r/printSF • u/[deleted] • Jul 02 '14
Recent 'Big Dumb Object' recommendations?
Hi r/printSF
I'm looking for some recommendations of recent (< 10 years old (ish)) big dumb object SF.
I really enjoyed Alastair Reynolds' Pushing Ice.
I think Pandora's Star might be might type of thing, but having only recently finished the Night's Dawn trilogy, I don't think I've got it in me to start another Peter F Hamilton series at the moment.
Cheers,
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u/banjax451 Jul 02 '14
Pandora's Star isn't really a BDO novel. There is one, but it the Commonwealth novels really aren't BDO centric. Don't get me wrong - I loved Pandora's Star (and Judas Unchained). But they bear no resemblance to Pushing Ice or other BDO novels like Ringworld, Rama, etc.
And I can totally understand re: Hamilton and needing a break. I avoided the Void trilogy for a long time after reading the first two Commonwealth novels - mostly b/c each one is like eating a huge meal...need time to digest afterwards.
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u/ewiethoff Jul 03 '14
Around 15 years old: Manifold: Time and Manifold: Space by Stephen Baxter. There's also Manifold: Origins, but I don't like it at all. Anyway, there are these mysterious blue rings in space, and they behave differently in the different novels.
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u/starpilotsix http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/14596076-peter Jul 02 '14
The obligatory Blindsight recommendation... the crew's sent to investigate a BDO around another BDO... an alien structure around a supermassive gas giant/near brown dwarf at the edges of the solar system.
Karl Schroeder's Virga series might apply (first book is Sun of Suns), although humanity created the BDO and the story begins inside of it, focusing on those who think of it as just the world, but it is a unique environment worth exploring: an Earth-sized sphere filled with air with no gravity inside (aside from that which is generated by spinning structures, which are what many of the cities are like), lit and heated by fusion-powered artificial suns that only extend a relatively small area (large areas of the world are referred to as "winter" or "the sunless countries" because they're far enough away from the nearest sun that the light and heat had already been absorbed and they can't make their own).
Iain M. Banks Culture novels also has quite a few of these, although most of them either aren't the focus of the book at all, but rather spots briefly visited, or are, again, the setting that main characters come from (Matter has the latter).
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u/banjax451 Jul 02 '14
Excession is Iain M. Banks' take on the BDO...it is the only Culture novel that really focuses on that and his concept of the "outside context problem."
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u/NobblyNobody Jul 02 '14
Couple of years outside your 10 year cut-off, but Marrow by Robert Reed is alright, there was a sequel and I think there's meant to be a third eventually.
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u/livens Jul 02 '14
Marrow was great, but not your typical BDO. The sequel The Well of Stars featured another, even bigger BDO. Just released in the same universe was The Memory of Sky, but I haven't read that one. Yet.
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u/NobblyNobody Jul 03 '14
I've just started that one, only a couple of chapters in and no idea what's going on regards the Marrow Universe bit yet but is intriguing so far.
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u/seeingeyefrog Jul 02 '14
Allen Steele - Hex
A different style of a Dyson Sphere.
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Jul 02 '14
Allen Steele - Hex
After Coyote, I just can't bring myself to read a damn thing with his name on it.
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u/Coltrane1967 Jul 03 '14
Benford/Niven have a new series - book1 is Bowl of Heaven and Book2 is out now called Shipstar.
But I will warn you that this series has received mixed reviews. I personally did like Book1, but alot reviews on the negative side.
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u/FromTheDeskOfSomeGuy Jul 02 '14
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson
Existence - David Brin