These are all painfully mid reads. (The alien in Hail Mary is about as alien as a rival fraternity brother.)
If you want real alien aliens, read Blindsight (Peter Watts).
Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
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Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
#12The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley is a really great, and different read. Totally different world than a lot of sci-fi.
Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seconded. One of those books that gives you a crisp metaphor for something powerful you might not have noticed we all do, thereby letting you observe yourself do it and describe it to others. Best read tabula rasa .
Good book and one with a solid BBC adaption into a four part mini series (2018) https://thetvdb.com/series/345091-show
It's remarkable that they decided to adopt it for TV, because it's one of those novels that's very hard to imagine to put onto a screen. The whole book felt, to me, like I'm in a dream.
Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
#14One of "you may never heard of" sci-fi books I can recommend is The City & the City by China Miéville. Perhaps not traditional science fiction, but so original and strange, it's beautiful.
Embassytown, also by China Miéville, is traditional sci-fi and really good as well.
Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
#15The problem with Project Hail Mary is that the audio book is good but the book is not. First read the book and then listen to the audio book and you know what I mean.
Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
#16These are all painfully mid reads. (The alien in Hail Mary is about as alien as a rival fraternity brother.) If you want real alien aliens, read Blindsight (Peter Watts).
> the alien in Hail Mary is about as alien as a rival fraternity brother
You put that as critique, and I understand that. But for me, this was actually the strength of the story. By making the differences smaller, they are more focused, stronger, and give opportunity to explore them in depth.
Same thing I like about many of the Black Mirror stories: often they tweak, or magnify, just one parameter of our realistic, current (western) lives and then explore the differences that would bring.
Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
#17Can't really take the recommendation for Beacon 23 seriously after seeing the 1/2 half of the first tv episode. That was utter crap and nonsensical. :(
Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
#18Greg Egan's Permutation City is #1 for me. It's not only a good read, it may be the most important work of late 20th century philosophy. (Among other things, it completely anticipated Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, and totally obviates Bostrom's latest work.)
I am surprised there was no Egan book in the list. He's in the top 5 of hard sci fi authors you should definitely read
Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
#19These are all painfully mid reads. (The alien in Hail Mary is about as alien as a rival fraternity brother.) If you want real alien aliens, read Blindsight (Peter Watts).
Beware, you'll also get Vampires in space, which is so silly, it kills the book.
Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read
#20The problem with Project Hail Mary is that the audio book is good but the book is not. First read the book and then listen to the audio book and you know what I mean.
That's interesting. I found Project Hail Mary to be once of the most disappointing second novels ever written and am surprised at its reception. Is the audiobook meaningfully different?