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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

⬐ EvanAnderson

Deepness introduced me to the concept of software archaeology. I won't spoil it, but there's a really fun bit when a character, digging deeply into the bowels of software systems in this far-future human society, makes an observation about the basis for timekeeping in the oldest systems.

The "focused" remind me of the mentats from the Dune universe, but less general purpose-- more like replicating feedback-based control systems. I have a back-of-the-mind worry that our society will end up with a class of citizens working in "focused" roles powering "intelligent" systems.

⬐ bitwize

There's a meme phrase that applies quite literally to Focus, and has similar implications in the real world to those in the novel. That phrase is "weaponized autism".

⬐ TeMPOraL

If we're going in this direction, you might find enjoyable the book Echopraxia (and its predecessor, Blindsight). Without spoiling too much, it features a group of people that pushed their cognitive wetware and hardware to the point they can't even communicate with normal humans anymore.

⬐ garmaine

Also along similar lines is Alastair Reynolds' Diamond Dogs short story.

⬐ maxerickson

The character in Blindsight didn't push anything, they lost half their brain to a bioweapon.

⬐ TeMPOraL

I wasn't talking about the protagonist.

⬐ maxerickson

Who else doesn't communicate? The vampire isn't a candidate for having done anything to themselves.

⬐ hnmullany

The protagonist is a synthesist - whose sole job is to translate the incomprehensible in-language of the augmented scientists to mission control

⬐ maxerickson

They speak sensible english.

⬐ inkblotuniverse

It's mentioned that they're actually speaking a creole that's been translated and simplified to english for the (baseline) reader.

⬐ TeMPOraL

Ok, so specifically, I meant the Bicameral Order from Echopraxia.

⬐ scott-smith_us

I've read Blindsight, but wasn't aware of Echopraxia. I'll look for it.

One common disappointment I have with sci-fi is how often AIs or alien intelligence are so close to human intelligence. In the Star Trek universe, every alien species is essentially humanoid with some added prosthetic and makeup. This is understandable in a weekly TV show with a tight schedule and budget. But I've read lots of books where the aliens or AIs not only act human, they think and reason like humans. What a boring waste!

There was a lot to like about Blindsight, but I particularly appreciated the completely alien life forms and their interpretation of broadcasts coming from Sol.

⬐ TeMPOraL

Echopraxia will not disappoint you, then.

And along the lines of good portrayal of non-human intelligence, I can also recommend Children of Time, and its sequel, Children of Ruin. Both deal with Earth animal species getting uplifted and left to create their own civilizations.

⬐ btown

It's so hard to say more without spoilers, but Deepness plays with this trope in a way that is both satisfying and may actually improve your enjoyment of other sci-fi works!

⬐ bitwize

We've observed perhaps the closest thing to alien intelligence in the form of intelligent cephalopods -- like squids, octopuses, and cuttlefish. What surprises me about octopuses is how, despite a brain structure that diverged from our lineage perhaps billions of years ago and is vastly different from ours (they have a small central brain and enormously innervated tentacles each with its own local processing), they manifest what we readily recognize as affection and contempt for their human caretakers. They will nuzzle a favored human with their tentacles, and squirt water at a disliked human through their siphon. They do not need to be trained to do this. Either they are capable of experiencing emotional bonds broadly similar to ours and our terrestrial pets', or they are very, very good at faking it.

I didn't use to think this way, but now if we ever met an alien species, it wouldn't surprise me if we had enough cognitive and emotional common ground to establish meaningful relations provided they are carbon-based lifeforms or analogous.

⬐ ethbr0

In the end, it all comes down to food and comfort.

I can't imagine a life form that won't look fondly upon another life form that helps them get their preferred food, and helps limit or avoid discomfort.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

⬐ ecpottinger

Remember the story of the goose that laid the golden eggs? That goose was providing but the farmer got greedy. In real life there tons of stories of people being attacked by animals they fed and sheltered for years.

⬐ int_19h

Alan Dean Forrester's book series about the Humanx Commonwealth is an interesting take on the notion of very alien aliens being friendly. To the point where, in that setting, humans have formed a federation with sapient insects, with the two species having colonies on each others' worlds, a shared religion, law enforcement for federal matters, and military.

⬐ cybernautique

I highly recommend the books "Octopus and Squid: the Soft Intelligence" by Jacques Yves-Costeau and "Other Minds: the Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness" by Peter Godfrey-Smith. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_the_...

⬐ NikolaNovak

Within that context, The title "Programmer-at-Arms" is the absolutely positively coolest three-word string I've encountered in English Language so far :)

⬐ blincoln

I also really appreciated the software archaeology, and the projection forward of what were then common ways of communicating on the internet (Usenet, etc.) into the distant future where they might actually make sense again due to the transmission times and bandwidth for interstellar messages.

I definitely recommend both. I didn't realize he'd written a third in the series, but I'll be giving that a look.

⬐ amosj

This is an extraordinary book and one of my top 5 among many a science fiction novel.

"You want a deepness that endures, a deepness that [we] can depend on? there is a deepness in the sky, and it extends forever"

it's got VR headsets, distributed computers - hacking plays a major role. Only way it could be better is if I could forget the plot so I could read it again

⬐ jf

I’ve enjoyed each reread almost as much as the first. What a book!

⬐ jvanderbot

Not only is Deepness one of the best sci-fi stories I've read, it's also immensely better than Fire Upon the Deep. I read it first, and it's basically essential sci-fi in my book.

⬐ ak217

A Fire upon the Deep is more flawed and uneven, but correspondingly more ambitious and thought-provoking. To me both are easily among the top 5 sci-fi novels ever written. I wish Vinge would keep writing more about Pham Nuwen's adventures. And to the grandparent poster's point, there are far more dimensions to A Deepness in the Sky than the one about communicating with alien cultures (the Focused is just one example). Both books are brilliantly multi-faceted, though the Tines World is a slog.

⬐ JohnMashey

In 2007, Vinge told me he was planning to write story of Pham & Anne's crusade against the Emergents ... a few years later, when that hadn't appeared, I asked him about it ... he said it was too depressing. (People found Deepness dark, now imagine portrayal of the Emergents' worlds, even though they obviously get defeated, given Fire.)

⬐ rsync

Agreed that _Deepness in the Sky_ is better than _Fire Upon the Deep_.

However, in my opinion, _Fire Upon the Deep_ should be the better book and has, in many ways, deeper and more thought-provoking concepts at play.

The problem is, none of them get fully explained or resolved.

The book wraps up the character driven story arcs and the much deeper, conceptual story arcs involving non-human actors just peter out ...

⬐ jl6

Fire has the most breathtaking, hooking first chapter of any book I’ve read.

⬐ X6S1x6Okd1st

Huh I just recommended that some do go forward with a deepness in the sky, but read a fire upon the deep first because of the aforementioned content warnings.

I think if I didn't already have some faith in the author I would have just stopped because the theming is so dark

⬐ garmaine

Same here. I would have put down and thrown away Deepness if I hadn't read Fire Upon The Deep first and trusted the author. I'm glad I finished it because of the parts about the spiders and Pham Nuwen's past was really interesting. But the "present-day" emergents story line is dark... I did not enjoy reading those parts.

⬐ joe-collins

It was definitely dark, and before I was halfway through I was desperate for the alien chapters just because all of the humans were just so damned miserable.

⬐ Stratoscope

I am a little confused. Which of the books are you and GP talking about that is so dark?

⬐ db48x

They are talking about A Deepness in the Sky. The good guys lose pretty hard and suffer as a result.

⬐ btown

It’s almost like the way in which a society is described to you affects how engaged you are in their success… which is entirely the meta-textual point!

⬐ abecedarius

> I would argue that Deepness is best read first

I strongly recommend the publication order instead. Deepness ought to work standalone, but you'll be missing dramatic irony.

⬐ None

None

⬐ Terretta

Pulling this point to the TL;DR top:

A Deepness in the Sky (1999) is a prequel set 20k years earlier than A Fire Upon the Deep (1992).

⬐ cdogl

+1. A Deepness in the Sky is one of the most underrated works of speculative fiction that I've read. It is a masterwork of plotting and character work. A Fire Upon the Deep has some great ideas and some characters that have stuck with me, but I think Deepness is a far superior work. Its brilliance is that it has the structure of a great work of fiction but you can basically just read it as straight pulp science fiction and have a fun time.

⬐ 2ion

Besides the SF content, A Deepness in the Sky is also one of the very very few books that have completely disgusted me about a fictional character, namely in this book, what happened to Qiwi and Kira Pen Lisolet. I had to stop reading a few times. For the writing to steer impressions this much alone this book is 11/10.

⬐ garmaine

That aspect of it destroyed the rereadability of the book for me. I tried reading it again recently because I loved the part of the plot that dealt with the spiders, but I ended up skipping over the chapters with the emergents because I knew where thing were going and didn't want to re-experience it.

Still, that's credit to the author that he was able to write something powerful enough to evoke such a response.

⬐ miohtama

I rate it 6/5

⬐ AdamHominem

I'd rate it a 5/7 book

⬐ Retric

Just be aware Speculative Fiction is is really the best ways to describe those books. Their engaging, but on the ultra soft side of science fiction.

⬐ AdamHominem

I recently read Fire Upon the Deep and I think I'd agree that Vinge is great at speculative fiction. I hadn't looked at the publish/copyright date when I borrowed the ebook from my library.

I was shocked just now to see it's a thirty year old book. Zero signs or hints of it, at least to me. The concept that computers/AIs can be affected by the region of space they're in is a nifty idea I don't think I've seen before, and one can find some parallels today (for example, Siri now on a sufficiently new enough iPhone isn't completely useless, but much more capable when within range of a data connection.)

My only complaint about FUtD was that some elements of the plot, namely stuff going on in the planet, felt drawn out and slow.

Thank you both for recommending another one of his books.

⬐ bradknowles

It is a bit of a slow burn.

But with these books, Vernor Vinge has now become one of my favorite authors, up there with Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, David Drake, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, and Jerry Pournelle (although I don’t care for Niven and Pournelle when they work together).

Larry Niven has introduced me to some new authors that I’ve liked, through his “Man-Kzin Wars” series, but I haven’t read enough of their works to put them in my “favorite authors” category, at least not yet.

Piers Anthony is also great, but I’ve only read his fantasy novels, so I can’t speak for where he would rate on the SF scale. I also wouldn’t consider Edgar Rice Burroughs to be SF. Same for Arthur Conan Doyle.

And Orson Scott Card is just plain weird. I love his work, but I find it hard to recommend to others.

James S. A. Corey is a pseudonym of two authors, so I don’t feel like I can include it on the top list above. But I do love what I’ve seen of their work.

Ironically, while I love the Dune movie, I haven’t actually read any of Frank Herbert’s work. I look forward to seeing the new Dune movie as well, and then maybe I’ll go back and read some of the novels.

I absolutely hated, loathed, and despised Aldous Huxley. The closest I ever came to suicide was while I was forced to read his book. The second closest was when I was forced to read “Madame Bovary”. Both were a result of a sophomore level English class I was forced to take in order to get my degree.

I don’t think I’ve actually read any of Roald Dahl’s novels, same with Cory Doctorow, Harlan Ellison, and Neil Gaiman.

And I think I’ll stop there. I’m seeing too many names that I recognize on the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_science-fiction_author... but which I don’t remember reading any of their work. So, I’ve got a few decades of reading to catch up on.

⬐ larksimian

I liked Madame Bovary so much :( I did read it in my late 20s though. It's such a slick book, I loved the... style/aesthetics. True nothing happens in it, but still. I guess I was going through a more lyrically motivated reading phase at the time.

⬐ xenophonf

The classics are classics for a reason. Huxley and Flaubert are both wonderful authors, but all the joy was sucked out reading their works when I was forced to do it. I don't know why. Personal failing, maybe.

I thought Herbert's non-_Dune_ works were very good while also being very disturbing. I read _The White Plague_ in my teens and am reminded of it whenever I read about modern gene drive technology. The ConSentiency stories and books have stayed with me to this day, and I periodically re-read them. Both _Hellstrom's Hive_ and _The Santaroga Barrier_ are fantastic utopias crossed over with deep horror; I love them but can't bring myself to re-read them!

Everybody's different. I can't stand Asimov or Clarke or Drake or Heinlein, despite reading nearly all of their respective science fiction oeuvres, but that Ursula Le Guin isn't in your top five is a damn shame. _The Left Hand of Darkness_ is one of my favorite books, and _The Dispossessed_ primed a political conversion completed by Iain Banks' Culture novels years later. Le Guin and Banks are probably my two favorite authors now, and in that order, with Bradbury and Adams a very close third and fourth.

I'm so tired of trilogies and tetralogies and so on and so forth. I wish authors would just finish the damn story. I think that's why I like Le Guin and Banks so much. You can read out of order and it's no big deal. In fact, I read _The Tombs of Atuan_ before _A Wizard of Earthsea_, and all of Le Guin's Hanish stories are stand-alone. The same goes for Banks' Culture novels, where I started with _Excession_ and back-tracked to _Consider Phelebas_ and read in release order (mostly).

Anyway, I heartily recommend giving the literary fiction another chance some day. There's some really amazing stuff out there that doesn't happen in space.

⬐ int_19h

You can kinda tell when FutD originates by the fact that it has, basically, a galactic Usenet. Granted, it's justified by the setting, but still.

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

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.)

⬐ dwaltrip

I second this recommendation. Really great book.

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.

⬐ mLuby

Likewise the short story "Glacial" in Alastair Reynolds's Galactic North book explores this concept. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_North#"Glacial"

⬐ wallstop

Likewise Children of Time (https://www.amazon.com/Children-Time-Adrian-Tchaikovsky/dp/1...), another piece of solid sci-fi that explores some ideas about the development of "intelligence".

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]

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 :)

⬐ marssaxman

I got absolutely nowhere with Simmons and have no idea what the appeal is, but I cannot encourage Banks enough. Worth reading all, and again.

⬐ fsloth

Hmm, it might be nostalgia as I was in my late teens when I read "Hyperion" the first time. The rest of the books in the series are weaker, though. Hyperion seems to be an amalgamation of lots of nuggets of story building and elements that the author has lovingly crafted in span of several years and if one does not enjoy pondering, poetic world-building or heart pounding scifi action with time shifting supersuits for their own sake, then there is very little meat in the book.

⬐ demachina

Anathem was really good, probably the last good book Stephenson's written. Reamde was awful.

Daniel Suarez is top of my list to replace Stephenson. His books aren't great literature, and not as great as Stephenson when he was at his best but they are good page turners for near future tech.

Daemon, Freedom, Kill Decision, Influx.

http://www.amazon.com/Influx-Daniel-Suarez-ebook/dp/B00DMCPO...

⬐ fsloth

I understand the elements Stephenson wanted to explore in Reamde but I agree, the book was the first Stephenson book I had to struggle through.

The real power of Focus: http://www.amazon.com/Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought/dp/08125363...