Books like Player Of Games
30 science fiction books to read after Player Of Games, by Iain M. Banks, the closest match first.
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Culture book 1 Start here
1. Consider Phlebas
by Iain M. Banks
- Same series
- Same author
A sprawling series with a well developed society complete with social norms, language, biology, artificial intelligences, and the list goes on.
Banks himself once described the plot of Consider Phlebas as: "a shipwrecked sailor falls in with a gang of pirates and goes in search of buried treasure." And that's precisely...
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Culture book 3
2. Use Of Weapons
by Iain M. Banks
- Same series
- Same author
Features a Utopian society (culture) that's post scarcity, controlled by benevolent A. I.'s who act for the good of the society. When Culture encounters less enlightened societies, the fun begins.
Iain Banks burst onto the literary scene with his controversial first novel, The Wasp Factory, the violent story of a girl who had been brought up as an emasculated boy....
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Culture book 4
3. The State Of The Art
by Iain M. Banks
- Same series
- Same author
A collection of short fiction set in Iain M. Banks's Culture, including the title novella about a Culture contact officer on Earth in the 1970s.
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Culture book 5
4. Excession
by Iain M. Banks
- Same series
- Same author
This novel features spaceships that are sentient.
The only negative accusation that the Culture Novels series receives is that it's too complicated and detailed, with so many AI characters to remember. Now of course, we don't think...
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Culture book 6
5. Inversions
by Iain M. Banks
- Same series
- Same author
A Culture novel set among a pre-industrial people, where a doctor-spy serves a king and learns that outside forces are watching her world. Iain M. Banks tells it in two...
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Culture book 7
6. Look To Windward
by Iain M. Banks
- Same series
- Same author
A Culture novel in which a composer from the Chelgrian people and a visitor with a secret mission both come to the Culture's Orbital, in a story of memory, loss...
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Culture book 9
7. Surface Detail
by Iain M. Banks
- Same series
- Same author
The story of what happens to Hell in a galaxy where humans live without physical form eternally.
A Culture novel about a virtual Hell, built by a civilisation to punish the digital copies of the dead, and a woman who escapes it to take her revenge in...
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Culture book 10
8. The Hydrogen Sonata
by Iain M. Banks
- Same series
- Same author
The tenth Culture novel, a story of an ancient music, a dying civilisation and a war that touches the Culture, from Iain M. Banks.
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9. Starship Troopers
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- On the same lists
The world government in this future Earth is run by veterans and citizens must earn the right to vote and hold public office with federal service.
Book Flap Description A recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the universe and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against humankind's most frightening enemy. ...
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10. Ubik
by Dick, Philip K.
- On the same lists
What is a best science fiction list without the inclusion of one of the greatest science fiction writers ever? Yes, I'm talking about Philip K. Dick, a man ignored in...
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11. Anathem
by Stephenson, Neal
- On the same lists
Wow, what a ride from beginning to end. True to a Neal Stephenson tradition, it ties a number of completely different ideas and themes together into a (somehow) working thread....
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Night's Dawn book 1 Start here
12. The Reality Dysfunction
by Iii, David R. George
- On the same lists
Space is not the only void... In AD 2600 the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a...
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Heechee Saga book 1 Start here
13. Gateway (1978)
by Pohl, Frederik
- On the same lists
Robinette Broadhead is rich, and he has a lot to feel guilty about. In sessions with his robot psychiatrist, he talks about how he got there: he won a lottery...
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14. Miles Vorkosigan Saga
by Bujold, Lois Mcmaster
- On the same lists
There's a time for everything. There's a time to read heavy novels filled with grand ideas and space, the universe, and the destiny of mankind through Hard Science Fiction. There's...
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Hyperion Cantos book 1 Start here
15. Hyperion
by Simmons, Dan
- On the same lists
So most of this series is in fact, not Dying Earth but it is a pinnacle of science fiction. The Poet's Tale: Hyperion Cantos in the first novel of Hyperion is a part of the Dying Earth sub-genre and it is the connection the readers have from Earth to the strange new universe of Hyperion.
A grand intelligent space opera tale that also tells a series of very personal tales. This juxtaposition between epic and the personal gives real life to the story. The whole...
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Zones Of Thought book 1 Start here
16. A Fire Upon The Deep
by Vernor Vinge
- On the same lists
The first book in the Zones of Thought series and tells the tale of a galactic war. In the story the mind's potential is determined by its location in space.
Set thousands of years into the future, the universe is inhabited by various races, including super-intelligent entities in the Transcend and the simple creatures and technology of the Unthinking Depths....
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17. The Stars My Destination
by Alfred Bester
- On the same lists
A mechanic is the sole survivor on a ship that is just a wreck.
He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead. Gully Foyle is a shipwrecked sailor abandoned out in space, and when ships pass him by without stopping...
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18. Snow Crash
by Stephenson, Neal
- On the same lists
Considered by some as a parody of Cyberpunk. This novel popularized and cemented its use of the term avatar to describe online virtual bodies
Meet Hiro Protagonist: hacker, samurai swinging swordsman and pizza delivery boy. When his best friend dies of a brain fry and his ex girlfriend asks for his help, Hiro switches...
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Space Odyssey book 1 Start here
19. 2001 A Space Odyssey
by Clarke, Arthur C.
- On the same lists
This novel is an epic story, a story in which two astronauts must fight for their lives, against an extraordinary computer named HAL.
The classic science fiction novel that captures and expands on the vision of Stanley Kubrick’s immortal film—and changed the way we look at the stars and ourselves. From the savannas...
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Spin book 1 Start here
20. Spin
by Robert Charles Wilson
- On the same lists
The stars go out—replaced by an alien-made barrier that slows the passage of time on Earth and the danger the sun poses comes ever closer.
One night, when he is 12 years old, Tyler Dupree and two friends witness all the stars in the sky suddenly disappearing. It turns out that a membrane has been...
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Old Man's War book 1 Start here
21. Old Man's War
by John Scalzi
- On the same lists
Geriatrics are transferred into healthier bodies and enhanced soldier bodies.
John Scalzi is one of the shining lights of today’s science fiction landscape. His first novel, Old Man’s War, was an incredible introduction, bringing Scalzi to international attention, as well...
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Dune Chronicles book 1 Start here
22. Dune
by Herbert, Frank
- On the same lists
The whole series over time shows the colonization and taming of the wild planet Dune over thousands of years.
A blend of sci-fi and fantasy, Frank Herbert's Dune created a foundation for many of the themes in modern genre fiction. Its exploration of ecology, pacifism, and mysticism pairs with...
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Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy book 1 Start here
23. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
- On the same lists
It began as a radio series on the BBC. It was quickly adapted for television (with many of the same cast), and much later there came a film version (though...
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Firefall book 1 Start here
24. Blindsight
by Peter Watts
- On the same lists
A group of freaks (who are also astronauts) are sent on a one way mission to investigate a mysterious object that appears at the edge of human space. Atmospheric and creepy.
This novel has been hailed as one of the best hard sf stories written this century. It's an awesome novel, packed with invention and new ideas and challenges to the...
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The Book Of The New Sun book 1 Start here
25. 1981: The Shadow Of The Torturer
by Wolfe, Gene
- On the same lists
The sun has dimmed, the Earth is cooler and has been transformed in wondrous ways.
'The Shadow of the Torturer' is the first book in Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun tetralogy. Narrated by Severian, a member of the Guild of Torturers, the...
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Takeshi Kovacs book 1 Start here
26. Altered Carbon
by Morgan, Richard K.
- On the same lists
Humans can transfer their conciousness into new bodies. This sets up a detective style story about a murder.
After dying in a particularly gruesome death, ex UN-envoy Takeshi Kovacs wakes up to find himself "re-sleeved" into a fresh body with a job offer: find who killed Laurens Bancroft...
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27. Foundation
by Asimov, Isaac
- On the same lists
Some softer elements, like FTL and antigrav cars, but otherwise a rational series.
Book Flap Description One of the great masterworks of science fiction, the Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive...
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The Forever War book 1 Start here
28. The Forever War (1976)
by Haldeman, Joe
- On the same lists
In this novel, time travel is a kind of side effect of space travel at near light speeds.
William Mandella is a physics student drafted into an elite force to fight an alien enemy on the far side of the galaxy. Travel between the front lines takes a...
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The Sprawl book 1 Start here
29. Neuromancer (1985)
by Gibson, William
- On the same lists
Gibson is the father of Cyberpunk and this novel in particular is significant. In this novel the term cyberspace is coined.
Case was the best hacker in the Sprawl until his employers damaged his nervous system, and now he can no longer reach cyberspace. He drifts through the criminal underworld of...
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30. The Windup Girl (2010)
by Bacigalupi, Paolo
- On the same lists
In a future Bangkok, walled in against rising seas and kept alive by a ruthless seed bank, the world's calories are controlled by a few giant corporations. Anderson Lake poses...
Matches come from series and authors, from the lists the books share, and from the books readers open together. They are rebuilt every night. Back to Player Of Games.
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