I love all sci-fi but my favorite sub-genre of it is going out and exploring space. What are some good books in that area? Or Space Opera. I love Star Trek (not the new stuff) and Babylon 5 so any books with that sort of theme of a spacefaring civilization
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Legend of the Galactic Heroes
All ten books (don't worry, individually they're not very big books) were recently translated to english.
It's basically Napoleonic warfare in space as a backdrop for the author's discourse about the relative merits of republican democracy vs dictatorship.
Awesome! Thanks!
Peter f hamilton.
Reality dysfunction and pandora's star, two different series, each excellent.
Rewatching b5 (2021 remaster does a great job imo) with my wife and 4yo. Other than a lot of dammits, it's great for him. The inquisitor was a bit scary...
I found Pandora’s Star at a used book sale. Haven’t read it yet. I’m on season 3 of Babylon 5. I really enjoy it.
the expanse
I really like how he handles the replicator economy in The Diamond Age. Much more realistic than how they do it in Trek.
I'm trying to not give too much away, but the society in The Diamond Age has similar replicators to Trek, but the way people obtain replicator instructions and how people who design those instructions are incentivized to do so is I think a lot more realistic. It's more an extension of how 3D printer models today are designed and distributed than "well everyone knows how to do it and does it because they like to, and it's all free".
Cryptonomicon is also good, though I'm not quite sure I see the connection to present day. If anything we're closer to on our way to the Snowcrash universe
It basically makes whatever you want from energy: food, furniture, clothing etc...
I've never read Amber. Snow Crash is a good first book of his, and there's some speculation that The Diamond Age takes place in the same universe as Snow Crash but ~100-150 years in the future.
Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.
Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space series.
Anything from the Castalia House Quantum Mortis sci fi universe. All of them are excellent.
Dune
Recently finished it. I had read it years ago and wanted to reread. I heard that the books by his son aren’t as good
I haven't touched his son's books based on the same things you've heard.
What I've read recently and liked was The Prefect and Recursion. The Prefect would make a great mini-series if it was not current year.
My favorite book is The Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny but I definitely have nostalgia attached.
The Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. It involves the exploration of alternate dimensions rather then space.
I've heard good things about Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Haven't read it yet though, it's on my ever expanding list.
You could also go to the classics and read Asimov, I loved his books when I was a kid.
Oh and if you want something seriously weird and different, find something from the Strugatsky brothers. Old Russian sci-fi is fucking crazy. I recommend Roadside Picnic (the book that inspired the STALKER series) and The Doomed City (just... what). Neither of those are really about a spacefaring civilization, I'm just mentioning these in case you'd like to go outside your comfort zone.
I read Ender’s Game. It was good.