I’m looking for something like ‘A Fire Upon the Deep’ or ‘The Stars my Destination’. There should be a lot of world building and the plot shouldn’t linger in just one place most of the book.
Anything by Alastair Reynolds is pretty big picture. Revenger is about space pirates with crazy unique lore. House of Suns spans tens of thousands of years and the whole galaxy. Terminal World is all on one planet but the concept is so unique it goes everwhere from a sci-fi wonderland to a western to airship pirates.
The Gods Themselves by Asimov stays pretty local to earth/the moon but there’s whole other dimension, too.
You’re going to bring up Alastair Reynolds and just not mention the Revelation Space series?! Fie! FIE ON YOU!!! :D
The expanse
This. Really good world/society building.
Lots of good suggestions in here. Id like to echo :
- Anything Alastair Reynolds (particularly Revelation Space)
- Hyperion Cantos
- Ender/Enders Shadow series
- Children of Time/Memory/Ruin
- Bobiverse
- The Expanse
Also adding:
- Aurora by KSR
- Project Hail Mary
The Bobiverse
I really like science fiction that involves world building. These are some of my favorites:
- The Sparrow
- Martian Chronicles
- The Dispossessed
- Left Hand of Darkness
- Xenocide / Speaker for the Dead
- Piranesi (no spaceships but still feels like sci-fi)
- Hyperion Cantos
- Dune
- Farmer in the Sky
- Beowulf’s Children
Hell yea Ursula LeGuin
I’ve read and loved some of these. Thanks
Ringworld by Larry Niven
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Phillip K. Dick
I can’t edit the above post for some reason?
Wanted to add:
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
This might not be specifically what you’re after, but the Rama series by Arthur C Clarke has world building after book 1, and doesn’t linger in one place plotwise (although most of the setting is in one place, albeit a huge place).
Even if it doesn’t fit your spec completely, if you haven’t read it, it should be on your list.
Ok thanks
A Deepness in the Sky is also by VV and is, IMO, so much better than AFUTD. If you haven’t read it yet, you ought!
Children of Time is also exploration based. And good. But not nearly as good as a A Deepness in the Sky.
ADITS is a book that has been in my tbr for almost a year and still hasn’t gotten anywhere near to getting touched by me. I’m gonna read it once I’m done with my current read.
I’m jealous. I wish I could read it for the first time again.
Foundation series by Isaac Asimov
Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card
Blackwood & Virtue series by Bennet R Coles
The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts.
Not so much planets, but the galaxy.
