Suggestions?

I LOVE hard science fiction and am looking for some suggestions. Let me clarify a little bit though. I'm not a big fantasy fan, so although I do like the inclusion of an alien species here and there I not really into the Gene Roddenberry approach to alien life (if that made any sense). In other words, what I like about hard science fiction is that there is a basis in reality, or physical laws as we currently understand them, for what is happening in the book. I love Stephen Baxter (Moonseed in particular) and I enjoy Kim Stanley Robinson and Gregory Benford. I also enjoy Greg Bear too but he gets so far out there with the physics that it's too much for me. I'm still puzzling over the exact layout in Eon.

So if anyone has any suggestions for light to moderate hard sci-fi, please please please post them here!

thanks!

I suggest Robert Forward as an author to check out - in particular Dragon's Egg. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books are also among my favorites. I'm a fan of Greg Bear as well, but have fallen behind in my reading of him.

Sounds like Jack McDevitt would appeal.

How about Vernor Vinge. We have (although some stragglers may still be) reading A Fire Upon The Deep as one of the group reads and I think it should fit in well with what you want. His other books are also really good reads.

Some Paul McAuley would fit in - The Quiet War and The Secret Of Life for example.

Maybe Chris Moriarty who has written Spin Control and Spin State.

If you aren't particularly strict on your definitions then you may want to consider Alistair Reynolds although he puckishly suggested his work was best described as ductile SF.

Another quick suggestion. I've found an online anthology of astronomy based hard-SF called Diamonds In the Sky. Might be worth it if you don't mind reading from a screen.

If you like Benford and Bear, then the obvious compliment to those is the missing member of the trio - brin I wouldn't necessarily recommened his famous Uplift series because you'll find that too fantastic, but something like Earth or The postman are superb, Kiln people is pretty good too.

I read Earth a few months ago and liked it. My wife, who is not an SF person read both The Postman and The Kiln People and enjoyed them quite a bit. I've not read them, but if they are like Earth they will fill the bill.

How about just about anything by Arthur C. Clarke?

#6 & #7

I've actually had The Postman on my wishlist for some time now, just hadn't gotten around to grabbing a copy. I'd not heard of Earth before. I picked both of them up today. I also noticed (and put on hold) a new Stephen Baxter hardcover out of London called Flood. I have to wait to pick it up though as it's an import and therefore $43.00 (for that much I'd rather like him to come and read it TO me).

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions so far. If you have more please keep them coming. It's important that I never see the bottom of my TBR pile :-)

#9

Wow how are you getting your books if Flood is costing you $43?

If you order from The Book Depository (a UK based internet shop) the price is $17.72 for the hardcover or $13.26 for the large format paperback (trade paperback size). The delivery is free as well so the price you see is the price you pay.

# 10 - This is a copy at the bookstore at the university I attend. They charge the full cover price converted to dollars (and a bit more if I'm not mistaken) because they said the book isn't available in the states so they have to charge more as it's an import. But they are checking on that, hence the hold. I haven't bought it yet though as the price is a bit dear. Does the Book Depository deliver to the states? Because if I can get it from them at the price you've listed then that's what I will do! Baxter is a particular favorite of mine although I've not read his series based on evolution.

Thanks for the info, that makes a HUGE difference.

Book Depository - free shipping anywhere in the world.

#10 and #12. Yes, I see that now. Splendid! And many more S.B. books I've never seen before. Pardon me a moment while I do the Snoopy dance around the dining room.

Okay, better now.

Incidentally, I just bought Flood myself.

12 - iansales>

Thanks for the great recommendation! I just took a brief browse and can easily spend my whole paycheck.

Going back to a couple of earlier posts, I'd like to offer views on Forward and McDevitt. Bob Forward was one of the great ideas men, but his writing was appalling. Nonetheless, I'd recommend anyone with any sort of interest in hard SF to try Dragon's Egg, Rocheworld or Starquake.

As for McDevitt, he's always struck me as being a very good mini-series scriptwriter. His books always come over to me just like tv mini-series in terms of their characterisation, settings and imagery. But again, that seems to me like a sign of good, plain workmanlike writing. McDevitt will never be considered one of the great stylists or prose writers, buit he entertains. Having said that, I was bowled over by A talent for war because it depicted a far-flung human universe and somehow he conveyed a stupendous vision of this vast polity with Earth, the world of origin, somewhere 'out there'. I actually got my sense of wonder back for a while there.

When the talk turns to 'hard sf', I always think of Greg Egan: "Hard SF? That's not just hard, it's bl**dy difficult!"

How does Hal Clement's work stand up today? He was the master of hard SF of my youth.

#15 Thanks, but credit where credit's due - it was Andy at #10 who first mentioned The Book Depository.

I've only read one by Baxter - titan, and really didn't like it much at all, enough to put me off trying any of his others. Was this just a clunker of his? Is there a particularly good work that's worth trying instead?

Titan suffered from an ending that felt like it belonged in an entirely different novel. Voyage, an alternate/alternative history of the US space programme after Apollo, is very good. Baxter's sequel to Wells' The Time Machine, The Time Ships, is also very good. OTOH, you could try one of his many short story collections - Phase Space, Vacuum Diagrams, or Traces.

Yes, I loved Titan until the end. The great thing about baxter, when he does it right, is that the science isn't dumbed down but it isn't SO out there that you need a pHD and a slide rule to make sense of the plot either.

I'm about halfway through Brin's The Postman right now and I am enjoying it immensely. It's finals week and I've had more than a few disappointing reads and this is that perfect combo of not-taxing and science fiction. Perfect for finals week. The best part is that is is also my favorite genre: post-apocalyptic/dystopian. I have a fairly decent collection of those type of stories that all started with The Stand when I was in junior high. I just finished The Handmaid's Tale a few weeks ago and was not all that thrilled... which is odd. I expected to really get into that one. I had the same problem with A canticle For Liebowitz. Seems like the more famous of these types never quite cut it for me.

So thanks to everyone who has recommended Brin. And if you have any post-apocalyptic/dystopian recommends I'm all ears.

#21

There's a great one set in Northern California that I read a few years back: Into the Forest by Jean Hegland.

The Postman was a good one. I never cared for Handmade's Tale either. Some others that I loved back when but have not re-read are False Dawn by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Earth Abides by George Stewart, A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison. When I was a young teen I loved Daybreak 2250 AD by Andre Norton.

There are of course many in this genre.

I have discovered that I have in my possession, the following:

Into The Forest Not read yet
Earth Abides Despite the fact that its a bit older I enjoyed this one

I also have
Dragon's Egg Not read yet
The Secret of Life Not read yet
Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars I've tried like 5 times to get all the way through the series.

Mr. Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson has also written some of these - I read The Wild Shore years ago.

Despite my really liking Into the Forest I would imagine it isn't for all tastes. It is a bit of, shall we say, a "woman's book", and I remember liking the first half the book more than the end. Nevertheless it is worth a read.

As far as post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction, I just started to read On the Beach by Nevil Shute. Some people don't seem to like it because of the way the characters react to their situation; they are living out the last days of humanity after a nuclear war. The characters, though, are the focus of the story. It's about people trying to keep on living normal lives in the face of such a cataclysmic event. It's about the inevitability of death itself, and the hope that exists in nearly any situation. I'm not quite halfway through it, but I like it so far.

Well, 5 days after ordering them, Unwind and Flood arrived today from The Book Depository. Splendid service! The Hunger Games should be arriving shortly. I can hardly wait. I'm trying to save Flood for when I'm on vacation in Hawaii... nothing like a rising tide disaster on the beach, but really, who is kidding who here. I'll be licky to wait until my current book is over.

I just finished reading Darwin's Radio and I'm irked because a.) the sequel really isn't optional to find out what happens and b.) I love the science, but good Lord, endlessly repeated much?

Has anyone else read it? What are your thoughts?

I've not read Darwin's radio yet - it's one of those books on lmy list 'To Buy When I Find A Cheap Copy' that I never have. Bear is a bit variable in quality that I seldom want ot pay full price for him. Maybe I should look for this in a library and get darwin's children at the same time.

I stumbled across evolution in a charity shop so this thread prompted me to pick it up and see if Baxter deserves a 2nd chance.

On the beach is on my mental list of must re-read sometime.

For post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction there is always riddley walker to really mess with your mind.

#27

Unfortunately Evolution isn't one of Baxter's most typical books. I would say that apart from his mammoth books it is one of the more atypical books he has written. There aren't any real characters in it - the time scale is 65 million years ago to hundreds of millions of years in the future. It is certainly one that divides people.

I think Darwin's Radio is one of Bear's better novels, the sequel was OK but not as good.

William R. Forstchen has a new post apocalyptic book out called One Second After. It is about Electro Magnetic Pulse shutting the US down. Based on his other work I would not expect it to be more than entertaining.

The Postman was a great book. I cannot forgive the movie for leaving out the coolest Sci Fi part of the book. With todays technology it should not have been hard to include. Maybe it would have taken too much from Kostners role

My wife, who usually gags on SF, loved The Postman. she read it on the recommendation of a co-worker.

Forstchen's book might not be far off the mark if this science article is right. (ok, Forstchen's disaster is nuclear EMP rather than solar, but the results are similar)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127001.300-space-storm-alert-90-seconds-...

"IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event - a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun."

I'll have to add One Second After to my wishlist.

I'm not as stringent with my science requirements on post apocalyptic books as I am with hard sci-fi. As long as the science is sufficient for me to suspend my disbelief it's fine. An EMP is believable. An alien weapon hidden under Uluru and secretly dug up by the Russians in a bid for world domination would not, in my mind, be a plot I could really suspend the disbelief for, but you get my point. With post apocalyptic stuff it's more the human condition and the piddling day to day crap that people do to survive that I enjoy. Although oddly enough, The Road which I should have loved, I did not. I didn't have any feelings on it one way or the other. The way it just dropped in with no backstory, and the way the descriptions (for me anyway) literally took every last bit of color from the world, just left me.... not caring one way or the other about either character or what had happened. Total disconnect. I'm reading Solstice right now. I'm a little nervous because the synopsis implies a weapon and in some places (I'm 80 pages in) the characters are so cardboard that I can't believe the editor let the author get away with it. But it's reasonably entertaining at this point so I'm withholding judgement.

Maybe you might enjoy The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle.

alot of good choices so far, here's a few golden oldies from the past;

The Ice people by Byrene Barjavel
Greybeard by Brian Aldiss
The Last Starship From Earth
by John Boyd
I see you have Alas Babylon by Pat Frank in your library, if you enjoyed it you might enjoy his Mr. Adam or Forbidden Area .