/lit/ - Literature

>>20686848
Read Starmaker and return.

>>18430566
>How about you tell me the story of a single character from this world?
you don't really need that to be compelling

Star Maker is the culmination of sci fi

Does /lit/ approve?

Top recommendation: Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon. It's criminally unread nowadays. It's a long-form exploration of the history of the universe, from the perspective of an Englishman who has an out-of-body experience. As he journeys across the universe his consciousness expands and the perspective of the story becomes wider and wider. Probably the singularly most imaginative SF novel every written, you can find almost any SF concept that would ever be thought of in here somewhere. His writing inspired some of the next generation SF greats like Arthur Clarke and Brian Aldiss but nowadays is rarely read. His style can be slightly antiquated at first, but I didn't find it a problem overall.

Iain M Banks has some excellent space opera books. Try Player of Games or Use of Weapons to start. Any of the novels in his Culture series can be read in any order once you have an idea of the setting. They're about a powerful interstellar society, sort of like Star Trek's Federation, but higher tech, more anarchistic, and more interventionist in other societies. He essentially uses the setting to critique and explore his idea of Utopia. He has a great mixture of strong character writing, humour, grotesque and horrifying moments, sentimentality, etc. A true gem of a writer. Consider Phlebas is the only novel I've read of his that I wouldn't recommend.

Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss is an adventure story with a twist ending that was a good quick read, I'd give that a go if you want to try "classic" mid-20th century SF. Supposedly his other novels are also quite good.

Dune is a common recommendation, but it's written in a somewhat stilted style that can take some getting used to, and it can be tough wrapping your head around what's going on/people's motivations. IMO it was worth the read.

Neuromancer is the classic cyberpunk novel. It's written in a very baroque style, focusing on richly textured description. It might not to be to your taste, but I find that "golden age" SF writers have very sterile descriptive styles.

Philip K Dick goes for reality and identity bending fiction. VALIS is his best novel that I've read. It's a sort of semi-autobiographical story about a possibly insane man searching for ultimate truth after he experiences what he believes is a satellite, VALIS, beaming information directly into his mind. Dick generally goes for trippy experiences.

Read Star Maker.

>>7978662
Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon
Thank me later

Absolutely. Mostly if I'm paying for a book. It doesn't matter to the same extent if I'm renting a library book. Yet if something is going to display on my shelf, then I'm not going to invest in a poorly done cover.

My favorite