scifi.txt

scifi books i like

(disclaimer: i don't typically read books by white dudes anymore but this list contains a few of them nonetheless.)

number one recommendation for cyberpunk is Synners, by Pat Cadigan. it's legit cyberpunk, easily on par with Gibson and 
way better than Stephenson imo. (Pat Cadigan is a woman, for the record.)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/304806.Synners?from_search=true&search_version=service

Greg Egan can be hit or miss, but his good books are masterpieces. Here's one:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156785.Diaspora

Ted Chiang also rules. I loved this one a ton. Tamagotchi AI basically:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7886338-the-lifecycle-of-software-objects

I also liked this one but not everyone does:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7726420-how-to-live-safely-in-a-science-fictional-universe

This book has a female protagonist and packs of talking space dogs so it is extremely my shit. 
I have yet to read the rest in the series but I look forward to it. 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77711.A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep?from_new_nav=true&ac=1&from_search=true

The sci-fi from here on is not really """hard""" sci-fi but I enjoyed them. 

Classic:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/70535.2001

Anything by Ursula Le Guin obviously:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13651.The_Dispossessed

This book had a real Star Fleet feel, I loved it. It's also pretty short.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25667918-binti

I can't do this one justice in a summary; it uses time travel to examine slavery. This book left an enormous impact on me:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60931.Kindred

I have mixed feelings about this one but overall I'd summarize as "fuck yeah":
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17333324-ancillary-justice

This is short and cool:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18669285-how-to-build-a-universe-that-doesn-t-fall-apart-two-days-later

Borges is landmark sci-fi reading even if it's not explicitly sci-fi: 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25615886-ficciones

This is like cyberpunk noir set in the Future Middle East. I didn't love it but I enjoyed it ok,
and I want to live in a world where cyberpunk is set in places other than America and Japan:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/132694.When_Gravity_Fails

This isn't hard sci-fi but it's damn good and in a similar spirit I guess:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68494.Perdido_Street_Station

Finally, here's my SF list on Goodreads: 
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4057072-puppy?shelf=fic-scifi&sort=rating 

It's super all over the place. For 2016 I'm only reading books by women so there are a lot of female authors on there.

++ on vinge. fire upon the deep is amazing along with the rest of the zones of thought series. also peacewar + marooned in realtime are incredible, esp when you consider it was from the 80's. rainbow's end is also eerily prescient about our near future, again written in 2006. I esp. like "a deepness in the sky" where he posits what a trans-stellar trading organization might look like given the constraints of what we know about physics.

hard scifi doesn't get more scrupulously weird + well researched than watts, esp blindsight & echopraxia. although they're dizzying in terms of the density of future weirdness they pack in.

Blue remembered earth + it's sequels are also very cool and some might disagree but I'd call em hard scifi.

three body problem + the dark forest are great, if a little hard to get through seeing as how they're translations. they have a much different take on the nature of interstellar relations than vinge's deepness,

also if you dig fantasy stuff, the dagger & coin series is a really great and has a lot of big picture themes around the role of trade, war and aristocracy in the shaping of the world. in many ways it feels like an allegory for ww1.

the commonwealth series i think is great, if you like the culture books from banks then you'll probably like the commonwealth

paolo bacigalupi writes great stories in the near future, positing our impending environmental doom. so, not uplifting stories but very cutting and sign of the time. ship breaker, drowned cities are good. the water knife is fantastic.

hell yes, thanks @moonpolysoft!!! I haven't heard of most of these! 😎 😎 😎

Couple others: the postmortal is great but will almost certainly make you feel like shit for a couple of days

Just started ancillary justice, but it appears to be "gender neutral Nazis in space" so there's that