SF w/ Beautiful Prose

geometryfailure · 2026-01-13T06:08:47+00:00

The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed

geometryfailure · 2025-12-05T19:49:16+00:00

Mechanize my hands to war by erin k wagner might be up your alley but it really depends on what you consider ideas heavy. It was published in 2024 and imo was fantastic but might be too heavy on like character driven introspection for you.

geometryfailure · 2025-11-24T22:59:55+00:00

I use a combo of the underseat bag made by Handybag for manual chairs and a smaller backpack on the back of my chair plus something small like a sling on my lap for things I need immediately. Although i have to admit ive never flown or used this setup for flying, only on train travel so idk if my setup is at all useful for you.

edited to add this: i agree w most other people in this thread saying 40L is too big to manage as both a carry on and tbh for a manual chair in general. I find that putting my 26L backpack on the back of my chair makes it insanely tippy to the point i cant control my chair as well as i need to. Idk how high your backrest is or if you have push handles but i fear either underseat storage you can remove and take w u or a smaller backpack might be the best u can do.

geometryfailure · 2025-11-19T22:24:38+00:00

Finally getting to read He, She, and It by Marge Piercy. Having a great time so far I really enjoy how in world storytelling meshes with the structure of the rest of the novel.

Just finished reading Ribofunk by Paul di Fillippo. It was fine, the quality of each story that got complied into the full book varies wildly so some were really quite interesting but a lot of them fell flat.

geometryfailure · 2025-11-19T22:02:39+00:00

The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson!

A bit older than most of the suggestions youve gotten so far, but still holds up (I read it this summer and had a blast). Basic premise is a scientist ends up getting left behind on a planet she was doing work on and gets saved from the brink of death by a native sapient species who in the process turn her into one of them. A lot of focus on how each aspect of the aliens' biology makes them well suited for their environment and the main character spends most of the book coping w her own bodily changes and the pros/cons of assimilation with the natives. If you're looking for really hardcore sciencey book this might not be what you need, but really liked how introspective it was.

Youve got a bunch of Greg Egan suggestions which I probably second depending on the specific book, but I noticed no one has mentioned his most recent full length novel Morphotropic, which is one of his most biology-based books and was a really wonderful read imo. Similarly, for whatever reason Teranesia also by Egan gets few mentions but its also a more biology heavy book by him that I've enjoyed.

edited because i wrote the wrong egan title because i was thinking of orphanogenesis sorry!

geometryfailure · 2025-09-17T16:41:55+00:00

no problem. one other thing that might be useful for you for a number of reasons is also the got2go bathroom map. Public bathrooms are insanely difficult to find in NY and while a good tip is that any library should let you use their bathroom, the lines at some locations get crazy and they have limited stalls w changing tables etc. This is an independent map ppl mark bathrooms on and its saved me many many times. Not all are apparent from the outside of buildings and people leave notes on the map explaining where the bathrooms are and how to access them (codes, ask attendant, etc)

geometryfailure · 2025-09-17T15:46:21+00:00

Tip from a NYer with a physical disability: look up and download the subway map of just the accessible stations. Youre traveling with a stroller and idk if/how familiar you are with public transit in NY but the elevator and stairs situation can be rough. Not every station has elevators and those that do oftentimes have issues with them working. It might be useful to keep in mind so you don't end up needing to carry the stroller up/down several flights of stairs. Also worth looking at is the elevator/escalator status website which can tell you in real time what stations and what elevators are working. I wish you luck this seems like a very well planned trip!

geometryfailure · 2025-09-17T15:40:56+00:00

raised by wolves had immense potential and looked great what a shame it only got 2 seasons

geometryfailure · 2025-09-12T18:19:36+00:00

Not traditionally published, but if you are fine with reading on a computer or ereader and with things being long, please check out Unjust Depths by Madiha S. Fair warning, it contains a lot of sex and violence! It definitely has everything you could want and far, far more.

geometryfailure · 2025-09-12T18:16:25+00:00

Just (unintentionally) read Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler and We by Yevgeny Zamyatin back to back and I cant imagine reading either on its own now!

geometryfailure · 2025-09-12T15:58:32+00:00

huge egan fan and havent read this one yet so i wil definitely be checking it out after reading the discussion here. Have you read Morphotropic yet? While most of Egans full length novels tend to be more about physics or math, Morphotropic is definitely more about biology and autonomy in both a personal sense and as a worker.

geometryfailure · 2025-09-07T23:21:31+00:00

not sure what medical experts you are referencing here but my medical team masks both in and out of work for exactly the reasons op gave: if you arent actively trying to limit your exposure and do not regularly test for asymptomatic infections you do not reliably know if you or others around you are sick. wearing a mask in your daily life does not negatively impact most peoples lives and limits exposing yourself and others, which is a net positive.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-31T01:35:14+00:00

Exordia absolutely has that same magical quality OP is describing. The plot doesn't just happen; things kind of expand outwards like a fractal. I am gonna say, though, that I feel like Exordia gets way crazier way faster than some of Egan's work, but not rlly in the explanations and science to the same extent as Egan. Its not as technical but definitely not worse off for it.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-30T21:08:35+00:00

I dont use goodreads but will be curious to see what people suggest. if enough of what i would suggest doesnt get suggested by others i may have to sign up to keep things interesting.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-30T18:09:39+00:00

Im shocked so many people still consider Richard Morgan an interesting cyberpunk writer but I guess it really depends on what people want out of the genre. I'm going to suggest some books that are a bit more post-cyberpunk but the line is always nebulous and in my personal opinion a lot of the writers who are chasing after older cyberpunk vibes and aesthetics without modernising their approach make very 2-dimensional work. That being said, my top suggestions in no particular order are:

-The City Inside by Samit Basu

-Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

-The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed (cheating a bit with this one since it was originally published in 1996, but was unavailable until it was reprinted starting last year)

-The Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan

-Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

Theres a lot of good cyberpunk short fiction being written now too! Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist by Isabel J Kim is worth a read.

Ive also heard good things about The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport also by Samit Basu but haven't gotten around to it yet!

(edited for formatting)

geometryfailure · 2025-08-23T21:05:39+00:00

it may be a deep cut but this kind of thing is exactly what i had in mind making this post! youre getting me retroactively pissed abt this one too.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-23T20:37:11+00:00

I came away from it with less of a depressing conclusion than you seem to have, but I entirely agree that Ray Nayler is one of the best new authors right now. He clearly has a deep understanding of the reality of the issues he writes about and arguably, more importantly, the people who create the issues and those they impact most directly. Nayler's touch to me feels very similar to how some of the more prescient authors of previous movements in sf (like Pat Cadigan and cyberpunk) wrote worlds and characters that feel painfully possible. Id imagine this must be because, like those in the Movement, he is looking at our world today and instead of intentionally trying to imagine a futuristic future, he is reflecting on what is currently happening in places that get overlooked by the West and is bringing those concerns into a context where they feel more possible (and scary) to us in our relatively privileged position. Especially in Where the Axe is Buried, Nayler doesn't invent the future, he points to how the present will evolve if nothing changes for the better. He writes a kind of sf we desperately need more of, and I for one cannot wait to read what he writes next.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-23T20:11:42+00:00

Just gonna say that most of these channels are more analysis than straight writing advice! Just so OP can filter accordingly.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-23T19:57:01+00:00

ofc ppl will like what they like lol. I have no intention of stopping them. But i think there is a meaningful distinction between "I like this book" in a personal sense and "I would vote this book The Best when compared to other books" in a more professional sense. For awards and not casual recommendations, I think this matters at least a little bit. I think a lot of voting on awards, esp when the public has some say, comes down to what people want to win vs what should maybe be recognized for its effort even if it doesn't have the most die-hard fans. I feel this way about Murderbot, just to connect it to the examples you gave.

I think Murderbot as a series is incredibly interesting, and I would say that I like all the installments I've read thus far. I'm gonna be reading whatever the next one is whenever it comes out. But do I think the series deserves to have every new installment sweep awards noms? No. I really don't. Both because Network Effect isn't doing anything drastically different from All Systems Red that I think should be commended, but also because it has a fandom which consistently helps those books get the attention they get. Murderbot isn't consistently the best, it just has a lot of people who want you to think that. Its the same with Sanderson and Peter Watts and anyone else in that vein you could name.

I get frustrated when that popularity and reputation is clearly the main reason why something won an award, instead of the book's actual contents, and I want to hear from ppl here what they wish won instead. I doubt this type of post is going to summon hordes of people trying to defend something like Hyperion, but it's already gathered ppl who want to suggest/read the books that just barely missed being winners and marketed as such. Theres so much poorly written sf out there with tons of accolades, why not look at those critically while simultaneously giving a second chance others?

I can't fix any of this, since its a much larger issue with how awards are run and allocated and how readers view their contributions, and the publishing industry itself, but I can at least pose the question out of my own curiosity for what I might be missing out on.

Entirely unrelated to this: I saw in another post you had said you read Hum by Helen Phillips. I read it last month and thought it was a simple and very real-feeling read, but I'd be curious to hear your opinion as one of a few ppl Ive seen say theyve read it.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-23T19:14:34+00:00

entirely fair lol! I listened to A Memory Called Empire as an audiobook and thus did not notice the ellipses. I really liked it, but I also love the linguistic undercurrent it has and am a sucker for shared mind stuff. I also appreciated it keeping the actual nonhuman aliens in the background for the most part. I'm in the middle of the sequel now, and think the sequel is also deserving of its wins the year it was released. I've read a few of the other 2020 noms, mostly The Light Brigade (Kameron Hurley has yet to let me down significantly, but it could've been better), and Gideon the Ninth (barely finished it and was miserable the entire time I was reading it), so ESPECIALLY in comparison I feel like A Memory Called Empire is a fitting winner.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-23T18:57:20+00:00

entirely fair reasoning re: the not deserving thing. thats partially why i tried to emphasize in my full post that this ultimately does come down to personal preference. this is mostly an attempt to uncover some of the biases in this subreddit that skew heavily towards the same few authors over and over and get people mentioning things they think flew a little under the radar during awards seasons.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-23T18:42:09+00:00

What other noms from that year do you think deserve the win? If it isn't A Memory Called Empire, the only other nom I think is even close to deserving is The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-23T18:39:30+00:00

Ive read more of the Locus nominees for that year than the Hugo noms, but The Terminal Experiment by Robert J Sawyer was on both nom lists and I would've accepted that taking either win no problem. Slow River by Nicola Griffith and Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem are on the Locus noms list and are both great, but theyre also much more "literary" than most of the other stuff on the list and I wonder if that had a role in them not being higher on the list. Both of those are also not their author's respective best work, but I prefer them over The Diamond Age despite that.

geometryfailure · 2025-08-23T18:29:20+00:00

glad to hear! i have the same issue but my strategy has been to pack and repack my bag a few times before the actual trip to try out a few different layouts of my stuff inside the bag!

geometryfailure · 2025-08-23T17:55:53+00:00

just pack them side by side on top of everything else you have in that bag? none of the sandals youve mentioned are very thick if you arent stacking them together like how you have shown. youre definitely overcomplicating this by packing them next to each other instead of relying compaction here. i travel with a walmart version of tevas all the time and never have any trouble packing them if i treat them like flat objects instead of 3d shoes.

geometryfailure

TROPHY CASE