Hacker News Reader

Comment by schmookeeg | Hacker News Reader

I normally love heavy, chewy, thought-provoking sci-fi books, but lately i've been fighting burnout and wanted something lighter.

I stumbled into the Pip and Flinx series by Alan Dean Foster. Easy and enjoyable sci-fi, great world-building, and interesting adventures broken up into about 15 books. And free for kindle via my public library.

Can recommend if you want to skip the gaudy 7 layer chocolate cake and just want a tasty madeleine instead. :)

View on HN

You've got me intrigued. Care to list a few of your favourite "heavy, chewy, thought-provoking sci-fi books"?

Half of this thread to be honest. Asimov and Dick, Stephenson and Gibson. I never liked Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett but I've read their books trying to understand the hype.

It was after failing to get engaged by the three-body problem (again), frustrated, and recognizing that I was dealing with unusually high professional and personal stress which likely robbed me of focus for reading "good" fiction, that I went looking for lighter fare and found this series. The author apparently was a ghost writer for the original star wars series. It doesn't surprise me a bit.

$0.02 :)

Thanks for your reply. Yes, Alan Dean Foster has written some of the better Star War series stuff.

I only read a little bit of Three-body Problem a few years ago. Perhaps more character based stories are more your thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com