**I'm familiar with Who Goes There?/The Thing(s).** Are there any other good examples of science fiction that are set in Antarctica or have some sort of connection to Antarctica? I'm especially interested in examples that are *not* scifi horror, but I'll never turn my nose up at a good horror novel. Alien or space travel elements are a plus. Prefer a futuristic setting. Thanks!
This might be a challenging request, but. I'm very into sci-fi, but I'm not big on aliens, I like the technical and exploration aspects of it way more and I feel like aliens are truly hard to write well. That said, I'd really love to read something that is set(mostly or partially will do too) on a megastructure and doesn't feature alien life heavily. If anyone can suggest me a book like that I'd be very grateful
Hello, posting in here because this has quickly become one of my fav genres. I like to think of it as reverse escapism, the dark futures help take my mind off of our own dark present/future. I’ve read 1984, handmaids tale, I have no mouth and I must scream, man after man, all tomorrows, neuromancer, do androids dream of electric sheep?, the metamorphosis of prime intellect, and maybe a couple more I don’t remember off the top.
With all media, but books especially I need high stakes in order to stay invested, so the darker the better. I especially liked “all tomorrows” and “the metamorphosis of prime intellect”. Thanks in advance y’all I look forward to the recs.
Can someone recommend me a book with a storyline similar to horizon zero dawn? Loved the video games!
I really loved Project Hail Mary and The Martian, and I'm currently reading seveneves and Rendevous with Rama on paper. Are there any good sci-fi books on audible that are good books and that have a good voice to them like PHM and The Martian did?
Thanks!
Several years ago, I read a novel in which a central plot point was the use of a machine that shredded books as it scanned them. The machine was eating its way through a large library.
That’s a bit vague, I know, but is that familiar to anyone here?
Hi All. I’m looking for a book I read years ago. I can remember the below details if anyone remembers? Definitely more than 1 book.
Genre & Format: Dystopian / Sci-Fi book series (a completed series or duology, not fantasy).
The Protagonist’s Illness: She contracts cancer/terminal illness due to the environment (or something she drank/ingested) and keeps it a secret.
The Stasis / Healing Tank: Near the end of Book 1 or early Book 2, the male lead discovers her illness and places her in an advanced stasis pod/healing tank to cure her.
Time Jump & Dead Friends: She stays in the tank for a long time (years). When she wakes up, her original friends are dead, but they left behind letters or video messages for her to watch/read.
The "Legendary" Status: Upon waking from stasis, she discovers she has become a famous, almost legendary figure because of her actions in the previous book.
The Love Interest / Villain:
He is a morally gray, villainous/anti-hero figure who uses advanced longevity technology to live a very long time.
Their dynamic includes seduction; in Book 1, she may have been sent on a missions to kill him, investigate why he lived so long, or end up married/bound to him.
When she first wakes up from stasis, she doesn't know he is still alive.
So I wanted to recommend a book series I recently finished: The Final Architecture.
Or: How to write a 40k story so that Mass effect fans would enjoy it.
It is a space opera series of three books playing in a universe with aliens, ftl travel and space monsters.
Worldbuilding:(5/5)
The worldbuilding is one of the strong points. We have alien aliens, interesting worlds, a sensible build of human civilization and diaspora after earth destruction, an interesting method of ftl, etc. For 40k fans, many things will seem like easter eggs: The sister of battle faction, the Tau faction, unspace as warp but only with one demon. Still it is toned way down in most aspects, so if you dont like the over the top approach of 40k it still is for you.
Story:(4/5)
The story is interesting and solid. No absolute suprising plot twists, but its also not totally predictable. Despite the multiple view points its easy to follow the red line through. Also some genuine suprises are hidden and the scenes with action are written quite well.
Cast:(4/5)
So while the book has multiple view points 90% are the crew of the main ship, which somewhat limits the view we have. Only in the last book the author uses more viewpoints too. Still the cast behaves reasonable besides idris (who in fairness is mentally unstable, never sleeps, is old af and is the survivor of a mind breaking operation, so that checks out.) To be fair there have been many points while reading, where i wanted to scream at idris to get his shit together, but i think that is what the author intended
Scifi/Fantasy scale: So on the balance of scifi to fantasy, this one clearly sits on the scifi side with 90/10 at least. Some stuff about unspace and Intermediaries goes into the psychic fantasy range but on general in contrast to 40k this stays clear of any magic shenaningans. Technically the Tothiat also go into fantasy, but thats a minor thingy.
Politics: Many politics but no judgment. I think the most political message you could read out is: "Feudal lords are bad" which seems pretty tame. Beyond that multiple different political systems are introduced with pros and cons, so if you like an unpolitical book with politicians another point here.
Stakes:(5/5)
The stakes are clear through the whole series. The architects are a world destroying threat that constantly haunts every action, while the crew and people have real things happening to them, people get hurt and die, but not all the time. So you fear for characters but also dont get the feeling that everyone is going to die
All in all i would totally recommend this if you are into big space opera
Imagine a human exploration crew has landed on an alien planet to extract a rare and extremely valuable mineral.
The landing site is stable, and autonomous mining vehicles are operating several kilometers away from the spacecraft.
Then a remote sensor detects a rapidly approaching storm.
This isn't an ordinary dust storm.
The atmosphere is carrying large amounts of metallic dust, rock fragments and surface debris. Some of the larger fragments could cause serious damage to exposed equipment.
The storm is still several kilometers away, but atmospheric conditions are changing rapidly. Your crew has limited time to react.
You have:
What should the human crew do first?
Do you:
A) immediately abort mining and recall every vehicle?
B) prioritize getting the crew and spacecraft airborne?
C) try to recover the mining equipment and material before leaving?
D) seek shelter and wait for the storm to pass?
E) do something completely different?
I'm particularly interested in the decision-making hierarchy. When the crew doesn't fully understand an alien environment, how should they balance human safety, spacecraft survival, equipment recovery and the mission objective?
Imagine an interstellar spacecraft entering a dense molecular cloud.
Within minutes, the stars disappear. Optical navigation loses its reference points, cameras become useless, and even infrared observations are severely attenuated.
The spacecraft still needs to maintain its trajectory and detect potential collision hazards.
One possible approach would be to combine gravitational measurements with radar-based reconstruction of the surrounding volume. But there is another problem: the dust itself can distort or scatter radar returns, making the reconstructed objects uncertain or even misleading.
So I'm curious:
If you were designing the navigation system for such a spacecraft, what combination of sensors and techniques would you use?
Would you rely on gravitational mapping, radar, inertial navigation, pre-existing stellar coordinates, or several independent systems working together?
And how would you handle situations where the sensor data itself cannot be trusted completely?
People 100 years from now might look back at us and wonder why we pumped patients full of chemicals and used radiation to treat disease, why we sat in traffic for hours every week, why we read books page by page, and why we relied on fossil fuels to power our civilisation.
They may find it equally strange that we spent years learning things from teachers standing in front of us, or that we accepted ageing and many forms of disease as unavoidable facts of life.
What do we do today that will seem completely bizarre to people in 2126?
My debut hard-science-fiction thriller was released 2 weeks ago today. It is titled The Toll of the Forgotten. This novel took me over two years to write, as I tried to verify the science and math as I wrote.
Novel Description:
The Janus and its crew are slowly dying in the dark, and no one will be sending help. Captain John Nesbitt and his Chief Engineer, Colt Blaire, are forced to rely on their ingenuity to keep themselves and their ship alive. Their only chance at salvation is a desperate, against-all-odds flight to an abandoned Martian colony. But surviving the isolation of space and failing life support is only the beginning.
The red planet harbors a chilling mystery. Beneath the dust of a terraformed future, a shadowy conspiracy from the past stirs—one that defies the limits of human science and forces John and Colt to confront a lethal past long thought permanently buried.
Closer to home, a fragile peace is shattering. Captain Luisa Deveraux commands the Space Force flagship Missouri on a mission that will test her to her absolute limits as a leader. Burdened by the crushing weight of command, Luisa must navigate a maze of political treachery and questionable orders to avert a catastrophic threat. With hidden saboteurs threatening her crew from within, she is forced into impossible choices, with millions of lives hanging in the balance. One hesitation could mean the end of everything she has sworn to protect.
Two desperate fights for survival. One unforgiving universe.
Mine was Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. I was far too young to catch the philosophy, but the idea that history *patterns* and civilizations rise and fall by predictable rules? That stuck with me.
It pulled me into the rabbit hole of Asimov, and over the next few years I would devour any book of his I could get my hands on.
Then came, Jules Verne, Heinlein, Clarke, and finally Herbert.
What about you?
Mine is Costigan's Needle by Jerry Sohl.
>Naked and afraid, an entire community is drawn through a needle's eye into a wasteland of the far future! A strange new world awaits the terrified survivors of a spectacular crash through time. The citizens of an entire square block of a great city are uprooted from the only life they've ever know and cast into a timeless, wild landscape. Only the fittest are likely to survive unless out of their terror they can build an orderly new civilization.
A really fun sci-fi mystery that somehow managed to hit almost every one of my interests — space travel, first contact, alien intelligence, the deep ocean, decoding messages, mysterious technology, and consciousness.
The setup immediately hooked me, and I loved the feeling of slowly uncovering what exactly was going on. The deep-sea setting added a fantastic layer of isolation and claustrophobia to the story.
There were definitely moments where I thought, “Okay, where the hell is this going?” 😂 And while I enjoyed the ideas and mystery throughout, the book didn’t quite reach the level of my favourite sci-fi reads.
Still, a very enjoyable and atmospheric sci-fi thriller with some fascinating concepts.
4/5 ⭐
Good read. Great concepts. Kept me hooked.
Summer is always when I end up looking for new inspiration, and this year I’ve gone back to a mix of engineering, innovation and sci‑fi that really makes you think about technology in our everyday lives.
I’ve put together a small list of books that I’d recommend to any engineer or tech‑curious person:
I’d love to grow this list, so: what would you add? Any engineering, tech or sci‑fi books that genuinely changed how you see your work or technology?