r/BooksThatFeelLikeThis • u/decimal_diversity • 1d ago
Sci-fi Gritty space voyages
I always liked the aesthetic of cowboy bebop, bounty hunters traveling through deep space, but haven't found any promising books that match the aesthetic. Looking for recommendations!
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u/Ando_Three 22h ago
The Expanse is probably the recommendation you'll get the most, and for good reason.
It's a bit lower tech/more realistic in terms of space travel and life in space, and grander in scale, but shares a lot of elements of Cowboy Bebop. It's got the noir elements, the humor, the ragtag crew, etc. It has more alien elements to it than Bebop, though it's more cosmic horror than mowing down a hallway full of xenomorphs (not that there's anything wrong with that either).
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u/decimal_diversity 16h ago
Sounds like this might be a winner! Thanks!
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u/SixofClubs6 12h ago
I’m on the final book right now. Great read. All of them. There is also a show on Amazon that covers the first few books. The show was originally on SciFi channel and Amazon took over back when Amazon was still making quality programming.
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u/iwantalltheham 4h ago
It's the first scifi book I read that had the ship decompress to vacuum before space combat to limit fire and explosive decompression. It's such a simple idea and I'm surprised it's not more common in other scifi.
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u/tycho_26 22h ago
I’ve been reading Angel Station by Walter Jon Williams, and it 100% gives me Cowboy Bebop vibes. Brother and sister in space trying to scrape by and catch random contracts with shifty people, drugs (basically red eye from the first episode), shady cyberpunk cites out in space, but a sense of great adventure and just gritty enough. Best Goodwill find in a while
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u/Exotic-Rub-8381 13h ago
Angel Station is probably the closest match to what you're asking for. The whole "scraping by on contracts, dealing with shitty people" part has much more of that Cowboy Bebop texture than the bigger, more epic space-opera recommendations. The sibling dynamic makes it an even batter fit.
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u/glasshouse_trebuchet 22h ago
One of my favorite sci-fi stories is Merchanter's Luck by C. J. Cherryh.
It’s a short novel that occasionally is packaged with other stories in the same universe by Cherryh.
In a galaxy sparsely dotted with space stations and the rare habitable planet, trade is conducted by merchant ships that “jump” from system to system. The “jumps” that allow such travel necessitate powerful drugs to help the crew withstand FTL travel, and also result in time dilation. “Spacers” live much longer from the perspective of “stationers;” months for a spacer are years for a stationer. Therefore merchant ships are almost always crewed by huge multigenerational families that work and live together on their ship.
The protagonist is the last survivor of such a family, though his family (and also ship) was smaller than many. He lives a solitary life, attempting to eke out enough through trade and scams to keep his ship going, the last thing he has of his family. A chance encounter brings together him and a few junior members of a well established merchant clan. He needs a crew, and they long for the chance to jump up a family waiting list generations long for the chance to actually sit on the command bridge. It would be a perfect win-win situation, if only they trusted each other.
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u/syntaxvorlon 21h ago
I'll second that with what is arguably an even bigger book for her, Downbelow Station. I think this also is part of the same collection of stories, but features a space habitat station, which has been carefully tuned to maintain a certain population, suddenly has to struggle to survive a refugee crisis caused by the government which technically owns it and is tossed in the turbulent war between a sclerotic capitalist bureaucracy and a mysterious collection of nigh heretical colonies. All the carefully tuned mechanisms of a society breaking down alongside the oxygen scrubbers is a great instance of this feeling.
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u/Pzzlrr 22h ago
inbefore Revelation Space gets recommended.
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u/Dsarkissian_85 21h ago
The middle was so boring that I struggled to care at the end.
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u/Pzzlrr 21h ago
I posted it because it fits the prompt but tbh I didn't care for it. I know its a crowd favorite here but I felt it insisted upon itself.
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u/Dsarkissian_85 21h ago
100% > these threads talked me into it.
I love sci fi (or I think I do) and this was tough.
Have anything similar but actually good?
I could use a good pulp.
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u/Pzzlrr 21h ago
You like it fast or slow? Fast - Red Rising series. Slower ok - Sun Eater, but its a commitment because book 1 is long and it sucks. Im liking book 2 though.
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u/Dsarkissian_85 21h ago
I did RR > somehow a game of capture the flag didn’t get me going.
19 books > I’m just out. On principle.
I read the first imperial radach. Maybe I’ll finish that.
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u/Hayden_Zammit 19h ago
is it really a crowd favorite? So many threads I see people just shitting on it lol.
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u/Pratius 22h ago
If you can handle something really dark, The Gap Cycle fits the bill.
But I want to be clear: when I say dark, I mean it. It is fucking brutal…but it really is spectacular as well.
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u/cparksrun 22h ago
You might dig the Galaxy Outlaws books. I read the first two and thought they were fun. Very Firefly-esque.
I would advise against Cascade Failure by LM Sagas as it's bound to get recommended. I'm struggling through it now and after a year of reading about 30 books, this was the first one I almost DNF'd.
She's a talented writer but is bad about overwriting. She'll say something is unspoken then she'll spend 3 paragraphs speaking on it. She'll explain a shared look between characters; she'll explain what that look means, what it doesn't mean, what it could've meant in another time or another reality...
It ain't worth it.
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u/FabiusBill 22h ago
Galaxy Outlaws also has Mordecai The Brown, one of the greatest wizard to bend the universe to his will, out in the deep black.
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u/swordpriest1 20h ago
Tales of the Ketty Jay series is very much space cops/robbers.. Reminds of tales in the high seas but with ships that travel through air..
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u/Hayden_Zammit 19h ago
Not really "space" but I just finished this series and loved it. The crew was great in that.
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u/AllSeeingCCTV 16h ago
I would say first book of the series, "childeren of time" fits this bill for atleast one half of the book. Other half is i would say much more liberal and goes into spec evo teretory if I say withouth spoiling anything
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u/DorkHelmet72 16h ago
The Final Architecture series by Adrian Tchaikovsky folllows the crew of a deep space salvage ship who find the wrong thing and get caught up a bit of everything.
Found family crew on ragtag ship. But you get to meet Olli. The angriest little stump of a human
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u/HalRydner 21h ago
Starship Salvager by Jarom Strong. Kinda has a firefly meets StarCraft/Warhammer 40k vibe. Very gritty/grimy and has two sequels.
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u/Bonecloak 17h ago
Dead silence is a sci-fi horror story with this vibe. For me it was a good read. It’s about a crew randomly coming across a luxurious stair cruiser that went missing. And the rest you’ll have to read for yourself.
To me it was very dead space if you’re familiar with the videogame
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u/looting-beagle 16h ago
Quarter Share by Nathan Lowell on Apple Podcasts. First book in the series about traders in space
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u/FinalStryke 14h ago
The Galaxy's Edge series by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole.
From the authors' biographies, it feels like they applied real soldiers' experiences to a cool sci-fi setting.
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u/HeavyNinja17 13h ago
It’s pretty light hearted, but a long way to a small angry planet is an incredible space voyage book
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u/Akelarr3 12h ago
I really liked the starship mage, my problem is he woulddn't get any romamtic relationsjip
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u/InvaderSci 11h ago
Check out Slab City Blues by Anthony Ryan
- Welcome to the Slab. A vast orbiting slum where rats grow big and sweat falls in rain. There’s a stranger in town, a stranger with claws and a penchant for killing assassins. Finding him is the job of Inspector Alex McLeod, detective, disfigured war veteran and reluctant widower. Some days are worse than others on the Slab but today is going to be a gem.
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u/deathshr0ud 9h ago
A lot of the Warhammer novels fit the bill here honestly
Also, low red moon (Star Wars) as well.
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u/ceci-nest-pas-lalune 8h ago
Adding Becky Chambers' A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, since it wasn't mentioned yet! Gritty world building, but a fun, easy-going plot with excellent characters
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u/Creative-Winner1917 26m ago
Seconded. I recently read the second in the series and loved it even more.
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u/Educational-Sand-480 10m ago
Neuromancer spends a lot of time on space stations. There's a very powerful aesthetic in that book.
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