Salvation
"Humanity's complex relationship with technology spirals out of control in this first book of an all-new trilogy from "the owner of the most powerful imagination in science fiction" (Ken Follett). In 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. Cutting-edge technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of transportation--including starships--virtually obsolete. Every place on earth, every distant planet humankind has settled, is now merely a step away from any other. And all seems wonderful--until a crashed alien spaceship of unknown origin is found on a newly-located world eighty-nine light years from Earth, carrying a cargo as strange as it is horrifying. To assess the potential of the threat a high-powered team is dispatched to investigate. But one of them may not be all they seem... Bursting with tension and big ideas, this standalone series highlights the inventiveness of an author at the top of his game, as the interweaving story lines tell us not only how humanity arrived at this moment, but also the far-future consequences that spin off from it"
Stats for nerds
5recommend
9mentions
6people
2018–2025years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Lots of scifi.
Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance, and Absolution of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach series. https://www.goodreads.com/series/112239-southern-reach
Reread books 1-4 of Dennis E Taylor's Bobiverse series to read #5 https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse
John Scalzi's Interdependency Series https://www.goodreads.com/series/202297-the-interdependency
Basically all of the Culture Series by Iain M Banks https://www.goodreads.com/series/49118-culture
Of Peter F Hamilton:
- The Salvation Sequence series https://www.goodreads.com/series/242882-salvation-sequence
- The Void Series, a sequel-trilogy to the Commonwealth Universe series https://www.goodreads.com/series/43520-void
Of Alastair Reynolds:
- Pushing Ice https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48991704-pushing-ice
- Eversion https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60097716-eversion
Of Adrian Tchaikovsky:
- Shroud https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/230237860-shroud
- Elder Race https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56815367-elder-race
- Alien Clay https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199851460-alien-clay
- Going through The Final Architecture now https://www.goodreads.com/series/305076-the-final-architectu...
Also Upgrade, by Blake Crouch https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59439117-upgrade
Also First, by Randy Brown https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196399619-first
- It's certainly more tech heavy and a power fantasy, but I recommend you give Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton a read. Especially the first book has many layers, and has maybe the most intense "oh fuck" moment I've ever read. Peter F. Hamilton is incredible at creating coherent worlds.
- Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds
Three Body Problem Series - Cixin Liu
Salvation Sequence - Peter F Hamilton
(and by listing these I just realized I like stories about humanities doom)
- Salvation Sequence by Peter G Hamilton
A realistic alien invasion hard scifi trilogy set during different periods of time in our future. "Read" in audiobook format, narrated by John Lee who is also great.
- Peter F. Hamilton's Salvation series [1] has a similar take, but also provides a possible out: don't live on planets or near stars. In Liu Cixin's books (which I loved btw, also SPOILERS), the level of technology involves weapons that can destroy solar systems. It seems reasonable that such civilizations could live between the stars.
I don't agree that Civilizations need to expand without limit. Even humans, having reached a certain level of comfort, have difficulty reproducing enough to maintain population levels. Conceivably then, civilizations will reach a comfortable size and then stop. Certainly they might be willing to stop when they reach a "boundary".
The problems with enemies is that, unless we are of sufficient size, we might bump into an enemy that is, say, twice our size, and therefore can thump us in a war. However, novels by Iain M. Banks [2] and Neal Asher [3] provide insight here (Culture vs Iridans, Polity vs Prador). The issue is not how many weapons you have (W), or even how many weapons you can make (dW/dt), but how fast you can make weapons factories (d2w/dt2) (etc). And ultimately, organics simply have absolutely no chance against AI: in both Culture and Polity, the AI runs the war for humans.
On the matter of technological breakout, the entire Lensman series has an underlying theme of the back-and-forth of new weapon vs it's mitigation [5]. Liu makes a good case that such back-and-forth is unrealistic: in the time it takes light to travel from the enemy's star to yours, they might go from poking each other with pointy sticks to fusion bombs, or from fusion bombs to star-killers. But there is a simple mitigation there too: don't hang around stars. Or rather, think of stars as Navies think of islands: nice place to refuel and R&R, but don't put all your ships in one harbor.
Ultimately, if survival is the goal, then Salvation or We are Bob [4] are the way to go: expand as much as possible. Just be willing to defer to existing civilizations.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34068552-salvation
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5807106.Iain_M_Banks
[3] https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/56353.Neal_Asher
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse-Book-ebook/d...
- Iain M. Banks the Culture novels are wonderful, there are 9 of them. Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth universe and the new one Salvation are great. My favorite in the last 10 years or so is The Passage by Justin Cronin, when I started reading it felt like I was reading early Stephen King. He is the best writer of the above, and the story is compelling. There are two more books in The Passage trilogy.
Amazon is making a show from the first of the Culture novels (which is the fastest moving SciFi book I've ever read) and Fox fxx is putting The Passage on TV in Jan. I recommend reading it before it comes out on TV since they are rearranging the timeline on TV.
