disusedgenius wrote:Oh no, Hyperion isn't 'hard sci fi', agreed - in fact all four are fairly 'literary'. Did he turn into a raving idiot? I hadn't heard about that, but it's a shame if he did! |
Recommend me a hard sci-fi • Page 4
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orpheus 1,867 posts
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disusedgenius 10,677 posts
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Registered 14 years agoYeah, Flashback was an exercise in taking every scare story from Fox News and pretending it happened (Texas was portrayed as some kind safe haven because they only head private healthcare, 9-11 was a international day of celebration for most of the Islamically controlled world etc). All well and good apart from the multiple-page-length diatribes on the evil of Islam, Liberalism, Socialised Healthcare, Obama and so on which really don't fit the tone of the book at all and lift you right out of it. Borderline racist doesn't really cover it, tbh.
Edit: A big shame as the actual writing is as good as ever, just interspaced by rants seemingly raised from US ultra-conservative radio shows.
Edited by disusedgenius at 13:30:17 21-11-2012 -
PearOfAnguish 7,573 posts
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Registered 17 years agoSounds like he's gone all Michael Crichton. That guy turned into a proper loony toward the end. Not that Crichton was ever much cop as a writer. Orson Scott Card is another one - Ender's Game is top but Card is a hideous person.
Never got on board with Simmons. Couldn't finish Hyperion and The Terror was dull. -
disusedgenius 10,677 posts
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Registered 14 years agoI'd highly recommend the Illium series he wrote, that was fantastic. Hyperion was pretty conceptual (a sci-fi Canterbury tales, essentially) so is something of an acquired taste. The end is pretty insane, has to be said.
Card is an interesting one as well, yeah. I enjoyed Ender's Game and Pastwatch but eventually I realised that I hate pretty much every character he's ever written - especially the ones you're meant to sympathise with. -
FogHeart 1,270 posts
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Registered 14 years agoPS: my OP could have been more specific - I was looking for good sci-fi set in the present day or near-future, with technology that approximates our own.
Which makes Eon a good example so it's good that you've got that, while Consider Phlebas is pretty opposite, no grounded explanations of tech, way, way ahead in the future etc. It is of course cracking good scifi but well outside the given specifications.
I agree that Stephen Baxter is a good choice for these criteria, but I'd limit it to 'Time', 'Space' and 'Origin' avoiding the Xeelee Sequence, which is indeed hard scifi (most phenomena given scientific basis, even some really really difficult ones) but can be quite far into the future (the end of this universe????).
Here's an intriguing one - 'The Light of Other Days' by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Set pretty much now, but it takes a single, simple concept - the idea of using tiny wormholes to observe what happens in another place - and stretches it as far as it can in as many directions as possible, like a thought experiment. There's hardly anything else in it, tech-wise. It's probably the easiest way into hard sci fi you can get. -
spamdangled 31,803 posts
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Registered 13 years agoHow about Market Forces by Richard Morgan? -
orpheus 1,867 posts
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Registered 13 years agodisusedgenius wrote:
Christ, I did not expect that! What a shame. And yeah Ilium/Olympos are also excellent, as is 'The Terror' based around the real Franklin expedition to the NorthWest Passage, with a spooky twist. Not scifi, but an incredible historical/semi-horror arctic exploration novel.
Yeah, Flashback was an exercise in taking every scare story from Fox News and pretending it happened (Texas was portrayed as some kind safe haven because they only head private healthcare, 9-11 was a international day of celebration for most of the Islamically controlled world etc). All well and good apart from the multiple-page-length diatribes on the evil of Islam, Liberalism, Socialised Healthcare, Obama and so on which really don't fit the tone of the book at all and lift you right out of it. Borderline racist doesn't really cover it, tbh.
Edit: A big shame as the actual writing is as good as ever, just interspaced by rants seemingly raised from US ultra-conservative radio shows.
Such a shame he went bonkers, am quite disappointed now
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glaeken 12,070 posts
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Registered 17 years ago@fogheart Raft is pretty similar in that it's all based around a universe where the strength of gravity is stronger than our own universe. What Baxter builds around that single idea makes it one of my favourite hard sci-fi stories. He creates such an imaginative environment based on altering just one aspect of the environment.
Of course it is set in the far future like most of the Xeelee series.
Edited by glaeken at 14:03:38 21-11-2012 -
glaeken 12,070 posts
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Registered 17 years agodarkmorgado wrote:
I really like Market Forces but I think it's more akin to something like Clockwork orange to a proper Sci-fi book. It's dystopian fiction in my view. There is nothing from a technological point of view that we really don't have now.
How about Market Forces by Richard Morgan?
One of my favourite aspects of the book is the protagonist is corrupted by power. There is even the false turn to the good path all laid out for them and they don't take it which I found refreshing. -
spamdangled 31,803 posts
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Registered 13 years agoThe Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson is very, very good.
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling is a classic, if not typical sci-fi.
One I'm currently reading is The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, which sounds like it could be right up your street. -
Anti-ice by Stephen Baxter is a good yarn too. It's actually I suppose Steampunk as it's set during the Victorian era. But a what if scenario where the British empire has access to antimatter. -
spamdangled 31,803 posts
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Registered 13 years agoglaeken wrote:
You have a point, but it's still something I think the OP might be interested in.
darkmorgado wrote:
I really like Market Forces but I think it's more akin to something like Clockwork orange to a proper Sci-fi book. It's dystopian fiction in my view. There is nothing from a technological point of view that we really don't have now.
How about Market Forces by Richard Morgan?
One of my favourite aspects of the book is the protagonist is corrupted by power. There is even the false turn to the good path all laid out for them and they don't take it which I found refreshing.
I didn't actually like it on my first read - I think because I was hoping for something more like Altered Carbon, which is one of my favourite sci-fi books ever. But I read it a second time and ended up actually quite enjoying it, though it has an overwhelmingly cynical tone that can make it feel like hard going at times. -
FogHeart 1,270 posts
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Registered 14 years ago@glaeken Did you know this?:-
The Xeelee sequence story Ring is based at the end of this universe, the final purpose of the Xeelee is found - they are constructing a ring of superstring as large as a galaxy. Imagine wire wrapped around a doughnut, then remove the doughnut. Such a construction, according to Einstein's equations (hard scifi!) will create a hole in spacetime at its centre which is large enough for ships to pass through. The ships will end up in alternative universes, never the same twice as the hole keeps altering its connection. Raft is the story of a human colony which passed through that hole into a high-gravity universe.
Why the Xeelee felt the need to escape this universe is something I won't reveal to everyone, but it's shocking and since it's hard scifi grounded it makes it seem possible...
Yes, I agree with you on the way Baxter can just use one concept as the basis for a huge number of possibilities. There are other ones - I read an especially creepy one where there's a generations-old society of women who decide to build a hive-like system of reproduction - without any kind of tech involved. -
PearOfAnguish 7,573 posts
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Registered 17 years agoQuarantine by Greg Egan.
Relatively near-future setting with some cool cyberpunk gadgetry and an insane ending. -
glaeken 12,070 posts
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Registered 17 years ago@FogHeart That sounds roughly what I remember. Certainly when they escape at the end to another universe I remember them not knowing exactly what they were going to end up with. It has been probably 20 years since I read it though so my memory is a little blurry on some of the finer details.
It's sort of interesting that it seems Raft actually takes place at the latest point in the Xeelee series but was also the first book. -
Tonka 31,979 posts
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Registered 18 years agoJust finished Blindsight. Really enjoyed it. Felt fresh and full of new ideas (I thend to say that about sci-fi).
But was it really hard sci-fi? Felt way to speculative for me. I would say that Anathem is far harder than Blindsight.
In the genre of true hard sci-fi I would recommend A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C Clarke that coincidentally was the first sci-fi I ever read. -
PearOfAnguish 7,573 posts
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Registered 17 years agoIt is hard SF, but one which focuses more on neurobiology than physics (Watts is a biologist).
The sequel is out next year, allegedly.
Edited by PearOfAnguish at 09:18:34 04-12-2012 -
Tonka 31,979 posts
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Registered 18 years agoGiven how it ended I'm very intrigued to see how that plays out.
I read this as an e-book on my phone btw. First time I tried that. It had loads of advantages and no disadvantage so I think I will do more of that in the future. -
phAge 25,487 posts
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Registered 18 years agoPearOfAnguish wrote:
Quarantine is fucking brilliant. Only one of Egan's books I've actually managed to full understand, though.
Quarantine by Greg Egan.
Relatively near-future setting with some cool cyberpunk gadgetry and an insane ending. -
PearOfAnguish 7,573 posts
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Registered 17 years agoI've never read any of his others because the premises never sounded as intriguing as Quarantine. I'm judging books by the back of their covers.
Will try some one day, but it'll have to go at the end of a very long queue. -
Yeah...this thread will do: Craig Harrison's slightly obscure and long out-of-print classic The Quiet Earth has been reissued. Unfortunately the paperback only seems to be available in Australia at the moment.
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