Stats for nerds
2recommend
4mentions
2people
2023–2026years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- At home, Atlas Shrugged. It's an interesting story even if you don't care about the allegories, I'm really enjoying it so far. But it will probably take me half a year to finish it at this rate, since I can only read it on weekends.
At work I'm currently trying to read SF light novels from the turn of the millennium. I finished Murasaki no Qualia some time ago, and it's just as amazing as I remember the manga being when I read it as a teen. Right now I'm reading Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu. Sadly very few of these are translated. The Last and First Idol story collection is also a good read if you're interested in this genre.
- I usually care more about the ideas than characters / prose and the recs below kinda reflect that.
Anyways, in no particular order ...
Also want to second some of the other recs in this thread.- Adiamante by Modesitt (1996), pacifist environmentalists vs cyberpunk warmongers. It's a lot of philosophy and a bit preachy at that but the world building was pretty thorough. - Last and First Idol by Gengen Kusano (2018). Similar to Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, it parodies various aspects of Japanese culture over a period of eons. (It's a set of three ~70pg stories). - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky (2010). Parody where the main character investigates how to exploit magic. Kind of like xkcd / what-if but in the Harry Potter universe. Author is controversial and the story's pompous /r/iamverysmart vibes can be offputting but I enjoyed it.- Greg Egan's stuff - There is No Antimimetics Division by qntm - Sequels to Enders Game and the Ender's Shadow spinoffs by Orson Scott Card. - Dragon's Egg and its sequel by Robert L. Forward. - Anyone have recommendations for similar authors?
I love how his stories grow in scope (one discovery plausibly leads to another and eventually interdimensional travel). I know Adrian Tchaikovsky is a popular recommendation around here (especially Children of Time and rightfully so), but I'm looking for something with less drama / less character-driven. The 3 body problem is a good example.
Also tangential but I recommend trying Last and First Idol for anyone looking for ridiculous, gory, self-consistent sci-fi.
- Last and First idol is a parody of otaku (Japanese) culture.
https://j-novel.club/series/last-and-first-idol
It's really 3x short stories (~200 pages each) but here's a synopsis for the first:
The story follows Mika Furutsuki's journey to become an idol. [...] After the Monopole Super Flares hit though, humanity is on the decline. Maori still tries to revive her idol friend and ultimately succeeds after 30 years. Mika may no longer human, but that doesn't stop her quest to become the #1 idol.
