On the Dragonlance front, I thought the
Legends trilogy (
Time of the Twins,
War of the Twins,
Test of the Twins) was head and shoulders above
Chronicles, myself. Felt far more epic and dramatic somehow, possibly because all of the drama and plotting was focused on two primary characters (the Twins) rather than on many (the adventuring party known as the Heroes of the Lance).
But for gritty sci-fi, I think it's hard to top the
Revelation Space trilogy by Alistair Reynolds (
Revelation Space,
Redemption Ark,
Absolution Gap, and a sort-of side story set in the same universe,
Chasm City). Fair warning, stay away from it if profanity offends you, since most of the main characters in the series use it liberally, but it feels very real. The characters are without exception complex in their motivations and actions, and the history spanned is fairly epic as well by necessity- unlike many sci-fi novels, this trilogy assumes that lightspeed is the limit.
It's set in a future about 400 years hence (to start with, anyway), when humanity has built a small empire of interstellar colonies- though due to the lack of FTL travel or communication there is no central government, each planet is more like a city-state of the ancient world on Earth. The technology level shown is extremely high- nanotech is in just about everything, genetic engineering has created species of animals that can talk and have gripping appendages ("hyperdogs," "hypercats," "hyperpigs," etc.), and a whole segment of human civilization has implants allowing them to communicate telepathically. And despite all these wonders, human nature is as dysfunctional and nasty as ever, with occasional heroes popping up now and then to save the day. Even with all these crazy advances, the books made the universe feel real to me, though some of the alien technology introduced in the later books got difficult to wrap my head around (probably at least partly because even the human and human-allied characters aren't sure how the things work).
I found these utterly fascinating myself, and once I got into them they were can't-put-down page-turners. Even though the final ending in
Absolution Gap felt rushed, I still consider them great reads and well worth the time to check out if you're into sci-fi. Plus, they sparked a lot of ideas in my head for cool things to use in games- one of these days I really must stat up an Inhibitor Swarm for d20.
Thanks again for the compilation!
