Good Science Fiction About Asteroids?

[Palanan]

Apart from the classic Rendezvous with Rama, what other novels or stories deal primarily with asteroids? I know Larry Niven had some interesting ideas, looking for anything else along those lines.

I’m aware of two movies that came out in 1998, and of course The Expanse, but for my purposes I’m interested in written fiction only. Beyond Niven, I can’t think of much offhand, but there must be a lot more out there.

[hamishspence]

Ben Bova's The Rock Rats trilogy, maybe.

[Trafalgar]

I suggest reading the script to Michael Bay's Armageddon. You can find it here.

[Psyren]

By asteroids, do you mean specifically the kind that stay in space? Or are you also including variants like meteor(ite)s and comets?

[Tarmor]

Eon - Greg Bear.
Set in 2005, when the U.S. and Soviet Union are on the verge of nuclear war. A 290 km asteroid is detected, following an anomalous and very powerful energy burst just outside the solar system. The asteroid moves into a highly eccentric Near-Earth orbit, and the two nations each try to claim this mysterious object.

[Mechalich]

Heart of the Comet, a 1986 novel by Gregory Benford and David Brin, is about a micro-colonization effort on Halley's Comet.

[Eldan]

Sort of "Pushing Ice" by Alastair Reynolds. It starts out being about a crew of asteroid miners, but quickly goes off the rails.

[monomer]

Neal Stephenson's "Seveneves" has a few parts of the novel that revolve around capturing, mining, and building a base on asteroids, though the actual living within / on the asteroid parts are mostly skipped over.

[factotum]

Eon - Greg Bear.
Set in 2005, when the U.S. and Soviet Union are on the verge of nuclear war. A 290 km asteroid is detected, following an anomalous and very powerful energy burst just outside the solar system. The asteroid moves into a highly eccentric Near-Earth orbit, and the two nations each try to claim this mysterious object.

And its sequel "Eternity", although I would argue that both books are far more about the mysterious thing *inside* the asteroid than the asteroid itself.

[GeoffWatson]

The Expanse TV series is based on a book series, so you could read that.

[The Glyphstone]

The Troy Rising trilogy by John Ringo is primarily centered around turning an asteroid into a massive battlestation to defend Earth from aliens.

[Willie the Duck]

Isaac Asimov's 'Marooned off Vesta' is one of his better short stories. The asteroid is mostly just a (just out of reach) destination more than the primary focus of the story, but it is still integral to the story.

[factotum]

Isaac Asimov's 'Marooned off Vesta' is one of his better short stories. The asteroid is mostly just a (just out of reach) destination more than the primary focus of the story, but it is still integral to the story.

Speaking of short stories, there's "The Martian Way" (also by Asimov, more a novella than a short story) which is about the titular Martians fetching an ice asteroid after Earth threatens to cut off their water supply.

[Willie the Duck]

Speaking of short stories, there's "The Martian Way" (also by Asimov, more a novella than a short story) which is about the titular Martians fetching an ice asteroid after Earth threatens to cut off their water supply.

Oh, I remember that one! As an 8-9 year old, it was mind blowing that asteroids could be made of ice.

[Tyndmyr]

Apart from the classic Rendezvous with Rama, what other novels or stories deal primarily with asteroids? I know Larry Niven had some interesting ideas, looking for anything else along those lines.

I’m aware of two movies that came out in 1998, and of course The Expanse, but for my purposes I’m interested in written fiction only. Beyond Niven, I can’t think of much offhand, but there must be a lot more out there.

The Expanse is originally a book series, which I highly recommend. While it's fairly similar to the show early on, the two do diverge to a fair degree. I'm on book eight at present, and it's pretty great, and it's one of the few where asteroids remain genuinely important.

There's a bunch of sci fi that involves asteroids to some degree, but the focus is generally elsewhere. A lot tend to embrace the huge scale of space, and focus more on either ships or worlds. Heinlein wrote The Rolling Stones, which is pretty much about mining the asteroids, though. Not as famous as his more well known works, but maybe interesting to check out.

Dropping rocks on earth comes up a few times(Hammer of God/Lucifer's Hammer/god knows how many others), which kind of involves an asteroid, but not sure if that's the vibe you're going for. If it is, my favorite interpretation of this concept is The Killing Star.

If you're looking for something that blends the vibe of asteroid exploration with planetary sci-fi, Rocheworld/Return to Rocheworld may be interesting for their stories arising from an extremely unusual orbital setup.

[Gnoman]

Ben Bova's Privateers involves US astronauts trying to steal a Soviet asteroid IIRC.

[Wookieetank]

The Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton has a number of asteroid based colonies along with a series of colonies in an asteroid field. Overall they're more just set pieces, but he does go into detail on how the various colonies are built/structured in the asteroids. It is a doorstopper series though, just a heads up.

[dps]

Only thing I can think of that hasn't already been mentioned is a book I read way, way back called Garbage World. It's about an asteroid that serves as basically a landfill for the other asteroids, which are mostly luxury resorts. Can't text the author or publisher, an tbh I wouldn't call it good (it actually was one of the worst books I've read all the way through).