Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?

#21

Post by dcminter » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

The one really first rate recent SF novel I can recall is: "This is how you lose the time war" [0] by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It's far from being Hard SF if you like that (I do) but the humour and poetry of it won me over very fast. I bought it purely on the basis of the delicious title!

The "Lady Astronaut" series [1] by Mary Robinette Kowal is not first rate, but it is reliably entertaining and a fairly Hard SF alternate history with some interesting choices.

I'm going to take a liberty and also recommend a much older SF book that I rarely see mentioned; "Fiasco" by Stanisław Lem. This one's all about the characterization and the big picture of humanity's fatal flaws. Not hard SF as such, but he tells a good tall tale when he needs to mess with space and time.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_How_You_Lose_the_Time_...

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/series/193730-lady-astronaut-unive...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiasco_(novel)

Re: Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?

#22

Post by dcminter » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

code_Whisperer wrote: post #20

The one that sticks in my head the most (and which I did not think I would enjoy based on the book jacket blurb) is "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I highly recommend to anyone who listens. I also recently encountered "The Fifth Science" by someone named 'Exurb1a' and enjoyed it so much that I am now reading another of his books named "Geometry for Ocelots" Andy Weir's "Hail Mary" is an imaginative and fun…

Honestly I found Hail Mary to be rather old fashioned, reminding me more of early Niven rather than The Martian. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; I enjoyed it! But he has quite a hill to climb to beat his first novel.

Re: Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?

#23

Post by code_Whisperer » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

wnkrshm wrote: post #12

Blindsight by Peter Watts, it's available for free [1] (CC-License on his website), he releases all his books like that, except for the most recent one, which is only available through publishers. You can also download it on the site as epub or PDF. Edit: Also, it's one of the few Sci-Fi books I know (all from Watts) that cites scientific literature and has a bibliography, to make an argument for plausability and giv…

Hah! Just read his Amazon author biography. I think I might like this guy.

Re: Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?

#24

Post by markus_zhang » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

marcocampos wrote: post #17

markus_zhang wrote: post #14

Try "The Three-Body Problem". It opened my eyes when I first read it, and every re-read still mesmerized me. The original text is in Chinese but the translation to English was done very well. It's a trilogy in three books. If you are not sure, just purchase the first one. But I bet you would regret about only purchasing the first one.

I'm a bit conflicted about these books. The ideas are super interesting but the characters seem very "cardboard-like". Also they are bit too long and by the 3rd book I didn't care anymore... Still, pretty interesting on their own.

Yeah he doesn't really build characters. It's kind of grand narrative that individuals don't really matter. Kinda makes sense in the story though.

Re: Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?

#25

Post by markus_zhang » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

dcminter wrote: post #19

markus_zhang wrote: post #14

Try "The Three-Body Problem". It opened my eyes when I first read it, and every re-read still mesmerized me. The original text is in Chinese but the translation to English was done very well. It's a trilogy in three books. If you are not sure, just purchase the first one. But I bet you would regret about only purchasing the first one.

I see this recommended a lot. Nonetheless I hated these books. The opening of the first book is excellent, it set up a decent exciting mystery, but about halfway through it dissolved into paper thin borderline fantasy-physics. The characterizations also declined sharply.

Yeah he doesn't really build characters. Kinda makes sense in grand narration when individuals are not that important. But I totally understand why many people don't like this style.

Re: Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?

#26

Post by dcminter » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:21 PM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #25

dcminter wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this recommended a lot. Nonetheless I hated these books. The opening of the first book is excellent, it set up a decent exciting mystery, but about halfway through it dissolved into paper thin borderline fantasy-physics. The characterizations also declined sharply.

Yeah he doesn't really build characters. Kinda makes sense in grand narration when individuals are not that important. But I totally understand why many people don't like this style.

Actually what I found frustrating was that there was some great characterization work in the opening chapters and then it was all thrown out of the window! That's where I lost interest and never regained it, though I ploughed through to the end.

Re: Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?

#27

Post by code_Whisperer » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

dcminter wrote: post #22

code_Whisperer wrote: post #20

The one that sticks in my head the most (and which I did not think I would enjoy based on the book jacket blurb) is "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I highly recommend to anyone who listens. I also recently encountered "The Fifth Science" by someone named 'Exurb1a' and enjoyed it so much that I am now reading another of his books named "Geometry for Ocelots" Andy Weir's "Hail Mary" is an imaginative and fun…

Honestly I found Hail Mary to be rather old fashioned, reminding me more of early Niven rather than The Martian. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; I enjoyed it! But he has quite a hill to climb to beat his first novel.

Agreed. I mentioned that it is 'imaginative and fun', but it is not the same style of "The Martian" which (in my opinion) had nearly perfect technical execution. I admit to having had some apprehension about a loved author's next effort (I'm looking at you, "Artemis" and "Armada"), but "Hail Mary" did not fulfill that dread for me. So... yay!

Re: Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?

#28

Post by code_Whisperer » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

dcminter wrote: post #21

The one really first rate recent SF novel I can recall is: "This is how you lose the time war" [0] by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It's far from being Hard SF if you like that (I do) but the humour and poetry of it won me over very fast. I bought it purely on the basis of the delicious title! The "Lady Astronaut" series [1] by Mary Robinette Kowal is not first rate, but it is reliably entertaining and a fairly H…

Thank you for this! Based on your recommendation of Lem's "Fiasco" I have purchased "This is How You Lose the Time War". I had not heard of this one and it sounds excellent!

Re: Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?

#29

Post by wnkrshm » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

marcocampos wrote: post #18

wnkrshm wrote: post #12

Blindsight by Peter Watts, it's available for free [1] (CC-License on his website), he releases all his books like that, except for the most recent one, which is only available through publishers. You can also download it on the site as epub or PDF. Edit: Also, it's one of the few Sci-Fi books I know (all from Watts) that cites scientific literature and has a bibliography, to make an argument for plausability and giv…

Love Peter Watts' work but be warned that his writing is super depressing (in a good way), specially his Rifters Trilogy. My favorites are still Blindsight and it's follow-up, Echopraxia. The ideas on those books about sentient life are eye opening and something I still think is heavily debated in the scientific community.

Of his catalogue, I like Blindsight best probably, it's one of those fundamental science fiction novels that asks a new question and stays with you for a long time, without being too cerebral.

Re: Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?

#30

Post by markus_zhang » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

dcminter wrote: post #26

markus_zhang wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah he doesn't really build characters. Kinda makes sense in grand narration when individuals are not that important. But I totally understand why many people don't like this style.

Actually what I found frustrating was that there was some great characterization work in the opening chapters and then it was all thrown out of the window! That's where I lost interest and never regained it, though I ploughed through to the end.

They are just there to provide context I think. The same as the second part of the story of Wenjie Ye in later chapters.

But in book 2 and 3 much less effort is put into character because I think the grand narrative already took off and it doesn't make sense to go back for individuals anymore. There are exceptions of course.