Existential Sci-Fi Book Recommendations
August 2, 2020 8:47 AM Subscribe
I’ve recently accidentally read a string of sci-fi books that deal with existentialism/mortality/entropy/etc. and would like to continue that theme. Can you recommend something?
The books on this theme that I’ve read recently:
Death’s End by Liu Cixin
Exhalation by Ted Chiang (specifically, the short story of the same name)
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (this was more about society, but I was also interested in the theme regarding the entropy of human happiness)
I’m specifically looking for sci-fi as that’s my preferred genre.
The books on this theme that I’ve read recently:
Death’s End by Liu Cixin
Exhalation by Ted Chiang (specifically, the short story of the same name)
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (this was more about society, but I was also interested in the theme regarding the entropy of human happiness)
I’m specifically looking for sci-fi as that’s my preferred genre.
You might get these feels from Incandescence, which turns out to also be by Greg Egan.
posted by heatherlogan at 9:29 AM on August 2, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 9:29 AM on August 2, 2020 [3 favorites]
Philip K Dick's novels are fascinating and at the sane time make me feel like I've been slowly stabbed in the soul.
posted by teddywookie at 9:36 AM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by teddywookie at 9:36 AM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
The Heat Death of the Universe by Pamela Zoline - perhaps one of the best sf stories ever written, collected here.
Running Down by M John Harrison, collected here.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:10 AM on August 2, 2020
Running Down by M John Harrison, collected here.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:10 AM on August 2, 2020
I think Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun fits this - lots of these themes in there.
Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz is a good one.
If you want to get really weird, William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland takes entropy pretty far.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 10:26 AM on August 2, 2020
Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz is a good one.
If you want to get really weird, William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland takes entropy pretty far.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 10:26 AM on August 2, 2020
Maybe the Jean Le Flambeur trilogy by Hannah Rajaniemi?
posted by supercres at 10:44 AM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by supercres at 10:44 AM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
Peter Watts' Blindsight is an interesting exploration of intelligence and consciousness.
posted by Poldo at 11:18 AM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Poldo at 11:18 AM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
The Last Policeman trilogy by Ben Winters. Scientists have discovered that an asteroid is set on a course to destroy Earth in 6 months and nothing can be done about it. The protagonist is a policeman who is determined to solve a murder even though he knows he and the perpetrator and everyone else will be dead very soon:
Winters: Our attraction to this particular theme has got to reflect some fundamental recognition of life's fragility, right? Because, no, the universe will probably not end tomorrow, or next week, but for any of us it could end at any minute, with a faulty brake line or a bad fall or whatever. In a book like The Last Policeman, I'm just taking the basic brutal fact of life (it will end one day) and sharpening it a bit (life will end on this particular day) and teasing out the implications. It's an existential detective novel....
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:14 PM on August 2, 2020 [3 favorites]
Winters: Our attraction to this particular theme has got to reflect some fundamental recognition of life's fragility, right? Because, no, the universe will probably not end tomorrow, or next week, but for any of us it could end at any minute, with a faulty brake line or a bad fall or whatever. In a book like The Last Policeman, I'm just taking the basic brutal fact of life (it will end one day) and sharpening it a bit (life will end on this particular day) and teasing out the implications. It's an existential detective novel....
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:14 PM on August 2, 2020 [3 favorites]
The speculative elements are more literary device than rigorous SF, but Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being is a meditation on those topics.
posted by toastedcheese at 2:56 PM on August 2, 2020
posted by toastedcheese at 2:56 PM on August 2, 2020
You might like the comics series The Wicked + The Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, with great colors and lettering by Matt Wilson and Clayton Cowles.
- series page at Image Comics
- read the series on Hoopla, if your library supports Hoopla
The basic premise is that every 90 years, a dozen different gods are incarnated in the bodies of teenagers — who upon ascending have 2 years to live with the powers of the god they've become. This event, called “The Recurrence,” has been happening since 4000 B.C. and often has significant cultural impact wherever it occurs.
The bulk of the series is set in the 2014 Recurrence in Great Britain — where the gods are modeled after, and very much become, contemporary pop stars. (Amaterasu resembles Florence Welch of Florence & the Machine; Baal resembles Kanye West; Wōden looks like half of Daft Punk; etc.)
It's a fun and clearly fully-planned-out series that occasionally plays (brilliantly) with its own format, and Gillen really sticks the landing, IMO.
And of course, to your question, reckoning with mortality / immortality is very much baked into the premise.
posted by D.Billy at 3:05 PM on August 2, 2020
- series page at Image Comics
- read the series on Hoopla, if your library supports Hoopla
The basic premise is that every 90 years, a dozen different gods are incarnated in the bodies of teenagers — who upon ascending have 2 years to live with the powers of the god they've become. This event, called “The Recurrence,” has been happening since 4000 B.C. and often has significant cultural impact wherever it occurs.
The bulk of the series is set in the 2014 Recurrence in Great Britain — where the gods are modeled after, and very much become, contemporary pop stars. (Amaterasu resembles Florence Welch of Florence & the Machine; Baal resembles Kanye West; Wōden looks like half of Daft Punk; etc.)
It's a fun and clearly fully-planned-out series that occasionally plays (brilliantly) with its own format, and Gillen really sticks the landing, IMO.
And of course, to your question, reckoning with mortality / immortality is very much baked into the premise.
posted by D.Billy at 3:05 PM on August 2, 2020
Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg is classic Sci-Fi existentialism. Caveat for a narrator who thinks awkward things.
posted by ovvl at 5:03 PM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by ovvl at 5:03 PM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
existentialism/mortality/entropy/etc
I think it falls somewhere between philosophical horror and sci-fi, but I highly recommend A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck.
posted by crone islander at 7:57 PM on August 2, 2020
I think it falls somewhere between philosophical horror and sci-fi, but I highly recommend A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck.
posted by crone islander at 7:57 PM on August 2, 2020
I get so excited when I can come into a thread just to say:
Passage by Connie Willis. PASSAGE.
I cannot describe accurately what an experience this book is.
posted by fairlynearlyready at 2:29 AM on August 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Passage by Connie Willis. PASSAGE.
I cannot describe accurately what an experience this book is.
posted by fairlynearlyready at 2:29 AM on August 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks yall! Now I've got an awesome reading list for August!
posted by LizBoBiz at 1:13 AM on August 4, 2020
posted by LizBoBiz at 1:13 AM on August 4, 2020
I got this feeling from Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon, in a humans-are-varying-degrees-of-relevant kind of way!
posted by quatsch at 11:18 AM on August 6, 2020
posted by quatsch at 11:18 AM on August 6, 2020
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