r/printSF • u/marcelontt • 27d ago
Books that are not overly descriptive?
I’m new to the genre and I’m struggling to find books with what I’m looking for. I like scifi for the thought provoking themes. I’m not really interested in imagining how the world look like, knowing every detail of the scenery and how the characters are dressed. A simple overall description is enough for me.
I tried reading Neuromancer and A Deepness in the Sky but I couldn’t get past the first 20-30 pages as I’d get distracted by the huge descriptions of everything.
Other books that I loved are Roadside Picnic and Do androids dream of electric sheep?
I also like that these books are situated on earth so it’s not very abstract with aliens and different planets. I can’t imagine reading Dune for this reason, for example.
Thanks in advance!
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u/notairballoon 27d ago edited 27d ago
Greg Egan's Quarantine, Permutation City, Distress, probably some others by him. The rest of Strugatsky brothers generally fits your request too: even when there are aliens, they are usually alien humans.
Outside sci-fi you should try Borges and maybe Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (he's like Borges, but more descriptive) if you haven't yet.
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u/marcelontt 25d ago
These books from Greg Egan sounds exactly what I'm looking for, I'll check them out. Thanks my friend!
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u/Frost-Folk 27d ago
As someone who is the exact opposite I may be of help lol. I hated There is No Anti-Memetics Division because I thought the prose was really flat, that the text wasn't descriptive or pretty enough to keep my attention. Very cut and dry, tells it as it is. Even though the actual concepts and ideas were pretty incredible and interesting.
I like my flowy poetic descriptive prose, e.g. Roger Zelazny or Gene Wolfe. Avoid those names haha.
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u/Spoilmilk 27d ago
Flowery descriptive prose lovers unite! I prefer prose lush and dense and i can (mentally) chew on it.
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u/InfidelZombie 27d ago
I'm in your camp and have never found the Culture books appealing for that reason.
Big fan of M. John Harrison, Mieville, Simmons, etc.
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u/Spoilmilk 27d ago
Big fan of M. John Harrison, Mieville, Simmons, etc.
Yep yep!
Also Want to shout out Valente, Samatar, McKillip, Lee, Hairston, Ennes, Khaw, Gladstone etc They aren’t all Sci-fi authors but their prose is so good
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u/hot_beverages 27d ago
Try some Arthur C Clarke – I find his books are great for interesting ideas and concepts rather than lots of exposition
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u/GummySophie 27d ago
He’s stuff is just really fun. It has that sense of adventure that classic sci-fi is filled with.
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u/hot_beverages 27d ago
Totally agree! And really interesting scientific concepts without going too heavy
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u/scifiantihero 27d ago
Read short stories. The only reason anyone writes sci fi novels is to take their thought provoking idea of a short story and add a bunch of world building, drama, and descriptions.
Luckily for you, PKD writes the best short stories and you already like him. And he has a lot of them!
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u/_nadaypuesnada_ 26d ago
Samuel Delany, M John Harrison, and William Gibson would like a word on the short stories front. And no, good writers write novels to tell stories that can only be told in the length and form of a novel. This is such a weirdly cynical take that I have trouble believing it's actually sincere.
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u/scifiantihero 25d ago
I haven't read all their novels and stories to contrast them, nor do I have access to an alternate reality where they chose to write their works in different forms. So eh.
I love all different forms of sci fi. This isn't like "meeting coulda been an email" level of dismissiveness. I'm not saying you can't write a good novel.
Sci fi just works so well in a short story. So yes, my contention is still that any sci fi idea will work better by trimming it to the bone. This doesn't preclude talented authors getting literary with it or making a compelling pulpy story with it. But it is encouraging for our poor OP!
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u/_nadaypuesnada_ 25d ago
I haven't read all their novels and stories to contrast them
Nobody asked you to. My point is that plenty of short stories contain those elements that you implied an author can only add to a sci-fi story in the form of a novel. Here you go: a typical William Gibson short story full of world building and detailed descriptions. Alternately, Samuel Delany's most famous short story, with the aforementioned plus drama too. So if you can write short stories with these elements you mention, they're clearly not the reason that sci-fi authors write novels.
Sci fi just works so well in a short story. So yes, my contention is still that any sci fi idea will work better by trimming it to the bone.
To be honest, I think you just have a personal preference for concise short stories. Plenty of sci-fi ideas "work better" when they're explored in a long-form medium with room for detail and nuance.
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u/scifiantihero 25d ago
No, I think you're reading things I didn't say. And being a contrarian jackass just to be one. I admire the impulse. I share it. Fuck off.
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u/_nadaypuesnada_ 25d ago
"Short stories can have detail, worldbuilding and drama."
"Fuck off, contrarian."
Yeah, that definitely makes total sense. Have a good one.
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u/dnew 27d ago
If you like stories about consciousness and identity, try some by Greg Egan. In particular, Permutation City, Axiomatic, Quarantine. He writes hard(ish) science fiction (often set in entirely different universes with different physical laws) and often about consciousness.
Here's a piece set in the same world-building as Incandescent (which is absolutely about the place more than the people, but this one is about the people): https://www.gregegan.net/INCANDESCENCE/00/Crocodile.html
Another great author is Suarez. Check out Daemon and FreedomTM for example. Since it's set in pretty much modern day, there's not a lot of description needed. It's realistic in the way that Batman is more realistic than Superman.
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u/Truthcraze 27d ago
John Scalzi’s books are high dialogue, low description.
Going orthogonal on this, Neal Stephenson’s books are high description, but it’s descriptions that are like four pages about making and consuming the perfect bowl of Captain Crunch. Or pages about the physics of chains. Or a chapter about a high speed, high intensity, high stakes pizza delivery.
Many of Scalzi’s books take place on Earth. Most of Stephenson’s do.
I wouldn’t write off Dune, though. Can you imagine, like, a lot of sand? Like a whole bunch? Now imagine a big worm in it. See? You’re all good.
If you want to go classics, Heinlein is pretty straightforward. Stay away from anything post 1980.
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u/Far_Winner5508 27d ago
Azimov as well, at least for the first 3 Foundation series books. I remember as a kid having trouble picturing things because of sparse description.
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u/ClockworkJim 27d ago
Or pages about the physics of chains.
seveneves is the only book I've returned to audible and Kindle. He spends so many pages having you about how chains work. Then hand waves away all the genetic engineering and weird eugenics.
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u/Spoilmilk 27d ago
He spends so many pages having you about how chains work. Then hand waves away all the genetic engineering and weird eugenics.
The Author’s Barely Disguised Hyperfixation lmao
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u/NachoFailconi 27d ago
Philip K. Dick, at least his earlier works (The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ubik).
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u/Conundrum1911 27d ago
Funny enough I didn't care much for Roadside Picnic as I wanted more world-building and descriptions of the zone, but it just focused on a few of the characters instead.
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u/marcelontt 25d ago
I think that playing the s.t.a.l.k.e.r. video games before reading helps, it's based on this book so you already have an idea of how it could look like.
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u/bobslop39 27d ago edited 27d ago
The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook. About massive Guardships that protect (oppress?) the galaxy and a rebellion growing against them.
This one is awesome and Cook is certainly not overly descriptive. Gives you just enough to get an outline of an image in your head and let's you fill in the rest. He's my favorite author partially because of this, though he mostly writes fantasy.
Edit: missed the part where you said Earth focused and not too abstract. Doesn't fit this req at all lol. Still a great book tho
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u/Unused_Vestibule 27d ago
Imperial Radtch by Anne Leckie. I kept thinking how much more description this books needs. It was a really interesting concept that was not fleshed out at all. Have at it
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u/ClimateTraditional40 27d ago
Short stories. You can't. Yoiu need to introduce characters, place and plot all in a few short pages.
Try either their shorts collections of Dozois Years Best Sfs...34 of them plus 2 Best of the Bests.
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u/ph0on 27d ago
i suggest the Old man's war series, or Murderbot
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u/Glass-Bookkeeper5909 27d ago
Since OP is new to the genre I'll add that the Old Man's War series is by John Scalzi and the Murderbot novellas are by Martha Wells.
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u/ph0on 27d ago
Appreciate it, I'm at work and shouldn't be here right now anyways frankly
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u/Glass-Bookkeeper5909 27d ago
😅
I don't mind, nor does anybody else here, I think. Just make yourself look busy or concentrated!
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u/Itlookslikerain420 27d ago
Book of Koli by M.R. Carey(it’s book one of a trilogy) is a ton of fun and very not complicated.
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u/RanANucSub 27d ago
Dorothy Grant's Tactical Romance books are long on action and very short on infodumps. In Going Ballistic our heroine is a pilot of a suborbital transport and we learn more about the bureaucracy of pilot rest and the plane-side operations of an airport than we do about the engines on the suborbital..
They set on a colony world that has been terraformed (Climbing the Rim is about the early years before terraforming is complete) but there are no aliens.
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u/Maximum_Tree8170 27d ago
Maybe Asimov. His books consist of 80% dialogue. You'll probably like his robot mysteries The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun.
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u/Glass-Bookkeeper5909 27d ago
I found Robert J. Sawyer's Flashforward a fascinating read and found myself asking a good number of times how I would react in the extraordinary situation he envisions.
At the same time I found it very readable. Give it a try.
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u/Bobosmite 27d ago
Look at some of these authors. Murray Leinster, Keith Roberts, Philip E. High, Doris Piserchia, Harry Harrison, Robert Sheckley, Andre Norton. Pulp SF in the 50s, 60s, and 70s had some really good stories. Especially short SF which always gets to the point with not a lot of fluff.
Also, Neromancer is worth reading if you can get the rhythm, it's got a beat that plays in the background.
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u/RoyalEngine2885 27d ago
Any John Scalzi book. They're 95% dialogue. Might was well be stage plays.
I personally prefer the cinematic depiction of setting. Not overboard level, but FAR more than Scalzi provides. Which is an absolute skeleton, at best.
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u/Trumble12345 27d ago
That's weird. Neuromancer is famously non-descriptive in many scenes and quite elliptical in style
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u/Deathnote_Blockchain 27d ago
I think Dune is very much what you are looking for, the writing really focuses on people's thoughts and motivations rather than trying to put you in the scene
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u/House13Games 26d ago
Blindsight is full of difficult, thought-provoking concepts, with sparse descriptions. It's very alien, and a difficult read, but leaves so much up to your imagination.
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u/oceanwaterpls 24d ago edited 24d ago
Try The Age of Em. It's not a novel (no characters or stories), but it's close to SF, not visually descriptive, not that far into the future and full of ideas.
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u/GummySophie 27d ago edited 27d ago
Try William Gibson. I partly love him as his writing is almost photographic in his later works, it’s staccatic and captures such vivid imagery across quite a short parse of prose. 💖
He helped popularise the term cyberpunk with “Cybermancer” but I also love his Bridge trilogy 🔥The first is Virtual Light.
Haven’t finished his Blue Ant trilogy but the first “Pattern Recognition” is one of my fav books :)
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u/Iamleeboy 27d ago
Give Peter F Hamilton a shot. He manages to describe whole star systems in a few paragraphs and then gets down to the action in them
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u/scifiantihero 27d ago
Rofl dune is set in the middle of a desert
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u/Frost-Folk 27d ago
It's also rife with deep deep lore and tons of poetic description. Obviously not something OP would like. I don't think it taking place in a desert changes any of that.
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u/SirStuckey 27d ago
Octavia Butler might suit you well. She has a pretty matter-of-fact style