6.9 KiB
[D] suggestions for sci-fi set in deeply posthuman settings?
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Author: u/Prezombie *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5w0ou6/d_suggestions_for_scifi_set_in_deeply_posthuman/
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Score: 22
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Created: 2017-02-24T22:47:13
Post:
Ever since I finished all of the books in the culture series, is been a struggle to find sci-fi that actually lets the fictional society take advantage of the possible effects of deep time upon a Sapient species.
Charles Stross has written a handful of great sci-fi in the deep posthuman era, Glasshouse is one of my favorite books of all time.
The golden age trilogy by John Wright had a great setting and setup, but the actual plot was kind of off-putting. Nice enough to read once, but nothing amazing.
I absolutely adore Greg Egan's more classical sci-fi, Incandescence, Diaspora, and the several short stories set in that rare example of a galactic civilization without FTL. I'm enjoying his rather original newer books set in universes with thoroughly thought out alterations of our normal physics, but I just find The Amalgam so much more relatable.
So yeah, got any suggestions to share?
Comments:
u/Law_Student [+14] (3 hours later)
If you're up for a suggestion of something a little different and not entirely serious I recommend A Miracle of Science. It's a free and completed web comic about the interactions between a member of a fairly traditional sci fi human society from Earth and a member of a post-human society from Mars.
http://project-apollo.net/mos/
One part of the premise is silly and much of it lighthearted, but in a self-aware way that doesn't take away from the more seriously examined topics. It's worth a look.
u/HeckDang [+12] (14 hours later)
If you don't mind fanfiction, To The Stars has pretty great posthuman world building.
u/rumblestiltsken [+2] (a day later)
Seconded
u/VanPeer [+10] The shard made me do it (2 hours later)
Accelerando is my all time favorite
u/mg115ca [+3] (4 days later)
Also its not-really-a-sequel-but-kind-of-a-little-bit Glasshouse
u/artifex0 [+8] (8 hours later)
The tabletop RPG Eclipse Phase is very much in that genre. It's set after a hard singularity has left the Earth covered in self-replicating war machines, forcing trans-humanity to flee to space stations and colonies, mostly as uploaded minds. You can play as a huge variety of post-humans- from a swarm of robots, to an uplifted crow, to a being adapted for living in the sun's corona- and a central part of the setting is that everyone's mind is being backed up digitally, leaving most people almost immortal and able to change forms at will.
u/trekie140 [+5] (17 hours later)
If you're more interested in hearing a story than playing through one yourself, I recommend Role Playing Public Radio's Know Evil Campaign (available for purchase as a campaign book). It's pretty damn long at 27 episodes averaging 3 hours in length, but if you have the time you will be rewarded with a excellent conspiracy cosmic horror epic. It's a lengthy adventure across the inner solar system that shows just how much story can be made with even a small piece of this detailed setting.
There's so much stuff that happens it's hard to describe everything, but I think it most resembles Ghost in the Shell meets The Expanse with Lovecraftian horrors. The Game Master is one of the most intelligent and imaginatively demented creators I've ever seen and continuously pulls off creative and interesting sci-fi ideas without losing sight of the larger conspiracy. It's one of the few overly convoluted stories I've seen that all makes perfect sense in the end, even with subplots.
The only problem I have with it is the slow start when everyone is still figuring out their characters, but once they do the characters become fantastic. The cast features a talking octopus with his own radio show butting heads with corporate overlords, a sociopathic psychic who's trying to be ethical despite being raised in a simulated hell, a naively optimistic robot who keeps dying or being driven insane and having to be restored from a backup, and that's just half the main cast. There's also a ton of memorable villains and side characters.
u/embrodski [+7] (3 hours later)
Yup, Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi. He's got a whole trilogy if you like that one.
u/vash3r [+5] (3 hours later)
Seconding this, I loved the trilogy. The first book is The Quantum Thief
u/narfanator [+7] (12 hours later)
Gonna brag for a sec here, but Hannu is actually a friend of mine (not strongly - we exchange emails every so often, and grab meals when we're in the same city).
If you haven't tried to look up what he's up to other than writing, you should - it's pretty amazing, although I never remember a solid understanding. He's working with programmable DNA (not DNA computers) and is active at Singularity University.
We've batted about various ideas before (I pointed out once the transhumanist trope that the "first past the post" elders - like those in FP - end up as gods, and yet kids always do better with tech than the prior generation), but we haven't discussed if he's writing anything new.
u/GlueBoy [+4] anti-skub (3 hours later)
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds.
You should check out /r/printSF if you haven't already. That place is great for recs.
u/None [+3] (13 hours later)
[deleted]
u/embrodski [+2] (19 hours later)
The language of the book will rape your brain
Can you expand on this? I can't figure out what sort of predictions to make based on that sentence.
u/None [+5] (20 hours later)
[deleted]
u/embrodski [+3] (a day later)
oh dear god...
Tempted, in part just to say I did it...
u/ABZB [+3] Count of Real Numbers (a day later)
Peter F. Hamilton's novels: Night's Dawn Trilogy (rather squicky at times) These two are one extended story: Commonwealth Saga Void Trilogy
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+1] Father of Learning (4 days later)
I seriously enjoy The Polity series by Neal Asher. It's got a great ideas on human augmentation and, particularly in the book Polity Agent, the blurring lines between obsolete human, human augment, and AI.
Not to mention their military strategy is hilariously awesome.
u/Xeton9797 [+1] (26 days later)
Blindsight by Peter Watts. Prepare your self it is incredibly depressing, but one of the best books I have ever read.