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.
I recently found the Bobiverse to be a light-hearted read in this category.
Engineer becomes von Neumann probe and has to solve quite a lot of interesting issues while bootstrapping and dealing with settling in the galactic neighbourhood
Kim Stanley-Robinson
His Mars trilogy and Science in the Capital are amazing.
He is my favorite hard science fiction writer for the blend of tech, politics, critiques of capitalism, and drama. His novels after those trilogies are good but some people find them fairly long winded and boring in parts… actually I do too, ah well.The Expanse is a great at engineering read. Doubly so for a space opera. Lots of very legit science in the science fiction there.
I’m sure you’ve read or heard this before, but project hail mary is great. The whole bobiverse series was incredibly satisfying to read and the 5th book is out recently in the form of an audio book. Low pressure, low commitment series thats just full of engineering porn.
Yeah, I loved pretty much all of Andy Weir. I should get back to the Bobiverse. I tried it once and couldn’t get into it for some reason. I don’t recall the exact details now, and maybe I was misunderstanding something, but there was some stuff about his drones destroying entire solar systems for raw minerals, that just seemed plain nonsensical to me? I guess with all the good things people are saying about it I should go back and figure out what rubbed me wrong the first time.
I’m stuck on Bobiverse too. This whole section on the Archimedes alien did me in.
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:
- Project Hail Mary by Weir is a no brainer choice if you liked The Marian. He gets the science right.
- Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky is amazing, and the first of a trilogy, so more to read.
- The whole Expanse series, by James Corey is good and he does a good job with the science, especially the celestial mechanics.
- The Uplift series (starting with Sundiver) by David Brin is great, and Brin is will known for hard SF. It’s from the 80s.
- Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie, is great and the first of a series as well.
- Beggars in Spain, by Nancy Kress, is great, with a good science background, though it’s more genetics than engineering. Really cool story though.
- I also agree with the recommendation on Saturn’s Children, by Charles Stross. Also the first of a loose series.
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.
The Three Body Problem is bad. The hype for the book is a good example of “The Emporer’s New Clothes”.
I have finished the series and absolutely loved it.
Could you please explain why you consider it bad?
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.
Most western sci-fi authors are shit at writing women. So I didn’t hold it against him. But sure, I can see how some people didn’t take to it.
To me, it was a beautiful series with loads of interesting and horrible twists and turns. The ending is sublime, to me.
Most sci-fi authors who can’t write women don’t make them the symbolism laden protagonist of their trilogy’s conclusion.
Not sure if I should give him points for effort there or not.
Despite my complaints, I do think it worth a read.
