3 ms·
I'll re-recommend KSR's Mars trilogy. It's not a high-concept space opera so you don't have borderline-fantasy elements popping up. It not apolitical, but not
by harshreality 3y ago
I'll re-recommend KSR's Mars trilogy. It's not a high-concept space opera so you don't have borderline-fantasy elements popping up. It not apolitical, but nothing is.
You might like Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series.
You might like Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series.
They're both history PhDs, which gives them a better perspective on some things, but I don't think it helps the plausibility of their scifi.
Is Dune too close to fantasy with a veneer of spaceships?
If you're vehemently political, whether libertarian or progressive, even if it's just on some issues, that severely limits what scifi you'll be able to tolerate.
- KineticLensman 3y agoFWIW, I've read the Mars trilogy two or three times over the years and still enjoy it, although the near future it's set in hasn't aged well. There's a fair amount of 'active' politics in it, in the sense of the political discussions and acts of the characters as they go about life on Mars. These are key to the plot as the characters explore and trial various options for living on, colonising and terraforming Mars - and dealing with Earth - and there are several chapters across the whole trilogy that are essentially Mars-specific political debates. KSR sets up a profound conflict between the Red and the Green factions, neither of which are anything like the current Earth movements their names suggest at a glance. There is some good hard SF but it is 'mundane' in nature (no FTL drives, etc). I really loved Arkady Martine's first book - A Memory Called Empire - (Teixcalaan #1) and liked A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan #2). These are much more speculative and far-future in nature, although the author's background as a historian gives real depth to the world she builds.