Older scifi and fantasy books

Meant to clarify more at the end to the specific rec part that I’m fine with you just answering the first question. Just that I would take any recs that are also from the same time frame that fit what I’ve been into lately.

**Solaris** by Stanisław Lem.

Its been a while since I’ve read it, but I remember thinking The Forever War by Joe Haldeman was excellent.

I’ll second the comment about Dan Simmons. For Asimov, you’d want to try the robot books and the Foundation books. John Maddox Roberts was good–try *Cestus Dei* (1983). For fantasy, try David Eddings’s The Belgariad and Raymond Feist’s Riftwar Saga. All of Guy Gavriel Kay’s work from the 80s and 90s is worth your time–maybe try *The Lions of Al-Rassan* or *Sailing to Sarantium* first, but his Fionavar tapestry series is an interesting hybrid of several types of fantasy.

I’m older than dirt so these suggestions are pretty old.

The sector General series by James White has a wide variety of aliens in it. It’s about a hospital space station that treats humans and aliens. The suspense comes from solving medical mysteries.

Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement

Men, Martians and Machines by Eric Frank Russell

Little Fuzzyby H Beam Piper

You might enjoy all six Dune books written by Frank Herbert. It gets truly weird and epic as it goes, so even if you’re familiar with the films and the first book or two, give it a shot beyond that, at least up until God Emperor (Book 4).

Hyperion’s a good one, as others have said. Make sure you read at least the sequel as well, The Fall of Hyperion.

Check out Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey, the first book in The Expanse. This is a newer one, but you’d probably still enjoy it as it’s one of the greatest space opera type series out, imo.

Blindsight by Peter Watts is a weird one you might like, involving aliens, hard sci-fi, and set almost entirely on a ship.

For ‘fantasy’, if you’ve never read it I’d highly recommend checking out Stephen King’s series The Dark Tower, starting with The Gunslinger. A really epic, strange, series, with great world building/lore, interesting characters, and King just going all out with the creative, off-the-rails ideas. I enjoyed the first book but some people aren’t as into it, and if that’s the case with you I’d recommend starting with book 2, The Drawing of the Three. It’s where the series really kicks off, with the main cast of characters being introduced, a lot more humor, etc. The Gunslinger acts fine as a sort of prologue to the series (still, it’s great so start there).