[Tiste Simeon]

Hello chaps and chappettes!

Looking for science fiction which explores the idea of human cybernetic augmentation and its effect on society.

Any ideas? Kovacs was one suggestion but that's not the main theme of the trilogy IIRC.

Thanks!

[Aptorian]

I read Blindsight by Peter Watts a couple months ago. That certainly gets deep into the notion of human augmentation and what it will do to our civilization. Felt the ending was a bit eh, but thoroughly enjoyed the ride. It's part of a trilogy I believe but I haven't gotten around to looking up the follow ups.

It's one of those books that will make you feel dumb but smarter for having read it.

I've also heard that Charles Stross writes some very interesting weird human space sci-fi stuff but I've yet to delve into any of that.

This post has been edited by Seduce Goose: 09 August 2017 - 08:12 PM

[worry]

[Baco Xtath]

Blade Runner? Kind of? The society in Poseidon's Children by Alastair Reynolds is great for this with the Mechanism and all. Also, Quantum Thief takes it to the extreme. Seems like Crashing Heaven, Saturn's Children, the Prefect, and Ninefox Gambit might fall into the category as well.

[Abyss]

Check out Watts' RIFTER trilogy. It's free on his site.
Other than that... I'm blanking on good sf with a strong cyborg component.
It does arise in KOVACS, esp bk 3.

[Salt-Man Z]

Neal Asher's Polity books deal a lot with augmented humans, though it's part of the worldbuilding and never the crux of the plot or anything. I'd recommend his Transformation trilogy. (Those being the only Polity books I've read.)

[amphibian]

 Tiste Simeon, on 09 August 2017 - 07:55 PM, said:

Looking for science fiction which explores the idea of human cybernetic augmentation and its effect on society.

Any ideas? Kovacs was one suggestion but that's not the main theme of the trilogy IIRC.

Morgan's Kovacs books do deal strongly with cybernetic augmentations, especially their uneven distribution across society. But if they don't fit what you're looking for, perhaps the following will:

George Alec Effinger's A Fire in the Sun has cybernetic augmentations that give people skills, languages, physical capabilities etc. It's also hilarious because it's based on hustlers trying to hustle, yet do good. (This book is part of a trilogy, but you should be fine reading just this or the first two, as the last one is no good at all).

Blade Runner deals with cybernetics so exquisite that they can make "humanity" hard to define.

Ghost in the Shell deals with similar concepts to Blade Runner in various forms, often recursive too.

Alistair Reynolds often deals with cybernetics, although his societies are more fragments than coherent wholes, due to everyone going around space in giant ships. Diamond Dogs in particular plays around with this.

I echo the Stross book above, the Watts books, the Rajaniemi books, and RoboCop for sure.

[QuickTidal]

 worry, on 09 August 2017 - 08:50 PM, said:

That font is FUCKED. Like whomever designed it, misunderstands the purpose of a font.

/GraphicDesign Rant

[acesn8s]

Novels by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, StreetLethal and Gorgon's Child by Steven Barnes, Hardwired by John Walter Williams.

[Binder of Demons]

I would also say the Kovacs books, since they do deal with some of the societal effects of augmentation when it is your consciousness that is preserved rather than you body (increased lifespan, gender can be fluid, what does ethnicity mean any more). These aren't the main focus of the story but are there as part of the world, and all the better for it. There are also augmented bodies as well as part of the story. So it's a good all-rounder.

The POLITY books by Asher are good too, since he shows you a few different levels of augmentation, though again, the societal effects aren't really focussed on.

It's years since I read them, but NANCY KRESS wrote a few novels, BEGGARS IN SPAIN, and BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS which go into the fallout of some genetic modifications on society. They might be hard to get now though, despite Beggars in Spain winning the Hugo award as a novella and later being nominated for both the hugo and nebula as a novel.

I haven't read it myself yet, but maybe VERNOR VINGE's , Rainbows End might fit?

Charles Stross is also probably worth a look

[Primateus]

Gary Gibson's The Shoal Trilogy. The first one is Stealing Light and rather heavily features cybernetic augmentations and how they affect society. I just finished the first one and it was a damned decent read!

[Salt-Man Z]

 Binder of Demons, on 10 August 2017 - 09:44 PM, said:

The POLITY books by Asher are good too, since he shows you a few different levels of augmentation, though again, the societal effects aren't really focussed on.

Part of why I'd recommend the Polity Transformation trilogy is because, even though there's no real societal focus, Asher still tackles a very broad spectrum of, well, transformations. You've got auged humans, golems, AIs, humans undergoing both forced transformations and self-inflicted ones, prador playing with augs and other biological metamorphoses, etc.

[polishgenius]

Elizabeth Bear likes this theme: it features in both her Jenny Casey trilogy and in a much more out-there way in her Jacobs' Ladder trilogy.

[Abyss]

I haven't read Lem's THE CYBERIAD but it's been reco'd to me a few times. Old school sf, ymmv.

Also old school/ymmv is Jerry Pournelle's WAR WORLD anthology series. I read the first few books ages ago and and have always wanted to revisit/finish. In a nutshell, the War World is Haven, a vicious chunk of rock in disputed territory between two empires where various factions, colonies, rejects, soldiers and others find themselves stuck. Cyborgs form one of the major factions as of the books i read, and how they adapt in all their cyborginess was a key part of the story. Some fairly big names, Turtledove, Sm Stirling, David Drake, contribute stories.

[polishgenius]

Quote

I haven't read Lem's THE CYBERIAD but it's been reco'd to me a few times. Old school sf, ymmv.

The Cyberiad is great, but it's a satirical-philosophical series of mostly comedic short stories about robots and AI, not about cybernetic enhancement or anything.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Stross' Accelerando

Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series

Reynolds' Revelation Space books, especially The Prefect

I'm surprised that I'm having trouble coming up with much else.

EDIT: Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End is a quite good fit.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 12 August 2017 - 12:36 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

You guys are amazing.