What book did I just read?

April 4, 2013 3:27 PM

What book did I just read?

I just read a recent (new?) sci-fi novel while on holiday. I am now drawing an almost blank trying to remember the title.

What I remember:

- a character called "Driver" or "The Driver"
- humans travel through space, a peaceful alien race accompanies us
- the computers that got us to space are gone
- one human family have been working for decades on the math required to allow human interstellar travel without alien help

posted by Cosine to Writing & Language (19 answers total)

Is the peaceful alien race kind of ... blobby?
posted by zippy at 3:35 PM on April 4, 2013

Response by poster: Maybe, it's vague... and I read it a month ago... and kinda liked it... which is sad.
posted by Cosine at 3:36 PM on April 4, 2013

Did you borrow it from a friend or the library, or was it something you bought and have now misplaced? Could you possibly have the receipt if it's the latter?
posted by These Birds of a Feather at 3:37 PM on April 4, 2013

Response by poster: I just remembered, the book has lots of stuff about fashion and culture coming along with the faster than light ships, and people kind of waiting for the latest news and such.

Also, the humans on the main world can see the craft they arrived 200 years ago orbiting their planet at night.
posted by Cosine at 3:38 PM on April 4, 2013

Response by poster: I bought it at Barnes & Noble, in Palm Springs, I do not have a receipt and I left the book with a local library there.
posted by Cosine at 3:39 PM on April 4, 2013

Response by poster: The nice aliens eat fish from Earth, I think.
posted by Cosine at 3:47 PM on April 4, 2013

Did you buy it from the Sci-Fi section of the Barnes & Noble, you know, off the shelf—or was it on display at the front of the store?
posted by carsonb at 4:22 PM on April 4, 2013

Iain Banks's The Algebraist has some of those elements and a species called the Dwellers?
posted by jetlagaddict at 4:47 PM on April 4, 2013

Response by poster: It's not Banks, or anyone else of note, at least not that I had heard of.

I bought it off the shelf, in the little sci-fi/fantasy section.
posted by Cosine at 5:26 PM on April 4, 2013

Could it by any chance be Accelerando by mefi's own cstross? Everything seems basically right except the aliens.
posted by mygothlaundry at 5:33 PM on April 4, 2013

Response by poster: No, shame, not cstross either, not one of those bigger names I don't think, or I assume I would remember, could be wrong though.
posted by Cosine at 5:38 PM on April 4, 2013

any sense of how old the book was, this year last year... paperback, hardback....?
posted by edgeways at 5:55 PM on April 4, 2013

Response by poster: Paperback, new or newish.
posted by Cosine at 6:00 PM on April 4, 2013

I love a good google challenge! Haven't struck gold yet, but maybe this list might contain your book?
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 6:17 PM on April 4, 2013

Best answer: Aha! Cosmonaut Keep?
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 6:26 PM on April 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

Could it be one of Alistair Reynolds' books? He has an alien race called the Fountainheads that are friendly with humans and eat fish.
posted by OolooKitty at 6:51 PM on April 4, 2013

Response by poster: Strange Fruit for the WIN!

Nicely done, thanks!
posted by Cosine at 6:56 PM on April 4, 2013

Ken MacLeod is the third (or, as I read them, second) of the Triumvirate of Brilliant Scots SF Authors, including Banks and cstross (there are probably others, and I hope if you know them, you'll share). His "Engines of Light" and "Fall Revolution" books are truly excellent; both series (the latter especially) contain a load of interesting political/economic permutations, both good sides and bad, from IMO a keen observer. Keep on truckin with these series. You haven't gotten to the awesome spiders yet.
posted by Sunburnt at 8:09 PM on April 4, 2013

Sunburnt, sounds like you need some Alasdair Gray: Lanark, Poor Things, A History Maker ...
posted by scruss at 12:12 AM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]