For me in SciFi I’ve been trying to hit some classics so I’ve read ‘The Iron Dream’ by Norman Spinrad, ‘A Time of Changes’ by Robert Silverberg and also the (recent release) ‘Out of the Ruins’ anthology.
Of those three I enjoyed ‘The Iron Dream’ the most since I didn’t enjoy Silverberg’s potraryal of women (and it doesn’t seem to have literary intent like in ‘The Iron Dream’.) 'Out of the Ruins had some bangers but it was a fairly inconsistent collection for me that mostly hasn’t been memorable.
So, what are you currently reading or have recently read?
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I’m almost done with book 2 of The Final Architecture trilogy “Eyes of the Void” by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It’s a pretty wild ride. Not quite as exploratory as Children of Time by the same author, but a solid space opera with some new takes on classic science fiction tropes.
Also finished The Quantum Magician trilogy earlier this year.
Had recently finished Permutation City by Greg Egan, which was excellent. Picked up a book that I had in my to-read pile for a while, expecting it to be a silly adventure story for a lightweight break. It was pitched to me as “cavemen vs dinosaurs.” West of Eden by Harry Herrison is… Not that. But I’m definitely enjoying the unexpected dive into genetic engineering worldbuilding, cross species linguistics, and genuinely interesting politics!
I recently finally got around to reading Anathem and was blown away, so much detail, so much going on. And from someone who reads alot of philosophy, that aspect felt like it was handled naturally in the book and not infodumped.
Recently filled in one of the gaps in the Culture series by the late, great Iain M Banks (that I didn’t even realize I’d missed!). Surface Detail is another quality entry, dealing with virtual afterlives and presents a little more context of the Culture in a broader galactic context than we normally see it.
Recently finished Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which is the third in his series that started with Children of Time.
Children of Time immediately became my second favourite scifi book of all time, and possibly my favourite ever book ending, but I didn’t find the second installment really held up that well. Happy to report that Children of Memory, while not quite hitting those heady heights, was pretty good! A little repetitive in parts, but some very cool concepts.
I’ve been reading The Blighted Stars, which I’m quite enjoying. Nothing too serious but a fun read.
I just started book 9 of Malazan – so have been taking a detour from proper sci fi for a while. Epic series.
I started reading Children of Time out loud to my GF. Because she hates spiders, and I told her she’d love Portia :)
Funny coincidence, I started reading this because someone told me there’s one about octopodes later.
Children of time, recommended by a friend.
And now I finished reading all the comments it’s amazing how many references there are to this book and series.
I haven’t read any of the books you mentioned in your post so I am not sure if these are up your alley or not, but the last 3 sci-fi books I’ve read have all knocked it out of the park for me:
- Seveneves - Neal Stephenson
- Spin - Robert Charles Wilson
- Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
You can tell I am a sucker for all books dealing with the impossible vastness of space 🤣
Not currently reading any sci-fi but I read “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel recently and I thought it was amazing. It’s pretty light on sci-fi concepts really, but it’s an interesting take on the apocalypse.
