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Sci Fi recommendations

marlonharewood

By marlonharewood,
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Talvalin

Talvalin

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, Barnard said:

Hello Sci Fi fiends. 

 

I need recommendations for a good alien contact book please. Contact with a sprinkle of Independence Day would be great. 

Alien contact? Try The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. If you can handle long ass epics with terrible sex scenes, then the first two Commonwealth books by Peter F. Hamilton are really good (Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained) as the aliens described are actually pretty fucking alien (note: no alien sex occurs in these books. That I remember anyway).

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PK

PK

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, Barnard said:

Hello Sci Fi fiends. 

 

I need recommendations for a good alien contact book please. Contact with a sprinkle of Independence Day would be great. 

 

Blindsight by Peter Watts is awesome. 

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multi

multi

Posted
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8 hours ago, Talvalin said:

Alien contact? Try The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. If you can handle long ass epics with terrible sex scenes, then the first two Commonwealth books by Peter F. Hamilton are really good (Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained) as the aliens described are actually pretty fucking alien (note: no alien sex occurs in these books. That I remember anyway).

 

Probably just me, but I found The Sparrow to be a thoroughly depressing read. Did not enjoy it one bit.

 

18 minutes ago, milko said:

Somewhat on the edge of what I think the request is asking for (really no independence day vibes here at all) but I think Under The Skin and Annihilation are my favourite alien contact novels. 

 

Is that the same Under The Skin as the Jonathan Glazer movie? Haven't read the book but I found that film rather disturbing (along with Kill List) Both films I enjoyed, but do not want watch again.

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Miner Willy

Miner Willy

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On 18/02/2021 at 22:15, hungry joe said:

I've just ripped through "There Is No Antimemetics Division", which is sort of like Xcom meets Memento. It's short and only a couple of quid and really recommend it.

 

I bought this on your recommendation. About 3/4 through and loving it. So far it's perhaps my favourite book of this year. 

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smac

smac

Posted
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On 01/03/2021 at 13:39, Padaxes said:

Really Enjoying Lock Down Tales by Neil Asher. Collection of short stories that (so far) are set in his Polity universe. 


Thanks for the heads up. I need some good hard SF tales.

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Padaxes

Padaxes

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I am suprised we havent had Octavia E Butler mentioned in here yet (I don't think). I found her work by accident on Kindle and have read a fair few of them in the last year. Her name has recently cropped up as the perseverence rover landing site was named after her.

 

After enjoying some of her work I looked her up and found that she is very influencial and highly regarded. 

Her work is definately worth dipping into, it's very different and often takes unexpected turns and often explores disturbing themes. 

The Patternist series doesn't start as hard sci fi, but ends up there.  Whereas Lilliths Brood is certainly Sci Fi from the outset. Both i would consider worth a read if you havent tried them already.

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El Geet

El Geet

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On 30/01/2021 at 19:58, Barnard said:

 

Ohh, I've done that via audiobook. 

  Reveal hidden contents

The earth fleet getting destroyed in the second book was very, very tense. 

 

Why did I bloody click the spoiler?! :facepalm:

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Padaxes

Padaxes

Posted
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On 18/02/2021 at 22:15, hungry joe said:

I've just ripped through "There Is No Antimemetics Division", which is sort of like Xcom meets Memento. It's short and only a couple of quid and really recommend it.

 

Just burned through this in a couple of days. A fantatsic little story!  Thanks for the recommendation. 

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lolly

lolly

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On 13/03/2021 at 22:40, Padaxes said:

 

Just burned through this in a couple of days. A fantatsic little story!  Thanks for the recommendation. 

I'm reading this at the moment based on the recommendations here, it's a bit alright isn't it. Setting kinda reminds me of the  game Control but without the combat bits.

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JoeK

JoeK

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Had a re-read of Blindsight over the last couple of days. My opinion hasn't really changed - I think 2/3rds of the thing is absolutely brilliant. I couldn't put the thing down. But the final third disappoints me so much, as it feels like he completely lost interest in almost everything and it just falters massively. 

 

This sort of thing upsets me more than it really should.

 

What's the sequel like, anyone?

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JoeK

JoeK

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48 minutes ago, SM47 said:

It's not as good, but I still really enjoyed it. Then again I loved every minute of Blindsight so maybe you will fare differently. It's at least worthy of a read. 


I’ll no doubt give it a whirl sometime. However, I thought I’d read through ‘Unto Leviathan’ again. This book always improves with rereads I’ve found :) . It’s got a lovely lyrical writing style about it that you don’t often find with sci fi.

 

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LaveDisco

LaveDisco

Posted
Posted
On 18/02/2021 at 22:15, hungry joe said:

I've just ripped through "There Is No Antimemetics Division", which is sort of like Xcom meets Memento. It's short and only a couple of quid and really recommend it.


I also bought this on your recommendation. Absolutely loved it. Jam packed with ideas. Thank you! 

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Vemsie

Vemsie

Posted
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On 20/03/2021 at 17:16, SM47 said:

It's not as good, but I still really enjoyed it. Then again I loved every minute of Blindsight so maybe you will fare differently. It's at least worthy of a read. 

 

I loved every minute of Blindsight as well. Thought the ending was superb. Echopraxia is a harder read, but I enjoyed it a lot. Some great themes and Brüks is a compelling character as pretty much the only baseline human in the story.

 

Watts recently posted a snippet on his website that implies he's working on the third book, seemingly called Omniscience.

 

 

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K

K

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This is worth a read for any Peter Watts fans on here (which seems to be most of us):

 

https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

 

It's a very short SF horror story, done in the style of a Wikipedia entry. Not actually by Peter Watts, but very much in keeping with some of the ideas in the Blindsight books. It's extremely well-done - the kind of thing that goes down quickly, but where the implications of what happens keep floating to the surface. It's genuinely quite disturbing.

 

 

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Timmo

Timmo

Posted
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On 30/01/2021 at 19:58, Barnard said:

 

Ohh, I've done that via audiobook. 

  Reveal hidden contents

The earth fleet getting destroyed in the second book was very, very tense. 

 

I've not ready your spoiler but I started the audiobook and it had the most horrible case of wet mouth narrator I've come across. I couldn't get past it.

 

Edit - Didn't realise the post I was replying to was so old. This is regarding The Three Body Problem.

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ZOK

ZOK

Posted
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46 minutes ago, K said:

This is worth a read for any Peter Watts fans on here (which seems to be most of us):

 

https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

 

It's a very short SF horror story, done in the style of a Wikipedia entry. It's extremely well-done - the kind of thing that goes down quickly, but where the implications of what happens keep floating to the surface. It's genuinely quite disturbing.


This is great, cheers.

 

I urge anyone who likes this to also read Dave Marusek’s excellent novella The Wedding Album, which explores similar themes:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_Album_(short_story)

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Silent Runner

Silent Runner

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The Last Day is cheap on kindle at the moment. It got great reviews but I wasn't mad about it, felt like it was just there to setup a sequel. The world has stopped turning so half the planet live in permanent dark and half in permanent sunshine. Britain is in the middle in a kind of perpetual twilight. The book is about political secrets and conspiracies played out against this post-apocalypse-lite background. 

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Flub

Flub

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I'm currently reading Noumenon Ultra. The third book in the Noumenon series. The first two books were fascinating but left a lot of unanswered questions. Questions that all seem to be about to answered in this third book. I'm about a third of the way through and I'm enjoying it far, far more than the other two. Hopefully it'll have a satisfying ending.

 

Left to watch over a planet created by the alien structure known as the Web, the ships of the NOUMENON convoy and the artificial intelligence I.C.C. have lain dormant for thousands of years. Now, though, creatures are stirring in the convoy’s halls. With seemingly miraculous speed, the planet is coming to life.

Where have these beings come from? And why? To understand this new anomaly, I.C.C. reaches out to the descendants of its original crew. Together, they will embark on a stunning journey of discovery billions of years in the making.

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Flub

Flub

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9 hours ago, Flub said:

I'm currently reading Noumenon Ultra. The third book in the Noumenon series. The first two books were fascinating but left a lot of unanswered questions. Questions that all seem to be about to answered in this third book. I'm about a third of the way through and I'm enjoying it far, far more than the other two. Hopefully it'll have a satisfying ending.

 

Left to watch over a planet created by the alien structure known as the Web, the ships of the NOUMENON convoy and the artificial intelligence I.C.C. have lain dormant for thousands of years. Now, though, creatures are stirring in the convoy’s halls. With seemingly miraculous speed, the planet is coming to life.

Where have these beings come from? And why? To understand this new anomaly, I.C.C. reaches out to the descendants of its original crew. Together, they will embark on a stunning journey of discovery billions of years in the making.

 

Just finished. As a first novel(Series) for the author it's a great achievement. The scale starts fairly small but by the end of the final book you're working with a galaxy spanning machine across deep time. The concepts and writing improved greatly over the series and it actually does a very good job of explaining things that have been a mystery since very early on in book one. Also nailed the landing in classic hard sci-fi fashion with a journey into the unknowable.

 

Now I have to decide what to read next out of my massive pile of shame.

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