I read a lot of books, the one I'd recommend the most is Greg Egan's "Axiomatic" short story collection.
Axiomatic
Greg Egan
Axiomatic
6 readers recommend it across 6 discussions
Reader recommendations
- Project Hail Mary - Children of Time - Accelerando - The Forever War - Axiomatic
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These books really challenge your thinking or force you to think hard and/or see things through another lens. They are also really good reads that are very hard to put down. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Firefall series by Peter Watts (Blindsight & Echopraxia) Axiomatic by Greg Egan N.N. Taleb's books These are all books I had seen written about in previous HN threads like this and ended up reading, so glad I did!
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Boom! Another Greg Egan fan, here. Reading through Axiomatic right now and loving it. One thing I've noticed (& which I'm sure a lot of people have stated) is that his fictional works are mostly just a platform for him to explore ideas. Whether or not they entertain is a side effect. A few stories on Axiomatic for instance end rather abruptly. It is as if Egan just couldn't be bothered with tying everything in a neat little package once he'd already finished exploring the implications of a particular philosophical idea.
I've just discovered Greg Egan, so I've read Diaspora, Quarantine, and I just finished Distress. I'm working on Axiomatic, which is a collection of his short stories. His characters are a little flat and his endings feel a little odd, but I love the worldbuilding and the ideas. I'm having trouble finding other people who've read him and want to talk about his books, though.
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Second Egan, for 'Permutation City' and his short stories (in 'Axiomatic', especially). Also, Greg Bear's 'Blood Music' inspired me both with its vision and its jumbling of genres, especially given its publication date (1985).
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