Newish hard Sci-fi books
December 20, 2023 4:38 PM   Subscribe

Hi all, this is me usual plea for new books in the past year or so that would be similar to some of my favourites: Peter Watts' "Blindsight", Tom Sweterlitsch's "The Gone World" anything by Alastair Reynolds, and non-fantasy Charles Stross.
posted by Dag Maggot to Media & Arts (8 answers total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
Ken MacLeod's Beyond the Hallowed Sky, or his Stone Canal, Cosmonaut Keep, or Dissidence each kick off one of his series.

He's amazing - good at big ideas, plots, people, and has the rare gift of having interesting people doing interesting politics from conflicting ideologies without that bit descending into tedious caricature. (I don't read it for the politics, it's just refreshing to see an sff writer handle it elegantly.)
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:08 PM on December 20, 2023 [5 favorites]


+++ Watching this thread enthusiastically - didn't know that MacLeod had a new series, so I'm already richer for it.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 5:14 PM on December 20, 2023 [2 favorites]


[Limiting myself as you requested to the last year or so] Greg Egan is often so hard as to be unreadable, but "Scale" was good.
Not sure if "The Mountain in the Sea" is hard enough but it was great. Sapient octopuses and AIs. Very good.
Children of Ruin, Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky.
posted by dmd at 6:19 PM on December 20, 2023


Came here to mention MacLeod. He's also been really charming when I've interacted with him on social media, which helps :)
posted by six sided sock at 3:14 AM on December 21, 2023


Have you read Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shards of Earth trilogy already?
posted by mark k at 7:45 AM on December 21, 2023 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: I haven’t read this one, but it looks good! Really enjoyed Children of Time. Have just bought Hallowed Sky, and I think Shards of Earth will be next! Thanks.
posted by Dag Maggot at 4:32 PM on December 21, 2023 [1 favorite]


The Expanse series by James S A Corey will keep you going for a while.
posted by Enid Lareg at 9:50 AM on December 22, 2023


3 Body Problem by Cixin Liu is most definitely hard, recent, and imaginative. Also coming to Netflix soon.
posted by billsaysthis at 5:58 PM on December 22, 2023


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