Where are the good gamer sci-fi novels?

I'm a big fan of sci-fi and in the early days of my RPG-ing life, I ran more Star Frontiers than D&D. Like most gamers, I suspect, Fantasy RPGing is my bread-n-butter genre of choice but I still need my sci-fi fix now and again. Unsurprisingly, my tastes in film, TV, and fiction tend to feed my gaming itch as well. After finishing the latest fantasy series I was reading, I was once again itching to get into some good sci-fi.

And then I looked for some and remembered how frakkin' hard it is.

I don't want preachy sci-fi. I don't want the one-trick pony sci-fi where the whole story hangs on a singular element (typically technology, an alien species, etc.). I want gamer-sci-fi: it's pretty easy to find in film and TV but it seems like it's the Holy Grail of sci-fi fiction. Military sci-fi comes about the closest with the only other alternative being licensed properties like Star Wars, Star Trek, or Starcraft novels, all of which are ok in small doses.

But where are the heavyweight sci-fi series that are comparable to their fantasy counterparts? Where's the action-packed & suspense-driven sci-fi that keeps you turning the pages? I'm lucky to find it one time in 10.

So to my ENWorld brethren, what sci-fi novels scratch your gaming itch? Why/how do they lend themselves to RPG-style sci-fi?


Azgulor's ideas of Gamer Sci-Fi:

Movies: Alien, Aliens, Blade Runner, Minority Report, Jurassic Park, Terminator movies, Matrix movies, Indiana Jones movies, Stargate, Serenity, The Sixth Day, Total Recall, Star Wars (although I consider it Science Fantasy, not true sci-fi), War of the Worlds

TV: Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica (new series), Farscape, Firefly, Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, X-Files, Star Trek: DS9, Jericho

Video Games: Halo, Dead Space, System Shock 2, Starcraft, F.E.A.R., Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Laura Croft games, Mass Effect, Force Unleashed, Far Cry, Stalker: Shadows of Chernobyl

Just off the top of my head, with more to come later: Dune.

Eric Flint's 1632 series. David Weber's Honor Harrington series has bunches of twists and turns, over a wide area with different types of 'encounters'. (Straight up ship to ship and fleet actions, pirates, politics, spies, etc.) And, of course, the grand daddy of them all: Doc Smith.

Bolo

1) Larry Niven & Steven Barnes' Dream Park novels. They combine the elements of mysteries, sci-fi and fantasy by telling murder/industrial espionage stories in the world of competitive broadcast LARPing. Think American Gladiators + Survivor for the role-play set, combined with the high-tech of Westworld & Futureworld.

2) Ben Bova's Grand Tour books (the ones named after planets). Tales of the early days of exploring our solar system, including the machinations of plutocrats who want fame, fortune and power by being first. Some of Bova's best stuff.

3) Kristine Katherine Rusch's Retrieval Artist novels. A Sam Spade-esque hero who acts as a bounty hunter/intermediary between alien races and the humans who run afoul of their laws.

4) Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion cycle. Everyone knows about Elric, Hawkmoon and Corum, but they forget about Eric Bastable and Jerry Cornelius, Una Persson and others.

5) Greg Bear's Forge of God and Anvil of Stars. Humanity loses nearly EVERYTHING when Earth is destroyed...then the survivors begin to fight back.

6) Larry Niven's Known Space stories. So broad, there are too many tales to cover, but includes the Man-Kzin wars, Gil "the Arm" Hamilton, and Draco's Tavern.

7) The works of Phillip K. Dick- his stories inspired the movies Blade Runner, the Terminator franchise, Screamers and Minority Report- some of which are closer to the text than others.

8) The works of William Gibson- his writings are basically the best of the entire cyberpunk genre- action, mystery, and excellent pacing. 'Nuff said.

8) William Burroughs' John Carter of Mars books, as well as Leigh Brackett's excellent homage novels about Eric John Stark on Skaith. Classic pulp and pulp-style action with swords and blasters.

Dannyalcatraz said:

1) Larry Niven & Steven Barnes' Dream Park novels. They combine the elements of mysteries, sci-fi and fantasy by telling murder/industrial espionage stories in the world of competitive broadcast LARPing. Think American Gladiators + Survivor for the role-play set, combined with the high-tech of Westworld & Futureworld.

2) Ben Bova's Grand Tour books (the ones named after planets). Tales of the early days of exploring our solar system, including the machinations of plutocrats who want fame, fortune and power by being first. Some of Bova's best stuff.

3) Kristine Katherine Rusch's Retrieval Artist novels. A Sam Spade-esque hero who acts as a bounty hunter/intermediary between alien races and the humans who run afoul of their laws.

4) Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion cycle. Everyone knows about Elric, Hawkmoon and Corum, but they forget about Eric Bastable and Jerry Cornelius, Una Persson and others.

5) Greg Bear's Forge of God and Anvil of Stars. Humanity loses nearly EVERYTHING when Earth is destroyed...then the survivors begin to fight back.

6) Larry Niven's Known Space stories. So broad, there are too many tales to cover, but includes the Man-Kzin wars, Gil "the Arm" Hamilton, and Draco's Tavern.

7) The works of Phillip K. Dick- his stories inspired the movies Blade Runner, the Terminator franchise, Screamers and Minority Report- some of which are closer to the text than others.

8) The works of William Gibson- his writings are basically the best of the entire cyberpunk genre- action, mystery, and excellent pacing. 'Nuff said.

8) William Burroughs' John Carter of Mars books, as well as Leigh Brackett's excellent homage novels about Eric John Stark on Skaith. Classic pulp and pulp-style action with swords and blasters.

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These sound great! I've at least seen #2, 3, & 5. Are the others in print?

Hard to say- they're big & important enough that even if they go out of print, they don't stay out of print.

Niven stuff should be easy to find, though the Dream Park novels are not nearly as popular as his more famous Known World stories. There are several stand-alone Man-Kzin wars standalone collections, and the Gil Hamilton and Draco's Tavern stories were both recently released as omnibus editions.

Moorcock's stuff should be easy to find, but the sci-fi stuff is a bit rarer. However, there is a bit of the Jerry Cornelius stuff floating around in collections.

Leigh Brackett's stuff is much harder to find. Her career, though illustrious, was cut tragically short. As a result, not many people know her as a writer (though they've probably seen a movie she worked on). I know the Skaith books were published both individually and as an omnibus edition.

Phillip Dick's stuff is in print, but much of his writing is in short-story form- including most of the ones that inspired the movies. IOW, you're going to have to look around and read quite a bit of his stuff to find what you're looking for. You might do better checking him out at your library, though he is really one of the best sci-fi writers of all time.

Most of Gibson's stuff should be in print.

Ach- I can't believe I forgot:

1) Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers- quite simply THE book about a military campaign against insectoid hivemind aliens.

2) Asimov's "Nightfall"- a short story expanded to novel length in partnership with Robert Silverberg; considered by many to be the best sci-fi story ever written. The setting's complex solar system may have been the inspiration for the movie Pitch Black (you know, the good movie with Vin Diesel as Riddick). It covers an alien world with a modern day society that undergoes a kind of apocalypse every 1000 years. It could serve very well as a campaign setting for a post-apocalyptic campaign. (FWIW, the novelization doesn't really improve the story, just expands it and spells out the consequences.)

3) SM Stirling's Island in the Stream of Time novels and the related novels of the Change. Both series cover what happens after some bizzare cosmic event happens to Earth- in the former, the inhabitants of the island of Nantucket and a Naval Carrier are catapulted back in time to (as I recall) the Bronze Age while not moving in space. In the latter, the same event undoes the physics of any technology beyond a certain point, leaving the entire world with no operable tech beyond about the medieval level. The characters must survive how the technology shutdown affects the flow of food, lack of transportation or power, and so forth. Outdoorsy types and the odd LARPers form the core of the main characters in the novels.

David Drake is the king of Military SF, IMHO, when he's good he's great, when he's not he tends to suck.

Forlorn Hope is probably his best book. It's sort of kinda set in his "Hammer's Slammer's" Universe. It's about a band of mercs that get betrayed and have to fight their way out.

Of his Hammer's Slammers books, the first short story compilation, "Hammer's Slammers" has some great stories. Rolling Hot and The Warrior are both very good and recently collected in a omnibus volume. Counting the Costs is okay. The rest are pretty much eh, at best.

If you like historical fiction with a touch of SF, his Belesarius series (co written with Eric Flint) is a great read. Basically there's a time war going on and the industrial revolution starts kicking off in Justinian's time (Eastern Roman Empire). It does start to suffer a bit from everyone being Uber characters towards the end, but is still very entertaining.

Larry Niven is great and pretty much anything by him is a good read. His "Mote" books with Jerry Pournelle are great as well.

I would ... NOT recommend the Cornelius books by Moorcock. I'm a big fan of his and I could barely force myself to get through them, only so I could say I'd read all of his stuff (out at the time). His other more SF-ie stuff is at least okay, but none of it is something I'd rate as much better than "okay".

Edmund Hammilton's "Night's Dawn" series is pretty interesting and well written. He's got a knack for thinking about some of the implications of technology. Fallen Dragon wasn't bad and the Nightflyer series was very good as well. The more recent "Dreaming Void" follow on to the Nightflyer books wasn't as good though.

Charles Stross is pretty good. Another guy with a knack for some of the implications of technology. Iron Sunrise was good as are the other books in that "world". He has a modern take on the Cthulhu mythos that's very good "The Atrocity Archives" and "The Jennifer Morgue".

David Webber is almost always a terrific read, but he does get kind of pedantic at times and many of his villains do tend to be kind of one dimensional. Still almost always a great read despite this.

John Ringos main Possleen series is pretty good military SF. His "Through the Looking Glass" books are good as well. The later Possleen books are a very mixed bag and I would probably just avoid his "Ghost" series about a Special Forces guy (Just google "oh john ringo no!" if you want to know why).

Glen Cook does do mainly Fantasy, but his "The Dragon Never Sleeps" (SF despite the title) is one of my favorite books.

I enjoyed a lot of Jack L Chalker's early stuff a lot (Well World), but eventually you realize all of his books are based around body swapping/changing and you start to just wonder about him.

Oh yeah, David Weber and Steve White's Starfire series. They are novalizations from the Starfire computer game, which they both wrote for.