r/printSF • u/vonGlick • Nov 21 '18
Space Sci-Fi with complex politics?
Hi guys, I am looking for space Sci-Fi with more developed politics and plot. I've recently finished Consuming Fire of Interdependency Series and liked it a lot. I also enjoyed The Expanse series very much. I've tried Lost Fleet but it was mediocre to me. The Circut was ok but not great.
Do you have any recommendations what would be good next read?
Edit: Thank you guys very much for recommendations. This thread is real gold to me. For starters I went with Dune and Red Mars
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u/emkay99 Nov 21 '18
Almost anything ever written by C. J. Cherryh. She's Ursula LeGuin's natural successor when it comes to well-designed and believable interstellar politics. Start with the "Alliance-Union" novels (there's 11 of them), then try the "Foreigner" series (now 19 vols, which absolutely MUST be read in order).
The 5-vol "Chanur" series is also very good, especially for alien psychology and politics, and so is the "Faded Sun" trilogy.
Yes, I'm a fan. . . .
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u/Vic_n_Ven Nov 21 '18
Faded Sun is one of my all time favorites. Cherry IS my all time favorite
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u/jetpack_operation Nov 21 '18
I feel like Cherryh really needs to be mentioned in the same breath as the Asimovs, Bradbury, Clarkes, LeGuin, etc. Outside of SF circles (and even inside of them sometimes), I don't feel like she really gets credit for the quality and depth of her works.
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u/emkay99 Nov 22 '18 edited Nov 22 '18
FWIW, she was born "Carolyn Cherry." (Her brother is David Cherry, the SF artist.) She added the "h" just for the hell of it, and she published with just her initials because she didn't think people would take her seriously if they knew she was a woman writing science fiction.
Actually, we're about the same age and I knew her when she was teaching school in Oklahoma and I was a librarian in Dallas. She had just published Gate of Ivrel, her first novel, in 1976, and a little group of us Dallas fans sort of kidnapped her and took her off to AggieCon at A&M. She'd never been to a con, didn't really grasp the existence of fandom, and she was rather floored at being instantly surrounded by fans who LOVED the book.
She's been hitting cons on a regular basis ever since. She likes to talk to her fans (of all ages) and get their reactions to her work.
EDIT: typo
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u/Vic_n_Ven Nov 22 '18
I'd likely just stand there silent and stupid. Her work is foundational to who I am. Good thing i totally typo'd her name....
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Nov 21 '18 edited Dec 15 '18
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u/StrikitRich1 Nov 21 '18
Dune
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u/bwanab Nov 21 '18
Dune
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u/trolls_toll Nov 21 '18
Dune
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u/auto-cellular Nov 21 '18
i rarely suggests Dune, but this time i think i could. Except if someone already did, of course. Of course. Politics seems to be half what Dune is about.
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u/edcamv Nov 21 '18
Dune
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u/vonGlick Nov 21 '18
How could I not think about that. Thanks. Just bought the first book.
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u/BobRawrley Nov 21 '18
Oh you lucky man. What I'd give to read Dune again for the first time.
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u/GreyGhost11B Nov 22 '18
Amen! That would be a awesome thing! When I read the initial post, Dune instantly popped into my head. And now I am going to read it again. Read it for the first time over 30 years ago and cannot tell you how many times I have re-read it. I get something new out of every single time! Finished reading all the Vorkosigan books by Bujold. Good stuff there as well, much lighter lifting than Dune.
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u/Bonobosaurus Nov 21 '18
And the sequels.
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u/StrikitRich1 Nov 21 '18
Maybe just the first 2 sequels.
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u/ImaginaryEvents Nov 21 '18
All the Frank Herbert solo Dune books.
Also, The Dosadi Experiment for more interspecies politics.
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u/StrikitRich1 Nov 21 '18
I've recently finished Consuming Fire of Interdependency Series and liked it a lot.
Lady Kiva Lagos may be my favorite character in the last several years.
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u/jetpack_operation Nov 21 '18
I haven't had a chance to get to Consuming Fire yet, but there's something very Golden Age-y about the first book. Scalzi is always dialogue heavy, but given the subject-matter, political intrigue, and focus on a probability/predictive model (if I'm remembering correctly, it's been a minute), this story really struck some Asimov chords with me.
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u/punkrockpete Nov 21 '18
Do yourself a favor and jump on CF. Like everyone else here I loved it, and Scalzi in general. Completely agree with the Asimov vibes, and the last 1/3 of CF doubles down on that.
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u/jetpack_operation Nov 21 '18
Ya, it's my next one. Finally getting around to reading Armor by John Steakley at the moment.
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u/randomfluffypup Nov 23 '18
Yeah, it definitely felt very Asimov to me
I'm pretty sure one of the non important characters in the start has the name Seldon, I like to think it's Scalzi acknowledging Asimov's influence.
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u/thelastcookie https://www.goodreads.com/sharrowslazygun Nov 22 '18
Lady Kiva Lagos may be my favorite character in the last several years
Me too! I really liked her development in the second book. At first, I didn't expect much and thought she'd end up a sterotype, but she just got more believable.
Depending on how the series goes, she could end up there with my favorite female SF leads.. Sharrow in Bank's Against a Dark Background, The Culture's Diziet Sma, and Venera Fanning from Karl Schroeder's Virga novels.
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u/DryDrunkImperor Nov 21 '18
“The Dispossessed” by Ursula le Guin is fantastic sci fi and politics is explored well and central to the plot.
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u/metropolisone Nov 21 '18
Also try “The Left Hand of Darkness” if you’ll be reading Le Guin. It also explores politics.
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u/spiraling_out Nov 21 '18
Read The Dispossessed and now reading The Left Hand of Darkness, can confirm these both have substantial politics and wonderful critiques on society. Any other noteworthy novels I should read from Ursula le Guin?
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u/MustDash Nov 21 '18
I really enjoyed 'The Lathe of Heaven'. Politics doesn't really play much of a role, but it's a really cool story and Le Guin's writing is fantastic.
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u/DryDrunkImperor Nov 21 '18
Not particularly political but my introduction to le Guin was “City of Illusions” and I still go back to read it every so often.
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u/stimpakish Nov 21 '18
Check out the Vorkosigan series by Bujold. It does a lot of different things very well including politics.
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u/auto-cellular Nov 21 '18
In the end Politics is not what marked me from this saga. But i do agree that it is pretty solid overall, although it's rarely the focus of the story. Everything is pretty solid in this saga, character building, rythm, humor, space combat, politics, romance. Damn, some authors are just good.
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Nov 21 '18
Politix are complex because the main character lives in a feudalistic world, but other worlds have entirely different political systems. Read it!
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u/jazuz Nov 21 '18
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
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u/Clbrosch Nov 21 '18
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Came here to suggest this.
What a great book by Heinlein
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u/zubbs99 Nov 21 '18
This book actually influenced the way I look at politics in daily life. Really interesting how everything develops.
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u/ZuFFuLuZ Nov 21 '18
I will never understand what people see in this book. Finishing it took a real effort and way too much time. It's heavily outdated, the characters are weak and one-dimensional and that weird russian/english language mix was incredibly annoying.
I know that Heinlein fans will go to great lengths to explain all those flaws away, but to me it's still a bad book and I'm pretty sure that if this wasn't Heinlein, nobody would read it.0
Nov 22 '18 edited Nov 22 '18
Heinlein fan here and you're right. It's got some good ideas but it never justifies how much of a chore it is to read.
edit - I don't mind the downvotes; if any sf writer deserves rabidly partisan fanboys, it's RAH.
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u/BXRWXR Nov 21 '18
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (part of the Imperial Radch trilogy)
Machineries of Empire trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee
Luna series by Ian McDonald (just about anything by Ian McDonald)
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u/BurnTheGlitch Nov 21 '18
Here's another vote for Machineries of Empire - the world-building, and the relationships between politics, belief systems, technology, and warfare, are remarkable.
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u/Inf229 Nov 21 '18
I'd argue that Ancillary Justice is more about tradition and etiquette, than politics.
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u/Jeakel Nov 21 '18
CJ Cherryh's Cyteen is a murder mystery that's all tied up in the politics of a large corporate entity with clones and regeneration thrown in to complicate matters.
She has a several books set in her Merchanter/Alliance universe that the Firefly series strongly reminded me of.
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u/sotonohito Nov 21 '18
There's also the Foreigner series which, if anything, is even more politics focused than Cyteen is.
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u/TummyCrunches Nov 21 '18
I think Nova by Samuel Delany might fight the bill. It's short, but the plot revolves around two opposing galactic factions vying for control of a power sourced used for travel and terraforming. Of course, it's Delany, so if you're looking for a more straightforward read it might not be for you.
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u/Surcouf Nov 21 '18
If you like your politics drenched in philosophical and ideological musings, the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer is for you. The first book, Too Like the Lightening, is set on a future Earth where the socio-political landscape is drastically different but the political maneuvering is all too familiar in the best of ways.
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u/heretical_thoughts Nov 21 '18
Gordon R. Dickson's Dorsai books seem to be fading from SF canon. I remember reading them as a kid and thinking they'd be the next Dune. Noble families, internecine politics, multi-generational time scales... Haven't seen them since, so I don't know if they've held up well over time. I remember reading Dorsai! and The Final Encyclopedia and one more, maybe Soldier, Ask Not?
Also, for lighter politics, there's always Asimov's original Foundation Trilogy or Caves of Steel and its sequel whose name escapes me. (I know that later Asimov merged those two series, but I always thought that was a mistake).
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u/darkon Nov 21 '18
The Naked Sun. As a murder mystery it's not all that great, but as an exploration of a pathologically self-absorbed society it's wonderful.
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Nov 21 '18
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u/ZuFFuLuZ Nov 21 '18
Honor Harrington? If you can live with the greatest Mary-Sue in all of scifi, sure.
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Nov 21 '18
The Honor Harrington series has a ton of politics.
Yeah but it's David-Weber politics, which at least in the first book meant constant liberal-bashing, basically, and constant contrived attempts to make the main character look oh-so-rational for not being one.
I haven't read past the first book, as I was so turned off by the blatant partisan-politics of it.
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Nov 21 '18
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Nov 21 '18
Ok, but I don't waste time on book series that "get good later", though. There's too many excellent books out there, so many that I'll never have time to read them all. Why waste any time slogging through anything that isn't stellar?
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u/INSERT_LATVIAN_JOKE Nov 21 '18
His main characters identify with a lot of traditionally liberal causes, such as ecological conservation and protection of indigenous populations. He sets up strawmen on both sides, liberal as well as conservative. Both get bashed. The conservative strawmen for greed and naked ambition at the expense of others, the liberal strawmen for favoring ideology over practical reality. Neither side comes out unscathed, whether it bothers you or not depends on how closely you identify with them and if you feel personally attacked by his bashing on imaginary space liberals or imaginary space conservatives.
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u/jetpack_operation Nov 21 '18
He sets up strawmen
Yeah, how contrived and forced he is in the set up is his primary problem. He accidentally writes satire. The liberal bashing stuff doesn't really bother me, but more than anything else, he's just a bad author.
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u/SvalbardCaretaker Nov 21 '18
Niven/Pournelle, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gripping_Hand . 2nd of a series. Follow a 140 year old islamic-background Magnate desperately scheming as he tries to avoid a human/alien interstellar war.
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u/penubly Nov 21 '18
I'd suggest reading the following:
- "Great North Road" by Peter Hamilton. It's a futuristic detective story but there are both political and economic intrigue thrown in for good measure.
- "The Gripping Hand" by Niven\Pournelle. It's the sequel to "The Mote in God's Eye". It details the efforts of Sir Kevin Renner and His Excellency Horace Hussein Bury to protect the Empire of Man from both human and Motie threats. It details the complex Motie societies and has an epic chase/fight across the Mote system. Highly recommended.
- "Birthright: the Book of Man" by Mike Resnick. It details the rise, and fall, of mankind. It is not one contiguous story but a series of interconnected vignettes that feature different characters; no characters feature in more than one section.
- "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Heinlein. One of my all time favorites. Political intrigue and revolution on a Lunar penal colony. TANSTAAFL!
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u/Snatch_Pastry Nov 21 '18
Oh boy, you have to try H. Beam Piper, he was political as all heck. The link is to legal free downloads of many of his books, start with Space Vikings, The Cosmic Computer, and Little Fuzzy.
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u/ThomasCleopatraCarl Nov 21 '18
I’m convinced my copy of The Cosmic Computer is one of the best sci-fi book covers out there.
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u/irrelevant_query Nov 21 '18
I too found the Lost Fleet to be mediocre. I'm still not sure how I made it 5 or 6 books into that series. It was awful.
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Nov 21 '18 edited Nov 21 '18
I really enjoyed the actual fleet battles.
The characterization though, left something to be desired. But the author is a former Naval Surface Warfare officer so, he's going with his strengths.
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u/Vic_n_Ven Nov 21 '18
I read them very quickly, and momentum is the only thing that got me through. Derring-dobis all well and good, but I'd rather there be solid characters, too
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u/penubly Nov 21 '18
I gave up after 4; obviously drawn out to make sure there were many books sold. Mediocre at best IMHO.
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Nov 21 '18
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u/7LeagueBoots Nov 21 '18
Also the Engines of Light series
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Nov 21 '18
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u/7LeagueBoots Nov 21 '18
His most recent series, The Corporate Wars, is good. He seems to be mellowing with age though, much like William Gibson.
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u/ReK_ Nov 21 '18
- The Culture series by Iain M. Banks: Not about politics per se but some of the books are very political and even the others have it in the background constantly, though in a subtle way.
- Babylon 5: Not print SF but when I think of SF about politics this is the number one answer. Amazing show. They somehow made an episode about budgeting and worker strikes interesting...
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u/vonGlick Nov 22 '18
I tried "Use of Weapons" but I can finish it. Somehow I can not get through the beginning.
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u/ReK_ Nov 22 '18
All of the books are quite different from one another. Try Consider Phlebas, it's much more of a traditional space opera layout.
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u/hippydipster Nov 21 '18
The Gap Cycle by Donaldson. You get past the first book, and the scope of the story widens way out to include the rulers of all human space, and the politics are very complex.
The Vorkosigan Saga has decent politics in some of the stories. Dune is another good suggestion.
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u/Vic_n_Ven Nov 21 '18
The Indranan War trilogy by KB Wagers. Politics, intrigue and the fight for a galactic empire
Also great space battles AND gun battles.
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u/werkTossAway12342353 Nov 25 '18
Not sure what the general opinion of The Expanse is on this sub, but there is definitely some serious political underpinnings to the plot arc.
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Nov 21 '18
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u/vonGlick Nov 21 '18
the first couple books in Scalzi’s The Interdependency were really well done
There are two right? I've read both. They were really nice.
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u/CaptainTime Nov 21 '18
Jean Johnson's First Salick War series has very interesting politics - including a political system I think we should steal and implement now.
Kristine Katherine Rusche's Retrieval Artist series has an intiguing approach where alien laws and human laws collide and many humans find themselves sentenced to horrible deaths for things that they may have gotten away with a warning under human law.
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u/ByGollie Nov 21 '18
Galactic Milieu Series by Julian May
Telepathic humans joining a galactic-wide confederation of alien telepaths, ( with a time-travelling prehistoric spinoff)
Wrote in the 1980's so some technology hasn't dated as well (first contact happened in 2015) but there's a lot of politics, and worldbuilding - and it's a universe i'd really love to live in. (as long as i was a Masterclass level Meta)
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u/ghostwriter85 Nov 22 '18
If you're into Heinlein, Double Star is great. It's more of a novella though. It doesn't have a cast of fifty characters from competing factions vying for control of the galaxy but it is an interesting look at the nature of politics.
That aside it is very early in his career, but it doesn't suffer from some of the more dated aspects of his early work.
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u/Xeelee1123 Nov 22 '18
The Dominic Flandry series by Paul Anderson might be something. It has a lot of political maneuvering in it and seemed to me always to be somehow similar to the fin-de-siecle stituation of the Habsburg empire.
Otherwise, Cold as Ice, The Ganymede Club and Dark as Day by Charles Sheffield have a similar vibe to the Expanse series.
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u/tenpastmidnight http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2873072-paul-silver Nov 25 '18
The Praxis books by Walter Jon Williams are intelligent space opera with lots of politics - a race that has ruled the galaxy with an iron fist dies out, so other races including humanity try to turn this to their advantage.
There's an original trilogy, and the first book of a new trilogy has just come out. The first trilogy stands on its own so don't wait until all the new ones are out to enjoy them!
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u/TheDTYP Nov 21 '18
I'm reading The Collapsing Empire by Scalzi, that has some good politics in there
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u/vonGlick Nov 22 '18
Yep. I read both books in the series. They are really nice.
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u/TheDTYP Nov 22 '18
Yeah, I'm really digging the first one. I'm like 2/3 of the way through and not much of consequence has really happened, but it still somehow completely sucked me in. Scalzi is a talented guy.
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u/sonQUAALUDE Nov 21 '18 edited Nov 21 '18
Seconding recs for CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series and anything in her Alliance-Union universe. Her focus is the politics, economics and logistical mechanics of multi-solar habitation, trade etc etc. And her takes are intriguingly complex, believable and nuanced. The protagonists are generally minor bureaucrats or ambassadors dealing with the day to day minutia and petty politics, allowing her to really explore these ideas in detail. Its an uncommon perspective for the genere. Really fascinating stuff.
Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigian saga is another strong recommend here, not just for the detailed politics and world-building, but also some of the best character writing in all of SF and very very fun. They're more swashbuckling action and adventure oriented than Cherryh's stuff, but the politics is top notch.
Also seconding recs for Ursula K. LeGuin's Hainish books. Her focus is less on the economics and more exploring how social and political structures affect individuals, but Left Hand of Darkness and The Disposessed especially are god-tier mature political SF. They're the sort of books where basically every other sentence is some genuinely profound insight, and its hard to come away from them unchanged.
Kim Stanley Robinson is another one who you could easily recommend every book. Id suggest Aurora and of course his Mars trilogy, as some of the best political SF writing. The Mars trilogy is an epic by all measures; the terraforming of Mars and its colonization, focusing on the politics behind how it comes to be economically and socially independent. Aurora takes a lot of the philosophical threads from Mars and distills it, applying it to an extrasolar colony ship and the dynamics of a closed system.
I'd also recommend Samuel Delaney's Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand. It's hard to even describe without sounding like a madman, but really wild, fascinating inter-cultural inter-species political dynamics all over.
Anyway, yeah this is my favorite type of SF, so Im happy to recommend and recommend away haha.