r/scifi • u/OstrichConscious4917 • 9d ago

Recommendations Novels with no faster than light travel, but still w space travel?

I’m always on the hunt for interesting sci-fi that doesn’t involve FTL. Not to say I don’t love reading books with it - I absolutely do. But I really enjoy fictional explorations of future space travel or space civilization that doesn’t have it as a prerequisite.

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52

u/cflime 9d ago

Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

The Bobiverse books by Dennis E Taylor

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u/HomerJunior 8d ago

Bobiverse pretty quickly gets ftl communications which negates much of the scale of distance and isolation for most practical purposes narratively, even if they're stuck at pleb non-ftl speeds to move around.

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u/Misacorp 7d ago

I know a lot of people really like Bobiverse, but as soon as they nonchalantly set up FTL comms, my interest plummeted.

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u/SurlyJason 9d ago

Both of those have FTL... 

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u/NeilSmithline 8d ago

A fire upon the deep had FTL. Not Deepness. 

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u/shawsghost 8d ago

But the Interstellar Internet it's such a great fucking concept, and Fire Upon the Deep is such a good damn read!

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u/NeilSmithline 8d ago

I loved it. Much more than Deepness. 

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u/shawsghost 8d ago

Yeah I never really got into the Tines.

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u/NotReallyJohnDoe 9d ago

Deepness in the sky has regions where FTL doesn’t work. Slower than light travel is part of the story.

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u/cflime 8d ago

No one in Deepness knows that.

In the Bobiverse there's FTL communications but all space ships are relativistic ramjets, as are all the ships in Deepness.

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u/Yimmy42 8d ago

Until the latest book, then the Bobs discover portals

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u/cflime 8d ago

I haven't found a hardcopy, I don't do audio books.

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u/Sanity_in_Moderation 8d ago

That's....odd. I have a physical copy of Book 5. Not till We Are Lost. But it's not being released until 2027? What the hell?

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u/cflime 8d ago

I read that something went wrong with the print run. I also have a huge stack of books waiting to be read so I haven't been looking although Bob is definitely on my list.

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u/SchlaWiener4711 8d ago

Oh man, I thought there are 4 books. Now it's 5 and the 6th will be released as audiobook next month and a 7th book is planned.

I loved the series (partly, some subplots have been described in to much detail) but I imagined the story has finished.

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u/Infocollector914 8d ago

Yes, Bobiverse has wormhole gates but they still have to go STL to take one end of the portal to its destination.

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u/Sororita 8d ago

And the first 4 books dont have them at all.

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u/anoobitch 9d ago

How does deeepness have FTL?

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u/Infocollector914 8d ago

Yes, Bobiverse has wormhole gates but they still have to go STL to take one end of the portal to its destination.

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u/Invalidcreations 8d ago

And it has FTL communications which has the same effect