Ask HN: What are some “damn good” fiction books to read next? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are some “damn good” fiction books to read next?

4 pointscdbattags8 comments

As an avid reader, I've been jumping back in to the world of literature after quite a long sabbatical. I purchased a Kindle back in December of 2015 and it's been a great investment thus far.

Basically, I read tons of non fiction and follow breaking tech news on sites like these so I get a little burnt out when I go to read books like:

- Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions (https://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Live-Computer-Science-Decisions/dp/1627790365)

- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095)

I recently read:

- Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel (https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Penumbras-24-Hour-Bookstore-Novel/dp/1250037751)

last fall and loved it; diving back into the world of fiction and fantasy. Do y'all have any other suggestions?

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Peter Watts.

http://www.rifters.com/crawl/

Specifically, Blindsight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)

> Blindsight is a hard science fiction novel by Canadian writer Peter Watts, published by Tor Books in 2006. It garnered nominations for a Hugo Award for Best Novel, a John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and a Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. The novel follows a crew of astronauts sent out as the third wave, following two series of probes, to investigate a trans-Neptunian Kuiper belt comet dubbed 'Burns-Caulfield' that has been found to be transmitting an unidentified radio signal to an as-yet unknown destination elsewhere in the solar system, followed by their subsequent first contact. The novel explores questions of identity, consciousness, free will, artificial intelligence, neurology, game theory as well as evolution and biology. Blindsight is available online under a Creative Commons license. Its sequel Echopraxia came out in 2014.

I happen to have this snippet around from a time I wanted a friend to read a part: http://ix.io/1QVK

Fantasy is my jam.

The hottest kid on the block at the moment (deservedly, or not, depending who you ask) is Patrick Rothfuss and his Kingkiller Chronicles. Although, the 3rd of the trilogy has been long awaited with no release in sight. If your willing to read 2 and wait for the 3rd, I personally highly recommend it.

Brent Weeks' Night Angel Trilogy is fantastic, if you like "dark fantasy". So is the Mistborn series.. Another decent one is The Lies of Loch Lamora, I forget the author.

I have plenty more.. But highly recommend going to Goodreads and spending some time searching there. They've gone beyond "Fantasy" and have several sub-genres to help narrow the search.

Other fiction, non-fantasy books, I can't say. I almost exclusively read fantasy.

Worm by JC McCrae is the best superhero epic ever written. https://parahumans.wordpress.com/category/stories-arcs-1-10/...

Don't spoil it for yourself - enjoy all 1.6 million words and let the story unfold :)

Gateway from Frederik Pohl. Also the others books that follows this series, I can't recommend this enough.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/19/back-to-the-hu...

The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead

Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman

and if you haven't read it already, Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

You might enjoy Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

Anathem.

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