Traveller like fiction recommendation

[madmike]

Just finished "The Rim Rebels" by William Zellman which I thought was very Travelleresque.

Amazon Link

Might even by easy to adapt in part for a small campaign, especially crew interactions and ship ownership shares arrangements for the Free Trader "Bonnie Lass"

 

[Spinward Scout]

Sounds similar to Azimov's Foundation.

From Amazon.com synopsis for The Rim Rebels:

For the space opera lover! 75 years ago an academic predicted the fall of the Empire and was banished to the very rim of known space. Now, the decline is beginning to become noticeable, and the planets of the rim are planning for the Fall and preparing to rule the known universe afterward.

 

[Rover]

I enjoyed the Vatta's War series by Elizabeth Moon. The most Traveller like fiction I have ever read that didn't have a TRaveller logo on the cover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatta's_War

*edit, Ooops, thought you were looking for a reccomendation.

 

[aramis]

For MTU, the closes novels are the Sten series and the Vorkosiverse... but MTU tends to be a bit over the top.

 

[Timerover51]

I like the old Andre Norton "Solar Queen" series and also H. Beam Piper's "Space Viking" and "Cosmic Computer (aka The Junkyard Planet)" along with some of his other novels to use as a basis for my Traveller ideas.

For that matter, Norton's "Storm Over Warlock" would be an interesting basis for what I would call a "thinking PC" adventure. A planet listed as uninhabited that actually is inhabited by a marine-dwelling race, with a considerable amount of psionic ability. "Cats Eye" would be another good one, while Arzor would be a great setting for a wide range of adventures, including a major Ancients installation, ala Twilight's Peak.

 

[madmike]

I enjoyed the Vatta's War series by Elizabeth Moon. The most Traveller like fiction I have ever read that didn't have a TRaveller logo on the cover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatta's_War

*edit, Ooops, thought you were looking for a reccomendation.

Yes, it certainly is a great series. Probably my favourite.

With Rim Rebels, I found the ship crew and their relationship with the ship and each other to be excellent. Grizzled ex navy officer, an engineer straight out of a Douglas Reeman novel and the young ships hand on his first adventure etc.

All so similar to the bunch of suppressed looney's crewing the IMV Razorback in the campaign I am currently refereeing.

I ignored the Asimov connections in the novel.

Zellman has published several novels in the same universe. Each stands on it's own and it very good.

 

[Dragoner]

Harry Harrison's Planet Story would make for a great adveture, just call it "One gigantic railroad..." :rofl:


http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/harry-harrison/planet-story.htm

 

[Songbird]

I'll second the Solar Queen series and Vatta's war and here are a few others I've enjoyed;

The Drifter trilogy by William Dietz (trader/smuggler fun)
The Shattered Stars by Richard McEnroe
Star Drifter by Dale Aycock
Any of Mike Resnick's are a fun read

Enjoy!

 

[GRNDL]

CJ Cherryh's "Chanur" books: Pride of Chanur, Chanur's Legacy, etc. The main characters are Aslan style aliens, freetrading around the universe and dealing with shifty aliens. Cherryh is one of the few authors who thinks out the aliens as aliens rather than peeps in alien suits.

 

[Uriel]

CJ Cherryh's "Chanur" books: Pride of Chanur, Chanur's Legacy, etc. The main characters are Aslan style aliens, freetrading around the universe and dealing with shifty aliens. Cherryh is one of the few authors who thinks out the aliens as aliens rather than peeps in alien suits.

I completely that Cherryh's aliens are truly alien. Heck, even her human cultures can be pretty alien. In a good way.

 

[mirc]

The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn has a very RPG-like "pace and feel".

 

[mike wightman]

I always recommend the Brian Daley novels in the Adventures of Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh series:
Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds (1985)
Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (1985)
Fall of the White Ship Avatar (1986)

 

[Easterner9504]

SPACE ANGEL series by John Maddox Roberts Classic tramp freighter with in over their expectations crew.

CINGULUM series by John Maddox Roberts a lot less but does have Ancient tech loose

SECTION G UNITED PLANETS Mack Reynolds Agents visit TL 0-7 worlds that resist or impede progress and attempt to get them on path to hi-tech.

MARCH UP COUNTRY series Weber & Ringo. First 3 books pure TRAV and easily converted to campaign. 4th is palace intrigue and criminal/revolutionary for high Social types.

HUMANX COMMONWEALTH series Alan Dean Foster easily converted to TRAV even has GURPS sourcebook. Skua September books very TRAV, Flinx books not far behind.

 

[GRNDL]

Oh yeah, I'd be completely remiss without mentioning Bob Shaw's "Ship of Strangers." Imagine Magazine #29 even had a Traveller adventure module based on it, complete with deckplans, in its pull out.

 

[Timerover51]

I forgot about Mack Reynold's Section G. He had some very interesting characters in his stories.

There is also Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series. I should get out my copies for some re-reading.

 

[Easterner9504]

I forgot about Mack Reynold's Section G. He had some very interesting characters in his stories.

There is also Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series. I should get out my copies for some re-reading.

Like Dorn Horsten FBFEFA an egghead scientist.

Harrison's DEATHWORLD Trilogy is TRAV too.

 

[mpoles]

The Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn stories by Poul Anderson
Tuf Voyaging by George R.R. Martin
Santiago and Ivory by Mike Resnick. (The latter two are so Travelleresque that I decided to insert themes from them into my upcoming running of the Traveller Adventure.)

 

[Selandia]

The Earl Dumarest serie by E.C. Tubb. Always wondered if this was not the root to Traveller that Bilbo was for D&D.

Selandia

 

[leo knight]

Most of Jack Vance's SF, especially the "Alastor Cluster" series, and the "Tschai: Planet of Adventure" series.

Also, "Dying of the Light" by George R.R.Martin, and "Nova" by Samuel Delaney.

More: C.L. Moore's "Northwest of Earth" stories, and Leigh Brackett, especially her Mars stories.

 

[FreeTrav]

Others have mentioned Moon's Vatta's War and Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat and Deathworld trilogy; one might also want to throw in the second book of his To the Stars trilogy, Wheelworld. H. Beam Piper's Terro-Human Future History has had some books mentioned, most notably Space Viking, but one could make interesting Traveller adventures out of Four Day Planet or the Fuzzy saga (including the apocryphal books by William Tuning and Ardath Mayhar) as well.

Other places to look would be the John Grimes series by A. Bertram Chandler, and the Liaden Universe by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller - both series are available in toto from Baen.

A little farther afield, but still worth thinking about, is The Course of Empire and The Crucible of Empire, the beginning of a series that is currently on hiatus, because one of the two authors, K.D. Wentworth, died suddenly and unexpectedly. (Co-author and Baen line editor for the Assiti Shards universe Eric Flint has plenty on his plate; there are indications of intent to pick up the series at some point in the future, but for now... )

If you can get past the Enterprise crew acting like the Enterprise crew, there are some stories from the Pocket Books Star Trek novels that might be worthwhile sources for adventure ideas; two that immediately come to mind are Uhura's Song and The IDIC Epidemic, but there are others.

The thing to remember, though, is that everyone has a different idea of the answer to "What is Traveller, and what is 'Traveller-like' fiction?", so you'll need to take anything said in this thread with a grain of salt - especially since I seem to take a slightly broader view of the question than is perhaps conventional...