SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Looking for hard sci-fi/space-opera/aliens books written in last five years. No fantasy or element of magic, only sci-fi.

Thanks

Any of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s SF, especially Children of Time.

Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir.

Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress

Diane beat me to advocating for Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I'd also add Dennis E. Taylor's Bobiverse books starting with We Are Legion (We Are Bob), Alastair Reynolds, Becky Chambers

Edges and Silver by Linda Nagata have excellent hard science! Recommend you start with the older The Bohr Maker, though, if you haven't read it, since that's where the story started.

Leviathan Wakes is older than 5 years, but the newer books in the series aren't, so I guess they count.

The Original is great!

The Calculating Stars and its sequels: real-life astronauts beta-read the series and checked all the science.

Seveneves is very hard SF.

Moon Rising and its sequels probably qualify, as well.

DivaDiane wrote: "Any of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s SF, especially Children of Time.

Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir.

Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress"

I won't say Tchaikovsky's works as hard sci-fi, including Children of Time (already read). They are more of SFF or speculative fiction and I can't tolerate too much deviation from science.

Project Hail Mary is definitely good and I've already enjoyed it.

Yesterday’s Kin is yet to read, but the ratings are miserable. Need to confirm if it's hard sci-fi.

Paul wrote: "Diane beat me to advocating for Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I'd also add Dennis E. Taylor's Bobiverse books starting with..."

To Be Taught, If Fortunate was definitely hard sci-fi and already enjoyed it.

Need to confirm if Bobiverse is hard sci-fi.

Bobiverse is hard SF / space opera, can confirm. :-)

Eva wrote: "Edges and Silver by Linda Nagata have excellent hard science! Recommend you start with the older The Bohr Maker, though, if you haven..."

Will definitely try Edges and Seveneves among others.

Eva wrote: "Bobiverse is hard SF / space opera, can confirm. :-)"

Thanks. Then I'll surely try it.

Books by Alastair Reynolds and
Peter F. Hamilton are good bets.

Reynolds has a new revelation space book coming out this year and Hamilton is finishing a trilogy starting with Salvation

Just a warning that while Reynolds and Hamilton definitely SF, they don't fit into most hard SF definitions because they definitely use a lot of sciency stuff that has been scientifically proven to be impossible (and is therefore pure fantasy) or straight-up fantastical elements, such as people's spirits coming back from the realm of the dead, mystical abilities one is born with, etc. They're very awesome writers, and their books contain a lot of geeky science, but if someone is looking for 100% hard SF without any fantastical elements, they're not the perfect match.

I guess C.J. Cherryh is out since most of her works are older? Although her Foreigner series is still ongoing.

Eva wrote: "Just a warning that while Reynolds and Hamilton definitely SF, they don't fit into most hard SF definitions because they definitely use a lot of sciency stuff that has been scientifically proven to..."

Very well said. I'd also like to add a few points to the discussion.

Even if some authors write hard sci-fi, not every work of their's is necessarily hard sci-fi. So, it's always recommended to suggest specific book instead of authors.

A book is hard sci-fi only when the author goes into extra trouble to make the content scientifically correct and also try to explain a few critical things in terms of real science instead of leaving to the readers to speculate. The story thus gets limited to only scientific truth, which makes it especially beautiful to true sci-fi geeks.

Which of Reynolds books aren’t hard sci-fi? Especially the early ones?

Another try for hard sci-fi would be Richard K Morgan.

I love me some Peter Hamilton but I agree some of his inventions are a bit fantastical.

No, his early ones are the most hard SF, but even those include FTL travel. He's loosened the rules a little with later books because it allows much more freedom with story-telling.

By the way, pretty much all the "hard SF" published during the "golden age" and later would fail this test if published right now, as well: Martians, FTL, and all kinds of technology we now know isn't possible, etc.

Even The Martian isn't strictly speaking hard SF: since Mars's atmosphere is so thin, high wind speeds wouldn't actually affect humans/buildings/shuttles at all, so that the entire premise that strands him alone on Mars isn't feasible.

But if one gets too strict, pretty much nothing counts anymore, and I prefer it when authors bend some rules to tell exciting stories.

No, we are not going back to 90's or 00's to find hard sci-fi books in this discussion. Of course, if you increase the domain size, the sample volume will increase. But let's try to concentrate only on newer works here.

So, if anyone can suggest any hard sci-fi books by Reynolds or Hamilton or any other author from last 5 years, it's most welcome.

I was one of those who originally gave you some recent hard SF suggestions further up, so I was just remarking on my own preferences later, and explaining why almost nothing usually called hard SF actually still counts.

Eva wrote: "I was one of those who originally gave you some recent hard SF suggestions further up, so I was just remarking on my own preferences later, and explaining why almost nothing usually called hard SF ..."

Yes, of course.

And I believe that there are pretty good number of hard sci-fi in recent times too, as there are more number of sci-fi books being published than anytime in the past. Also, one can't actually know what's within a book unless one has read it. So, I'm asking others to suggest actual book names instead of suggesting authors.