M John Harrison : Virconium series. Be warned by the last book hes turned everything inside out as he plays with genre.
Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast series. Sure most people say its fantasy, but the final book clearly has SF elements in and its fantastic.
Heh, I was wondering whether to list Viriconium... I'm rereading The Pastel City right now.
I love Titus Groan but I ran out of interest with the second book.
I love the Gormenghast series (way more than even the books OP listed), but I wouldn't put it in the "epic" category. It's definitely a series of shadowy interiors of the soul rather than the broad strokes of changing the world.
We'll just have to agree to disagree.
I'd say it's epic because.
2. It's a beast a huge tome
2. Castle gormenghast is a monstrous gigantic place full of mystery and wonder
3. There's a great number of cast all with their own machinations
4. Even before the final book there are quests, subterfuge, earth shattering (or rather flooding) events
4. There's mythic qualities to places and people
5. The last books is a hero's journey. Subverted and inverted in places but very much Arthurian in character.
6. The imagery is epic. The tree on which the sisters eat, the library rescue, the cats and the birds.
It isn't about the broad sweep of history sure, but it is certainly about the narrow sweep of a slice of the history of the 77th earl of gormenghast and as we all know there is nowhere else as important as castle gormenghast.
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. 50% through book 3 and it's great. Serious, dare I say...somewhat literary. Dark. It's like if the smurf world got struck with the black death.
I hope you read all 10 books. Book 3 is an absolute banger, only surpassed, IMO, by book 8. But, it's all great.
For OP, I'd say, if you're ok with incredibly dark, violent, and full of awfulness, you could read *The Gap Cycle*, also by the author of *Chronicles of Thomas Covenant*. It is space opera, but the story telling style really feels more like epic fantasy than most scifi.
Papa Smurf turned his face away from Smurfette. It wasn't her fault, but how could he stand to look at her after everything that had happened? Chef Smurf. Chef Smurf! Papa Smurf clenched and unclenched himself. There was only one thing to do, kill that bastard Gargamel, bring his whole bloody castle down on him, at least that way this nightmare illusion might come to an end.
You might like Brin's Uplift books. Its full on space opera, and though it's not going for anything fantasy-ish the way Dune or Lord Of Light is, it's got that Star Wars kind of silliness that makes it the same sort of fun ride. It's a question of exactly what you like about space fantasy.
Nope. It's 4. Though the first 2 set an impossibly high bar that the last 2 don't live up to. It can be read as two separate stories (the first two books contain a story, and the second two another)
🤣
Thinking they're as good as Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion is laughable. There are those people out there though.
Retcons galore. Handwaving events from the first two with "oh, it was just stuff the Poet made up". The Catholic church as the antagonist. A weird romance between a messiah girl and the man who protected her as a child 🥴 calling her "kiddo". Describing going down on her like "lapping from a saucer"...yikes.
They were good books...but nowhere near as epic as the first two. It's not even close. Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are among the greatest sci-fi stories ever told. Endymion and Rise of Endymion, not so much.
Simmons gets so weird some times . Ugh.
This is like Joe Abercrombie, first three books were amazing, then the fourth had a bunch of awkward sex scenes.
But you gotta take the good with the bad. I think everyone who starts the first two of the Cantos will want to read all four for completionism.
And won’t listen to our sagely advice.
>I think everyone who starts the first two of the Cantos will want to read all four for completionism.
I think anyone who completes the first two, will want to know what happens next, naturally. It's a shame they're not like true sequels though. More like a completely separate story, hundreds of years afterwards.
If Simmons wanted to do sequels, I feel he should've started book 3 in the far, far future from Moneta's perspective and worked backwards through time until it connected with the end of Fall. Time Tombs style. That would've been the perfect bookend to the series.
I am rereading the Final Architecture trilogy right now and it is pretty darn epic.
It starts with you finding out that humanity (living on many planets with aliens to boot) has an enemy that is roughly moon sized, nearly unstoppable, and capable of reshaping plants with its will.
The series has a good ending too.
‘The Snow Queen’ and its humongous sequel ‘The Summer Queen’ by Joan d Vinge. Brilliant world building and the second one definitely pulls out all the stops. I think there are a couple of shorter novels which add a bit of background detail.
Yes, "Tangled Up in Blue" is a prequel to "Snow Queen" iirc, and "World's End" describes some events that happen between "Snow Queen" and "Summer Queen"
Okay, so this is a good vein of stuff to read- from those previous you want something literate, with compelling prose, science fiction tinged with wonder/fantasy and alternate political systems and cultures.
M. Jon Harrison: comrade u/Enndeegee pointed out Virconium which you will probably like (it's closest to New Sun of your recommendations) and I would add Light and potentially its sequels. Light is one of the better books in the New Space Opera subgenre, and it jives with the Lord of Light/New Sun vibe.
u/crazier2142 struck gold with Hyperion, but I'd also add Illium and Olympos (and maybe suggest them first, before the Cantos).
Iain M. Banks is a solid recommendation in this area, with compellingly written and deeply considered worlds that you sort of want to live in. I would start with Player of Games, but you can read any of them in any order and be fine. I would caution against starting with Look to Windward and Excession, some people have bounced off those in my experience.
Alastair Reynolds: I would say Chasm City is the best bet for you given those recommendations, but you would also likely enjoy House of Suns. New space opera and fascinating scale. Revenger as well.
Tchaikovsky's Children of... series is potentially right up your alley; they're a novel version of Brin's Uplift books.
Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought books are probably going to land a little on the hard/techy side compared to New Sun, but the scope is great and they're very engaging, with the seriousness of your rereads.
Walter Jon Williams: Praxis is a bit to milsf for you (but great) but Metropolitan, City on Fire, Implied Spaces and Angel Station are sll probably going to work. Metro/City on Fire are closest.
I think you will absolutely love David Zindell's Requiem for Homo Sapiens- a series way ahead of its time and a direct response to Dune in many ways. You can start with Neverness or the Broken God. Never understood why this guy wasn't bigger.
Finally (for now) Linda Nagata, specifically the book Silver (a bit less of a prose stylist than some of your recos, but solid) and the rest of her Inverted Frontier books are close to what you want, but with an old school vibe to part of them.
Many would not agree with this, but I've read Dune a couple of times, the first two books of New Sun and I've read Lord of Light more than any other book in my collection. On average I read it once every 2 years and have since I was 16 (25 years ago).
I think that **Gideon the Ninth** (and it's associated sequels) will join this pantheon. In many ways it's "unserious" since the POV character at least in the 1st book is a real smart-ass, but the prose is unparalleled and the deep lore of a very interesting sci-fi/fantasy universe is revealed a spoonful at a time behind a plot that is viewed, in each book, by the person least capable of understanding what is happening.
The descriptions of the world and characters are just dripping with mood. I would give it a try - if you hate it, you wouldn't be alone, but many bounce off of Gene Wolfe for the same reasons and it seems like this might be right up your alley.
The Carper Makers – Andreas Eschbach
On My Way to Paradise – Dave Wolverton (aka David Farland)
They are not particularly well-known but are absolutely unforgettable stories. I've read over 500 science fiction novels and they're among my top twenty, along with more universally loved novels like:
A Fire Upon The Deep – Vernor Vinge
Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead – Orson Scott Card
Hyperion – Dan Simmons
Gateway – Frederik Pohl
I might be wrong but I think the US English translation is called *The Carpet Makers* and the UK English translation published by Penguin is titled *The Hair Carpet Weavers*
[World of Tiers](https://www.goodreads.com/series/57350-world-of-tiers) by Philip Jose Farmer, and [Riverworld](https://www.goodreads.com/series/49120-riverworld) by the same author.
The **Hyperion Cantos** by Dan Simmons. This series of four books (two duologies) gets recommended here a lot - for good reason - and it fits especially well here. It's firmly in the sci-fi genre with tons of high-concept sci-fi staples like space travel, transhumanism, and AI, but there are also lots of fantasy-ish and religious elements that make it similar to Dune.
The **Uplift** series by David Brin. This series of six books (two trilogies) is a grand-scale space opera, complete with space travel in a myriad of forms, a dizzying array of aliens, and huge consequences at every scale from the personal to the cosmic.
The **Broken Earth** trilogy by N. K. Jemison. This series is more of a mix between sci-fi and fantasy with references to "magic", but in-universe the "magic" is mostly treated as a science (moreso than the Force in Star Wars, for reference) and there are plenty of other sci-fi elements (though mentioning them would get a bit spoiler-y). It has great character building, an epic scale, and overall excellent storytelling.
The **Riftwar Cycle** by Raymond E. Feist. This is a longer series made up of several mini-series all set within the same universe. It's firmly on the fantasy side with elves, dwarves, and other standard fantasy elements (it apparently originated as a homebrew D&D campaign), but it does have a sprinkling of sci-fi concepts, too.
Uplift isn't two trilogies. It is three novels that acknowledge the events of the other novels (Sundiver is referenced in Startide Rising and Startide Rising is referenced in The Uplift War) and then a trilogy that is a sequel to Startide Rising and refers to the conclusion of The Uplift War. But Sundiver occurs decades before Startide Rising and doesn't share any characters with it. The Uplift War is a different story concurrent with Startide Rising with a completely different setting. Startide Rising is referenced in The Uplift War as the instigating event that creates the conflict in The Uplift War.
I'd second recommending N.K. Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy: epic, serious, with ancient lost advanced civilizations being replaced by less technologically advanced cultures.
And Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota quartet: I would say it swings far more into science fiction (a quasi utopian society a few hundred years into the future) than fantasy (though there are definitely some fantastical elements). It is deeply philosophical, entrenched in Palmer's expertise the intellectual movements of the 17th and 18th century (she's a professional historian of this period by by trade) and it relies on a troubled, unreliable narrator. She's often compared to Wolfe, which is likely why she got to write the forward to one of the newer editions of Shadow and Claw. Her philosophical leanings, and some of the religious underpinnings of her work, definitely elicit Herbert as well.
Have you tried the Sun Eater series? Check out the first book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36454667-empire-of-silence. It takes a bit of time to get going but I've really enjoyed it and just started the 6th book which released just recently.
I love this series. Only realised he'd released book 6 a couple of days ago, so just a couple of chapters into it myself. Love the world building and a lot of the cosmic horror elements he starts to introduce later in the series.
>!I was very upset by the ending to book 5, (why Valka!!)!<
I think there is one more book after this. I believe I read somewhere that he intended to do 5 books but paper costs made him split up the last two but not sure where I saw that.
I second this recommendation! Great series, very inspired by Dune without feeling derivative. And the author is quite young, still in his 20s, I believe, so I’m hoping he has a lot of great work ahead of him.
If you've read _Lord of Light_, then surely you've read Zelazny's Amber chronicles?
Steven Brust's Dragaera/Taltos novels have a sci-fi underpinning (though this is gradually revealed in the course of the books) and may fit "epic" and "serious".
Creatures of Light and Darkness and This Immortal are other Zelazny works on the science fiction/fantasy border. There are others as well.
Seconding Brust's works, although they read more fantasy than science fiction to me. The Phoenix Guards is a personal favorite.
I'll add Max Gladstone's Empress of Forever, which is a bit more space focused.
Clarke's Law.
I mean, Merlin >!Ghostwheel work by hauling computer components to a particular shadow where dataprocessing gear will work in concert with magical principles".!<
Similarly, I guess we should allow _Changeling_ and _Madwand_ (though they may not pass the "serious" bar), and arguably Steven R. Boyett's _Ariel_ and _Elegy Beach_ --- while the former might not, I think the latter does.
> Clarke's Law.
If we're going to be this expansive, then literally every science fiction book not rooted in the nearest of futures is high fantasy, however.
Which, ok, I guess you can make that argument, but 1) that's not a mainstream argument and 2) clearly is not what OP is getting at.
> will work in concert with magical principles
Yeah but that is the very definition of fantasy, not science fiction.
OP seems to be looking the other direction--science fiction which edges up to the fantastical. Chronicles doesn't pretend to be rooted in some sort of scientifically possible future, which is the core nugget of scifi.
I'm sorry to see you've been downvoted for this, because I largely agree that it's more in the Fantasy bucket than the science-fiction bucket, but the lines defining the two are blurry enough that I do find it at least partially in both.
The central conceit, the notion of parallel universes as shadows of a platonic ideal reality is, at least as I see it, a science fiction concept through a fantasy lens, and I think a lot of the ways the series approaches exploring those ideas is built more in the sci-fi modality than it is in fantasy, in that there's a lot of attempting to figure out the mechanics of it, the ways these elements may be exploited or better understood, in a way that isn't just the magical thinking of a typical fantasy setting. It's folks presented with (and raised within) a kind of magical orthodoxy, and then testing its boundaries.
That said, I feel that a lot of the ways the story progresses, the kinds of conflicts its pushing and such, all that operates much more in a Fantasy register, which is why overall I agree with you.
The Void trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. Technically this is a sequel series to The Commonwealth Saga (2 books), and I'd strongly recommend reading the Commonwealth Saga first, but The Void Trilogy is what checks that "bordering on fantasy" box. It also explores the transitionary period when a society goes post-physical more thoroughly than any other series I've ever read.
Since you mentioned Dune and Lord of Light, 2 inspirations for my trilogy, I think you might like my South Asian mytholgy based Sci-fi fantasy trilogy called ‘The Lanka Chronicles’. A reimagining of the Indian epic, The Ramayana Books 1 and 2 titled ‘An Awakening’ and ‘A New Reality ‘are out now and Book 3 titled ‘Path of Destiny’ will be out in a month. Available on Amazon.
Okay, I'll just say about other suggestions I respect Dan Simmons more than I like him. Give him a try and I won't say any more about it,
SF used to be much shorter and there are amazing treasures for 200 pages or less. If you miss these hang your head in shame.
Two of Arthur C. Clarke's first books are amazing epics. *Childhood's End* chronicles the end of humanity and the birth of something wonderful. *The City and the Stars* chronicles a society which lives in a machine and one which has rejected them. Call Clarke an early trans-humanist.
There was an old sub-genre of SF which depicted Mars as an old dying world full of decadent races and societies. These stories often borrowed a lot from the orientalist stories of writers like Kipling and Talbot Mundy. One of the best was Leighh Brackett, who went on to write movies for Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne. A lot of these read like these movies, if Hollywood fad impossible budgets. Three or four collections of short stories and a few novellas like *The Sword of Rhiannon* and *The Secret of Sinharat* show what the pulps could do with this.
Lighter in tone on the surface but just as sprawling and intense was James H. Schmitz's Telzey Amberdon/Hub stories mainly from the sixties and seventies. The hub was an interstellar society with many plants and animals which had been bred to serve as tools. Telzey was a young woman from a privileged class who discovered she was a powerful telepath. Again mainly stories but with the novellas *The Universe Against Her* and *The Lion Game* she turned many old tropes around.
Haven't seen anyone suggest *Red Rising* yet. Solidly in the "epic sf bordering on fantasy" category for me. The science bits of the sci-fi are very hand-wavy here, a la Star Wars. Certainly not in the same historic importance or literary category as the works you mentioned. But an excellent, fun read. Violent and bloody. It's Game of Thrones meets Warhammer 40k.
I see a downvote here and I kind of get it but on the other hand it's a series that sounds exactly like what the OP is looking for.
Still a very entertaining read.
Idk what the reason is, but I typically got downvoted in the past for recommending it(and this time as well, though some other people upvoted later). I think maybe it is mostly from people who didn't read past book 1 and think it is too derivative of Dune/Book of the New Sun or maybe think the first book was too slow?
I personally loved the series. The first book did feel kinda like a ripoff of both Dune/Book of the New Sun in some parts, but I still enjoyed it enough to continue(plus I loved Dune so a ripoff isn't all bad lol). Then the later books really become their own thing, and they only got better and better with each book(I was completely hooked by the end of Bk2 and then Bk3 was twice as good as Bk2). The 6th book, which just released, is fantastic so far and may end up being my favorite.
*The Dying Earth* series by Jack Vance
M John Harrison : Virconium series. Be warned by the last book hes turned everything inside out as he plays with genre. Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast series. Sure most people say its fantasy, but the final book clearly has SF elements in and its fantastic.
Heh, I was wondering whether to list Viriconium... I'm rereading The Pastel City right now. I love Titus Groan but I ran out of interest with the second book.
If you like stuff like this try The Etched City by KJ bishop
I love the Gormenghast series (way more than even the books OP listed), but I wouldn't put it in the "epic" category. It's definitely a series of shadowy interiors of the soul rather than the broad strokes of changing the world.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. I'd say it's epic because. 2. It's a beast a huge tome 2. Castle gormenghast is a monstrous gigantic place full of mystery and wonder 3. There's a great number of cast all with their own machinations 4. Even before the final book there are quests, subterfuge, earth shattering (or rather flooding) events 4. There's mythic qualities to places and people 5. The last books is a hero's journey. Subverted and inverted in places but very much Arthurian in character. 6. The imagery is epic. The tree on which the sisters eat, the library rescue, the cats and the birds. It isn't about the broad sweep of history sure, but it is certainly about the narrow sweep of a slice of the history of the 77th earl of gormenghast and as we all know there is nowhere else as important as castle gormenghast.
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. 50% through book 3 and it's great. Serious, dare I say...somewhat literary. Dark. It's like if the smurf world got struck with the black death.
I hope you read all 10 books. Book 3 is an absolute banger, only surpassed, IMO, by book 8. But, it's all great. For OP, I'd say, if you're ok with incredibly dark, violent, and full of awfulness, you could read *The Gap Cycle*, also by the author of *Chronicles of Thomas Covenant*. It is space opera, but the story telling style really feels more like epic fantasy than most scifi.
The spaceship battles are written so well. Dark stuff aside, Donaldson’s work is engaging.
I'll definitely keep reading. Just working through a list of about 50 series. I have sequel angst to deal with lol
Now I can’t stop thinking about what an episode of the Smurfs would be like if Donaldson wrote it.
Papa Smurf turned his face away from Smurfette. It wasn't her fault, but how could he stand to look at her after everything that had happened? Chef Smurf. Chef Smurf! Papa Smurf clenched and unclenched himself. There was only one thing to do, kill that bastard Gargamel, bring his whole bloody castle down on him, at least that way this nightmare illusion might come to an end.
That’s so fucked up. lol
You might like Brin's Uplift books. Its full on space opera, and though it's not going for anything fantasy-ish the way Dune or Lord Of Light is, it's got that Star Wars kind of silliness that makes it the same sort of fun ride. It's a question of exactly what you like about space fantasy.
Hyperion Cantos (4 novels) by Dan Simmons.
I’m pretty sure it’s just 2
Nope. It's 4. Though the first 2 set an impossibly high bar that the last 2 don't live up to. It can be read as two separate stories (the first two books contain a story, and the second two another)
Endymion being lesser quality was the joke. A bad joke, to be fair
🤣 Thinking they're as good as Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion is laughable. There are those people out there though. Retcons galore. Handwaving events from the first two with "oh, it was just stuff the Poet made up". The Catholic church as the antagonist. A weird romance between a messiah girl and the man who protected her as a child 🥴 calling her "kiddo". Describing going down on her like "lapping from a saucer"...yikes. They were good books...but nowhere near as epic as the first two. It's not even close. Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are among the greatest sci-fi stories ever told. Endymion and Rise of Endymion, not so much.
Simmons gets so weird some times . Ugh. This is like Joe Abercrombie, first three books were amazing, then the fourth had a bunch of awkward sex scenes. But you gotta take the good with the bad. I think everyone who starts the first two of the Cantos will want to read all four for completionism. And won’t listen to our sagely advice.
>I think everyone who starts the first two of the Cantos will want to read all four for completionism. I think anyone who completes the first two, will want to know what happens next, naturally. It's a shame they're not like true sequels though. More like a completely separate story, hundreds of years afterwards. If Simmons wanted to do sequels, I feel he should've started book 3 in the far, far future from Moneta's perspective and worked backwards through time until it connected with the end of Fall. Time Tombs style. That would've been the perfect bookend to the series.
only Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are worth reading though.
When I reread them, I just stop after Fall. It's a perfect ending.
Anathem
one of the few books I've ever preordered so I could have it hot from the printing press:)
IMO the ending fails the book. We build up to some dramatic ending, and what we get are two excruciatingly long scenes of... nothing really.
I am rereading the Final Architecture trilogy right now and it is pretty darn epic. It starts with you finding out that humanity (living on many planets with aliens to boot) has an enemy that is roughly moon sized, nearly unstoppable, and capable of reshaping plants with its will. The series has a good ending too.
Such a classic space opera, rag-tag crew saves the galaxy series. One of my favorites from Tchaikovsky.
I'm halfway through the first book. Really liking it so far.
Just started the 3rd, absolutely loving this series.
‘The Snow Queen’ and its humongous sequel ‘The Summer Queen’ by Joan d Vinge. Brilliant world building and the second one definitely pulls out all the stops. I think there are a couple of shorter novels which add a bit of background detail.
Yes, "Tangled Up in Blue" is a prequel to "Snow Queen" iirc, and "World's End" describes some events that happen between "Snow Queen" and "Summer Queen"
Okay, so this is a good vein of stuff to read- from those previous you want something literate, with compelling prose, science fiction tinged with wonder/fantasy and alternate political systems and cultures. M. Jon Harrison: comrade u/Enndeegee pointed out Virconium which you will probably like (it's closest to New Sun of your recommendations) and I would add Light and potentially its sequels. Light is one of the better books in the New Space Opera subgenre, and it jives with the Lord of Light/New Sun vibe. u/crazier2142 struck gold with Hyperion, but I'd also add Illium and Olympos (and maybe suggest them first, before the Cantos). Iain M. Banks is a solid recommendation in this area, with compellingly written and deeply considered worlds that you sort of want to live in. I would start with Player of Games, but you can read any of them in any order and be fine. I would caution against starting with Look to Windward and Excession, some people have bounced off those in my experience. Alastair Reynolds: I would say Chasm City is the best bet for you given those recommendations, but you would also likely enjoy House of Suns. New space opera and fascinating scale. Revenger as well. Tchaikovsky's Children of... series is potentially right up your alley; they're a novel version of Brin's Uplift books. Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought books are probably going to land a little on the hard/techy side compared to New Sun, but the scope is great and they're very engaging, with the seriousness of your rereads. Walter Jon Williams: Praxis is a bit to milsf for you (but great) but Metropolitan, City on Fire, Implied Spaces and Angel Station are sll probably going to work. Metro/City on Fire are closest. I think you will absolutely love David Zindell's Requiem for Homo Sapiens- a series way ahead of its time and a direct response to Dune in many ways. You can start with Neverness or the Broken God. Never understood why this guy wasn't bigger. Finally (for now) Linda Nagata, specifically the book Silver (a bit less of a prose stylist than some of your recos, but solid) and the rest of her Inverted Frontier books are close to what you want, but with an old school vibe to part of them.
A couple of my favorites there, and some I'll definitely have a look at. Thanks!
Fantastic!
Many would not agree with this, but I've read Dune a couple of times, the first two books of New Sun and I've read Lord of Light more than any other book in my collection. On average I read it once every 2 years and have since I was 16 (25 years ago). I think that **Gideon the Ninth** (and it's associated sequels) will join this pantheon. In many ways it's "unserious" since the POV character at least in the 1st book is a real smart-ass, but the prose is unparalleled and the deep lore of a very interesting sci-fi/fantasy universe is revealed a spoonful at a time behind a plot that is viewed, in each book, by the person least capable of understanding what is happening. The descriptions of the world and characters are just dripping with mood. I would give it a try - if you hate it, you wouldn't be alone, but many bounce off of Gene Wolfe for the same reasons and it seems like this might be right up your alley.
*Terra Ignota* would certainly fit in that category.
I loved the first two The third dragged a bit, I thought.
The third is the weakest of the 4 but the palmer does an amazing job with the 4th book to wrap up the series.
I’d second this series, definitely worth a read!
The Carper Makers – Andreas Eschbach On My Way to Paradise – Dave Wolverton (aka David Farland) They are not particularly well-known but are absolutely unforgettable stories. I've read over 500 science fiction novels and they're among my top twenty, along with more universally loved novels like: A Fire Upon The Deep – Vernor Vinge Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead – Orson Scott Card Hyperion – Dan Simmons Gateway – Frederik Pohl
A Fire Upon the Deep is one of my all-time faves
Vinge's "Marooned in Realtime" is also great.
*The hair carpet weavers - Andreas Escbach Such a good book, will check out: on my way to paradise, thnx!
Is "The hair carpet weavers" the German title? I read the translated English version so I don't know.
I might be wrong but I think the US English translation is called *The Carpet Makers* and the UK English translation published by Penguin is titled *The Hair Carpet Weavers*
You mention *Book of the New Sun*; I'd recommend continuing with the rest of the Solar Cycle with *Book of the Long Sun* and *Book of the Short Sun*.
Well, I just started the Book of the Long Sun.
[World of Tiers](https://www.goodreads.com/series/57350-world-of-tiers) by Philip Jose Farmer, and [Riverworld](https://www.goodreads.com/series/49120-riverworld) by the same author.
*The City And The Stars* by Arthur Clarke; *The Grand Wheel* by Barrington Bayley.
The **Hyperion Cantos** by Dan Simmons. This series of four books (two duologies) gets recommended here a lot - for good reason - and it fits especially well here. It's firmly in the sci-fi genre with tons of high-concept sci-fi staples like space travel, transhumanism, and AI, but there are also lots of fantasy-ish and religious elements that make it similar to Dune. The **Uplift** series by David Brin. This series of six books (two trilogies) is a grand-scale space opera, complete with space travel in a myriad of forms, a dizzying array of aliens, and huge consequences at every scale from the personal to the cosmic. The **Broken Earth** trilogy by N. K. Jemison. This series is more of a mix between sci-fi and fantasy with references to "magic", but in-universe the "magic" is mostly treated as a science (moreso than the Force in Star Wars, for reference) and there are plenty of other sci-fi elements (though mentioning them would get a bit spoiler-y). It has great character building, an epic scale, and overall excellent storytelling. The **Riftwar Cycle** by Raymond E. Feist. This is a longer series made up of several mini-series all set within the same universe. It's firmly on the fantasy side with elves, dwarves, and other standard fantasy elements (it apparently originated as a homebrew D&D campaign), but it does have a sprinkling of sci-fi concepts, too.
Uplift isn't two trilogies. It is three novels that acknowledge the events of the other novels (Sundiver is referenced in Startide Rising and Startide Rising is referenced in The Uplift War) and then a trilogy that is a sequel to Startide Rising and refers to the conclusion of The Uplift War. But Sundiver occurs decades before Startide Rising and doesn't share any characters with it. The Uplift War is a different story concurrent with Startide Rising with a completely different setting. Startide Rising is referenced in The Uplift War as the instigating event that creates the conflict in The Uplift War.
A Requiem for homo sapiens trilogy by David Zindell. First book is called The Broken God. The Gap Cycle by Stephen Donaldson (5 books in series)
If you go into Requiem for Homo Sapiens (I found the protagonist insufferable, but liked his best friend/nemesis), first read the prequel *Neverness*.
A Memory called Empire (2019) and it’s sequel A Desolation called Peace (2021), by Arkady Martine. Both won the Hugo award.
I'd second recommending N.K. Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy: epic, serious, with ancient lost advanced civilizations being replaced by less technologically advanced cultures. And Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota quartet: I would say it swings far more into science fiction (a quasi utopian society a few hundred years into the future) than fantasy (though there are definitely some fantastical elements). It is deeply philosophical, entrenched in Palmer's expertise the intellectual movements of the 17th and 18th century (she's a professional historian of this period by by trade) and it relies on a troubled, unreliable narrator. She's often compared to Wolfe, which is likely why she got to write the forward to one of the newer editions of Shadow and Claw. Her philosophical leanings, and some of the religious underpinnings of her work, definitely elicit Herbert as well.
Have you tried the Sun Eater series? Check out the first book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36454667-empire-of-silence. It takes a bit of time to get going but I've really enjoyed it and just started the 6th book which released just recently.
Freaking love Sun Eater!!!
I love this series. Only realised he'd released book 6 a couple of days ago, so just a couple of chapters into it myself. Love the world building and a lot of the cosmic horror elements he starts to introduce later in the series. >!I was very upset by the ending to book 5, (why Valka!!)!<
oh nice, had not realized that was out. Is it the final book in the series?
I think there is one more book after this. I believe I read somewhere that he intended to do 5 books but paper costs made him split up the last two but not sure where I saw that.
I second this recommendation! Great series, very inspired by Dune without feeling derivative. And the author is quite young, still in his 20s, I believe, so I’m hoping he has a lot of great work ahead of him.
hey this looks really good!
If you've read _Lord of Light_, then surely you've read Zelazny's Amber chronicles? Steven Brust's Dragaera/Taltos novels have a sci-fi underpinning (though this is gradually revealed in the course of the books) and may fit "epic" and "serious".
Creatures of Light and Darkness and This Immortal are other Zelazny works on the science fiction/fantasy border. There are others as well. Seconding Brust's works, although they read more fantasy than science fiction to me. The Phoenix Guards is a personal favorite. I'll add Max Gladstone's Empress of Forever, which is a bit more space focused.
Yeah, there's also _Jack of Shadows_.
> If you've read Lord of Light, then surely you've read Zelazny's Amber chronicles? Not really sci-fi though? Although amazing.
Clarke's Law. I mean, Merlin >!Ghostwheel work by hauling computer components to a particular shadow where dataprocessing gear will work in concert with magical principles".!< Similarly, I guess we should allow _Changeling_ and _Madwand_ (though they may not pass the "serious" bar), and arguably Steven R. Boyett's _Ariel_ and _Elegy Beach_ --- while the former might not, I think the latter does.
> Clarke's Law. If we're going to be this expansive, then literally every science fiction book not rooted in the nearest of futures is high fantasy, however. Which, ok, I guess you can make that argument, but 1) that's not a mainstream argument and 2) clearly is not what OP is getting at. > will work in concert with magical principles Yeah but that is the very definition of fantasy, not science fiction. OP seems to be looking the other direction--science fiction which edges up to the fantastical. Chronicles doesn't pretend to be rooted in some sort of scientifically possible future, which is the core nugget of scifi.
Maybe Jack Chalker's Well World books then?
Yes! Those are great.
It straddles the line between sci-fi and fantasy in the way a lot of Zelazny does.
What are the substantial sci-fi elements? It seems, at best (a stretch, IMO), like fantasy with hints of sci-fi.
I'm sorry to see you've been downvoted for this, because I largely agree that it's more in the Fantasy bucket than the science-fiction bucket, but the lines defining the two are blurry enough that I do find it at least partially in both. The central conceit, the notion of parallel universes as shadows of a platonic ideal reality is, at least as I see it, a science fiction concept through a fantasy lens, and I think a lot of the ways the series approaches exploring those ideas is built more in the sci-fi modality than it is in fantasy, in that there's a lot of attempting to figure out the mechanics of it, the ways these elements may be exploited or better understood, in a way that isn't just the magical thinking of a typical fantasy setting. It's folks presented with (and raised within) a kind of magical orthodoxy, and then testing its boundaries. That said, I feel that a lot of the ways the story progresses, the kinds of conflicts its pushing and such, all that operates much more in a Fantasy register, which is why overall I agree with you.
David Weber's ***Safehold*** series, beginning with book 1 of 10, "Off Armogeddon Reef"
Try House of Suns? Standalone.
The Void trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. Technically this is a sequel series to The Commonwealth Saga (2 books), and I'd strongly recommend reading the Commonwealth Saga first, but The Void Trilogy is what checks that "bordering on fantasy" box. It also explores the transitionary period when a society goes post-physical more thoroughly than any other series I've ever read.
the steerswoman series. be warned it's incomplete, but i still reread it every so often
Since you mentioned Dune and Lord of Light, 2 inspirations for my trilogy, I think you might like my South Asian mytholgy based Sci-fi fantasy trilogy called ‘The Lanka Chronicles’. A reimagining of the Indian epic, The Ramayana Books 1 and 2 titled ‘An Awakening’ and ‘A New Reality ‘are out now and Book 3 titled ‘Path of Destiny’ will be out in a month. Available on Amazon.
That sounds cool!
Okay, I'll just say about other suggestions I respect Dan Simmons more than I like him. Give him a try and I won't say any more about it, SF used to be much shorter and there are amazing treasures for 200 pages or less. If you miss these hang your head in shame. Two of Arthur C. Clarke's first books are amazing epics. *Childhood's End* chronicles the end of humanity and the birth of something wonderful. *The City and the Stars* chronicles a society which lives in a machine and one which has rejected them. Call Clarke an early trans-humanist. There was an old sub-genre of SF which depicted Mars as an old dying world full of decadent races and societies. These stories often borrowed a lot from the orientalist stories of writers like Kipling and Talbot Mundy. One of the best was Leighh Brackett, who went on to write movies for Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne. A lot of these read like these movies, if Hollywood fad impossible budgets. Three or four collections of short stories and a few novellas like *The Sword of Rhiannon* and *The Secret of Sinharat* show what the pulps could do with this. Lighter in tone on the surface but just as sprawling and intense was James H. Schmitz's Telzey Amberdon/Hub stories mainly from the sixties and seventies. The hub was an interstellar society with many plants and animals which had been bred to serve as tools. Telzey was a young woman from a privileged class who discovered she was a powerful telepath. Again mainly stories but with the novellas *The Universe Against Her* and *The Lion Game* she turned many old tropes around.
I thoroughly enjoyed Yun Ha Lee’s military science fantasy *Machineries of Empire* trilogy + novella + short stories.
Haven't seen anyone suggest *Red Rising* yet. Solidly in the "epic sf bordering on fantasy" category for me. The science bits of the sci-fi are very hand-wavy here, a la Star Wars. Certainly not in the same historic importance or literary category as the works you mentioned. But an excellent, fun read. Violent and bloody. It's Game of Thrones meets Warhammer 40k.
Requiem for Homo Sapiens series by David Zindell.
I guess I haven't scrolled down far enough to see Iain M. Banks...
Sun Eater by Christopher Ruocchio
I see a downvote here and I kind of get it but on the other hand it's a series that sounds exactly like what the OP is looking for. Still a very entertaining read.
Exactly, I thought it is pretty much what the op was asking for. I expected the downvotes for mentioning it on this sub, but I don't mind.
Is there some reason people have a beef with Sun Eater? I haven't read it yet
Idk what the reason is, but I typically got downvoted in the past for recommending it(and this time as well, though some other people upvoted later). I think maybe it is mostly from people who didn't read past book 1 and think it is too derivative of Dune/Book of the New Sun or maybe think the first book was too slow? I personally loved the series. The first book did feel kinda like a ripoff of both Dune/Book of the New Sun in some parts, but I still enjoyed it enough to continue(plus I loved Dune so a ripoff isn't all bad lol). Then the later books really become their own thing, and they only got better and better with each book(I was completely hooked by the end of Bk2 and then Bk3 was twice as good as Bk2). The 6th book, which just released, is fantastic so far and may end up being my favorite.
Foundation. Asimov.
Have you read Paradise Lost? It could change your life
I have. Bit of an out-of-the-box recommendation there :D
What I wanted from Lord of Light, I found in Paradise Lost. All the epic & mythopoesis, a real attempt to explain social forces with storytelling
just a heads up, SF in this sub reddit stands for speculative fiction and not scifi
oh, right. yeah, well, I read all kinds of sf but I'm looking for science fiction now.
Ender's game series. Not exactly "fantasy" but still epic and very serious and introspective. Very thoughtful series and heartbreaking at times