I’m looking for 2 types of sci-fi(or a combination thereof):
– Sci-fi with detailed physics and math(alternate physics, future physics, etc.)
– Societal(utopian/dystopian)
Preferred to be realistic and meaningful. Confusing stories that require a lot of thought to read are welcomed.
Already read that corresponds to the above:
– Contact by Carl Sagan
– The Giver by Lois Lowry
Thoroughly enjoyed both of those.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions 🙏
by AmAProudIdiot
18 Comments
Diaspora by Greg Egan is a must
Project Hail Mary
Leviathan Wakes
Red Rising
Fifth Season
The Bees
Skyward
The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
The Martian by Andy Weir
Have you read Larry Niven’s Ringworld books? They’re pretty well-known “hard” sci-fi books. Not sure if they’re as hard as you want, though. The first two are good (if you do like the first and want to read the second, I recommend reading the novel Protector first), but I didn’t enjoy books 3 and 4 much.
The Culture, Banks
Seveneves by Neil Stephenson is mostly orbital physics and space ship design.
From Neil Stephenson: Snow Crash and Diamond Age. Both are Dystoian future earth´s and its just amazing how detailed he described the virtual reality and the internet in Snow Crash bc the internet barely existed when he wrote the book.You may also like the Cryptonomicon from Neil Stephenson, i stopped quite early bc it had a bit too much math and decryption stuff in it for my math allergic brain but maybe it´s for you.
I think this author is in general a good choice for you based on the information you gave. He likes to include math, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy and history of science in his storys
Dragon’s Egg by Robert L Forward. The author was a physicist. There’s lots of scientific details and some calculations at the end of the book
Starship troopers has a fair amount of math and physics if memory serves
100% #2: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
It’s like The Giver for adults. At times lyrical, and at times a bit slow, this book was worth the couple tries it took me to get into it. It all comes together when you finish reading it.
Other sociological science fiction recs:
1984 by George Orwell
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley — has a utopian sequel
Dawn and/or The Parable duology by Octavia E. Butler
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1921!)
The Honor Harrington series by David Weber. Lots of detailed descriptions of starships. 😄
We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen
Light by John Harrison
Blindsight and Echopraxia (Firefall series) by Peter Watts, also his Rifters series.
The Fifth Science by Exurbia
Hard scifi
Kim Stanley Robinson: Red Mars-Green Mars-Blue Mars, Aurora, the Ministry for the Future
Liu Cixin: the Three Body Problem, the Dark Forest, Death’s End
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Societal scifi and dystopia additional to Lost-Phrase’s nice classic list
Naomi Alderman: the Power
Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake
Michael Faber: the Book of Strange New Things
PD James: the Children of Men
Ursula Leguin: the Dispossessed
Doris Lessing: the Sirian Experiments
Jack London: the Iron Heel
Will Self: the Book of Dave
Sherri S Tepper: the Gate to Women’s Country
John Wyndham: the Day of the Triffids, the Chrysalids
The Rise and Fall of the D.O.D.O has one of the most compelling realistic conceptions of magic I’ve read!
*The Dispossessed* by Ursula LeGuin is about a physicist who is raised on an Anarcist colony on the moon of a planet. He goes to visit the heavily capitalist country on the planet an also comes into contact with people from the communist country on the planet. Everyone wants his General Temporal Theory which he is on the verge of being able to publish.