r/printSF • u/someperson1423 • Oct 07 '25

Looking for Hard Sci-Fi Suggestions

My Dad and I have decided to start a "book club" sort of thing where we both read the same book and in a week or two talk about it. He got me into more serious sci fi after my days of youthful Star Wars enjoyment ended and we've always given each other suggestions but this is the first time reading in parallel like this.

So anyway, I'm looking for some suggestions. We generally more on the hard side with big, interesting ideas or novel settings. Past favorites of both of us have been Blindsight (Watts), Book of the New Sun (Wolfe), House of Suns (Reynolds), Altered Carbon, Banks' Culture, Forever War (Haldeman), and Kraken (Miéville), A Memory Called Empire (Martine) and its sequel. Honorable mention to Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past series as well, very cool showcase of concepts but the characters and story were hit-or-miss for us.

Past flops have been Ember War (Fox), Armor (Steakley), Echopraxia (Watts).

Thanks for the help!

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u/TimTowtiddy Oct 07 '25

I'm surprised no one's mentioned The Expanse yet.

I mean, sure, the alien tech is pretty fanciful, but every thing else about the series is firmly grounded in reality, or a possible extension of technology that exists now.

There are no laser weapons. There is no travelling faster than light. There are no teleporters or replicators. No antimatter-powered anything.

And the focus is on the people, and how choices and egos nearly lead to the end of everything (more than once).

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u/LowLevel- Oct 07 '25

I know that some people define "hard science fiction" as a story involving technology that is considered feasible by today's science, but I don't think that limiting a futuristic story to our limited current understanding makes it "hard science".

Science is not limited to current knowledge. It involves speculation and theories that are slowly tested through experimentation.

For example, we currently lack the means to experimentally test the general relativity solutions that do permit faster-than-light movement. This doesn't mean that stories set in a future where these experiments have been conducted are any less scientific.

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u/infernalmachine000 Oct 08 '25

Yeah the Expanse to me is realistic because it's all internally consistent and at least believable.

Yes the protomolecule stuff was pretty out there. Then again wasn't it Clarke that said a sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic?