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For a while I thought I really liked sci fi novels and short stories, and maybe that's somewhat true. But I've started wondering if maybe I just liked Asimov's
by bitshiftfaced 7mo ago
For a while I thought I really liked sci fi novels and short stories, and maybe that's somewhat true. But I've started wondering if maybe I just liked Asimov's writing in particular. Other writers in the genre are more hit or miss. Can anyone recommend other writers that are on his level?
- robrain 7mo agoBecky Chambers - Wayfarer series and several enjoyable short stories/novellas. Low on blasters, high on sentient life in all its many forms.
- robrain 7mo agoI know you can’t comment on modding - but seriously, someone voted me down because they don’t like a literary suggestion? Tough crowd.
- boxed 7mo agoI mean.. a genre can't be all hits, that makes no sense :P If you want good sci-fi a good list can be: - Ender's Game - The Martian + Project Hail Mary - A Fire Upon the Deep - Dune
- baq 7mo ago- Hyperion
- rationalist 7mo agoThe Expanse series starting with Leviathan Wakes. (I second Ender's Game, The Martian, and Project Hail Mary.)
- comicjk 7mo agoA Fire Upon The Deep is a fantastic novel for programmers to read, and I think the prequel A Deepness In The Sky is even better. There are some amazing old-school coding jokes in there, like that everyone thinks the universal time counter started at the first moon landing, but programmer archaeologists know it was really 15 megaseconds later.
- xeonmc 7mo agoThough Dune is highly acclaimed for its concepts, I couldn’t quite get into it personally. They’re just too dry for my tastes.
- mwigdahl 7mo agoNeal Stephenson's work is outstanding in my opinion, although some find it polarizing. My favorite of his is _Anathem_, followed closely by _Seveneves_. Iain Banks's science fiction novels (mostly set in the Culture, but he does have others) are also great.
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoHow can you not mention Snow Crash? And yes to the Culture.
- jakeinspace 7mo agoStanislaw Lem, if you can handle something a little more poetic and less strictly hard sci-fi.
- Arainach 7mo agoTed Chiang is the greatest living science fiction short story writer I'm aware of, and ranks highly on my all time list.
- Darkphibre 7mo agoHis short story "Understand" is just... amazing. It wasn't until I discovered I was on the spectrum that I realized why it clicked so much. >.< I'm masking all the time, running conversational simulations to anticipate the societally-expected response to any given situation (and am high on the IQ spectrum). https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infini...
- jperoutek 7mo agoI second this. Exhalation for some reason really resonates with me.
- Froztnova 7mo agoExhalation is really excellent. It's not really sci-fi but I also really enjoyed The Merchant And The Alchemist's Gate, and the one about the tower of babel, I forget the name at the moment.
- kaiokendev 7mo agoTower of Babylon it's brilliant
- riffraff 7mo agoI have only read a few stories by Ted Chiang, but I concur, they were all fantastic.
- jcul 7mo agoStory of your life is one of my favorite short stories.
- NickDouglas 7mo agoTry "The Illustrated Man" by Ray Bradbury, but skip the terrible frame story. The actual short stories are beautiful literature and canonical sci-fi.
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoAs someone who loves the Big Three (Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein) and have read a lot of SF, I pretty much despise Bradbury. There’s no science in his science fiction.
- BeetleB 7mo agoNot much in many of Heinlein's either. Or in Star Wars.
- krapp 7mo agoOr even Star Trek to be honest. I don't know why Star Wars always gets passed off as "science fantasy" when it's a more grounded universe than Trek by far - space wizards notwithstanding (which Trek has plenty of.) Even in a lot of hard SF, a lot of the science is wonky if it falls outside of the author's special interest or area of expertise. Relevant to Asimov, the only reason robots have "positronic" brains in his stories is that positrons were a new discovery at the time and it sounded cool and futuristic to him.
- BeetleB 7mo agoAs a Trekkie, fair point. I think Star Trek does fall into the "speculative fiction" category, but Star Wars doesn't. It's just "space opera".
- krapp 7mo agoSpace opera is still a subset of speculative fiction and science fiction, saying "just" dismisses its influence on the genre as a whole. A lot of classic science fiction is basically "x with spaceships" where x is the Napoleonic Wars, or feudal Europe or the Wild West or what have you, and the "science" is little more than set dressing.
- shivaniShimpi_ 7mo agoted chiang if you haven't already. story of your life, exhalation, the lifecycle of software objects. same thing asimov does where the sci fi premise is really just a frame for a very human question. except chiang does it in like 30 pages and you feel it for a week
- arc_light 7mo ago[dead]
- npilk 7mo agoIt's not "sci fi" but you should read Borges' short stories, particularly from Ficciones. You may have already read his story The Library of Babel: https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Borges-The-Library-of-Babel.pdf https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content...
- phkahler 7mo ago>> But I've started wondering if maybe I just liked Asimov's writing in particular. A less commonly mentioned Asimov book that I really enjoyed and will read again is "The End of Eternity". If you've not read it, the ending is IMHO amazing and unique. Last Question reminds me of it because of the style.
- sjg1729 7mo agoI was also quite fond of Palimpsest by Stross. It’s a retelling of EoE but a more modern treatment (and the writing is quite a bit better, IMO)
- globular-toast 7mo agoAlso worth reading, although a very different style is The Gods Themselves. Although, to be honest, I'm not sure there's a single Asimov book I haven't enjoyed and I've read almost all of them.
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoHave you tried Arthur Clarke? I would say he is close to Asimov in many ways, being from the same time. For others who share some similarities, though with a greater emphasis on character and adventure, perhaps Hal Clement, Larry Niven or Robert L. Forward.
- Esn024 7mo agoI think Brian Daley's books have a somewhat similar feel as Asimov's, particularly "Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds" and its sequels. I also find C.J.Cherryh's books to be often quite interesting. Asimov really did have a knack for clear, deceptively simple writing that isn't all that common.
- Bud 7mo ago[dead]
- riffraff 7mo agoperhaps Fredric Brown? He and Asimov were in my primary school reading anthology, and I will never thank enough the people who put the book together. Also, I am not sure he's translated in English, but Sessanta Racconti[0] by Dino Buzzati is high on my list of fantastic short stories (not sci-fi, just.. I don't know). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessanta_racconti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessanta_racconti
- redsocksfan45 7mo agoAlfred Bester; The Stars My Destination, and The Demolished Man.
- globular-toast 7mo agoDepends what you consider on his level really. Some find the writing too dry, but maybe you like that? Have you read Dune? What about The Forever War? They are different styles but definitely enjoyed by someone who also likes Asimov. I didn't get on with Neuromancer or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? at all, though. Suspect you wouldn't either. I also find stuff like Andy Weir way too literal, like you're basically reading a film script. Asimov leaves a lot more room for imagination.
- jzemeocala 7mo agoRudy Rucker is amazing