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Ask HN: What are your favorite sci-fi books?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite sci-fi books?

#141

Post by deepthunder »

schmookeeg wrote: post #138
deepthunder wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got me intrigued. Care to list a few of your favourite "heavy, chewy, thought-provoking sci-fi books"?

Half of this thread to be honest. Asimov and Dick, Stephenson and Gibson. I never liked Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett but I've read their books trying to understand the hype. It was after failing to get engaged by the three-body problem (again), frustrated, and recognizing that I was dealing with unusually high professional and personal stress which likely robbed me of focus for reading "good" fiction, that I went…

Thanks for your reply. Yes, Alan Dean Foster has written some of the better Star War series stuff.

I only read a little bit of Three-body Problem a few years ago. Perhaps more character based stories are more your thing.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite sci-fi books?

#144

Post by thriftwy »

shoo wrote: post #129
thriftwy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm highly confused by the popularity of Blindsight, but don't want to make a big deal of it. Instead, I will point out that "The Mote in God's Eye" has a quite similar setting and is overall one of the best S-F books.

On the one hand, there is similarity in that both "The Mote in God's Eye" and "Blindsight" are first-contact-with-aliens scenarios. On another hand, Niven & Pournelle's story is painted atop the background of interstellar human civilization, with colonies and wars and FTL drives and shields, while humanity in Watts' universe is firmly stuck on Earth with sublight travel in our local solar system -- with the quirk tha…

In my opinion, Blindsight scratches the politically correct itches, and delivers little bottom line.

I just don't see what will go more wrong has China sent this mission packed with brighter alumnis of its best universities, tested for mental stability and stress tolerance, under command of General Secretary nephew.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite sci-fi books?

#145

Post by omnimus »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #41
spapas82 wrote: post #37

I've read a lot of scifi but I'd recommend only one to make sure you get the point: The "remembrance of earth's past" trilogy ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_of_Earth%27s_Pas... ) which is more known as "the three body problem". All the books are great but my favourite by a large margin is "the dark forest" (part 2)

Conversely I think these are some of the worst books I’ve ever read (and I’ve read basically everything mentioned in this thread). The characters are uninteresting, the plot is haphazard and the ideas are derivative. I can see how it would be appealing if you don’t read much at all but once you’ve experience some higher quality stuff it’s just bad.

I try to not be pedantic about plot holes but i’ve felt there were so many ilogical and unexplained decisions. Author just moves on and does not care that it was very distracting.

I liked some of the ideas although i think you can find books that dig into similar ones a bit deeper.

What also doesnt help is that this seems to be the book that people that dont read sci-fi (because its for kids) all read and they love it. I got so many raving reviews from people telling me if scifi was like this they would read sci-fi… annoying as hell.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite sci-fi books?

#146

Post by omnimus »

rektide wrote: post #75

Lots of good recs about, throwing in a couple more mentions. Just finished Red Rising , which I could not put down. Kept feeling like it was on a good arch, then exceeding expectations. Looking forward to more. Not enough Heinlein on the lost here. I'm not sure what specifically I'd recommend though. Quantum Thief is probably some of the most imaginative & epic Sci fi I've read, engrossing world.

Red Rising is guily pleasure. First three books are for teens so it’s a bit naive but then it turns to be more serious…

Anyway i loved it more than i probably should have. For some reason one cant stop put these down.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite sci-fi books?

#147

Post by omnimus »

dopidopHN wrote: post #88

I getting thought anything by Kim S. Robinson. I read the Mars trilogy 20 years ago and plan to re-read it once I'm done. Recently went thought "Ministry for the future" from him. Weird mix of factual non fiction and SF. Read like a fan fiction of a iPCC Report. Outside of hard SF, Ursula K Leguin. Great world building.

Leguin was one of the most imaginative and skilled scifi writers ever. She also has fantasy series Earthsea which lots of Harry Potter was inspired from but it never got so popular even though it might be as good or better.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite sci-fi books?

#149

Post by dcminter »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #40
dcminter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read any of the Bobiverse books, but I recall reading a review that stated something like "I realise this isn't going into what's so bad about it, but I honestly don't know where to start. It would be like explaining why murder was bad." :D Annoyingly I can't find the original any more, but I do note that most of the 1 star reviewers are angry about anti-religious tone, so perhaps that was the bee in their…

Roger Ebert always tried to review movies on what they were trying to do and not on an absolutist scale of good/bad. IMO the Bobiverse books are trying to have a fun go at a few different big sci-fi concepts and on that basis I think they're fairly successful.

I'm travelling a lot this week; time to give them a go I think!
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