Science Fiction

Have you read any Iain M Banks’ The Culture novels? Incredible writing. Most of his books have interesting twists in them, some of which will fuck you up. They are the type of books that you wish you could read again for the first time. The author died in 2013 so there are no more coming.

• Consider Phlebas
• The Player of Games
• Use of Weapons
• The State of the Art
• Excession
• Inversions
• Look to Windward
• Matter
• Surface Detail
• The Hydrogen Sonata

Other SF books by Banks:

• Against a Dark Background
• Feersum Endjinn
• The Algebraist

Read the expanse series if you haven't. It's good. Bio of a space tyrant is pretty good too, but definitely less hard sci-fi.

If you want something very different, try Malazan Book of the Fallen. It's fantasty, but the world building is outstanding.

Some of my all time favorites:

• Project Hail Marry, Andy Weir. He did "the Martian", similar tone of semi-hard sci-fi with a healthy dose of cheeky humor. Much bigger and more interesting scope.
• Seveneves, Neil Stevenson. Absolutely amazing read. Pretty heavy at times.
• The wool ombinus and shift, Hugh Howly. It's the series the silo show is based off of. Absolutely fantastic. They're doing a great job with the show but I love the books. One comment: The first book, the wool "omnibus" started as some short stories that Howly just kind of did out of passion. For better or worse, the series tends to get a bit lighter as it goes on because Howly started finding success and I think was just in a better place in life. Those first few chapters of the omnibus (which used to be their own stories) hit like a freight train. When reading remember originally you didn't have the benefit of feeling how many pages were left in the in the book; that gut punch was the end. That was it. There was no more.

For series:

• Startrek strange new worlds is perfect if you like trek. It's exactly the right level of camp, but still gets weird. It's hard to explain, and it might not be your cup of tea, but they really captured some of what made TOS magical.
• The expanse show is amazing. Especially if you like it when people treat space realistically. I mean, it's still fiction but they put a lot into what both surviving and commuting in space would be like. It's like when Europeans started coming to the Americas: You could do it, the boat could handle it, but it was pretty rough.
• If you liked the Anhelation move, American Gods might be worth a try for you. Same kind of dreamy feel. I don't know if I'd really call it "sci-fi" but it's weird and wonderful and visually amazing.
• For all mankind is fantastic, but different seasons may be divisive for some viewers lol. I loved them all in different ways
• Fringe was an absolutely modernized x-files for a while
• Legion is trippy as hell and one of those "you'll love it or hate it" shows.
• Pennyworth is a weird romp through steam-punk through 50s/60s London and a lot of fun (it's barley connected to anything batman)
• Doom patrol is another fantastic odd one that you'll know pretty quickly is or isn't for you
• Severence. I would have been happier if they told the story as a 1 season shot but it's a great ride
• edit: wanted to add some love for my boo Stargate. It's campy at times. It's corny at times. But I loved all of them, SG-1, Atlantis, and yes even SGU. You should be aware though that SG-1 and Atlantis are tonally pretty easy breezy, and SGU made a hard right in quasi-grimdark territory. I loved it but it's divisive for that reason.

Movies:

• Moon. The one with Sam Rockwell. Absolutely fantastic.
• Contact, with Jodi Foster. Not exactly obscure but doesn't get the mentions it deserves.
• AI is worth a re-watch with some context. It's best viewed as Kubricks last film. Movies with Mikey did a great episode on it that had me appreciate it way more
• Ex_Machina is really well done, even if the central point had a much shorter shelf life than anyone expected when it came out.
• Gattaca, if only because it absolutley nailed an uncomfortable amount of things.
• predstination
• The newer planet of the apes trilogy. There's no shortage of praise for this one but I feel like it still flys under some peoples radar as another popcorn schlock cash grab
• Sunshine. An absolutley brutal and beautifully done hard sci-fi watch.
• Vivarium. If you like the feeling of being in liminal space this is a feature length film that will give you that.
• In this order: "resolution" (2013), "The endless" (2018),
• The void

The common factor seems to be more grounded Earth-based sci-fi with a smidge of horror and perhaps some mystery, rather than space battles.

In that case, films and TV:

• Early Cronenberg up to eXistenZ (perhaps Crimes of the Future, if you really like that)
• Society
• The Faculty
• Save the Green Planet
• Under the Skin
• They Live
• The Mist
• A Quiet Place
• Cube series
• Slither
• Splice
• Splinter
• The Reanimator series
• From Beyond
• Phantasm series
• Tetsuo
• Cloverfield (and 10 Cloverfield Lane)
• The Host
• Predator series
• The Void
• Fringe TV series, as you liked The X-Files. I presume you have watched Millennium?
• BrainDead (2016 TV series)
• The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker TV series
• Truthseekers (2020 TV series)
• Lovecraft Country - book and series
• Eerie Indiana
• Ultraviolet (1998 UK TV series)
• Tokyo Gore Police and others by the same team, like Meatball Machine and Machine Girl
• Gantz
• The Girl With All the Gifts - book and series
• Timecrimes
• Pi
• Bad Taste
• Grabbers
• Body Melt
• Wild Zero
• Pontypool
• The Objective
• District 9
• Firebase and have a look at the others they have done, especially Zygote
• Love, Death and Robots
• Matango
• Xtro
• John Dies at the End - read the books first
• Frankenstein's Army
• Overlord
• Quatermass and the Pit, as well as other Quatermass films and series
• The Deadly Spawn
• The Man With X-ray Eyes
• Village of the Damned (1960)
• The Illustrated Man (1969)
• Take Shelter

And one with spaceships in it: Starship Troopers

Looks to me like you’re in the sci fi/thriller genre. There’s a lot in that category. Seems you like the classics too. Have you tried Phillip K. Dick? Dracula might be your cup of tea also.

You seem to like character driven stories with fantastical elements. The stories you list I put in the category of "weird shit happens to people" which is distinct from space operas and world building, which is most of sci-fi.

You might want to look at the nightside books by Simon Green, for pulpy action mysteries in a fantastical London. American Gods by Neil Gamain for a world just beyond our sight. Or maybe even Horrorstöre by Grady Hendrix for a haunted IKEA.

slaughterhouse five

If you like S5, all of Kurt Vonnegut's works are great. Try Sirens of Titan.

St. Lem "The Invincible".

Couple movies I didn't see mentioned yet (lots of good suggestions in this thread) to consider:

• Coherence (2013)
• Strange Days (1995)

And for books:

• "Remembrance of Earth's Past" trilogy by Liu Cixin
• "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Can anyone recommend where I could get short sci-fi horror stories? Even for audio listening like a podcast.

My love for aliens, space, etc was born from Alien, Star Wars, and even wierd movies like Splic despite it being kind of meh.

I absolutely love Arrival, The Martian, Interestellar, and even Ad Astra.

Even more so I love horror being thrown into the mix and I want more of it. My love for sci-fi grew even larger with video games like Halo and more recently Stellaris.

I loved Annihilation and Dune as books. I am almost finished with the last book of The Three Body Problem series and the last book is a tough read. The Dark Forest is easily the best of the three so far.

I saw a massive list on this thread and have book marked it for later but I love listening to sci-fi horror. Every now and again, The No Sleep Podcast will tell a Science Fiction Horror story and I just want more.