Stories of Successful Long-term Planning Coming to Fruition
March 5, 2018 8:05 AM Subscribe
I recently finished Cixiun Liu's "Rememberance of Earth's Past" Trilogy and I would like to read more multi-générational sci-fi problem solving.
Red/green/blue earth is close but 200 years is not long enough for me. Seven Eves was spiritually close but I didn't like it.
I want stories where the torch is carried successfully without a cult of personality driving the story. Humans trying their best over and over and over again.
Any other recommendations?
Red/green/blue earth is close but 200 years is not long enough for me. Seven Eves was spiritually close but I didn't like it.
I want stories where the torch is carried successfully without a cult of personality driving the story. Humans trying their best over and over and over again.
Any other recommendations?
Best answer: Doris Lessing’s Canopus in Argos books, which take place over very long periods. Shikasta is amazing, though daunting.
(Also, a much lighter read: Philip José Farmer’s Riverworld series might be close. There’s a great deal to be annoyed by in these but they do check this box: Humanity is set loose on an iterative process of problem-solving, on increasingly deep timescales. Might fail your “cult of personality” criterion, as they're chock-full of famous historical figures.)
posted by miles per flower at 8:47 AM on March 5, 2018
(Also, a much lighter read: Philip José Farmer’s Riverworld series might be close. There’s a great deal to be annoyed by in these but they do check this box: Humanity is set loose on an iterative process of problem-solving, on increasingly deep timescales. Might fail your “cult of personality” criterion, as they're chock-full of famous historical figures.)
posted by miles per flower at 8:47 AM on March 5, 2018
Best answer: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky has humans and non-humans trying their best over thousands of years, though certainly not in perfect harmony.
posted by esoterrica at 9:25 AM on March 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by esoterrica at 9:25 AM on March 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
How does 1000 years sound? Try, if you haven't already, the Foundation series. 7 books by Isaac Asimov; 3 more by the 3 Bs (Brin, Benford, Bear) to tie them more directly to Asimov's Robots novels (although the core connections, as well as the Empire trilogy by Asimov).
The core story is that a galaxy-spanning human empire is predicted to collapse, according to a new field of mathematics called psychohistory. Furthermore, many thousands of years of dark times will follow, but a group of mathematicians gather at the edge of the galaxy to both preserve knowledge and build a foundation for a new galactic civilization, shortening the dark period to around 1000 years.
posted by Sunburnt at 1:23 PM on March 5, 2018
The core story is that a galaxy-spanning human empire is predicted to collapse, according to a new field of mathematics called psychohistory. Furthermore, many thousands of years of dark times will follow, but a group of mathematicians gather at the edge of the galaxy to both preserve knowledge and build a foundation for a new galactic civilization, shortening the dark period to around 1000 years.
posted by Sunburnt at 1:23 PM on March 5, 2018
Best answer: I just recently finished The Damned Trilogy by Alan Dean Foster. In it, a group of alien molluscs with mental powers of persuasion are expanding an interstellar, many-species empire of so-called-benevolent conquest, for it is the will of their Purpose, a religious movement so to speak.
Against them is the Weave, an alliance of disparate aliens who are unified in opposition to the forces of The Purpose. The catch, though, is that all of these races, are "civilized" and internally cooperative; they do not compete and nearly all the races on both sides don't have any stomach for fighting.
Then, one day, the Weave discovers humanity in the early 1990s. What follows in the 3 books is several hundred years, and many generations, of humans fighting in the war. The books do come to both a resolution of the war, and a pretty thoughtful speculative answer to the problem of ending the fighting, too.
Books have some neat non-human POV characters, an interest variety of aliens (from those with familiar ideas to those that're very alien indeed).
posted by Sunburnt at 1:31 PM on March 5, 2018
Against them is the Weave, an alliance of disparate aliens who are unified in opposition to the forces of The Purpose. The catch, though, is that all of these races, are "civilized" and internally cooperative; they do not compete and nearly all the races on both sides don't have any stomach for fighting.
Then, one day, the Weave discovers humanity in the early 1990s. What follows in the 3 books is several hundred years, and many generations, of humans fighting in the war. The books do come to both a resolution of the war, and a pretty thoughtful speculative answer to the problem of ending the fighting, too.
Books have some neat non-human POV characters, an interest variety of aliens (from those with familiar ideas to those that're very alien indeed).
posted by Sunburnt at 1:31 PM on March 5, 2018
Best answer: A Canticle for Leibowitz
(whether the torch is passed "successfully" seems to be the point of the book....)
posted by cfraenkel at 4:33 PM on March 5, 2018
(whether the torch is passed "successfully" seems to be the point of the book....)
posted by cfraenkel at 4:33 PM on March 5, 2018
Best answer: Depending on your definitions of successful, long term (is the entirety of human existence long enough?), and fruition, James Tiptree's novella "A Momentary Taste of Being" might, in a certain cynical sense, satisfy. (Any googling will provide spoilers, I'm afraid -- best to just take the plunge. This story is part of the best collection of her work so far: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever)
posted by Bron at 7:23 AM on March 6, 2018
posted by Bron at 7:23 AM on March 6, 2018
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson perhaps
posted by KateViolet at 10:12 AM on March 6, 2018
posted by KateViolet at 10:12 AM on March 6, 2018
Response by poster: miles per flower: I started RIverworld, and you are right; I surprised at how annoying the writer manages to be concerning female characters.
Sunburt: I’d read the Foundation series a long time ago, and there was something about the premise in this universe that had bothered me, though I don’t remember what…
Thanks for all the answers so far!
posted by tedious at 10:59 PM on March 6, 2018
Sunburt: I’d read the Foundation series a long time ago, and there was something about the premise in this universe that had bothered me, though I don’t remember what…
Thanks for all the answers so far!
posted by tedious at 10:59 PM on March 6, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by mikek at 8:19 AM on March 5, 2018