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 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day 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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[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 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 3 points 1 day ago

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

[–] brrt@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day 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 1 day 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 13 hours 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 13 hours ago

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