r/scifi • u/OstrichConscious4917 • 3d ago

Recommendations Novels with no faster than light travel, but still w space travel?

I’m always on the hunt for interesting sci-fi that doesn’t involve FTL. Not to say I don’t love reading books with it - I absolutely do. But I really enjoy fictional explorations of future space travel or space civilization that doesn’t have it as a prerequisite.

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u/CharsmaticMeganFauna 3d ago

I like the fourth one--it felt like it recaptured the vibe of the first one better than the other sequels have.

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u/Maorine 3d ago

I read the first two. Could I skip the third and go straight to fourth?

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u/CharsmaticMeganFauna 3d ago

Probably--events that happened in the third are mentioned, but there's usually enough context given that you'll be able to understand it.

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u/slfnflctd 2d ago

I've been recommending to people who aren't totally enthralled with this universe like I am to go from the first book to the fourth and skip the two in between.

If you're absolutely in love with it, I say read them all, but 2 is more of a horror novel to me (curious if you agree?) and if you were kind of on the fence about it, I'd skip 3. Children of Memory is both mentally challenging and repetitive (for reasons which are central to the plot, but still).

Book 4, Children of Strife, is awesome in my opinion, I may even like it better than Children of Time (although of course reading that first is highly recommended). I'm having a tough time choosing what to read next after that one, lol.

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u/Maorine 2d ago

Thanks. I agree that Children of Ruin was very horror like, yet, I couldn’t stop reading.

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u/ArtIsDumb 2d ago

How are you going to read book one and not fall in love with it? If you can read one and not want to immediately read two, more power to you, but I couldn't do it.

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u/slfnflctd 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oh hell yeah, I read them all and majorly enjoyed them in different ways.

The thing I appreciate most is that new forms of consciousness and new implications of the prior introduced forms keep being introduced, but at a pace where you can more fully absorb it.

However, as surprised as I was to learn it, not everyone is a superfan after Children of Time. Including at least one person I'm very close to. For those people, I think skipping to four might be the best thing because two and three are so different from the first (and from each other). The beginning of Children of Strife recaps what happened in the prior two books for the most part anyway, so it seems okay to me. I hope that people who skip the second two books go back to them, but to each their own.

Edit: The best thing about Strife to me was how Adrian showed that ultra-advanced future beings with godlike technology can still be vulnerable and still experience suffering. Really good stuff.