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Traveller-esque space opera books

R

ravells

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I have recently picked up a copy of 'Moving Target' by Elizabeth Moon - Amazon UK link here

I'm enjoying it tremendously - it reads just like a traveller adventure (crew of small trader starship making they way, corporate espionage etc). The author freely uses Traveller terms: e.g: 'freshers, jump. and other SF terminology, e.g. ansible links. (from Ender's Game).

Does anyone know of any other space opera novels with a real Traveller flavour?

Cheers

Ravs
 
Excellent, thanks. Keep them coming! I want to spend the next few months buried in Traveller type stories!

Havn't read any Poul Anderson for over 20 years!

Ravs
 
Jack McDevitt does some good Traveller-like scifi. "Chindi" and "Omega" could easily be something the Scouts would run into.
 
A long while ago I read CJ Cherryth's Merchanter's Luck. It takes place on a large merchant vesseles. Each vesel is crewed by a family. If i remember it right it has some strong Traveller flavour

RN I am reading "Death of Wisdom" by Paul Brunette. The book is published by GDW and is set in Traveller the New Era. It is a great big wheel of cheese, on a cosmic scale actually.

When the crew flies a far trader and planets are described by thier TL, you can't get more traveller than that.

And don't forget Gateway to the Stars by Pierce Askagia (SP) also set in the OTU.

Gateway is a better read.

R
 
A lot of H. Beam Piper's stuff works well for Traveller. Huge computers, conventional firearms, contragravity, gravtanks...
I'd particularly recommend "Uller Uprising", including the science essay in the foreword, "Little Fuzzy", "Space Viking" (esp. for TNE fans), and the stories in the two collections of shorts, "Federation" and "Empire"
 
Originally posted by Dunryc:
C.J. Cherryh's Chanur's saga and other books out of the Merchanter's War universe (i.g. Down Below, etc.).

http://www.cherryh.com/index.html
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I would take it one step further and say that MOST of Cherryh's SF could be fit into a Traveller universe. The Union/Company series, the Faded Sun trilogy, just about all of her SF has a very Traveller feel to it. Nice hard SF with intersting characters and plots. Some shoot'em-ups, but very gritty stuff.

She is also a great source for Aliens...
 
Originally posted by Starviking:
Definitely Poul Anderson's trading stories - classics.
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Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry books would be a good setting for Hard Times/End of Imperium type stuff. Very much one man holding back the darkness... He even uses Minor Races!
 
Also try Andre Norton's Free Trader stories. Small independent ship's aginst the megacorps. Plague Ship is one of them, but I can't remember the names of the others right now.
 
Cole and Bunch's Sten. Bunch's Star Risk Ltd. Second the Bujold & Piper recommendations. McCaffrey's Powers that Be series (Power Lines, etc).

Some stealable elements in the Lensman Series by Doc Smith.
 
E.C. Tubb's Dumarest series of novels; The Family d'Alembert series by E.E.'Doc' Smith; The Stainless Steel Rat series and the Deathworld series, both by Harry Harrison; Brian Daley's Alacrity Fitzhugh and Hobart Floyt novels.

They've all influenced MTU in the past...
 
There is a book entitled "Armor" that gives a pretty cool extrapolation of the Battle Dress concept.

Let's not forget Heinlein's Starship Troopers, where the idea first matures. (Outside of japan, at least!)
 
Interesting. I just did a search on 'Moving Target' on my library web page, and the one that comes up is by Elizabeth Lowell - and it's a romance novel. Wierd coincidence with the author's names. Do you know if they printed it under a different name in the U.S.?
 
The Jack McDevit books have a very Travelleresque feel to them. I'd second the Vorkosigna saga and the Stainless Steel Rat too.

Peter F Hamilton's books have a certain flavour appropriate to Traveller, despite the high technologies. I'd also recommend Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels: the central sci-fi conceit (up/downloading, replacement bodies, or 'sleeves') is quite different but the merc elements are very relevant, and his ancients, or "Martians", are very Travelleresque. Not for the squeamish, though; the body count is exceedingly high for non-nuclear personal combat.

And of course, the Demon Princes cycle from Jack Vance. Grandiloquent...
 
</font>
  • The Terran Inheritance ~ Brian Daley
    </font>
    • </font>
    • The quintessential Traveller trilogy, it practically seems based on the premise of the game. FTL ship travel is the fastest communication, merchant traders in small hyper-capable starships, a vast network of worlds, many medium to small nations, the Precursors and their mysteries (the Ancients), etc. Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds, Jinx on a Terran Inheritance, Fall of the White Ship Avatar.</font>
  • Dune ~ Frank Herbert
    </font>
    • Giant space opera, noble houses, treasure, romance, treachery, redemption, etc. More los-tech than typical Traveller, but still . . .</font>
    </font>
  • Ringworld ~ Larry Niven
    </font>
    • Ancient's artifact hunt!</font>
    </font>
  • Gateway ~ Fredrick Pohl
    </font>
    • The great leap into the unknown, or where fools rush in.</font>
    </font>
  • Ivory ~ Mike Resnick
    </font>
    • A search for an item of ancient cultural significance that perhaps only a few understand, and a great story along the way.</font>
    </font>
  • The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat ~ Harry Harrison
    </font>
    • The criminal end of the Traveller-era SF-technology.</font>
    </font>
  • The Man Who Used the Universe ~ Alan Dean Foster
    </font>
    • The criminal and corporate end of things.</font>
    </font>
  • On Basilisk Station ~ David Weber
    </font>
    • The military end of things. BBs, DNs, and SDs, huzzah!</font>
    </font>
 
Originally posted by Sir Dameon Toth:
Interesting. I just did a search on 'Moving Target' on my library web page, and the one that comes up is by Elizabeth Lowell - and it's a romance novel. Wierd coincidence with the author's names. Do you know if they printed it under a different name in the U.S.?
Click to expand...
Yes, it was...or, I assume that's the case.

Here in the US, this particular series by Elizabeth Moon is being promoted as "Trading in Danger", Book #1, plus "Marque and Reprisal", Book #2. Book #3, "Engaging the Enemy" is also out, but only in Hardcover (I, myself, wait and buy the Mass Market Paperbacks).

The series is called "Vatta's War". But, again, for whatever marketing reasons, these names may be different outside the US.
 
Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanely Robinson. Somewhat harder sci-fi than Traveller (no anti-gravity, no jump-drives), but has a very Travelleresque feel, and is full for ideas for TL8-TL9 societies on Very Thin (later just thin) Atmosphere worlds, as well as ideas for Hard Times campaigns, especially towards the end of Red Mars and the beginning of Green Mars, and is quite a good source of inspiration for TL8-TL9 terraformation and colonization methods.

Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournell's (sp?) The Mote In God's Eye - that book even had Black Globes! Very creative and quite Travelleresque.

Larry Niven's World of Ptaavs (sp?) and other books concerned with the Asteroid Belt, he've probably coined the term Belters here, not to mention dealing heavily with belting and TL8-TL9 interplanetary travel and industry.

Across a Thousand Years (I don't recall the author), deals with ancient artefacts not unlike the Traveller ones.
 
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