I’m reading a sci-fi series that has many different complex types of time travel and time manipulation, with history being re-written many times and people using a mix of science and their abilities to reach their goals.
And let me tell you, my brain’s getting a workout. During the parts that go into detail about altering time and the things it’ll change, it can feel like I’m trying to figure out a math equation. But I’m not complaining. It’s actually a pleasant change to read a fiction book that makes me have to dust off the ole’ brain cells and make them work a little more than usual, lol.
Are you familiar with any complicated sci-fi? What did/do you think of it? Are there any other fictional genres that have squeezed your brain like this?
by justkeepbreathing94
24 Comments
What are you reading
Literary fiction and a lot of history will give that feeling. You get a bit used to it and then dive in deeper and deeper until you hit Gödel, Escher, Bach. GEB is irrevocable so beware.
There is a whole genre of ‘hard’ science sci-fi. You might find that to your liking.
Also, check out the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer. Not exactly the sort of thing you describe above, but a gripping story nonetheless.
The Forever War by Haldeman. Pretty heavy stuff.
Not really time travel, but the effects of FTL travel.
Ray Bradbury has a ton of stuff if you want something more fun
Love the stuff that makes me think. The “Ancillary Justice” trilogy, by Ann Leckie, and pretty much everything Frank Herbert wrote.
If you ever want lighter sci-fi, look for space opera. But congratulations!
Myself I prefer sci-fi that emphasizes social or political or biotechnology or aliens rather than math, engineering or physics. But there is room for everyone and their tastes.
The Three-Body Problem trilogy is pretty great. It’s got a lot of technical details involving complex theories and astrophysics. Also a lot of multi-generational society building and collapses. My mind prefers the historical/human aspects, the technical jargon hurts my brain, but in a good way.
This is what surrealism does for me and why I love it so much.
China Mieville’s Bas-Lag books in the “New Weird” genre always bent my brain weird – Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council, his three Bas-Lag novels, are something else.
You should think about reading the 6 Frank Herbert Dune books.
Sci Fi is the most timeless genre imo. Whether I’m reading something published this year, or something published when my parents were 5 years old they hold up. The distant future of 60 years ago and now are far enough off that the stories are timeless.
I just read Dune and that really made me realize this.
There tends to be two camps, one that explains the core ideas of the world to you, and the other that just tosses you into the deep end and lets you figure out how to swim.
Dune does a great job of explaining things as they come up.
This Is How You Lose The Time War just tosses you in.
Both ways can be excellent.
This is 100% my jam! If you’re enjoying Orson Scott Card, here’s some other authors I’d recommend who hit a similar balance of mindbendy concepts, speculative science and fun styles/stories:
* Dan Simmons’ *Hyperion Cantos* stuff
* Vernor Vinge’s Zones of Thought stuff
* Anne Leche
* certain Neal Stephenson stuff (*Diamond Age, Seveneves*)
* certain China Mieville stuff (*Perdido Street Station, The City & The City, Embassytown*)
* Robert Charles Wilson
What book is it? Sounds like something I would like to check out! 🙂
I’m currently finishing up the Three Body Problem trilogy and it’s been excellent sci fi wise. It has high concepts and gets very jargon-y, but Cixin Liu (and I suspect Ken Liu, his English translator) do a good job of ending all the science fiction hoo haa with a story and plot you can understand and follow easily. The dimension stuff is particularly insane.
However, my favourite sci fi will always be Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
Try some of the “YA” type sci-fi like The Dragon and the Thief by Timothy Zahn or Redshirts by John Scalzi. Some of the older sci fi doesn’t go into the psuedo science quite as much.
Greg Egan is really good for this. He has a couple books where the whole premise is “what would happen if we changed the laws of physics?” For example, his “Orthogonal” series takes place in a universe where the metric of spacetime is Euclidean (in our universe it is Minkowski), meaning there’s no fundamental difference between space and time. This changes the way that many things work like the nature of light, electomagetism, thermodynamics, and space flight. In the appendix he has legit equations and derivations to back up the stuff he is describing. It’s all very impressive and a little mind-bending, and I’m a physicist myself!
If you want complicated, give *Book of the New Sun* and *Urth of the New Sun* by Gene Wolfe a go. There is absolutely no way you will catch even half of the background intricacies on a first read. I like to listen to analysis of stuff I like and I didn’t realize most of the things they talk about, but everything they say makes perfect sense when you go back and think about the writing and narrative.
Gene Wolfe is one of the most highly regarded speculative fiction authors ever. I’m looking forward to continuing his lexicon.
You would probably like a book called Tau Zero.
That sounds like a really cool plot. What’s it called?
Ted Chiang changed my conception of what Science Fiction could be. He’s not a full time writer, and he’s only written a handful of short stories.
Basically, he writes a short story every couple of years that wins every award a short sci-fi story can win. He has two collections, and you can find a lot of his stories on the internet for free. Absolutely worth your time.
Sounds like I need to check out Pathfinder. I’ve been reading Doctor Who and Faction Paradox which do have their fair share of complicated plotlines and time manipulation. Other pieces of media, that squeezed my brain include Legion(TV) and Control(Game), albeit in different ways.
I’ve found a really good book series that’s kinda introductory to sci-fi is the Waking Gods series by Sylvain Neuvel. Genuinely a really awesome series and after finishing the first one I even dropped an email to the author since I was reading it during a really stressful time and it gave me some escapism. I got a really lovely email back. If you like sci-fi, I’d definetley recommend it, they’re just complicated enough to be really interesting