Reddit mentions of Below Mercury

I think if you enjoy Asimov, you'd enjoy the Culture series by Iain M. Banks, it's a long series but pretty well done, very strong plots with both 'deep' thoughts like Asimov raises but also swashbucklin' sci-fi space fun.

I'm very partial to that series because of the names of the ships; the basic premise is sentient giant civilization-ships with AI that name themselves and the names are pretty diverse but also self-categorizing. I don't think it spoils much, but I love reading through the list of names of different ships throughout the books, (here on wiki).

Side note, I'm a big fan of Elon Musk; he named the drone ships for rocket landings for SpaceX after Culture ships, which is dope.

Ummm... I suppose I'd also recommend the Hitchiker's guide as another 'modern classic'.

Lately, the most recent sci-fi books I've been reading and enjoyed are from relatively unknown authors that are just releasing these books; they tend to put them up for free on Amazon for a few days as promotion and I'll snag them then and read 'em. (I tend to do this for most of my books in general these days)

So, what have I really enjoyed lately, sci-fi wise? I've been craving for those kind of stories where things take place on a spaceship itself; after watching the Martian, Interstellar, etc, I've been wanting to continue the adventure of flying through space without a care.

So. Also definitely read the summary & reviews on the links, not jus twhat I said to see if you'd enjoy them.

1. Acid Sky by Mark Anson - So this is technically book 2 of a series, but actually a prequel to book one, Below Mercury, but book 2 takes place in Venus, on a perpetually flying craft, which was my relevant craving but I read book 1 before and it's really good - it's about investigating a mine accident on Mercury. Both books are pretty well written, has a bit of technical schematics included to geek out over if you'd like, good stories with decent plot but well executed storyline and pacing for sure. ^(also, in googling the links for this I just found out the 3rd book is released. hehe yay)
   
   
2. Enormity by Nick Milligan ^(link to complete edition; does come in 3 parts, so try P1 to see if you're hooked) - Astronaut on deep space mission loses contact, crash lands on planet, exploits humanity's greatest achievements for notoriety. Any more and it's spoilers. But it's REALLY good. If you enjoyed Fear and Loathing I think you'd enjoy this, there's a lot of gratuitous drug and alcohol use but I mean... in this sub... we might not be strangers to such things. So fair warning I suppose.
   
   
3. Space for Sale by Jeff Pollard - this is basically 'historical fiction' I think, the main character is pretty much Elon Musk but more Iron Man (without the suit) but it's more like a 'what-if' scenario for SpaceX and getting to Mars. It's pretty well written as well, first in a trilogy, the second book came out recently, and the third is on the way as well. It's also eerily accurate on timelines matching up; the book was released a few years back but I believe ends timeline-wise ~2016 or something and the new one goes further into our future but a lot of things have played out almost exactly as the book predicted. So that's something to look out for, lol.