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As always, no spoilers until the end when we clearly call it out before getting into the full plot explanation and discussion.
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoThis episode is sponsored by The Song of Immaru: Earth's Door by PJ Dudek, which you can get on print, audiobook, or kindle here.
Similar media we recommend:
Fallout: New Vegas (game)Horizon Zero Dawn (game)The Thirteenth Floor (movie)Severance (TV show) -
This episode is sponsored by The Dawn series by Ray N. Kuili, which you can get on print, audiobook, or kindle here.
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoAll the books in the episode (with YT links to those we've got full episodes on, or search for them in your podcast app):
The Hunger GamesRed RisingReady Player OneThe GiverNever Let Me GoThe Children of MenThe Machine StopsClockwork OrangeA Scanner DarklyKallocainFahrenheit 451The Handmaid's TaleBrave New World1984We -
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The Mercy of Gods follows a team of research scientists trying to survive an alien invasion. The Carryx are ruthless - killing 1/8 of the population immediately as they arrive to encourage the survivors to cooperate. Our team, along with many others, are then abducted and brought to a Carryx planet, where they are set loose in an open-air prison populated by hundreds of other alien races. Theyâre told that if they want to survive they must be useful to the Carryx. Will they resist, or decide to serve the alien overlords? And what does service even mean to aliens who think totally differently?
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoSimilar books we recommend:
Shards of Earth - Adrian TchaikovskyStartide Rising - David BrinA Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge -
A radio astronomer discovers a signal coming from Alpha Centauri - strange, beautiful alien voices, singing. While the rest of the world is transfixed by the broadcast, a catholic order, the Jesuits, take action and launch a mission to the planet of Rakhat. But from the outset we know the mission is doomed to tragedy, because a second storyline follows Emilio Sandoz after his return to Earth. The only survivor of the mission, he struggles to heal his wounds and to reconcile his faith with the deaths of his friends, and prepare to tell the world the truth of what happened on Rakhat.
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoSimilar books we recommend:
Children of God - Maria Doria Russel (Sequel)Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel GarcĂa MĂĄrquezAnathem - Neal StephensonContact - Carl SaganA Canticle for Liebowitz - Walter M. Miller Jr. -
In the 23rd century Johnny Rico enlists in the Mobile Infantry, the heart of the human military. As he nears completion of an intensely rigorous training program to learn how to fight and use his power armor, war breaks out between humanity and the bugs. The bugs are aliens with a hive mind, who attack and destroy Buenos Aires, and Johnny and his friends must strive to survive and defend humanity through the brutal war.
It's also full of deeply interesting (and controversial) ideas about duty, service, crime and punishment, and so much more. If you like military sci-fi this is a must-read, and if you are into philosophical SF you are going to be pleasantly surprised how much it will stick with you and make you think.
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoSimilar books we recommend:
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (listen to our interview with Joe)Columbus Day by Craig AlansonThe Parafaith War by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. -
We rank the nominees for the 2024 Hugo award, plus 6 more from last year!
Join the book club on discord and read The Sparrow! https://discord.gg/fHejh3PpR2Video version of the show on YouTube https://youtube.com/@hugonautspodThe books:
The Witch King - Martha WellsThe Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi - Shannon ChakrabortySome Desperate Glory - Emily TeshThe Saint of Bright Doors - Vajra ChandrasekeraStarter Villain - John ScalziTranslation State - Ann LeckieChain Gang All Stars - Nana Kwame Adjei-BrenyahThe Great Transition - Nick Fuller GooginsTitanium Noir - Nick HarkawayThe Marriage Act - John MarrsRed Team Blues - Cory DoctorowThe Ferryman - Justin Cronin -
Over the years we've built up a pretty big backlog of short novels that we really liked but hadn't had a chance to cover on the show - so today we're bursting that dam.
Join the book club on discord (and vote for our next book club book!): https://discord.gg/fHejh3PpR2Video version of the show on YouTube https://youtube.com/@hugonautspodThe seven books we recommend in this ep:
This is how you Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max GladstoneThe Day of the Triffids by John WyndhamCat's Cradle by Kurt VonnegutBabel-17 by Samuel DelanyAll Systems Red by Martha WellsTusks of Extinction by Ray NaylerThe Way Station by Clifford D. Simak -
There is only one human settlement on the planet of Arieka. There, in Embassytown, a young woman named Avice grows up in a strange world between worlds, where all that is human and all that is alien collide without ever really coming together. That's not much of a summary, but this is a book that really benefits from going in mostly blind, so we made sure to keep things really clean in the pre-spoilers section too.
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoSimilar books we recommend:
Babel-17 by Samuel DelanyCity and the City or anything else by China Miéville A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge -
If you want to see the complete survey results, including all the top books, favorite authors, and short stories come find them on the discord.
Video version of this episode available on YouTube.
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The 2024 Nebula awards are coming up, so we read and ranked all the books for ya. And we've got good news, this was a great year for fantasy and sci-fi!
Join the book club on discord: https://discord.gg/fHejh3PpR2Video version of the show on YouTube https://youtube.com/@hugonautspodThe short listed books:
Translation State by Ann LeckieShigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole TalabiThe Water Outlaws by S.L. HuangThe Terraformers by Annalee NewitzThe Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra ChandrasekeraThe Witch King by Martha Wells -
The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct. The survivors live in the Moscow Metro - the biggest air-raid shelter ever built. It is humanity's last refuge. Stations have become mini-statelets, their people uniting around ideas, religions, water-filters - or the simple need to repulse an enemy incursion. VDNKh is the northernmost inhabited station on its line. It was one of the Metro's best stations and still remains secure.
But now a new and terrible threat has appeared. Artyom, a young man living in VDNKh, is given the task of penetrating to the heart of the Metro, to the legendary Polis, to alert everyone to the awful danger and to get help. He holds the future of his native station in his hands, the whole Metro - and maybe the whole of humanity.
Vote for your top 10 favorite SF novels by April 26! Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoThis is a unique book! So instead of our normal book recs, we recommend some similar video games:
The Last of UsBioshockThe Witcher 3 (harhar) -
Six days ago astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, heâs sure heâll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone. But Mark isnât ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills â and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit â he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoSimilar books we recommend:
Project Hail Mary by Andy WeirWe Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. TaylorReady Player One by Ernest Cline -
Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of the young rebels who venture illegally into the Zone, one of six areas on Earth that have been profoundly changed by the visitation of aliens to Earth. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a âfull empty,â something goes wrong. And despite the danger, the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that heâll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answers he's been looking for.
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoSimilar books we recommend:
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/rendezvous-with-rama)No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthyAnxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom by Ted Chiang (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/ted-chiang) -
Space ships whip across the solar system, ice haulers burn in from the gas giants, stolen Martian corvettes sneak behind enemy lines, and very human characters tie it all together and make the incredible journey worth the ride. Miraculously all 9 books (plus a collection of short stories) are fun, well-done adventures that will keep you turning the pages and racing to find out what happens next. Seriously, if you havenât read the Expanse yet, itâs time for a treat that goes down easy.
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoSimilar books we recommend:
House of Suns â Alastair Reynolds (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/house-of-suns)Children of Time â Adrian Tchaikovsky (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/children-of-time)Memories Legion â James S.A. Corey -
In the One State of the great Benefactor, there are no individuals, only numbers. Life is an ongoing process of mathematical precision, a perfectly balanced equation. Primitive passions and instincts have been subdued. Even nature has been defeated, banished behind the Green Wall. But one frontier remains: outer space. Now, with the creation of the spaceship Integral, that frontier -- and whatever alien species are to be found there -- will be subjugated to the beneficent yoke of reason. Unless D-503 can find a space within himself - that disease the ancients called a soul.
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoSimilar books we recommend:
1984 by George Orwell (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/1984)Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/brave-new-world)One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -
A starship is taking off from Mars, and just before it does one of the crewman arrives with a strange new creature. What will the Wub bring to those on board, and the headstrong captain who can't stop thinking with his stomach?
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!PS We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is still coming soon, but Brent had a family emergency, so Cody stepped up to bring y'all this gem in the meantime.
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Rumors are swirling about a species of super-intelligent octopus living off the coast of Vietnam. As corporations and other non-state actors begin to investigate, it becomes clear that we are not alone in the universe - alien life has evolved right here on earth. DIANIMA, a giant tech company known for its machine learning prowess, buys the islands to study the octopuses and try to monopolize their unique brains for profit. They send Evrim, the worldâs first true android / AI, and Dr. Ha Nguyen, a brilliant marine biologist, to study the octopuses, and Altantsetseg, a battle-hardened drone operator, to defend the islands from rapacious automated fishing vessels.
Can they learn to communicate with the octopuses? Or will this new intelligent life be destroyed by global corporations run amok?
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoCheck out Ray Nayler's answers to your questions about the book!Similar books we recommend:
Children of Ruin - Adrian TchaikovskyStory of Your Life - Ted Chiang (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/ted-chiang)The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/the-windup-girl) -
Ranking our top 15 sci fi books of all time:
15 - Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu 14 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy13 - Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold12 - Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie11 - Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein10 - The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood9 - The Forever War by Joe Haldeman8 - Hyperion by Dan Simmons7 - A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick 6 - Exhalation by Ted Chiang5 - Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro4 - Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin3 - Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson2 - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card1 - Contact by Carl SaganIf you think something deserves to be on the list, drop us a line on Discord!
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video -
Paul Durham has begun experimenting on his own mind. He uploaded a copy of his neural patterns - everything that makes him who he is - into a computer simulation. The more he experiments, the more the lines between the real person and the virtual person begin to blur. What he discovers there, out at the edge of consciousness and the pattern that defines him, give him an impossible idea. A permutation city, where immortality might be possible.
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer videoSimilar books we recommend:
The Hidden Girl and other Stories - Ken Liu (our interview with Ken Liu: https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/ken-liu)The Last Question - short story by Asimov (available free here: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html)Diaspora - Greg Egan -
We talked with Peter about:
Why he quit science to write fictionThe real-world science that inspired BlindsightWhy vampires?!Blindsight movie(s) in the worksWhat's coming next (the sequel to Echopraxia!)Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video, or join the Hugonauts book club on discord!
And if you haven't listened to our episode about Blindsight, check it out here.
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