The focus on cyborgs a year after The Six Million Dollar Man TV show kind if shows how much a product of the times it was. But, that’s the surface.
The way it portrayed both hacking and brain machine interfaces was wildly off base and basically copied from other science fiction. Virtual reality for example goes back to 1933. Main character being a druggy is fairly common in that time period, again not a big deal. As is copping tone from other works etc.
All the big stuff is forgivable, but he also copies little things like replacing liver and kidneys to better filter the blood and thus prevent someone from getting high / poisoned etc. Sounds good, but blood takes around a minute to circulate and most of it does not hit either on the way. It might reduce how long someone stays high or improve their chances when poisoned, but it’s really not enough to prevent it.
Granted I prefer hard sci-fi, but the novel’s focus is really on style over science fiction. It’s IMO somewhere between space opera and fantasy.
>Granted I prefer hard sci-fi, but the novel’s focus is really on style over science fiction. It’s IMO somewhere between space opera and fantasy.
How I looked at Gibson's work changed completely after I read "pattern recognition" when it came out in my early '20s - It was very explicitly about style, and I went back and re-read the older stuff which I read as a child, and yeah, you could also say that neuromancer is about style and fashion. It was interesting just how much reading the later book changed how I thought about the earlier books.
Any recommendations for good hard sci-fi in the last generation or so? I'm asking because your comment strongly suggests I'd like what you like. I'm one of the very few who think that "Science Fiction and Fantasy" as a genre makes about as much sense as "Math Textbooks and Romance Novels".
I promise not to blame anyone for a recommendation that's flawed. They're all flawed. Anything where the story is based on the implications of known (well, currently accepted) science without any bogus magic is as hard as trying to figure out what will really happen in a large software project that hasn't begun yet. But what have you liked despite its flaws?
Regarding “hard” science fiction from the past 25 years, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Stephen Baxter.
I read the first two books (Voyager and Titan) from his NASA trilogy [1]. These books are set in a near future or alternative time-line and cover inter-planetary journeys (Mars and Titan), involving the use NASA technology. Both books seem very well-researched and true-to-life.
Another book I really enjoyed was Coalescent [2]. It’s a blend of historical and science fiction: the historical part tallies with my own understanding of the late Roman Empire in Western Europe while the science part is more speculative – a human society that gradually evolves to become eusocial.
On a very different scale is, Space [3] which explores the Fermi paradox, communication between different sentient species, and the long-term survival prospects for civilisations of sentient species. Unlike the other books which have more straight-forward scientific concepts, I found some of the ideas in this book to be mind-expanding and really pushed my imagination to its limits.
From a story-telling perspective, his books are well-plotted with well-drawn, compelling characters (you really empathise with the protagonists and want to find out what happens next). I learned about a lot of diverse topics, e.g., the theories of Giordano Bruno, history of NASA projects (e.g., NERVA), the tyranny of the rocket equation, explanations of the slingshot effect, the economics of the Roman Empire, eusocial organisation and behaviour, lunar geology, Titanic meteorology, how humans could survive in a micro-gravity environment (and space in general), consequences of gamma-ray bursts, and much more.
Looking at Baxter’s Wikipedia page[3], I can see that I’ve only scratched the surface as he’s written many more books. Unfortunately, over the past decade, I’ve got out of the habit of reading novels but I really should make more of an effort.
Honestly, I have mostly given up on recent science fiction so any recommendations are welcome.
Anyway, it feels like a cop out but The Martian by Andy Weir is worth the read. The most obvious issue is the opening storm would not have done much because the atmosphere is so thin, but it is generally ok on the science side.
Agreed (unfortunately). I gave up on SF decades ago, and The Martian is the only SF book I think I've liked this century. I liked it a lot and occasionally search for others like it. In vain, it seems. I think it is an ill omen that popular culture no longer seems as excited about real science and technology, the exploration and discovery, as was the case way back in the "Space Age".
I enjoy a lot of books from Alastair Reynolds. His fiction is so and so but the science in his book is hardcore. I also liked Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (this one is two volumes).
