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In the mood for engineering / competence porn. What are your favourite novels / series?
(sh.itjust.works)
Anything by Robert Forward and Charles Sheffield.
this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Have never heard of him before, will check him out!
I edited that, I'd also recommend Charles Sheffield. I'm specifically thinking of the Cold as Ice books.
Tom Clancy SSN.
Good light reading (historical fiction) for before bed or when you wake up at 3am due to the sound of the Herscithem outside.
The Fountains of Paradise It's literally an SF love letter to engineering.
Also there are two (or three?) sequels to Rendezvous with Rama.
Greg Bear's Eon/Eternity and The Forge of God/Anvil of Stars are all engineering delight.
2001, 2010, 2051, 3001 are great classics.
There are no sequels to Rama. I wish there were, but there aren't. Odyssey series is a classic, yeah.
Currently reading and enjoying Eon, so Greg's my next month of reading I guess! Will check out Fountains after that.
There are no sequels to Rama.
There's only six Dune books too ;-)
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"Planetfall" by Emma Newman might fit your preferences judging by the things you said about books you've read! it's a 4 book series (i think) and mostly deals with the inner psychology of the main character of each book. also has a bunch of engineering in it, mostly hard sci-fi!
Another vote for Greg Egan. And I too really enjoyed the Children of Time series and anything written by Alastair Reynolds, although I don't think the genre is exactly what you're looking for. Finding modern, hard sci-fi really is pretty difficult.
I get where you're coming from with KSR's Mars series. I think Ministry for the Future was a better read, personally.
Also, I find that a lot of Crichton scratches similar itch to Andy Weir. Especially things like Andromeda Strain and Airframe.
I might give Ministry a shot, haven't tried it yet. And Greg Egan is on my list now. Crichton, I did not like Sphere and I guess it turned me away from trying his other books. I guess I should give some of them another shot.
Recently, I've been reading the Interdependency series by John Scalzi. It starts with The Collapsing Empire, featuring an unlikely heir to the throne, a time of trouble and strife, and the likely impending doom of all mankind. A lot of the story focuses on the unlikely heir grappling with how to hold things together against the catastrophe that most people don't really believe is coming.
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