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Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

One thing I've noticed about Liu Cixin's books, is that for people who follow futurism and hard Sci-fi beyond the shallow level of a typical mainstream layperson, there are huge glaring plotholes. Here's perhaps the big one: Ask, what if instead of doing [X], [certain characters] put those resources instead into building space industrial infrastructure space colonies?

This also applies to The Wandering Earth.

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In general, I get the feeling that the people who gush about all the awesome ideas in the 3BP books, are not people who read very much sci-fi. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. But those ideas have been explored previously, and much better (IMO), in other less popular books.

That's fair -- I read some here and there but I recognize that I'm not a hardcore sci-fi reader.

You mentioned that there are other, lesser known books that explore the same ideas in a more compelling way. Can you give some examples so I can add them to my reading list?

For an exploration of the dark forest theory at least, I recommend The Killing Star. Fair warning though, it’s extremely bleak.

I read it recently and while the ideas are there, it is not a great read (the dialogues in particular are pretty bad).

I won't argue the prose or characterization is great, but then that's extremely true of the 3BP as well. In every other sense I found the Killing Star to be a better book.

Can you give me your top 3 sci-fi books/series?

My favourite one so far was Broken Earth trilogy.

I'm looking for something new and really awesome but I'm not interested in a series with more than 3-4 books (as they rarely keep the same level of quality across the series).

If you're interested in series, I recommend the one beginning with Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton. It's only two books, but it's a great space opera to dive into.

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson is also good. I haven't read the sequel(s) but the first book can be treated as a standalone, and has some big ideas.

Finally, the Algebraist by Iain M. Banks remains one of my all-time favorites.

Do you have any non-space related books (non-series are ok)? Just curious :)

I'm not sure I know of any that are similar to the 3 Body Problem that don't involve space. But if you're just asking about SF in general...

Spin, which I mentioned above, takes place entirely on Earth. But it's definitely at least somewhat "space-related" in terms of its plot.

Caves of Steel by Asimov is a certified classic who-dunnit in a far-future underground New York City. If you're interested in golden age scifi at all, this is a great one to check out.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite books of all time. It has a tiny bit of space in it, but the whole book pretty much takes place on a single planet.

Permutation City by Greg Egan is all about computer-simulated consciousness. Thought-provoking but also a bit horrifying.

I also love Fine Structure by qntm (author of Lena[0]). Though it's a bit rough around the edges, I find that every time I pick it up to re-read it, I can't put it down until I'm done.

Those are just some ones I personally like. There's more I could list, but SF is a very wide genre and I have my biases — you should check out /r/printSF for some more broad recommendations maybe.

0: https://qntm.org/lena

Thank you so much, I'll explore those :)

> Finally, the Algebraist by Iain M. Banks remains one of my all-time favorites.

Funny. I have given up on the book after the first half since it bored me and I had to stop.

To each their own. I can understand that, since it is a pretty long book, and if you're not interested in the Dweller culture or the political background of the Hegemony (? — I think that's what the government is called) by the halfway point, you probably won't enjoy it. Have you tried any other Banks books?

> Have you tried any other Banks books?

I can't remember any, if so. Most likely I have 1-2 audio books.

The decisions made in Death's End in particular are very frustrating but I think the point was that humanity's biggest barrier to reaching the stars is itself.

> Ask, what if instead of doing [X], [certain characters] put those resources instead into [something else]

In most of these cases the outcome is "it makes a less entertaining story". The Anthropic Principle of Literature, if you will.

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