As an example, I love the Martian, and I think a lot of older books from authors like Asimov are heavily into engineering / competence porn. Other favs in this category include the standalone novel Rendezvous with Rama to leave you wishing for more, most of the Culture series for happy utopian vibes, Schlock Mercenary for humor, Dahak series for fun mindless popcorn.
Edit: I’m so happy to have found a replacement for r/books and the rest of them.
If you end up searching online for that kind of things, “hard science fiction” is the phrase that’s usually used for it.
A lot of good recommendations here. Some endorsements and other recommendations:
On the flip side, I really didn’t care for Three Body Problem, and though the Bobiverse books seem fun, I’m not sure I’d call them firmly hard SF.
Thanks! There a few that I hadn’t heard about!
Oh, certainly. In case it’s helpful, here’s a post I made last spring with notes from a year of reading - it’s pretty much all SF and fantasy. Many of the books mentioned in this thread are there. I’ve been reading about the same amount since, and will probably do another post on the anniversary of that one.
The Three Body Problem is bad. The hype for the book is a good example of “The Emporer’s New Clothes”.
It’s a little bit of a slog. There are a lot of cultural references, plot devices, characters, and ways of moving through the story that are literally foreign to the western mind. Odd injections of what feels like philosophy. At least the version I read. Once you get used to it it gets better.
I have finished the series and absolutely loved it.
Could you please explain why you consider it bad?
I loved it for the game theory, ideas, and what-if aspects. The characters however, were flat 2D cutouts. I can’t say how much of that was due to translation issues, if any.
I found the third book very weak, albiet with some interesting ideas.
Also, made it clear that he can’t write women at all.
I found them overall fine to good, except the main character’s chapters in the final 2/3rd of Book 3 which were just kinda bleh by the end.
Book 1 was strong idea explored well.
Book 2 felt good at the time, but I think feels weaker in hindsight but was some more interesting ideas.
I was surprised at how little I liked it given the hype.
I did enjoy the parts about the Cultural Revolution and some of the dialog from Da Shi. That’s about it.
I haven’t read Beggars in Spain or Saturn’s Children yet, will take a look!
I’d love to hear what you think, I enjoyed both quite a lot.