What’s a piece of SF that you just couldn’t get into, even though you feel like you should?
I tried to watch Babylon 5, for instance, and just couldn’t connect to it. I know it’s popular and people love it, but it never hooked me.
Another is The Three Body Problem. I tried reading it after a friend’s glowing recommendation, but I couldn’t get past the first chapter. I even tried reading it in another language in case it was the translation I couldn’t connect with, but the same thing happened.
Both are things I feel like I should like, but just don’t.
Foundation. I read I, Robot and loved it, but I couldn’t get into Foundation.
The original Foundation is a product of its time. It is amazing when read in the context of the 1950s, but tricky today. Try Caves of Steel to further the I Robot read. Asimov built an entire future history spanning 10s of thousands of years.
Thanks! I might actually own a copy of this, although I don’t think I ever started it. I’ve added it to my TBR on goodreads in any case, next time I want to read some scifi I’ll check it out!
Foundation is probably the best harder scifi going right now, just the idea of the clone kings dawn dusk and day is worth it let alone the prime radiant and foundation itself.
Raised by wolves is a good one in a similar style, but it got cancelled before it was able to answer the bigger questions of the world building which is frustrating
Wow I had no idea there was a tv adaptation of it! I was talking about the books haha
ha funny, I’m not a reader so it never even crossed my mind that you weren’t talking about the show. well still, I highly recommend the show!
Glad you mentioned it though, because indeed I might be interested in a tv version that’s easier to get into than the books.
Raised by Wolves was pretty bizarre. I loved the first season, up until the weird flying worm thing, and second season just seemed off-the-rails batshit insane. haha
I was definitely intending to watch season 3, though I didn’t really understand what was going on. I’m not completely surprised it was canceled.
Harder sci-fi? It leans hard on religion and philosophy and royal court intrigue.
I was coming to post Foundation for all those reasons. I wish there were more choices for people who want “hard” sci-fi.
The last decent one I came across was “Braking Day” by Adam Oyebanji.
Does anyone have recs for hard sci-fi that doesn’t lean on “magic”?
there was a conversation on here about Greg Egan the other day.
thats what i call hard scifi.
i used to read that at lot and was glad to be reminded to look it up again.
http://www.gregegan.net/
permutation city, all the short stories, diaspora, i started on quarantine, still think that’s a cool idea, even if it is improbable (thats a joke, it’s not a spoiler until you observe the story).
i think i gave up around teranesia which might’ve started to go over my head.
but reading this group has inspred me to go back and revisit.
damn ive got to start buying Interzone again.
edit >>>> link to actual thread: https://lemmy.world/post/1892921
maybe it was a different group . . .
never really liked any Asimov - bu i did quit quite early on foundation.
i guess im more of a Dick.
If you want to try Asimov again & haven’t tried I, Robot yet, I do recommend that. It’s quite accessible (imo) and a lot of fun.
This is me. And speaking as someone who tends to love his writing otherwise. It took me several tries to get through Foundation and once I finally finished it I was left with zero desire to read any other books in that series.