I like my sci fi like I like my
March 27, 2020 2:16 PM   Subscribe

I realized recently that SO MUCH of my very favorite media ever is listed in the wikipedia entry for hard science fiction. Local nerds: how about I tell you which things I love the most, and you tell me what I should read/watch next?

-Andromeda Strain
-Jurassic Park
-Contact
-The Martian (this xkcd so very relevant here)
-Solaris
-1984
-Brave New World
/
-Moon
-Gattaca
-Ex Machina
-ReGenesis

Mass disasters, NASA-but-cooler, genetics fuckery, and psychological thrillers in particular are my happy place. You wanna data dump for 30 pages about some random piece of tech? Here for it.


Much as I love Dune & Star Wars, not at all interested in recs for space magic, etc.
posted by phunniemee to Media & Arts (36 answers total) 38 users marked this as a favorite
 
You'd probably enjoy Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy: The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End.
posted by Johnny Assay at 2:22 PM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]


Kim Stanley Robinson! So many thousands of pages waiting for you. Generation ship: Aurora. Colonizing Mars: Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars. Living in asteroids/on other planets: 2312.

Artemis by Andy Weir - heist on the moon!

The Expanse series & show (James SA Corey)
posted by esoterrica at 2:24 PM on March 27, 2020 [8 favorites]


I was also going to recommend Kim Stanley Robinson! 2312 is basically "plot schmot, here's 500 pages of my detailed and heavily researched thoughts of what it would look like if people lived on EVERY PLANET" and Aurora is 500 pages of why trying to go to another star system is a really bad idea. I loved both of them.
posted by theodolite at 2:28 PM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]


Anything by Greg Bear.
posted by Flannery Culp at 2:32 PM on March 27, 2020


Looking at that list, I see Baxter's _Ring_. Try out his "NASA trilogy" (_Voyage_, _Titan_, and _Moonseed_), if you haven't already. Also on that list, I cannot recommend Bob Forward's _Dragon's Egg_ (and its sequel, _Starquake_) highly enough.
posted by hanov3r at 2:33 PM on March 27, 2020


Pandorum
posted by Crystalinne at 2:36 PM on March 27, 2020


You can't go far wrong with Paul McAuley. The Quiet War might be a good series to start with, given your list.
posted by pipeski at 3:07 PM on March 27, 2020



posted by Wobbuffet at 3:10 PM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]


How about the movie Arrival? It's easily my favourite sci fi movie of the last few years.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:29 PM on March 27, 2020 [5 favorites]


The books and tv show of _The Expanse_ are at least as "hard" as Contact or Solaris.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:30 PM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]


Blindsight for sure -- you can read it free online!

Watts is a PhD (marine biology) and it shows. The central story is about first contact with a truly alien species in a frighteningly plausible way, and it's adorned with scads of cutting-edge technologies and mental theories described in a lucid and compelling, almost cinematic narrative style. He even concocted a "vampiric" subspecies of humanity for the story so well-constructed that he made a fictional in-universe presentation explaining how they came to be and how they work, and the story is followed by an essay and reams of footnotes drawing connections to real-life science.

It's a very dark novel, though, so be prepared.
posted by Rhaomi at 3:48 PM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]


+1 Greg Egan, Peter Watts

Also,

Anathem
Steerswoman series
Quantum Prince
A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky

More fantasy than sci-fi, but it's a "hard" fantasy in that the world-building obeys the laws of our nature: Baru Cormorant series

YA, but the modern kind that's very little Y, whole lotta A: Risen Empire

Also, not quite what you wanted, but I like everything you like so maybe you'll like it anyway? Feed
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 3:56 PM on March 27, 2020 [4 favorites]


Accelerando, by Charles Stross. Speculation about The Singularity, posthumanity, etc. Pretty great.
posted by number9dream at 4:24 PM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]


The Last Astronaut, by David Wellington, is kind of a horror novel but set around first contact with a ship entering the solar system.
posted by gideonfrog at 4:38 PM on March 27, 2020


Noumenon.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:04 PM on March 27, 2020


Nancy Kress writes, oh I don't know, mohs 5.5 up to about 9 science fiction? (roughly steel up to silicon carbide), and her exposition is always smooth and fully integrated into the story.

Her plots and characters are very well developed and she has an excellent ear for dialogue, all of which are pretty rare in the upper reaches of hardness.

I'm in the middle of Oaths and Miracles right now, and am enjoying it very much.
posted by jamjam at 5:31 PM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]


Seconding the Steerswoman series, although incomplete, I have been waiting for ages for more!

I think David Brin would also fit your reqs, especially his novels set on near-future earth: Earth, Kiln People, Existence.

Recently watched Prospect, very cool western-like hard sci-fi flick.
posted by Illusory contour at 6:04 PM on March 27, 2020


Definitely The Expanse and Arrival.

I haven't seen Europa Report, but it sounds like it might meet your criteria.

genetics fuckery

Annihilation, on Netflix.

Also, the classic Cronenberg version of The Fly.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 6:26 PM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]


Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep.
posted by inexorably_forward at 6:40 PM on March 27, 2020


Neil Stephenson’s Sevenevs is on that page, which I haven’t read, but two books of his that I have read (Anathem and Cryptonomicon) came to mind when hearin what you like
posted by itesser at 7:07 PM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]


In addition to the Stephen Baxter books already mentioned, his Manifold series fits this bill.
posted by Daily Alice at 7:50 PM on March 27, 2020


Adrian Tchaikovsky: Children of Time, Children of Ruin.

Me and Mr. rekrap just got through these both of these as our bedtime reading (he's been reading to me at bedtime for over two decades, so sweet I know!) When we start talking about these books our grown-up kids roll their eyes now and say "Don't let them them started on the sentient spiders, puhlease!"
posted by rekrap at 8:28 PM on March 27, 2020


Vernor Vinge’s books, yes. Europa Report, yes. Seveneves, oh so yes.
posted by lhauser at 10:24 PM on March 27, 2020


Travellers on Netflix, excellent yet little known time travel show.
posted by fshgrl at 11:09 PM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]


Counterpart
posted by Coaticass at 1:01 AM on March 28, 2020


Genetics fuckery + psychological thriller + data dumps = C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen.
NASA-but-cooler + mass disasters + data dumps = KSR's Red Mars.
Mass disasters + genetics fuckery = Atwood's Oryx and Crake.
posted by equalpants at 1:06 AM on March 28, 2020 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: I'm seeing a lot of answers that either

- I've already read/watched and loved
- have been on my list of maybe read next when the ebook is available at the library

so this is very very promising.

Thanks!
posted by phunniemee at 5:33 AM on March 28, 2020


Another classic suggestion if you haven't read it already: Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. Particularly if you liked Contact.

(The sequels co-authored with Gentry Lee are not as good; they do still have some interesting hard sci-fi elements, but they're more like "airport novels" in style. Caveat lector.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 6:14 AM on March 28, 2020 [1 favorite]


Schismatrix Plus, by Bruce Sterling

Revelation Space Universe series, and Pushing Ice, by Alastair Reynolds
posted by nickggully at 7:29 AM on March 28, 2020


The Wandering Earth was the most expensive movie ever made in China when it came out last year, I think. It's an Armageddon-like story where a group of multinational teams (led by Chinese scientists, of course) have to use giant rockets to put the Earth back on course.

Maybe Oblivion with Tom Cruise? It did quite poorly, but I thought it wasn't terrible.

If you're including Solaris, then I'd look at Under the Skin. Of course Stanislaw Lem himself is the king of info-dumps - I'd read The Futurological Congress (but skip the movie), Fiasco, or the Ijon Tichy books. Probably can't go wrong with any Lem, honestly.

Hard upvote on Alistair Reynolds, Oryx and Crake, and Prospect.
posted by five toed sloth at 9:21 AM on March 28, 2020


John E Stith's Manhattan Transfer starts with Manhattan being carved out and transported into an alien spaceship, then builds to a climax. Excerpts from his books are here
posted by Sophont at 1:49 PM on March 28, 2020


Janet Karen’s _Mirable_
MJ Locke _Up Against It_

Both are coming of age narratives, with clever science in the background.

N-thing Steerswoman series, also has tech as the plot backbone, but not front and center in disquisition

Alastair Reynolds has a range of moh hardness. So far the cover jacket has been accurate for me.
posted by unknown knowns at 3:31 PM on March 28, 2020


Based on your list, you might like the Wool series.
posted by Mchelly at 6:23 PM on March 28, 2020 [2 favorites]


+1 to Seveneves.
+1 to Nancy Kress, and especially the Sleepless series that starts with Beggars in Spain
The Speed of Dark
Daemon
Spin
Fall, Or Dodge in Hell
Signal to Noise
posted by willnot at 6:06 PM on March 29, 2020


Just to say that I suspect "Janet Karen's _Mirable_" has fallen foul of autocorrect and was meant to be "Janet Kagan's Mirabile".
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 9:36 AM on March 30, 2020 [1 favorite]


Kim Stanley Robinson, for sure. You might like some Neal Stephenson, as he often deals with technical details of his worlds. Some classics too, if you haven't read them, are Arthur C Clark and Isaac Asimov.
posted by deathpanels at 7:55 AM on April 1, 2020


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