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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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[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I don't know of any other good books in this genre, but I will say that the Martian is probably my favorite book of all time. I read it several times a year just because I enjoy it that much and actually just got done reading it again for the first time in 2025 a couple of days ago.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

Keep an eye on this post then, you might find something else to love as well :)

I'll throw out a couple more of my favs along these lines. Rendezvous with Rama (be aware there's no sequel to it), most of the Culture series for happy utopian vibes, Schlock Mercenary for humor, Dahak series for fun mindless popcorn.

[–] hoodles@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Another vote for Greg Egan. And I too really enjoyed the Children of Time series and anything written by Alastair Reynolds, although I don't think the genre is exactly what you're looking for. Finding modern, hard sci-fi really is pretty difficult.

I get where you're coming from with KSR's Mars series. I think Ministry for the Future was a better read, personally.

Also, I find that a lot of Crichton scratches similar itch to Andy Weir. Especially things like Andromeda Strain and Airframe.

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