
Science Fiction Stories with Good Astronomy and Physics: A Topical Index (2014) - hownottowrite
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/astronomy-resource-guides/science-fiction-stories-with-good-astronomy-physics-a-topical-index/
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blackguardx
"Haldeman, Joe The Forever War. 1974, Ballantine. An interstellar war is
fought using black holes for travel between battles."

I've read Forever War half a dozen times. Black holes aren't a focus of the
novel, but rather the effects of relativity on soldiers fighting far flung
battles. By the time soldiers reach a battle, everyone they know on Earth is
dead and several generations have passed due to time dilation.

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JabavuAdams
... full of HUGE spoilers! Just some random searching on Alastair Reynolds'
novels revealed many many things that are only revealed at the end of his
books.

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mirimir
I recommend Greg Egan's Orthogonal trilogy: _The Clockwork Rocket_ , _The
Eternal Flame_ and _The Arrows of Time_. It features a finite four-dimensional
universe with no time-like dimension.

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qubex
A world whose physics is described by a pure Riemann tensor.

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mirimir
Yes. Very strange physics. And there are explanatory appendices, plus a
website ;)

For what it's worth, it's similar to some of the universes that Egan featured
in _Diaspora_.

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rosser
"More or less accurate science", with rather significant error towards "less"
in many cases.

Now, don't get me wrong; I love SF, and will happily suspend disbelief for
wildly implausible fictional technologies (as long as an author doesn't then
go on to flagrantly violate the physics of their own universe out of
sloppiness or as a plot device).

That said, for example, I'm not entirely sure what part of current science
suggests that flinging a spaceship at a black hole ("collapsar") at
relativistic velocities will cause said vessel to pop out of another black
hole, near-instantaneously, elsewhere in the galaxy. ("The Forever War", as
much as I love you, I'm looking squarely at you.)

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Nogwater
I'd like to suggest Blindsight by Peter Watts.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_\(Watts_novel\))

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geon
I just read it. What part of it is accurate astronomy and physics,
specifically?

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dozzie
It's rather physiology, not physics.

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geon
More like psychology and philosophy.

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dozzie
Also. But note several mechanisms alien creatures used on human explorers;
those were totally physiological.

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MichaelMoser123
Asimov, Isaac The Gods Themselves. 1972, That's my favorite Sci-fi novel of
all times; the aliens come in triads; one is the rational, the other the
emotional the third one is the parent/Mother. They have sex by melting into
each other, when they become one - because the weak nuclear force is so weak
in this universe; Pure Genius.

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dozzie
I would add: Jack Campbell, The Lost Fleet series. Excellent spaceship
battles, actually accounting the speed of light, vast distances, space-time
distortion to some degree, and plenty of logistics and manoeuvring.

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TrevorJ
I happened across this book, which seems to be little heard of and really
enjoyed it. Premise is great and the science seems solid for the most part.
Author seems like he tried hard to stick with things that are not denied by
the laws of physics as we know it.

[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21523077-attenuation---
le...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21523077-attenuation---letters-from-
the-man-in-the-moon)

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bayesianhorse
I'd also like to recommend the novel series "The Expanse". While not entirely
accurate, at least the start of the series deals with a lot of the near-future
limits in space travel: lack of gravity and the consequences thereof for
humans, acceleration, radiation etc.

And in the new TV-Adaptation there are fascinating little details like
sparrows flying/hovering in 0.3G inside a tunnel inside an Asteroid (Ceres)
with an artificially induced spin.

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dyoder
Quantum computing is not on the list. I wrote a novel, Qubit, in which quantum
computing plays a central role.

[http://www.amazon.com/Qubit-Finn-Mack-
ebook/dp/B00F45N40O](http://www.amazon.com/Qubit-Finn-Mack-
ebook/dp/B00F45N40O)

Not on the list, and I'm not a physicist so from that standpoint, I may not
have gotten everything right. Still, I'd like to think Qubit would pass
muster.

~~~
stan_rogers
That may be deliberate, since it's not really understood. Robert J. Sawyer's
_Neanderthal Parallax_ series and _Factoring Humanity_ (which is listed for a
couple of other reasons) also hinge on quantum computing to one degree or
another.

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Pelerin
It would make sense to keep this list curated, as people who don't have a
background in physics and/or astronomy might think a piece of fiction depicts
it well, but misses some key aspect.

That said, how does the author accept suggestions or additions?

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stuxnet79
I have yet to find an author who adheres to actual science and writes a
readable story. Some flexibility is required to transform a potential story
into a page turner. I'd like to be proven wrong though.

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noahlt
It's dated 2014, which explains the omission of Seveneves.

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geon
Lots of Niven in there. Happens to be my favorite writer.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
And a bunch of the Nivens there have faster-than-light travel which should be
an immediate disqualification.

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geon
That is how sci-fi works. You make a few assumptions and work from there,
exploring their consequences.

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Simorgh
From the myths of the Gods to the Sci-Fi of the modern age. Stories inspire
and give life to technological advancement just as much as technological
advancement gives rise to stories.

