The Reality Dysfunction
Space is not the only void...In AD 2600 the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace. A true golden age is within our grasp. But now something has gone catastrophically wrong. On a primitive colony planet a renegade criminal's chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of all our fears. An extinct race which inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it "The Reality Dysfunction." It is the nightmare which has prowled beside us since the beginning of history. The Reality Disfunction is a modern classic of science fiction, an extraordinary feat of storytelling on a truly epic scale.
Stats for nerds
13recommend
21mentions
18people
2010–2026years
62% recommend29% neutral10% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by James Hornfischer. The amazing courage shown by the US Navy sailors as their tiny 2,000 ton Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts faced a Japanese fleet of Battleships, Cruisers, and Destroyers at The Battle Off Samar. Inspiring and horrifying, the DDs and DEs of the US navy were protecting "Escort Carriers" which were smaller aircraft carriers made from cargo ship hulls. Warning, may inspire you to learn a whole bunch more about world war 2.
And 2 books that sort of go together:
Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway by Walter Lord, and Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. Read Incredible Victory first, learn about the luck, good and bad, that led to a much-needed victory in the Pacific. Then read Shattered Sword and get a fuller picture of events, especially from the Japanese side. Learn about how hubris and dogma led to the Japanese Navy's defeat. Then learn about how saving face led to history not being accurately told by the witnesses on the Japanese side.
All 3 are great books that are well worth your time.
Others that I've enjoyed:
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (near future post-apocalyptic sci-fi).
The non-fiction Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson (more WW2 non-fiction, nice details about North Africa through Italy, then France to Germany).
Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham.
Most Secret War by RV Jones (nerdy, funny history of one scientist's world war 2 experience).
The Discworld City Guard books, starting with Guards! Guards!, by Terry Pratchett. Fantasy fiction satire, hilarious and comforting. Highly, highly recommended!!
Peter F Hamilton sci-fi adventure books: Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained are a duo of great space opera stretching across multiple planets and people. Don't spoil yourself by reading any descriptions of Judas Unchained before you read Pandora's Star. Also by the same author, The Night's Dawn Trilogy: The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, and The Naked God. Fantastic big canvas space opera with lots of threads, great world-building, and amazing situations. Both sets of books are highly recommended escapes from reality.
- I once read a bunch of accounts of near-death experiences. Descriptions run the gamut, but the one that stuck with me described it as “turning off a light switch.”
Shout out to Peter F. Hamilton’s Reality Dysfunction trilogy, in which an interstellar humanity is threatened by the discovery that souls persist after death. Recommended for my fellow sci-fi aficionados.
- Peter F Hamilton. Start with Pandora's Star if you want more Asimovish, or Reality Dysfunction if you want it more Lemmy \m/.
- * (Theory) Surfing Uncertainty by Andy Clark
Basically a unified theory of consciousness. 100% must read.
* (Theory) The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
A bit long winded but it really changes the way you think about the voice in your head, about consciousness in general. Pairs well with Surfing Uncertainty
* (Self Help) Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg Really wakes you up to the domination language that rules our interactions and provides an alternative framework. Its even great if you don't plan on implementing NVC, just to understand what non nonviolent langue is. Pairs well with Julian Jaynes The Origin of Consciousness for understanding how language formed our minds and our societies.
* (Theory) The Force of Nonviolence Judith Butler Wakes you up to the highly dominant and persistent narrative of violence. Provides frameworks for something else. If this doesnt blow your mind im not sure what will.
* (Theory)Staying with the Trouble by Donna J. Haraway The name says it all. Ways to stop trying to wipe the slate clean, to start from scratch, but instead to "stay with the trouble" and make new things WITH. Wakes your mind up to disrupting in whole new ways.
* (Theory) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein Another book that helps you see the world through different eyes, or even if I dare, to see the world more clearly. Pairs nicely with the unnecessarily long winded "Fall" by Neal Stephenson for understand a post truth world, specifically the idea of "Edit Streams"
* (Scifi )The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton This one game me a framework for science and spirituality to coincide
* (Scifi ) Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie Questions everything, blows your mind on multiple levels.
* (Self Help) She Comes First by Ian Kerner Wakes you up to the massive comfort imbalance in sex between genders and provides simple ways to help fix it (for heterosexual)
- It wasn't until this latest outbreak that I realised just how pervasive the ideas of pandemic are in the creative works I consume. One of my favourite books is "The Reality Dysfunction" which deals with a pandemic of possession. A favourite childhood video game is "Halo: Combat Evoloved" which centres on alien space zombies. Speaking of zombies, I really like "World War Z" (the book, not the film). And, in my efforts to have better job prospects, I am studying biostatistics which includes plenty of content on epi/pandemics.
It's bit like how nature and animals pervades all of our advertising and branding. You don't notice just how much our zeitgeist is filled with these things until someone or something points it out to you.
- The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, and the other two in the trilogy too. Hard, but accessible. I've never read a series so dense with cool and believable ideas that are unlike much I had come across before.
The Reality Dysfunction by Pete F. Hamilton (and the rest of the series). If you want something a bit more traditional in form. More sex, violence and so on.
Ach, loads of others. Roadside Picnic really stuck with me too. Though might not be what most people would call 'hard sci-fi', not sure.
Related
The Neutronium Alchemist
1 recommend · 2
The Dreaming Void
4 recommend · 4
The Night's Dawn Trilogy
17 recommend · 30
Pandora's Star
44 recommend · 67
Fallen Dragon
5 recommend · 11
Judas Unchained
15 recommend · 21
The fabric of reality
23 recommend · 58
