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The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

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Re: The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

#41

Post by jsymolon »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #31
renke1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Seveneves (I haven't read much else from Neal Stephenson, but I've heard good things) * Children of Time / Children of Ruin (both really good) * Remembrance of Earth's Past (even the fan fiction one is good) * A lot of stuff from Alastair Reynolds (House of Suns being my favorite) * Classics like Tau Zero, The Forever War etc. * A Deepness in the Sky / A Fire Upon the Deep Although not all of these are strictly con…

+1 for Seveneves. I found it so engrossing that just thinking about it now I can picture the shapes of that chain in zero-G, and the unexpectedly long-lasting hellscape consequences of the very early reveal. The CB radio...

eh, 1st 1/2 great. 2nd half ... really falls apart

Re: The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

#42

Post by throw1234651234 »

renke1 wrote: post #23
everyone wrote: post #4

Can ye recommend any novels / authors that are as hard sci-fi as KSR or Arthur C Clarke?

* Seveneves (I haven't read much else from Neal Stephenson, but I've heard good things) * Children of Time / Children of Ruin (both really good) * Remembrance of Earth's Past (even the fan fiction one is good) * A lot of stuff from Alastair Reynolds (House of Suns being my favorite) * Classics like Tau Zero, The Forever War etc. * A Deepness in the Sky / A Fire Upon the Deep Although not all of these are strictly con…

Neal Stephenson's earlier work has "more soul" - Snow Crash / Diamond Age actually has characters you care about and like, his later novels get increasingly more abstract, though even better in the technical sense. I think the only character I remember from Seveneves is the cannibal leader, that's it.

"A Deepness in the Sky" was REALLY good. The Forever War was good for the concept.

In short, yours looks like a great list I will come back to, thank you.

However, I do strongly dislike Remembrance of Earth's Past / The Three Body Problem - it's vastly overrated in my opinion and the characters make no sense. The best part of it was the intro to the first book which gave an interesting glimpse at history.

Re: The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

#43

Post by dkarl »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #38

Seeing this on HN, reading the article and the comments, really reminds me of how much I respect KSR. His 2312 brought me back to reading hard sci-fi after too long not really reading much fiction at all for a long time. The ideas presented in it reminded me of a sense of wonder at the scope of future possibilities that had previously been lost under an ever increasing pile of marital, parental, and financial respons…

Do you have A Sea of Words, the lexicon for reading O'Brian's novels? I highly recommend having it by your side while you read. It helps a lot.

Re: The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

#44

Post by tartuffe78 »

jsymolon wrote: post #41
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for Seveneves. I found it so engrossing that just thinking about it now I can picture the shapes of that chain in zero-G, and the unexpectedly long-lasting hellscape consequences of the very early reveal. The CB radio...

eh, 1st 1/2 great. 2nd half ... really falls apart

Agreed, the first half was semi-realistic hard science fiction, the second half felt more like fantasy almost. It wasn't bad, but such a huge shift from the first half.

Re: The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

#45

Post by sweetheart »

kryptn wrote: post #11
everyone wrote: post #4

Can ye recommend any novels / authors that are as hard sci-fi as KSR or Arthur C Clarke?

I really like Dragon's Egg by Robert L Forward, and its sequel as well.

I didn’t know there was a sequel! How exciting.

Re: The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

#46

Post by totoglazer »

jsymolon wrote: post #41
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for Seveneves. I found it so engrossing that just thinking about it now I can picture the shapes of that chain in zero-G, and the unexpectedly long-lasting hellscape consequences of the very early reveal. The CB radio...

eh, 1st 1/2 great. 2nd half ... really falls apart

Strong agree. Luckily you can just stop reading at the end of part 1 and it’s still a very satisfying book.

Re: The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

#47

Post by jeffwass »

_37hw wrote: post #7
everyone wrote: post #4

Can ye recommend any novels / authors that are as hard sci-fi as KSR or Arthur C Clarke?

Hard sci fi is hard to define for me personally. But, Children of Time by Adrian Czajkowski is worth a look, and maybe Saturn Run by Ctein and John Sanford.

Just out of curiosity where are you located?

Here in the UK his name is spelled “Adrian Tchaikovsky”, as well as his account on Twitter (@aptshadow), where aside from writing novels he’s insanely productive creating digital artwork (often including insect characters).

Re: The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

#48

Post by PicassoCTs »

arethuza wrote: post #34
PicassoCTs wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vernor Vinge is so good, shame he dropped it in Rainbows End.

I think Rainbows End is excellent. However, I was disappointed with The Children of the Sky .

It had an interesting take on industrialization with a hivemind though. Manchester capitalism is not really bad if you are borg, after all its just a hand assigned to boredom.

Rainbows End explored a society which went full AR, but in my opinion most of the shots if fired missed the target.

Re: The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

#49

Post by andyjohnson0 »

renke1 wrote: post #23
everyone wrote: post #4

Can ye recommend any novels / authors that are as hard sci-fi as KSR or Arthur C Clarke?

* Seveneves (I haven't read much else from Neal Stephenson, but I've heard good things) * Children of Time / Children of Ruin (both really good) * Remembrance of Earth's Past (even the fan fiction one is good) * A lot of stuff from Alastair Reynolds (House of Suns being my favorite) * Classics like Tau Zero, The Forever War etc. * A Deepness in the Sky / A Fire Upon the Deep Although not all of these are strictly con…

I hated Seveneves. The first part was grim and unremitting and almost everyone died. It left me feeling kind of depressed, and unwilling to put up with what seemed to be a self-indulgent second part. Plus the premise was so unlikely and the ending felt unsatisfactory. I should have known: Stephenson doesn't really do endings.

Re: The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

#50

Post by bsenftner »

everyone wrote: post #4

Can ye recommend any novels / authors that are as hard sci-fi as KSR or Arthur C Clarke?

I strongly recommend Greg Bear. His first novel "Blood Music" is a unique take on an AI out of control, and he continues with a series independent of novels which all take place in a unified "future history". One of my favorite aspects of his future history is the combination of the bio-genetic, cosmetic surgery, and pop media artist industries to create transhumanist pop media artists, and spawning a transhumanist youth movement and a counter transhumanist political movement, with all the human chaos that would result wonderfully illustrated by his prose.
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