Ask HN: Sci-Fi Book Recommendations | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Sci-Fi Book Recommendations

11 pointsxupybd11 comments

Some of the best sci-fi books I've read have not come from good reads or other sites dedicated to book reviews. Instead most have come from HN comments that I've stumbled over. In quest to find even more I'm asking this question.

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A few I really enjoyed in the last few months:

  - The Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells)
  - Dune (Frank Herbert)
  - The Shadow of the Torturer (Gene Wolfe)
  - Old Man's War series (John Scalzi)
  - Bobiverse Series (Dennis E. Taylor)

Dan Simmons: Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion

  Read them (if you haven't already) before any HBO serialization or movie can forever ruin them for you.

Peter Watts: Blindsight, Echopraxia

  Strong concept and incredibly fleshed-out world building, reminds me of Lem.

Stanislav Lem: Fiasco

  An inverted first-contact scenario.

Another recommendation for Peter Watts. Watts' Backlist is also available to read from his website, including 4 novels (his Starfish + Maelstrom + Behemoth trilogy) and Blindsight, as well as many short stories: https://rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

If you read only one of Watts' books, read Blindsight.

If you pick up any book by Greg Bear, there's a good chance it's won an award, just make sure it isn't a sequel of a previous work of his.

Check out: Darwin's Radio, The Forge of God, Queen of Angels, Eon, The Man Who Would Be Kzin, Blood Music, City at the End of Time

I discovered Neal Asher in a bookstore years ago by way of fascination with a book cover (The Brass Man). I have read nearly everything he has published since and have experienced few disappointments.

I'd recommend starting with Gridlinked (vol. 1 of the Agent Cormac series)

For anyone learning German and into Sci-Fi, which I admit is probably quite niche, I can recommend Klaus Siebel.

He writes in a simple style mainly understandable by a language learner. The stories are pretty good too.

Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series was great, and I recommend anything by Lois McMaster Bujold.

About fifteen years ago, I started reading through the Hugo Award Novels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel#Winn...

Limited by what my local library had on the shelves...this was before it started getting rid of all the books in the name of library science (but I digress).

In the end, with all the side detours I read a few hundred sci-fi books in a few years from that idea, came across books I wouldn't have otherwise, and got my fill of Sci-Fi after three decades away.

tldr; worked on my machine. Good luck.

Any “hard” science fiction on that list? Something like Permutation City.

Look to Windward

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