MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Please recommend Meaningful Sci-Fi

gmw · 02-27-2021, 09:06 AM

When I saw "Meaningful Sci-Fi" in the subject line my first thought was Ted Chiang. Regrettably he has so far only managed two short story collections, but if you want something intellectually intriguing and meaningful these are well worth visiting:

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang, 2002
Exhalation by Ted Chiang, 2019

I'm also a big fan the Stephen Donaldson's The Gap series. We're not talking one or two minor character flaws, we're talking a whole cast of characters built out of flaws. And some rather good sci-fi too. The five books (4 ebooks) make up essentially one very big story. The first (short-ish) book can be a struggle, it's really ugly/nasty, integral to the story but difficult to deal with, but get past that and it is truly excellent (all IMHO of course).

02-27-2021, 09:06 AM	#13
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,818 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	When I saw "Meaningful Sci-Fi" in the subject line my first thought was Ted Chiang. Regrettably he has so far only managed two short story collections, but if you want something intellectually intriguing and meaningful these are well worth visiting: Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang, 2002 Exhalation by Ted Chiang, 2019 I'm also a big fan the Stephen Donaldson's The Gap series. We're not talking one or two minor character flaws, we're talking a whole cast of characters built out of flaws. And some rather good sci-fi too. The five books (4 ebooks) make up essentially one very big story. The first (short-ish) book can be a struggle, it's really ugly/nasty, integral to the story but difficult to deal with, but get past that and it is truly excellent (all IMHO of course).