bored.

Use of Weapons was my favourite but was supplanted by Excession, it's the BDO(Big Dumb Object) syndrome, gets me every time, even when the object isn't actually dumb. Ringworld will always be a classic just because of the Ringworld itself. As for anyone writing convincing aliens...hmmm....that's a can of worms that could make a cycling helmet debate seem tame and reasonable. Let's face it, saying any given alien is believable or not is pure pie in the sky. The efforts I've admired most are those that at least try to make them consistent with the imagined environment they've evolved within. The rest is describing the unknown and using a human angle for that just doesn't bother me. Thinking on it I actually rather like the sort of dead civilisation discovery type stuff. So puzzles to solve and potentially mad/bad/dangerous technology to decipher but no actual aliens.

Another series worth a look is the Coyotte one by Allen Steele - colonisation frontier type stuff

 

[MacB]

Science fiction? For me, Arthur C Clarke above anyone else - not so much the short stories as the novellas Against the Fall of Night and The City and the Stars; or his Childhood's End.

Going back to a writer from my childhood, John Wyndham was truly innovative and greatly under-rated: try e.g. The Chrysalids, or The Midwich Cuckoos, which IMO are much better than Day of the Triffids. Or Olaf Stapledon, whose Last and First Men is a dense sweeping narrative.

Got and read all of them and quite agree with the Clarke recommendations they are among my favourites. But Last and First Men that really is a stand out book, not an easy read and quite depressing in some ways, but boy did it stay with me.

 

[ASC1951]

But [Olaf Stapleton's] Last and First Men that really is a stand out book, not an easy read and quite depressing in some ways, but boy did it stay with me.

Another of his that has stayed with me for half a century - I suppose what you read as a teenager often does - is his short novel Sirius. Deeply affecting.

The best science fiction should have the 'science' as integral to the plot or narrative, which is why I prefer the classic British authors like Clarke, Stapleton, Wyndham and Fred Hoyle (The Black Cloud, Ossian's Way). My gripe with a lot of US science fiction, even Asimov, is that it is often just Cowboys and Indians with different scenery.

 

[CopperCyclist]

Some great suggestions, most I've never heard of. I stumbled across Banks purely by accident - was given his book of short storys 'State of the Art'.

I think I'll be working my way through them soon - thanks again all.

If anyone's read them, I've also had someone at work banging on to me about the fantasy novel series 'Malazen Empire' which I am going to give a try as well, as he's bringing book one in for me

 

[Tigerbiten]

Try the "Freehold" series by "Michael Z. Williamson".
Or the "Vorkosigan Saga" by "Lois McMaster Bujold ".

You can read a couple of them free at http://baen.com/library/

There are ~125 free e-book in that libary.
Maybe you'll find someone you like.

 

[Canrider]

Let's face it, saying any given alien is believable or not is pure pie in the sky. The efforts I've admired most are those that at least try to make them consistent with the imagined environment they've evolved within.

Fair enough. And on that point I'd argue the 'aliens' in The Algebraist are...words fail. They spend most of their time channeling bad Brian Blessed character acting, with the whole interesting (they *hunt*their*own*young*to*kill*them*) biological points being entirely glossed as if entirely uninteresting. It's frankly like watching a bunch of teenagers playing some 'space' role-playing game, where the people taking the role of aliens are doing it for the bonuses and perks rather than the interest of exploring/playing/portraying something fundamentally unhuman.

The rest is describing the unknown and using a human angle for that just doesn't bother me. Thinking on it I actually rather like the sort of dead civilisation discovery type stuff. So puzzles to solve and potentially mad/bad/dangerous technology to decipher but no actual aliens.

Another series worth a look is the Coyotte one by Allen Steele - colonisation frontier type stuff

I'm not familiar with that one at all, but have you read at least the first two 'Rama' novels by Arthur C Clarke? After that I can't speak, but the first in particular (Rendezvous with Rama) is a great exploration into what we could possibly deduce from what I'd term a truly 'alien' spacecraft's builders or occupants based on a limited sample of its interior.

 

[Canrider]

Try the "Freehold" series by "Michael Z. Williamson".
Or the "Vorkosigan Saga" by "Lois McMaster Bujold ".

You can read a couple of them free at http://baen.com/library/

There are ~125 free e-book in that libary.
Maybe you'll find someone you like.

THANKYOUSOMUCHFORTHATLINK. Serious jaw-on-floor from me. Samples, and sometimes much more of Pournelle, Lackey, Niven, Norton, Turtledove, Garland etcetcetc.