Science Fiction

Hello /c/sciencefiction. What have you been watching or what do you plan on watching?

Here is a collection of some of the most upvoted and discussed shows from last months discussion.

Hello again /c/sciencefiction friends. It is once again a new month so it is time to refresh the post.

Here is a collection of some of the most upvoted and discussed books from last months discussion.

Vote Here

Hello again /c/sciencefiction. I hope you have all been well. I hope anyone who read Project Hail Mary enjoyed it.

I've compiled a list of books to vote on to eventually be chosen as this months book of the month and be read over the next month as a kind of book club. The options are loosely collected from the most voted and discussed books in the “What are you Reading” thread for Setpember. Also some of the runner ups on last months vote will still show up.

At the end of the month the poll will be closed and the winner will be the book of the month for September 2023. Myself and hopefully some others will read this book over the following month and then near the end of the month a discussion post will be made to talk about it. Feel free to participate or not at your leisure.

Once the book is chosen it will be set to “Reading” status on the community BookWyrm account here. https://bookwyrm.social/user/ScienceFiction Feel free to follow this account with your own BookWyrm account so other members can find you. This can help people find book recommendations of like minded science fiction readers.

I'd also like to point out that a number of last months top mentioned books were entirely of the Fantasy genre. I know a lot of people tend to group science fiction and fantasy together, but this community is specifically about the science fiction genre.

Here are this months selection

• Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse) - James S. A. Corey
• Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
• The Fifth Season (Broken Earth) - N. K. Jemisin
• Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler
• All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) - Martha Wells
• House of Suns - Alastair Reynolds
• Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel
• The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
• Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky

Vote Here

Hello again Lemmy. I put together this little collage of some of the most discussed shows from last month. It doesn't mean anything other than they were discussed and upvoted or commented on the most.

What have you been watching or plan to watch in September?

Hello Lemmy. I put together this little collage of some of the most discussed books from last months post.

What has everyone been reading in September?

On a semi-related note I am planning on continuing with the regular schedule of monthly posts as before which resets on the 1st of the month. This post won't be pinned for very long. 👍

We are two weeks into the month of September now. I think this might be a reasonable amount of time for some readers to have completed this book if they started early this month. At least I finished it last week. I’ll leave this thread pinned for the rest of the month and next weekend I’ll create the poll for the next book of the month. That poll will end on the last day of the month and the cycle will continue.

Feel free to include as many spoilers as you want in your comments as the post itself is marked as containing spoilers.

Jazz Hands ♫ ♪ ♪ ♬

We had a pretty good turnout for our first book of the month vote. To be honest I did not anticipate the problem of there being a tie. I took the liberty of flipping a coin which came out heads for Project Hail Mary. In the future I might have to come up with a better method of tie breaking. I’m figuring this out as I go and it is all just for the fun of it anyway so please don’t take this too seriously.

I intend to read this book over the month of September and then near the end of the month I will create a discussion thread for it where people can discuss it without worrying about spoilers. Follow along if you want to.

BookWyrm Science Fiction Book Club

👽🚀

1. Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir - 20 votes
2. Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky - 20 votes
3. Neuromancer - William Gibson - 17 votes
4. Hyperion - Dan Simmons - 13 votes
5. Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey - 13 votes
6. A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine - 11 votes
7. Wool (Silo Series Book 1) - Hugh Howey - 10 votes
8. Red Rising - Pierce Brown - 4 votes
9. 22/11/63 - Stephen King - 1 vote

I have never read the book for the Foundation trilogy or any of the books in the series. I’ve seen fans of the book be critical of this adaptation for not being faithful to Asimov’s original intent. I am unsure if I am better off having not read it yet and enjoying this TV series in ignorance or if I should have read the book first so I can properly understand the point Asimov was trying to make. None the less I cannot change the past and it is what it is. I enjoyed this show if for nothing else than the spectacular visuals for much of it. The very first episode had a beautiful depiction of an extremely large space elevator as well as its amazing destruction. A space elevator of this magnitude falling to the planet such as Trantor with its many layers of civilization and the entire planet being covered with a single city was truly incredible.

However, from then on the show has this stark contrast between all of the scenes featuring the Empire and everything else on Terminus. This is where our protagonists Gaal Dornick and Hari Seldon were sent to build the foundation that would reduce supposed dark ages following the inevitable collapse of the Empire. All of the scenes featuring the plot on Empire I found exciting and really well done while all of the scenes on Terminus and with Gaal, Hari and Salvor to be quite bland and stereotypical. Which is curious considering the Empire plot is mostly content written for the show and the plot on Terminus is vaguely resembling the plot Asimov wrote in the original trilogy.

My biggest gripe with the show might be that the plot from my understanding is often contradictory. The way Hari originally described the concept of psychohistory and its mathematics was that it takes a sufficiently large population to make any accurate predictions about future trends. No mere individual is significant enough to make any deviations in those trends. Yet rather consistently we see Gaal and even Hari himself make statements that they absolutely need to do some urgently as the fate of the galaxy depends on it. I don’t see how this can possibly be the case if the concept of psychohistory is to be taken as legitimate.

Despite some glaring inconsistencies I still enjoyed my time watching this show and look forward to the likely season 3 that is coming. In the meantime I might have to read the book to finally see the story as it was originally intended by Asimov.

3.5 / 5 Stars

What the title says, I'm tired of the trope where humans are the least advanced in the universe.

I'd like to read something different where we're the more advanced ones (not necessarily the most advanced). As an example I quite enjoyed the Ender's Game sequels and the angle of us being the more advanced ones was quite interesting.

Do you have any recommendations?

"Farscape features a diverse ensemble of characters who are initially escaping from corrupt authorities in the form of a militaristic organization called the Peacekeepers. The protagonists live inside a large bio-mechanical ship called Moya which is a living entity."

I'm looking for sci-fi books that are (partially or fully) about environmentalism, preserving nature or the consequences of not doing so.

For me in SciFi I've been trying to hit some classics so I've read 'The Iron Dream' by Norman Spinrad, 'A Time of Changes' by Robert Silverberg and also the (recent release) 'Out of the Ruins' anthology.

Of those three I enjoyed 'The Iron Dream' the most since I didn't enjoy Silverberg's potraryal of women (and it doesn't seem to have literary intent like in 'The Iron Dream'.) 'Out of the Ruins had some bangers but it was a fairly inconsistent collection for me that mostly hasn't been memorable.

So, what are you currently reading or have recently read?

A couple of others that I really enjoyed are The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang and Diaspora by Greg Egan.

I recently read William Gibson's Burning Chrome and at the moment i'm in the middle of the Mirrorshades Anthology. Would Love some suggestions for collections of short SF stories from one or multiple writers.

I especially enjoyed "The Gernsback Continuum" and "The Winter Market". So if you have anything similar i would be delighted.