Mass Effect, Star Trek, similar stuff, without the giant franchise money machine. To consume like popcorn.
One of my favourites is Spiral Wars by Joel Sheppard.
I’m feeling a little old school tonight so I’m going to boost Rimrunners by C.J. Cherryh. May say #3 in a series, but all the books stand alone (they just share the same universe).
Is it part of Alliance-Union? I’ve read a couple of hers and always enjoyed them, but they never felt ship-and-crew. Rimrunners, you say (… heads to Wikipedia… )
Yeah, most Cherryh is not ship-and-crew in the sense you are talking about (though I loved the duct-tape feel of the ships in Heavy Time, iirc). Rimrunners might be the closest to what you are looking for though. And yep, it is Union-Alliance. For Cherryh, I guess maybe The Pride of Chanur would be ship-and-crew adventure? I can’t quite remember as it was long, long, long ago I read that stuff – who knows how well its aged. It’s cover doesn’t look super compelling to me these days. So I’m not recommending it. Ha ha.
Spiral Wars by Joel Sheppard.
I was just looking over some reader reviews of the first book in this series, and I noticed this: “Really nice story setting, oddly enough the background story reminded me of C.J. Cherryh’s Chanur novels, which is a good thing.” So maybe that is a recommendation after all?
Yes, it is. Cherry writes about different topics in that universe. Some books are ship-and-crew like Merchanter’s Luck and Heavy Time, some like Cyteen or Downbelow Station aren’t. The Chanur books are as well, but they are a series.
Also, Becky Chambers’ Long Way To A Small Angry Planet.
Very, very late to the party but ship and crew ones she’s written in the A-U universe are Rimrunners, Tripoint and Merchanter’s Luck. Heavy Time almost falls into the category too but it takes place mostly on-station after a mining expedition gone wrong with a little bit of flashback to ship and crew.
The Mote in God’s Eye. Awesome first contact story!
Read it! It was pretty good. I’m told it’s part of a larger universe which I haven’t explored at all. Read anything else in the setting?
“The Gripping Hand” was a direct sequel and while not as good, it was still an excellent story. As far as I know there are no more Mote stories but the “Known Space” set of novels, created by Larry Niven and others, are very much in the same vein.
The Final Architecture Series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. https://www.goodreads.com/series/305076-the-final-architecture
I’ve read parts of a few of his series and always enjoyed it. His output rate is amazing, considering the quality. But I haven’t gotten around to this one yet.
Actually, Children of Time is everyone’s darling, but I really like the Bugworld stuff based on his D&D campaigns :)
Is Scalzi’s Red Shirts considered to be tied to a franchise? 😹
It’s a lot of fun regardless.
You also might try Bloom by Wil Mccarthy and Pushing Ice by Alistair Reynolds. They’re pretty much one offs that take place on ships, although definitely not in a Star Trek/Star Wars vein. And if you can stomach a generation ship, there’s Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson.
I really liked The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Pretty lighthearted and fun for the most part.
How about ship versus crew! Probably not! But was just thinking about this, and a few examples came to mind:
- Destination: Void by Frank Herbert,
- The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts
Also, The Stars Are Legion :)
Ah! Started reading that a few years ago and it got lost in the shuffle. Can’t remember the ship-vs-crew aspect, but then i can’t remember much. Maybe I didn’t get that far. Will have to start over with it again one of these days.
The Expanse does have a show tied to it, but the book series is excellent. And frankly, the show is great too. A shame it only covers a bit more than half of the books.
Read them already. Fantastic recommendation, particularly early on when it’s more about them galavanting around in their stolen ship haha. I really enjoyed the last three but it got very wide ranging space opera.
Old Mans War by John Scalzi.
Expedtionay force series by Craig Alanson is fun romp around the galaxy. The start in first book is a bit slow and the tone of rest of series is very different.
Lost fleet by Jack Campbell is nice as well. Its more about fleet action and battles.
Terran Republic series by Charles Gannon is also quite good.
Icarus Hunt series by Timothy Zahn was very interesting.
Good suggestions. I’ve read the first three in your list. Liked Old Man’s War, was neutral on Expeditionary Forces (but still read like ten books so…), and didn’t like Lost Fleet.
Haven’t read the latter two series though, so good suggestions! Got a short synopsis for either of them?
Terran Republic series is about Earth fianlly meeting some alien races after it had expanded to a handful of planets. There is lots of politics and maneuvering among the races and earth is kind of caught in that. A secret org on Earth tries to guide earth through all the mess and the protagonist is recruited into this org.
Icarus hunt is about a pair with an old spaceship (Icarus) being hired to take some cargo to a different planet. However, major corps and races start looking for their ship trying to get hands on the cargo.
