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Sciency Sci Fi recs
Reznik
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm looking for sci fi books, films, or shows that deal with weird space stuff that isn't aliens. Like the crazy gravity planet in Interstellar. Or some moon where it rains diamonds. Alien worlds that are genuinely alien and not just colorful earths with people wearing prosthetics. Oceans of methane or whatever. Plus actual consideration of g forces and air supplies and stuff like that.
I guess this is hard sci fi? I would like a focus on exploration and science and survival. I've read plenty of war and politics already so I don't need more of that.
Things I have read/seen/watched already:
Interstellar
The Expanse + books
Starship Troopers (book and CG series)
The Martian (book and film)
I guess this is hard sci fi? I would like a focus on exploration and science and survival. I've read plenty of war and politics already so I don't need more of that.
Things I have read/seen/watched already:
Interstellar
The Expanse + books
Starship Troopers (book and CG series)
The Martian (book and film)
Do... Re.... Mi... Ti... La...
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Forget it...
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Forget it...
Reznik on
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Does it have to be space stuff exactly?
Charles Stross has a bunch of things that probably qualify.
Accelerando - If the Rapture of the Nerds happens is the basic premise and it just goes from there into crazy far future and why you never screw with cats.
What if we made robots based on our brains to serve us then all us squishy things died off?
Saturn's Children -Spies, Betrayal and sex bots. (The book knows how squicky that last bit is.)
Neptune's Brood - Confidence games, Economics and the Speed of Light with robot mermaids.
Those are hardish sci-fi from a modern author.
Peter Watts might be another
In particular, A Deepness In The Sky is probably the hardest of his Sci Fi works: a STL interstellar trade clan meets with a second human culture and together make first contact with with an alien race. His other books in the setting, A Fire Upon The Deep and Children Of The Sky are only tangentially linked, but still worth a read.
I see Baxter was already mentioned, but consider this a second vote for him.
You might look into Armor by Steakley. It may be a bit more war than you're looking for, but it has a focus on surviving war and what it can do to a person rather than the "You've got huge guts! Rip and TEAR!" kind of sci fi war novel that it sounds like you're not looking for.
It's a bit more pulpy, and definitely deals with aliens, but The Architects of Hyperspace might also be up your alley. It's got some weird planets as well as a massive alien artifact that needs to be explored. It's been a while since I read it though, so I don't know if it holds up.
As for the classics: 2001: A Space Oddessy by Arthur C. Clarke (book and movie). Also, Isaac Asimov.
The foundation trilogy by Asimov is another classic. Honestly you probably can't go too far wrong with the sci-fi godfathers; Heinlein, Clark and Asimov. In all cases though there you'll get "yesterday's future" to some degree. Socio-political narratives haven't changed terribly much over the last 50 years (and generally provide the driving elements to most sci-fi's plot that isn't built on war or the hero's journey), but the science that modern writers can leverage is somewhat expanded.
[Edit] I'd be remiss if Dune by Frank Herbert wasn't also mentioned here. It's a classic for a reason, and one of the things I've found most enjoyable about reading the older works of sci-fi is being able to observe the vast influence they've had on modern ones!
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All sci-fi she wrote is good
You mention the matrian, but you didnt list the Mars trilogy, which is terraforming Mars hard sci fi from the 90 that is quite good, by Kim Stanley Robinson. Lots of fun numbers about Mars, for example he talks about how if you were on phobos and got a good running start, you would probably reach escape velocity. Or how if you were on Olympus mons and looked down, the slope and height of the mountain versus the curvature and diameter of Mars, would mean you couldn't actually see the planet, just the mountain.
Also, space socialism which is cool
He also wrote three short stories set hundreds of years after the events of Ark which follows the descendants of these travelers. The first two are interesting because they read more like fantasy than sci-fi. The third one is set even further beyond the first two stories, but it's back to proper sci-fi again and feels like an epilogue to the whole saga.
I enjoyed all three of these books, but I think his characters aren't developed very well. For me, the concepts were what managed to keep my interest, but YMMV.
I've only read one other book by him, titled Manifold: Time, and I kind of struggled to get through that one because it also had poorly-developed characters and a concept that failed to keep me interested.
My Backloggery
So, this is a bit confusing, but apparently there is a book called 'Gravity' whose author claims that the movie was based on it. The summary of the book focuses on some sort of microbe in space, so I'm not certain. Still, based on reviews, it's fairly hard scifi and worth checking out.
Well, it's definitely nothing to do with a microbe.. at least the movie isn't. It's not a role I ever would have imagined for Sandra Bullock but she blows it out of the water IMO.
Heavily second the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, it is some of my favourite sci-fi.
Later books in the trilogy also mention/cover that humanity is attempting to colonise Venus, Pluto and investigate Jupiter.
Saturn Run by John Sandford from what I recall is backed up with numbers, it's about multiple spaceships from different nations on Earth racing each other out to a foreign signal that appears out near Saturn's rings. It does have a little alien in it but definitely has that space survival part you're looking for.
Planetes exists as both a comic series and an anime. It is a hard scifi about the crew of a space ship in orbit around the Earth that collects all the space junk that has accumulated over time. Both JAXA and NASA contributed on the technical side to get the series to realistically depict weightlessness, movement and so on right. It's also fully voiced in English.
I, Robot by Asimov has probably half of it's short stories dedicated to humanity running into problems on inhospitable planets and attempting to overcome them with robots.
The Last Question, also by Asimov, is a free short story that I highly recommend you check out when you've got a spare five minutes on a lunchbreak or something. It's more about extrapolation than exploration but it is a wonderful little story.
Artemis, written by Andy Weir has a similar attitude towards the mathematics/science of survival that The Martian does, but takes place on the moon.
A book I recently ordered when I was looking for new novels fits the exploration part you were after called Bios. I haven't read it yet so I can't speak to how good it is but the blurb sounded interesting. Reviews were mixed but mostly positive and said the world was interesting.
Dune, while including politics, religion and war is a story of survival on a planet that consists of almost nothing but sand, rock and small icecaps. It is a fantastic book that is work checking out if you haven't read it before.
If you're willing to overlook some minor alien appearance in favour of a really good sci-fi story then check out Contact by Carl Sagan. There is both a movie and a book. I have preference to the novel but the movie is great too.
Saga by Brian K Vaughn and the Uplift series by David Brin have those more fantastic worldscapes and places you're after, but heavily feature alien races. If you're willing to make that trade off they're well worth checking out.
Brin's pretty good and much better than average at trying to portray alien mindsets but he drags a little bit from time to time.
James White's Sector General series is pretty good if you can find it. It's about a space hospital, and a bit soapy, but the problems they're up against are usually well thought out and framed.
I really like this book series, but considering the conceit is literal bureaucracy magic, I'm not sure hard SciFi counts here. Great though.
Just so we're clear, Gravity is in my top 3 all-time movies because I'm a science/space nerd and it was absurdly well done.
Looking on wikipedia it's the first book in a series. I've never read the rest but Raft is very good.
It's humans in a different universe where gravity is much stronger.
Larry Nivens Integral Threes and Smoke Ring is sort of the same concept but in a fantasy/sci-fi setting that leans on the fantasy bit.
Also, while David Brins Uplift serie very much has aliens, I think you will like some of the concepts that's explored. The first book is a stand alone, but the rest are connected.
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Island. Being on fire.
Its reasonably hard sci fi so if you dont like lengthy explanations of orbital mechanics...
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Ya know, I would generally not recommend this book in general but it really does seem to fit what Reznik was asking for perfectly.
Though I'd start with Anathem also has that "story where Stephenson wedges in long technical explanations in an interesting style" thing going on as well as a better story and big idea.
From a different perspective, windup girl is good and the biopunk perspective is a refreshing change.
The Windup Girl is also very interesting and has a really strong take on future tech that just isn't that common. Also very good.
Oh really? I thought it was wonderful in its way
I would not describe Integral Trees or Smoke Ring as being at all a fantasy setting.
Baroque cycle is not good. Stephenson needs an editor.
Other books that might not exactly fit your bill, but tend to be good stuff in the sci-fi vein: Banks' Culture novels, Azimov's Foundation series, Herbert's Dune series (FYI though: Herbert explicitly has said he wrote it to cover the intersection of religion and politics), China Mieville's stuff (tends towards the 'weird fiction' end of the spectrum, but he can world build like a mofo: Bas Lag and City and the City, yo!), and Miller's A Canticle for Liebowitz (it's got survival in there at least).
These were on my periphery of "interesting sci-fi" books; but this explanation has rocketed them to near the top. Thanks!
This is only very generally related to the subject of the thread, so I'm spoiling it:
A University professor is mysteriously kidnapped and when he wakes up, everyone knows him but he doesn't know them. It turns out, a different version of him in a parallel dimension figured out how to manipulate the Observer Effect to hop between dimensions. He now has to figure out a way to get back to his own reality.
Well, there arent any aliens in it, but its more a human vs human kind of fighting, however the science behind the sci-fi is pretty neat, taking into account accelleration, range, very long battles due to the distances, gravimetrics, compensating for decelleration and such...its David Weber's Honor Harrington series.
I have not read this series but if this is something that interests you, try the Bolo series of stories/novels.
Bruce Sterling; Schizmatrix, The Artificial Kid, Involution Ocean, Holy Fire
I know a person who had a close encounter with some ball lightning. The thing got inside the house they were in and then went boom, blowing out the electronics. Stuff is damn weird and I will look into this book.