Science heavy, have you tried Seven Eves by Niel Stephenson?
It’s the only book I’ve ever re-read back-to-back.
Synopsis: moon breaks into seven pieces, life on earth threatened. First 60% if this 900 page monster is escaping the threat. Science and character driven. Second 40%, 5000 years later.
It’s practically two books in one. Events in the first book spanning 3 years shape the future 5000 years later.
This is Stephenson’s best imho.
What about global pandemics? Any interest?
Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddm trilogy. It makes Handmaid’s Tale read like YA fiction.
This book, I read the first, and second. Waited a few years for it to be published…then re-read both before starting the third. Yes, it’s sci-fi…a future a few decades away…or less.
Atwood, so you know it’s both a great read…and literature too!
“Fall” is a continuation of “Reamde” which in itself was awful. He’s published so much garbage. I got half way through reamde and just gave up.
Stephenson is, in my opinion, three truly great books. That’s it. Three books. But so great are these three, that everything else gets published, just in case.
Snow Crash (1992)
The Diamond Age (1995)
Seveneves (2015)
Have you read “The Windup Girl” by Paolo Bacigalupi? Set in Thailand, post-oil, it was a very enjoyable read.
Do you read fantasy at all? After LOTR, I don’t. But, I made an exception for “The Iron Dragon’s Daughter” by Swanwick.
MADDADDAM, again. wow! you must.
I’ll end with these suggestions. Btw, I’m recommending nothing here that I haven’t read myself at least twice.
So I ‘read’ the first one. It is soooo dated. It’s great. In the first couple of paragraphs they were smoking on the plane and talking about how his briefcase vid phone used land based radio towers and repeaters to transmit.
It was like the mystery was unraveled using tech from 1970 with very little in the way of modern advances. The story took place in 2029, but there is no mention of gene sequences or communication satellites. It was fun to see what they did get right though.
I liked the way the book unfolded.
The narrator was terrible.
Yep, that could pass as solid space opera, though I have not read it all. Same author, David Weber, contributed to the core of a fun alternate history series titled 1632. Basic premise is Some small mining town in W.Virginia is yoinked through a convenient space-time hiccup MacGuffin. First 5 or so books are a lot of fun.
On Paolo Bacigalupi, which I came in to post, you have probably seen “Pump 6, and Other Stories” then?
If you have any room on your tiny bookshelf of fantasy, I have to enjoin you to read basically all of Neil Gaiman. But if you have to start somewhere, start with “Good Omens : the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch”
His only serial is the sandman graphic series, so not really an audiobook option, but neverwhere, american gods, stardust, all great stories.
Next to that, Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” series on audio book, narrated by George Guidall . While I’ve never heard him in other stories, he did an awesome job, and was a treasure among audiobook narrators.