Wool was good, petty quick read. Pretty interesting concept and post-apocalyptic world. However, I thought as a writer, his skill was at best, average. I think he could have done much more with the characters and the story.

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fwiw, hearing good things about Leviathan Wakes, James SA Corey

Yep, I enjoyed the Expanse series. (Leviathan Wakes is the first book.)

The new SyFy show "Expanse" just started this month based off the series. Seems like it's off to a decent start. I'd definitely recommend reading the books first to get a sense of the characters and the settings.

Revisiting again, having just finished Crytptonomicon. I'm seeing now what others said about Stephenson's tendency to give short shrift to the ending. Not as obvious as Seveneves, but still the book just seemed to end abruptly.

I might try to give Anathem another try. In the meantime, I'm working on The Three Body Problem by a Chinese author Cixin.

Between the last time I was in this thread and now, I did the Zones of Thought series by Vinge (pretty good books), The Old Man's War series by Scalzi (I also enjoyed these), and Snow Crash. Another interesting series was the Imperial Radch series by Leckie, which took some heat in some circles of the types of guy nerds who get overly defensive if ladies stick their noses in the sci-fi world.

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Slowguy

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I really enjoyed Leckie's Radch series, although the first was by far the best of the three. I liked how she messed with gender, everyone is a she regardless of their actual biology. Ursula Le Guin did a bit of that in her novels and short stories. I also loved Vinge's Zones of Thought series, I'll have to check out Scalzi's books as you seem to have good taste in SciFi!

I'm working my way through Karl Ove Knausguard's My Struggle series (should be pretentious and boring yet is oddly riveting) so I'll need some light reading between volumes.

I just read Seveneves, and I like others I found the first half of the book really engaging.

The second half, I wished for a bit more of an ending, I felt there was too much just left hanging.

Three body problem, and it's follow-up the Dark Forest I found to be great reads. I'm looking forward to the third book this fall. I'm really interested to compare the style of the third book to the second to figure out if the stylistic differences between the two were intentional on the author's part of it it is an artifact of the different translators. I think there is a movie being made, I will probably have to find a subtitled version when it comes out.

I just read Proxima and Ultima by Stephan Baxter and found them pretty good.

The Expanse series of books is a good read, good character development, some good supporting novellas.

A +1 on Old Man's War.

Moon exploding sci-fi has already been done and better it seems to me....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhAobPugvsk

Loved it as a kid....

Just read Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson. Thought it was great. Better than 2312 which I also read.

I loved the first Radch book. Couldn't make it through the second one. It was such a different tone with all the politics and it felt like it got so sidetracked from the events of the first. Maybe it all came together in the end, but I gave up and I don't give up on many books.

My favorite will always be the Revelation Space series by Alistair Reynolds. Plus anything else he writes (i.e. House of Suns)

Working on Stephen Baxter Xeelee sequence right now. It was hard to find, I couldn't find many of the books on Kindle. I had to order an omnibus from Amazon UK.

I agree with the rest of the thread about the 2/3...1/3 split in the book. I really enjoyed the first two thirds but was left unsatisfied by the last third.

I'm now reading the Ember Wars by Richard Fox. End of the Earth almost Battlestar Galactica like scenario. It's made for a very enjoyable read.

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of interest -- new sci fi, alternate history and fantasy.

The Underground Railroad just won a National Book award as well.

I've enjoyed the Laundry Files series from Stross. They are fun filler reading for me, not the can't put it down sort of thing, but solid.

The most recent Sci Fi I read that I strongly recommend isn't on that list, it is Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon (and the two follow on books in the series were not bad).

Just finished the latest in the Expanse series. Overall a pretty good series, and plenty to chew on with several novels and a handful of short novellas.

I also just recently read a collection of short stories from the author who wrote "Stories of Your Life" which was the basis for the movie "Arrival." Really interesting stuff, and a little outside the standard science fiction formula.

I've got "The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet" and the Lightless Trilogy teed up next in my Kindle, but I'm always looking for good stuff.

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Slowguy

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Timely bump. Just started Seveneves on audible and am about 15% of the way through. Please tell me it gets better. It is painfully detailed for my liking so far.

It's pretty detailed all the way through, at least the first two thirds. I'm not sure how much I would have liked it on audiobook.

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Slowguy

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I'm about 50% thru. Honestly I just let the technical stuff go in one ear out the other. Once the rain falls it gets better (trying not to spoil)

I just finished the book. If the detailed technical stuff bores you then be prepared to do a lot of skimming in the 3rd part. It is primarily nerd porn with a weak predictable plot.

If they ever do make the movie I would guess it will stop at the end of the 2nd part.