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[Aptus]

So, I was thinking a bit (never a good sign.)... shut up brain!... So I was thinking, I really liked one thing above all else in the Stargate series (SG-1 and Atlantis.) and that is the biiiig progression, I loved how humanity started out in pretty much modern times and over the course of SG-1 turned into a galactic superpower and later in Atlantis into an intergalactic superpower. I loved following the progression all the way from those first steps through the gate fighting against far superiour tech to actually outteching the goa'uld in the end.
I would like it if it was a bit less silly side though, for all that I loved that series it could get a bit... weird at times.

Sameish thing in X-Com, start low and end big.

So I was wondering if there were any good book series that does this kind of thing? Prefferably not in the way of pure action porn (think Warhammer 40k novels.).

Sorry if I am rambling, it's a bit late and I am dead tired from a binge of Starcraft 2 replays :p

[Draxis]

Lensman is like that.

[Aptus]

Lensman eh? I'll check it out. Thanks!

[Jiharo]

Maybe the Damned trilogy by Alan D. Foster?
I'm not familiar with Stargate series so I'm not sure if that's what you are looking for but it does deal with changing role of humanity from first contact (modern times) to several centuries later.

[MonkeyHead]

The Forever War. Hard to say much about it without giving massive spolers away though.

[Heron TSG]

The Dune series takes a small noble house all the way to

Spoiler: Actual spoiler! (click to show/hide)

deification,

which is neat.

The Gotrek and Felix books of Warhammer Fantasy are pretty good. They start out with fairly tame adventures and it escalates from there. Maybe a bit of action porn, but not like 40k does.

[Aptus]

Maybe the Damned trilogy by Alan D. Foster?
I'm not familiar with Stargate series so I'm not sure if that's what you are looking for but it does deal with changing role of humanity from first contact (modern times) to several centuries later.

From your description of it, it sounds exactly like what I am looking for.

The Forever War. Hard to say much about it without giving massive spolers away though.

I'll put it on the list for the next run of books I get.

The Dune series takes a small noble house all the way to

Spoiler: Actual spoiler! (click to show/hide)

deification,

which is neat.

The Gotrek and Felix books of Warhammer Fantasy are pretty good. They start out with fairly tame adventures and it escalates from there. Maybe a bit of action porn, but not like 40k does.

I've been thinking of getting into the Dune series for a while actually.

[RedKing]

The Forever War. Hard to say much about it without giving massive spolers away though.

Yeah, I was thinking that as well. Hell, humanity seems to go through major tech leaps every couple of years (from the time-dilated subjective viewpoint of the protagonist).

Dune also advances technology significantly from the first book through the end of Chapterhouse, but it's hard to tell sometimes because the entire mythos is already so far-flung future that's it's difficult to distinguish.

Asimov's books (Robot, Empire and Foundation series), if taken as a grand unified mythos, runs a huge span of time starting with the first space settlements and robots and ending in a galaxy-wide hive mind sentience (extending even to inanimate matter).

[Aptus]

Asimov's books (Robot, Empire and Foundation series), if taken as a grand unified mythos, runs a huge span of time starting with the first space settlements and robots and ending in a galaxy-wide hive mind sentience (extending even to inanimate matter).

Already read most of Asimovs books, the foundation series is mindblowingly great.

[Eagle_eye]

the ender's game series is sort of like this, but most of the change is in the background. Humanity goes from just Earth to a hundred systems under one government, but this all happens in the gap between the first and second books.

[Reelya]

Try the Perry Rhodan series which was a German sci-fi epic series starting in 1961, it's "pulp-ish" but goes from the first discovery of a crashed alien craft, and tech appropriation, to mankind empire building and waging interstellar warfare with reverse-engineered alien tech, and building their own battleships / fleets eventually, and that's only the first "cycle" of stories (in the first 50 novellas) out of 1000's

Pulpy but fun if you like old-school sci-fi

At this stage, there are over 2600 novellas in the series, only the first ~137 got into English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

[Strife26]

Might just be my own little bias, but there's a bit of that with the Bolo books, although they're never exactly lightweights, you can see as humanity's tech progresses throughout them, but you've got to read a lot of the individual stories to get it.

[Starver]

A bit more limited in scope, but the Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy (Kim Stanley Robinson) starts off with the first Colony on Mars, scraping away at the surface and... well, it develops.  And beyond Mars.  Though action generally sticks with Mars (and its satellite moons), there obviously being some off-page development further afield, you do get first-hand depictions of some of these other places (and Earth) being visited by a 'Martian'.


It's an example of (generally, some future developments verging on getting some speculative basis) Hard Science Fiction, so don't expect Stargate-type "Technology Of The Gods" stuff, to expedient the expansion.


Also not quite what you're asking for, but Methusela's Children (Robert A. Heinlein) has a bit of expanding to beyond the Solar System... albeit... nah, that'd give a bit of plot away.


Other than that...  Some of the Babylon 5 novelisations?  (If you're not content viewing, or already familiar with, the TV series and its spin-off.)

Already you've said that the Robots->Space->Empire->Foundation progression from Asimov (which might normally have been my first suggestion, if only for its sheer size and scope!) is something you've more or less gone through.  But in the 'right' order?

[Aptus]

Try the Perry Rhodan series which was a German sci-fi epic series starting in 1961, it's "pulp-ish" but goes from the first discovery of a crashed alien craft, and tech appropriation, to mankind empire building and waging interstellar warfare with reverse-engineered alien tech, and building their own battleships / fleets eventually, and that's only the first "cycle" of stories (in the first 50 novellas) out of 1000's

Pulpy but fun if you like old-school sci-fi

At this stage, there are over 2600 novellas in the series, only the first ~137 got into English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

Sounds extremely interesting, but 2600 novellas? damn...


Thanks everyone, got some great suggestions, I should have reading material for a while now