The Murderbot series is pretty easy to get into and has some decent space adventure.
Also, I enjoyed the Silo series, which is now a good show on Apple.
this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2024
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Currently reading the first of the murderbot series and I agree it is very easy to get into from page one.
Artemis by Andy Weir is excellent, and less technical than his other books (which are also great).
For a beginner, try out the Hunger Games novels. They're easy to read and a lot of fun.
Thanks I am reading it now.
“The Giver” by Lois Lowry. It’s a YA book, but it’s still a good read as an adult. Avoid the movie adaptation.
The Silo series by Hugh Howey is pretty great. Read the books before watching the Apple TV series.
Feed is a YA novel about a society that is constantly online and what that means for social trends and consumerism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_(Anderson_novel)?useskin=vector
Children of Time is long but it's not complicated. It's not totally dystopian but has the premise that Earth is a dying planet, so humans set out into the galaxy to terraform another world to live on. They bring a virus that will hasten the evolution of a native species, but they accidentally deploy it onto a world's spiders instead of mammals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)
We is a 1924 book about a totalitarian state by a Russian author, sort of a precursor to 1984 and Brave New World. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)
A lot of Dick books are dystopian, perhaps most famously Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which is what the movie Blade Runner was based on.
Wikipedia has a list here if you need some more ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature?useskin=vector
ed: fixed links
BTW your Feed Wikipedia link is empty. Thanks for the rec, though - I'm not OP but added it to my To Read list.
Odd, works for me. Here's a slightly different link that might work for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_(Anderson_novel)
Yeah, I ran across it in a class I took about YA and it was probably the best book we did that semester. Being YA it's a quick read too.
Aha that one worked!
I see what the problem is-- the parentheses in the links were screwing up the formatting. You can use a slash (or a backslash maybe?) as an escape to tell it not to read the following parenthesis as code, but I dunno how to do that here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel/))
odd-- it won't even let me save a backslash into the comment link-- it automatically converts it to a slash before publishing. Oh well, a mystery for another day
\//
Skyward by Brandon Sanderson pretty much fits the bill. It's SciFi, dystopian (aliens are bombarding the planet and a small holdout of humans fight back) and good for beginners as it's a young adult book. The first book is a bit lacking in adventure though, but it is the beginning of a 4 book series with a couple of mini side books that would fulfill any adventure itch you have.
Brandon Sanderson has such a way with world building. I find his books very easy to read. The character arcs and twists make rereads worth it.
"Dungeon Crawler Carl" by Matt Dinnaman
Great sci-fi/fantasy story with a massive dystopian backdrop and fantastic adventure elements. Character interactions are great, and it is a ridiculously fun romp.
It has been a great reintroduction to how much fun reading can be.
I really really like this series. It’s fun without being cheesy, but it can still make you cry. I can’t wait for the next book.
Snow Crash maybe
An Andy Weir book, The Martian or Hail Mary Project.
The Forever War
I'm not sure what a beginner really means. Maybe some YA like The Uglies, Scythe or any of Heinlein's fun YA novels.
beginner really means.
I mean not so much complicated or deep.
Then I would take Snow Crash off the list for now.
These are great recommendations. I dunno if it fits the requirements but Neuromancer was my first sci-fi book and it sold me on the genre. The first three books you mentioned were some of the first ones I read.
W I think 1984, Brave New World, and Farhenheit 451 are great choices for dystopian beginnings
Aldo possibly some Cody Doctorow novels for something contemporary
To Hold Up the Sky and/or The Wandering Earth both by Cixin Liu
Both books are a series of short stories that mostly meet your criteria. I think short stories are easier for a newer reader as they don't ask as much for as long and can be read in bites, put down and came back to later without needing to remember as much.
I've not read any myself because my brain is too fried, but I've heard great things about Ursula K. Le Guin's books, especially The Dispossessed.
The Stars My Destination by Bester.
Not dystopian, but fun adventure books are the Fuzzy books by H. Beam Piper.
First of three is public domain:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18137
Pretty breezy 2 hour read. Worth it!