I posted this on Reddit a while ago and it sparked some really good discussion and recommendations.
I really like The Expanse - as it doesn’t just discuss the attempted terraforming of Mars and the colonisation of the Main Asteroid Belt but also
spoiler
the way that these communities decline when abundant habitable planets are discovered, where life is much easier.
So yeah, what are your best examples?
It’s perhaps not true/hard sci-fi, but I think Butler’s The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents are, uh, alarmingly prescient, considering she wrote them in the mid-90s and predicted a lot of the societal ills we’re struggling with now (including a fascist politician who promises to ‘make American great again’).
Asimov’s End of Eternity is a great exploration of the practical problems of time travel.
- The amount of bureaucracy and the specialist expertise needed to plan an intervention in the timeline,
- The rules for whether to even intervene,
- The observers monitoring the ‘future’ after the change to report on its success.
“off to be the wizard” takes the universe is a simulation trope and REALLY runs with it. I don’t know if I’d call it good scifi though…
I remember being pretty impressed with “permutation city” for it’s depiction of the consequences of being able to upload consciousness into machines.
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy of course.
Have you take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End_(novel) ? Dr Vinge does “thought bombs” a lot with most of his books where you read something and he has all kinds of implications that jump out with one of his concepts.
Another of his works - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_(novella) about simulations reminded me a lot of Stross’ thought experiments - but from the other side.
But all of them tend to have something - “Reality Graphics” in A Fire Upon the Deep, the localizer net and the Focused in A Deepness, Rainbows End above considers why you might have an underground market in Bootleg processors… Interesting stuff to ponder.
I’ve read a deepness in the sky, I really liked it. I didn’t realise it was the second book!
The two books are slightly aligned, but yeah they could be read in any order without a problem. But both are very worth a read.
Firstly I’d like to mention The Lost Fleet series by John G Hemry. It’s military sci-fi, as a part of the plot it discusses two forms of FTL travel, jump drives allowing you to FTL between adjoining stars, and the later invention of hypernet gates allowing direct travel from one star to another. It talks extensively about how certain star systems fared after hypernet gates made it unnecessary to travel through them to reach higher value systems.
Some star systems were only inhabited as a means of supporting various cargo haulers, transporters, and warships that must pass through those stars. As pass-through travel waned we saw declining economies, civilians abandoned as extraction costs would have affected profit margins, increased societal unrest and rebellion as a result of being cut off from the central authority, and various other legal and illegal activities.
It illustrated how truly huge space is, and how difficult communication, transportation, and protection could be out among the stars.
I’d also like to provide an honorable mention to Malazan - Book of the Fallen, even though it’s high fantasy.
This is because it not only goes in to significant detail regarding the magic system used, but also talks several times about the societal stagnation that comes about as a result of reliance on magic, and the reduced need to invent, discover, and innovate. The lack of science, and the implications of that, being the point here.
Sounds a lot like a parallel to the decline of smaller downs in the western US along Route 66 when the interstate highway system bypassed them in the name of faster travel. Very cool to see that concept out in space.
Lost Fleet sounds right up my alley. Thanks!
I’m a lost fleet fan too, but I think it’s good to add that calling the characters cardboard might be overselling the character development :P That being said, the books are full of space battles and action, and I finished out the series in one go.