Just finished it and love every minute. Any recs for similar books.
No spoilers for others please
Old Man’s War by Scalzi. A lot like heinlein used to write.
Yes to this… what a good series. Less of the sciencey wonder and puzzles that phm offers but more future science concepts that are really interesting and the applications of in war.
The Mote In God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Hey this is a good call that should be higher on the list. Not as much humor, but a great alien contact story with well grounded science and A+ storytelling. An all-time great book.
Children of Time from Adrian
TartovskyTchaikovskyObviously both Weir’s other books, The Martian and Artemis.
Also recommend the Silo book series by Hugh Howey. Not nearly as hopeful or optimistic, but there’s a similar very strong vein of problem solving / human ingenuity just like in Andy Weir’s work.
I had heard of the Martian but not Artemis, what is it like?
Artemis is set in a colony on the Moon. Cool science and economy about running the colony, but writing was meh (if I have to read “head full of steam” for the third time…) and MC swears a lot in a juvenile and cringe way.
Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds.
Seveneves
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
If you liked the “astronaut(s) on a distant world do science and meet interesting aliens” aspect Robert L. Forward’s Camelot 30K and his Dragon’s Egg and Rocheworld series might have a similar vibe.
Maybe also Iain M. Banks’ The Algebraist or The Player of Games, though they’re much further from “hard” science fiction and focus on the characters rather than the science.
Also maybe Larry Niven’s The Mote in God’s Eye? Maybe somewhere between the previous ones when it comes to science I’d say.
Or possibly James P. Hogan’s Giants aka Minerva series, starting with Inherit the Stars…? It ends up a bit space opera-y, but the first books are about astronauts solving a mystery on the Moon…
(And if you get into that you might also enjoy Frederik Pohl’s Heechee saga, starting with Gateway…)
Small correction, it’s Frederik
PolhPohl, not Phil.Correcting your correction, it’s Pohl, not Polh.
God damn it…
Lol
If you liked Project Hail Mary, then you should read the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor. The premise is as follows:
Bob is dead. Long live Bob.
Tap for spoiler
Software engineer Robert Johansen uses his share of the money from the buyout of his company (the rest having been split amongst the employees) to start a trust to support his end-of-life maintenance needs. But Bob’s idea of “end-of-life” is being cryogenically frozen until such a time as whatever killed him can be fixed. What he wasn’t counting on, however, was getting hit by a car later that day and waking up over a hundred years later. Finding that, not only has he not been revived, but instead digitised, but also that the christofascist government doesn’t recognise him as a human or worthy of rights, he is surprised to also be informed that the reason they instantiated his consciousness was to become the guiding intelligence of a Von Neumann Probe, and that Bob is going to the stars… At least, he should be, as long as none of the opposing factions in the government or any of the other countries also building their own probes nuke him first.
Bobiverse is an example of hard science fiction, with similar limitations to what PHM uses. The primary conceits that go beyond what’s currently assumed to be possible are:
- the assumption that it is possible to simulate consciousness using electronic media
- the existence of some method of interacting with the fabric of reality to warp spacetime through a reactionless drive (here called “subspace theory”). This assumption allows for interstellar travel over reasonable time scales (but not superluminal travel) and, later, communications. Think a combination of the “Ansible” and the Bussard ramjet from “Tau Zero”
- the fantasy that most people have comprehensible reasons for their actions.
E: I also wish to advocate for Children of time and, if you have additional spare time, Seveneves.
Now that I think about it, Seveneves might be one of the closest books in feel to Hail Mary
If you’re looking for empathy and kindness with an alien species, check out the Wayfarers books by Becky Chambers.
