Charlie Stross’s stuff is great too, though perhaps not for a 13 yr old, certainly not the Laundry series, though some of the space opera ones might be suitable.
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Excellent recommendation. I’ve got the five collected volumes but never read any of his novels.
That’s how I started, I bought the first volume and I ended up obsessed. I was searching all sorts of second hand bookshops in Manchester to try and find the novels which were out of print.
Most have been re-printed now, I think.
I think we tend to link science fiction with “space”, and forget that there are many ways to define the genre.
When I was a kid growing up, Michael Chrichtonn was a firm favourite. I remember reading Jurassic park long before the movie was a thing, and thinking how rich, descriptive and utterly captivating it was.
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Really enjoyed this thought provoking short film:
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Someone, e.g. me, has to say J.G.Ballard. Crash and The Atrocity Exhibition etc. is SF written about contemporary life.
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I literally just came to the thread to say The Chrysalids. Any John Wyndham really, but The Chrysalids was for me the science fiction book that I read around that age, that left an indelible mark on me. I still think about it, and re-read it every once in a decade or so. It’s a total mystery to me why it hasn’t been made into a film yet. It’s not what you’d call ‘modern’, but I would argue that it is timeless, as it is situated in a totally different age to this one, and it’s so thought-provoking.
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Having watched The Expanse series on Amazon, I recently embarked on the epic journey of reading the books by a co-authorship under the name of James S. A. Corey.
I’m now past the end of the TV series (6 series in all).
There are several more books ahead of me…
I like it as it is set in the nearish future, still within our solar system (by and large), the constraints of physics are given pretty good heedance.
There’s no poncing about at light speed or let alone FTL, or blink drives etc.
Acceleration mass, hard vacuum, the sheer size of just our solar system, burning at 1g for weeks and then the time it takes to slow down again, what growing up in low g means etc 
Anyone else read/watched?
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Yes I’d read the books before it was serialised. Good stuff.
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Yes, i have read all the books ahead of the tv series. Really enjoyed the books, quite nice easy reading for sci fi, and even though the tv adaptation makes some changes it is generally v good
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Have bought the first book, but there are a few in the queue first,
I am wary of series that go on too long, they invariably lose their way and I lose interest (Malazan and Wheel of Time for instance, never got past book 8 in either,)
FNORD
I’ve read it twice and still have my copy. Might even read it again one day.
Perfect for what Trump is doing right now.
Me too, dunno why I never thought of it, it was one my uncle gave me
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Any reco’s for Post Apocalyptic (not purely Zombies please) books ?
