Ask HN: Best scifi of 2017? (Vernor Vinge/Larry Niven style) - hyperpallium
======
drmpeg
Although I very much like hard sci-fi, my favorite this year was the "Broken
Earth" trilogy (The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky) from
N.K. Jemisin.

~~~
geoah
Couldn't agree more. Wandering earth (short stories) again by Liu Cixin is
also amazing.

Blindsight is also worth a shot!

------
anotherevan
The Aeon 14 novels following Tanis Richards[1] have been a consistently good
read. The Intrepid Saga and The Orion War series. Haven't ventured into the
other offshoots as yet.

The Dome Trilogy[2] was also pretty good, as are the Rho Agenda
series[3][4][5].

The Bobiverse trilogy[6] (We Are Legion (We Are Bob)) I was a bit dubious
about when I started, but ended up enjoying immensly.

The Wrong Unit[7] wasn't a bad little humorous tale.

[1]
[https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/6426890.M_D_Cooper](https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/6426890.M_D_Cooper)

[2] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25501349-unexpected-
rain](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25501349-unexpected-rain)

[3] [https://www.goodreads.com/series/61746-the-rho-
agenda](https://www.goodreads.com/series/61746-the-rho-agenda)

[4] [https://www.goodreads.com/series/142618-the-rho-agenda-
incep...](https://www.goodreads.com/series/142618-the-rho-agenda-inception)

[5] [https://www.goodreads.com/series/175066-rho-agenda-
assimilat...](https://www.goodreads.com/series/175066-rho-agenda-assimilation)

[6]
[https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse](https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse)

[7] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30959279-the-wrong-
unit](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30959279-the-wrong-unit)

~~~
hyperpallium
The premise of "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" is strikingly similar to Larry
Niven's short story "Rammer" \- down to the somewhat unusual terms "corpsicle"
and "State". Revived, no rights (though in a wiped body; and intersteller
terraforming).

Hopefully, a homage, flagging some inspiration/similarity with Niven?

Bob: [http://dennisetaylor.org/legion/](http://dennisetaylor.org/legion/)

Rammer:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/452990.Rammer](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/452990.Rammer)

EDIT: he does seem to be a fan: _first Bobiverse book. Chapter 14 intro...
Lawrence Vienn is a tuckerization of Larry Niven._
[http://dennisetaylor.org/about/](http://dennisetaylor.org/about/)

------
zengid
Not really Vinge/Niven style, but Weir's new one _Artemis_ was a fun read.
Also, Kim Stanley Robinson's _New York 2140_ was a lighthearted and somewhat
optimistic take on humans who have coped with the inevitability of climate
change.

~~~
girvo
Lighthearted, but cynical all the same. Excellent read, _2140_ ; I highly
recommend it!

------
charlietran
Ninefox Gambit / Raven Strategem were great, my favorite military sci-fi since
Old Man's War.

~~~
moomin
The Red Trilogy is very good military sci-fi as well. I may have accidentally
consumed the entire thing in a week.

------
stormbeta
The Terra Ignota series (Too Like the Lightning / Seven Surrenders, and Will
to Battle which came out last year).

Not only is it very different in tone/style from most traditional SF I've
read, it also doesn't restrict itself to just tech/physical science - it
explores social and political science what-ifs too.

I'd be hard pressed to name any other book I've read in the last year (or
more) that's had me pause so often just to think on the ideas presented.

~~~
jpereira
Absolutely loved this book, though I thought the best parts of it were the
influx of ideas and worldbuilding in the first 3/4ths of Too Like the
Lightning. The last quarter seemed to rush to tie together the threads laid
down and I felt that carried over into Seven Surrenders.

Of course I think my approach to reading it also changed as I was eagerly
awaiting that resolution. Haven't picked up Will to Battle yet, but very
excited for it.

~~~
lucian1900
I felt that Will to Battle improved over the middle book, although I liked all
three regardless.

------
myhf
Dichronauts by Greg Egan (adventures in non-Euclidean space)

Provenance by Ann Leckie (space opera)

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland (similar
themes to Anathem)

~~~
girvo
> Provenance by Ann Leckie

I really _really_ wanted to like this, but I just couldn't. Not my style
unfortunately, but everyone keeps suggesting it so it's likely me that's the
problem.

~~~
myhf
I liked how it drilled deep into themes that were important to the cultures in
the story, which were very human cultures but not any specific Earth cultures.
It was a glimpse into a small part of a large, coherent world.

But you have to like the characters or you can't get anywhere. People have
described Stephen Baxter novels in similar ways, but I can't stand any of the
characters.

~~~
johnchristopher
That's interesting, I love Baxter's works and characters but finishing
Ancillary's first book took me months and was painful. I liked the universe
and the themes so I ended up reading the wikipedia summaries of the rest of
the serie.

~~~
johnchristopher
It just came to my mind that I like the manifold trilogy way more than the
xelee cycle though.

------
xemoka
The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley had some crazy ideas, but lacked some
depth I was hoping for.

Nine Fox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee was also pretty good—had a rough start but
ended well.

Collapsing Empire by Scalzi was quite solid and well paced.

Of books not released in 2017, I read The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi—it
probably had the most 'new' sci-fi ideas out of the books I read this year,
which made it both a bit of a challenge and interesting read.

------
SimonPStevens
Don't know about year of release, but these are sci-fi books I enjoyed reading
this year...

The book of strange new things (Michel Faber). This isn't typical sci-fi, it's
hard to describe. It's quite slow paced. I can't really talk about it without
spoiling it. I really felt impacted by it though, I think the book has a
deeper philosophy that isn't really mentioned but requires thinking about the
meaning. I thoroughly recommended it if you are willing to be thoughtful about
a book and not just after laser and space battles. Another book by the same
author (under the skin) is also good, and has been turned into a very weird
film with Scarlet Johansson.

Other good more conventional sci-fi stuff...

Extracted series (R.R. Haywood) Not alone (Craig a. Falconer) Themys files
series (sylvain neuvel) We are legion series (Dennis E. Taylor)

------
sandGorgon
weird question - is there any scifi around finance ? Cryptocurrency, etc. I
feel it is weird that almost every piece of tech has had a scifi runway
leading to it (VR, AI, robots, clean energy, etc)... but not finance.

Maybe I'm missing something

~~~
Mtinie
It’s not exactly crypto currency as we know it, but Charles Stross’s
“Neptune’s Brood”[0] spends a lot of time discussing the challenges of
interstellar finance.

——-

[0] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15985402-neptune-s-
brood](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15985402-neptune-s-brood)

~~~
moomin
Definitely the geekiest finance/sci-fi book out there.

------
bduerst
Not really 2017, but _Iron Gold_ comes out in four days.

It's the follow up to the _Red Rising_ series, a Roman dystopian on Mars type
story, which I highly recommend.

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roryisok
I didn't think a question like this would get any attention on HN let alone
hit the front page! :)

 _Collapsing Empire_ by John Scalzi was one of my favourites last year

------
uxcolumbo
Not sure whether you're asking for scifi published in 2017 or scifi we enjoyed
in 2017.

Here is the scifi I enjoyed in 2017 (via audible)

\- We are Legion (bob) trilogy About AI, space and Von Neumann machines
[http://dennisetaylor.org/legion/](http://dennisetaylor.org/legion/)

\- Ready Player One About life later in this century. Lots of VR and
references to nostalgia from the 80s and beyond

~~~
ConceptJunkie
Yeah, both these books are very fun, with enough hard science to be
believable, but still very accessible. My only disappointment with the Bob
books was that they ended.

"Ready Player One" was full of naked eighties nostalgia fan service, but that
suits me just fine. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Wil Wheaton
(speaking of eighties nostalgia...), and he's a great reader who brought real
enthusiasm to his reading. Given that Spielberg is at the helm, the movie
should be awesome.

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Negitivefrags
"Dark Matter" by Blake Crouch is an excellent read that has a lot of twists
and turns. It's quite dark in places.

"We Are Legion" by Dennis Taylor is a very light hearted and easy to read.

"The Collapsing Empire" by John Scalzi is a space opera that I quite enjoyed.

------
walkingolof
I'm reading "Surface Details" by Iain M Banks, love the Culture series !

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bufferoverflow
[https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/107855](https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/107855)

[https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-science-
fiction-...](https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-science-fiction-
books-2017)

------
moomin
Fantasy, but you’re missing out if you don’t read City of Stairs. Great
thriller.

------
maxdo
Iphuck 10 by Victor Pelevin, about AI detective working in the art industry

------
chirau
I was expecting movies and shows... How about those though?

------
amorphid
If these count, I enjoyed:

\- The Expanse (season 2)

\- Sense8 (season 2)

\- Alien Covenant

~~~
kurthr
Well, The Expanse books certainly count and there's a bunch of them!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(novel_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_\(novel_series\))

