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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

#131

I want to do book recommendations from the other direction. I need to know which books to avoid based on the books people like. For example, if I hated The Three Body Problem and you loved it, then I'm probably going to hate the other books you love.

That's a poor way to find good books?

I liked 3BP, and I also liked Permutation City and Cryptonomicon. Yet I met a lot of people who didn't like 3BP, but liked the latter ones.

Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read

#132

Greg 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.)

Wow, I also thought of the work as deeply philosophical. I also read a bunch of other philosophy, and found that Egan's hypothesis overlaps significantly with both Advaita Vedanta and Buddhist concept of soul (pali: puggala). Did anybody else think the same?

Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read

#134
post #110

Any recommendations for books with good made up technology/programming/cyberspace? I love alternate versions of the internet and ways to navigate it. I love hearing completely original but coherent technical babble with 0 connection to it's real world counterpart.

[deleted]

Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read

#135

It's strange to start a list of "books that you may never have heard of" with a novel which is a nominee to the 2020 Hugo Awards. I suppose that most of the regular readers of sci-fi haver heard of it. A nitpick about the third recommandation with "robots modeled on Karel Čapek’s designs". I suppose that they have not read Čapek’s novels. His robots were not pure machines, they were made from a biological substrate.…

Yeah, Project Hail Mary was the only one of the three I'd ever heard of. Still, it was a great book (especially since I read it right on the heels of reading Artemis , which was only "okay").

I heard there might be a movie adaptation of Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling.

Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read

#136
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wow, must try to watch it. I remember reading The City & the City and thinking about how visually it would be... different clothes, overlapping murals?

Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read

#137
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wow, must try to watch it. I remember reading The City & the City and thinking about how visually it would be... different clothes, overlapping murals?

I have zero idea how healthy these are .. but .. try https://ext.to/the-city-and-the-city-s9177/

Best bet looks like: https://ext.to/the-city-and-the-city-season-1-complete-720p-...

If you're in the UK you can watch d/load from the BBC hone site via iPlayer when they rotate available again (currently not on iPlayer): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p061bd5l

Re: Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read

#138

I want to do book recommendations from the other direction. I need to know which books to avoid based on the books people like. For example, if I hated The Three Body Problem and you loved it, then I'm probably going to hate the other books you love.

Just because someone liked a book you hate, doesn't mean you will hate the other books they like.

I hated "Sea of Tranquility". I can't stand stupid characters.

"Furtuna" was so bad I made a note to avoid any other books by Kristyn Merbeth. The main character is stupid, selfish, and short sighted to the detriment of everyone around her.

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