Scifi recommendations

This is not so much a book review, as a plea for help.I like science fiction. Or, I should say, I like the idea of science fiction. In practice I find most of it deeply disappointing.I know the old adage that 95% of everything is shit, and that sci-fi is no different from anything else in this respect. But I'm often surprised by how terrible some of the 'great classics' turn out to be.I'm currently reading The Mote in God's Eye, which I've been led to believe is one of the all time greats. I haven't finished (no spoilers please!), so maybe it improves, but I'll have to be honest that my initial impressions are that it's really shit.Cardboard characters, a setting that shattered my suspension of disbelief right from the beginning, tedious writing style. The idea that engrossing fiction should show, not tell, is not a new one, and yet it seems never to have occurred to Niven and Pournelle. Much of it reads less like a novel and more like a sourcebook for an rpg.The discovery that scientists of the far future have a 20th century journalist's understanding of evolution is not unexpected, but doesn't improve my view of the book.So, having said all that, can anyone recommend me good scifi? There must be more of it out there. I promise not to complain if I hate your recommendations. Not much, anyway.

The Iain M Banks series of Culture books is probably as good as SF gets. Also the Wasp Factory. He's a 'proper' novelist writing non-SF as Iain Banks.Classics like Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 and Breakfast of Champions too.

The Mote in God’s Eye is hardly recent.I don’t know your tastes, but if modern:Space Opera is your thing you could try the late Ian M Banks Culture series (start with The Player of Games, even though Consider Phlebas was published first and is chronologically first).Alistair Reynolds’s Revelation Space is worth a look.So is Anne Leckie’s Imperial Raadch series, starting with Ancilliary JusticeIf you want something (much) more down to Earth, the alternate history space program in Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars might appeal. (It won the Hugo for best novel this year - presented by Jeanette Epps - very appropriate).If you are prepared to put up with fantastic elements in your SF, then N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy or Yoon Ha Lee’s Machineries of Empire series might be worth trying (for the latter read The Battle of Candle Arc first - as a taster and because it introduces some of the weirder stuff}

I rather liked Vonnegut too. But my favorite science fiction author is Kilgore Trout. His ideas are put out there but don't get beaten to death like a lot of pulp sci-fi.

One book series I can recommend is The Expanse books that are also the reference material for The Expanse TV show.The first book in the series is Leviathan Wakes and there are a total of eight books currently in the series. The ninth book, which will be the last, is due out next year.The books themselves are a combination of sci fi battles, political intrigue and science that is more grounded in modern physics. Which adds to some interesting plot devices and story lines. Additionally, if one likes the type of sci fi you normally find with Arthur C Clarke, these books are akin to that type of storytelling.

Probably the best sf book I've read in the last year is Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie. The protagonist is an Al which used to run a interplanetary warship but is now confined to a single human body. Something happened and now the protagonist is seeking revenge, but the protagonist-narrator takes the entire length of the book to little by little give out the details, and the mystery of what was actually going on was riveting to me. The novel is the beginning of a trilogy.Another interesting aspect is that the language used by the narrator doesn't have gendered pronouns; the English uses she/her to refer to all the characters. Only occasionally does something biological get mentioned to give away a character's sex.So far, I've liked everything I've read by Vernor Vinge.

And so it goes.

I've read a lot of Iain Banks, but oddly none of the books where he has a middle initial. I did enjoy some of his books, so will certainly give them a try. Slaughterhouse 5 is great, but I'm not really sure I'd consider it scifi. Kind of hard to classify.

The great classics rarely are, by definition. Publication date is not a concern.Recommendations noted. Ancillary Justice and the Culture novels got multiple votes, so I might opt for them.

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The great classics rarely are, by definition. Publication date is not a concern.

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I don’t think that The Mote in God’s Eye is a great classic in that sense. It was a work of its time and - in SF - a major work in its time. But things change.For real classics I’d go to Stapledon for First and Last Men or Wells for War of the Worlds and The Time Machine.
Or some of Ursula le Guin’s SF - The Dispossesed is considered a classic.For influential works I’d go for E. E. Smith’s pulpy Lensman series (skip Triplanetary for sure and probably First Lensman too). Maybe the original Foundation trilogy, too (although I haven’t reread it at all recently and I was greatly disappointed by a reread of Asimov’s robot stories).

I liked Frank Herbert's books, and in recent years his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have written a series that back stories to the Dune books that I enjoyed.I also like Neal Stephenson's books, especially Seveneves.I thought 11-22-63 by Stephen King was quite good.

The Foundation books were another in the line of supposed classics that disappointed me greatly, and I've never read I, Robot as a result. They struck me as Asimov more describing a concept than writing a novel.

I remember really enjoying Dune - are the sequels worth delving into?

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...in recent years his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have written a series that back stories to the Dune books that I enjoyed.

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I have...heard of those.

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I also like Neal Stephenson's books, especially Seveneves

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I think that Anathem is pretty good. The Rise And Fall of D.O.D.O. is fun.

There’s a reason I pointed to them as influential, rather than good.But Donald Kingsbury wrote a rather good unauthorised sequel Psychohistorical Crisis with numerous changes of names.