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Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
- bwb 2y agoAuthor Brian Guthrie shares some of his favorites and happy to see that I have only read one of these.
- freetonik 2y agoOne of "you may never heard of" sci-fi books I can recommend is The City & the City by China Miéville. Perhaps not traditional science fiction, but so original and strange, it's beautiful.
- Keysh 2y agoC.J. Cherryh's 1981 novel Wave Without a Shore has something vaguely similar, where the human inhabitants of a planet refuse to notice the non-human natives sharing their cities.
- s-lambert 2y agoEmbassytown, also by China Miéville, is traditional sci-fi and really good as well.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoSeconded. One of those books that gives you a crisp metaphor for something powerful you might not have noticed we all do, thereby letting you observe yourself do it and describe it to others. Best read tabula rasa.
- defrost 2y agoGood book and one with a solid BBC adaption into a four part mini series (2018) https://thetvdb.com/series/345091-show https://thetvdb.com/series/345091-show
- freetonik 2y agoIt's remarkable that they decided to adopt it for TV, because it's one of those novels that's very hard to imagine to put onto a screen. The whole book felt, to me, like I'm in a dream.
- xarope 2y agoWow, must try to watch it. I remember reading The City & the City and thinking about how visually it would be... different clothes, overlapping murals?
- defrost 2y agoI have zero idea how healthy these are .. but .. try https://ext.to/the-city-and-the-city-s9177/ https://ext.to/the-city-and-the-city-s9177/ Best bet looks like: https://ext.to/the-city-and-the-city-season-1-complete-720p-hdtv-x264-i-c-3806180/ https://ext.to/the-city-and-the-city-season-1-complete-720p-... If you're in the UK you can watch d/load from the BBC hone site via iPlayer when they rotate available again (currently not on iPlayer): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p061bd5l https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p061bd5l
- jhbadger 2y agoWeirdly, The City & the City reminds me of Martin Cruz Smith's books like Gorky Park set in the Soviet Union (or more recently post-Soviet countries) in that it is a police procedural set in a culture the reader presumably doesn't understand and so the reader is interested in learning how this society functions as much as they are interested in seeing the mystery solved. The difference of course is the societies in The City & the City are of course fictional.
- interludead 2y agoWhat aspects of the culture in The City & the City stood out to you the most?
- jhbadger 2y agoMostly just the explanations of how the two cities could function as separate entities while physically occupying the same land through the use of legally mandated "useeing". The author goes into detail how this works -- obviously at one level people see the people, vehicles, etc. from the other city or they'd run into them, but on a conscious level they act as if they don't exist.
- tialaramex 2y agoI dislike both this and Miéville's Embassytown since in my opinion both set out to mislead me and then do a reveal which amounts "I misled you about what's really going on" and while that works for a stand up comic beat (e.g. Taylor Tomlinson "he cheated on me ... in my head") I don't want to read a whole novel this way. Perdido Street Station and Kraken I really enjoyed, but I almost threw the book across the room for Embassytown once I realised.
- Annual 2y agoAs someone who hated The City and The City to the point of never reading Mieville again, I appreciate the warning for Embassytown. I sometimes consider reading his stuff again but I was genuinely offended by the trick in City. Like... I paid money for this? No. It felt like contempt for his audience.
- TeaBrain 2y agoWhat in particular made you feel this way about The City and The City? Like what were you expecting prior to the reveal?
- slothtrop 2y agoI hated PSS, and enjoyed Embassytown. I don't understand what's misleading about it.
- rkachowski 2y agoWhat's the Embassytown mislead? I read that recently and felt it was pretty direct.
- Annual 2y agoI hated it because it felt like a smug trick. Like, I know you ordered steak and paid for steak, but I'm serving you a salad because it's healthier for you, and if you complain it's just your lack of taste.
- rfarley04 2y agoMy thing about Miéville is that all the books of his I've read (Embassytown, Perdido street Station, and the one about trains that I didn't realize was pretty YA) felt like the endings dissol into B grade action (IMO Stephenson has the same problem). Everything starts off surreal and philosophical and beautiful and then just fizzles into stuff blowing up
- slothtrop 2y agoiirc all the books you mentioned have action throughout and most of Stephenson is the same
- rfarley04 2y agoTrue. But the action seemed to drive forward a big picture message, the action was the means to deliver a message, until the end. Then it was just shooting and explosions without putting a bow on whatever philosophy had been introduced. That's the way I remember these books (and diamond age, snow crash, et al)
- stormking 2y agoA book that was even made into a TV miniseries does not fit my definition of "you may never heard of".
- rkachowski 2y agotbf the BBC does a lot of mid tv miniseries. I don't feel many people will know this adaptation outside of fans of the book.
- dcminter 2y agoI too adore that one - when describing it to people I've found the term "headfuck police procedural" is the most fitting.
- TeaBrain 2y agoI enjoyed the book, but I'm still not sure how it's been classified as science fiction, despite clearly having been pigeonholed into the category. The book has very little to do with real or speculative science. It was also one of the most awarded "science fiction" books of the last couple decades, so isn't really obscure in any sense either.
- r0uv3n 2y agoIn some sense I think it does have quite a bit to do with (speculative) social science, especially once you see (spoilers) that there really is nothing supernatural going on at all.
- A_D_E_P_T 2y agoGreg Egan's Permutation City is #1 for me. It's not only a good read, it may be the most important work of late 20th century philosophy. (Among other things, it completely anticipated Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, and totally obviates Bostrom's latest work.)
- abecedarius 2y agoWhat's the Bostrom work it obviates? I'd be kind of surprised if he never read the Egan -- it was part of the background to extropian culture back then.
- A_D_E_P_T 2y ago"Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World" A book about what to do with life in the face of boundless possibilities, and when just about everything important has been figured out. I recall that this was a significant plot point in Permutation City -- and Egan answered the question more elegantly than Bostrom did.
- abecedarius 2y agoThanks. Could be, I haven't read that one.
- netdevnet 2y agoI am surprised there was no Egan book in the list. He's in the top 5 of hard sci fi authors you should definitely read
- freetonik 2y agoThe list starts with Project Hail Mary, which is as far from Egan as I can imagine on the science fiction spectrum.
- bwb 2y agoWe've got 10 lists with him as well: https://shepherd.com/search/author/1445 https://shepherd.com/search/author/1445 You can see how they connected to him there too.
- theshrike79 2y agoThe Machine Stops by E.M. Forster: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4711854-the-machine-stops https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4711854-the-machine-stop... 35 page short story and eerily reminiscent of today's world. It was written in 1909.
- robin_reala 2y agoI keep on meaning to get around to a E. M. Forster Short Fiction compilation for Standard Ebooks. Maybe this will tip me over the edge.
- sevensor 2y agoForester’s longer fiction is well worth it too. It’s been years since I read Howard’s End and Leonard Bast still haunts me.
- robin_reala 2y agoWe’ve already got several of his longer works,[1] but none of his shorter pieces, so I’ve started work on producing a public domain compilation. Hopefully will be up in a couple of weeks; all in it comes in at under 70k words. [1] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/e-m-forster https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/e-m-forster
- BizarroLand 2y agohttps://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/the%20machine%20stops.pdf https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/th...
- mnky9800n 2y agoRoadside picnic is a favourite of mine. I’m currently learning Russian to reread it in the original Russian. But the translation is very good and done by the authors themselves.
- freetonik 2y agoI didn't know they've translated the book themselves! I often feel like translations done by other people are missing something fundamental of the spirit of the original. I'm wondering if there is a list of books "translated into language X by the author" somewhere.
- lowdownbutter 2y agoThe same thing occured to me a while back. There is this wikipedia page about it but I didn't get much further than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-translation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-translation
- jhbadger 2y agoThe problem is that translation isn't just about "capturing the spirit of the original" but realizing where to keep idioms and like from the original and where things need to be changed to make the translation less clunky. This isn't something just anyone can do. That's why people like Umberto Eco, who was more or less fluent in English, still preferred professional translators like William Weaver to translate his Italian books into English.
- wazoox 2y agoIt's really one of the most haunting books I've ever read. "Hard to be a God" is also very poignant.
- eatonphil 2y agoThe Dead Mountaineer's Inn is also good. A classic whodunnit with a twist.
- hnmullany 2y agoThese are all painfully mid reads. (The alien in Hail Mary is about as alien as a rival fraternity brother.) If you want real alien aliens, read Blindsight (Peter Watts).
- jillesvangurp 2y agoI read both of those. Peter Watts is a bit of an acquired taste. Not for everyone. I actually enjoyed it but it's a weird one. Genetically modified people that are effectively vampires, a main protagonist with severe brain damage, etc. There's a sequel to this too if you enjoy this. The Hail Mary project was actually enjoyable. Andy Weir peaked with the Martian his debut novel and this is kind of in the same style. Maybe not as good but enjoyable.
- berkes 2y ago> the alien in Hail Mary is about as alien as a rival fraternity brother You put that as critique, and I understand that. But for me, this was actually the strength of the story. By making the differences smaller, they are more focused, stronger, and give opportunity to explore them in depth. Same thing I like about many of the Black Mirror stories: often they tweak, or magnify, just one parameter of our realistic, current (western) lives and then explore the differences that would bring.
- tialaramex 2y agoBut Black Mirror is about us whereas the frustrating thing with depictions of aliens is that they're not us, that's their defining feature.
- berkes 2y agoStories about aliens aren't meant to describe aliens as theoretically correct as possible. Obviously. Aliens are hardly ever more than a tool to get a perspective. To look at humans, societies, structures etc. They are also stories _about us_.
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- sausagefeet 2y agoThe Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley is a really great, and different read. Totally different world than a lot of sci-fi.
- themadturk 2y agoIt was a difficult book for me, but it was worth powering my way through it.
- _s_a_m_ 2y agoThe problem with Project Hail Mary is that the audio book is good but the book is not. First read the book and then listen to the audio book and you know what I mean.
- closewith 2y agoThat's interesting. I found Project Hail Mary to be once of the most disappointing second novels ever written and am surprised at its reception. Is the audiobook meaningfully different?
- _s_a_m_ 2y agoYeah I also didn't like the book at all, it read like a cash grab. However, just listen to a sample of the audio book, it's just hilarious how much effort Ray put into making the characters become alive. Certain significantly improving the lack of writing, of course it can't fix the writing.
- bwb 2y agoPlease be kind; being an author is an incredibly hard career, and people do it for the love of creating and sharing a story. It is not a cash grab, and if you don't like his writing style, just don't read his books. Books are deeply personal and no reason to make a personal attack because it isn't a match for your desired book style.
- marliechiller 2y agoThe great thing about opinions, as youve pointed out with books, is that you can disregard them. Personally, I agree that PHM was not particularly good compared with The Martian, but to each their own.
- BobaFloutist 2y agoI thought PHM was a fairly well crafted nerdy action book, like a classic B-movie catered to a more educated audience. It's good at tuning itself to its target audience and maintaining interest with pacing and interesting, fun ideas. What's frustrating is the number of people that list it as the best sci-fi of the last decade and try to elevate it as doing something truly groundbreaking. I don't really understand where that's coming from.
- justinclift 2y agoCan't really take the recommendation for Beacon 23 seriously after seeing the 1/2 half of the first tv episode. That was utter crap and nonsensical. :(
- jillesvangurp 2y agoI didn't know there was a tv series for this one. I read the book ages ago; pretty OK. I wouldn't judge it by any failed attempt to put it out on TV. The same author also wrote the silo series. He tends to push his books out in small portions but it's effectively a trilogy. The series on Apple TV for that is actually pretty good. I reread the books after completing season 1 a few months ago.
- justinclift 2y agoThanks. Tried to get into the series too, but end up just reading the summary of things and the whole series just sounds depressing. :(
- pavel_lishin 2y agoIt is. One of the sequels was one of the times that a scene in a book actually made me cry. If you don't like depressing novels, also stay away from Stephen Baxter; I love his novels, but most of them are wildly depressing.
- justinclift 2y ago> Stephen Baxter Oh. I don't remember those being depressing though it's been years since I read any. Which ones do you remember being that way?
- pavel_lishin 2y agoNearly all of the ones featuring Reid Malenfant are a bummer; in many of the Xeelee sequence stories, the future of humanity is only marginally better than living in the Warhammer40k universe, and the "happy ending" ones are ones in which humanity is merely mostly extinct.
- justinclift 2y agoA good sci-fi book is Birds of Paradise by Rudolf Kremers, who was one of the developers for the PS3 game Eufloria back in the day: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C8XVRQBC https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C8XVRQBC
- musha68k 2y agoMore modern / post cyberpunk maybe but would add Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan. I really liked the premise and the organic feel vs a lot of other science fiction. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374175412/infinitedetail https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374175412/infinitedetail
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y agoAnother set is CS Lewis' Space Trilogy Out of the Silent Planet Perelandra That Hideous Strength Note that like a lot of CS Lewis, there is a very heavy Christian view.
- bwb 2y agoWe've had 5 authors actually pick that one as a favorite, and they connected it to some really interesting book lists: https://shepherd.com/book/that-hideous-strength/book-lists https://shepherd.com/book/that-hideous-strength/book-lists I love seeing something like this as it is awesome where their minds go for what other books they connect it with...
- Terr_ 2y agoWhile not Sci-Fi, I found that The Screwtape Letters could actually be enjoyed even from a fairly agnostic perspective, as an allegorical dive into human cognitive foibles. Though I suspect Lewis would be unhappy to hear that, especially since he wrote a fourth-wall-adjacent bit about devils preferring that humans don't believe in them.
- mrob 2y agoLewis was clearly intelligent and well educated in the humanities, but I don't think he ever cared much about science. IMO, the Space Trilogy is good writing but bad sci-fi.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoIn "Of Other Worlds", in a conversation with Brian Aldiss and Kinsley Amis (or Martin Amis? Don't remember), he says that he had a rocket take Ransom to Mars, but he knew better by the time he wrote the second book, and had angels take Ransom to Venus. That is, he wasn't trying to write hard science fiction; he was trying to write stuff where you were confronted with "the unknown". Fantasy and science fiction were both aimed at that, but fantasy was better, because you didn't have to worry about the rules of actual science. He also said (quoting from memory): "If I were briefed to attack my own books, I would say that though the scientist has to be a physicist for the plot, his concern seems to be almost exclusively biological. I would also ask whether it was credible that such a gas-bag could invent a mousetrap, let alone a spaceship. But then, I wanted comedy as well as adventure."
- nicolas_t 2y agoLet me throw my hat in the ring. I'd recommend Grass by Sheri S Tepper. It felt fresh and original in a way few science fiction books are, the characters are really well done and it just stays with you. Despite being the first book of a trilogy, it works well on its own.
- ms_katonic 2y agoYes!!! I would also recommend anything by Zenna Henderson.
- fractallyte 2y agoNow there's a name I hear very rarely... The best start is Pilgrimage: The Book of the People, especially suitable for a moody teen girl... (And I wish I could know the story of the Bells of Couvron!)
- hailpixel 2y agoI love this genre, and there is such a plethora of interesting reads. I think one of the most interesting, in terms of presenting technology's role in varied societies, is A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. Great read if you are bored of the classic space opera.
- lapcat 2y ago> A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge It's a great book, but everyone has heard of it already.
- mmcdermott 2y agoI was talking to a fairly avid scifi reader who hadn't heard of the book before. It's always someone's day to be one of 10,000. https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- globular-toast 2y agoI really like that, but I definitely thought A Deepness in the Sky was even better despite probably being considered "classic space opera".
- arethuza 2y agoAnd the prequel A Deepness in the Sky is even better with very alien aliens (and a neat way of hiding that alien-ness from readers) and some very nasty antagonists with truly terrifying technology in the form of "focus". Mind you, Vinge's Rainbows End is also really good and set in the near future with what may be an emerging AGI as a key character.
- layer8 2y agoVinge is one of my favorite authors, but the rape-y torture-y subplot of Deepness was difficult to endure.
- orbisvicis 2y agoHuh, I think that features one of the protagonists from Fast Times at Fairmont High. Set in the early singularity age.
- anotherpaul 2y agoI really like the shepherd.com way of curating the recommendation. Browsing trough books and picking something to read has become much easier this way. One scifi book that was very impactful to me is the black cloud by Fred Hoyle. It's such a well thought out story and has held up remarkably well for a 50 year old novel.
- bwb 2y agoThanks so much, that is super motivating for me :) I am working to really improve genre and topic accuracy this winter. Right now it is a mess. The data we pull in from publishers is so messy. They don't know how to use the BISAC classification system and they often mislabel sci-fi (among others). I have a big upgrade coming to improve both our systems (we use NLP/ML on the topic side).
- bwb 2y agohi all, founder of Shepherd here :) If you want to share your 3 fav reads of the year, you can do that here -> https://shepherd.com/bboy/my-3-fav-reads https://shepherd.com/bboy/my-3-fav-reads You get a cool page like this -> https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024/f/bwb https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024/f/bwb Plus, it goes into our "best books of 2024" voting -> https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024 https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024 I am slowly getting more into place on this website, I have been working on it for 3.5 years now.
- dunefox 2y ago> You get a cool page like this -> https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024/f/bwb https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024/f/bwb How do I get to my page? The profile section is very spartan. I'm not even sure whether my profile picture was submitted.
- bwb 2y agoYep go here: https://shepherd.com/bboy/my-3-fav-reads https://shepherd.com/bboy/my-3-fav-reads To submit your 3 favorites, and then we will email you once the page is ready. Ya sorry, brand new and working on the profile to improve it and the image bit. Hit me up at ben@shepherd.com if you need any help.
- dunefox 2y ago> then we will email you once the page is ready. Ah, I completely missed this part. Long day. > Ya sorry, brand new and working on the profile to improve it and the image bit. Don't worry, so far I like the site quite a bit, especially since there is much more about ancient mesopotamia than I had thought!
- bwb 2y agoSweet thanks! I am going to work a ton this winter to improve topic/genre accuracy, as I think we have more on Mesopotamia but the system is struggling to tag it correctly. We are using an older NLP/ML system that isn't working as well as newer ones. Update coming soon.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoThe SF Masterworks series is a good source of forgotten classics in amongst the many super popular picks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks
- beezle 2y agoWas about to say so many of these "you've never heard of" lists are books within the past decade but there are just so many older ones. Asimov alone wrote many book outside of the robot and foundation series. One that only the older set may know is Cities in Flight by James Blish (technically a trilogy but primarily sold as the single combined novel).
- daoboy 2y agoThe Bobiverse Series by Dennis Taylor. These books aren't anything that will change your life, but they're well written and a lot of fun.
- bwb 2y agoThis is one of my all-time favorite series. I laugh so much reading them, and the later books go heavy into really interesting alien species. Authors love them as well: https://shepherd.com/search/book/38814 https://shepherd.com/search/book/38814 Have you read any Peter Hamilton? He is another fav of mine.
- daoboy 2y agoI have not read Peter Hamilton, but always looking for new good books. Thanks for the recommendation!
- bwb 2y agoI'd start with Pandora's Star, they are HUGE in scope, so its a big book but worth it IMO.
- BillSaysThis 2y agoI'd start with the Night's Dawn trilogy, I've read most PFH except for his last few and those are my ATFs.
- themadturk 2y agoNight's Dawn was the first Hamilton I read...and I've read it once or twice since.
- LargoLasskhyfv 2y agoI've found the Mandel Trilogy to be entertaining, too. Could be thought of as some world-building for the much later ND? But not as epic. Just three normal paperbacks.
- alphan0n 2y agoJust finished a very good audiobook, Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini and started another, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by the same author.
- capecodes 2y agoTo Sleep in a Sea of Stars is my favorite of the last few years. I thought Fractal Noise was meh by comparison
- alphan0n 2y agoI started with Fractal Noise, which was fairly short, it imparted a hunger to know more about that universe. Also, the audiobook, given the subject matter, was presented in an awesome manner IMO.
- idoubtit 2y agoIt's strange to start a list of "books that you may never have heard of" with a novel which is a nominee to the 2020 Hugo Awards. I suppose that most of the regular readers of sci-fi haver heard of it. A nitpick about the third recommandation with "robots modeled on Karel Čapek’s designs". I suppose that they have not read Čapek’s novels. His robots were not pure machines, they were made from a biological substrate. In a way, they were closer to golems than to what we're now calling robots. If you want to read really different and lesser known novels, Karel Čapek’s are a good choice. I did not enjoy "R.O.R." much except for his surprising concept of robots, but I highly recommend "War with the newts".
- themadturk 2y agoYeah, Project Hail Mary was the only one of the three I'd ever heard of. Still, it was a great book (especially since I read it right on the heels of reading Artemis, which was only "okay").
- Supermancho 2y agoI heard there might be a movie adaptation of Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling.
- bwb 2y agooh wow, that could be cool! I love seeing more sci-fi come to the screen. I really liked The Expanse and wish they had kept that going...
- belter 2y agoNah, that was just news coverage...You Inners really think it was just a show?
- omgmajk 2y agoThis is really a reddit moment but I can't resist, username truly checks out. To add something to the conversation I am reading the expanse right now and I really like it. It's the mix of goofy and dark that gets me.
- lowdownbutter 2y agoCredit for not assuming to know the reader by saying something like "Sci-fi books that you've never heard of!". I now routinely block youtube channels that do such things.
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- mnky9800n 2y agoActually I made a website that’s mostly sci-fi books I’ve read https://mnky9800n.github.io/booklist/ https://mnky9800n.github.io/booklist/ It uses a google spreadsheet as a database so you just need to update the spreadsheet and it adds a book to the website. I have a life goal to read every thing written by Phillip k dick as well as every book on David Pringle’s 100 best sci-fi list. Some of the books are hard to find though. Like I’ve been searching for years for the peoples republic of Antarctica. I would suggest the following novels if you haven’t read them yet Gene wolfe shadow of the torturer series aka book of the new sun A scanner darkly by pkd, this, imo, is his best book even though all his books are compelling. But I think also, yes we can build him, its amazing because it really shows off pkd ability to come up with a wild premise but that’s simply the universe the characters live in and they don’t really care about that premise they have other problems. Herovits world by malzburg, this book is hilarious and about how you must be a terrible narcissist to believe someone should read your fiction especially science fiction The Brian Daley series about Han Solo, these are super interesting because they were written in 1979 so before empire strikes back came out. So Daley basically only had Star Wars to go on to create a whole trilogy of novels starring Han Solo. I think these are probably my favourite Star Wars novels because they have such little constraints.
- bwb 2y agoNice, I like the photos, classic covers are so beautiful :) Added the Brian Daley series about Solo to my list, I'd never heard of those!
- mnky9800n 2y agoI should reread them. They are so much fun. I’m the only person I know who has ever read them. Although that’s not saying much I suppose haha.
- bwb 2y agoOne of my hopes for the website is I could help books that are lesser known get noticed and "pop." Working on getting more to help in that capacity as there are so many good books that don't get enough notice. Aiming to come out with some features this Winter to help around that.
- mariusor 2y agoAfter I finished the two Frank Kittridge novels from S.J. Morden I was surprised I haven't heard of him until now. They start as a "The Martian" cribbed story, but the development arc takes in better places. It was less geek/efficiency porn and more character development and required less strain on my suspension of disbelief overall.
- m463 2y agoI read the petrovich stories (metrozone) and although fun, I recall my suspension of disbelief had to be turned all the way up. :)
- mostlysimilar 2y ago> Ever since reading Heir to the Empire (Timothy Zahn), I’ve been fascinated by science fiction stories with amazing characters and intriguing concepts. Did an LLM write this? "Amazing characters" and "intriguing concepts"? This sentence says nothing.
- readthenotes1 2y agoIt's a stealth ad for the author's book. If you think the advertising copy was written by an llm, I'm pretty sure that says you won't like his book :-)
- bwb 2y agoIt's a way for new or unknown authors to authentically connect with readers by sharing five books they love on a topic, theme, or mood they are passionate about or experts in. Readers get fantastic personalized picks by super readers, and authors get to bump into some readers who might be more interested in them and their books. Authors face an immense battle to get noticed, and unless something is done, we will only have big brand-name authors who can afford to write full-time. The internet has really consolidated books into a winner-takes-all market, and I want to do what I can to help widen that so new authors have a chance. If you are curious, here are my goals for readers: https://build.shepherd.com/p/what-is-shepherds-mission-for-readers https://build.shepherd.com/p/what-is-shepherds-mission-for-r... Here are my goals for authors: https://support.shepherd.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406508361617-How-does-Shepherd-help-authors-What-is-the-goal-Our-strategy-and-tactics https://support.shepherd.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406508361617... And here is why I am building Shepherd for myself and others: https://build.shepherd.com/p/why-am-i-building-shepherd-ie-what https://build.shepherd.com/p/why-am-i-building-shepherd-ie-w... Hope that helps; happy to answer questions :)
- mostlysimilar 2y agoI respect and appreciate what you're doing here, my flippant remark was critical of the author's writing style, not of your app or its structure.
- larry314 2y agoNunquam by Lawrence Durrell. Not generally heard of because you have to read Tunc first which is not science fiction. Both are great and stylistic masterpieces. Numquam is my favorite robot book along with Caves of Steel.
- patrickhogan1 2y agoPlanetside by Michael Mammay
- bwb 2y agoI love this series, just about to read the newest entry!
- okkdev 2y agoAny recommendations for books with good made up technology/programming/cyberspace? I love alternate versions of the internet and ways to navigate it. I love hearing completely original but coherent technical babble with 0 connection to it's real world counterpart.
- m463 2y agoprogramming: tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by gabrielle zevin is about game development.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- _yb2s 2y agoI’m assuming you like this idea from having read Snow Crash, but if not that’s exactly what you’re looking for But recommending Neal Stephenson on HN feels a bit like telling people to try Dennys as a restaurant recommendation… it seems everyone on here has read him before
- stevenwoo 2y agoNot zero connection, it sort of starts from when the stories were written about 20 years ago, but Accelerando maybe?
- lubujackson 2y agoI recommend The Tripod Trilogy by John Christopher. As a kid I read The White Mountains blind and the story unfolded in a fantastic way for me. It is YA sci-fi and a lot of the themes are well-trodden at this point, but the story is strong and clear, kind of a coming-of-age-amongst-aliens.
- 0x38B 2y agoI read the Tripod Trilogy to my little brother and we both loved the story. It's one of my favorites to this day. Going further back, I also liked Wells's "The First Men in the Moon".
- stevekemp 2y agoThere was a TV series back in the 80s which I really enjoyed - I actually checked out the books from the local library after having seen the show at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tripods_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tripods_(TV_series)
- andrewstuart 2y agoThe audiobook is excellent.
- orbisvicis 2y agoHere are some which, though perhaps not the best, haunt my memory through unique nostalgia. Glory Season, David Brin. Ok, this is one of the best. A heartrending saga of epic scale. Carve the Sky, Alexander Jablokov. Scifi feudalism. All of an Instant, Richard Garfinkle. Vita Nostra, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko. Though very different, it somehow reminds me of Roadside Picnic. Spin, Robert Charles Wilson. Schismatrix, Bruce Sterling. Interstellar Pig, William Sleator. The Carpet Makers, Andreas Eschbach The Threshold series (Peter Clines) doesn't really belong in this list, but it is excellent and from what I gather, commonly overlooked by fans of Lovecraft. I'd also throw in The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russel, if it wasn't so well known already. In a different vein, if you seek good-old action-packed, kick-ass never-ending fun, pick anything by Larry Correia. Even if it appears fantasy, it might turn out to be scifi...
- stevekemp 2y agoInterstellar Pig, was an unexpected addition there. I remembered that book immediately from hearing the title! (On that note I remember a book I read at a similar time, some kids took off in a hollow asteroid, for reasons, and there was a home-made aiming system for their weapon(s) which involved using a cat. I've no idea what it was called or who wrote it. But I guess similar young-adult fiction.)
- rsynnott 2y ago> and there was a home-made aiming system for their weapon(s) which involved using a cat Truth is, of course, sometimes stranger than fiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon
- dur-randir 2y ago>Vita Nostra, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko That's far from their best novel, but unfortunately most aren't translated into English - there're Polish and sometimes Deutsch translations only :(
- Suppafly 2y ago
- bodantogat 2y agoLord of Light, Roger Zelazny Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith Hospital Station by James White More recent read, you may have heard of it since it won an award - In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
- orbisvicis 2y agoI find it disappointing how A.E. van Vogt has been almost completely forgotten. And to a lesser extent, Poul Anderson.
- ryandvm 2y agoI want to do book recommendations from the other direction. I need to know which books to avoid based on the books people like. For example, if I hated The Three Body Problem and you loved it, then I'm probably going to hate the other books you love.
- wkat4242 2y agoTrue. I hated the three body problem in fact but I loved the expanse (yes both franchises I know from TV). But I read all the expanse books. I gave up on the three body problem halfway the second book, I just found the story too boring and hardball. Not saying the books are bad but preferences differ indeed.
- __rito__ 2y agoThat's a poor way to find good books? I liked 3BP, and I also liked Permutation City and Cryptonomicon. Yet I met a lot of people who didn't like 3BP, but liked the latter ones.
- romanhn 2y agoHah, and I liked 3BP but didn't care much for Egan's books (excellent ideas, poor writing IMO).
- OnionBlender 2y agoJust because someone liked a book you hate, doesn't mean you will hate the other books they like. I hated "Sea of Tranquility". I can't stand stupid characters. "Furtuna" was so bad I made a note to avoid any other books by Kristyn Merbeth. The main character is stupid, selfish, and short sighted to the detriment of everyone around her.
- Suppafly 2y ago>Just because someone liked a book you hate, doesn't mean you will hate the other books they like. So much this, and it's why recommendation engines mostly don't work well, they really have no way to quantify why you liked or disliked something.
- wkat4242 2y agoProject Hail Mary was good, but I thought Artemis (also by Weir) was amazing. I wish he'd make a sequel.
- randrus 2y agoSamuel Delaney - Nova, Babel-17 Clifford Simak - City Alan E Nourse - The Universe Between
- ajuc 2y agoFor me: - His Master's Voice by Stanisław Lem - Permutation City (and the whole trilogy) by Greg Egan - Anathem by Neal Stephenson
- thegyppo 2y agoDungeon Crawler Carl is a rare gem that I've come across lately, very unique, paces well and I couldn't put it down - https://www.goodreads.com/series/309211-dungeon-crawler-carl https://www.goodreads.com/series/309211-dungeon-crawler-carl The audiobook is also really well narrated.
- wilted-iris 2y agoYou may also enjoy the Expeditionary Force series. Totally different story, but it has a similar vibe.
- rfarley04 2y agoI was so skeptical when my recommended the series. It sounds so juvenile and low brow but is actually SO GOOD. Both funny and genuinely well written and structured. Love that it's doing as well as it is
- kamarg 2y agoYou may also like Will Wight's Cradle series. It's an american style of Xianxia/Cultivation novels but very good. The audiobooks are also highly praised.
- xeonax 2y agoThe Wandering Inn [1], Stories of an alternate world somehow connected to a certain innkeeper of the said inn. Features extensive world building, character building, Lots of fleshed out characters, contains humour as well as serious stuff, has dragons, fae, aliens, time travel, hiveminds, automatons, cute pets, cosmic horrors, history lessons, magic, alchemy and steampunk engineering. It's a bit longish and not finished yet, 2/3 done as of this year. [1]: https://wanderinginn.com/ https://wanderinginn.com/
- codetheweb 2y agoI love the Wandering Inn but calling it “a bit longish” is quite an understatement.
- xeonax 2y agoOk it's a bit longer, only a little bit. See for yourself https://www.reddit.com/r/WanderingInn/comments/wil9pi/word_count_as_of_vol_9_interlude_mundanity_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WanderingInn/comments/wil9pi/word_c...
- aidenn0 2y agoOT, but I'm legitimately surprised that WoT is longer than the saga of recluse. I'm also a very mildly annoyed that they included several era-spanning series on the list, but limited Dragonlance to the chronicles trillogy, despite that including followups by the original authors (Legends, Second generations).
- aidenn0 2y agoI'm only on the second volume, but so far I wouldn't call it Sci-Fi; it's pretty much straight-up fantasy (specifically a portal-fantasy with string LitRPG elements) so far. I suppose there could be a "It's all a VR game" or "It's alien mind control" twist that I haven't gotten to yet.
- kinow 2y agoI learned about TWI and pirate aba some months ago, and binge-read the whole series non-stop.
- exar0815 2y agoIf you liked The Martian and Project Hail Mary, two books I cannot recommend enough are Daniel Suarez' Delta-V and Critical Mass. Highly technical focused hard-sci-fi about asteroid mining and human dynamics in high-risk envrionments. I can't vouch for the absolute factual correctness, but it has an appendix listing the papers the author indirectly references for the book. https://daniel-suarez.com/index.html https://daniel-suarez.com/index.html
- TrapLord_Rhodo 2y agoDo you know any other hard sci-fi books like this? I loved the Delta-V series, and have been looking for hard sci-fi like it ever since.
- coolradmab 2y agothe mars trilogy by kim Stanley Robison
- ak2372 2y agoRich man's sky series, Wil McCarthy.
- SideburnsOfDoom 2y agoDelta-V is also described as a "Technothriller" - i.e. in the grey area between action thriller and sci-fi, where the tech is current and cutting-edge, or possibly an inch beyond. I liked the first book, will try the second some time soon.
- LordGrey 2y agoI really enjoyed his Daemon novel, and I think it would appeal to the HN crowd. Interesting intersection of code and the real world, and it is set more-or-less in the current time. Daemon is the first of a trilogy. The remaining two books are good, but not quite as good IMO.
- andrewstuart 2y agoShipwreck by Charles Logan. Magnificent hard sci fi about an astronaut crashed on a distant world after their colony ship suffers a catastrophic accident as it reaches a distant star system. https://www.amazon.com/Shipwreck-Panther-science-fiction-Charles/dp/0586042776 https://www.amazon.com/Shipwreck-Panther-science-fiction-Cha... You will never feel more bleak and alone.
- MrVandemar 2y agoI'd throw in The Saga of Exiles by Julian May. Excellent exploration of psi power, set in Pliocene Europe (by way of time travel). Sounds mad, but May both grounds her characters and casts them archetypes, and it's fantastically dramatic. One of the first books I read where the cumulative trauma and psychologies of the main characters inform their actions.
- marliechiller 2y agoNo mention of Peter Watts' Blindsight? That book changed all sorts of notions of first contact and consciousness for me. I'm still thinking about it to this day. Absolute must read for anyone concerned with such things
- block_dagger 2y agoAnd evolutionary vampires!
- justusthane 2y agoI loved that about this book. For the first like 75% of the book you're thinking, "Okay, these vampires must just be a metaphor or a name they've given to something else." Nope, just actual vampires.
- kranner 2y agoWith a novel and not-implausible explanation for why crosses incapacitate them.
- Vecr 2y agoYeah it's implausible. I mean, I don't think his genetics is right. So it's probably physically possible in some sense, but I don't it makes sense that it's that stable of a trait.
- kranner 2y agoI think his explanation was that right angles don't appear in nature so the trait didn't get selected out.
- Vecr 2y agoI watched the video and that's what the fictional presenter says. I don't think it really makes sense though, but maybe you can get passed that because the species coming into existence at all is so contrived and unlikely? The vampires appeared to have less of a gene pool and more of a gene cleanroom. Knife edge stuff there.
- hhhAndrew 2y agoGreg Egan. Agree with others in this thread that Permutation City is the most important. But Diaspora is not to be missed either. Egan's unique value prop is: crazy-thought-experiment sci fi (2D world with 2 time dimensions is his latest and is typical) but hard, harder than you can believe. Sci fi so hard, you don't find any cracks and are left thinking wait a minute ... This must be true then? Gene Wolfe. Book of the new Sun. Wolfe's unique value prop is, create an interesting sci fi or fantastical setting, and tell it through special narrators (unreliable, liar, child, amnesiac, etc) with wonderful skill, producing a puzzle with a lovely solution (that you will only partially solve).
- _yb2s 2y ago> Sci fi so hard, you don't find any cracks and are left thinking wait a minute ... This must be true then? Egan must be one of the most intelligent people alive… or if not, is at least the highest level I am personally capable of recognizing. I am genuinely curious which is the case. Anyways, I haven’t read Diaspora yet so will do so, thanks!
- Vecr 2y agoSomething being logically consistent doesn't mean it's correct. It's possible someone could make a fully logically consistent version of string theory including future gravitational predictions. They say "doesn't describe this universe", but that really just means it's wrong. Edit: replying to pavel_lishin: Yes, I'm sure Egan knows that, I'm partially replying to the statement "Sci fi so hard, you don't find any cracks and are left thinking wait a minute ... This must be true then?"
- TheCloven 2y agoThe Bobiverse series is one of my favorites, sense of humor meets Bob the von Neumann probe. Well written and plenty of theory explanations of technology. They even pull in Expeditionary Force's AI Skippy as a faction group, which is another good series if you like technical theory in detail explained mostly by the asshole AI. Murderbot has become a must listen at bedtime, the self deprecating, funny and lovey dovey killing machine. He loves his solitude and media, and has an emotion from time to time.
- 0x3444ac53 2y agoI read murderbot a few years ago and fell in love with it. It's funny, short, has good characters and they develop overtime. The world building is interesting enough but not drowning out the narrative<3
- dartharva 2y agoGraphicAudio's adaptations of the Murderbot series are too good! I suggest anyone interested in the series to check that out.
- dartharva 2y agoMost definitely, Ray Porter's performances are a masterclass in first-person sci-fi adventure narration. His Project Hail Mary audiobook is unparalleled.
- sockaddr 2y agoI agree. The Bobiverse was really great. And Ray Porter’s narration was a perfect fit.
- azemetre 2y agoBobiverse is fun to read but it’s just pulp nerd fantasy. Not exactly great literature that will stand the test of time.
- tombert 2y agoNot a "book", but a short story: The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin. I read that story when I was pretty young, and it's shaped my opinion on cold, uncaring bureaucracies in a way that I'm not sure anything else could.
- hersko 2y agoLooks like it's available for free here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-cold-equations/ https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-cold-equation...
- birabittoh 2y agoStar Maker by Olaf Stapledon. This guy figured out the meaning of life back in 1937.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoAn old but excellent book (written in the 1920s in Soviet Russia) is We by Yevgeny Zamyatin I also like Solaris though I suppose everyone has heard of that one.
- robterrell 2y agoRe-reading Stanislaw Lem (i.e. The Cyberiad) in the era of LLMs has been a joy for me.
- cydmax 2y agoI‘ll chime in and recommend The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem. Not really hard sci fi, but very entertaining and fun to read!
- cmpalmer52 2y agoI read Solaris years ago and was unimpressed. The philosophy and science’ish elements were poorly described and it felt like a lit-fic attempt at trippy SF by someone ignorant of the genre. Then, a year or two ago, I read about how bad the early translations were, so I picked up a new English translation. Wow, what a difference. Now it’s one of my favorites.
- Keysh 2y agoDo you recall the name of the good translator?
- pavel_lishin 2y agoHugh Howey is a tremendously talented author. I didn't love Beacon 23, but his Wool series (apparently now a TV series, which I haven't watched yet) is very, very good. Sand is another great novel. Both feature humanity surviving in incredibly hostile environments, doomed to them by their predecessors.
- 05bmckay 2y agoRed Rising is a pretty great one, I would have added it to my list.
- yaky 2y agoRed Rising is often recommended in lists such as this, and that is how I discovered it too. Worth noting though that the 3/4 of the first book is Hunger Games on Mars, with barely any significance to the plot started in the first part of the book.
- duped 2y agoThe Stars are Legion and Alien Clay are the two best sci-fi books I've read in the last year and I don't think they've shown up on any lists, although the latter is another first contact book by the author of Children of Time which has gotten a lot of acclaim (although I didn't care for it). FWIW Beacon 23 has an adaptation on Apple TV+ and Project Hail Mary has a film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling that's already finished shooting, so I don't know how long they'll stay in the category of "you may never have heard of"
- mstevens 2y agoRandom Acts of Senseless Violence - Jack Womack. See https://reactormag.com/randomacts/ https://reactormag.com/randomacts/ for a great review by Jo Walton (also a great scifi author who deserves more attention).
- Larrikin 2y agoIs Beacon 23 the book better than the show? I thought I was a general fan of sci-fi, but I realized that I was generally bored all through the first season and had begun hate watching it in season 2 before I stopped all together.
- hnburnsy 2y agoProject Hail Mary is soon to be a movie... https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/
- yaky 2y agoThe most unusual book I read this year is Radiance by Catherynne Valente. It's set in an Art-Deco "future" of our fully habitable Solar system (jungles and oceans on Venus, flowering fields on Pluto, etc), that started to be colonized in the 1860s. Of course, it is a play on early science fiction tropes, but somehow, it all fits together.
- Keysh 2y agoAmusingly, I have made three tries to read that book, and kept giving up (getting a little further each time). Partly it was the peculiar sense of aesthetics (e.g., the idea that of course audience would reject color movies) and partly it was the Looney Tunes solar system, which turned out to be something I could accept in a Daffy Duck cartoon but not in a novel. (But then I'm an astronomer, so I'm primed to get annoyed by random mistakes and carelessness that other people wouldn't notice or care about. I mean, I could kind of momentarily accept the silliness of a habitable solid surface for Uranus, but when you describe the Sun as fainter than Jupiter seen from that location... and then we're told that wheat can't tolerate cold climates the way rice can, and I realize the botany is just as nonsensical as the astronomy...) I've read most of one of her short-story collections and really liked it, so it's not a generic problem with her writing.
- dannyobrien 2y agoJust because they're both books that are hard to stumble upon and are a bit out of the usual recommendations, and yet everyone I have recommended them to have /deeply/ enjoyed them: "Constellation Games" by Leonard Richardson (also known for the Beautiful Soup Python library!) https://constellation.crummy.com/ https://constellation.crummy.com/ "Happy Snak" by Nicole Kimberling https://www.nicolekimberling.com/happy-snak https://www.nicolekimberling.com/happy-snak
- Suppafly 2y ago>Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read HN thread is full of books I've heard of and that get recommended literally anytime books are mentioned.
- Barrin92 2y agoIt's my pet peeve too. I'm gonna throw in Void Star by Zachary Mason as one recommendation that a lot of people likely haven't heard of. Great prose writer, very Gibson-like, got way too little attention when it was published a few years ago.
- lavelganzu 2y ago"Too Like the Lightning" by Ada Palmer. (First of four books called the "Terra Ignota" series.) It's one of the handful of books that genuinely changed my mind about serious questions -- in my case, relating to gender, politics, & religion. But it's definitely not coming from anywhere you'd expect. I compare it loosely to Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Dispossessed". The author paints a picture of a utopia, and gradually we see deep human flaws tear it apart. It starts off with investigation of a puzzling criminal tresspass, which slowly spirals upward into greater and greater consequences -- and it intensely rewards careful reading, or a second reading, as major reveals are subtly foreshadowed early and often.
- ang_cire 2y agoLegend of the Jade Phoenix trilogy by Robert Thurston: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/488118.The_Legend_of_the_Jade_Phoenix_Trilogy?from_search=true https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/488118.The_Legend_of_the... Legend of Zero quadrilogy by Sara King: https://www.goodreads.com/series/103017-the-legend-of-zero https://www.goodreads.com/series/103017-the-legend-of-zero
- silexia 2y agoThe Nexus Trilogy is extremely entertaining fast paced sci fi you can't put down with very interesting ideas on upgrading humans.
- holuxian 2y agoEric Nylund: Signal to Noise, A Signal Shattered
- m463 2y agoI remember reading and liking his books, but ... did they not make it to ebooks?
- holuxian 2y agoI emailed the author, trying to encourage him to write a third book, and make it a trilogy. As enthusiastic as I was, I couldn't convince him. At the time, I think he was busy writing Halo books and a YA series. I did ask him why there weren't ebook versions of the Signal duo, he said it was a rights issue.
- 8bitsrule 2y agoThen there are all of the sci-fi books you have -not- heard of, and that's a good thing. Anyway, there are a few missing in this list. Today, I'll pimp for Farmer's Riverworld series. The first got a Hugo Award, and that's a list worth mining.
- nobody9999 2y agoI'd suggest The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. It's good stuff. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did.
- jlewallen 2y agoI'm surprised Greg Bear never came up here. I started with Blood Music, but I've enjoyed many of his books.
- southernplaces7 2y agoLate to the list party but, "The First 15 lives of Harry August", by Claire North. It's a wonderful exploration of reliving your life over and over and over again, but also finding out that there is a small number of others who do the same and communicate with each other across the centuries of past and future. She forms her character dialogue well too, which is always good.