# Hard Sci- Fi books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 21, 2007, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113 "2007-04-21T22:11:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/21 "2007-04-22T20:30:54Z")
People in sf love to extend predictions backward until they lose all meaning. In any case, the timing indicates that Leinster was probably responding to a recent article by [Vannevar Bush](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush). > [@](#): > > He introduced the concept of what he called the memex in the 1930s, a microfilm-based “device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.” > > After thinking about the potential of augmented memory for several years, Bush set out his thoughts at length in the essay “As We May Think” in the Atlantic Monthly which is described as having been written in 1936 but set aside when war loomed. He removed it from his drawer and it was published in July 1945. In the article, Bush predicted that “Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.” Most sf “predictions” upon closer inspection turn out to be something that was in the news then but forgotten now done up in story form. Whether these are really “predictions” is a matter of definition. They certainly look a lot less impressive, though. Vinge wrote the first story about something that really “feels” like the modern Internet. He deserves all the credit. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/22 "2007-04-23T01:25:45Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Vinge wrote the first story about something that really “feels” like the modern Internet. He deserves all the credit. [/QUOTE] I dunno about that. James H. Schmitz kept casually mentioning “ComWeb” in his Hub stories in the sixties. Granted, he didn’t really flesh it out, but that’s because the ComWeb was just viewed as a utility by the characters, not as the subject of a story itself. But it feels really parallel to just having an Internet connection handy so you can look up stuff and send information to other people. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/23 "2007-04-23T01:43:47Z")
[QUOTE=dalej42] Hopefully books of a substantial length with lots of science! [/QUOTE] Is the science your top priority? Or do you need a decent story to go along with it? Because otherwise you might take a recommendation for, say, Bob Forward (_Dragon’s Egg_, frex) at face value. The speculative science in his novels is truly skull-expanding. But the storytelling, unfortunately, is shite. On the whole, his books are worth reading, but they can be quite a slog if you don’t know what you’re in for. Some examples of what you tried based on the previous thread and enjoyed or did not enjoy might be helpful. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/24 "2007-04-23T01:50:56Z")
I recently read and enjoyed \*\*The Wreck of the River of Stars \*\* by Michael Flynn. Hard SF, but the conflict is only secondarily characters vs. hardware. Flynn is able to build realistic characters and set them on collision courses. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/25 "2007-04-23T02:12:58Z")
[QUOTE=Hunter Hawk] I dunno about that. James H. Schmitz kept casually mentioning “ComWeb” in his Hub stories in the sixties. Granted, he didn’t really flesh it out, but that’s because the ComWeb was just viewed as a utility by the characters, not as the subject of a story itself. But it feels really parallel to just having an Internet connection handy so you can look up stuff and send information to other people. [/QUOTE] I haven’t read Schmitz in 40 years, so I don’t remember those stories. But there’s a vast difference between mentioning a source of information in the background - something that was quite common - and using the “feel” of the Internet as a new experience to drive a story. ---
**Author:** ![Khampelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/26 "2007-04-23T02:30:39Z")
I’ve recently been reading the works of Nancy Kress. Her Beggars series had me facinated with the storylines, while saying a lot about the nature of social contracts, via the effects of genetic engineering on society. And I always plug Joe Haldeman’s “The Forever War” in any Hard SF thread. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/27 "2007-04-23T05:13:24Z")
I consider Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, about two hundred years of a colonization/terraforming project on the Red Planet, to be the _Lord of the Rings_ of hard science fiction. He followed that up with The Martians, which was more of the same only short stories, and then Antarctica. Don’t waste your time on Antarctica, but if you like hard sf you should definitely read the others. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/28 "2007-04-23T06:34:36Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] I haven’t read Schmitz in 40 years, so I don’t remember those stories. But there’s a vast difference between mentioning a source of information in the background - something that was quite common - and using the “feel” of the Internet as a new experience to drive a story. [/QUOTE] I’ve read Schmitz in the past couple of years, and while he does mention something like the Internet, it’s more along the lines of mentioning a futuristic way of cooking that doesn’t involve fire or heat. Vinge did (and does) indeed propose ways that people will change their lives because of the Internet. In _Rainbows End,_ for example, he mentions microroyalties as people use various bits of art, music, whatever, as the eventual outcome of the fight over copyright. In the same book, people are always on the lookout for collaborating on ideas, as the right idea can make one rich. Don’t get me wrong, Shmitz is still quite readable even after all these years. I just think that Vinge comprehends the internet better, as he should, given his background. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/29 "2007-04-23T08:53:42Z")
Greg Egan. I just read his short stories in Axiomatic and his novel [Diaspora](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_%28novel%29). He has some pretty big ideas, and usually includes some bind-bending stuff. Diaspora, for example, has multi-dimensional mathematics and physics, wormhole theory, and machine intelligence. Someone I haven’t seen mentioned yet is Wil McCarthy. I’ve only read one of his books, [Bloom](http://www.amazon.com/Bloom-Wil-Mccarthy/dp/0345424654/), which was a pretty decent book about nanotech, and I note that he wrote a [non-fiction](http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Matter-Levitating-Weirdness-Programmable/dp/0465044298/) book in that field too. ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/30 "2007-04-23T09:11:35Z")
Not meaning to hijack, but is \*\*Greg Bear \*\* considered good or crap by Sci-Fi enthusiasts? I remember liking the science in a couple of his books - but only when I was about twelve. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/31 "2007-04-23T10:14:07Z")
[QUOTE=Struan] –Can I recommend Iain M. Banks though? He’s got too much empathy for his characters (quite a few of whom are machines) to be really _hard_, but well worth reading in any case. [/QUOTE] I tried to read, and failed to complete, the only Banks book I ever attempted - Excelsior - and was constantly irritated by his choice of ridiculous space ship names. Problem Child Meatfucker Ethics Gradient Sac Slicer II Anticipation of a New Lover’s Arrival Steely Glint Serious Callers Only Shoot them Later End In Tears Full Refund And nearly twenty others almost as stupid. I don’t have a high regard for Banks as a writer. The Human v Alien racketball games in ‘Excelsior’ using a creature with crippled wings as a ball reminded me of a similar set up in ‘Red Dwarf’, which I won’t bother going into here. Baxter is a much better choice as a writer of hard SF. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/32 "2007-04-23T11:06:41Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] I tried to read, and failed to complete, the only Banks book I ever attempted - Excelsior - and was constantly irritated by his choice of ridiculous space ship names. [/QUOTE] That’d be “Excession”. Personally, I like his ship-naming - they are sentient after all, and often have a playful sense of humour. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/33 "2007-04-23T11:48:29Z")
[QUOTE=Struan] That’d be “Excession”. Personally, I like his ship-naming - they are sentient after all, and often have a playful sense of humour. [/QUOTE] Memory is a fuzzy thing. I just checked the box of contributions to the next school fete and stand corrected. The trouble with that kind of hideous naming is this. Would someone trying to launch his/her first novel dare to use such names for spaceships? It would be tossed on the slush pile after the first encounter of such a name by the person checking the stories submitted. In any case, organically sentient ships are hardly the stuff of “hard science” fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/34 "2007-04-23T11:55:37Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] In any case, organically sentient ships are hardly the stuff of “hard science” fiction. [/QUOTE] Neither the ships, nor the Minds controlling them, are organic in nature. What would you say was an acceptable policy for naming spaceships? ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/35 "2007-04-23T12:08:16Z")
[QUOTE=Struan] Neither the ships, nor the Minds controlling them, are organic in nature. What would you say was an acceptable policy for naming spaceships? [/QUOTE] If they’re warships, then naming them would probably follow the pattern of warships on Earth. Admirals, Generals, Battles etc. If they’re gigantic pleasure cruisers of the huge Caribbean size and standard, then expect words like: ‘Monarch’, ‘Princess’, ‘Stellar’ or anything similar. Not even the many small boat owners I know personally (I’m talking 10’-20’ powerboats here) give their boats undignified names. (‘Barfer’ would be the worst, but the owner’s a bit of a dill). Apart from that I derived no pleasure from reading Banks. Each to his own, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/36 "2007-04-23T12:16:45Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] If they’re warships, then naming them would probably follow the pattern of warships on Earth. Admirals, Generals, Battles etc. [/quote] The Culture isn’t descended from Earth, and doesn’t really have Admirals and Generals. Dedicated warships tend to name themselves something aggressive though, like “Killing Time” in the book. > [@](#): > > If they’re gigantic pleasure cruisers of the huge Caribbean size and standard, then expect words like: ‘Monarch’, ‘Princess’, ‘Stellar’ or anything similar. Some of the Culture vessels have billions of inhabitants - “Princess” seems a little _small_😉 > [@](#): > > Not even the many small boat owners I know personally (I’m talking 10’-20’ powerboats here) give their boats undignified names. (‘Barfer’ would be the worst, but the owner’s a bit of a dill). The ships pick their own names, on a whim mostly. > [@](#): > > Apart from that I derived no pleasure from reading Banks. Each to his own, I guess. Well, indeed, and we’re probably way OT for this thread anyway. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/37 "2007-04-23T12:39:28Z")
Regarding Leinster and the nternet : I dobn’t know. I was blown away with how closely Leinster’s story _felt_ like the Internet. In particular, after the “censor” function has been eliminated (and I love that, in the 1940s it was felt that you had to have such a censor) people start – downloading ways to efficiently and undetectably murder other people –downloading plans to banks and the like – –Kids start downloading porn. I haven’t read the Bush article (although now I have to get it), but I’ll bet these things weren’t in it. This is the sort of extrapolation that characterizes hard SF – taking an idea that might have been postulated by a scientist and examining its likely consequences. There are other candidates for “first internet story” (I don’t care what you say about such compiulsive backward-stretching. I love it). as Martin Gardner pointed out, H.G. wells had written a story involving such a central accessible databank as well, although, from his description, it doesn’t feel very internet-like. Arthur C. Clarke wrote things in the 70s and 80s that _definitely_ have the behavior and feel of the internet – although by then we already had Darpanet, so it wasn’t much of a prediction. As for the writers getting their inspiration from the writings of others – so what? That’s exactly how writers operate. I can show you countless examples of such things. It was Verne’s standard method of operation. We can trace back plenty of his ideas to their sources,. But those sources never turned out 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. More to the point, Frederick Soddy wrote about the possibilities of fission and the “atomic bomb”, but it was Wells’ “The World Set Free” and his imagining the political consequences of using those bombs that inspired (by his own admission )Leo Szilard in his thinking about what would become the REAL atomic bomb. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/38 "2007-04-23T12:41:38Z")
[QUOTE=Struan] Well, indeed, and we’re probably way OT for this thread anyway. [/QUOTE] On this point we’re in full agreement, except that I wouldn’t recommend Banks to anyone in a pink fit. It’s 10.40 pm in my positional sector of Earth’s galactic co-ordinate, so goodnight 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/39 "2007-04-23T14:03:11Z")
[QUOTE=Staggerlee] Not meaning to hijack, but is \*\*Greg Bear \*\* considered good or crap by Sci-Fi enthusiasts? I remember liking the science in a couple of his books - but only when I was about twelve. [/QUOTE] I liked \*\*Eon \*\*and **Forge of God** , but not **Anvil of Stars**. I thought **Darwin’s Radio** was okay. I already plugged Peter F. Hamilton and Dan Simmons in last year’s thread, although I suppose their stuff is more space opera than hard sci-fi. They write nice thick books, though. The rest of my “hard” sci-fi favorites that are still writing have already been mentioned - Joe Haldeman, Nancy Kress, Kim Stanley Robinson and David Brin. Have to suggest Lois McMaster Bujold too, who I only recently discovered, although I wouldn’t consider her stuff hard. I really need to try Vernor Vinge, I’ve never read him. I didn’t like the one Ben Bova book I tried, but maybe I tried the wrong one. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113/40 "2007-04-23T14:12:50Z")
[QUOTE=Lynn Bodoni] Vinge did (and does) indeed propose ways that people will change their lives because of the Internet. In _Rainbows End,_ for example, he mentions microroyalties as people use various bits of art, music, whatever, as the eventual outcome of the fight over copyright. [/QUOTE] \ 😕 I remember hearing about microroyalties in academic discussions a good dozen years before _Rainbows End_. It’s hardly a proposal on Vinge’s part. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-sci-fi-books/401113.md?page=3)