Most futuristic Sci fi happens a few dozen to a few hundred years in the future, and involve homo sapiens with advanced technology. Are there any good media worth looking into that talk about intelligent life thousands or millions, or billions and trillions of years from now? Or is that so far that it would basically be pointless (like asking a fly to explain the large hadron collider). Granted, I’m sure intelligent life will be beyond our comprehension someday, but I’m also sure some good writers can make up interesting stories about life as an intelligent post human.
I read asimovs the last question for the first time a few months ago and have reread it a half dozen times since then because I enjoyed it so much, but it was one of the few stories that discussed life far into the future, and I think that was a reason I liked it.
I’m looking for Sci fi that goes past the common trope of (biological humans with better technology) to something more post human.
I can (and have) highly recommend Hannu Rajaniem’s Jean le Flambeur series:[ul]The Quantum Thief[/ul][ul]The Fractal Prince[/ul][ul]The Causal Angel[/ul]Post-human but set within our solar system. The story follows the titular character being broken out of a prison and set on a task/quest. He incorporates his own task into his endeavours, but this is made difficult because he has forgotten most of what he once knew and who he once was; he must solve his own riddles to know himself once again. It’s only fair to say that these novels will not be for everyone as the show-don’t-tell narrative style makes it somewhat difficult to follow the story, until the reader can piece together enough of what is going on (in this way the reader mirrors the protagonist, which I thought was cool as hell).
I can also highly recommend Richard K. Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs novels:[ul]Altered Carbon[/ul][ul]Broken Angels[/ul][ul]Woken Furies[/ul]The setting is a post-human galaxy where consciousness can be recorded and stored in a device called a “cortical stack”, allowing people to be “re-sleeved” in new and/or artificial bodies. Coupled with VR and a transmission method, travel between solar systems is possible. The first book is a detective story, the second is set during a planetary war and features an attempt to retrieve artifacts from an ancient alien civilization and the third is about a crime spree-cum-rebellion on Kovacs’ original home planet. These are among my favorite novels of the last 15 years.
Lastly, I’m sure I won’t be the only person to recommend Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels, also set in a post-human universe.
For Larry Niven’s writing, although the various Belter stories occurred up to about the 24th century (so, a few centuries from now), the Neutron Star/Ringworld series of stories were set in the 27th century and beyond. The stories of the Man-Kzin Wars bridge the gap between the two series.
Spoilers for a book much newer (2015) than the ones being mentioned so far here, but Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves…
…even though it comes up a bit short in the “far future” sense (approximately 5000 years), does pretty well in the “post-human” sense, as the descendants of the titular seven Eves (and the Diggers and Pingers) are genetically divergent and appear to be well on their way to speciation.
Not a post Earth-human one though. The main events in the books range from a few hundred years in our past to a few hundred in our future. A bit nitpicky, I know…
In Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon The Deep, the humans are around way into the future, but share the universe with dozens of other races and aren’t really dominant at all. The ones we first meet were descended from, IIRC Norwegian asteroid miners from Old Earth. There’s billions of humans that live in a new system of planets that all speak some sort of Norwegian, but the plot doesn’t really interact with them.
Not narrative fiction, really, but Dougal Dixon’s Man After Man tries to speculate about human evolution (natural or “assisted”) into the millions of years from the present.
I hope it isn’t trite, but have you ever read the Hugh Howey “Wool” books? Post-apocalyptic, to be sure, but you aren’t certain for ages how long into the future they are. It’s part of the charm.
Peter F. Hamilton’s series that start’s with “Pandora’s Star” are really fun and far-future, though IIRC it’s thousand of years rather than millions in the future. In my opinion, it does the best job of the books I’ve read of making the future sound friggin’ awesome to live in (aside from alien attacks, of course).
A man is accidentally frozen and appears 100 million years into the future. This is one of Steve’s later books so there’s a lot of weirdness (Hindu soulmate tantra stuff) in it, but it fits your bill.
Arthur Clarke’s short story, “Exile of the Eons”. The last part of the story takes place in the far future, “when the Sun is entering its red giant phase, and Earth is a parched, virtually lifeless desert”.
(As with a few other of his stories, he told this one twice, with variations. The companion piece is, “The Awakening”.)
I would be remiss (see my user name) if I didn’t recommend Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, a tetralogy set in the far, far future, on an Earth which has run out of resources with a sun that has cooled considerably.