The Algebraist
It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year. The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilisation. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars. Seconded to a military-religious order he’s barely heard of — part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony — Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer — a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he’s ever known.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
7mentions
7people
2014–2026years
86% recommend14% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Anathem is the best Stephenson book; The Algebraist is the best Iain Banks. There's enough of us to fill a good sized van!
- Re-read Iain Banks' The Algebraist.
Titanium Noir, Nick Harkaway
Built to Sell, John Warrilow
- I strongly recommend the audiobooks of Iain Banks work as read by Peter Kenny or Anton Lesser.
Absolute genius, the best audiobooks I’ve heard behind Nicol Williamsons The Hobbit.
In particular, listen to Excession and The Algebraist.
I never tire of the audiobook of the Algebraist, amazing.
Anton Lesser reading The Algebraist is the strongest case for why AI should never be used for narrating audiobooks.
- Having just finished Iain Banks excellent The Algebraist, this is immediately what came to mind: we have no idea what timescales aliens would operate on.
- I'll stand by most of the other recommendations here that I've read, here are some books I liked that I haven't seen here yet:
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) is a pretty good and campy series.
The Dresden Files series is also good, I tried to get into it but I hated the mumbly voice actor on Audible unfortunately.
Iain Banks is good, especially Player of Games, Consider Phlebas and The Algebraist. Use of Weapons put a bad taste in my mouth.
Good luck!
EDIT: Forgot to mention Isaac Asimov, I've yet to see anything bad by him. Still trying to get through the Foundation series.
- The Algebraist is my favourite Iain M. Banks book too - the breadth of imagination in it is amazing
I think Surface Detail is my favourite Culture novel. Many Iain Banks books (regular fiction as well as sci-fi) are really just wish-fulfillment stories, but they're so stylish and fun to read that I love them (plus there's usually at least one very insightful rant by a minor character to be found in nearly every book)
