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Does anyone know any Hard Sci Fi books about humans surviving without any hospitable worlds?

I’m looking to get inspiration for my own writing. I need a hard sci fi series where earth (and earthlike worlds) are too rare, inaccessible, and/or previously spoiled beyond ability to sustain life. Bonus points if it is set on a multi-generational space station or starship without any other options and goes into detail about life support, living space, mineral mining and expansion of the station to accomodate a growing population, and daily life of it’s residents.

If anyone remembers Drifter Colonies from Titan A.E., that’s what’s in my head.

I’m looking for The Martian levels of realism, and I’m fine with a bit of “Unobtanium” clichés if they’re not core to the story.

Seraph ,
@Seraph@kbin.social avatar

Check out A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martin and it's sequel.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Great book (author’s last name is spelled Martine), but though a hunk of people are on a space station I don’t think it goes into as much detail on making that work as OP is asking for - at the time of the story they’d been there for generations.

Nemo ,

Maybe not “hard” enough for you (eg. it has absibles) but Becky Chambers’s Record of a Spaceborn Few is about life on a fleet of generation ships.

MrBobDobalina ,

Not quite what you’re after but I absolutely love Diaspora by Greg Egan.

It’s a different take on the same issues you’re asking about (not at first, but it’s not really a spoiler to say that it explores them whether or not it’s as necessary as your examples state), a take that leans more into different forms of existence rather than supporting our current existence in a different environment (but touches on aspects of that too, kind of). It’s mega-multi-generational while also not being that at all, depending on perspective.

Ziggurat ,

Not quite what you’re after but I absolutely love Diaspora by Greg Egan.

Came here to say that it’s the BOOK OP is looking for , Moreover, it’s one of the authors present on the fediverse @gregeganSF

I don’t know how the original version works, but in the French translation Francis Lustman made a real effort in building a coherent grammar with neo-pronoms which match very well the book tone, and is a great exercise.

However, Diaspora isn’t the most accessible Egan book. I mean, if you never heard about stuff like complex conjugate, or Penrose tiles you’ll struggle with some of the concept.

MrBobDobalina ,

It was my first real Sci fi book haha. Definitely a struggle but I was hooked once I started grasping even a sense of what was going on in the conceptory at the beginning.

From there, I understood what I understood, and let the other concepts flow over me in a way. Sometimes they’d click once I was a few chapters deeper and something that was discussed earlier came into effect and I’d go back and re read, other things made more sense when I read the whole thing again years later.

Reading it, I definitely didn’t get the full intended effect that someone with more knowledge would have, but it still managed to stick with me for decades now and absolutely shaped my Sci fi tastes

Berttheduck ,

Doesn’t quite fit the bill as there’s a planet eventually but Children of Time by Tchaikovsky is excellent and half the book follows a generation ship. The other half follows a successive evolution of uplifted spiders. It’s reasonably hard sci-fi not Martian levels of detail about the science but very well written and enjoyable. Could be worth a go for some inspiration.

livus ,
@livus@kbin.social avatar

@Berttheduck

The other half follows a successive evolution of uplifted spiders

This is the book I didn't know I wanted to read until now.

Lemonparty ,

It owns. Haven’t read the third one yet. Not even sure if it’s out but if it is it’s next on the list.

livus ,
@livus@kbin.social avatar

@Lemonparty cool I've been looking for a series.

Berttheduck ,

It does a really good job of making you empathize with giant spiders. I can also recommend the audio book, very well done.

livus ,
@livus@kbin.social avatar

@Berttheduck awesome. I love relatable non-human characters that are genuinely alien not just crypto humans.

Klordok ,

The Children of Time books by Adrian Tchaikovsky have a lot of those themes. Half of the first book is about an ark ship sent out to find a habitable planet because earth is dying. It spans hundreds of years as key crew members go in and out of hyper sleep. Relationships and political factions form and dissolve as the ageing ship continues its mission to find a new home.

The second book focuses on a terraforming crew that was sent to another star system to prepare a planet for humans. However, the planet’s ecology is so alien it proves very difficult to gain a foothold.

herrcaptain ,

I’ll second this (though I’ve only read the first thus far). I don’t know that I’d consider it especially hard SciFi but it’s far from a space opera. I recall feeling like the justification for the creation of the arachnid race was a bit hand-wavey, but the level of thought put into their society more than made up for the required suspension of disbelief. Definitely one of my favorite books.

For something similar I’d also recommend Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward. It’s about the discovery of intelligent life on a neutron star, who develop at a rate exponentially faster than humanity. Also not super hard SciFi, but a great exploration into truly alien life.

TheaoneAndOnly27 ,

I really enjoyed the first and could not get into the second in the children of time series

gears ,

There’s a third now, I need to read it still. I liked the second, though

TheaoneAndOnly27 ,

It's possible Just wasn't the flavor I was looking for at the time. I'll give another go at some point. I hear great things from people so it's probably just send me a thing

Klordok , (edited )

I loved the first two, but I had a hard time getting through the third. It has interesting concepts but it takes a long time to make its point. Plot structure spoilers:

SpoilerThe main reveal should have happened half way through, not at the end.

Apologies for mobile formatting

FullOfBallooons ,
@FullOfBallooons@leminal.space avatar

You might want to check out Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers. The book is about the people of the Exodus Fleet, a group of multi-generation ships that left Earth years ago. Even though the fleet eventually found other planets for them to live on, many are content to continue living out in space. It’s a neat little slice of life book about this community doing their part to keep these ships going.

DaMonsterKnees ,

Ohhhhh boy, I get to nerd out. OK, super short story; reading and chatting about The Expanse book series got me pointed towards the work of Alastair Reynolds. The early parts of his universes arch aren’t really relevant for your purposes, but in the latter books, how humanity survives on lifeless rocks, is exactly what you’re looking for. Plus, he’s a astrophysicist doctor, iirc, and it is quite quite good hard Sci Fi.

Mac ,

I love Alastair Reynolds

eagleeyedtiger ,

I finished Alastair Reynold’s Pushing Ice a few months ago and it’s kind of close to what OP is looking for. Also a really good book!

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