Sci-fi books which don't involve too much space travels and massive world builds?
Don't really know how to explain this. I like sci fi and would love to dig deeper into it. Am avid reader and enjoyed Project Hail Mary (though set in space, this book is just amazing), Dune, short stories by Ray Bradbury and TV shows like Raised by the Wolves, Westworld, From (love From!). But e.g. Foundation I really disliked. Wheel of time is massive and I lost interest. Even the guide through galaxy I appreciated but was not really into it. Somehow, all those lots of traveling, lots of worlds, lots of many novel/invented names and terms render reading laborious for me.
Can you help me pin what is that I like and perhaps offer me a suggestion where to start? Thanks!
EDIT: thanks everyone for your excellent suggestions! So happy to be a part of lemmy community. I might make a follow up thread in couple of months so we can discuss some of the works. And lastly, if you been reading this far: have a good weekend.
How about The Expanse or The Martian? They’re both relatively hard sci-fi that focuses mostly on our own solar system.
The Martian tells the tale of a man stuck on Mars and his ability to survive on his own whilst those back on Earth figure out a way to get him back. Both the book
and the film are great so you can’t go wrong with either.
The Expanse covers more of the local system. Earth and Mars are on the brink of war, whilst others live out near the asteroid belt, Jupiter and beyond. It goes a little sci-fi later on but it’s an inherently human story that has some great characters living in a time when space travel is still dangerous but achievable by humanity. It starts a little slow but ramps up brilliantly and has a nice conclusion that wraps everything up pretty neatly. You’ve got 9+ books, a 6 season TV series on Amazon Prime, and a newly released TellTale video game, all of which are well produced and worth investing time in.
The Martian I am saving as one of those cannot go wrong books, in case i ever run into reading blockage. But Expanse i didn't check out. Will do now. Thanks
Dune is an example of massive world-building with a tons of jargon, but you still liked it? It seems that this post is saying you don't like books like Dune, so how did you manage to enjoy it?
It sounds to me like while OP can absolutely enjoy longer, more complex works, they can prove daunting and time consuming, so they're looking for shorter and more straightforward stories.
Maybe I'm casting my own experiences onto this, but I know that's a feeling I get too, especially with some video games. Some of my favorites are 200+ hours of meticulous exploration and grinding, but I rarely find myself with the energy to engage with journeys of this magnitude, so I usually gravitate more towards shorter stuff.
You do know nothing is black and white in life, right?
Anyways, I wouldn't put Dune as my 5* read, but I did enjoy it. I only read the main part of the main Dune book, not the whole series, prequels etc. Also, it is mainly set on one planet.
I don't blame you for not reading the rest of the Dune series, it wasn't my cup of tea, either, but why don't you watch a movie or something if you don't want to actually read a book?
I haven't. I thought I wasn't really into short stories... Till I discovered Ray Bradbury. Now I am very much into short stories. So will give Asimov a try for sure.
Check out Ted Chiang as well -- his two short story collections (Story of Your Life and Others; Exhalation) are some of the best I've ever read. He wrote the story upon which the film Arrival was based. Lots of things about time, consciousness, free will, humanity, all beautifully done.
Why is it always those 3? Is there no other cyberpunk books people read? They are very heavy reads. Heres a few "mediocre" cyberpunk books I found entertaining, everyone takes place on earth:
"A cyberpunk saga" by Matthew Goodwin, if you prefer teamwork and strong friendship. And a VERY stereotypical cyberpunk world.
"Daemon" by Daniel Suarez, a techno triller, if you enjoy overly "smart" villains who think multiple moves ahead.
"Immortality Upload" by Patrick Fell, if you like MMOs and VR.
"Neo Cyberpunk", a genre anthology book. Multiple short stories. I found Matthew Goodwins books because I enjoyed his short story.
I suggest Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. The whole series is good but each is stand alone. There is a world and it’s in space but the stories are people scale.
I’ll throw in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Both classics that are great page turners. Take place against the backdrop of an intergalactic society but remain focused on singular planets and their societies (well if you include their anarchic moons). Great characters with meaningful relationships. Left Hand has more of an interpersonal focus, Dispossessed more societal, but both amazing in their own way.
This is such a good recommendation really, I have to elaborate why: I love The Stand (rebuilding the society), Heart is a Lonely hunter (american southwest) and 1000 years of solitude (story that spans across number of generations). So thanks!
A great book, but it certainly includes a lot of invented vocabulary to deal with, and the reader is expected to just roll with it and sort the vocabulary out on their own.
Ursula K. Le Guin is an example of a writer that does deep but focused worldbuilding. Her sci-fi books tend to be about a single planet, sometimes two like in The Dispossesed. You could try that one or even better start with The Left Hand of Darkness. I like how she sets up various unusual alien factors (geopolitics, biology, society, natural environments) and lets them interplay but also without forgetting a plot.
Oh there's just so many. A favorite of mine is Replay by Ken Grimwood. It's a kind of a time travel book, but different from most, and a lot of fun - written in 1986, so not new. Broad plot is that the main character, a middle aged man, dies on the first page and wakes up back in college, back in the 50s, I believe. It gets more interesting from there.
You might enjoy the Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells, which is a series that starts with All Systems Red. The first couple are novellas, and the first one was published in 2017, so much more recent. They won a lot of awards. It takes place in an unspecified time in the future, told from the perspective of a cyborg of sorts who is a security bot who has hacked his control unit and doesn't have to do what he's told, but he doesn't want people to know that so he can watch soap operas when he can. He's guarding a small group on an alien planet when things get weird.
I'll recommend one other, very different: Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge. I believe that was 2007. It's told from the perspective of a guy in near earth future who had late stage Alzheimer's but was given a cure, so is slowly getting back his mental function. Wearable computers are ubiquitous at the time. Also a big award winner.
Omg this comment is so beautiful. Thank you so much! I think I am going to start with your first option, just got it on kindle (I am a total sucker for time/dimension travels, from 11/22/63 (one of my all time favorites) to Time Traveler's wife to Blake Crouch).
I’m surprised no one has mentioned The Culture series by Iain M. banks. Much like Dune there is a ton of world building that occurs in the novels but it’s not the focus of any one novel. You can read them independently and still enjoy them. The concepts he tackles in the novels were way ahead of their time and his prose and s second to none. The novel Consider Phlebas is typically where most people start, but I started The Player of Games.
Against a Dark Background from Banks is good too, much less space travel, a very adventurous plot and worldbuilding which is dense but doesn't overtake the book.
Seconding The Player of Games as the place to start in the Culture novels, although there is notably a lot of space travel in the Culture series overall which might be why people are avoiding them for this request. But 100% worth giving TPoG a read, for sure - and it in particular has no space travel past the opening, iirc.
The Three Body Problem trilogy, especially the first two books.
Trying to avoid too many spoilers, the first book is about a Chinese scientist investigating a mysterious threat. It’s not too heavy on world building, and it’s set on present day earth.
Second book, The Dark Forest, is about how this impossible threat is dealt with, and I think it’s one of the most fascinating things I’ve read.
I think the third book, Death’s End, went overboard quite a bit, but it’s still a good one.
it's warhammer 40k but it doesnt really focus on space too much, other than they always travel through space to get from one battlefield to the next. lots of mud & blood trench warfare.
Isaac Asimov: ( The Caves of Steel )
Next books in the series involve space travel. But nothing large the world building is very limited. All short reads. Was written in the 50s keep that in mind with some of the language.
Yeah the Robot series was great if you like whodunits - the focus is very much on the plot, and all the world building we get directly impacts the plot
Oryx & Crake by Maraget Atwood was very interesting and fun to read. Dealt mostly with biological-related technology and human-scale drama. No spacemen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nexus_Trilogy
Everything in these books happens on earth and is pretty much like today. Only there is a drug invented that enables human brains to join networks.
If you like grounded sci-fi that elicits a "it could happen in a few years" vibe firmly rooted on Earth, check out William Gibson. Most of his stuff is excellent, but "The Peripheral" and its followup "Agency" are recent highlights. From his older stuff I very much enjoyed "Virtual Light" the most. More than his acclaimed "Neuromancer" (he invented the word cyberspace in 1982 and popularized it in this 1984 novel) even.
Neal Stephenson - "Seveneves"
One of my all time favorite sci-fi books. It is set mostly in space, but very realistic and never leaves the Earth's influence. Time setting is basically now or a few years from now.
Also by Stevenson: "Anathem"
Marvellous alternate universe story with a few twists. It's on Earth, just ... different.
If you wanna go for the classics (1960 roughly), look into Stanislaw Lem. "Solaris", "Eden" and "Transfer" all left a lasting impression on me.
I’ve seen this recommended several times but haven’t yet read it, so i tried to go ahead. Now I know why I never read it. It a hold but “estimated several months”
You also listed fantasy, so I'd like to recommend N.K. Jemisin. She won the Hugo award for a novel 3 years in a row for her first 3 books, and has I think 2 more? So 5 Hugo's on 7 years?
Those three books are called the Broken Earth trilogy, starting with The Fifth Season, and it's probably my favourite trilogy. (Not correcting, just adding detail so they are easier to find). The magic system here always feels very specific and 'grounded' (heh), so it doesn't feel like the fluffy magic of more "high fantasy", and maybe connects more with sci-fi sensibilities? Anyway, i agree that it's excellent.
OP could also look at Ursula Le Guin. The Earthsea books are amazing, very low-key and character focused. More in the fantasy space too though, but so is Dune pretty much. She also has Left Hand of Darkness, which was great and more on the sci-fi side (no actual space travel or other planets, aside from references), particularly if they have any interest in a kind of meditation on cultural differences and gender.
Can recommend The City We Became by them. Not entirely flawless, but I rattled through it in no time and was plenty good enough for me to go out and buy the second in the series (i think of two).
Nexus trilogy. It takes place on Earth, present day, a young neurologist discovers that a drug is actually nano machines and gives people the ability to share thoughts, communication, memories, and experiences. The researcher struggles to decide if this is good for all of humanity. Very good descriptions of technology, hacking, programming, exciting action (US gov is trying to reign in the nano machines.
The ultimate topic is transhumanism as technology gives us bigger than human abilities and posthumanism, where the changes we make now qualify us as so different in skills and abilities that we are no longer human.
I just finished the first book and I enjoyed it a lot.
You might like the Innkeeper Chronicles by Ilona Andrews. It's a series of 6-9 books but they are good by themselves. Kinda fantasy, kinda sci-fi. The books are short and fun and will keep you entertained.
My other favorites are Brandon Sanderson and David Dalglish.
I'd recommend finding collections of short stories. You often don't have a lot of time to write expansive world building details when you've only got a few thousand words and a brief plot to get through. And a collection of different authors can make sure you have a variety if some of the authors aren't your preference and then you can look at longer works by the authors you do like.
Many sci-fi and fantasy authors spend so much time world-building that they seem to forget the plot for 20 pages or so. On the other end some just put in sequences of action with only a token plot like many movies today. Finding one that has the right balance is very difficult. Back when before electronic books, more than a few paperbacks ended up being tossed across the room in frustration.
Since you've gotten a lot of recommendations for more popular works, I'll toss in few less commonly mentioned ones. All of these have a decent balance of world-building and plot.
Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey.
The Madness Season & This Alien Shore - C.S. Friedman.
The Parafaith War - L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Murderbot series - Martha Wells - lots of space travel and world building, but it's funny as hell so it's worth it.
Dan_Simmons : ( Hyperion ) Also has world building nothing crazy. Involves multiple timelines. But written as a space opera. Think ( The Canterbury Tales )
I've read memory of empire lately, which is a political intrigue in a Sci Fi setting. It's centered around one city palace.
I second Lebowitz, the expanse and Ursula especially. Left hand of darkness is amazing.
If you enjoy project hail Mary and the generational aspect of 1000 years of solitude, you might enjoy children of time which has similar themes. It's my current favorite.
Rainbows end, windup girl and scanner darkly are also great suggestions with no space travel.
Lots of the classics aren't super space travel-y. Stranger in a Strange Land, Childhoods End, War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, Ender's Game.. Animorphs 😄
Check out The Greg Mandel trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton. A lot of sci-fi, not focused on space travel.
I also love his large Commonwealth universe with several trilogies and novels in it that can be read independently, but these are definitely space based. I would start with the Void Trilogy. It is defined as a space opera. There are just so many cool sci-fi concepts though :)
Possibly Existence by David Brin? There’s some stuff around space travel and alien contact, and it ain’t exactly a short, but is mostly set on a future earth.
There’s also a lot of “future jargon” which grates a little, but is quite fun to look at something written in 2012(?) about a future involving wearables and AI among others.
Ann Lecke’s “Imperial Radch” does happen in multiple locations, but revolves primarily around people relationships and de-genders English language for a delightful effect.
Peter Watts will make you learn a lot of words and concepts, will have you read author notes at the end of his books, and will have you take a look at the list of scientific literature used in writing said books. Main overarching topic - consciousness might not be as central to intelligence as we default to thinking it to be.
Charles Stross’ books can take you into space, but are hardly about space or new worlds. Hell, the most space travel heavy book of his I read - Neptune's Brood - explores the ideas of money and debt.
Greg Egan’s everything, but there are two that I immediately remember when I think about his bibliography. “Diaspora” explores weird space times, consciousness bootstrapping, and problems of communication. “Orthogonal” trilogy is “math of spacetime: what could be” as a novel.
Cory Doctorow explores problems of identity and privacy. Start with “Little brother” (yes, it is a 1984 reference) and “Down and out in the Magic kingdom” and expand further.
John Meaney’s “Nulapeiron sequence” is an easy read that builds its world alongside shedding its main character ignorance.
Nathan Lowell's The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series is great, it's a space opera following normal people trying to make a living in space. It's a nice break from the hard scifi where everything goes wrong and the hero fixes everything, it's just a nice entertaining stress free read.
I recently read and really enjoyed Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers. The book is more of a solarpunk future with a heavy focus on the characters. It's pretty short too! All takes place on a single planet, felt very grounded after I just finished with a Culture book.
Rendezvous with Rama by A. C. Clarke. Honestly, anything by Clarke fits your criteria very well. Very little world building or character development, just straight to the point hard (but still amazing!) sci-fi. His short stories are fun too.
P.S. You may stumble across legends that Rama has three sequels. Don't believe them, there is only one book. And even if it were true, the sequels wouldn't be written by Clarke despite him being listed as a co-author.
I just want to put this out here, to ponder...it's essentially a skill to be able to juggle and take in new jargon and stuff. It's something you learn. I learned it as a child, so it's second nature to me--but there was absolutely a time when I struggled!
So the question is: Do you want to develop that skill? (You don't have to answer me, I'm just proposing the question so you can ponder it.) I'm assuming here when you say the complexity is what puts you off, that this is accurate. And maybe it is. But there's a bit of a slog initially when reading SFF where you have to power through to gain the skill to follow these things--you're literally training your mind to take in new data in a way that doesn't much happen outside of SFF.
But also...what if the reason you bounced off the books listed is something else? What if it's not complexity, but the delivery? The style of narration or prose? A lot of the works you list MANY people bounce off, not due to complexity but due to the authors' voice and delivery.
I myself can't get into WoT or the book version of Game of Thrones or Foundation. I can't get into Tolkien either. Which is an abject sin in some circles!
But it's not because those books are complicated. Or because of the jargon. I'm fine with both in many other books, and disliking certain well-known behemoths of SFF doesn't negate that I read things like The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi (which was pretty darn confusing and complicated) or Gideon the Ninth. Or all the stuff I read as a kid.
It's because the specific writing style turns me off. Asimov, for example, is kinda known for his cardboard characters. Tolkien world-builds like an academic, and a lot of his stuff is a huge slog like much dry research in academia. Wheel of Time likewise doesn't have that "something" in style or voice to make his worldbuilding engaging, nor does George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones.
But I am a huge fan of authors who make big, complicated worlds who have a more interesting/engaging way of presenting what they have created. It's not the complexity or jargon that puts me off in those other books, it's the writing style.
Yes, yes, you are totally correct - delivery can make all the difference.
But I have to add that my main problem is that I am a scientist and big part of my job is to read immense amount of literature and memorize/connect often obscure terms. So when I read for pleasure (I love my job, but still) what I tend to enjoy the most are character heavy, emotional books with beautiful prose, written by people with deep understanding of life. Quite opposite to the academic literature.
So you are right, yes, this slog issue is not restricted to SF (e.g. I don't read epic fantasy either; GoT and LOTR books I skipped myself as well), but SF in particular is something I really want to dig deeper, as there the ideas challenge my brain and remain lingering far after I finish the piece.
But! - I prefer to do it without being forced into a memory challenge. Because if I start and within the first two pages there are 15 names and 3 planets and lots of traveling (i really damn hate descriptions of pure traveling, like please lets just skip that part) then I lose interest in the main idea and the ideas are what I am after.
So Tldr yes, you are absolutely right, it is also the prose and the delivery, but still no prose or delivery would keep me long motivated or make me deeply enjoy reading work which has too many names or weird, invented terms.
Late to this party and I have to agree to Ian M Banks, Ursula K Le Guin, Philip K Dick (very weird, discontinuous, but free-floating and fascinating) and many more. Just to add a couple of things that HAVEN'T been mentioned, that really may get your sci-fi juices flowing: Brian Aldiss's expansive "Helliconia" trilogy is a cracker - and I think you may see echoes of it in the premise of "Game of Thrones". I'd also like to plug John Brunner - his work "The Shockwave Rider" is dated now, but essential reading. It is the first book to ever feature the idea of a computer virus. Also DO follow up on "The Machine Stops" by EM Forster - full text available online for free. If it doesn't BLOW YOUR MIND that it features social media overload, and was written in 1909, well, nothing will.
In new wave sci fi, you might also want to check out J.G. Ballard - too weird and hardcore for many, but the missing link between Moorcock-style sci-fi and mainstream fiction - think 1960s to 1990s Black Mirror. One last recommendation. If you have time and interest, check out the much neglected and ultra-weird work of C.L. Moore. Her "Northwest Smith" character is the prototype for Han Solo for sure, (Space Pirate and smuggler with a concealed heart of gold, flies a deceptively fast ship with just one crewman, who's an alien. Carries a "heat blaster" which is also configurable as a energy sword. Too many coincidences!)
Never too late for good recommendations! I am happy such a good collection of suggestions was made, not just for me but for everyone. Thanks for contributing!
I think they are wanting world building on a smaller scale. Although I don't think world building is really about any particular size. If the entire setting took place on Earth or it spanned the entire universe, the amount of world building could be the same.