MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - "Modern castaway in a primitive world" novels and series

taosaur · 05-11-2021, 06:41 PM

I posted this over on reddit and thought I would share it here, too, and see what other recommendations people have. If I diverge a bit at the end, it's because this was originally posted to r/RimWorld (sci-fi colony game).

Right now I am thoroughly hooked on Olan Thorensen's Destiny's Crucible series. Be warned, the first maybe 1/3 of the first book, Cast Under an Alien Sun, is not promising - stilted dialogue, tedious exposition, clear Marty Stu protagonist - and then the author suddenly gets his feet under him and ends up being quite good at dialogue as well as playing with reader expectations. The premise is that a chemistry grad student is rescued from a plane crash by aliens, who refuse to return him to earth, but reveal that entities unknown have seeded human cultures on multiple alien worlds. They drop him off on a world that tops out around a pre-Napoleonic state of development. The easiest way to read this series is to grab a Kindle Unlimited trial.

Nantucket series, S.M. Stirling: The island of Nantucket in 1998 is transported to 1250B.C. They're fortunate to take a sail-driven Coast Guard training ship with them.

Emberverse / The Change series, S.M. Stirling: in the world of 1998 that Nantucket left behind, electricity and combustion stop working. Even steam pressure is capped, and gunpowder just kind of fizzles. The survivors form some very interesting cultures. Mostly takes place in the Willamette Valley, Oregon.

The Lost Regiment series, William R. Forstchen: a Civil War regiment crosses an anomaly into an alien world where they encounter castaways from many other eras and cultures, as well as alien threats.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain: the original, and still very much worth a read. The premise is written on the tin.

A Time Odyssey series, Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter: starts out with a day-after-tomorrow geopolitical vibe, following a U.N. team stationed in Pakistan near the Afghan border. They are then transposed, along with a plot of land around them, to a patchwork earth composed of these swatches from various time periods. Rudyard Kipling plays a supporting role, some pre-human hominids are encountered, and IIRC some astronauts are captured by a Mongol horde. This series is both more sci-fi and more psychedelic than the others listed here, although Emberverse takes some pretty wild turns.

The first four series are heavily concerned with both engineering details and military strategy and battle tactics.

That's all I've got off the top of my head. Some of Ian M. Banks The Culture novels can have a similar vibe for a few chapters here and there, while characters are stuck or stationed on less developed worlds, doing the dirty work for The Culture's "We don't mess with other civilizations, no sir" AI minds. Emma Newman's Planetfall is literally a human colony under threat on an alien world, but is more of a slow burn psychological horror story with a very Cronenberg aesthetic. Peter Clines Dead Moon is a moonbase beset by Lovecraftian zombies. Clines does very high quality pulp fiction - he made his name with a series about superheroes surviving a zombie apocalypse.

05-11-2021, 06:41 PM	#1
taosaur intelligent posterior Posts: 1,562 Karma: 21295618 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Ohiopolis Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2, Samsung S8, Lenovo Tab 3 Pro	"Modern castaway in a primitive world" novels and series I posted this over on reddit and thought I would share it here, too, and see what other recommendations people have. If I diverge a bit at the end, it's because this was originally posted to r/RimWorld (sci-fi colony game). Right now I am thoroughly hooked on Olan Thorensen's Destiny's Crucible series. Be warned, the first maybe 1/3 of the first book, Cast Under an Alien Sun, is not promising - stilted dialogue, tedious exposition, clear Marty Stu protagonist - and then the author suddenly gets his feet under him and ends up being quite good at dialogue as well as playing with reader expectations. The premise is that a chemistry grad student is rescued from a plane crash by aliens, who refuse to return him to earth, but reveal that entities unknown have seeded human cultures on multiple alien worlds. They drop him off on a world that tops out around a pre-Napoleonic state of development. The easiest way to read this series is to grab a Kindle Unlimited trial. Nantucket series, S.M. Stirling: The island of Nantucket in 1998 is transported to 1250B.C. They're fortunate to take a sail-driven Coast Guard training ship with them. Emberverse / The Change series, S.M. Stirling: in the world of 1998 that Nantucket left behind, electricity and combustion stop working. Even steam pressure is capped, and gunpowder just kind of fizzles. The survivors form some very interesting cultures. Mostly takes place in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. The Lost Regiment series, William R. Forstchen: a Civil War regiment crosses an anomaly into an alien world where they encounter castaways from many other eras and cultures, as well as alien threats. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain: the original, and still very much worth a read. The premise is written on the tin. A Time Odyssey series, Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter: starts out with a day-after-tomorrow geopolitical vibe, following a U.N. team stationed in Pakistan near the Afghan border. They are then transposed, along with a plot of land around them, to a patchwork earth composed of these swatches from various time periods. Rudyard Kipling plays a supporting role, some pre-human hominids are encountered, and IIRC some astronauts are captured by a Mongol horde. This series is both more sci-fi and more psychedelic than the others listed here, although Emberverse takes some pretty wild turns. The first four series are heavily concerned with both engineering details and military strategy and battle tactics. That's all I've got off the top of my head. Some of Ian M. Banks The Culture novels can have a similar vibe for a few chapters here and there, while characters are stuck or stationed on less developed worlds, doing the dirty work for The Culture's "We don't mess with other civilizations, no sir" AI minds. Emma Newman's Planetfall is literally a human colony under threat on an alien world, but is more of a slow burn psychological horror story with a very Cronenberg aesthetic. Peter Clines Dead Moon is a moonbase beset by Lovecraftian zombies. Clines does very high quality pulp fiction - he made his name with a series about superheroes surviving a zombie apocalypse.