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Do you have any recommendations for science fiction books that explore interesting ideas?

There is no Antimemetics Division was really interesting in how some of the scenarios play out. I don't read much but I've been trying to do that more. I really liked the book.

Things like the memory consuming entity, async research, etc I enjoyed.

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Glasshouse[1] by Charles Stross

Permutation City[2] by Greg Egan

We Are Legion (We Are Bob)[3] by Dennis E. Taylor

Halting State[4] by Charles Stross

Singularity Sky[5] by Charles Stross

Dungeon Crawler Carl[6] by Matt Dinniman

Zero World[7] by Jason M. Hough

The Shockwave Rider[8] by John Brunner

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_(novel)

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City

[3]: https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse/dp/166822...

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_State

[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_Sky

[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Crawler_Carl

[7]: https://www.jasonhough.com/book/zero-world

[8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider

Disagree for dungeon crawler carl & any of the Bobiverse - while they're fine books, wouldn't class it in the category of interesting ideas, it's just pop fiction.

I'd look at the following:

Hyperion Book One (For the book style + ideas throughout the short stories - you only need to read book one)

Solaris, Lem (What would an alien intelligence truly look like, especially in planet size scales, really interesting theories)

House Of Leaves (Classic for exploration of horror - not sci-fi, but within the wheelhouse)

Maxwell's Demon (Hated the ending, but the first half of the book explores some interesting ideas)

Children of Time (Good sci-fi based book exploring morality + intelligence)

Annihilation (Sci-fi, no spoilers but great book)

Venemous Lumpsucker (near future sci-fi, fantastic as a set of vignettes within the story)

Closest to Antimemetics divison personally would be Maxwell's Demon + House of Leaves.

My hard disagree on the Bobiverse as well. Feels like the typical book I ought to like based on my interests and the other things I like, but the ideas somehow fall way, way short of qntm's writing.

And +1 on "Annihilation" – I started reading that to another recommendation for "books similar to TINAD" here and basically couldn't put it down. The similarity is purely based on mood, though – don't expect an actually similar novel in terms of ideas and presentation.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is not science fiction. At least I would not recommend it to someone looking for science fiction with “interesting ideas.” It’s a comedy about an RPG with magic.

But if that’s what you’re looking for, it’s pretty good

Probably the most novel part of DCC is that it's kind of an implicit response to a whole class of 'what if the world worked like an RPG' fiction, examinining the premises those works as a genre leave glossed over. Which is neat in a meta-textual kind of way, but yeah, definitely not science fiction.

> Permutation City[2] by Greg Egan

That was a good mindbender indeed. I'd add "The Light of Other Days" by Arthur C. Clarke and Steven Baxter. Beware of spoilers high up the wikipedia page [0]. Tells a good tale of unexpected externalities of disruptive technology introduction.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days

Oh. Nice.

I'd add the Zones of Thought series by Verner Vinge. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep

Also Accelerando by Charles Stross Fantastic book!

Very personal counterpoint: I find Stross writing extremely bland, contrived, and badly paced.

I really really disliked Accelerando in particular, finding it completely vacuous, the sciencey namedrops is self-aggrandising and sound like attempts at reader flattery, the entire plot is telegraphed, characters are generic and perfectly forgettable.

It was several friends recommendation and I only got reading through the whole ordeal because whenever I asked "well I'm about there and it doesn't click" they answered "no spoiler, just a dozen pages and you'll see!"

Not a critic, again this is my personal experience of it. If people enjoyed it, more power to them.

+1 for Stross, Egan and the Bobiverse - I haven't read the others so will have a look, just wanted to add Stand on Zanzibar by Brunner, if the Bobiverse is there then MurderBot should be to.

Annihilation By Jeff VanderMeer

Diaspora by Greg Egan

Anathem by Neal Stephenson (this one is a bit like doing homework but worth it imo)

If you vibe with short stories Exhalation by Ted Chiang Crystal Nights by Greg Egan isn't bad either

I love all these. I'd add Blightsight by Peter Watts to the list. It has the creepy, psychological bent of Annihilation combined with the hard science elements common to qntm's, Neal Stephenson's and Greg Egan's books.

Would love to find more books like Blindsight, something about the way it described agency without consciousness was both creepy and extremely memorable.

Blindsight is spectacular.

Blindsight was great. I had such high hopes for their follow up novel Echopraxia, but sadly it felt rushed and under-edited, but the ideas were spectacular.

> Diaspora by Greg Egan

Basically anything by Egan is gold, IMO.

> Annihilation By Jeff VanderMeer

I wanted to like this, as the premise was fascinating and the word-smithing was pretty good. But something about it left me feeling a little disappointed at the end. More so the end of the entire trilogy, than Annihilation by itself though, IIRC.

I'll second your feeling on Annihilation trilogy. To me, the whole message boiled down to "my life kinda sucked, and now it sucks even more". The phenomenon ostensibly at the center of everything seems to take back seat to protagonists being bummed about it existing / their lives in general.

Great list, thanks. Seconding Exhalation, that story in particular but also the whole collection. Guess I'm checking out Egan next.

His book is great, but to be clear I feel like he writes exactly one book. I've read it in many forms and it's an amazing book. But don't be surprised when you realize that every book is just him trying to find a new way to look at the same object over and over again.

Very enjoyable but his short stories are great because they force him to focus on one idea instead of how his whole world view fits together.

If you want the druggy, high-concept, ersatz-reality version go with Philip K. Dick - namely The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, A Scanner Darkly, VALIS.

If you want the intellectual take go with A Canticle for Leibowitz (Miller), Oryx and Crake (Atwood) or Solaris (Lem).

If you want the 60s hard-science rooted societal outlook from an ex-Naval Engineer with strong views on gender roles, it's all about Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers etc..

If you want something to share with the young adults in your life, or simply some of the finest writing in the contemporary British YA canon, then Philip Pulman's magnificent homage to 'Paradise Lost' - the 'His Dark Materials trilogy' - cannot come more highly recommended. Usually categorised as 'fantasy', and heavily indebted to Milton and Blake, this represents a master-class in parallel-universe world building with its own take on a Steampunk Oxford and a number of other science fiction tropes.

Blindsight by Peter Watts explores interesting ideas about conscience and intelligence, but these ideas are wrapped in a mediocre action movie plot that becomes nonsensical by the end.

with vampires!

You really start wondering when they are introduced and it all kind of clicks at the end, when we realize we had the rug pulled from under our feet when the book started, and we only know it by the point we land on our faces.

> "science fiction books that explore interesting ideas?"

I think that's a big part of being in the Sci-Fi genre and I don't really get people whinging about writing style - this isn't Chaucer, it's fun geeky ideas. I second basically any Greg Egan and Charles Stross and Arthur C. Clarke stories, and:

Vernor Vinge's trilogy: A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire Upon the Deep, Across Realtime. Ideas from "World War II on an alien planet around a variable star where the whole planet freezes every few years" to timewarp bubbles, galactic zones of thought, cyborg enhancements, semi-sentient plants.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky - what if we use genetic engineering to forcibly evolve monkeys towards human intelligence? Whoops our virus infected spiders instead.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - much lighter Hollywood popcorn-action sci-fi, a potential world-ending threat and a cool alien encounter.

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin - What if a guy's dreams could change reality, he sees a therapist who has a dream-influencing machine and wants to take over the world.

Peter F. Hamilton trilogies, much more fantasy mixed with sci-fi but has future Space Opera ideas - genetically engineered, cyborg enhanced, mind uploaded, human factions, several varieties of aliens, various future-techs.

I really like Ray Nayler’s work, who intersects his real experience in international politics with science fiction technology. His Tusks of Extinction uses the sci-fi notion of brain transfer and bringing back mammoths to explore the economical pressures behind poaching. His “Where the axe is buried” explores surveillance state technology with political bodies that feel like real modern nations.

I’m going to suggest books with prose I like: - The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway - Butcher’s Crossing, Willams - Legs, Kennedy - The Passenger, McCarthy

As for sci-fi: Dune!

Gnomon by Nick Harkaway has some of the same “unreliable world” aspects with great writing to boot.

If you like unreliable narration and rug pulls Nick Harkaway's novel 'The Gone-Away World' really takes the cake (and is brilliant)

I enjoyed Gnomon, but boy I didn't find it an easy read

The second and third times through get easier, once you can appreciate the patterns and links that seem extraneous and confusing at first. Totally different kind of book, but I’d put it up with Infinite Jest as far as being convoluted but incredibly rewarding. And of course more SD / tech focused.

Thank you. I'll give it another go. I did enjoy Angelmaker as an enjoyable romp

I'd try Ted Chiang's anthology of short stories: Stories of Your Life and Others.

Also his second anthology!

In terms of ideas, Chiang and qntm are a tie for absolute favorite for me. I've probably thought about each individual short story more than about some entire series or multi-season TV shows in combination.

On the note of memory consuming entities and coming with spectacular worldbuilding and an outstanding prose: Leech by Hiron Ennes. Ennes latest book The Works of Vermin is even better.

Exploring "interesting ideas" is kinda broad, but I find Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, and Iain [M.] Banks all packed full of stuff that gets the noodle baking.

J. G. Ballard's "High-Rise" and "The Drowned World" are both excellent reads with very interesting stuff going on.

“Valuable humans in transit”, maybe?

The “Ancillary” series, for sure.

+1 for the Ancillary series by Ann Leckie.

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