Expand Your Sci-Fi Reading | Sci-Fi Book Recommendations

[@crazediamond]

my only complaint about your videos is that they're making my to be read list grow much faster than i can read!

[@FIT2BREAD]

How insulting! Ha...glad to contribute to your list

[@kaizacorp]

Use of Weapons is an all-timer for me! Very excited for the reissue covers for the Culture! A Fire Upon the Deep was great! So imaginative and perhaps a solid option for fantasy readers.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Have you seen the reissue covers? I had some thoughts..

[@kaizacorp]

@@FIT2BREAD yes! The Use of Weapons one doesn't quite match like the one for Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games, but I do like the bold colours, minimal and consistent style. I'll be replacing my Franken-set of paperbacks and hardcovers with the reissue once they get released in Canada 🍁

[@FrankOdonnell-ej3hd]

a fire upon the deep is one of my fav sf novels of all time only read one short thing by banks think it was called complicity but it was more of a mystery than sf have read several of vonnegut's bks but not cat's cradle for some reason even though it may be his most well-known work⚛😀

[@FIT2BREAD]

Cats cradle is a very fast read and really gets your mind going

[@sylvanyoung]

Love Simak, from City , Way Station , Highway Of Eternity . Simak works has a warmth, hope and optimism which is lacking in many SF( my opinion) .Cherryh does alien cultures well, she drops you into the worlds, sink or swim. She also has some great fantasy . Need to get more Vinge in my reading 😂 . Vonnegut...not sure yet . I may take your advice . Cool list .Thank you

[@FIT2BREAD]

Totally agree in simak and Cherryh. For Vonnegut, I think Cat's is the novel I feel has the broadest universal appeal. I think it's a more comfortable fit than Slaughterhouse and Sirens of Titan

[@maxturgeon89]

Half of them were already on the TBR list, the other half has now joined them. Thanks for the recommendations!

[@FIT2BREAD]

Nice max!

[@kniknayme9865]

woah. you blew my mind with that "are we living in a dystopia" line. maybe.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks. It's a very thought provoking read

[@helgegudmundsen5361]

I am a big fan of the books of Iain Banks. He also wrote "regular" fiction, and I love these as well (he used the name Iain M. Banks in his SF, and dropped the initial in his other books). Apart from the Culture series, some of my favourites are "The Crow Road", "Whit" and "The Bridge". He died too soon from cancer, and as an example of his sometimes black humour, when he learned of his terminal illness proposed to his then girlfriend by asking "Would you like to be my widow?".

[@FIT2BREAD]

thanks for sharing those additional titles. Sad that he left too early

[@stephenzeoli8117]

Time is the Simplest Thing is the first science fiction book I read, over 50 years ago. It got me hooked on the genre. Great book. I think I'm inspired to reread it.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Wow u Def have me beat. I think I picked I up in 1990ish

[@wethefoxen4402]

I loved A Fire Upon the Deep! I loved the aliens and their variety, and the way the storylines converge.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Such a good one

[@bartsbookspace]

Fire upon the Deep is one of my all time favorites SF reads. “Aliens should feel alien”, they do in Fire… I recently read Deepness in the Sky and I also love that “sequel”. Also, Foreigner sounds very interesting!

[@FIT2BREAD]

Def check out Foreigner. Def agree with you on Deepness. Excellent sequel. Thanks Bart

[@joelstainer65]

Never heard of Goliath. Love post-apoc so will check it out

[@FIT2BREAD]

It's not the easiest read, but I found a lot to like

[@RedFuryBooks]

Cat's Cradle was already on my November TBR! This was perfect timing!

[@FIT2BREAD]

Nice. It's really good. I filmed a full review for it, bit will probably hold on to it until the end of the year

[@reynoldsmathey]

These all sound like great suggestions. Of these, I've only read 'A Fire Upon the Deep', but I loved it - especially the very alien skroderiders. I look forward to reading the others, as your suggestions are always on point. Thanks, Mike.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks Mike

[@bazoo513]

Re: Use or Weapons - This is my favourite _Culture_ novel. It was also the first Banks wrote; it was originally much longer (too long to sell it, as an unknown, new author, to any publisher) and didn't have the "two counterflowing timelines" structure (that was, apparently, introduced on an advice by Ken MacLeod). The novel is also the only one to (openly) feature a biological character from another work - Diziet Sma (Rasd-Coduresa Diziet Embless Sma da' Marenhide). She appeared in the only Culture novella Banks wrote, _The State of the Art,_ which I warmly recommend. It is perhaps even better introduction to _Culture_ than the usually recommended _The Player of Games._ (The protagonist of _Use of Weapon_ - even giving his name would be a spoiler - appears, covertly, in another novel.)

[@mondostrat]

Cat's Cradle is one of my all time favorites. Absurd, poignant, laugh out loud funny, deadly serious - It's easy to read, but hard to forget. Thanks for the Simak recommendation. I loved Way Station & City (the first two that I read), but the next couple were kinda disappointing.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks. I always feel good with Simak. I have a review of City I need to put up...I just have to finish editing it. I laughed out loud a few time with Cats Cradle. I'm especially thinking of the end where he says something absurd about resting his on on "ma's" squishy body...something or other. I'm laughing just thinking about it

[@dalejones4322]

Wow Michael, that is a great list. Every book sounds very interesting. I saved this video so I can look them up later. Thanks for all the work you put into your videos to make them so great.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks For the feedback D!

[@TheWRYYYYYYY]

Simak's book is going on my TBR list, and Use of Weapons is already there, along with A Fire Upon the Deep. Cat's Cradle is a great one too, must read for any SF fan, really. It deserves the same hype as Slaughterhouse Five, and anyone who likes those should definitely give The Sirens of Titan, also by Vonnegut, a read. If there's one book that's the epitome of old school SF weirdness at its most wonderful, it's Sirens.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Well put! Sirens has been my favorite Vinneguy, but Cats Cradle gives it a run for the money

[@SoulsJourney]

I love hearing about less popular books. So many get overshadowed by whatever the latest bestseller is, or the current handful of popular authors. Goliath sounds awesome.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks. I hope u get around to Goliath

[@tomscharf8812]

Started Use of Weapons recently, enjoyed the first two Culture books so hopefully this one is a winner as well, will certainly have to add the other recommendations to my tbr

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks Tom. My magic ball says you will like Use of Weapons!!

[@alexiskiri9693]

Read all of them but Goliath. Maybe time for a re-read, espicially tThe Culture Serie, and Fire Upon the Deep

[@FIT2BREAD]

I'm itching to restart the Culture

[@WilliamV0414]

Adding some of these to my TBR! Great content!

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks William

[@nikosbookreviews]

Lots of new books to add to my list! I've enjoyed the SciFi recs I've picked up from you so far, and most of these sound very interesting! Fun fact on Cat's Cradle, there's a metal band called "Ice Nine Kills" named from that book.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks Niko...is the band any good?!

[@nikosbookreviews]

@@FIT2BREAD They are actually very popular, not quite my thing but pretty solid!

[@valeriehazel4858]

Your reviews are so well put together Michael and thanks for always finding a few books I haven’t read yet. I am addicted to the Foreigner series, even though some books are a little uneven (22 books in the series, yikes!). I think why Cherryh’s aliens are so interesting is that they appear to be like us *except* as you say, they don’t react like us. The many similarities are what make the differences so alien. I remember Fire upon the Deep was a fantastic read although I haven’t re-read it in many years.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Love when we like some of the same things. Have you read Cyteen?

[@valeriehazel4858]

@@FIT2BREAD I have indeed. It might have been the first CJ Cherryh book I read.

[@FIT2BREAD]

@@valeriehazel4858 great. I love that one

[@SciFiScavenger]

This is a strong list, a few of which I've read in the last few months, including UoW. I felt like Zakalwe himself was the weapon. I loved AFUTD with the good doggies and the bad doggies, with its extremes of scale. 👍

[@FIT2BREAD]

ha yes, I definitely had Z in mind...yeah i loved the characters in AFUTD! thanks

[@verosnotebook]

I’m re-reading Cherryh’s Foreigner as we speak, all 21 titles (had read up to 19). Diplomacy as a superpower. Interesting other titles!

[@FIT2BREAD]

U are going all the way through? Wow

[@verosnotebook]

@@FIT2BREAD Yep ☺️ I had read up to book 19 a few years ago, and now with a group of mine we are going through them (just re-read book 11). If you liked the first 3, maybe try the next 3 - book 6 is Amazing. Also, the audiobooks are excellent.

[@secretsauceofstorycraft]

🔥 love your recommendations….. as always. However, this video i particular was very well done.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks secret sauce

[@ryanberger2129]

Goliath is very underrated. Strange Horizons has a great roundtable discussion about it if you're interested. I think structurally it has a lot of warts but it's a book I think about WAY more often than most of the other books I've read in the past two~ years or so. Great shoutout.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks. I think I caught the Strange Horizons piece.. I just went to look the book up now on Goodreads and realized how low it's rating is. I'm sure a big part of it is not everyone likes how in your face alot of the messaging is. I really love this book

[@lukebanks9007]

The onlyone I read was Space Merchants and it was fantastic. Virtual has been on mybtbr for a long time. I'll have to get to it soon. I will also add the Sparrow. The Exiled Fleet by J.S. Dewes is really good. Helix by Eric Brown I also liked quite a bit!

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks for telling me about Exiled Fleet. Haven't heard of that one

[@lukebanks9007]

I'm not sure how this message came to you 😅 You were probably confused it was intended for a video I watched on Scifi Odyssey. But Exiled Fleet is a good Military Scifi novel. It is newer 2 book series thus far. I believe the 3rd installment comes out next year. I just read Tau Zero, by Poul Andersson and I think it is one of my favorite books. Atleast in the moment😊

[@FIT2BREAD]

@lukebanks9007 Luke, it should be clear at this point my attention to detail. Ha! I will say I thought it was odd you mentioned the Sparrow as I had some strong criticisms of it , and while I love the Space Merchants and have talked about it quite a bit on the channel, I did do a double take.." I don't remember talking about it so rently..." ha

[@FIT2BREAD]

@lukebanks9007 oh and "Virtual" must have completely escaped me or perhaps I thought it was a Virtual Light reference...again, another book I've discussed on other videos!

[@bazoo513]

I agree about _A Fire upon the Deep,_ but don't neglect, dear viewer, _A Deepness in the Sky._ Those aliens are perhaps a tiny bit less imaginatively conceived than "tines", but I prefer that novel ever so slightly to _A Fire..._

[@DuckRon626]

Really disappointed by both Use of Weapons(and, Consider Phlebas, for that matter) and A Fire Upon the Deep. Just weren't my cup of tea. Personally, my recent favorites was Children of Time, so it's not like I don't like SF books, I just don't like those 2(3) that I mentioned. Will look into other on your list.

[@FIT2BREAD]

Thanks, I'm rarely surprised to see different takes on different novels. What else besides Children of Time have you really loved?

[@garthok6224]

Can you read in Spanish?

[@FIT2BREAD]

Not really. I cam probably work my way slowly through a short story...

[@garthok6224]

@@FIT2BREAD ok, I asked because I am reading a book called "Pangea: la prueba del buscador", which means "Pangea: the explorers test", which is about how humanity select explorers to find a new earth, cause ours is dying. Everyone has 3 oportunities to qualify, no money involved. It was selected as one of the best latin american sci fi books. I think this book should be translated.