9 ms·
Can ye recommend any novels / authors that are as hard sci-fi as KSR or Arthur C Clarke?
by everyone 5y ago
Can ye recommend any novels / authors that are as hard sci-fi as KSR or Arthur C Clarke?
- jayesh-bhoot 5y agoFlood; Ark; and Evolution from Stephen Baxter will always stay with me.
- Herodotus38 5y agoPeter Watts has a good biology background so his books are pretty accurate when it comes to sci-fi advances with biology. Definitely better than most authors who usually focus more on physics/engineering. I liked “Blindsight” and “The Freeze-Frame Revolution” I would also appreciate any recommendations for hard sci-fi authors with a biology focus, I’m sure there are many more I don’t know.
- kryptn 5y agoI really enjoyed Blindsight, I'll have to check out your other suggestion. Thanks!
- BLKNSLVR 5y agoBlindsight was great, Echopraxia not as good, but I still enjoyed it. I'll be searching out "The Freeze-Frame Revolution" for sure, thanks. Hard sci-fi / biology crossover: https://www.gregegan.net/TERANESIA/TERANESIA.html https://www.gregegan.net/TERANESIA/TERANESIA.html
- PicassoCTs 5y agohttps://www.tor.com/2014/07/29/the-colonel-peter-watts/ https://www.tor.com/2014/07/29/the-colonel-peter-watts/
- arethuza 5y agoKen MacLeod has a zoology degree - which is presumably where names like "The Stone Canal" came from... I like most of his novels, particularly "Learning the World" - which I guess is a reverse first contact novel.
- pp19dd 5y agoHard sci fi is hard to define for me personally. But, Children of Time by Adrian Czajkowski is worth a look, and maybe Saturn Run by Ctein and John Sanford.
- jeffwass 5y agoJust out of curiosity where are you located? Here in the UK his name is spelled “Adrian Tchaikovsky”, as well as his account on Twitter (@aptshadow), where aside from writing novels he’s insanely productive creating digital artwork (often including insect characters).
- adrianN 5y agoI enjoyed Permutation City by Greg Egan and the Zones of Thought books by Vernor Vinge.
- PicassoCTs 5y agoVernor Vinge is so good, shame he dropped it in Rainbows End.
- arethuza 5y agoI think Rainbows End is excellent. However, I was disappointed with The Children of the Sky.
- PicassoCTs 5y agoIt had an interesting take on industrialization with a hivemind though. Manchester capitalism is not really bad if you are borg, after all its just a hand assigned to boredom. Rainbows End explored a society which went full AR, but in my opinion most of the shots if fired missed the target.
- germinalphrase 5y agoEven so, I would love recommendations that take full AR as seriously.
- kryptn 5y agoI really like Dragon's Egg by Robert L Forward, and its sequel as well.
- sweetheart 5y agoI didn’t know there was a sequel! How exciting.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoStarquake. It's not as good as Dragon's Egg in my opinion, and seems much more focused on development of interesting characters. That's not a bad thing, mind you.
- sbierwagen 5y agoThe Martian by Andy Weir, if you haven't seen the movie yet. If you have, he's had another similar novel out recently, Hail Mary.
- BLKNSLVR 5y agoAndy Weir also published Artemis in between The Martian and Project Hail Mary.
- er4hn 5y agoAlastair Reynolds, especially his Revelation Space trilogy are great hard sci Fi novels. He's a former astrophysicist so he knows the hard limits. I find most of his works to be good musings on humanity with a bit of alien horror.
- nullc 5y agoI'm surprised to not see "Pushing Ice" advanced as the leading Reynolds recommendation. I think his other works are good, but in my view Pushing Ice is an usually good stand alone work.
- fouc 5y agoAccelerando by Charles Stross, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, Diaspora by Greg Egan, Distraction by Bruce Sterling
- elygre 5y agoI just read Diaspora, and find it far from hard sci-fi. The Wikipedia page says “Egan invents several new theories of physics”, and that to me is not hard sci-fi.
- fouc 5y agoI think the best hard sci-fi can include cutting edge theories or even ideas that the author themselves are proposing, based on a reasonable understanding of the existing science. At the time many of Greg Egan's early books from the 90s/00s were written, there were a lot more competing ideas or theories in quantum mechanics compared to now. In his books he basically explores some of those ideas, and pushes the boundaries. The best sci-fi to me inspire future scientists or engineers to explore novel approaches.
- PicassoCTs 5y agoSorry, but Accelerando is horrible. I recommend Singularity Sky, the weird one, not watered down for the mainstream. The characters are flat, but the weirdness on route, is captured much better.
- fouc 5y agoI have a soft spot for Accelerando because it was my first encounter with the exo-cortex (or perhaps more accurately called cybernetics) concept, aka computers as an external brain. Also it was my first encounter with the concept of smart contracts, laws & corporations run purely as code.
- e12e 5y agoMany good suggestions here - I definitely recommend to check out Vernor Vinge. I've heard a lot of praise for The Expanse series (James S. A. Corey / pen name for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) - but I've only seen the TV series, not read the books.
- e12e 5y agoI would kind of consider the stand alone books Black Man/Thirteen, Thin Air (two books, same universe) and the Altered Carbon trilogy by Richard Morgan "hard" sci-fi to an extent - and be aware that the TV series, while entertaining, butchered much of the political content in the books.
- BLKNSLVR 5y agoIf you like the "Takeshi Kovacs / Altered Carbon" trilogy, you'll almost definitely like the "Greg Mandel / Event Horizon" trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton. And they're not bible sized tomes like some of PFH's later space operas (some of which I own, but am too intimidated by their size to have considered starting the journey).
- e12e 5y agoTrue, I was considering mentioning Hamilton, but it's been so long since I read those books - so wasn't quite sure if I'd call them hard sci-fi or not :)
- BLKNSLVR 5y agoQuarantine by Greg Egan: https://www.gregegan.net/QUARANTINE/Quarantine.html https://www.gregegan.net/QUARANTINE/Quarantine.html Upon re-reading your question, I don't think this recommendation exactly fits, but, damn, it's a good book anyway and Neal Stephenson doesn't do things by halves: Interface by Neal Stephenson (under a pseudonym and in conjunction with another author also using a pseudonym). This book only becomes more relevant with each presidential campaign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_(novel)
- JadeNB 5y agoGreg Egan in general is a solid recommendation for diamond-hard sci-fi; I actually think Quarantine is one of the weakest in this respect, though it's a fantastic book. Who else would think to write a series of books (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Egan#Orthogonal_trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Egan#Orthogonal_trilogy) about what would happen if you flipped a sign in the Lorentzian metric?
- seer 5y agoApart from the great suggestions (Vernor Vinge fan for sure) I think one would I would recommend would be the "Remembrance of Earth's Past" (a.k.a three body problem). It presented plausible hard sci-fi bits, while the human aspect was incredibly weird, especially from a western perspective. Definitely opened my eyes to a lot of how Chinese people probably feel about their place in the world and their legacy. But the scope of the series is just breathtaking, I don't think I've read anything that spanned as much in space or time, and made it believable too, highly recommended.
- renke1 5y ago* Seveneves (I haven't read much else from Neal Stephenson, but I've heard good things) * Children of Time / Children of Ruin (both really good) * Remembrance of Earth's Past (even the fan fiction one is good) * A lot of stuff from Alastair Reynolds (House of Suns being my favorite) * Classics like Tau Zero, The Forever War etc. * A Deepness in the Sky / A Fire Upon the Deep Although not all of these are strictly considered hard scifi, I guess. Btw, I love it when somebody asks this question every now and then on HN. Lots of stuff for one's (ever growing) reading list.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago+1 for Seveneves. I found it so engrossing that just thinking about it now I can picture the shapes of that chain in zero-G, and the unexpectedly long-lasting hellscape consequences of the very early reveal. The CB radio...
- jsymolon 5y agoeh, 1st 1/2 great. 2nd half ... really falls apart
- tartuffe78 5y agoAgreed, the first half was semi-realistic hard science fiction, the second half felt more like fantasy almost. It wasn't bad, but such a huge shift from the first half.
- totoglazer 5y agoStrong agree. Luckily you can just stop reading at the end of part 1 and it’s still a very satisfying book.
- Robotbeat 5y agoYeah, they're really 2 different books. BUT, I enjoyed the 2nd half as well. The 1st book is already obsolete technologically in some ways (launch technology has progressed a lot in the last 5 years)[0], although very interesting. Which is one reason I like the 2nd part in that it extrapolates from the sociocultural/technological developments of the first book to see what the ultimate consequences could be. The book is also a sharp commentary on the destructiveness of social media... [0]side note: the speed of progress that SpaceX is achieving with Starship in Boca Chica is comparable to a pace you'd want in the first book... They're going so fast in Boca Chica, as if the Moon fell apart and they only have a couple years left before the Hard Rain to make humanity a multiplanetary species...
- V-2 5y agoSome works of Stanisław Lem should fall into that category - such as my favourite "His Master's Voice".
- hyperpallium2 5y agoLarry Niven. His older stuff: Ringworld. and all his short-story collections, especially Neutron Star. He also did a scifi take on magic, in The Magic Goes Away. I see Vinor Vinge's AFUTD and ADITS as the closest thing to Niven.
- johnchristopher 5y agoBaxter, the manifold trilogy.
- throw1234651234 5y agoNot the The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin - recommending it is when the Nebula awards became a joke. Other than that, it used to be a trusted resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Award_for_Best_Novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Award_for_Best_Novel
- bsenftner 5y agoI strongly recommend Greg Bear. His first novel "Blood Music" is a unique take on an AI out of control, and he continues with a series independent of novels which all take place in a unified "future history". One of my favorite aspects of his future history is the combination of the bio-genetic, cosmetic surgery, and pop media artist industries to create transhumanist pop media artists, and spawning a transhumanist youth movement and a counter transhumanist political movement, with all the human chaos that would result wonderfully illustrated by his prose.
- kcartlidge 5y agoDefinitely Greg Bear. When I started reading grown-up SF decades ago it was with Bear, Bova, Niven, Pournelle, and the like. Back then Eon, Blood Music, and Ringworld (for example) were mind-blowingly vast concepts. As an aside (and purely because it's probably my turn for some hefty downvotes) I'd definitely agree with the comment elsewhere in this thread about the Foundation books being overrated. Almost unreadably dull and feeling more like any concept of 'plot' is just a carrier for a couple of mediocre ideas.
- bsenftner 5y agoAgree on the Foundation criticism. From what I've seen of the Apple series based on it, it's gonna be a politically correct mess.
- jillesvangurp 5y agoBeyond what other people list here: - Hugh Howey. His Silo series is worth a read. He published it in some episodic form. However, I'd recommend just getting the whole thing. Beacon 23 is a bit shorter and also nice. - Ramez Naam. His nexus series is a decent series. Not the best written but I enjoyed it. - James S.A. Corey, the expanse series. Makes you appreciate the tv series more. - Authors others already mentioned: Neal Stephenson & Peter Watts. Other authors that go more in the direction of space opera: Iam M. Banks, Ernest Cline, John Scalzi, Ann Lecky, Richard K. Morgan (Altered Carbon).
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoDepends what you mean by 'hard'. Anything by Greg Egan is probably going to be the hardest sci-fi you've ever read. Dude wrote a book where he considered the ramifications of a universe built on a positive-definite Riemannian metric, and another one where the universe has 2 time dimensions. Robert L. Forward's Dragon's Egg explores what life might look like if it evolved on a neutron star. Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time and Children of Ruin explore the evolution of other earth species if they were given a kick towards sapience. Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep is half space adventure (not very hard) and half an exploration of a lifeform which only achieves sapience in small groups. A Deepness in the Sky is generally harder and explores a lot of things, including the power of focused human attention, the difficulty of galactic scale civilization, and alien life evolved in a star system where the star periodically dims. Steven Baxter and Clarke collaborated on The Light of Other Days, which explores the technical and sociological consequences of a device which allows you to see the past. With a broad interpretation of 'hard' I can highly recommend Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, which have soft science but hard humanity. Similarly The Long Earth series, a collaboration between Pratchett and Baxter, where it seems Baxter handles the sociological and technological consequences of the science while Pratchett handles the characters and philosophy. Asimov's I, Robot is an exploration of what happens when you try to constrain intelligence with rules. Asimov's Foundation Trilogy gets a lot of hype, but it isn't very hard and I also found it utterly mediocre. Instead I recommend The God's Themselves, which is so good it's like Asimov was channeling a much better writer to get his ideas down. It explores the limited interaction of our universe with one that has slightly different physical properties. Also perhaps stretching the definition of 'hard', but I want to recommend it because it's relatively unknown, is Leonard Richardson's Constellation Games, in which an incredibly advanced multi-species anarchic alien civilization makes first contact with humanity, and the protagonist really just wants to play their video games. It's actually harder sci-fi than it sounds.
- the__alchemist 5y agoIn addition to the existing ones (I'll throw another vote towards any Neal Stephenson or Andy Weir novel): Contact by Carl Sagan. It's a nice tale about a passionate SETI scientist, by an author known more commonly for nonfiction and TV.