Found in 7 comments on Hacker News
btown · 2021-10-03 · Original thread
Highly, highly recommend Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky [0], which won the Hugo in 2000.

It's a hard-sci-fi story about how various societies, human and alien, attempt to assert control & hegemony over centuries of time (in many ways thinking of this as a distributed systems and code documentation problem!), and how critical and impactful the role of language translation is in helping people to understand foreign ways of thinking.

At the novel's core is a question very akin to that of philosophical antipositivism [1]: is it possible (or optimal for your society's stability) to appreciate and emphasize with people wholly different from yourselves, without interpreting their thoughts and cultures in language and description that's familiar to yourselves... even if in so doing this becomes more art than science? Is creative translation ethical if it establishes power dynamics that would not be there otherwise? There's a mind-blowing meta-narrative to this as well when you think about how the reader should interpret the book with that question in mind, though to say anything more would delve into spoilers. And lest you think it's just philosophical deepness, it's also an action-packed page-turner with memorable characters despite its huge temporal scope.

While technically it's a prequel to A Fire Upon The Deep, it works entirely standalone, and I would argue that Deepness is best read first without knowing character details from its publication-time predecessor Fire. Content warnings for mind control and assault (though they're handled thoughtfully IMO). With Asimov's Foundation being adapted for TV (also recommend, if for the visuals alone), if you want even more sci-fi that speaks to societal rise and decline, and the lengths to which people will manipulate others in the name of control and survival, this is a must-read.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought/dp/0812536... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipositivism

btown · 2021-06-14 · Original thread
One that I don't often see recommended, but my absolute favorite sci-fi book, is A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge [0], which won the Hugo in 2000.

It's a hard-sci-fi story about how various societies, human and alien, attempt to assert control & hegemony over centuries of time (in many ways thinking of this as a distributed systems and code documentation problem!), and how critical and impactful the role of language translation is in helping people to understand foreign ways of thinking. At the novel's core is a question very akin to that of philosophical antipositivism [1]: is it possible (or optimal for your society) to appreciate and emphasize with people wholly different from oneself, without interpreting their thoughts and cultures in language and description that's familiar to oneself, even if this is more art than science? There's a meta-narrative to this as well about how the reader should interpret the book with that question in mind, though to say anything more would delve into spoilers. And lest you think it's just philosophical deepness, it's also an action-packed page-turner with memorable characters despite its huge temporal scope.

While technically it's a prequel, it works entirely standalone, and is arguably best read first without knowing character details from its publication-time predecessor. Content warnings for mind control and assault (though they're handled thoughtfully IMO). Highly, highly recommend.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought/dp/0812536...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipositivism

monk_the_dog · 2019-06-27 · Original thread
Thanks for giving me an excuse to recommend "A Deepness in the Sky", by far my favorite science fiction book with a planet of sentient spiders. It's the second in a series, but the first two book can be read out of order. https://www.amazon.com/Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought/dp/0812536... (The first book is good too; The third one was OK, but not as great as the first two.)
The book A Deepness in the Sky (https://www.amazon.com/Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought/dp/0812536...) goes really deep (no pun intended) on this idea! I highly recommend it as some really solid sci-fi. It was full of big new ideas I had never conceived of before and often found myself sitting down just to think.
calgoo · 2015-01-22 · Original thread
I just finished reading Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End [1], and then this comes out!! I want it now!!! This is so the way to go. If you are a SciFi fan, you have probably heard of Vernor's books, if not, I really recommend them. They have actually given me a brighter outlook on the future of humanity :) Apart from Rainbows End, check out Zones of Thought[2] if you want a outlook at what space travel could become in the future.

Back to the AR subject, I much prefer AR over true matrix style VR. Let us stay in the real world, move about the real world, extend it with the virtual.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Rainbows-End-Vernor-Vinge/dp/081253636... [2] http://www.amazon.com/A-Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought/dp/081253...

[Edit: Grammar]

fsloth · 2014-10-11 · Original thread
Nice list but I would definitely include among contemporaries: - Dan Simmon's "Hyperion" as suggested already

- Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" - this is absolutely an amazing book for anyone familiar with geek culture and the interplay of academia and industry

- anything by Iain Banks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks). "Excession" (http://www.amazon.com/Excession-Bantam-Spectra-Book-Banks/dp...) is good, but the culture series in general is very nice literate approach to imagining a post-singularity scifi future that manages to combine deep psychological characters with wacky dark humour, lots of space opera action that is fresh every time and, most of all the ship names... of the ship names are just amazingly ... just go and read it already

- in fantasy (or, dark fantasy, perhaps) genre Joe Abercrombie's "First law" trilogy is an gut wrenchingly entertaining trope-twisting joyride, starting from "The Blade Itself" http://www.amazon.com/The-Blade-Itself-First-Law/dp/15910259... that is worth reading for the hilarious character development (or degeneration?) alone.

- Vernor Vinges "A deepness in the sky"(http://www.amazon.com/A-Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought/dp/081253...) is presented as a hard-scifi space opera but actually manages to be a witty commentary on the state of software engineering now and thousands of years into the future, usage of human intellect in the "mechanical turk" fashion in systems engineering and the potential of 'smart dust'. Almost made me want to start learning Erlang :)

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