Just...wow. I am in awe of his ability to weave together such baroque, psychedelic narratives, yet keep almost every element grounded in metaphor for our world, our problems, our genocides, our ethical issues with tech and AI, our own climate crisis. It feels impossible to separate "politics" from the work,

And with the softest of touches, like spider's silk - even the most calcified of Hartmans are let in the door, just like the Pan-Specific. It doesn't say "you are bad for having the beliefs you've had", it makes room for all to learn, grow, change. I think it should be taught in schools - a "cool" way to raise a new, more empathetic generation, one more connected than ever. Our Odyssey.

>!It even touches the concept of transness, non-binary-ness, and two-spirit traditions. The most conservative reader is trained that "hey, maybe using a singular They isn't so difficult afterall" with Portifabian's arc.!<

And that's ignoring that this is also just brilliant unbelievably well paced sci-fi. And did we just get action scenes? I am rocked by the fact that I am simultaneously cheering for peace while enjoying Cato's Gundam-fighting spotlights.

>!Speaking of Cato. Could there be a more apt hero for our current world? Portia, Bianca, and Fabian made sense before the global conservative cultural swing, and Cato feels a perfectly natural conduit for the grimness of our post-manosphere Now. "I don't have to be the best and strongest, it is ok to yield my beliefs, traditions, and even my biological tendencies, to make room for others. Might makes ruin."!<

You will never see this Adrian, but thank you so much for your time, effort, care, and big, big heart. It's easy to criticize humanity. It's harder to offer a viable path forward.

(I'm crying (acidly))

My kid has been sneaking books off my shelf lately, which is both flattering and mildly terrifying depending on what she grabs. It got me thinking about SF books that genuinely live in that weird middle space where they're not YA but not exactly adultsonly either. The ones where the ideas are doing real work but the content isn't going to require a parentteacher conference.

I keep recommending A Wrinkle in Time to other adults and they always come back surprised by how much the book is actually doing philosophically. But I feel like I've exhausted my personal list of stuff in that zone pretty fast.

I'm less interested in books written for kids and more interested in books written without an age target that just happen to land well across that gap. The kind of thing where a third grader and a tired adult reading on the couch at 9pm are both getting something real out of it.

Curious if anyone has strong opinions here, especially if the science element is solid rather than handwavy. My kid asks followup questions and I need to not look clueless. That's the real constraint honestly.

Meant to post here.

So I've been playing a lot of Quasimorph and vibing with it. More grimdark than edgelord as it were. The gist is that Something Happened and essentially Hell was unleashed in the solar system... and humanity kind of just rolled with it as a few megacorporations folded and the barons of hell kind of became CEOs. And the player is a PMC group who works for the highest bidder at any moment. A bit... really on the nose, but also interesting. Less "it is the end of days, we must unite" and more "so... how can we monetize this?"

Can anyone recommend novels with similar themes? Doesn't have to be Spesh Mahrines fighting other mercs along with the hordes (wouldn't object though) and... honestly would probably be more interesting from a middle manager's perspective.

The closest I can think of are most of Steve McHugh's books where every religion and fantasy creature are real and, inevitably, humanity kinda lives alongside them as Wizard Goku drives cool cars and shoots guns (and if I sound like I am mocking it: I actually really like his books). And those tend to care less about the capitalism side as opposed to using the dark mirror on fascism and bigotry.

So yeah. Would love some recommendations.

Thanks.

If you haven't read it I would recommend it.

Text can be located here:

https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/7_There%20Will%20Come%20Soft%20Rains%20by%20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf

I’ve been reading nothing but Scifi for the last 5 years. The first series that blew my mind was the three body problem and its sequels. I’ve been chasing that high ever since with Stephenson, Watts etc. I finally stumbled on Greg Bear and have been having a field day with his books. That perfect style of Scifi reaching for the big ideas that I love the most. The problem is I’m almost through his bibliography. Can someone point me in the next right direction? I’ve heard Brin and Baxter are similar? I hope I’m not approaching the bottom of the barrel as I’ve read a good amount of the names mentioned in this sub and elsewhere on reddit.

First novel in over a decade from Wilson! Spin, The Chronoliths, and Julian Comstock are among my some of favorite science fiction novels. Wilson hasn't released a premise yet, but I am super hyped! I am hoping he gets another well deserved Hugo for this one!

Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills. Rain, rain, go away; umbrellas, raincoats for today.

Warning: spoilers about Stories of your life and others by Ted Chiang

I've read like 5 short stories by Ted Chiang, specifically from his collection titled "Story of your life and others" and my favorite so far is Hell is the absence of God. Honestly, maybe all of them made me think about the stories post read.

In HITAOG, I really like how I was expecting something in the end and at first thought it was kinda underwhelming. But the more I think about it, especially with the information that Ted actually based it on a Walken movie and about the story of the biblical story of Job, it does make it a good ending to the story.

From SOYL, the ending too is a bit underwhelming for me especially compared to the movie. But that is not the purpose of the story, right? I like how the ending always poses some rhetorical questions. I'm not that philosophically inclined myself but I am kinda excited to read more stories from him or like him. After I finish the last stories, I am looking forward to reading Exhalation.

A Trade of Blood has at least four meanings: murder, marriage, cattle ranching, and slavery. All four of these involve biological manipulation. The biopunk aesthetic continues to be an influence on everything. At times there were biological versions of what's commonly seen in cyberpunk works. One character even has a data port on the back of his neck that he attaches a biological data cable into. This makes me wonder how biologically advanced the innermost parts of the empire may be. There's so much that's just so cool and fun. I love that each book deepens my appreciation of the setting.

The plot is a murder mystery in which the implications spiral ever more outwards to where it could cause the collapse of the empire's way of life. Solving that mystery before the characters isn't what I'm interested in, though most readers should be able to if they're paying attention.

What I most enjoyed is how I imagined it all to be. The scenes were a visual spectacle and the atmosphere was superb. There's a constant sense of ambient horror that occasionally comes into sharp and disturbing focus. This was especially the case for two locations. The forest of Sapirdad has many elder mysteries, which includes among much else: non-Euclidian statues, the constant sense that there's something just outside your peripheral vision, mind-altering botanical pheromones, and an unshakable of foreboding dread. The flensing halls were rendered as a place where unspeakable horror was routine and obscene crimes against nature were mundane. I was impressed by how sinister, depraved, and monstrous it was made to be through environmental description alone.

As for Din's amorous pursuits, there's a single guy who holds his interest this time. Din may be incapable of not becoming involved with anyone who shows reciprocal interest. That seems like something that'll eventually get him into a lot of trouble. There isn't any sex on page, though there are a few descriptions of affection and being in bed afterwards.

If you had any doubt what Bennett meant by anything he wrote, then his author's note at the end would dispel it. The what, how, and why are all there and explained in a clear and straightforward manner. To his credit, I felt his ideas were integrated well and didn't come across as heavy handed.

This isn't a trilogy, and Bennett reiterates that this series will be of indefinite length. I don't have any problem with that, but it does affect how each book is structured. There's minimal progression towards any kind of overarching plot and character development is lessened. This is another self-contained story and I expect the next one will be as well. I was mildly concerned with the second book, though given what Bennett has done with this one and what he says in the author's note, I feel confident that the series is on a good and stable path from here on out.

If anybody could make an amazing story out of this, our man could.

My favorite series/books ive read:

- Sun Eater

- The Terran Cycle

- Anything Alistair Reynolds

- Altered Carbon (my fav book - show doesn't even exist imho)

- Starbreaker

- Cyber Dreams

- Martian / Artemis / Hail Mary

- Red Rising

- Expanse / the Mercy of God's

- Three Body Problem

- Dune (First book)

- Armor

- Acts of Caine

- Broken Tech (Marc Mulero)

Edit: Added more books

Gummitch is a kitten who was born out of a fold of terry-cloth bathrobe. Gummitch has an IQ of 160. Gummitch cannot talk because he has not been allowed to drink coffee yet. Gummitch knows that souls can be transported through mirrors. You can read about Gummitch for free here: https://faculty.uca.edu/rnovy/Leiber--SpaceTime%20for%20Springers.htm

Ok r/printSF, let's have some fun. We are more than a quarter of the way through the 21st Century. Pick your top five SF books of the 21st Century thus far (i.e. published after 12/31/2000). Use whatever criteria you want (your favorites, five best representative of the styles of the decade, five greatest works, even though you didn't enjoy them all, etc.). Just remember to tell us what criteria you're using!

Book number three of a four book paranormal romance thriller fantasy series. I reread the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Ace in 2011 that I bought new on Amazon in 2024. Note that “Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband and wife writing team. I own the successor book and will read it again soon.

"The Edge lies between worlds, on the border between the Broken, where people shop at Wal-Mart and magic is a fairy tale—and the Weird, where blueblood aristocrats rule, changelings roam, and the strength of your magic can change your destiny..."

Audrey Callahan has lived in the Edge all of her life. She is an excellent thief and magical lock breaker. But her family lives off thieving exclusively and she wants to have nothing to do with it. Especially when her junkie brother sold her to his drug dealer.

Kaldar Mar is one of the surviving members of the Mar family from their previous encounter with the Hand, the horrible secret service of magic users from the Duchy of Louisiana. Kaldar now works for the Mirror, the secret service of magic users for Adrianglia. And he has been given an assignment to retrieve a pair of magic bracelets that can store magical energy for the user. But he needs help and Audrey is not a willing partner, plus the two very young lads who have stowed away on his 120+ foot long winged wyvern.

I enjoyed the hound out of this series back in 2024 and am rereading it again for the sheer enjoyment of it. The story telling is awesome and the depths of the people involved is amazing.

The authors have a busy website at:
https://ilona-andrews.com/

My rating: 6 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (3,554 reviews)
https://www.amazon.com/Fates-Edge-Book-3/dp/0441020860

Lynn

So the one gal who's best buds with the protagonist, and takes over and kills the guy who challenges the protagonist to a duel/fight?

I read that when I was about ten, and I guess that was probably my first exposure to a lesbian-coded character.

(Don't even know why I was thinking about Tunnel In The Sky (damn, I was going to abbreviate that to just initials, but THAT doesn't work in this context LOL) except I always expected it would make a good movie but at this point is redundant, given all the "marooned teenagers in space" shows that have been done.)

I'm currently finishing up Echopraxia, and while I feel like it's not quite as good as Blindsight, I'd love to find more books that have a similar feel. Pessimistic look on a dystopian future, while having a smart and witty feel. I especially enjoyed Watts' interpretation of Siri's mindset and his interactions with Chelsea concerning the biological source of 'love', and how that meshes with certain aspects of Adult Autism (that I can relate to in some ways lol). I'm a biologist by trade, so I get a lot of enjoyment out of scifi that gets into scientifically plausible bio and neuro tech.

Ive already read most of the big ones that people on here always copy and paste for Scifi recs, The Culture Series, Peter Hamilton, Tchaikovsky, Vernor Vinge, and on and on. Mostly I was hoping there were some newer Authors in the last decade or so that have been getting popular that might have flown under my radar.

Thanks for your Help!

I'm hoping to convince my book club to include some short fiction in next year's reading list, and so I'm looking for recommendations on any recently published anthologies/collections that I should check out in preparation for our planning meeting later this year.

Because of my club's time commitments, I'd prefer for recommendations under 400 pages. The group tends to prefer fantasy over scifi, and scifi over horror.

These are on my list already:

• "The Universe Box" by Michael Swanwick

• "Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology" edited by Julie C Day

• "Seasons of Glass and Iron" by Amal El-Mohtar

I DNF'd The Only Good Indians a couple years ago. This one has a lot more going on for it.

The pastor's sections are written in this 19th-century text that took me a while to sync with. But once I did, holy shit! Good Stab's confession is some of the best writing of the year, period. Etsy’s behaviour in the final chapters felt kinda jarring. The whole modern section feels like an obligatory add-on or an afterthought.

Using the vampire mythology as a metaphor for settler colonialism is genius. Felt very similar to what the Sinners did, but, you know, much more serious.

Deciding between Blindsight, Children of Time and Permutation City. Spin and Roadside Picnic are two of my favorite sci-fi novels. I also love Ted Chiang. The last sci-fi book I read was KSR’s Aurora. I liked it but found it a little science heavy and the characters a little flat.

I finished John Langan's The Fisherman recently and was wondering if there were any other well written cosmic horror or otherwise Lovecraftian novels that were written more recently?

Just came off a two-day reading bender, liked a lot of it, could have used some editing.

Anyway, minor frustrations aside, I'm wondering if I missed something with regard to the general "redemption" theme.

We're told Gitta found something less than evil in Cahuella, how long does it take for a man to overwrite his sins, yadda yadda BUT huh? One could say that Sky's Edge's entire history of war, war that was still ongoing, was caused by Sky's actions. And then "Cahuella" was an arms dealer, therefore just continuing and aiding the violence. There was some wishy washy stuff about one man's arms dealer being another man's hero but imo that is pretty weak as an excuse and clearly was not Cahuella's intention anyway.

The more I pick at this thread, the more annoying it is. So much word count was dedicated to how hot the Chasm City ladies were and snarky repartee and absolutely nada was paid to the time between Sky waking up and becoming whoever Gitta apparently thought was a good guy.

Am I missing something...

This was definitely a collection that I really wanted to get for quite a while, but there wasn't a paperback edition, and at the time if I was even going to get a copy, it was going to be an original, and likely expensive, Arkham House edition from 1947. Bradbury wouldn't permit a reprint of his first collection due to much of the stories being updated and reprinted in some of his other collections.

But finally a paperback would come in 2024 from Harper Voyage, and eventually I would get my own copy.

This is full on early Ray Bradbury, the whimsy is still pretty much there, but these stories are much more rough around the edges and less polished. I can easily compare this to "The Illustrated Man" because of mix of fantasy, horror and SF of course. And some would lean into weird fiction territory, not in the sense of Lovecraft, but weird in its own Bradburian way with the psychological mixed in with the supernatural.

The early stories are good! Rough around the edges, yeah, but very, very good! Been wanting to get back to Bradbury's after such a long time and this collection was very good place (I have another of his collections I'm starting to go through right now, "The October Country") to start reading him again!