this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Science Fiction

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Lemmy World Rules

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In the mood for engineering / competence porn. What are your favourite novels / series? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world
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As an example, I love the Martian, and I think a lot of older books from authors like Asimov are heavily into engineering / competence porn. Other favs in this category include the standalone novel Rendezvous with Rama to leave you wishing for more, most of the Culture series for happy utopian vibes, Schlock Mercenary for humor, Dahak series for fun mindless popcorn.

Edit: I'm so happy to have found a replacement for r/books and the rest of them.

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[–] Cattypat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I'm sure you've read or heard this before, but project hail mary is great. The whole bobiverse series was incredibly satisfying to read and the 5th book is out recently in the form of an audio book. Low pressure, low commitment series thats just full of engineering porn.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 10 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Yeah, I loved pretty much all of Andy Weir. I should get back to the Bobiverse. I tried it once and couldn't get into it for some reason. I don't recall the exact details now, and maybe I was misunderstanding something, but there was some stuff about his drones destroying entire solar systems for raw minerals, that just seemed plain nonsensical to me? I guess with all the good things people are saying about it I should go back and figure out what rubbed me wrong the first time.

[–] Subverb@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

I'm stuck on Bobiverse too. This whole section on the Archimedes alien did me in.

[–] brrt@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

there was some stuff about his drones destroying entire solar systems for raw minerals, that just seemed plain nonsensical to me?

Not sure what exactly seems nonsensical to you but it’s a well known concept that is also explained thoroughly in the books. You might want to read up on von Neumann probes.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Like I said, I possibly misunderstood or missed something. I'm familiar with the concept of Von Neumann probes, but an entire solar system to build a small handful of probes seems overkill. How big are these probes? If it turns out to have been a gazillion probes, or they're jupiter-sized, then I guess that's where my misunderstanding was.

[–] brrt@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeh, I guess you really did miss something. I’m sure the purpose of mining a solar system was not to make more simple probes.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

Good to know. I'll slot Bobiverse in once I'm done with Greg Bear

[–] Marafon@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 days ago

Holy shit, new bobiverse? Thanks for the knowledge.

[–] Chocrates@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I really wanted to love "Project Hail Mary", but Andy Weir can't write characters and that killed it for me for some reason

[–] Cattypat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Can you elaborate on what specifically bothered you? I didn't notice anything when I read it but it was a good while ago

[–] Chocrates@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

It's been a while too.

I think I felt that the dialogue was kind of flat and I was upset at how human the alien was.