[Salt-Man Z]

I mean, I enjoyed the Rama sequels well enough, but that was like 20 years ago. The first is definitely best, though. (And each sequel declines in quality as you go.)

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 08 May 2018 - 06:37 PM

[Abyss]

Loved the first, made it halfway thru the second and skimmed.

[Zeto Demerzel]

Avatar, on 07 May 2018 - 09:07 PM, said:

Quote

Also among the classics definitely go back to Arthur C Clarke

Andorion: I've read 2001 and al the sequels, and Childhoods End, Rendezvous with Rama. And 1 other, about a spaceship after earth is destroyed or something. Do you have any other recommendations?

Try Fountains of Paradise. Not very ... fantastical, for want of a better word. Very ... grounded near future story but does focus on a couple of characters.

[Avatar]

Anyone read Diaspora by Egan? It seems like scifi - as hard as hard scifi gets. Interesting, but tough. Wonder how readable it is.

[amphibian]

Avatar, on 28 May 2018 - 05:02 PM, said:

Anyone read Diaspora by Egan? It seems like scifi - as hard as hard scifi gets. Interesting, but tough. Wonder how readable it is.

It's not particularly hard SF. It's more focused on tech and the why than something like the Expanse, but there are much harder books out there. I actually think it's a notch below The Algebraist. I think it isn't as good as some of the other books mentioned here.

[Avatar]

The Algebraist is more hard sf? Haven't tried Diaspora, from the few sentences I read, I was somewhat impressed by all the science and the complexity (essentially good things, but I worried if it would be too much.

Now you made me curious about the Algebraist as well, though

[amphibian]

Avatar, on 29 May 2018 - 04:57 PM, said:

The Algebraist is more hard sf? Haven't tried Diaspora, from the few sentences I read, I was somewhat impressed by all the science and the complexity (essentially good things, but I worried if it would be too much.

Now you made me curious about the Algebraist as well, though

If you want the brain melting stuff, go with Peter Watts's Blindsight and the sequel Echopraxia.

A couple steps down from that level is A Darkling Sea by James Cambias.

I really enjoyed all three of these books.

Diaspora is a decent book and around the same levels as A Darkling Sea. You won't have wasted time reading Diaspora, but it moves from hardcharging super-complex stuff to sorta... nebulous.

The older I get though, the more I realize that "hard science fiction" that talks about space exploration and so on isn't actually any harder than stuff that deals with social interactions, history, personal conflicts etc. There's just more numbers and physical materials being boshed about.

[Avatar]

Quote

Lots of good recommendations here obviously, but for a couple more recent authors (on top of Becky Chambers who is excellent):


Ann Leckie, the Imperial Radch trilogy (first book Ancillary Justice). Vaguely Banks-ian flavour but with more military trappings. 

Yoon Ha Lee, Machineries of Empire (first book Ninefox Gambit)- darkly, disturbingly beautiful space-opera of the strange. Also pretty military as well as political-machination focused, with some interesting characters to say the least.

Ada Palmer, Terra Ignota series (first book Too Like The Lighting) - I'm still a bit unsure on aspects of the social-politics views the plot is pointing towards, but this series is nothing short of intoxicating to read, quite frankly. The prose writing, the characters, and the craft of the overall plot are all masterful in a surreal way and you're unlikely to ever have read anything like it. 

Well, that's funny, polishgenius, today, I was finally checking out every recommended book here. And after writing down 3 titles that seemed really interesting, I saw that they were all given by you. So thanks again for these 3.

[Avatar]

Update: I finished Donaldson's The real story (Gap #1). I tried the next one: Forbidden Knowledge, and finally concluded, the Gap Cycle is not for me. So after it, read American Pastoral by Philip Roth (great, not sci fi).

After that, I got in a hurry before I made a trip, wanted a new book, but some of them would take too long to be delivered, so I opted for Use of Weapons by Banks. Liked it, it's well written. Though I like my sci fi a bit more mindblowing and darker.

The best one I read in the last months was Ancillary Justice, afterwards. Finished yesterday and I found it truly good. Ordered the sequel, expecting it to be not as great. In the meantime, I started Dancers Lament today.

So thanks again for your reponses. Next sci fi I'll try Yoon Ha Lee. Or maybe Diaspora. Peter Watts also on the list.

[polishgenius]

Avatar, on 21 November 2018 - 08:47 PM, said:

Though I like my sci fi a bit more mindblowing and darker.

The sarcasm is strong in this one.

[Avatar]

Didn't mean to bash Banks either :-) I just think that sci fi has so much potential to suprise you, to be mind-expanding. And I guess I missed that.

[polishgenius]

Wait, you weren't being sarcastic? Then your standards for both 'dark' and 'mindblowing' are, to be honest, absurdly high. Way higher than mine.

Eta: I guess it depends on what you mean by mindblowing/expanding, though. It's a tricksy-twisty type of 'woah what the fuck', not a 'this concept will blow your MIND', which might be what you mean?

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 02 December 2018 - 01:14 AM

[HoosierDaddy]

The Freeze Frame Revolution was entertaining and quick.

[Avatar]

Quote

Eta: I guess it depends on what you mean by mindblowing/expanding, though. It's a tricksy-twisty type of 'woah what the fuck', not a 'this concept will blow your MIND', which might be what you mean? 

This, exactly. At the core of the book is a very dark secret. But it might have been at the core of a historical novel as well. So, mindblowing of another kind. Also, apart from some violent content, the atmosphere, conversations are light-hearted, and especially the drones, which are sometimes quite funny. Which is fine, but in this book, it broke the immersion for me. I don't remember that Excession had that as well, but it has been some years since I read that one.

This post has been edited by Avatar: 02 December 2018 - 07:17 AM

[polishgenius]

Excession is lighter in general so you might not have noticed coz it was in line with the tone rather than breaking it.

[Morgoth]

Use of Weapons is one dark book from beginning to end. I can't fathom reading that and thinking it wasn't dark enough.

[Tsundoku]

Maybe Avatar just came off a one-year Bakker-a-thon?

[stone monkey]

Crawl from the grave, thread! Up from the earth and into the light! Live again!

Ahem! Anyway -

Kim Stanley Robinson's book length treatise on why interstellar colonisation is impossible: Aurora. That is one bleak book. A generation starship full of people suffering developmental mental defecits due to malnutrition and ecosystem collapse. And then they arrive at their destination and it gets worse...

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 23 March 2019 - 01:08 AM

[Andorion]

stone monkey, on 23 March 2019 - 12:55 AM, said:

Crawl from the grave, thread! Up from the earth and into the light! Live again!

Ahem! Anyway -

Kim Stanley Robinson's book length treatise on why interstellar colonisation is impossible: Aurora. That is one bleak book. A generation starship full of people suffering developmental mental defecits due to malnutrition and ecosystem collapse. And then they arrive at their destination and it gets worse...

I actually really disliked Aurora. To me it was a case of the author derailing plausibility to fit an agenda.

Spoiler

It is simply inconceivable that interstellar colonists did not consider the possibility of an alien pathogen and ways to deal with it, that this was not tackled before and during the long voyage.

[Tiste Simeon]

I'm currently listening to Great North Road by Peter F Hamilton and I am loving it. It's part murder mystery part grand sci-fi and really cements Hamilton as one of my top authors.