Remembrance of Earth's Past

I opened this thread to post about Dungeon Crawler Carl. I just finished the fantastic Three Body Problem series, and reading something so pulpy in contrast feels like cheating, but it’s making me happy and that’s what I’m looking for anyways. Some other bits I’ve read recently that I’ve loved: - Ken Liu’s “The Paper Menagerie” is a beautiful short story by the Three Body Problem’s translator - Cryptonomicon feels like a great balance between heady reading (it goes into WWII-era crypto thinking) and pulpy humor. I loved reading it. - “Stoner” by John Williams (not the Stoner you think, and also not the John Williams you think) is kinda in a different direction, but it’s a really well paced and beautifully written book about a farmer’s son who falls in love with literature. It’s one of those books that’s hard to sell in a sentence, but is effortless to read and makes you think a lot in a non-engineering-brained way.

Well, then you didn't do it right. The TV show is garbage, the books were sublime (although like LoTR, their pacing was backloaded, so you had to suffer though the first half of each book. The third book is more uniformly paced).

Did you read the rest of the 3 body problem books? Some of the best scifi i've read in a looong time for sure.

The 3-body problem trilogy (Rememberance of the Earth's past). My first sci-fi novels ever - the Netflix show sold me and these novels compelled me on a whole new hard sci-fi rabbit hole. Presumed Innocent (preceeded by the Apple TV show of same name). Murder mystery. Loved it. Tie-in novels from videogame franchise: - Deus Ex: Black Light - Devil May Cry: before the nightmare I've also started Marvel Comics in anticipation of Fantastic Four and the whole Secret Wars storyline it will build up. Couldn't finish a single non-fiction this year, but enjoyable so far: - Zero to One - When I say no, I feel guilty - Designing data-intensive applications

Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. The most incredible, mind bending adventure I have taken, in a book. (The Netflix show although generally true to story does not do the books justice)

Fiction: - "The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin and the whole Three Body Problem/Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. Truly massive, grand SciFi. Would recommend 10/10. [HN] - "Anna Karenina" by Tolstoy. Made me face deeper parts of my mind. Attempted to answer some questions I had. Great story. Huge book. Historical fiction is something I like across languages. - "Candide" by Voltaire. Genuinely fun and entertaining, besides it being- you know- Voltaire. - "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson. Very good story, world buulding, nice technology. Great thinking by the author. Non Fiction: - "Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh. Was very happy to see a Popular Math book where there are so many Popular Science books. Great book. Goes over FMT's solving history, with many many fun anecdotes, short biographies, etc. Truly enjoyable to read. - "Code Book" by Simon Singh. Genuinely fun and learned a lot. Cryptography's history, progress, and so much more. [HN] Self-Help:…

Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by Liu Cixin. Sci-fi.

1) Three-Body Problem series 2) Hyperion series (first two books especially) 3) Cryptonomicon 4) Cloud Atlas 5) Wandering Earth (collection of short stories)

* Three Body Problem. I've heard of it many times, but never read it. Picked it up a month or two ago, read the whole thing in a few sessions, one of my favourite sci-fi books ever. Will read the next book in the series. * Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive. Best pop-sci book I've read in a while. Strikes the right balance between including pertinent information without being overwhelming, explaining things in a digestible way without dumbing down, etc. Inspired me to read a proper immunology primer (How the Immune System Works), which was also very good. * How Rights Went Wrong. An excellent, level-headed take on the U.S. conception of rights, and how it leads to zero-sum thinking in supreme court cases. The author is so relentlessly reasonable that it's hard not to buy into his argument. Even though this book is about the U.S., it has lots of case studies where it contrasts with various other countries, which helped me understand my country's (Canada's) court system and system of rights better. Let-downs:…

The Three-Body Problem certainly takes a _while_ to get going. I gave up the first time reading it on my phone. But I kept hearing others sing its praises. Years later, I started playing the audio book on a roadtrip. At some point, I couldn't "put it down", so to speak--especially as the plot twist is gradually revealed. The sequels are extraordinary, and perhaps among the best sci-fi ever written.

I second that! also the rest of the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy

I read all three of those books, plus Ball Lightning by the same author. I found them very difficult reading, partly because I wasn't familiar with Chinese names and had trouble keeping them straight. Also, the material was dense and required a lot of background. But the ideas and some of the images stand out more than dozens of other books I've read over the time period. For each book, it took me about 3 months to get through the first 40%, then 3 days to get through the other 60%, once I had bootstrapped enough to get into them. Not easy, but highly recommended.

I made it through all three books and really enjoyed them (especially book 2). But I have to admit that I don't know how to feel about the ending. Definitely not the ending I anticipated.

The sequels are as excellent as the first in the series, so if you read the first and really like it, read the others too.

I mainly read SF to relax (biased towards hard space opera) and have accumulated a "best of the best" list of my own: Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey (TV show The Expanse is loosely based on this, but IMO doesn't even come close) Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds Three Body Problem (all 3 books) - Liu Cixin Consider Phlebas - Iain M. Banks (your gateway drug into the Culture universe) Genuinely wish I could experience all the above for the first time again. And looking forward to checking out some of the others mentioned here.

Read/heard and thoroughly enjoyed all of those except Binti which is new to me. Wishlisted, thanks!

The translator for volume 1 and 3 addressed this in an AMA, actually. https://www.reddit.com/r/SF_Book_Club/comments/30xhj0/three_... (https://www.reddit.com/r/SF_Book_Club/comments/30xhj0/three_im_ken_liu_translator_for_the_threebody/) I enjoyed the 3 books. After reading the first one I was intrigued but it didn't blow me away. After reading all of them I am very appreciative of the epic scope, and while the it seemed to have less character development, the ideas more than made up for it.

Remembrance of earth's past trilogy. There are three books in the series: 1) The Three Body Problem, 2) The Dark Forest, and 3) Death's end. It talks about the ongoing tension between humanity and the alien race. It explores many facets of human nature and humanity. Must read.

Other than those already listed I absolutely loved the Remembrance of Earth's Past [0] trilogy (2008, 2008, 2010) by Liu Cixin. Whilst I wouldn't consider it 'hard' science fiction the Takeshi Kovacs series [1] (2002, 2003, 2005) by Richard K. Morgan is also outstanding, although perhaps more cyberpunk. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_of_Earth%27s_Past [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeshi_Kovacs

Wonderful series

I'm cheating a little on the date, but The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin stands out. It was translated into english late last year, and received the Hugo this year for best story. It's wonderful sci-fi written on a grand scale, and made all the more interesting and refreshing to me by coming from outside the Western perspective. It's one of a trilogy: The Dark Forest english translation is out, and Death's End is coming beginning of next year. Also enjoyed Seveneves by Stephenson, and H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. The former is likely known to the HN crowd; the latter draws comparisons to T.H. White's classic The Goshawk. Among non-fiction books, I enjoyed The Little Prover by Friedman and Eastlund. It was exactly what I expected, a gentle introduction into inductive proofs in the idiom established by The Little Schemer.