Fellow bookworms, I am glad to announce that I am at the last book of Cosmere (Yumi and the Nightmare Painter). And then, I will have finished it all. So this is where I need your help. Recommend me some awesome Sci-fi and Fantasy books that you believe will blow away my mind, like the impact needs to be huge, cannot believe this happened type of stuff. Preferred genre are Sci-fi and Fantasy, but if you know some awesome book from other genre, don’t hold back, all suggestions are welcome.
Thank you in advance.
UPDATE: Piranesi is currently on lead and I am almost finished with Yumi, so that is the next on my list. But don’t let that stop the recommendations coming. Eventually all of us are going to run out of recommendations ;)
Gene Wolfe is awesome.
Yet again I will pitch for Piranesi. My favorite book of recent years.
Man you recommended the most upvoted book. I guess this is the next one on my list.
Great! I hope you enjoy it like I do.
What an amazing book, I couldn’t put it down! It’s contemplative and wondrous, but is also packed with mystery and suspense. Probably the fastest I’ve ever finished a book.
Yep! Super cozy too.
Blindsight by Peter Watts is fantastic. Someone on Lemmy recommended it and I picked it up, so I’m keeping the line going.
It’s hard science fiction, if you’re into that.
My absolute all time favourite sci-fi book series is John Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War”.
I can’t recommend this book series enough. Kept me up several nights because I couldn’t stop reading (and suffered for it at work).
Scalzi added a lot of humor too and it’s brilliant.
The Malazan Book of the Fallen, by Steven Erikson.
Ten brick-thick volumes that will alternately fill your heart to bursting then stomp on it until you’re wrung out like a rag. It is one HELL of a ride. It does have a steep immersion curve, so be prepared to take a couple of attempts to finish the first one.
When you find yourself laughing at the tragedy and crying at the jokes, you’ll know.
Also, the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. Adorkable romance, badass as hell, will break you. Gets increasingly weird as it goes along. Is good, has massive cult following.
And by no means least, the Machineries of Empire series by Yoon Ha Lee. Ostensibly weird Korean military space opera, but with a real gut punch; you won’t forget this one.
It’s an old four book series from the '90s but I would recommend The Saga of Pliocene Exile by Julian May. They’re available as ebooks. The first one is called The Many Coloured Land.
If you enjoy the world-building, Mrs May wrote a companion series which, IMO, is even better! Starting with a link book (Intervention) there is a three book series called The Galactic Milieu series.
Both series mix fantasy and sci-fi and are truly excellent reads.
I’m not the OP, but I appreciate this recommendation and will check it out for sure!
Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. Pushing Ice. Semiosis trilogy. Ninefox Gambit. Schild’s Ladder. Firefall.
The Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers is some of the best sci-fi ever written, in my opinion. Deals with high stakes stuff but has such a gorgeous focus on characters and cultures. I could just live in some of the moments in those books.
- Realm of the Elderlings saga by Robin Hobb (completed I think)
- World of the Five Gods series by Lois McMaster Bujold (ongoing)
- Wall of Night series by Helen Lowe (ongoing, link goes to first book in the series)
- Innsmouth Legacy series by Ruthanna Emrys (ongoing, link goes to the first book in the series)
- Piranesi by Susannah Clarke (standalone, not a series)
Of what others have suggested and that I’ve read: the ones most similar to what you’ve finished are:
- The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie
- The Expanse series by James SA Corey
- Hyperion (at least the first two books, w/ optional two more) by Dan Simmons
New recommendations:
- Dhalgren by Samuel R Delany (content warning)
- The Baroque Cycle series by Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash and the Diamond Age may both be better starting points for the author, but may fit your other criteria less)
- The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe
Other works that stretch your genre boundary but may evoke the right emotion:
- Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
- If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
- The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
- Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff
- Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth
- John Dies at the End by David Wong
I haven’t seen Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir here. It’s Sci-Fi, it might not be very sanderlanchey but it’s one of my favorites. I read it in a weekend, and it usually takes me 1-2 weeks to read a single book. I gripped me from start to finish, and had a great conclusion. I recommend you give it a try!
I’m usually a SF guy but the most memorable read these past ~2 years was the fantasy books The First Law by Joe Abercrombie. The first book hooked me in and I ended up devouring all 9 books. The audiobook version read by Steven Pacey was superb, that man really breathed life into the characters and I’m glad I listened rather than read them.
I recall wanting to read more dark fantasy after and tried listening to Stormlight Archives on recommendation from a friend but the readers and writing was so bad in comparison I gave up after 2 hours.
Two very different recommendations.
First is the Southern Reach novels by Jeff VanderMeer (the first one being Annihilation). Unsettling, surreal Lovecraftian sci-fi. Gorgeously written, beautiful prose, and very memorable.
Second is the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (starting with Red Mars). Hard sci-fi on an almost unprecedented scale: a comprehensive and incredibly detailed narrative of the colonisation of Mars, which covers almost every possible aspect of the story in glorious, engaging detail. You get everything from the love triangles and personal rivalries of the colonists, to politics and religion, to macro-economics, to superstructure engineering, to long deep chapters covering hydrology, micro-biology, the finer points of lichens and mosses, to architecture, art… Honestly, it’s breathtaking in just how thoroughly it covers its subject whilst still being a poignant, engaging, story. Not to everyone’s tastes, but it could certainly make an impact.
Have you read Worm ( https://parahumans.wordpress.com/ ) or wandering inn ( https://wanderinginn.com/ ) ?
If you like Sanderson then I think you’ll enjoy The Foundryside books by Robert Jackson Bennett, a great trilogy.
The Infinite timeline series of books by Jeremy Robinson is pretty great. I have 4 books left and in my opinion the first book “Infinite” is the worst so far (although not bad). As a series however it keeps expanding, to begin with there are only small references connecting the books and the universe but as the series goes on there are more and more connections as different stories begin unravelling and connecting with each other. I definitely think it is worth it and as I read each new book it becomes more compelling as you learn more links.
The Deathstalker books by Simon R Green are a great Sci Fi / Space Opera that takes you on a wild, sometimes outrageous journey but ultimately brings the story back around to an ending that I didn’t really expect and was really fun!
