What books to read while waiting?

[Nightfist]

Hello, I am really looking forward to this game, and I'm thinking about spending the wait by catching up on some classic as well as newer sci-fi literature,especially stuff that could serve as inspiration for a game such as this. What would people suggest?

 

[grandad1982]

I'm reading Alistair Reynolds revelation space books at the moment. Can tend towards a stream punk aesthetic but I like the universe and the non ftl travel. Iain m banks ;( is always great space opera. Recently read the hydrogen sonata and considered it to be a very good addition to the culture series.

 

[mewzle]

Play Mass Effect if you haven't.

Also read Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy and watch Firefly and/or Battlestar Galactica and/or Star Trek.

 

[Sinbuster]

Well, I'm assuming you've read a few of the great works but in case you were hiding in a sietch the last half century, the Dune series is a must read. I was always a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy as well - not a classic by any means but very interesting from a philosophical, terraforming angle. Be sure to read the Hitchhikers books when things get a little too serious. (edit: ah, beaten to it).

 

[aitaituo]

Larry Niven's Known Space series is pretty great.

 

[Zupanicarr]

Hmmm The Eric Nylund Halo novels are pretty good, The Fall of Reach. Another suggestion, in dealing with first contact is the appropriately named Contact, by Carl Sagan. It's been awhile since I saw the movie, but I believe the book is fairly different, and better for that matter, and worth a read.

For shows, obviously Stargate SG-1, overall pretty great, even it's last two seasons despite the lack of O'Neill.

Firefly, pretty much self explanatory...

Cowboy Bebop, because Edward. Your argument is invalid.

Star Trek in general.

Farscape though it's a weird one.

Finally Star Wars: the Clone Wars. I dislike the majority of the first two seasons as much as anyone, but it takes a massive tone (and writing) shift about half-way through the third, and becomes a whole hell of a lot better written, and surprisingly dark too. It's ****ing great!

Remember those episodes where they were fighting people just trying to keep their homeworld? Good guys!...

 

[Valakhan]

As far as it goes for books, here are my two cents:

The Culture serie, by Iain Banks: Awesome. Read it. At least one or two books. All of them are really good, but I personnally prefer the earlier books more. I don't know the names in English though, but the first three, chronologically speaking, are my favorites. It's about the life of galaxy where coexist multiple civilisations with multiple level of technological development. The culture is a metaphor of our USA, they have the same ideological setup and international political agenda ((promotion of liberal democracy everywhere, even if the others don't want it). They left the management of their empire to super advanced AI and the ships are also controlled by AIs. All in all, my favourite SF books.

Hyperion, by Dan Simmons: Also really cool, it's a story about how humanity became dependant of the AIs and want to break free, with time travel and a super killer robot. Add poesy, philosophy and metaphysics and you get a really deep story. not full with action, but plenty of food for thought. There are four books divided in two groups of two which can stand alone. i recommend reading all four of them to get the global story though.

Dune, by Frank herbert: Already mentioned, a classic, really good. A feodal empire relying on the use of the Spice which can only be found on the planet Dune. If there is only one book you have to pick in my list, read the first one of the serie. All the books are really good though, and creat a big sppace opera covering a few hundred years.

Isaac Asimov's work: I, robot was inspired by one of his books, so if you saw the movie and liked it, read the book with the same name. The foundation serie is really good. It's about an interstellar empire of which the death was predicted, so they try to gather all knowledge possible before the great catclysm in order to rebuild society after that.

The world of Pern, by Annne McAffrey: A colonisation ship arrives on a planet, and the human discover dragons with which they can live in symbiosis They have to fight against regular invasions from estructive beings that fall from the sky for 50 years every 200 years, like a destructive rain. The society on that planet has evolved in order to protect its inhabitant against those destructive rains . It is more of a fantasy story with a SF setting as it doesn't involve that many sci-fi tropes, but I really liked it as it is original. Give it a tryv

 

[kemerover]

Read your textbooks, because when this game is out you won't have time for them.

 

[Maximus_96]

I'd suggest the HFY subreddit if you want some stories centered around humans going ham

 

[Krajzen]

Peter Watts' Blindsight.

Read it. For the love of God Almighty, read it and science fiction will never be same again. Well, aliens in general. And humanity too. Eh who am I kidding, the entire reality will look different.

Don't read though if you are easy to be depressed because the vision of universe and humanity envisioned by this book (though author admits it's a work of fiction and he's much less cynical in real life) is by far the most nihilistic/darkest of all books I have ever read in my life. Warhammer 40k and Lovecraft universes are fairy tales compared to the vision of humanity and universe Blindsight depicts. Blindsight features merely five deaths and yet it destroys more universes than thousand of '99% humanity is dead' stories - these don't erase the concept of human, unlike Blindsight.

Oh, and besides the main philosophical concept I won't spoil for you (and do not spoil it for yourself) it has enough original thoughts put into it to fill a dozen of other SF books.

If there was a single last SF book one could read in his lifetime, this probably should be the one. Unless you want happy story about human mind overcoming obstacles. In Blindsight at least one word of a previous sentence is raped; I won't spoil which one.

Some quotes:

“I really wanted to talk to her.
I just couldn't find an algorithm that fit.”

“Brains are survival engines, not truth detectors. Truth had never been a priority. If believing a lie kept the genes proliferating, the system would believe that lie with all its heart.””

“But then I remembered: the universe was closed, and so very small. There was really nowhere else to go.”

“After four thousand years we can’t even prove that reality exists beyond the mind of the first-person dreamer. We desperately need minds greater than ours. And there are none.”

“This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: You hurt it, and keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the speech from the screams.”

"Nothing up there tonight but entropy, and the same imaginary shapes that people had been imposing on nature since they’d first thought to wonder at the heavens."

"They know God exists already that’s old. I think now they’re trying to figure what to do with It. What to do with god. Maybe worship. Maybe disinfect."

"You saved my life. And I still feel absolutely no empathy for you; it's natural."

"Cogito ergo sum? Descartes, you failed; you all, wise men with great words, have failed. There is a meat and its' delusion of existence."

 

[Zupanicarr]

Peter Watts' Blindsight.

Read it. For the love of God Almighty, read it and science fiction will never be same again. Well, aliens in general. And humanity too. Eh who am I kidding, the entire reality will look different.

Don't read though if you are easy to be depressed because the vision of universe and humanity envisioned by this book (though author admits it's a work of fiction and he's much less cynical in real life) is by far the most nihilistic/darkest of all books I have ever read. Warhammer 40k and Lovecraft universes are fairy tales compared to the vision of humanity and universe Blindsight depicts.

Oh, and besides the main philosophical concept I won't spoil for you (and do not spoil it for yourself) it has enough original thoughts put into it to fill a dozen of other SF books.

If there was a single last SF book one could read in his lifetime, this probably should be the one. Unless you want happy story about human mind overcoming obstacles. In Blindsight at least one word of a previous sentence is raped; I won't spoil which one.

Some quotes:

“I really wanted to talk to her.
I just couldn't find an algorithm that fit.”

“Brains are survival engines, not truth detectors. Truth had never been a priority. If believing a lie kept the genes proliferating, the system would believe that lie with all its heart.””

“But then I remembered: the universe was closed, and so very small. There was really nowhere else to go.”

“After four thousand years we can’t even prove that reality exists beyond the mind of the first-person dreamer. We desperately need minds greater than ours. And there are none.”

“This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: You hurt it, and keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the speech from the screams.”

That sounds so depressing it would make never want to pick up another sci-fi book again.

 

[hwoosh]

C.J. Cherryh's "Foreigner" series is fascinating. A very deep look at what it would mean to come in contact with people that are truly alien, not just physically but down to the very building blocks of cognition. How could diplomacy even be possible?

Also second and highly recommend Alastair Reynolds and Iain M. Banks.

 

[Krajzen]

That sounds so depressing it would make never want to pick up another sci-fi book again.

It is one of these books that are existentially devastating and people write on reddit how depressing they were (holocaust, paedophile stories, nihilist stories, tragedies etc) and yet they all recommend them to everyone for some reason, it's hard to describe. Reading that was a great spiritual experience, katharsis, I have felt emotionally enriched by it.

Ultimately though all readers of Blindsight still wanna live and read more Watts' books aaaand he has written a sequel to it! Which is even darker

Interesting note: author himself is funny, cheerful and happy man

I recommed Blindsight everywhere I can and when someone from my friends finally reads it he comes back and says 'dude that's darkest thing I have ever read. awesome book, does Peter write more?'

 

[lwarmonger]

Foundation. Truly a classic series, and from the sounds of it one of this game's inspirations.

 

[Krajzen]

Foundation. Truly a classic series, and from the sounds of it one of this game's inspirations.

Also Asimov's stories about robots' criminal cases were brilliant, I loved them. In most of SF robots are either absurdly easily humane, so they are not even robots but 'humans in metal', or cartoonishly inhumane, so you don't care for them at all. Asimov's robots were incredibly alien and yet very humane.

 

[Krajzen]

I'd recommend Jacek Dukaj to everyone, as he is a genius, unfortunately he is available only in Poland... Sigh, I am pretty sure that with his incredible imagination, intelligence and talent he would be pretty known if he was writing in English.

This is a guy who writes an 1100-pages long book written in two languages, with hundreds of characters dealing with a phenomena warping mathematical and logical fundaments of the reality, while in the meantime developing fleshed out criminal story, political thriller, alien contact, romance and classical travel/family reunion themes in the background. Then he spices that with characters discussing for 100-pages non stop about logical systems devoid of causation and physics operating on completely alien philosophical axioms, all that with jargon bordering on academic level, and that hardcore book still manages to become a bestseller of a decade and get an award for the best book of any genre of last 25 years from numerous institutions who normally claim SF is subpar B class genre.

I have recently read his short stories and among them there was
*an antromorphized abstract concept trying to contact with humans
* fourth-dimensional time-warping quantum-operating galaxy-mashing aliens coming to Earth and saying they believe in Jesus Christ and wanna baptize and spread His word of Love
*a man lost in the artificial reality governed by godlike AI, aforementioned man turns to be a memory backup of said AI (who turns out to be Allah ascended, by the way)

Dukaj has also written a novel with the entire universe based on Aristotlan classical Greek physics/philosophy, with its own causation, theory of matter, culture, language, history etc. and then throw alien contact into it.

If I recall correctly there was also his book where a main hero was posthuman being of third sex (meaning it could turn into female or male at will, you know, because it operated inside of matrioshka-brain somewhere in chromodynamical plateau!) with an existential crisis.

 

[Zupanicarr]

C.J. Cherryh's "Foreigner" series is fascinating. A very deep look at what it would mean to come in contact with people that are truly alien, not just physically but down to the very building blocks of cognition. How could diplomacy even be possible?

Also second and highly recommend Alastair Reynolds and Iain M. Banks.

It is one of these books that are existentially devastating and people write on reddit how depressing they were (holocaust, paedophile stories, nihilist stories, tragedies etc) and yet they all recommend them to everyone for some reason, it's hard to describe. Reading that was a great spiritual experience, katharsis, I have felt emotionally enriched by it.

Ultimately though all readers of Blindsight still wanna live and read more Watts' books aaaand he has written a sequel to it! Which is even darker

Interesting note: author himself is funny, cheerful and happy man

I recommend Blindsight everywhere I can and when someone from my friends finally reads it he comes back and says 'dude that's darkest thing I have ever read. awesome book, does Peter write more?'

I'm still kinda downed from reading All Quiet on the Western Front a little while ago, and generally I'm one of those depressed people types you mentioned, but I think I'm going to pass on that one. No offence.
However the book you're talking about, in combination with hwoosh's quote, just kinda made think of this for some reason...

 

[IronXZ]

Anything from Arthur C. Clarke or Phillip K. Dick can also satiate your sci-fi needs.

 

[Prophet of ReShrek]

"To the swamp we'll go
And splash mud all over
With you as my friend
I'm a happy ogre!"

There's a nice poem for you, I found it on the tag of my Shrek pillowpet. What kind of adult watches Shrek everyday and eats his damn onions? That's right, the greatest kind.

 

[Zupanicarr]

What kind of adult watches Shrek everyday and eats his damn onions?

Will Smith in I Am Legend?