Another science fiction recommendation thread

[Munch]

A few months ago, there was a very interesting thread on Twitter about new science fiction books that have come out since 2000. There are a lot of really great recommendations, and I was excited to pick up a couple titles. Apparently, in my excitement I forgot to tag the thread in anyway, and I’ve been completely unable to find it. However I know there are a lot of people on here hello keep a pretty good list of current sci-fi titles.

I’m usually interested in time travel stories, but if you years ago I made a really concerted effort to read a lot of Asimov. I am happy with anything from Hart Syfy to something a little softer. As long as it’s a good story.

[iiandyiiii]

I really have enjoyed Peter F. Hamilton’s stuff, starting with Pandora’s Star. Also, just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Children of Time”, and loved it – not time travel (aside from some cryo-sleeping, which is kind of like time travel), but a really original exploration of evolution and survival.

Also dug Cameron Hurley’s books – the first I read was “The Stars are Legion”, a really original (and occasionally gross) space epic living worlds that travel through space; also her Apocolypse Nyx series, often dubbed “bugpunk”, in a society with technology based on engineered insects. Very original, if also kind of gross sometimes.

[Horatius]

For time travel, there are three good ones I’ve read in recent years.

Extracted Trilogy by R.R. Haywood

In 2061, a young scientist invents a time machine to fix a tragedy in his past. But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world.

A desperate plan is formed. Recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.

Rewinder Series

Denny was born into one of the lowest rungs of society, but his bleak fortunes abruptly change when the mysterious Upjohn Institute recruits him to be a Rewinder, a verifier of personal histories. The job at first sounds like it involves researching old books and records, but Denny soon learns it’s far from it.

A Rewinder’s job is to observe history.

In person.

Embracing his new duties with enthusiasm, Denny witnesses things he could never even imagine before. But as exciting as the adventures into the past are, there are dangers, too. For even the smallest error can have consequences.

Life-altering consequences.

Time, after all, is merely a reference point.

In Times Like These

“We broke something. How do you break time? Can something so bad happen that you fracture the world?” Benjamin Travers has been electrocuted. What’s worse, he and his friends have woken up in the past. As the friends search for a way home, they realize they’re not alone. There are other time travelers, and some of them are turning up dead. When Ben meets an enigmatic scientist and his charming, time-traveling daughter, salvation seems at hand, but escaping the dangers of the past may lead to a deadly future. If he hopes to save his friends, Ben must learn to master space and time, and survive a journey where past and future violently collide.

[silenus]

Not so much “time travel” as they are “time displacement/alternative history,” the Assiti Shards stories range from adequate to quite good.

[Chronos]

In the hard SF category, Andy Weir (author of The Martian) has Artemis, a crime drama set on the Moon, which I enjoyed immensely.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

I cannot recommend Hannu Rajaniemi’s Jean le Flambeur books enough.

The Quantum Thief
The Fractal Prince
The Causal Angel

Not time travel although manipulation of time and the experience of it are factors in the story. FAIR WARNING: THERE IS ALMOST NO EXPOSITION IN THESE BOOKS; YOU WILL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON AND WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT ON YOUR OWN! Which is a huge part of the fun of the first two books in particular, IMO.

The books are set in a post-human time within our solar system, so there’s a lot of catching up to do to even understand what is happening.

I was gonna type up a brief synopsis of the whole thing, but I’ll just use the wiki entry for the first book to illustrate/entice:

Jean le Flambeur is a legendary thief who has been imprisoned in a Dilemma Prison, a virtual jail of the Sobornost created by the Archons, themselves the creation of the Engineer-of-Souls. During an unsuccessful encounter with the All-Defector, he is sprung from his prison in the Neptunian Trojan belt by Mieli, a warrior from the Oort cloud, and taken to her ship, Perhonen. There, he finds out that his freedom comes at a price: he must return to his old criminal ways to steal something for Mieli’s employer, the pellegrini. First, however, he has to retrieve his previous memories, which he had meticulously hidden in the Oubliette, one of the Moving Cities of Mars.

In the Oubliette, Isidore Beautrelet is unraveling a Gogol piracy case, brought to his attention by his tzaddik mentor, The Gentleman. Isidore is an architecture student and only ten Martian years old, but he has accumulated a reputation as a sharp detective. This case, however, exposes him to unwanted fame, which is extremely gauche in polite Oubliette society, where even people who share a flat remain discreetly behind a cloud of “gevulot” to avoid the faux pas of violating each other’s privacy. Notoriety, however, brought him to the attention of a new client, the millenniaire Christian Unruh. Unruh is about to host a party to commemorate his early entry into Quiet, but a note has appeared under impossible circumstances in his mansion, which Unruh asks Isidore to investigate. The note announces an unlikely gate-crasher to the party: Jean le Flamer.

If those 2 paragraphs and the huge number of unknowns in that entice and intrigue you rather than confuse and repulse you, you will prolly like these books.

[Gray_Ghost]

@Munch

A few months ago, there was a very interesting thread on Twitter about new science fiction books that have come out since 2000. There are a lot of really great recommendations, and I was excited to pick up a couple titles. Apparently, in my excitement I forgot to tag the thread in anyway, and I’ve been completely unable to find it. However I know there are a lot of people on here hello keep a pretty good list of current sci-fi titles.

I’m usually interested in time travel stories…

Charles Stross’s, Palimpsest, in his short story collection, Wireless. Palimpsest won the Hugo for best novella in 2010. I had a very difficult time following the plot, but I usually do with good time travel stories.

A second vote for the Quantum Thief.

Also not a time travel story, but I’m enjoying Alastair Reynolds’s return to the Glitter Band in Elysium Fire.

[Gray_Ghost]

Missed the edit window, but wanted to include a blog post from Stross on his opinion about the dearth of female protagonists in time travel stories. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/09/time-tourism.html

Seemed to fit.

[DinoR]

I’ve really enjoyed the first three of four novellas in the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. I still have the last to go.

A security android that has previously had an issue with it’s governor chip, and killed everyone, is the protagonist. After repair/reprogramming it’s somehow able to hack it’s new governor. It’s got to deal with being sentient in a world that expects it to operate on pretty simplistic rules or risk being dismantled or 'repaired." It had been getting by mostly doing it’s job badly while watching videos it downloaded from the net. Then things change and force him out of his bubble. IMO it’s a nice mix of fun and action along with some more serious themes.

The first in the series won Hugo(2018), Locus (2018), and Nebula (2017) awards for best novella. I’m not the only one that seemed to like it. The other three all got published in 2018. Wells cranked the rest out in a timeline that encouraged [d]addiction[/del] series loyalty but didn’t line up with annual awards cycles.

[The_Peyote_Coyote]

I highly recommend Kim Stanley Robinson’s * Galileo’s Dreams* which came out a few years ago.

If you’re looking for older novels I recommend Poul Anderson’s There Will Be Time and The Corridors of Time and L. Sprague de Camp’s Lest Darkness Fall. You might check out Robert A. Heinlein’s “All You Zombies.” It’s found in his collection The Unpleasant Profession of Johnathon Hoag.

For novels and stories about alternate histories, I would suggest Fritz Leiber’s Destiny Times Three, Andre Norton’s Star Gate and “Long Live Lord Kor,” Phillip K. Dick’s * The Man in the High Castle,*, and H. Beam Piper’s “He Walked Around the Horses.”

[Chronos]

Heinlein’s “All You Zombies” is good, but the gold standard is still his “By His Own Bootstraps”.

[E-DUB]

I’ll toss one out that I read recently “Dark Matter” by Blake Crouch. If you liked “Resonance” by Chris Dolley, David Gerrold’s “The Man who Folded Himself” or the TV show “Sliders”, this one’s for you.