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Comment by namanyayg | Hacker News Reader

Greg Egan is the best hard sci-fi writer in my opinion. His works like _Diaspora_, _Permutation City_, and _Schild's Ladder_ are based on very high level physical concepts and are amazing reads. Start with his short story collection _Axiomatic_ if you haven't read it, I can bet that every HN reader will like it.

His blog articles often go over my head and I admit that I usually understand only the first ~30-50%, after which I give up.

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Anyone have recommendations for similar authors?

I love how his stories grow in scope (one discovery plausibly leads to another and eventually interdimensional travel). I know Adrian Tchaikovsky is a popular recommendation around here (especially Children of Time and rightfully so), but I'm looking for something with less drama / less character-driven. The 3 body problem is a good example.

Also tangential but I recommend trying Last and First Idol for anyone looking for ridiculous, gory, self-consistent sci-fi.

Take a look at qntm [0], who writes very disturbing short stories. He is also a coder, notably of the famous hatetris game.

[0] http://qntm.org

Sadly that's another author I'm already caught up with. His SCP series was really memorable though.

You're telling me the antimemetics series was memorable? I guess it was bad then ;)?

Accelerando by Charles Stross is a blast, fairly hard scifi, at least the first half.

Blindsight by Peter Watts is also fantastic, same grade as Egan IMO.

> "Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts." — JDN

Agree. And whenever I see someone recommend Peter Watts I feel the need to add a note warning that he's got a lot of sexual torture stuff in his work so might not be to everyone's taste.

...There's sexual torture content in Blindsight? Or in his short stories? Having read several of them, I really don't remember anything like that. Can you note some examples?

It's off-page in Blindsight, but happens to the protagonist, right?

I'd rather not. That stuff isn't my cup of tea. Why don't you just google it.

I think they are talking about the trilogy with Starfish

As opposed to the tortuous sex in Ayn Rand.

Who's JDN?

https://jamesdavisnicoll.com

A little different, but Fallen Dragon by Peter F Hamilton scratches the same itch for me.

Saturn Run by John Sandford and Ctein (2015) has a appendix where the authors runs down the science behind their space science (and calls out something like Star Treky science explaining). I read this after the Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter series Time’s Eye series, which also has fantastic science themes.

I haven't read him, but Vernor Vinge was also a mathematician.

Larry Niven