Anything like Kim Stanley Robinson?

I really loved the Mars Trilogy, I have read it a few times and the california trilogy was good too. I have tried a few of his others but I really want to branch out. I would like to find similar sci-fi but am having a hard time. The Library Things suggester just recommends me books on Mars or California :)

What I liked, the books were political but very much based in science and how our landscape affect ourselves and our lives. I liked reading new ideas about sustainability, politics, and economics, discussions of freedom and society and how they can go together.

New Ideas! Stuff I don't know about!

OK so you want something that is serious, near future, with a focus on political or societal matters.

How about Distraction by Bruce Sterling and Air, or, Have Not Have by Geoff Ryman. The Rock & Roll Reich series by Gwyneth Jones probably also counts (Bold As Love, Castles Made Of Sand, Midnight Lamp, Band Of Gypsies and Rainbow Bridge).

Sorry some of the touchstones started acting weird and I have removed them.

Did you read his Years of Rice and Salt or his latest trilogy which begins with Forty Signs of Rain? Years of Rice and Salt is more alternate history but certainly thought-provoking. Stan Robinson is almost in a class by himself.

If you can find a copy of Adam Roberts' Salt you might enjoy the contrast between an anarchist collective and capitalist dictatorship trying to eek out an existence on the same planet.

Some of the dystopian novels might interest you also, although often they are bereft of technology and science...still they are often meant to be thought-provoking. Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale or Oryx and Crake, Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, and Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451.

There are many thoughtful novels which focus a bit more specifically on various social issues. There another thread in this group that's full of recommendations for those.

My sister suggests Zodiac by Neal Stephenson.

We both suggest Earth by David Brin.

If you haven't read The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, it deals with some of those issues (although not in our solar system).

Edit: I agree with avaland - KSR really is a class by himself.

How did I forget Earth?

Another writer whose books are politically aware is Ken Macleod but he is a mile away in style and tone.

I would also recommend Maureen F. McHugh as being of interest.

Earth sounds perfect, that will be next.

Thanks for the suggestions- keep them coming!

I used to love sci-fi growing up but then I got away from it when I couldn't find what interested me in the first place.

Years of Rice and Salt and The Left Hand of Darkness are both ones I will read soon, I just finished The Dispossessed and am excited to find new (to me) authors.

I almost got Air, or, Have Not Have before at the bookstore but I picked up Light instead which I could not get into