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[hawkeye_de]

I'd like to read a good, 'realistic' SciFi novel with a believable story&characters. Any hints?

[Nadaka]

I'd like to read a good, 'realistic' SciFi novel with a believable story&characters. Any hints?

Almost everything written by Arthur C Clarke.

[Kogut]

• A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
• A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge - not-so-realistic but still great first part
• Fiasco by Stanisław Lem (may be very hard to find, I have no idea about how this author is known beyond Poland) - first chapter is well, fiasco but then - realistic description of contact with aliens...
  
• His Master's Voice - also by Lem
• Herbert George Wells - classic and quite realistic
• Jacek Dukaj - unfortunately nothing translated into English

Dune saga as realistic? Well - it is classic but it is no more realistic than Star Wars.

[RedKing]

Depends on what you mean by "realistic".

Larry Niven has a number of books which are very scientifically sound *if* you accept the initial, usually incredibly rare physical conceit of the setting (like the Integral Trees/Smoke Ring world, which is a free-floating ring of atmosphere and scattered material in orbit around a neutron star)

[hawkeye_de]

• A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
• A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge - not-so-realistic but still great first part

Those books look very nice, indeed^^

[Kogut]

For me realistic SF is not science as-it-is-now but scientific approach to things. From this point of view Star Wars/Dune cycle is pure fantasy and "Perfect Imperfection" starting from one episodic character murdered for the third time (in this morning) is pure SF.

[MonkeyHead]

A number of reccomendations:

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman has some interesting Scientific/Engineering concepts in it, most signifigantly relatavistic time dilation and its implicayions for war.

Iain M Banks and the Culture series of novels are IMHO awesome.  There is some fudged physics here and there, but I can forgive that for how well it all hangs together. Reccomend either "The Player of Games" or "Consider Phlebas" as starting points. Avoid "Excession" until you have read a few - not because its unreadable (its probably the best in the series), but it makes little sense without knowing a lot of the background to the Culture.

Ken Macleod is another author I can reccomend. He has a series of novels all interlinked regarding humanity, socialism, colonization of space, AI, tech singularity, hell, loads of stuff. Start with either of the series known as "The Star Faction" or "Engines of Light". Both are good doorways to his work.

Oh, and its worth reading Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein. The films bear little or no resemblance to the tech, setting, events and species described within them. Notable as AFAIK it contains the first conceptualization of powered armour, which is now so overdone by pretty much any scifi flim, book and game.

[Virex]

If you're not too keen on it actually being Sci-Fi from our point of view, you may like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells (the latter being less hard in the sense that he doesn't explain much of anything.)


Also, I find it hard to regard any book dealing with space colonization as hard Sci-Fi, but that could just be me.

[Footkerchief]

Stephen Baxter is the one you're looking for.
Manifold: Time
Manifold: Space
Voyage

I also remember liking Eon by Greg Bear, but I haven't read it in years.

[Phmcw]

Anyhing by Asimov. Especially his robots. (Though they are retro SF now).

[Il Palazzo]

It would help, I suppose, if the OP specified what is his understanding of 'realistic' SF.

[Reelyanoob]

Seconding "The Forever War" that Monkeyhead suggested - excellent novel

Also there were a couple of older writers I picked up I quite like (I used to collect a lot of old Sci Fi Novels)  :-

John Morrissey wrote a pile of good ones, can be very haunting, and his depictions of the future society were quite bleak and cynical. "Frostworld and Dreamfire" was my favourite one, it has echo's of the destruction of native americans in RL. Humans colonize a world with an indigenous race already there. Things do not go well. The race and their unique culture is described in great detail. Is told through the eyes of this race, with humans as the "others"

Barrington Bayley, a friend of Michael Moorcock, was frankly an amazing sci-fi writer. Surreal, but with a feel of the early classic sci fi. Distorts time and space and perception in cool ways. There's a short story compilation call "Knights of the Limits" which highlights his style, awesome scope to the concepts here. Really hard to find anything in print though (maybe Amazon)

Here's author Brian Stableford's review of Knights Of The Limits

Modders: Read this link, there's a couple of great race ideas in the stories, including a hive Bee race (though the story itself is weirder than you can imagine)

[de5me7]

as previous posters have mentioned, depends what you mean by realistic.


Alastair Reynolds is very hard SF (Hard Sf as opposed to soft SF has a focus on being within the realms of possibility and trying to explain phenomenon/tech with pseudo science or science).

Reynolds novel Pushing Ice is probably the most hard sf/realistic sci fi novel ive read, as in everything that happens in it could be possible. (with the possible exception of the prologue). His Revelation Space, Redemption Arc, and Absolution Gap Trilogy are probably better tho. He also authored Chasm City which is in competition with Metro 2033 for my favourite novel. Reynolds his hard sf down to the level of no faster than light travel, and (being an astronomer / lecturer for his day job) having space ships take a realistic amount of time to travel between the stars (he uses real stars and estimated the distance in  light years).

Id also recommend anything by Philip K Dick, although he's not as hard science as Reynolds, he is the innovator of many of Sci Fi's most enduring concepts.

Also, gritty but not realistic per say, Neuromancer by William Gibson

[Nadaka]

Also by William Gibson, spook country... though it is more regular fiction than science fiction. The tech isn't at all related to the story, and in the short few years since it has been written, you can do that stuff with your iphone now.

[Simmura McCrea]

Maybe the Honorverse series by David Weber? I've only read two or so, but they seem to be mostly realistic.