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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.

BallShapedMan ,
@BallShapedMan@lemmy.world avatar

My suggestion will spoil a bit of the ending so I’m putting it in a spoiler tag.

3 Body ProblemIn the third book it very much meets this criteria and I think has some fantastic ideas I’d love to see expanded on

Blue_Morpho ,

There is little hard scifi in the 3 Body problem. And nothing of what the OP asked about.

BallShapedMan ,
@BallShapedMan@lemmy.world avatar

You don’t think so? I thought it did.

Blue_Morpho ,

Unfolding proton as a fundamental particle is wrong. Protons are made up of 3 quarks. Quantum teleportation doesn’t enable ftl communication. Ftl engines. Higher dimensions. Collapsing dimensions. Pocket universe.

There is a chapter about building realistic space stations in the shadow of Jupiter and two realistic space ships one of which goes right into the fantasy realm of higher dimensions.

Maybe 50 pages out of 500 are hard scifi.

BallShapedMan ,
@BallShapedMan@lemmy.world avatar

I was sold on the first stuff being real… I guess that makes it good fiction. I know there was a lot that wasn’t but I thought since OP was looking for inspiration that some of the stuff here would help…?!

mdhughes ,
@mdhughes@lemmy.ml avatar

John Varley’s 8 Worlds books (pre- and post-reboot) have had to colonize the rocks of the Solar system, tho they’re not that technical, and he rarely moves past the Moon. Also Gaea (Titan, Wizard, Demon) has an extremely alien habitat; there are other Gaea creatures, just the protagonist one is crazy but also Human-friendly.

Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky is about life on STL, multi-generation starships.

Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix is mostly set in habitats, asteroid mining, and Martian terraforming, but also a very alien hive.

  1. NEVER BORN. “You mean we all came from Earth?” said Nikolai, unbelieving.

“Yes,” the holo said kindly. “The first true settlers in space were born on Earth—produced by sexual means. Of course, hundred of years have passed since then. You are a Shaper. Shapers are never born.”

“Who lives on Earth now?”

“Human beings.”

“Ohhhh,” said Nikolai, his falling tones betraying a rapid loss of interest.

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.

draigoch ,

Maybe have a look at The Long Winter Trilogy by A.G. Riddle (available at kindle unlimited)

Bldck ,

Surprised no one has mentioned The Expanse series. A ton of world building in very different kinds of environments. Space stations, small ships, big ships, generation ships, asteroids, moons, planets.

The environments are well thought out in how the residents would need to adapt

SeaJ ,

Cibola Burn especially was really cool with the world building. Things that you don’t really hear of in other novels or even think of like the fact that alien plant life would be completely inedible to us are dealt with in detail.

livus ,
@livus@kbin.social avatar

It was the first thing I thought of but I thought Earth was still too viable for OP in the first few books, plus the science isn't The Martian level hard.

Adderbox76 ,

I’ve come to believe that once we seriously get into Space, there will come a point where “Planets” are not our primary residence at all.

I feel like O’Neal Cylinders have the advantage of a controlled environment and the lack of a gravity well hindering further exploration.

init ,
@init@lemmy.ml avatar

ANOTHER series I just remembered and highly recommend is the Unincorporated Man series. I think there are 4-5 books in the series. Pretty good IMHO. Similar to The Expanse, it’s the Inners vs the Belters, and explores personal liberty and person hood from the perspective of owning “shares” of yourself like a company.

The conflict is awesome, and two military strategy geniuses duke it out in a Legends of the Galactic Heroes sort of way–one has all the resources and latest tech, the other is scrappy and has to deal with extreme resources shortages. Awesome story.

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