 May 10, 2010 - 3:50pm | Hi, got an interesting challenge - can anyone suggest a good book or series of books for me, but with the following criteria: 1 - reasonably well written sci-fi or space opera. 2 - if its set on a ship or involves a ship, it must be a small one, crew of around 3-30, no star destroyers! 3 - if it's not set on a ship, no hardline military sci-fi. About the nearest I got was Joshua Calvert and the Lady Macbeth from the confederation series of books by peter hamilton. |
 May 10, 2010 - 5:17pm | With the Lighnings- forget the author - 1st in a series Captian is a LT, small ship fun read different take on hyperspace and how to navigate it. David Brinn's Startide Rising matches your requirements its book 2 in a series (sundiver is the first) Whats cool is that half the crew is dolphins uplifted to sentience. He has a whole galactic civilization imagine that is eons old and the more conservative elements are pissed at the existence of humans because they are a wolfling race - or self evolved to sentience not uplifted by a patron race. Plus if they can get humans stripped of their status they can have the genetic diversity of earth reassign to proper patrons. I read it and the 3rd book-very cool stuff but most aliens are at a tech level way above SF and humanity is slightly above SF- leaves you feeling desparate for humanity at points during the books. All time best book to focus on a small ship and crew- this book will blow you away like a laser rifle set on maximum SEUs- David Weber's On Basilisk Station- free by download from Baen.com's lending library (they have a nefarious reason for offering it for free- Weber writes kick butt space opera style stories that can be super addicting) and he's incredibly prolific so the plan to sell more by giving some away free. Plus the above is the first in a series and its a killer series. If your familiar with CS Forester (small ship focus but in the british navy and sails) you will probably like On Basilisk Station another but not sci fi but still a great little follow one ship and crew- Alexander Kent's Sloop of War follows a British Lt during the American Rev during his first post as captian - personal favorite from my teen days but now I realize how flat his characters are still great naval action and not a bad read. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 10, 2010 - 7:51pm | Oh dear, sorry jedion - I'm afraid I've already read all of the books you've recommended. Read a few of the Lt. Leary books, read all of the honor harrington books (the quote at the bottom of the page is from an honorverse story) - this is partly why I wanted to go to the other end of the spectrum, lol! Sort of at the PC party end! |
 May 11, 2010 - 6:31am | Always had a liking for the Cole/Bunch STEN series. A touch too High SciFi, but good reads (Kilgore's shaggy dog stories are a hoot - Wee snakes is primo). Not totally ship-borne, but it moves. Can't remember the title, but there was one, on a hap-hazzard Destroyer, with an Alien (giant tiger/cat) onboard, and their saga trying to defeat him, and make it back. "If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" -A Einstein |
May 12, 2010 - 6:54pm | Elisabeth Moon, who IIRC is a retired marine officer, does some nice Sci-Fi fantasy novels Sheepfarmer Daugter is fantasy about a female lead (can you guess her background?) that joins a mercenary regiment -it follows her through training and into 1 or 2 years with the regiment. I missed the 2nd in that series but the third book got a little wierd for me; nothing like the first and not what I was looking for. Her sci fi books- "Once a Hero" and a few others are not really small ship per se but they were good I find her to be real good on characterization but no where near as good as David Weber on space combat. I'm not a fan of Star Trek novels - the whole franchise thing controlled by the publisher gets old after awhile. However the DS9 novel "Fallen Heros" was real cool. cant give too much away on that or it'd be pointless to read. I'm really scratching my head on this. I guess the best rec is Forester's Horaito Hornblower series if you can swing with age of sail settings or Alexander Kent is you can deal with flattish characters (the actual naval combat is the real main character- sometimes you actually feel like you're really there in the battle) I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 13, 2010 - 5:34am | Not sure really. My dad is the big age of sail fan, I've read a few, but it doesn't hold me like other era's do. I've got to admit, I really do like David Weber, I've read all of the honorverse books, in fury born (a MUST read) and a lot of others by him, he does space battles wonderfully well, but he does go bigger and bigger with them, and it does begin to read like an age of sail fleet action (I know part of that is intentional). Guess I'm just far too picky. The book that came closest for me was a Traveller;TNE book, but I've not found any more in the series. |
 May 13, 2010 - 5:30pm | If you like Peter Hamilton you will love another British author who goes by the name Alastair Reynolds. He has a great series of books which is called the Revelation Space series. Books in the Series: The Prefect Chasm City Revelation Space Redemption Ark Absolution Gap Galactic North (Short Story Collection) Zima Blue (Short Story Collection) Diamond Dogs and Turquoise Days (Short Story Collection) Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
 May 27, 2010 - 4:52am | Give Allen Steele's Coyote series a try. There are a lot of characters, but the stories deal with only two or three at a time. John Scalzi's Old Man series is good too; it starts with military sf, but that's kind of a sideline. Walter Hunt's Dark Path series is fairly decent too, with a lot of insight on an alien culture. Long live the Frontier! |
 October 23, 2014 - 7:46pm | "Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds" "Jinx on a Terran Inhertance" and the third wich I don't remember right now. Rollicking good yarns! Second and third books have small ships (3 crew in one, seven in another). Space opera at its finest. Some original aliens, but most encounters are with mad humans. Just remembered the last title,"Fall of the White Ship Avatar. I am babbling, I know, but you must read these. |
 October 24, 2014 - 11:17am | I was just going through the inspirational reading list in Star Frontiers and found Star Soldiers by Andre Norton. It's a compilation of two of her novels, Star Guard and Star Rangers. While the protagonists ARE military, they're not stories all about strategies and tactics; they focus on wilderness survival and puzzling out alien cultures by stranded teams. Suitable for young adults. |
 October 24, 2014 - 5:41pm | I was going to mention a few, but I see they've been covered, such as Star Rangers and Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds. I have to admit that Asimov and Heinlein were a big influence on my game, as well as the Uplift series, Larry Niven, H. Beam Piper, Keith Laumer, James White... Others have already mentioned Harrison and Cole. Some of the best stories involving a ship with a small crew are from TV. Firefly, Farscape, even Red Dwarf. You could almost count Stargate SG-1 as well. |
 November 7, 2014 - 6:06am | You might enjoy the Chanur Novels... set on a small crew ship & space stations predominately, involves inter-species relations, assumptions about behavior based on culture views, trade & war issues, some very fun aliens, and species specific ships & environments. The Compact might be in some ways very much like the Frontier before the UPF. Everyone who read them here liked the books. I am thinking of adding the aliens in this series in some shape or form into my SF Universe. We had to read them all. The ships jump through space as well and this has different effects on different species. Start with The Pride of Chanur Author C. J. Cherryh "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
November 7, 2014 - 6:14pm | @ Tchklinxa: Cherryh's compact space setting would be a good match with SF. Plus it has methane breathers, one of which reads like a tool for the referee to do interesting stuff by GM fiat. A setting guide to compact space would be a great addition to the Fan cannon library, I would think. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 8, 2014 - 3:17am | Chanur, of course. Yes. I should have thought of that series. |
November 8, 2014 - 4:34am | I did a quick google search and it does not appear that GURPS has a Compact Space setting book, though I didn't dig that deeply beyond scanning one page of google results. Actually Cherryh has a lot of great aliens, and some of them are truly alien, like the hives in Serpents Reach (and the GMO humans grown for and traded to the hives are a little freaky too). "Hestia"- primitive cat like sapients I think her womanly perspective helps her in fleshing out social interactions as I've found most of her characters very believable and well rounded, some with even deep rooted flaws- very refreshing after reading a Del Rey or a Heinlein. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 8, 2014 - 9:39am | I had never read her books, till attending a sci-fi con & she was a guest speaker on how to create believable aliens... naturally I had to go to that even if I did not know of anything she had written. She was absolutely fascinating to listen to, so I had to get a book... and we read it, then we had to get more... lol. If you get a chance to hear her talk about the process of creating sci-fi settings, aliens and so on do it. We could start a Compact Space thread/project... Gurps does have a Traveler alien species that physically is similar to her Lion based aliens, but culturally different... I am sure I have her books still, so I will rumage around for the Gurps book & hers... I know feline/lion cultures are popular in sci-fi we may want to consider that a special project in which we look at several authors ideas for sentient Putty Tats and how to present them in SF. We could have different cat species & cultures out in Deep Space. I am also taking a stab right now at converting some GW stuff to SF. I want Centisteeds!  Just re-familiarizing myself with GW1 first, now starting the logic process of how it might convert to AD SF. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
November 8, 2014 - 5:10pm | I think a Chanur/Compact Space setting guide for SF would warrent a project so that documents could be set up prior to creating magazine submissions. Each race would need a two page presentation like in AD, but perhaps not the methane breathers as they are suppose to be enimatic and she typically carries that off by not giving you a lot of detail about them and they would largely be tools for the referee. Is there a map anywhere of Compact space? At the very least some SF style foot notes on various planets and stations would be good if not detailed background reports on key locations. An equipment list adapted for Compact space. and a adapting Compact space and KHs for running games (my knee jerk on this is to simply use KHs systems and fluff out compact details for that. Edit: any other conversions ie a Gamma world creature for SF could become a thread in the Conversion corner. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
