He's a name that is synonymous with the genre and one you must surely have heard of if you've spent two minutes venturing deeper into SciFi. However, I'm often hard pressed to find others, especially those under the age of 50, who has ever read Sturgeon.

I randomly picked up More Than Human from my Giza-esque TBR pile and it was fantastic. The thing that stuck out most was how fantastic the prose was; it almost has a poetic quality to it, but he never seems pretentious, purple or up himself. Overall, it was a fantastic work of fiction, one that I believe may have influenced the creation of the X-men (along with Kuttner and Moore's Mutant fixup).

Now, since reading More Than Human, I often come across Sturgeon in short story compilations. And whatever book he's featured in, whoever else is involved, whether it's Van Vogt, Harrison, Simak, Niven, Aldiss, Dick, you name it, Sturgeon is always the best. Every single time. The thing I notice most about his work is how immersive he is. I find that within the first two sentences -- boom! -- I'm there in his world. Transported away within a few words. It's just amazing to me how he's so good, and what's more, it doesn't even seem like he's trying. He just writes like that. He's just that fucking good.

If you want to be an SF author, you need to study this guy. He is on another level, technically.

The Honorverse is a series of 14 novels written by David Weber, (along with a bunch of spinoffs) following the adventures of Honor Harrington, a naval officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy (Napoleonic era Royal Navy in space). Throughout the books, she rises through the ranks as Manticore fights a war of survival with the People's Republic of Haven (space Revolutionary France/Soviet Union). The series was inspired by the Horatio Hornblower novels. I absolutely loved these books as a teenager, and I've reread them a couple times as an adult with a more critical eye. I still enjoy them but I thought I'd share my thoughts on the series as a whole, both the positives and the negatives. Spoilers throughout.

The Good:

• Weber writes absolutely thrilling space naval combat scenes. I haven't read too many other military sci-fi books that are as gripping as the way he depicts the bridge of a starship under fire. He does a great job of keeping the action coherent and giving you a sense of what's happening throughout a battle.
• The tech is definitely on the softer side of sci-fi, but there's a very fun, consistent internal logic to the way the weapons and the different types of vessels interact. The tech evolves throughout the series over the course of a war lasting for 15ish years, along with the tactics that the different forces employ.
• It's fair to say that Honor is a bit of a Mary Sue, for lack of a better term. But Weber does a good job of consistently making her feel like the underdog.
• I think most of the antagonists are quite enjoyable POV's. Some of them are a bit more sympathetic, and the ones who are more on the mustache-twirling evil side of things, like Pavel Young, are usually guys you love to hate.

The Bad:

• The bloat starts to creep in at book 9, Ashes of Victory. It gets bad in book 10, lightens up in book 11, At All Costs, and then proceeds to completely take over from there. Huge chunks of the last 5 books (especially the last 3) won't make sense if you haven't read the spinoff novels, and SO MUCH of the plot consists of meetings and boring espionage stuff. It's not like Weber wasn't able to write entertaining stuff in the series that didn't revolve around combat, the earlier books have a lot of political maneuvering and palace intrigue, but for whatever reason he lost his touch. My recommendation is to treat At All Costs, which ends with a pretty satisfying conclusion, as the end of the series, and not bother with the later books- the drop off in entertainment value is that bad.
• Starting with book 10, War Of Honor, there's an extremely sweaty plot twist/retcon- it turns out that huge chunks of the events of the series so far were actually the result of a century-long conspiracy orchestrated by a planet of genetically modified fascists who think they deserve to rule the galaxy. It's dumb, it undermines the previous books, and by book 12 it's the central focus of the plot.

YMMV:

• Weber has some weird mix of conservative/libertarian/monarchist politics that you will encounter throughout the series. I will give him credit for one thing, he doesn't seem like a "women belong at home" type.
• Honor has two romances in the series. I think the first one is pretty touching, if cheesy, and sets up her arc in books 4-8. The second one is incredibly boring and takes up way too much time for something that unsatisfying.
• Lots of long infodumps throughout.

Overall, I'd still recommend the series if you're looking for naval-focused milSF. The space combat is that good, the different naval forces feel authentic and fully realized, and I think Honor is a pretty fun main character to follow. Just don't feel like you need to keep reading after At All Costs.

https://www.ursulakleguin.com/prize26

I was just thinking about how I probably don't read enough Australian books. NZ is close enough!

I tried asking after this a couple of years ago [I do not use Grok any more]. I am still a bit haunted by the memory of the story - does it ring a bell with anyone else?

I of course mean:

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, pub. 1962.

A Night In the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, pub. 1993

Something Wicked This Way Comes, is a short novel which follows the supernatural events surrounding a strange carnival that visits Bradbury's small fictional Green Town late in October (October 24th) and two teenagers, a father and various townspeople. This could be described as a cross between a teenage coming of age crossed with horror/dark fantasy. But each description would do it a disservice and incorrectly offputting if you dislike either genre.

It's partly about individual temptation, empty desires, regret, and redemption. Written with Brabury's characteristic clarity and simplicity, it's one of his few "complete" novels.

I first read this book when I was teenager in the 80s and never lost my love of it. There is a little seen (flop) but very good Disney adaptation with Bradbury as scriptwriter of it from 1983 with Jason Robards & Jonathan Pryce.

A Night In The Lonesome October is an even shorter novel, you could read it in a single sitting. A daily dairy of October, it follows a cast of well-known gothic characters (The Players) from fiction over the month of October, leading to a final apocalyptic confrontation between The Openers and The Closers at Halloween. The diarist is a dog named Snuff, the familiar of Jack, who has the intelligence of a human, but not the characteristics. Yes. There are also many other familiars, who are centre stage, with their human companions slightly to the side.

This book is explicitly inspired by Lovecraft, Stoker, Shelly, Poe, Doyle, Bloch and even if you are only familiar with classic Universal Horror movies, you will recognise most of the characters.

It's less a thematic book than Something Wicked, but it is enormous fun. It is a loveletter to the above authors and genres, without being parody or pastiche. I reread this every few years because I enjoy it so much. It was Nebula nominated in 1994, along with Octavia Butler, Greg Bear, James Morrow & KSR!

I absolutely love these books, and would love if this post introduces them either of them to new readers.

Has anyone written a novel or short story that explores how an alien species might cycle between unintelligence and intelligence over a long lifecycle, and most of the time is spent as unintelligent with intelligent technological phase lasting relatively short amount of time?

I just finished this series and found it to be quite enjoyable.

The first book - "Ensign Year 1" - starts with a guy who really wants to join the space fleet and then...

Well, I can't say anything more without spoiling it, but I can say that the books are more about characters than giant space battles.

I'm not that familiar with cli-fi (except the obvious ones) but I'm curious whether AllDive covers the genre well (including cli-fi board games and video games, if they exist?)

Some of the early- and mid- 20th century authors used a trope where humans would settle on a new planet and would then begin to physically adapt to that planet - usually sort of semi-mystically "because the air was different, because the light was different, because the chemicals were different, because the vibes of the planet were different" - and after a few generations the settlers would be a new and different "race" of people native to that planet.

(In Andre Norton you can sometimes even see the changes beginning in the first generation born on the new planet.)

- Andre Norton used this a lot.

- Jack Vance used this a lot.

- IIRC some of the pulp authors used this.

Any other authors or works?

Children of Time puts you inside a spider's sensory world for whole chapters. Embassytown does the opposite. Avice narrates all of it, first person, and she cannot speak Language, so the Hosts reach us through her description and her guesses. The book's central invention is described by someone standing outside it. You would expect that to be a limitation, but instead it reinforces the alien-ness. The Ariekei stay opaque because we only ever get to hear a person's impression of them, and every explanation is an approximation. It also means Mieville skips the contemporary trend of showing the alien mind from inside. Does that refusal explain why these aliens have aged better than more explicitly rendered ones? I can't think of another book that gets more alien by staying outside. Are there others?

I read a book in the early 2000s and I think the title was some sort of mishmash between “sing the body electric“ and “through a scanner darkly”. I remember that when you begin reading it it’s hard to place a time or country then you begin to realise it’s set in the future but where some people have started communities that are refusing new technology and have an almost Amish and religious existence without electricity. In the rest of this future earth, there are a lot of machine/human integrations and one is a way to compose and play music by wearing an ear/head attachment.

in my head it was set in a European city like perhaps Venice or maybe Amsterdam? I was thinking of it in reference to Luddites and AI refusal. I’ve asked the person who lent me the book years ago but he can’t remember it. I sort of vaguely think there might be a reference to a snail in the title as well?

I need to get hold of what it was for some art research!

thanks in advance to any super sleuth who can figure this out!!

Crossposting my request for good rebellion/resistance recommendations. Some great suggestions already, but just wanted to cast a wide net. Thanks for any suggestions!

If this is not the place for this let me know, its my first time posting about anything book related.

Okay.....i have scowered the internet trying to find a book i read somewhere 2016-2018.
Space opera
What i can remember main plot point wise though.

Two ace fighter pilots from opposing human nations.
One believes the other died during the war.
They later end up on a small ship together while investigating an ancient machine swarm that consumes planets and uses the resources to create more of itself.
One pilot begins hearing signals from the swarm and the crew follows those signals through dangerous wormhole travel.
Near the end of the book it is revealed that the pilot hearing the signals is actually an uploaded consciousness in a synthetic body and can mentally connect to the machine swarm.
He initially wants to shut himself down after learning the truth but the main pilot charcter wont let him until they deal with the swarm.

any hints or ideas?

I just finished The Three Body Problem and I’m mystified how it won the Hugo. It’s not even close to the quality of other winners like Dune and Hyperion.

I knew the characterization would be weak going into it, but the ideas “explored” didn’t make up for it at all. I thought the author would try to explain stuff like the complexity of the three body problem, nanomaterials, computing, etc so laypeople could understand them better, but he didn’t really try. Just seemed like he threw in half baked concepts he thought sounded cool.

It also felt like it was written without an editor. The main character’s wife and child show up for a few pages and then never again. The 3body gameplay was boring and a clunky way to give background about Trisolaris. There was a long backstory about how a math prodigy figured out solutions to the three body problem and it didn’t seem to have any affect on the rest of the book. None of the storylines felt like they had any stakes and the pacing was terrible.

I could keep going, but I’m just disappointed. I was excited about reading translated sci-fi. I wanted to like it and I gave it a chance. If it hadn’t won an award, at best it’s a mildly entertaining book and I can somewhat understand its popularity. But Hugo winners should be held to a higher standard and it is bad in comparison. I’m tempted to read some of the runners up that year to see if any are better, but I won’t be reading the rest of the trilogy.

The prose are excellent and the book dives into the type of themes that are my bread and butter but I can only form a surface level connection to the book due to how terrible of a person David Selig is. He is immature, bigoted, insecure and a overall man-child. I want to know how other people feel/have engaged with this character? I can usually tell when a author is writing a despicable character but is not sympathetic to them. Did Silverberg mean for David to be a morally toxic person or was this a self insert?

Book number one of a ten book young adult science fiction series. There is also a two book sequel series and a seven book sequel series, nineteen books in all. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2017 that I bought on Amazon in 2026. I have ordered books #2 and #3 in the series.

Jiden Armstrong is the older child of two archaeologists on the dry, dusty planet named Century. Jiden is fourteen planet years old which is equivalent to almost sixteen Earth years and just graduated from high school. She plans to intern at a logistics and supply company with her boyfriend but her parents refuse to sign the application. She fakes her mothers signature on the application, her parents find out, and send her to her grandmother to spend the summer there. Her grandmother immediately enrolls her in the five month military prep school that she runs for the planetary military.

This is a great story about making mistakes and overcoming difficult situations to make something of yourself. Somebody online recommended this book to me and I really enjoyed the book. If you are a fan of Heinlein juveniles then you will probably love this book also.

The author has a website at
https://kalspriggs.com/

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (566 reviews)
https://www.amazon.com/Valors-Child-Children-1/dp/1546943978

Lynn

I've been discussing a space-opera setting with some friends, and it got me thinking about something I've noticed in science fiction: sometimes authors seem to get so carried away with their own ideas that the story becomes secondary to the worldbuilding itself.

I'm not just talking about exposition that slows down the pacing. I mean lengthy, sometimes incredibly elaborate explanations of how a starship's engines work, how faster-than-light travel is possible, how its weapons function, or how some philosophical or political system supposedly works. The author may have clearly put a great deal of thought into these concepts, but the way they're presented can sometimes feel less like a natural part of the story and more like the author showing off how clever or intricate their ideas are.

At its worst, it can come across as self-indulgent, even a little kitschy - as though the reader is expected to be impressed by the sheer complexity of the concept, regardless of whether it actually adds anything meaningful to the story. Instead of making the fictional universe feel more convincing, all that detail can end up drawing attention to the author's effort to make it seem impressive.

Of course, I understand the appeal of well-thought-out worldbuilding. Consistent rules, interesting technological limitations, and original ideas can make science fiction much more compelling. And I know some readers genuinely enjoy learning every last detail about how a fictional universe works.

So I'm curious about other people's experiences: where do you draw the line between compelling worldbuilding and an author indulging in their own ideas at the expense of the story?

Do you enjoy lengthy explanations of fictional technology and systems even when they're not particularly relevant to the plot, or do you prefer authors to focus on how those things affect the characters and the events of the story? And are there any science-fiction authors or books that you think handle this particularly well or, conversely, examples where the worldbuilding feels like it's trying too hard to impress the reader?

PS: Sorry if I sound a little robotic, my english is far-far from perfect

I am speechless..

I haven't read in a while, like, really in a while. But I'm getting back into reading, and I started my journey with Solaris. This post isn't a polished review, but just my raw feelings and thoughts typed out right after finishing this masterpiece.

I think the title, the word 'Solaris' itself is very cool, and as embarrassing and shallow as it may be, this was one of the primary reasons I was interested in the book. But then when I learnt what its about, it became unbearable to keep this book hanging and I read it all in 2 days. For a stupid reason, since the title has 'solar' in it, I also initially assumed it's gonna be related to solarpunk 😭 boy was I in for a surprise.

First up, I really love how the story starts. It's pretty interesting from the get-go, but there are a few bits I REALLY like, such as this one from chapter 1:

“Wait,” he said, as I was turning to the door. He gave me a peculiar look. I could see that what he wanted to say stuck in his throat.

“There were three of us and now, with you, there are three again.

"Do you know Sartorius?”

“Like I know you, from pictures.”

“He’s in the lab upstairs. I doubt he’ll come out before nightfall, but. . . in any case you’ll recognize him. If you should see anyone else, you understand, not me or Sartorius, you understand, then. . .”

“Then what?”

I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming. Against the background of the black waves glinting bloodily in the low sun, he sat back in the arm-chair, his head drooping as before, and stared to the side, at the reels of cable.

“Then. . . don’t do anything.”

“Who might I see? A ghost?” I exclaimed.

“I get it. You think I’ve gone crazy. No. I haven’t gone crazy. I don’t know any other way to tell you. . . for the moment. Besides. . . maybe nothing’ll happen. In any case, remember. You’ve been warned.”

“About what?! What are you on about?”

“Stay calm,” he persisted. “Act as if. . . Be prepared for anything. That’s impossible, I know. But try anyhow. It’s the only way. I don’t know any other.”

“But WHAT am I going to see!!” I almost shouted. I barely kept myself from grabbing him by the shoulders and giving him a good shake as he sat there staring into the corner, with his tired sunburned face, every word he uttered costing a visible effort.

“I don’t know. In a certain sense it depends on you.”

“Hallucinations?”

“No. It’s—real. Don’t. . . attack. Remember.”

“What are you talking about?” I said in a voice not my own.

Some chapters especially I found very engaging and addictive. Chapter 3-7 were peak and chapter 10 was great too. And of course the last 2 chapters... those.. those are something else

I'm not gonna pretend that I liked everything about it just because it's a legendary cult classic. While I really admire how intricately and elaborately Lem built up a fictional field of science (solaristics), the solaristics sections can feel dry at times and I hate myself for that but I'm just being honest. I don't like Harey, even though she's integral to the plot, but I just don't like her... I was always much more interested in the conversations between Kelvin and Snaut. Sartorius was pretty cool too.

I found this part funny, I know I'm not meant to but it just felt comedic to me even though solaris Is so serious:

For some time I’d been noticing that the dark object covering the screen at Sartorius’s end was shifting; at the very top of the image a bright gap appeared and something pink could be seen moving there slowly. Now the object suddenly slipped off.

“Go away! Go away!!” came an ear-splitting shout from Sartorius.

In the unexpectedly lit-up screen, between the doctor’s arms, clad in puffy oversleeves of the kind worn in laboratories, that were wrestling with something, a large golden disk-like object flashed into view and everything went dark before I’d realized the golden circle was a straw hat. . .

And this was kinda cute:

“Snaut. . . Snaut. . .”

“Kelvin. . . Kelvin. . .” he mimicked, angry.

Oh also, Harey drinking liquid oxygen in chapter 9? Boring. She should've gone for liquid helium instead. Liquid Helium is a lot cooler—figuratively and literally. IRL it also is used in SC Maglev L0 giving it instant aura points

Sometimes, the story would actually make me feel a bit unsettled. Like this bit, it's nothing that crazy, probably cliche, but it's kinda scary to me. Dk why.

Yet for the next two weeks nothing happened either outside the Station or within it. Only once, in the middle of the night, I heard a distant shout that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once; it was remarkably high-pitched, piercing and prolonged, more of an inhumanly intensified wail. Torn from my nightmare, I lay there for a long while, listening intently, not entirely sure that the shout wasn’t also a dream. The previous day, from the lab that was partially located above our cabin, there had come muffled sounds like heavy objects or equipment being moved around; I had the impression that the shout had also come from up there, though exactly how was unclear, since the two floors were separated by a soundproof ceiling. The dying voice went on almost half an hour. Drenched in perspiration, half mad, I was all set to race upstairs, such was the effect of the sound on my nerves. But in the end it fell silent, and once again only the moving of heavy objects could be heard.

The last chapter tho... uh...

For some reason, I thought the ocean might die or something 😭 when the streaks went up and never returned I assumed the ocean would die, the characters would look up towards the sky, having still not understood anything, and never will since it's dead now. That'd have been a tragic but a complete ending... I would've shed a few tears and closed the book, but what the actual ending turned out to be...

It was just so...

I really am out of words...

so sublime.. and ineffable..

I just don't know what to feel..

I can't put it in words. I am also kinda confused.

I guess it's intentional that Lem wrote an ending like that. Forcing a human conclusion to the ocean would go against the premise itself.

Usually when I read a book I either like it or dislike it. Simple. But this.... of course I do like it but it's just so...

I just drank the ocean up. Yeah, all of it. I dipped a straw in and suuuuuck gluglugluglug it's all gone now. I drank it, all 17 billion tons of it (that's how much it weighs if I remember correctly, as stated in chapter 2).

I feel like Solaris as a book is just too intellectual and deep for a moron like me to grasp. It's a miracle I even finished it at all.

Solaris is not my absolute #1 favorite book, but it's definitely, undoubtedly one of the most unforgettable.

I'm looking forward to read it again in the distant future.

PS: The ocean was delectable. I saved some even for my wife. She was skeptical at first but ended up loving it. I'd say Solaris' ocean definitely tasted better than tap water, but sparkling water still beats it in taste.

Read through Seveneves and shocked at how dissapointing it was. The beginning of the novel starts with the moon getting exploded by an agent, which was a great premise. I couldnt wait to get to the part where humanity figures out what/who the agent was and what their motivation is for destroying the moon.

The novel just never acknolwedged it again. Hundreds of pages of dense technical information, awkward stilted dialogue, and a part two that reads like a fantasy novel. Why would Stephenson even allude to a bigger picture regarding the ambiguity of an agent and then just ignore it? Why not just add a throw away line of it being an asteroid impact?

The whole time reading it I was hoping the novel could have been part humanity surviving, and part humanity figuring out/dealing with an alien race who had some motive to blow up earths moon. The last page alludes to some purpose of humanity and possibly finding out what the agent is- but why not include that in the story? The book could have been half as long and been more than adequate for the story.

Curious on peoples thoughts. Is this just a cheap way to segue into a sequel? I dont think I will ever read another novel by Neal Stephenson again after the letdown of Seveneves.

Are there any good sci fi books/stories where robots exist, have sentience, have already gained equal rights with humans/other biological sentients, and everyone pretty much treats them equally?

I've read 2 Van Vogt recently, but they don't seem easy to find. Do people know a good source for the old stuff?