Jacek Dukaj - Black Oceans
Ask HN: Best hard scifi AI novels?
101–106 of 106 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best hard scifi AI novels?
#102Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente, I felt like it really introduced emotion in an AI context,
Re: Ask HN: Best hard scifi AI novels?
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Watts’ Blindsight and Echopraxia are excellent hard scifi too, though less focused on AI.
is blindsight considered hard SF? It's been a while since I read it, but I don't recall a big focus on science, and some things are pretty explicitly hand waved ("we are lucky they have that issue with right angles")
Some stuff is hand waved. However, the amount of incredible facts about human condition and precaution is incredible and very much core to the story. The back of the book is packed with references to actual research work.
It took me a long time though to get myself to buy the book because the book description on Amazon is the worst and sounds like a awful B-movie.
Re: Ask HN: Best hard scifi AI novels?
#104Alot of good recommendations even if they may not meet strict personal definitions of either "hard" sci-fi, or "AI" sci-fi.
If you haven't read the Culture books, by Iain M. Banks, I'd recommend them (as others already have). I'd also add, the "Murderbot Diaries" (2017), "Infomocracy" (2016) and Lightless (2015).
Re: Ask HN: Best hard scifi AI novels?
#105Andy Weir's "The Martian" is my favourite book. I've read it about 5 times, and I've never read a book twice before. The movie was a decent adaptation, but it's not near the quality that the book was.
"The Martian" is really good book, and I loved the movie. I am looking forward to Andy Weir's new book. But ... I wouldn't put "The Martian" in the scifi AI category.
> I wouldn't put "The Martian" in the scifi AI category
A story about a near future where a man is living on another planet. You don't think that counts as science fiction?
On the one hand, I disagree ('20,000 leagues under the sea' was sci-fi when it was written). On the other hang, holy crap we're so close to humans being on Mars that such a story might not count as science fiction! That's amazing!
Re: Ask HN: Best hard scifi AI novels?
#106My favorite: "Neuromancer" by William Gibson. A close second: "Accelerando" by Charles Stross. (I met Charles Stross once. He told me that "Accelerando" was not his favorite of the books he's written.)
I find it somewhat hilarious to list Neuromancer as "Hard SF", though I liked it a lot... but Gibson has never even used a computer when he wrote it! Which explained so much about it's weirdness to me...