Influx
A tale set in a world in which technological advances have been suppressed finds particle physicist Jon Grady helping to innovate a device capable of reflecting gravity only to be targeted by a shadowy organization from the future.
Stats for nerds
7recommend
14mentions
11people
2014–2024years
57% recommend43% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Influx by Daniel Suarez comes to mind (though it has a slightly different spin).
- I read all of The Expanse. Fun series that takes place after we've colonized the solar system with infighting between Earth, Mars, and those who live out past the belt, when suddenly an alien artifact shows up.
Influx (a large secret govt. sect suppressing technology breakthroughs and keeping it for themselves) and Kill Decision (autonomous killing drones) by Daniel Suarez were fun. I liked Deamon (a murder mystery of sorts where the murderer is already dead and automated scripts and whatnot carry out the deeds) and Freedom (part 2) better however.
Beyond what I've read this year in Sci-Fi, I would recommend the Hyperion saga (my vote for best sci-fi ever), The Martian, Ready Player One, Snapshot (a short by Brandon Sanderson, my favorite author by a wide margin), and, heck, while we are at it, the whole of the Enderverse, though I preferred Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind the most).
It has been said that the difference between sci-fi and fantasy is spaceships vs trees. If you are looking for fun fantasy, I suggest just about anything from Brandon Sanderson. He has his Cosmere universe composed of many book series, the best of which are the Stormlight Archives.
- Books are wonderful. There's value in online articles and conversations, but you are likely depriving yourself of a few layers of nuance and enjoyment. No time to start like the present.
Step one: get a library card, and then download the app they provide to access books on your tablets and phone. Then power move find the option to look for "Skip the Line" or equivalent to get a list of books other people are waiting months to read in a queue. Thank me later.
Step two: start listening to audiobooks. You'll start at 1x speed and then gradually move up to 2x, depending on the type of book you're listening to and whether the narrator has an accent. I get through a book every two days by listening during my morning prep, when I'm walking or biking. You will find yourself slowing down to finish chapters in no time. Audiobooks are incredible. There are haters; they are wrong.
I recommend switching up between fiction and non-fiction, otherwise I get exhausted. I like business books (Shoedog by Phil Knight, or The Hard Thing About Hard Things) and books about behavioural psychology; Thinking, Fast and Slow is excellent, so is anything by Malcolm Gladwell. Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari are both great. Authors like Dan Ariely and the Steves that wrote Freakonomics.
Lots of audiobooks are pleasurable in a special way because they are read by the author. For example, literally every book by David Sedaris is best enjoyed when read by David Sedaris. This is also true of good biographies; Failure Is An Option by H. Jon Benjamin will get you kicked out of a restaurant because you'll be laughing so hard.
Fiction is a really personal realm, but I prefer sci-fi and some fantasy. I read Cryptonomicon in my early 20s and loved it, but listening to it in my early 40s was a transcendant joy. Don't be scared by the runtime - you won't want it to end. Other authors I happen to enjoy very much include David Mitchell (Thousand Autumns or Bone Clocks FTW), Cory Doctorow (Makers, Walkaway), Blake Crouch (Recursion), Daniel Suarez (Influx, Delta-V, Daemon), Robin Sloan (Sourdough, Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore).
Just to wrap up and repeat what has no doubt been said elsewhere in the thread, fiction in particular is the gateway to empathy and imagination. Reading is a muscle; it gets easier and then it gets addictive. There's a reason people keep doing it, unlike yoga. ;)
- I just re-started this one recently too. If you enjoy those, check out one of Suarez's other: Influx.
It's not a sequel but has some common threads.
- And if you don't, it is trivial for a motivated party to fabricate them in a realistic enough manner to fool a jury.
Influx by Daniel Suarez comes to mind.
- I think that velocity is the fascinating part. I remember being intrigued while reading "Influx" by Daniel Suarez (great tin foil hat thriller that is hitting scarily close to home these days) about the training of the various AIs that were used by the government.
I wonder what happens once we grow an AI whose purpose is to excel at training other AI's. Will we see an exponential leap forward in the speed with which they are trained?
