This is a really interesting list. Probably the duology I'd most like to finish is The Sparrow / Children of God. I enjoyed the first book, but really it's only half the story - I've heard it claimed that the series as a whole reads like one big novel. If you fancy a classic SF duology, try Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon / Around the Moon. It's surprisingly humorous and entertaining, and pretty visionary for its time. Could it be the first ever sci-fi duology? I certainly can't think of any more examples from that era, except maybe the Captain Nemo duology, which came out a few years later (also by Verne).
I absolutely adore the Sparrow duology. It's one of my favorites. I used to do an annual reread of them for a while. The Children of God is so worth it when you look at the Sparrow as the Gospels portion and Children of God as the Acts of the Apostles. But then I'm a strict Catholic, and that parallel comes very easily to me.
Thank you for the recommendations. My library shelf is hravy. Good thing my wife is an SF fan too, and she just EATS books! Goo thing the library is close!
Loved the Sparrow duology. I am one of those who sees both as excellent. What is most amusing for me is how not one but three very close friends who also read them told me independently that one of the key character’s personality reminded them of me. Scarily one told me that only fifty pages into book one…
Awesome list of duologies! I bought The Sparrow (nice used copy) before I realized it's a duology. Now I'm going to have to collect the second book before I read it.
In The Lives of Puppets by T. J. Klune is set in world similar to that of Sea of Rust with a twist and is amazing. Put it on your TBR list. Also appropriate for Valentines day.
Two's company, as they say. Some great books in that list. I enjoyed Echopraxia more than Blindsight, but I think I need a re-read of that. I recently read Dogs of War, I thought Honey was a better character than Rex and I'm looking forward to the 2nd book, in the post to me now. I have the first Friedman book on my shelves, sounds great. I also really enjoyed the Texy-doo-dah books from Arkady Martin. some more for you and your viewers to consider (you may already have them in mind for Part 2) PFH - Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained - top notch space opera Connie Willis - Blackout/All Clear. Technically it's part of a 4 book series but these two form a pair that can be read alone Robert Silverberg - At Winter's End/The Queen of Springtime - far future Dying Earth type thing (haven't read it yet) Mary Gentle - Golden Witchbreed/Ancient Light (on my shelves, haven't read it) Stephen Baxter - Proxima/Ultima (read it ages ago, don't remember much, and there is also a short story collection in the same "universe") Charles Stross - Singularity Sky/Iron Sunrise (space opera) Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep/Children of the Sky (epic stuff. technically there is a prequel, A Deepness In The Sky, but it is set 20,000 years before AFUTD) Stephen Donaldson - The Mirror of Her Dreams/A Man Rides Through (it's fantasy not SF, but what the hell) MR Carey - Infinity Gate/tbc (space opera from the author of The Girl With All The Gifts, book 2 out later this year I think) From a quick scan of my shelves those are the ones that spring to mind. Great idea for a video, looking forward to part 2.
Great video - thanks Whitney. Some books there I didn't know, some I didn't fancy, but 'Lock In' really appeals and is going on my reading list. Thank you.
I read my first Scalzi this year (Starter Villain) and really liked it so definitely interested in Unlocked. This Alien Shore and Sea of Rust are also going on the TBR.
Echopraxia by Peter Watts is really good. Like Blindsight it starts a bit slow, but the twist catches you and after that it's very intriguing. Worth the read!
The C. Robert Cargill duology sounds great. Especially the sequel, which does the crowd-pleasing thing in describing how the A.I.s took over the Earth to start with.. One of my pet peeves in SF is reading about colonised planets, or the Earth controlled by aliens, or A.I.s, etc.. - & yet we don't get to find out how it got that way..... Anyway I'm looking forward to giving that duology a try. Thanks.
Yes, Teixcalan duology! ❤ I recently heard of dogs of war and I'm interested in trying that one! And/or maybe ogres.... Gotta love some Adrian Tchaikovsky!
I think Dogs of War is my all-time favourite SF duology, although I enjoyed the first book just that little bit more than the second. Rex must be one of my all-time favourite characters. I recently bought a copy of This Alien Shore, after watching one of Rachel’s videos, so pleased to find out that there is a second book too! Another great video Whitney!
📚 The Friedman duology caught my ear, but it’s not quite so readily available over here 🇬🇧 nowadays, even just a few short years after a reprinting/rerelease in 2020/21. Very deep sigh! Looks like I can get the original 1999 printing of “This Alien Shore” but the Daw Books edition of that first book with the covers you showed isn’t so accessible anymore. Meanwhile the 2021 rerelease of “This Virtual Shore” is attainable 🤷♂️ Love your off-piste recs. but I do struggle to acquire some of them physically in paperback form, which certainly adds to the fun doesn’t it 😁
Great list of duologies. Can't wait to see the next one. This video was excellent and it has an absolutely brilliant title. Please like and subscribe to this channel to help it grow.
Awesome list of duologies! I bought The Sparrow (nice used copy) before I realized it's a duology. Now I'm going to have to collect the second book before I read it. 😅
I had just decided not to read trilogies or series for a while, and then you make a video about duologies😂. I can’t say no now. I’ll have to pick up some of your recs!
Some authors get stuck in their own worlds and can't move on. Two is the perfect amount of books to tell a story Thanks for the recs I think I will look for Peter Watts Blindsight
I was kind of surprised not to find "Blackout" and "All Clear" by Connie Willis on your list, since both books won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards. The books follow a group of time traveling historians from Oxford University who go back in time to study Britain during the second world war. Once they arrive, they find that they can't get back to their own time and find themselves living during the blitzkrieg and on the battle front, getting knowledge first-hand. It's a beautiful pair of books which do need to be read together. I can also recommend two duologies by by Donald Moffit, written in the 1980s. The first is "The Genisis Quest" and "Second Genesis" where Earth has broadcast the genetic sequence of Homo sapiens to the stars. The signal is caught by a group of aliens in another galaxy who use the data to create humans. The humans then modify a space-grown giant tree to live in, fit it with a Bussard ram-jet, and journey back to see what has become of Earth. This is about as high-concept SF as you are going to get. The second duology is "Crescent in the Sky" and "A Gathering of Stars". Given that it was written during the energy crisis, the book posits a milieu where ownership of most of oil production has resulted in a world taken over by Islam. Societies are organized around Arab tribal culture and ruled by Moslem princes. A young arabized man, of English ancestry, finds himself caught up in political intrigue and the creation of black holes to move star systems. Again, great fun. It's a shame that the books are out of print.
Wow thanks for the recommendations and the excellent summaries! I will have to be on the lookout for those. Im always disappointed at what has fallen out of print. As for the connie willis books- they are “technically” considered part of her oxford time travel series with doomsday book and to say nothing of the dog- and is therefore a quartet. I hate when authors do that when they happen to b in same universe but not same characters, etc. vorkosagan saga books, culture seires even ursula le guin’s Hanish cycle.
@@secretsauceofstorycraft I see your point on "Blackout/All Clear" and I can even agree with you, up to a point. On the other hand, you do need to read both books to get the complete story. Doesn't that make them a duology that is part of the time travel series in the same way that "Lord of the Rings" is a trilogy that is part of the middle earth series which includes "The Hobbit" and "The Silmarillion"?
Hi, the graphic you showed about Duologies that were expanding, showed John Birmingham and his Cruel Stars series. I follow the author’s blog and have read the two books shown in the graphic and from the beginning I always thought this was meant to be trilogy. I’m wondering if you were instead thinking of The Girl in Time series by John Birmingham which currently consists of two books but the author has said he would like to expand this somewhere down the track. Otherwise, thanks some suggestions of interesting new books for me to read.
Most of the books I have read are parts of trilogies or longer series. Does it count as a duology if I read the first two before the others were written? I liked A Desolation Called Peace a bit more than A Memory Called Empire because of the additional Points Of View. I am hoping for more books set in Teixcalaan space but would that make the first two not a duology?
Hard not to like Atwood's brilliance; and I think, yes, I'm sure The Testaments is a prequel to The Handmade's Tale - maybe you mentioned that. If you haven't read Naomi Alderman's The Power, it was surprising in its honest application of corruption in the context of female power. Atwood had a hand in working with Alderman on The Power. Also, I'm an outlier who thinks Redshirts was Scalzi's nadir, a black hole from which he never escaped as an author.
I just finished Echopraxia. It was okay. It introduces a lot of really fascinating ideas and concepts. My personal criticism is that the story is all over the place and quite disorganized and pointless. Besides that, though, I enjoyed it reasonably well. The action was good, the characters were pretty good, etc.
Don't know of a lot of Duologies; do know a very good trilogy I haven't seen mentioned anywhere, By John Varley, they are Titan, Wizard, and Demon. recommend for the recommender.
Pandora’s Star/Judas Unchained. Don’t make MorningLightMountain and Paula Myo upset.
Next video 😜
New Sauce video, today is a good day
🔥 🩵
This is a really interesting list.
Probably the duology I'd most like to finish is The Sparrow / Children of God. I enjoyed the first book, but really it's only half the story - I've heard it claimed that the series as a whole reads like one big novel.
If you fancy a classic SF duology, try Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon / Around the Moon. It's surprisingly humorous and entertaining, and pretty visionary for its time. Could it be the first ever sci-fi duology? I certainly can't think of any more examples from that era, except maybe the Captain Nemo duology, which came out a few years later (also by Verne).
Hmmm i dont know if it is or not…. Come to think of it i have no idea when duologies became a thing…
I’ve only read Blindsight out of all of these 😬
Loved it though!
I have Parable of the Sower coming up in March
Hope u find some books you rnjoy!
I absolutely adore the Sparrow duology. It's one of my favorites. I used to do an annual reread of them for a while. The Children of God is so worth it when you look at the Sparrow as the Gospels portion and Children of God as the Acts of the Apostles. But then I'm a strict Catholic, and that parallel comes very easily to me.
Plan to read it in may
Thank you for the recommendations. My library shelf is hravy. Good thing my wife is an SF fan too, and she just EATS books! Goo thing the library is close!
Sounds great! You guys make a great pair!! Sounds like she needs a duology for valentines 💌
Loved the Sparrow duology. I am one of those who sees both as excellent. What is most amusing for me is how not one but three very close friends who also read them told me independently that one of the key character’s personality reminded them of me. Scarily one told me that only fifty pages into book one…
🤣 sounds like they have u pegged! I am planning to pickup children of god in next few weeks for my dinish the series challenge!
Awesome list of duologies! I bought The Sparrow (nice used copy) before I realized it's a duology. Now I'm going to have to collect the second book before I read it.
Luckily its not that hard to find :) thanks for watching
Locked In/Head On sounds interesting.
Sparrow : I +hate read+ the last 1/3rd of that book. Didn't know there was a 2nd book.
Great content.
Haha 😆- like the hate read. I get that
In The Lives of Puppets by T. J. Klune is set in world similar to that of Sea of Rust with a twist and is amazing. Put it on your TBR list. Also appropriate for Valentines day.
Bam! Done!!! Thanks
I finished the Sparrow last month. Yours is the first 'review' where I am excited to read the sequel.
I havent read it yet- i plan to in may!!!
Great video. I suggest also the "Four - BEE" series by Tanith Lee.
I'll check it out! Never heard of it….
Two's company, as they say. Some great books in that list. I enjoyed Echopraxia more than Blindsight, but I think I need a re-read of that. I recently read Dogs of War, I thought Honey was a better character than Rex and I'm looking forward to the 2nd book, in the post to me now. I have the first Friedman book on my shelves, sounds great. I also really enjoyed the Texy-doo-dah books from Arkady Martin.
some more for you and your viewers to consider (you may already have them in mind for Part 2)
PFH - Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained - top notch space opera
Connie Willis - Blackout/All Clear. Technically it's part of a 4 book series but these two form a pair that can be read alone
Robert Silverberg - At Winter's End/The Queen of Springtime - far future Dying Earth type thing (haven't read it yet)
Mary Gentle - Golden Witchbreed/Ancient Light (on my shelves, haven't read it)
Stephen Baxter - Proxima/Ultima (read it ages ago, don't remember much, and there is also a short story collection in the same "universe")
Charles Stross - Singularity Sky/Iron Sunrise (space opera)
Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep/Children of the Sky (epic stuff. technically there is a prequel, A Deepness In The Sky, but it is set 20,000 years before AFUTD)
Stephen Donaldson - The Mirror of Her Dreams/A Man Rides Through (it's fantasy not SF, but what the hell)
MR Carey - Infinity Gate/tbc (space opera from the author of The Girl With All The Gifts, book 2 out later this year I think)
From a quick scan of my shelves those are the ones that spring to mind.
Great idea for a video, looking forward to part 2.
Thanks! Some of these may appear on the next video or later in this one 😜 like robert silverberg one. But i do appreciate the list….
Great list. I'm particularly interested This Alien Shore, which was new to me. Thanks for the video!
Thanks! More coming soon
I love C.S. Friedman. I have This Virtual Night, but have not read it yet. I want to reread This Alien Shore first since it's been almost 25 year.
You wont eed to reread it honestly.
@@secretsauceofstorycraft Really? Because I honestly don't remember anything about it.
Great video - thanks Whitney. Some books there I didn't know, some I didn't fancy, but 'Lock In' really appeals and is going on my reading list. Thank you.
Absolutely 👍🏻 hope you like it
I am delighted to say that I’ve just finished Lock In and loved it. A well constructed, SF, police procedural. Great recommendation. Thank you.
I first read Daemon and Freedom when they were self published. Awesome reads
🔥
Stross's Eschaton duology is fantastic.
🔥
I loved Handmaid's Tale and testament great twist to the 2nd novel if you liked the 1st novel you will love the second
I just read that Lock In and Head On, is the prequel novella Unlocked
Im sooo excited to hear this!!
Great recommendations! You should also do your favorite romances in sci-fi novels!!
I thought about it but…. I dont know many… 🤪
I read my first Scalzi this year (Starter Villain) and really liked it so definitely interested in Unlocked.
This Alien Shore and Sea of Rust are also going on the TBR.
Wonderful!!
Echopraxia by Peter Watts is really good. Like Blindsight it starts a bit slow, but the twist catches you and after that it's very intriguing. Worth the read!
Can’t wait!!! Thank u!!
The C. Robert Cargill duology sounds great. Especially the sequel, which does the crowd-pleasing thing in describing how the A.I.s took over the Earth to start with..
One of my pet peeves in SF is reading about colonised planets, or the Earth controlled by aliens, or A.I.s, etc.. - & yet we don't get to find out how it got that way.....
Anyway I'm looking forward to giving that duology a try. Thanks.
Hope you have a good time
Yes, Teixcalan duology! ❤
I recently heard of dogs of war and I'm interested in trying that one! And/or maybe ogres.... Gotta love some Adrian Tchaikovsky!
Ogres is a great novella and dogs of war is a fantastic book- you wont be disappointed either way!
@@secretsauceofstorycraft just got dogs of war in a two-for-one audible deal!
Very nice! There are too many goodies to read on this list. I'm coming back to this one!👍👍👍📚🤖🚀🐲
Thank you!! 👽 more to come
I think Dogs of War is my all-time favourite SF duology, although I enjoyed the first book just that little bit more than the second. Rex must be one of my all-time favourite characters. I recently bought a copy of This Alien Shore, after watching one of Rachel’s videos, so pleased to find out that there is a second book too! Another great video Whitney!
Awesome! Rachel and I read that book together. I hope u like it as much as we did!
I really liked Dogs of War as a standalone. Bear Head was not for me at all 😅
To each their own
He writes such a variety! Something for almost everyone!
Totally agree on Dogs of War duology being an awesome combo that felt different!
💜 thanks!
I really need to get to Earthseed! I would highly recommend The Commonwealth duology by Peter Hamilton. Massive story and totally gripping!
I hope you get earthseed!! Its soo good. I have pandora’s star
Sea of Rust was great and now I cant wait to read the prequel
Hope you love it!!
📚 The Friedman duology caught my ear, but it’s not quite so readily available over here 🇬🇧 nowadays, even just a few short years after a reprinting/rerelease in 2020/21. Very deep sigh! Looks like I can get the original 1999 printing of “This Alien Shore” but the Daw Books edition of that first book with the covers you showed isn’t so accessible anymore. Meanwhile the 2021 rerelease of “This Virtual Shore” is attainable 🤷♂️
Love your off-piste recs. but I do struggle to acquire some of them physically in paperback form, which certainly adds to the fun doesn’t it 😁
Im surprised they r hard to find…. But hope u can grab a copy soon
Good stuff, I think I added 8 to my list, thanks.
Awesome! Thank you!
Great list of duologies. Can't wait to see the next one. This video was excellent and it has an absolutely brilliant title. Please like and subscribe to this channel to help it grow.
Hahah yeah i came up with that title all by myself 😜
Awesome list of duologies! I bought The Sparrow (nice used copy) before I realized it's a duology. Now I'm going to have to collect the second book before I read it. 😅
I plan to read it in may
I had just decided not to read trilogies or series for a while, and then you make a video about duologies😂. I can’t say no now. I’ll have to pick up some of your recs!
Haha 😆 hey its still not a trilogy or series :) totally counts
Ooo, so lock-in can be read as a standalone? May move it up the list a bit
Yep def can be
Some authors get stuck in their own worlds and can't move on. Two is the perfect amount of books to tell a story Thanks for the recs I think I will look for Peter Watts Blindsight
🔥 that one is a doosey! Hope you enjoy
I recommend it a lot. One of my favorite books, i’ve read it about three times
I was kind of surprised not to find "Blackout" and "All Clear" by Connie Willis on your list, since both books won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards. The books follow a group of time traveling historians from Oxford University who go back in time to study Britain during the second world war. Once they arrive, they find that they can't get back to their own time and find themselves living during the blitzkrieg and on the battle front, getting knowledge first-hand. It's a beautiful pair of books which do need to be read together.
I can also recommend two duologies by by Donald Moffit, written in the 1980s. The first is "The Genisis Quest" and "Second Genesis" where Earth has broadcast the genetic sequence of Homo sapiens to the stars. The signal is caught by a group of aliens in another galaxy who use the data to create humans. The humans then modify a space-grown giant tree to live in, fit it with a Bussard ram-jet, and journey back to see what has become of Earth. This is about as high-concept SF as you are going to get.
The second duology is "Crescent in the Sky" and "A Gathering of Stars". Given that it was written during the energy crisis, the book posits a milieu where ownership of most of oil production has resulted in a world taken over by Islam. Societies are organized around Arab tribal culture and ruled by Moslem princes. A young arabized man, of English ancestry, finds himself caught up in political intrigue and the creation of black holes to move star systems. Again, great fun. It's a shame that the books are out of print.
Wow thanks for the recommendations and the excellent summaries! I will have to be on the lookout for those. Im always disappointed at what has fallen out of print.
As for the connie willis books- they are “technically” considered part of her oxford time travel series with doomsday book and to say nothing of the dog- and is therefore a quartet. I hate when authors do that when they happen to b in same universe but not same characters, etc. vorkosagan saga books, culture seires even ursula le guin’s Hanish cycle.
@@secretsauceofstorycraft I see your point on "Blackout/All Clear" and I can even agree with you, up to a point. On the other hand, you do need to read both books to get the complete story. Doesn't that make them a duology that is part of the time travel series in the same way that "Lord of the Rings" is a trilogy that is part of the middle earth series which includes "The Hobbit" and "The Silmarillion"?
I’m glad you enjoyed Teixcalaan! I gave them an 8.5 and an 8.0 so I liked them too.
Yeah they were great!!!
Reading the Sparrow right now.
Yay hope u like it!!
Hi, the graphic you showed about Duologies that were expanding, showed John Birmingham and his Cruel Stars series. I follow the author’s blog and have read the two books shown in the graphic and from the beginning I always thought this was meant to be trilogy. I’m wondering if you were instead thinking of The Girl in Time series by John Birmingham which currently consists of two books but the author has said he would like to expand this somewhere down the track. Otherwise, thanks some suggestions of interesting new books for me to read.
Ah ypu might be right!! I own the cruel stars books but havent read them and probably got them mixed up!! Nice catch
You see I didn't know there's a Ready Player Two. Might just not go for it, thanks for the warning.
You are happier not knowing
Most of the books I have read are parts of trilogies or longer series. Does it count as a duology if I read the first two before the others were written?
I liked A Desolation Called Peace a bit more than A Memory Called Empire because of the additional Points Of View. I am hoping for more books set in Teixcalaan space but would that make the first two not a duology?
Haha yep 👍🏻 if there are more than 2 its not a duology… but that makes it a trilogy 🥰 i dont know if she is working on another book or not
Hard not to like Atwood's brilliance; and I think, yes, I'm sure The Testaments is a prequel to The Handmade's Tale - maybe you mentioned that. If you haven't read Naomi Alderman's The Power, it was surprising in its honest application of corruption in the context of female power. Atwood had a hand in working with Alderman on The Power.
Also, I'm an outlier who thinks Redshirts was Scalzi's nadir, a black hole from which he never escaped as an author.
I actually did t love redshirts either. But i am excited to get into testaments….
I just finished Echopraxia. It was okay. It introduces a lot of really fascinating ideas and concepts. My personal criticism is that the story is all over the place and quite disorganized and pointless. Besides that, though, I enjoyed it reasonably well. The action was good, the characters were pretty good, etc.
Hmm interesting- im looking forward to it
Don't know of a lot of Duologies; do know a very good trilogy I haven't seen mentioned anywhere, By John Varley, they are Titan, Wizard, and Demon. recommend for the recommender.
Ooh! I own titan! Will push it up my list!
Do you consider the Hyperion Cantos as a quadrilogy, or two separate duologies?
Cantos is def 4 books. At least to me.
some people like trios or more for valentines day. probably Malazan fans. 🤣🤣🤣
🤯
Agreed regarding RP2 - it was dogshit! A complete money grab.
Agreed. And sad
I am in the middle of Dogs of War.
🔥
No!
You were supposed to buy Daemon & Freedom so you could go nonstop. LOL
Haha u didnt tell me that!
@@secretsauceofstorycraft
🤦 (women!) 😆