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Best recent sci-fi novels

Iain Banks! yes! Anything by Iain Banks!

But, as he is well known I will make some additional recommendations:

Anything by Ken Mcleod! Start with the Start Fraction and then just work your way through the rest of the books.

Also Charles Stross is not bad. I preferred his second book, Iron Sunrise, over his first

I also read a compilation of "Scottish Speculative Fiction" called Nova Scotia recently. very very good. Unlike a lot of anthologies there is not a bad story here (admittedly some are merely above average).
My girlfriend has promised to lend me a book of contemporary Finnsh SF/fantasy fiction which sounds excellent as well. Apparently there is a really good "1st contact" story in there that is ... unsettling.

I'd also recommend anything by Alistair Reynolds.

Unlike others I don't really like Peter F hamilton all that much. He has good ideas but tends to get them out too quickly. I liked the start of Nights Dawn but by the end of the 2nd, beginning of the 3rd, book was mightily fed up. And I thought Pandora's Star was highly overrated; good in parts but mostly patchy. I've come to equate him with Thomas Harris - good if you need to spend time in an airport lounge.
 
Currently reading Greg Bear's new title, Quantico. Only about a hundred pages in, but if Bear's vision of future law enforcement is even close, I'm happy I'll be retiring...
 
David Gerrold's "Chtorr" series is brilliant, and only a little older than 10 yrs:

A Matter For Men
A Day For Damnation
A Rage For Revenge
A Season For Slaughter

And the series is unfinished! Arrghhh!!! Nag David Gerrold to finish the damn "longest trilogy he ever wrote"!

http://www.gerrold.com/

http://www.chtorr.com/

Gerrold basically wrote the series bible for Star Trek: TNG and is probably best known for writing one of the most popular Star Trek episodes ever, "The Trouble With Tribbles." Also did a lot of writing for TV - great guy, and has a new movie coming out soon based on one of his books - "The Martian Child."

Finish the damn story, Dave! These cliffhangers are killing me!
 
I'd second Greg Egan, Alastair Reynolds, Ken McLeod and Neal Stevenson, and add Stephen Baxter if you like hard sci-fi.
 
antihippy said:
Iain Banks! yes! Anything by Iain Banks!
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Gotta second that. Anything by Iain Banks (and Iain M. Banks) is generally worth reading.

antihippy said:
Also Charles Stross is not bad. I preferred his second book, Iron Sunrise, over his first
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You mean just in that series? (the Eschaton series -- Singularity Sky and The Iron Sunrise) The Atrocity Archives is a hilarious book (not quite scifi, more like H.P. Lovecraft had a love child with the producers of the BBC miniseries The I.T. Crowd), and Accelerando (available online -- google for it (silly URL mangling)) is well worth a read.
 
I hadn't heard of "The Atrocity Archives" so will check it out. I suppose that makes Iron Sunrise his third book! I've not read Accelerando yet as I'm waiting for the paperback version. I'm not one for reading books online, or printing onto A4 - there is just something wrong with that. I like having a load of shelves stacked with books!
 
nescafe said:
Gotta second that. Anything by Iain Banks (and Iain M. Banks) is generally worth reading.
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Except "The business", "Song of stone", "dead air" and Inversions. But "The bridge", "Espedair street" and "Use of weapons" are first rate.

Richard Morgan - sure the characters are a little thin sometime but the plots race along.
I second Vinge and Stephenson though I can't seem to get going with the Baroque books.
In fantasy get Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice.
Jordan's Wheel of Time I loved until about book 7. I've read 10 and now I plan to not buy any until the damned thing is finished and I can skim through the description's of Elayne's gowns and every woman's generic tantrums.
And try this
 
I second:
Oryx & Crake, by Margaret Atwood

Also:
China Miehville (I've read Perdido Street Station, and The Scar)

Only read one Iain M. Banks, which was so shallow I don't even remember what it was about (liked The Wasp Factory though). Probably picked a bad one.
 
Oh, I'd forgotten to say that I am not a fan of Iain Banks's contemporary stuff. His SF stuff is far far better.

Sorry I didn't make that clear; to me Iain Banks and Iain M Banks are interchangeable.

I didn't like Perdito Street Station. It felt incomplete to me and ran afoul of the "mention adult themes and it will be classed as contemporary fantasy" cliche. It just wasn't my thing. Although I did like some of the idea in the book and he can certainly can write. I just didn't like what he was writing about.

As people are mentioning fantasy ....

I read less Fantasy than I used to, but would recommend "The Monarchies of God" series. A cracking read which moves along at a fair old pace.

Link to book one: Hawkwood's Voyage

I also enjoyed The Fencer Trilogy by KJ Parker; although I felt that her unsympathetic attitude to some of the characters spoiled her writing a little. Itput me off her scavenger trilogy and the current engineer trilogy. I didn't get past half of the 2nd book of the former and was unimpressed and frustrated with the latter.

I really enjoyed all of Robin Hobb's books up till the Fools Fate , which I didn't even read the last few pages of - I thought it was a boring exercise in closure.
 
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Some of my favorites have already been mentioned, so I'll toss in: "Sewer, Gas and Electric" by Matt Ruff; "Jumper" and its sequel "Reflex" by Steven Gould.
 
ferd burfle said:
Very much seconded. You asked for novels but if you're in the mood for short stories, Gibson's Burning Chrome contains some excellent ones, IMO.

Ferd
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Classic cyberpunk, ahead of it's time. Thirded. Mona Lisa Overdrive was brilliant too. All his books have been criticized as not having accurately predicted the future, but IMO, aside from 1980's paranoia of the Japanese owning the world as an economic superpower, which is kind of cliche now, they're a brilliant view of the future that could still come to pass. And who knows, maybe the Japanese WILL buy the world someday. ;)
 
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Mark Siefert: Yes, Queen of Angels is one of my favorite Bear titles. Read it several times.
For those not familiar, Bear covers a number of "Big Ideas" in this one, including the nature of consciousness (via an "emerging" AI), the nature of justice, future law-enforcement techniques, and probing the mind of a mass-murderer.
Compelling stuff.
 
Mojo said:
Well, that's not actually what sci-fi tries to achieve.

Oh, and I forgot to mention Jon Courtenay Grimwood earlier.
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Agreed. Somewhere in my response I left out what I originally intended to type which was "but that's why it's called science FICTION." Judging the book on whether or not it accurately depicts future events is kind of missing the point.
 
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