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Recommendations based on The Hydrogen Sonataby Iain M. Banks
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Surface Detail
by Iain M. Banks
A sci-fi space opera exploring the consequences of virtual immortality.
It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters. It begins with a murder. It will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself. Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, ... (Goodreads)
Matter
by Iain M. Banks
Epic space opera featuring powerful, warring civilizations and a mysterious energy source.
In a world renowned within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one brother it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his ... (Goodreads)
Look to Windward
by Iain M. Banks
The story of two civilizations and their intertwined destinies, spanning thousands of years.
The Chelgrians are a race of centaur-like cat aliens with three hind-limbs and a humanoid catlike torso. Major Quilan, a Chelgrian, has lost the will to live after the death of his wife, killed ... (Wikipedia)
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
A hacker's quest in a futuristic America dealing with a mysterious computer virus.
Hiro Protagonist is a hacker and pizza delivery driver for the Mafia. He meets Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), a young skateboard Kourier ( courier ) who refers to herself in the third person , during ... (Wikipedia)
Anathem
by Neal Stephenson
A philosophical novel set in a monastic society, exploring the limits of knowledge.
Anathem is set on the fictional planet of Arbre. Thousands of years before the events in the novel, the planet's intellectuals entered concents ( monastic communities) to protect their activities ... (Wikipedia)
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
by Neal Stephenson
A young girl's journey of learning and self-discovery, aided by advanced technology.
The protagonist in the story is Nell, a thete (or person without a tribe; equivalent to the lowest working class) living in the Leased Territories, a lowland slum built on the artificial, diamondoid ... (Wikipedia)
The Peripheral
by William Gibson
A journey to the future, exploring the possibilities of a post-apocalyptic world.
The novel begins sometime in the near-future in a small town in rural America. Flynne Fisher works at a local 3D printing shop and lives with her mother and her brother Burton, who sustained brain ... (Wikipedia)
The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman
A soldier's story of the horror of war and its consequences in the far future.
The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic— Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi,The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce ... (Barnes & Noble)
Singularity Sky
by Charles Stross
A post-scarcity society is disrupted by the arrival of a rogue AI and a group of time-traveling anarchists.
The Festival, a civilisation of uploaded minds , arrives at Rochard's World, an outlying colony of the New Republic. It begins breaking down objects in the system to make technology for its stay. ... (Wikipedia)
Ancillary Justice
by Ann Leckie
A sci-fi epic of revenge and redemption, exploring the far reaches of the galaxy.
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking ... (Goodreads)
The Evolutionary Void
by Peter F. Hamilton
Adventure in a dangerous universe, as a group of aliens work to save their species from extinction.
Exposed as the Second Dreamer, Araminta has become the target of a galaxywide search by government agent Paula Myo and the psychopath known as the Cat, along with others equally determined to ... (Goodreads)
Neuromancer
by William Gibson
A hacker's journey through a dystopian cyberpunk world, searching for a way to survive.
Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the dystopian underworld of Chiba City , Japan. Once a talented computer hacker , Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment for his theft, ... (Wikipedia)
The Reality Dysfunction
by Peter F. Hamilton
Epic sci-fi adventure through space and time, tackling questions of identity and reality.
The Reality Dysfunction opens in the year 2581 with a war raging between two worlds, Omuta and Garissa, over three hundred and eighty seven mineral-rich asteroids known as the Dorados. The war ... (Wikipedia)
Revelation Space
by Alastair Reynolds
A space opera that explores the dark side of humanity and the consequences of advanced technology.
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to ... (Goodreads)
Absolution Gap
by Alastair Reynolds
A sci-fi adventure featuring a crew of misfits on a mission to save their home world from destruction.
The plot of the novel takes place in four separate time periods. The bulk of the novel is contained in the 2675 and 2727 sections. Queen Jasmina of the lighthugger Gnostic Ascension wakes Quaiche, a ... (Wikipedia)
The Quantum Thief
by Hannu Rajaniemi
Intergalactic heist of a quantum computer, revealing a dangerous criminal conspiracy.
Countless gogols of the legendary gentleman thief Jean Le Flambeur are trapped in a virtual Sobornost prison in orbit around Neptune, playing an iterated prisoner's dilemma until his mind learns to ... (Wikipedia)
Great North Road
by Peter F. Hamilton
An interstellar murder mystery set in a world of intergalactic politics and intrigue.
A century from now, thanks to a technology allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung colony worlds. ... (Goodreads)
Leviathan Wakes
by James S.A. Corey
Space adventure of two unlikely allies in a fight to save humanity.
The ice hauling ship Canterbury (nicknamed the Cant by Belters) is en route from Saturn's Rings to Ceres Station when it encounters a distress signal . Five members of the Cant 's crew are dispatched ... (Wikipedia)
Spin
by Robert Charles Wilson
A mysterious force disrupts the Earth, transforming the planet and its inhabitants in unexpected ways.
The story opens when Tyler Dupree is twelve years old. Tyler and his mother live in a guest house on the property of aerospace millionaire E.D. Lawton and his alcoholic wife, Carol. Tyler is friends ... (Wikipedia)
A Fire Upon the Deep
by Vernor Vinge
An interstellar adventure of exploration, uncovering a powerful and mysterious force.
An expedition from Straumli Realm, an ambitious young human civilization in the high Beyond, investigates a five-billion-year-old data archive in the low Transcend that offers the possibility of ... (Wikipedia)
The Apocalypse Codex
by Charles Stross
A secret agent's mission to protect humanity from a powerful cult and its apocalyptic agenda.
For outstanding heroism in the field (despite himself), computational demonologist Bob Howard is on the fast track for promotion to management within the Laundry, the supersecret British government ... (Goodreads)
The Bridge
by Iain Banks
A sci-fi exploration of an alien world and the human experience, with a shocking twist ending.
The three main characters represent different elements of the protagonist. Alex (full name hinted to be Alexander Lennox, but never explicitly named), John Orr and The Barbarian are one. Alex is a ... (Wikipedia)
Embassytown
by China Miéville
Exploring a distant alien city and unraveling its mysteries.
Embassytown takes place mostly in the city of the title, on the planet Arieka. Embassytown exists on the very edge of the "Manchmal" (from the German for "sometimes"), which is suspected to be the ... (Wikipedia)
A Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula K. Le Guin
A young wizard embarks on a quest to master his own magical powers and battle a mysterious force of evil.
Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth. Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon ... (Goodreads)
Redemption Ark
by Alastair Reynolds
Epic space opera about a quest to save a civilization from a hostile alien race.
The novel takes place around the planets Yellowstone and Resurgam, in two story lines which converge near the climax of the novel. The novel begins in the year 2605, where Skade has been tasked with ... (Wikipedia)
The Windup Girl
by Paolo Bacigalupi
A dystopian future where energy scarcity and biotechnology have caused massive upheaval in society.
Anderson Lake is an economic hitman for the AgriGen Corporation, working in Thailand. He owns a factory trying to mass-produce a revolutionary new model of kink-spring (the successor, in the absence ... (Wikipedia)
Altered Carbon
by Richard K. Morgan
A futuristic sci-fi noir set in a world where death is no longer permanent.
On the colony planet of Harlan’s World, Takeshi Kovacs and his partner Sarah Sachilowski, former Envoys who had returned to a life of crime, are killed by a U.N. colonial commando unit. Kovacs is ... (Wikipedia)
Blindsight
by Peter Watts
A sci-fi tale of a journey to the outer reaches of space and a confrontation with alien life.
In the year 2082, thousands of large, coordinated objects of an unknown origin, dubbed "Fireflies", burn up in the Earth's atmosphere in a precise grid, while momentarily broadcasting across an ... (Wikipedia)
The Long Earth
by Terry Pratchett
A journey through alternate worlds, exploring the boundaries of reality and imagination.
The "Long Earth" is a (possibly infinite) series of parallel worlds that are similar to Earth, which can be reached by using an inexpensive device called a "Stepper". The "close" worlds are almost ... (Wikipedia)
Hyperion
by Dan Simmons
Epic science-fiction story of a journey to the distant planet Hyperion.
In the 29th century, the Hegemony of Man comprises hundreds of planets connected by farcaster portals. The Hegemony maintains an uneasy alliance with the TechnoCore , a civilisation of AIs . Modified ... (Wikipedia)
