I’ve recently gotten into reading and have completed some novels and graphic novels. I will not care if it’s a novel, graphic novel, or something else. Any recommendation is great. Thanks
Edit: Thanks for suggestion. I started reading The Hunger Games. And put other in my read list.
Artemis by Andy Weir is excellent, and less technical than his other books (which are also great).
The Murderbot series is pretty easy to get into and has some decent space adventure.
Also, I enjoyed the Silo series, which is now a good show on Apple.
Currently reading the first of the murderbot series and I agree it is very easy to get into from page one.
Feed is a YA novel about a society that is constantly online and what that means for social trends and consumerism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_(Anderson_novel)?useskin=vector
Children of Time is long but it’s not complicated. It’s not totally dystopian but has the premise that Earth is a dying planet, so humans set out into the galaxy to terraform another world to live on. They bring a virus that will hasten the evolution of a native species, but they accidentally deploy it onto a world’s spiders instead of mammals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)
We is a 1924 book about a totalitarian state by a Russian author, sort of a precursor to 1984 and Brave New World. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)
A lot of Dick books are dystopian, perhaps most famously Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which is what the movie Blade Runner was based on.
Wikipedia has a list here if you need some more ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature?useskin=vector
ed: fixed links
I’m gonna second Children of Time (and its two sequels, Children of Ruin and Children of Memory). Children of Time is one of my favourite books, and I really love the way the story is told over multiple generations and we get to see the world advance and grow. Also, the resolution of the story is perfect in my eyes
I agree that they’re all great but Children of Ruin really did it for me. Definitely in my top 3 sci-fi books of all time.
“We’re going on an adventure”
Chilling.
BTW your Feed Wikipedia link is empty. Thanks for the rec, though - I’m not OP but added it to my To Read list.
Odd, works for me. Here’s a slightly different link that might work for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_(Anderson_novel)
Yeah, I ran across it in a class I took about YA and it was probably the best book we did that semester. Being YA it’s a quick read too.
Aha that one worked!
I see what the problem is-- the parentheses in the links were screwing up the formatting. You can use a slash (or a backslash maybe?) as an escape to tell it not to read the following parenthesis as code, but I dunno how to do that here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel/))
odd-- it won’t even let me save a backslash into the comment link-- it automatically converts it to a slash before publishing. Oh well, a mystery for another day
\//
For a beginner, try out the Hunger Games novels. They’re easy to read and a lot of fun.
Thanks I am reading it now.
The Silo series by Hugh Howey is pretty great. Read the books before watching the Apple TV series.
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverburg is an adventure / apocalypse story of a planet orbiting seven suns, giving constant daylight. When night falls for the first time in documented history, everything goes wrong and we follow one person’s journey to survive. Isaac is a great writer and very beginner friendly - he’s one of my favourite authors and I’d recommend almost anything he’s written.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Colins is a dystopian novel that basically defined the 2010s with all the films and copy-cats it inspired. An evil government rules and to punish those that rose up against it, forces children of its occupied states to fight to the death for entertainment. They’re pretty good books but, for me, not as good as the others I’m recommending. They do fit your criteria better though I’d say.
The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clarke is a classic adventure story wherein an occupant of a closed-off city of the far future breaks out and explores the universe before returning and changing the city forever. I haven’t re-read it in a few years, but I remember liking it a lot at the time.
Anne McCaffrey is my second-favourite author and I highly recommend her entire Pern series. They are mostly adventure / coming-of-age books and technically they are all sci-fi, but the first few are definitely fantasy in practise. Start with Dragonflight or The White Dragon, probably. And skip anything that Todd McCaffrey wrote IMO.
Gravity Dreams by LE Modesitt is a bit unlike any other book I’ve read. It’s about a guy who gets thrust into a new society against his will. It’s about longing and desire, and how we fit into society, and what we dream of. I think it was really cool and I didn’t expect to like it after the first few pages. I only bought it because the cover looks like classic sci-fi and reminds me of the submarine from Thunderbirds - but actually it was only released in 1999. Anyway, a really good book which is loosely an adventure, but probably doesn’t quite fit what you’re asking.
Anyway, I’ve been looking at my bookshelf and reminiscing for a while. If someone particularly likes these recommendations I can give a few more in the same vein but for now I’ve spent enough time on Lemmy…
Theft of Fire by Devon Erikson. A most surprising read for a debut novel.
“The Giver” by Lois Lowry. It’s a YA book, but it’s still a good read as an adult. Avoid the movie adaptation.
Jules Verne is good for a beginner, I think. Yes, the books are old, but they still stand up. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas is great.
For graphic novels, I feel like recommending Transmetropolitan and V for Vendetta. Both are dystopian sci-fi.
Also Saga and Y the Last Man. Both written by Brian K Vaughan. Fabulous graphic novels/stories.
Skyward by Brandon Sanderson pretty much fits the bill. It’s SciFi, dystopian (aliens are bombarding the planet and a small holdout of humans fight back) and good for beginners as it’s a young adult book. The first book is a bit lacking in adventure though, but it is the beginning of a 4 book series with a couple of mini side books that would fulfill any adventure itch you have.
Brandon Sanderson has such a way with world building. I find his books very easy to read. The character arcs and twists make rereads worth it.
“Dungeon Crawler Carl” by Matt Dinnaman
Great sci-fi/fantasy story with a massive dystopian backdrop and fantastic adventure elements. Character interactions are great, and it is a ridiculously fun romp.
It has been a great reintroduction to how much fun reading can be.
I really really like this series. It’s fun without being cheesy, but it can still make you cry. I can’t wait for the next book.
W I think 1984, Brave New World, and Farhenheit 451 are great choices for dystopian beginnings
Aldo possibly some Cody Doctorow novels for something contemporary
To Hold Up the Sky and/or The Wandering Earth both by Cixin Liu
Both books are a series of short stories that mostly meet your criteria. I think short stories are easier for a newer reader as they don’t ask as much for as long and can be read in bites, put down and came back to later without needing to remember as much.
Snow Crash maybe
An Andy Weir book, The Martian or Hail Mary Project.
The Forever War
I’m not sure what a beginner really means. Maybe some YA like The Uglies, Scythe or any of Heinlein’s fun YA novels.
beginner really means.
I mean not so much complicated or deep.
Then I would take Snow Crash off the list for now.
These are great recommendations. I dunno if it fits the requirements but Neuromancer was my first sci-fi book and it sold me on the genre. The first three books you mentioned were some of the first ones I read.
For a bit of sci-fi horror/adventure there’s John Dies at The End
I’ve not read any myself because my brain is too fried, but I’ve heard great things about Ursula K. Le Guin’s books, especially The Dispossessed.
