Ask HN: Modern Sci-Fi Book Recommendations?
I'm looking for a sci-fi book to take with me on my holiday. What are some great recently (< 10 years ago) published ones?
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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 read, as is "The Startup Wife" by Tahmima Anam. Oh! And "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' (or almost anything else) by Becky Chambers.
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!
SciFi
The Bobiverse Series by Dennis E. Taylor
The Singularity Trap and Outland, also by Dennis E. Taylor
The Interdependency Series by John Scalzi
SciFi + Comedy Expeditionary Force Series by Craig Alanson
Military SciFi The Lost Fleet Series by Jack Campbell The Palladium Wars Series by Marko Kloos
A bit of all of the above Murderbot Diaries Series by Martha Wells
SciFi/SciFantasy + Comedy Magic 2.0 by Scott Mayer
SciFi + Comedy Expeditionary Force Series by Craig Alanson
Military SciFi The Lost Fleet Series by Jack Campbell The Palladium Wars Series by Marko Kloos
A bit of all of the above Murderbot Diaries Series by Martha Wells
SciFi/SciFantasy + Comedy Magic 2.0 by Scott Mayer
Bobiverse was good from a ‘new concepts’ point of view, at least the first book. Really fun read.
The concepts where novel in all books by Denis E. Taylor so far, or at least I find the way he presents them in a new or unique way. The Singularity Trap sticks out to me as a rather unique way to tell the first contact story but I found the story itself less enjoyable than his other works.
I liked the first 3 books of the Bobiverse series but book 4 wasn’t as enjoyable as the rest for me.
By favorite book by Denis E. Taylor was Outland, it reminded me of some of the better works of Michael Crichton. To bad he has writer's block when it comes to continuing the story.
I liked the first 3 books of the Bobiverse series but book 4 wasn’t as enjoyable as the rest for me.
By favorite book by Denis E. Taylor was Outland, it reminded me of some of the better works of Michael Crichton. To bad he has writer's block when it comes to continuing the story.
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)
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)
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!
This is how you lose the time war is unlike any other book I've read! I thought it was super disorienting – and I loved that.
Martha Wells' Murderbot series is a fun holiday read. It's about an autonomous humanoid bot that does security work for expeditions on distant worlds in a corporate-dystopian future and is going through an adolescent emotional crisis
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I've been meaning to read this, but I've been struggling with reading since "the virus" came. I think I'll give it another go, it's right there by my bed.
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 give explanations in an afterword. Watts worked as a marine biologist before writing scifi, IIRC.
[1] https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
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 give explanations in an afterword. Watts worked as a marine biologist before writing scifi, IIRC.
[1] https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
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.
Hah! Just read his Amazon author biography. I think I might like this guy.
I recently read and liked A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace.
Ken Liu has some excellent short stories. His collection The Paper Menagerie from a few years ago was particularly great. (The titular short story won a Hugo.) He also translated the first and third books in the Three-Body Problem series.
Ted Chiang is another great SF short story writer.
Definitely Maybe by the Strugatsky brother is excellent – though it was published in the 70s so maybe not "modern."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitely_Maybe_(novel)
Ted Chiang is another great SF short story writer.
Definitely Maybe by the Strugatsky brother is excellent – though it was published in the 70s so maybe not "modern."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitely_Maybe_(novel)
I really enjoyed “XX” by Rian Hughes — a completely new kind of sci fi. Like my other fav sci-fi book Three Body Problem, it all starts with a signal from space, but then... very boldly imagined book and deserves much more praise than it seems to have gotten.
Amazon.com: XX (9781419750694): Hughes, Rian: Books https://www.amazon.com/dp/1419750690
Amazon.com: XX (9781419750694): Hughes, Rian: Books https://www.amazon.com/dp/1419750690
NK Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy (each of which won a Hugo award) is phenomenal; it has more of a fantasy flavor, but plot/character-wise is amazing.
I loved https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Hutchinson#Fractured_Euro...
for the unexplained but totally compelling technology. Full of thrilling intrigue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(novel)
Is it really so wise and ethical to launch a mission to another star system? With KSR's usual deft handling of complex systems.
Is it really so wise and ethical to launch a mission to another star system? With KSR's usual deft handling of complex systems.
The Ted Chiang books are great. Short stories. 'Arrival' the movie is based on one of them.
Hydrogen Sonota came out in the last 10 years. There are also 9 books that came before it that I really enjoyed too. You don't really need to read them in order though.
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is a great one
The rare book that I've read three times. That and his Anathem, IMHO, are superlative and make up for his habit of droning on. BTW stay away from REAMDE. His action scenes are awkward and stumbling, without tension or grace.
Thanks for the tip on REAMDE - it and Dodo are the ones I haven't read.
I'll add Fall; or, Dodge in Hell. It's Stephenson's most recent book, and has nice scifi and (HN-crowd-relevant) societal concepts. Beware of a very slow opening.
Also: Project Hail Mary. Similar to The Martian in the right ways. More ambitious, with all its benefits and plausibility traps.
I'll add Fall; or, Dodge in Hell. It's Stephenson's most recent book, and has nice scifi and (HN-crowd-relevant) societal concepts. Beware of a very slow opening.
Also: Project Hail Mary. Similar to The Martian in the right ways. More ambitious, with all its benefits and plausibility traps.
I Thought Dodo was really good. Galland seems to ground Stephenson's tendency to spiral off into deep rabbit holes and leave the story behind.
Fall was good, but looooooong.
My trick for reading Stephenson? Audio book.
Fall was good, but looooooong.
My trick for reading Stephenson? Audio book.
Hah - I've been about 50/50 audio and eye books for him.
Terminal Boredom, Izumi Suzuki
Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, Ken Liu
Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, Ken Liu
Becky Chalmers books are worth a read
The Expanse Series,
Murderbot Series
The Three-Body Problem.
I second that! also the rest of the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy
It would help to know the flavor of sci-fi you like.