8 ms·

New sci-fi and fantasy books to check out this August

69 points by AndrewLiptak 5y ago

Dowwie 5y ago
My Summer scifi has thus far included "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir and "Dark Matter" by Peter Straub. Both are fast-past and engaging until the end. I wouldn't recommend either if you haven't read Dune, book 1, though. Read it.
- themolecularman 5y ago
  > I wouldn't recommend either if you haven't read Dune, book 1, though. Read it. Why is that? I read Dune when I was a kid but don't remember the particulars -- do I need them for some reason?
  - manojlds 5y ago
    Feels more like a statement about make sure you read Dune before reading anything else, than about content.
    - slowmovintarget 5y ago
      Two possibilities (among many): 1. Denis Villeneuve's Dune comes out this fall, and from the trailers looks to be amazingly well done. 2. Dune is a touchstone book in science fiction. Many of the works in later generations contain passing references to it, and it has remained important and relevant since its release.
      - Dowwie 5y ago
        precisely!
  - test6554 5y ago
    Possibly because the Movie is coming out October 22nd: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/ I read it again for the first time in years last month and enjoyed it all over again. I red the children of dune sequel as well.
- siquick 5y ago
  PHM is excellent. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch is also a good read. Fast paced and interesting ideas.
  - ptsneves 5y ago
    Liked a lot. The physics of the device is laughable but the possibilities explored are really cool. Sometimes when I want some thoughts to linger on while falling asleep, I reconstruct one of the places and imagine what would it be like to stay in that world. Blake Crouch has really good imagination from my opinion and his books stay in your mind quite long. If you do not mind the week scientific background they are good rides.I liked very much the the wayward pines trilogy.
  - feoren 5y ago
    Dark Matter (by Blake Crouch, not "A Dark Matter" by Peter Straub that GP mentioned) was really terrible. Not only is the "physics" complete nonsense, the plot doesn't make any sense even if you accept his version of how physics works. Even if you suspend your disbelief and accept how the device works, the last 30 or so pages just completely ignore that and the final goal makes no sense at all. The scientists have cringey dialogue that sounds like it's straight out of a campy Hollywood action flick. The whole thing is driven by the cliche that you can either be successful and completely lonely, or have a family and be boring and unsuccessful. It's really quite bad.
    - siquick 5y ago
      Sorry you didn’t enjoy it . It sounds like you maybe wanted the book to be something it was never going to be.
    - hombre_fatal 5y ago
      It seems unnecessary to lay into some entertainment that someone just recommended. We are all surely aware of the fact that everything won’t appeal to everyone without someone weighing in every time they see a recommendation they didn’t enjoy. Dark Matter is a great lightweight hammock sci-fi book.
- kyriakos 5y ago
  Is Dark Matter actually SciFi, just read the synopsis and sounds more like horror.
- pomian 5y ago
  All three of of Andy Weird books are very entertaining. Highly recommend. The Martian, PHM(above), and Artemis.
highden 5y ago
Just finished Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan. Anyone here needs to check out their work.
- RBerenguel 5y ago
  Egan is probably far from an easy blanket recommendation, even here in HN. I enjoyed CR, but there are many parts extremely boring and way too detailed (which is usually his point and style) and that will put away a lot of people.
- ycombinete 5y ago
  My copy of Permutation City arrived a while ago. Just awaiting the right mood to strike before I get started with it
  - zenon 5y ago
    The ideas in Permutation City still bother me now and then (in a good way), 20 years after I read it. If you like idea- or philosophy-based hard SF, you can hardly do better I think.
sohkamyung 5y ago
For fantasy, I recommend "A Master of Djinn" by P. Djèlí Clark [1], a fun steampunk alternate history story where Egypt is a world power due to the magical power of djinn and other supernatural forces. Features a fun female investigator from the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities. If you're not sure about reading it, check out his prequel short story, “A Dead Djinn in Cairo” on Tor<dot>com. [2] [1] https://pdjeliclark.com/a-master-djinn/ https://pdjeliclark.com/a-master-djinn/ [2] https://www.tor.com/2020/06/08/read-p-djeli-clarks-a-dead-djinn-in-cairo/ https://www.tor.com/2020/06/08/read-p-djeli-clarks-a-dead-dj...
- AndrewLiptak 5y ago
  This one is so good!
laurencei 5y ago
Anyone have a similar style list of Scifi/Fantasy but for TV series/movies?
- Terretta 5y ago
  https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Arottentomatoes.com+sci+fi+fantasy https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Arottentomatoes.com+sci+fi+f...
test6554 5y ago
Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy Battlefield Earth (the book, definitely not the movie) The Land: Founding - Aleron Kong Steel World - B.V. Larson Ready Player One / Ready Player Two - Ernest Cline Twinborn Chronicles - J.S. Morin The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
- senectus1 5y ago
  >Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy These are great in audiobook format... the internal monologue stuff really adds to the story/character
skee_0x4459 5y ago
i was thinking about writing a novel now that im retired. i became uninterested in fiction completely about ten years ago. i just cant bring myself to care about something that didnt happen. it inevitably ends up being about people having sex or some kind of love triangle. no matter what novel, no matter how austere or dignified, if it was published in the past ten years then it uses some kind of visceral limbic-system mind bait. its some semi-interesting sci-fi with a whole lot of click bait slathered on top. even red mars, one of the only fictional books i like, has this problem. but fiction can be worth it when its laying out ideas that are so new and so fresh that it is intrinsically valuable. but these grand visions dont involve people or relationships at their core, so making a book out of it can be difficult. i think the next great sci-fi novel will be about mars. i feel like there are a lot of aspects of mars colonization that have not been picked up by the hive-mind yet. practical aspects of living there and moving things there. and generally applying the rules of today to that world. the arbitrage is in the fact that people usually paint the future with a utopian, optimistic brush but the same rules of economics and politics will apply on mars just as much as they do here. maybe that sounds like red mars but it would be different.
- siquick 5y ago
  Have you read The Expanse? No love triangles and excellent sci-fi/political ideas of the near future of space exploration.
  - Terretta 5y ago
    Another one to read before the series… but if you don’t, the series does quite well.
  - skee_0x4459 5y ago
    ill have to check that out
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  Did you get to Green and Blue Mars? I didn't find the people or relationship issues to detract from the Mars trilogy because the personalities interweaves with the politics, and the inescapability of personalities and relationships being factors in the close proximities necessary in almost all stages of colonising a planet. Greg Egan, recommended on HN in any sci-fi related thread, seems idea-heavy from the little I've read so far. (edit: reading down further I see I've been beaten to this recommendation) The novel I want to write is a thoroughly depressing the-future-is-the-just-present-for-those-born-during-it exposition about the inescapability of human nature and how this means that any and all revolution is doomed to just change the people and not the structure and that whilst your fellow revolutionaries are your closest friends and allies now, in the unlikely chance that the revolution is successful, when it comes time to actually make decisions affecting reality, you'll find yourself in the company of strangers with familiar faces. Highlighting that in any future-state technological context this remains true.
Garlef 5y ago
I would be very sceptical of everyone promoting books by Peter V Brett. They are - to say it politely - not particularly good.
- glangdale 5y ago
  This is what I would refer to as an "expansive" list - it also has Salvatore on it. Some people just plain like a lot of F&SF; far be it for me to "yuck their yums". Honestly, if I pick up a glossy new F/SF book the odds are very good that it will be poorly written tripe, or at best, kind of a tolerable way to pass a little time. If your taste runs more towards better written material, a absolutely necessary step is to open the book at a random page or two and read some of the text. If the text looks like a blogpost or the offerings of a barely literate teenager, you dodge a bullet, put it back (unless you like that sort of thing, in which case, rock on). This test has spared me a number of terrible reads - quite a number of books with perfectly nice looking covers, good blurbs and an intriguing "back of the book" premise are written by people whose writing is rudimentary (which is not to say that I need an exotic prose style; I like the 'plain' form too).
nicwolff 5y ago
I found Max Barry's "The 22 Murders of Madison May" to be an original and satisfying many-worlds thriller.

69 points by AndrewLiptak 5y ago

My Summer scifi has thus far included "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir and "Dark Matter" by Peter Straub. Both are fast-past and engaging until the end. I wouldn't recommend either if you haven't read Dune, book 1, though. Read it.

themolecularman 5y ago
> I wouldn't recommend either if you haven't read Dune, book 1, though. Read it. Why is that? I read Dune when I was a kid but don't remember the particulars -- do I need them for some reason?
- manojlds 5y ago
  Feels more like a statement about make sure you read Dune before reading anything else, than about content.
  - slowmovintarget 5y ago
    Two possibilities (among many): 1. Denis Villeneuve's Dune comes out this fall, and from the trailers looks to be amazingly well done. 2. Dune is a touchstone book in science fiction. Many of the works in later generations contain passing references to it, and it has remained important and relevant since its release.
    - Dowwie 5y ago
      precisely!
- test6554 5y ago
  Possibly because the Movie is coming out October 22nd: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/ I read it again for the first time in years last month and enjoyed it all over again. I red the children of dune sequel as well.
siquick 5y ago
PHM is excellent. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch is also a good read. Fast paced and interesting ideas.
- ptsneves 5y ago
  Liked a lot. The physics of the device is laughable but the possibilities explored are really cool. Sometimes when I want some thoughts to linger on while falling asleep, I reconstruct one of the places and imagine what would it be like to stay in that world. Blake Crouch has really good imagination from my opinion and his books stay in your mind quite long. If you do not mind the week scientific background they are good rides.I liked very much the the wayward pines trilogy.
- feoren 5y ago
  Dark Matter (by Blake Crouch, not "A Dark Matter" by Peter Straub that GP mentioned) was really terrible. Not only is the "physics" complete nonsense, the plot doesn't make any sense even if you accept his version of how physics works. Even if you suspend your disbelief and accept how the device works, the last 30 or so pages just completely ignore that and the final goal makes no sense at all. The scientists have cringey dialogue that sounds like it's straight out of a campy Hollywood action flick. The whole thing is driven by the cliche that you can either be successful and completely lonely, or have a family and be boring and unsuccessful. It's really quite bad.
  - siquick 5y ago
    Sorry you didn’t enjoy it . It sounds like you maybe wanted the book to be something it was never going to be.
  - hombre_fatal 5y ago
    It seems unnecessary to lay into some entertainment that someone just recommended. We are all surely aware of the fact that everything won’t appeal to everyone without someone weighing in every time they see a recommendation they didn’t enjoy. Dark Matter is a great lightweight hammock sci-fi book.
kyriakos 5y ago
Is Dark Matter actually SciFi, just read the synopsis and sounds more like horror.
pomian 5y ago
All three of of Andy Weird books are very entertaining. Highly recommend. The Martian, PHM(above), and Artemis.

highden 5y ago

Just finished Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan. Anyone here needs to check out their work.

RBerenguel 5y ago
Egan is probably far from an easy blanket recommendation, even here in HN. I enjoyed CR, but there are many parts extremely boring and way too detailed (which is usually his point and style) and that will put away a lot of people.
ycombinete 5y ago
My copy of Permutation City arrived a while ago. Just awaiting the right mood to strike before I get started with it
- zenon 5y ago
  The ideas in Permutation City still bother me now and then (in a good way), 20 years after I read it. If you like idea- or philosophy-based hard SF, you can hardly do better I think.

sohkamyung 5y ago

For fantasy, I recommend "A Master of Djinn" by P. Djèlí Clark [1], a fun steampunk alternate history story where Egypt is a world power due to the magical power of djinn and other supernatural forces. Features a fun female investigator from the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities. If you're not sure about reading it, check out his prequel short story, “A Dead Djinn in Cairo” on Tor<dot>com. [2] [1] https://pdjeliclark.com/a-master-djinn/ https://pdjeliclark.com/a-master-djinn/ [2] https://www.tor.com/2020/06/08/read-p-djeli-clarks-a-dead-djinn-in-cairo/ https://www.tor.com/2020/06/08/read-p-djeli-clarks-a-dead-dj...

AndrewLiptak 5y ago
This one is so good!

laurencei 5y ago

Anyone have a similar style list of Scifi/Fantasy but for TV series/movies?

Terretta 5y ago
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Arottentomatoes.com+sci+fi+fantasy https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Arottentomatoes.com+sci+fi+f...

test6554 5y ago

Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy Battlefield Earth (the book, definitely not the movie) The Land: Founding - Aleron Kong Steel World - B.V. Larson Ready Player One / Ready Player Two - Ernest Cline Twinborn Chronicles - J.S. Morin The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

senectus1 5y ago
>Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy These are great in audiobook format... the internal monologue stuff really adds to the story/character

skee_0x4459 5y ago

i was thinking about writing a novel now that im retired. i became uninterested in fiction completely about ten years ago. i just cant bring myself to care about something that didnt happen. it inevitably ends up being about people having sex or some kind of love triangle. no matter what novel, no matter how austere or dignified, if it was published in the past ten years then it uses some kind of visceral limbic-system mind bait. its some semi-interesting sci-fi with a whole lot of click bait slathered on top. even red mars, one of the only fictional books i like, has this problem. but fiction can be worth it when its laying out ideas that are so new and so fresh that it is intrinsically valuable. but these grand visions dont involve people or relationships at their core, so making a book out of it can be difficult. i think the next great sci-fi novel will be about mars. i feel like there are a lot of aspects of mars colonization that have not been picked up by the hive-mind yet. practical aspects of living there and moving things there. and generally applying the rules of today to that world. the arbitrage is in the fact that people usually paint the future with a utopian, optimistic brush but the same rules of economics and politics will apply on mars just as much as they do here. maybe that sounds like red mars but it would be different.

siquick 5y ago
Have you read The Expanse? No love triangles and excellent sci-fi/political ideas of the near future of space exploration.
- Terretta 5y ago
  Another one to read before the series… but if you don’t, the series does quite well.
- skee_0x4459 5y ago
  ill have to check that out
BLKNSLVR 5y ago
Did you get to Green and Blue Mars? I didn't find the people or relationship issues to detract from the Mars trilogy because the personalities interweaves with the politics, and the inescapability of personalities and relationships being factors in the close proximities necessary in almost all stages of colonising a planet. Greg Egan, recommended on HN in any sci-fi related thread, seems idea-heavy from the little I've read so far. (edit: reading down further I see I've been beaten to this recommendation) The novel I want to write is a thoroughly depressing the-future-is-the-just-present-for-those-born-during-it exposition about the inescapability of human nature and how this means that any and all revolution is doomed to just change the people and not the structure and that whilst your fellow revolutionaries are your closest friends and allies now, in the unlikely chance that the revolution is successful, when it comes time to actually make decisions affecting reality, you'll find yourself in the company of strangers with familiar faces. Highlighting that in any future-state technological context this remains true.

Garlef 5y ago

I would be very sceptical of everyone promoting books by Peter V Brett. They are - to say it politely - not particularly good.

glangdale 5y ago
This is what I would refer to as an "expansive" list - it also has Salvatore on it. Some people just plain like a lot of F&SF; far be it for me to "yuck their yums". Honestly, if I pick up a glossy new F/SF book the odds are very good that it will be poorly written tripe, or at best, kind of a tolerable way to pass a little time. If your taste runs more towards better written material, a absolutely necessary step is to open the book at a random page or two and read some of the text. If the text looks like a blogpost or the offerings of a barely literate teenager, you dodge a bullet, put it back (unless you like that sort of thing, in which case, rock on). This test has spared me a number of terrible reads - quite a number of books with perfectly nice looking covers, good blurbs and an intriguing "back of the book" premise are written by people whose writing is rudimentary (which is not to say that I need an exotic prose style; I like the 'plain' form too).

nicwolff 5y ago

I found Max Barry's "The 22 Murders of Madison May" to be an original and satisfying many-worlds thriller.