awesome new sci-fi
December 26, 2020 11:00 AM Subscribe
Please recommend awesome new sci-fi.
Let's say published in the past five years at most.
Must be awesome, not just pretty good or fun or interesting.
Please explain briefly why it's so awesome.
Anthologies and whole new sub-genres are welcome.
Let's say published in the past five years at most.
Must be awesome, not just pretty good or fun or interesting.
Please explain briefly why it's so awesome.
Anthologies and whole new sub-genres are welcome.
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine is the most recent winner of the Hugo in the novel category. It's space opera with interesting characters. A sequel is expected next year.
posted by kingless at 11:29 AM on December 26, 2020 [15 favorites]
posted by kingless at 11:29 AM on December 26, 2020 [15 favorites]
Containing books published in the last five years (Wikipedia links ergo spoilers):
posted by XMLicious at 11:34 AM on December 26, 2020 [7 favorites]
- Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy—awesome characters and storyline and worldbuilding: a sort of blended Hindu / Hittite imperial culture interstellar empire.
- Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy—a bit rocky on some of the above criteria but awesome in scope and ambition. Also quite interesting to read sci-fi written from a Chinese perspective. Reminded me a bit of Gregory Benford's Galactic Center Saga from the twentieth century, if you're a fan. (For the record: technically only translated into English in the last five years.)
posted by XMLicious at 11:34 AM on December 26, 2020 [7 favorites]
Martha Wells' Murderbot novellas/novel starting with All Systems Red. A story told by a company-owned artificial security cyborg in a part of the galaxy that's hypercapitalist hell who's accidentally found itself free of direct company control. Mostly it wants to watch an endless stream of the soap opera Sanctuary Moon but if it has to go kill something or, sigh, protect humans and augmented humans, fine.
Starts in 2014 but still going: Becky Chambers' Wayfarers books starting with Long Way To A Small Angry Planet. Very Star Trek/Wars universe where there are lots of aliens but mostly everyone is just folks. Character focused, kind in the sense that much of it is about decent people finding ways to treat each other well. Be aware that the series does not directly follow the same set of characters throughout.
Linda Nagata's "Red" books starting with First Light. MilSF. Follows some people who sort of work for a very nonhuman rogue AI who has limited means to communicate with them.
It's not quite done yet, but by this point I assume you're aware of and either reading or have rejected the Expanse books.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:35 AM on December 26, 2020 [13 favorites]
Starts in 2014 but still going: Becky Chambers' Wayfarers books starting with Long Way To A Small Angry Planet. Very Star Trek/Wars universe where there are lots of aliens but mostly everyone is just folks. Character focused, kind in the sense that much of it is about decent people finding ways to treat each other well. Be aware that the series does not directly follow the same set of characters throughout.
Linda Nagata's "Red" books starting with First Light. MilSF. Follows some people who sort of work for a very nonhuman rogue AI who has limited means to communicate with them.
It's not quite done yet, but by this point I assume you're aware of and either reading or have rejected the Expanse books.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:35 AM on December 26, 2020 [13 favorites]
Seconding Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy
posted by conradjones at 11:50 AM on December 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by conradjones at 11:50 AM on December 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Tackles humanity’s exodus to the stars and its self destructive tendencies while detailing an alternative earth species rise on a distant planet. The not humans plot is original and I was so impressed by it.
I loved Murderbot, Wayfarer, and Imperial Radch. I’m loving The Expanse and am excited for the last book.
posted by lepus at 12:39 PM on December 26, 2020 [8 favorites]
I loved Murderbot, Wayfarer, and Imperial Radch. I’m loving The Expanse and am excited for the last book.
posted by lepus at 12:39 PM on December 26, 2020 [8 favorites]
Came here to recommend Children of Time—if you read A Fire upon the Deep or A Deepness in the Sky when they came out and liked the critters, I would expect this to appeal. The sequel, Children of Ruin, is also worth reading.
posted by bouvin at 1:20 PM on December 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by bouvin at 1:20 PM on December 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is about space necromancers, the writing is complex in a good way, it’s inclusive and unique and it’s full of fascinating characters. Everyone I know who read it enjoyed it.
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 1:49 PM on December 26, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 1:49 PM on December 26, 2020 [13 favorites]
I nth all the recommendations here. Great suggestions.
I'll add Gareth L Powell's Embers of War trilogy. Reminiscent of Iain M Banks without being derivative, strong female characters, good world building, proper threats.
posted by knapah at 1:52 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'll add Gareth L Powell's Embers of War trilogy. Reminiscent of Iain M Banks without being derivative, strong female characters, good world building, proper threats.
posted by knapah at 1:52 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
Metafilter's own jscalzi has a trilogy of
The Collapsing Empire (2017)
The Consuming Fire (sequel to The Collapsing Empire, 2018)
The Last Emperox (sequel to The Consuming Fire, 2020)
which I loved. Lots of scheming, strong female characters both good and evil, good world building.
posted by blob at 2:36 PM on December 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
The Collapsing Empire (2017)
The Consuming Fire (sequel to The Collapsing Empire, 2018)
The Last Emperox (sequel to The Consuming Fire, 2020)
which I loved. Lots of scheming, strong female characters both good and evil, good world building.
posted by blob at 2:36 PM on December 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
+1 for Children of Time! Vast timescales, but clever devices keep you invested in the characters.
posted by jmfitch at 4:02 PM on December 26, 2020
posted by jmfitch at 4:02 PM on December 26, 2020
Nthing most of the stuff here. A Memory Called Empire was not my thing, but I think its just because I don't love the "palace intrigue" genre, it's clearly a good book.
My two recs are
- Ancestral Night and Machine by Elizabeth Bear - a great twofer that roughly take place in the same universe but with almost entirely different casts. One is a cargo spacer that gets complicated quickly including a lot of trans-species communication. Very progressive in terms of race and gender issues. The other is some sort of thing that goes wrong with a salvage mission and affects a space hospital that serves many many different species so there is the problem, and then there are the knock-on problems (and advantages) to this bad thing happening in this multi-species environment. Well-told. Another strong female lead (who is managing her own chronic pain issues). I'm really looking forward to the next one.
- Planetfall series by Emma Newman. A four book series each looking at different aspects of colony ships leaving earth to go various places. Each story is really different and a stand-alone novel in its own right but combined they tell a very complicated story about things going on on planet earth as well as things going on in space. Each protagonist also has some interesting complicating wrinkle which sometimes it takes a while to uncover or sometimes is right front and center. An excellent amount of sentimentality (i.e. not too much, but some) makes these stories have a bit more texture and depth than the usual spacers that cover the same general ground.
posted by jessamyn at 5:34 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
My two recs are
- Ancestral Night and Machine by Elizabeth Bear - a great twofer that roughly take place in the same universe but with almost entirely different casts. One is a cargo spacer that gets complicated quickly including a lot of trans-species communication. Very progressive in terms of race and gender issues. The other is some sort of thing that goes wrong with a salvage mission and affects a space hospital that serves many many different species so there is the problem, and then there are the knock-on problems (and advantages) to this bad thing happening in this multi-species environment. Well-told. Another strong female lead (who is managing her own chronic pain issues). I'm really looking forward to the next one.
- Planetfall series by Emma Newman. A four book series each looking at different aspects of colony ships leaving earth to go various places. Each story is really different and a stand-alone novel in its own right but combined they tell a very complicated story about things going on on planet earth as well as things going on in space. Each protagonist also has some interesting complicating wrinkle which sometimes it takes a while to uncover or sometimes is right front and center. An excellent amount of sentimentality (i.e. not too much, but some) makes these stories have a bit more texture and depth than the usual spacers that cover the same general ground.
posted by jessamyn at 5:34 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure how wide ranging your sci-fi tastes are and whether or not they veer towards fantasy, but if they do my recommendations are:
Hollow Kingdom - by Kira Jane Buxton (Dystopian Fiction). I loved this book because it is simultaneously wise about humankind's relationship to nature & technology, laugh-out loud hilarious, tragic, and hopeful. Plus the main character is a potty mouthed crow.
The Gods of Jade and Shadow - by Silvia Moreno-Garcia tells a Cinderella/Pandora/Heroine's Journey tale of a young girl who gets mixed up in the Mayan underworld. Great story and character.
Rosewater (Wormwood Trilogy) by Tade Thompson is some great Afro-Futurism centered around an alien life form settling down in Nigeria.
Autonomous by Annalee Newitz - A dystopian vision of big-pharma, sentient AI, drug pirates - great adventure and big themes.
The Water Knife - by Paolo Bacigalupi - It's the future, the federal government has dissolved and Nevada, Arizona, and California have set up private armies to fight over water rights in a future drastically impacted by climate change. Like much great sci-fi a fantastic mix of big ideas, plausible future, and great mystery/adventure.
And nthing - The Murderbot series. Just sooo good.
Finally, subscribe to LeVar Burton Reads - It's like Reading Rainbow for grownups who love sci-fi.
posted by brookeb at 6:05 PM on December 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
Hollow Kingdom - by Kira Jane Buxton (Dystopian Fiction). I loved this book because it is simultaneously wise about humankind's relationship to nature & technology, laugh-out loud hilarious, tragic, and hopeful. Plus the main character is a potty mouthed crow.
The Gods of Jade and Shadow - by Silvia Moreno-Garcia tells a Cinderella/Pandora/Heroine's Journey tale of a young girl who gets mixed up in the Mayan underworld. Great story and character.
Rosewater (Wormwood Trilogy) by Tade Thompson is some great Afro-Futurism centered around an alien life form settling down in Nigeria.
Autonomous by Annalee Newitz - A dystopian vision of big-pharma, sentient AI, drug pirates - great adventure and big themes.
The Water Knife - by Paolo Bacigalupi - It's the future, the federal government has dissolved and Nevada, Arizona, and California have set up private armies to fight over water rights in a future drastically impacted by climate change. Like much great sci-fi a fantastic mix of big ideas, plausible future, and great mystery/adventure.
And nthing - The Murderbot series. Just sooo good.
Finally, subscribe to LeVar Burton Reads - It's like Reading Rainbow for grownups who love sci-fi.
posted by brookeb at 6:05 PM on December 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
A recent read I really enjoyed was The Breath of the Sun by Rachel Fellman. Not too sciency but very very good.
I also endorse A Memory Called Empire, I guess palace intrigue is up my alley!
Ann Leckie’s The Raven Tower was great, different from the Imperial Radch books which I have loved. I guess also less sciency and more fantasy-ish.
An older book, but less well known so perhaps you have not read it, is The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman. Maybe could be called solarpunk? There’s a lot going on in this one.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 6:46 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
I also endorse A Memory Called Empire, I guess palace intrigue is up my alley!
Ann Leckie’s The Raven Tower was great, different from the Imperial Radch books which I have loved. I guess also less sciency and more fantasy-ish.
An older book, but less well known so perhaps you have not read it, is The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman. Maybe could be called solarpunk? There’s a lot going on in this one.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 6:46 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
I was quite pleased with Ted Chaing's "Exhalation" book. It's a series of short stories which I admittedly only read a select few but the ones I read were absolutely fantastic.
I'm a fan of the Very Bad Wizards podcast and they did episodes on a few of the stories.
posted by jeffmilner at 9:17 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm a fan of the Very Bad Wizards podcast and they did episodes on a few of the stories.
posted by jeffmilner at 9:17 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, starting with "The Stone Sky" is fantastically imaginative, has realistic characters and relationships, ang good plotting.
Jo Walton's Thessaly series, starting with "The Just City" is SF/Fantasy with Greek gods trying to create Plato's Republic. Good characters, some surprises, and essential for anyone interested in philosophy and SF.
Naomi Alderman's "The Power" has women start to develop an electric-shock power that makes them physically better at fighting than men, explores how that changes society.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:18 PM on December 26, 2020 [8 favorites]
Jo Walton's Thessaly series, starting with "The Just City" is SF/Fantasy with Greek gods trying to create Plato's Republic. Good characters, some surprises, and essential for anyone interested in philosophy and SF.
Naomi Alderman's "The Power" has women start to develop an electric-shock power that makes them physically better at fighting than men, explores how that changes society.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:18 PM on December 26, 2020 [8 favorites]
Good grief, no one has mentioned This Is How You Lose The Time War, a novella by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Quite the opposite of A Memory Called Empire, which I also enjoyed greatly last year. And you can't go wrong with Becky Chambers and Martha Wells
posted by lhauser at 9:33 PM on December 26, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by lhauser at 9:33 PM on December 26, 2020 [9 favorites]
+1 to Adrian Tchaikovsky, Tamsyn Muir, Martha Wells, Ann Leckie, N.K. Jemisin, and Ted Chiang.
One rad series I don’t see mentioned yet is Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee: military SF where the tactics involve the local calendar. And ghosts!
posted by dft at 10:21 PM on December 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
One rad series I don’t see mentioned yet is Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee: military SF where the tactics involve the local calendar. And ghosts!
posted by dft at 10:21 PM on December 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
Came here to recommend this year's The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson. Haven't finished it yet, but am finding it a fascinating exploration into the many layers of self, where technology allows the protagonist the unique ability to traverse more parallel universes than anyone else, because she has died in most of them. She works for a company that sends her on missions to download data from over 300 worlds, but she has her own motives and major intrigue ensues.
Why I find it awesome:
• Protagonist is a kick ass woman (at least the primary version of her!) with a distinct interior voice and finely-tuned sense of power dynamics/culture/interpersonal subtext.
• The author constructs some tight, spectacular sentences which would only be possible in a story with multiple versions of the self.
• Satisfying development of characters across worlds where different life circumstances lead to changes in details that affect the plot.
• BIPOC, nonbinary & queer characters in prominent roles.
posted by oxisos at 10:32 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Why I find it awesome:
• Protagonist is a kick ass woman (at least the primary version of her!) with a distinct interior voice and finely-tuned sense of power dynamics/culture/interpersonal subtext.
• The author constructs some tight, spectacular sentences which would only be possible in a story with multiple versions of the self.
• Satisfying development of characters across worlds where different life circumstances lead to changes in details that affect the plot.
• BIPOC, nonbinary & queer characters in prominent roles.
posted by oxisos at 10:32 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
I would second most of the recommendations above, especially this is how you lose the time war which is beautiful.
I’d also add Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis which is a different take on the first contact genre, The book of Koli by M. R. Carey for post apocalypse fiction, and Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe which is good space opera.
posted by mr_stru at 3:21 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
I’d also add Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis which is a different take on the first contact genre, The book of Koli by M. R. Carey for post apocalypse fiction, and Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe which is good space opera.
posted by mr_stru at 3:21 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks for all the awesome recommendations, especially the more left-field, less known ones! More please!
posted by signal at 5:09 AM on December 27, 2020
posted by signal at 5:09 AM on December 27, 2020
Fonda Lee's "Green Bone Saga" (Jade City, Jade War) was the best series I read this year. The third volume is coming out in 2021.
Also: Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities Trilogy.
posted by andreap at 9:52 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
Also: Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities Trilogy.
posted by andreap at 9:52 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
Ada Hoffman's The Outside.
P. Djèlí Clark's A Dead Djinn in Cairo and The Haunting of Tram Car 015.
Lina Rather's Sisters of the Vast Black.
posted by mumkin at 11:30 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
P. Djèlí Clark's A Dead Djinn in Cairo and The Haunting of Tram Car 015.
Lina Rather's Sisters of the Vast Black.
posted by mumkin at 11:30 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'm just finishing up Peter Hamilton's new series: Salvation (2018), Salvation Lost, Saints of Salvation. I'd recommend it. If you've read Peter Hamilton before, you'll know what to expect but I like the current riff and his storytelling has become a bit tighter. The first book feels like his take on the Decamoron as characters travel to to an unknown alien relic. I like it because he comes up with some technologies that seem vaguely plausible and shows the impact they have on our current culture - and you can see how we got there from here unlike some far future scifi. In these books half the story takes place about 200 years from now, and the other half takes place about 10,000 years from now.
posted by slide at 12:00 PM on December 28, 2020
posted by slide at 12:00 PM on December 28, 2020
Recommended Science Fiction
maybe not new, but a nice well to draw from!
> I'm loving The Expanse and am excited for the last book.
speaking of which (and which i haven't read ;) intriguing to me: "It's definitely nowhere near as good as say, McAuley's The Quiet War, to name a recent and thematically-similar book."
posted by kliuless at 11:14 PM on December 28, 2020
maybe not new, but a nice well to draw from!
> I'm loving The Expanse and am excited for the last book.
speaking of which (and which i haven't read ;) intriguing to me: "It's definitely nowhere near as good as say, McAuley's The Quiet War, to name a recent and thematically-similar book."
posted by kliuless at 11:14 PM on December 28, 2020
How Long 'til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin; I loved it, more than her novels. Each story is amazingly different from the last.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:18 PM on December 29, 2020
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:18 PM on December 29, 2020
I read all of published Expanse series. Then I was searching for the next space opera. Alas, I did not find the world yet. But I tore through the Murder Bot Dairies. Recalling the series poster, I took a look for Altered Carbon and found three books in a series. While I would recommend the MBD for my niece who is 9. The Altered Carbon series is definitely rated NC-17 (or worse!) for sexual content. Though, past that, there is a whole galaxy in that series (one planet at a time).
posted by xtian at 10:35 AM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by xtian at 10:35 AM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Woah, no one's yet mentioned The Three-Body Problem? It's a fantastic trilogy spanning over 4 centuries, and Ken Liu does a great job with the translation.
posted by pedmands at 3:26 PM on March 5, 2021
posted by pedmands at 3:26 PM on March 5, 2021
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posted by signal at 11:04 AM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]