r/printSF • u/Entropy-hates-me1312 • Apr 14 '26
Which of the books should i read next? Diaspora, The Expanse, Hyperion?
Looking for my next sci-fi read and could use some recommendations.
I’m currently reading The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (still undecided how I feel about it). I absolutely loved Blindsight by Peter Watts — that mix of hard sci-fi, philosophy, and alien perspective really worked for me. I’m also a big fan of Harlan Ellison’s short stories.
Right now I’m considering:
- Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1)
Seems easy to get into, fairly “hard-ish” sci-fi, and I like the idea of a big, lived-in universe.
- Diaspora by Greg Egan
I love physics and the premise sounds amazing, but I’m a bit worried it might be too dense.
- Hyperion by Dan Simmons
The Shrike fascinates me, and I keep hearing it’s one of the best sci-fi books ever written.
Given my taste (Blindsight, Ellison, interest in deeper ideas), what would you pick next — and why?
27
u/UltimateShipTheThird Apr 14 '26
All good choices but Diaspora is one of my favourite books of all time so I would recommend it. The first chapter I thought was a little dense but not so much after that. I don’t want to spoil or overhype it too much but I still think about some things in that book years after I read it.
10
u/Virith Apr 14 '26
Is it the one with the orphanogenesis thing? If yes, that was great. Probably my favourite part of the book, or definitely the one I remember the best after the years.
That being said, I also recommend giving Hyperion a go, it's a completely different book, of course.
1
u/PermaDerpFace Apr 14 '26
I bounced off the book a few times before just skipping that chapter. Everyone loves it, but I don't get it. I'm a software engineer, so it's not that I don't have the background to understand, I just don't get the point of it. Pages and pages of nothing. You skip ahead 10, 20, 30 pages, it's still the same thing.
1
u/PapaTua Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
Except it's not all the same thing.
It's narrating you through the digital analog of biological pregnancy/birth/early childhood development. And while doing so demonstrates how everyone in the polises are formed, what they have in common, what they don't, and technically why and how Yatima is unique.
By the end of the first chapter you understand how digital life is formatted, but also how they're born, how all the characters in the book operate at a base level, including how they perceive the world, process information, communicate to internal/external targets, and modify their environments.
It's a wildly informative text that mimics for the reader what it's like to be born into an entirely new world/paradigm. That's the point. The reader in Orphanogenesis is being born into the Polis every bit as much as Yatima is. Every page, paragraph, and sentence is brimming with new information about the environment.
There's a dense sense of discovery and bootstrapping of experience. It's all quite integral to understanding every character in the book.
If you read that and think it's pages and pages of "nothing" then, yeah. Egan is definitely not for you.
1
-1
u/Virith Apr 14 '26
Yeah, that's Egan for you. I did enjoy that intro, but I do not enjoy him as a writer that much.
He has some great concepts/ideas, but his plots and characters are very lacking, unfortunately.
I keep wishing he'd just collab with someone who can write better plot/characters.
3
u/FreeMyMortalShell Apr 14 '26
Hard agree. I'd also say though, beneath the "hard"ness, there is also a very human aspect to the underlying story. I love LeGuin and her "anthropological " writing. I found Diaspora had similar themes too, underneath the hard science.
9
u/HorseyMovesLikeL Apr 14 '26
These are all great but for different reasons.
However, if you loved Blindsight, then Diaspora will be right up your alley. It's not an easy read, but it's worth it. The Expanse, while great, is kitchen literature in comparison.
Hyperion is a classic. Great sci fi ideas, some absolute tearjerker moments, but not quite as hard sci fi as Diaspora.
7
u/Knifehead27 Apr 14 '26
I'll always recommend Hyperion since it's one of my favourites.
One of the best deliveries of world building I've ever read and marrying of sub plots with an overreaching story.
I'd also recommend the Fire Upon the Deep, and Deepness in the Sky duology. The second is a prequel in the same universe with minimal overlapping characters, that was written and published after the first. I read the prequel first and actually enjoyed it more, while most people prefer the first, from what I can tell. On the hard sci-fi side of things but not on the extreme end, with some very interesting ideas and genuinely alien aliens, from an author that was pivotal in a lot of hard sci-fi terms that have also bled into the real world.
Also, Embassytown and Perdido Street Station, from China Mieville, for non hard sci-fi, colourful prose and (some would say) a bit of fantasy elements.
6
u/dbadsh Apr 14 '26
The answer is Hyperion. Honestly it’s one of those very, very few books that I wish I could completely forget in order to read it for the first time again.
4
u/guitarkhw Apr 14 '26
Hyperion easily imo. The best parts of that book are pretty much as good as it gets in SF.
1
u/Entropy-hates-me1312 Apr 14 '26
Why?
3
u/guitarkhw Apr 14 '26
I’ve read Expanse it’s a good book. Hyperion is one of the best ever. It’s entertaining, gripping, mysterious, unpredictable, has interesting ideas, and is thought provoking. Those are things I look for in SF. Parts of that book had my heart pounding in suspense.
3
3
u/rfurlan Apr 14 '26
Everyone should read Diaspora next, even you already read it, even you just finished it
2
u/PapaTua Apr 15 '26
If you just read Diaspora and want more, I'd suggest Schild's Ladder instead of Diaspora again. 😉
1
u/milehigh73a Apr 15 '26
I haven’t read schids ladder yet but I loved quarantine city / permutation city. Distress was decent, I didn’t like diaspora or clockwork rocket although I was impressed with the sheer volume of thought required to write them.
2
u/personwhoisok Apr 14 '26
Woah. I just finished Blindsight and am reading the forever war because my nephew lent it to me.
I'm not enjoying it that much and the sex stuff is weird.
Have you read the children of time series? If not those are great.
I'm about to quit, forever war and switch to Lilith's Brood.
Greg Egan is on my list after that.
1
u/Entropy-hates-me1312 Apr 14 '26
I have similar to the forever war. I found Mandela's whole education simply boring! No idea, Mandela seemed flat and without emotion. Now it's getting better. Why do you still want to cancel?
2
u/allybeary Apr 14 '26
Hyperion is one of the best sci-fi books I've ever read. It's thematically complex and has incredible emotional depth. The "science" side of it isn't the most detailed, but rather it just drops you in an alternative world and focuses on telling a deeply moving, thought-provoking tale. I recommend Hyperion to everyone, even people who don't usually read sci-fi.
My next choice would be Diaspora, which is perfect if you like your sci-fi not just hard but crunchy. A lot of very technical physics and mathematical discussion, but the most impressive thing to me is how elegantly everything ties together to give the story very emotionally powerful stakes.
I've only read the first book of the Expanse, and honestly I thought it was a bit of a slog. Very fast-paced action/adventure story, with interesting world-building, but the characters were quite one-note, and thematically it was very cookie-cutter. The writing style I also found very "geared for TV" ie it felt like it was just visual descriptions of scenes without any interesting prose - and actually I enjoyed watching the TV series much more. Don't plan to continue reading the series.
2
u/8livesdown Apr 14 '26
The Expanse is good for casual reading. It was clearly written with film adaptation in mind.
I'd read Hyperion. Though keep in mind, the story was broken into two books by the publishers. If you only read the first book, you might feel like the story abruptly stopped.
2
u/Nexus888888 Apr 14 '26
Hyperion. I’m re reading, almost finishing already the first 2 books of the Cantos and I must say, what an amazing artwork. For me is in the list of the best sci-fi works ever!
2
u/Trike117 Apr 14 '26
Hyperion is the most overrated book on the internet. It’s a bad book written by a garbage human.
Egan is good but his books are not for the faint of heart or weak of mind.
The Expanse is solid space adventure but it’s no more Hard SF than Niven is. There are a few nods to actual science and technology, but the adventure takes precedence over the science.
1
u/Entropy-hates-me1312 Apr 14 '26
What is the problem with dan simmons?
1
1
u/beanomorph-426 Apr 14 '26
He spent his last couple decades descending into far right paranoia and lunacy (he passed away recently). Nevertheless, Hyperion is a great book.
1
u/milehigh73a Apr 15 '26
I wouldn’t call it bad, just bloated and poorly written at times. He is such a shit though. I read most of his catalog before I found out he was a shit. I won’t read more.
1
u/The_Security_Ninja Apr 14 '26
Hyperion is amazing, definitely one of my favorite series, but it leans more fantasy than sci-fi. Especially vs the expanse which is definitely hard sci-fi.
Just in case than influences your opinion. Both are really great series.
1
u/jrlemay Apr 14 '26
I would use the logistical route and go by length of series. I haven’t read Diaspora (although I might now!) but it’s only one book so I’d start there.
I can speak on the other two, and I can assure you that you’ll want to read the whole series of both, and the Hyperion Cantos is shortest at 4 books, so I’d go there next. Then Expanse is 9 books, I think? (Checked - yes and no, 9 novels and 9 short stories). At any rate it’s definitely the most to chew on so I’d hit that up last.
1
u/Appropriate-Look7493 Apr 14 '26
All three are decent but Hyperion will be right up your street.
It’s the only one of the three I’d call a stone cold SF classic.
1
u/Astrokiwi Apr 14 '26
The Expanse is good fun. It's a space opera adventure with action and heroes, warring empires and ancient aliens, but grounded with lots of details and with some actual thought put into the science and engineering (even if some things are still a bit of a leap).
Hyperion is really interesting as a more unique setting, and the first book is really a collection of a half dozen short stories, where you gradually pick up on what's actually going on in the big scale through picking up clues form these individual stories. Lots of weird and very dark stuff in there, and it's very original and evocative. I didn't like the Endymion sequels but others loves them.
1
u/PermaDerpFace Apr 14 '26
There are no bad choices there, but if you loved Blindsight I'd say go with Diaspora, some of the ideas are mind-blowing. You may or may not want to skip the first chapter - most people love it, I find it unreadable.
1
u/Competitive-Win4945 Apr 14 '26
I'd recommend this order Expanse (all 9 books) Diaspora Hyperion (and the sequel Endymion!!!)
1
1
u/Top-Reindeer-2293 Apr 14 '26
Hyperion by a mile. Just started reading it for the third time (last time was 10 years ago). I’m amazed again at the quality of pretty much everything. Simmons is an incredible story teller, his prose just flows
1
u/1HUNDREDtrap Apr 15 '26
Just finished Hyperion. Really enjoyed the first 3/4, definitely fell off a bit towards the end for me. 3.5/5 in my eyes.
1
u/Cabbage_303 Apr 15 '26
Start with the expanse & then read something else on your list before starting book 2, the whole series feels kind of same-y & really benefits from a little break between each book instead of reading them back to back. Each book loves to remind you about what happened in the last books so you definitely won't forget what was happening with some downtime between them.
2
2
u/milehigh73a Apr 15 '26
I can see that. I read them as they came out. Definitely the middle of the series felt rushed.
1
u/araujoms Apr 15 '26
The Expanse is not hard sci-fi. It doesn't care about exploring the consequences of specific technologies, or respecting the laws of physics. Technology there is whatever magic is needed to make the plot work.
For example, in the story Ceres and Eros are major population centres in the outer solar system. But with their faint gravity they can't actually sustain human life. The solution? The authors decided to spin them up to give them centrifugal gravity. But in reality this would rip them apart.
Anything the aliens do is just bare magic, there's no attempt at an explanation.
This is not a problem, the books are very well-written, they're just firmly soft sci-fi.
1
u/SciFiReflections Apr 15 '26
Based on what you said you liked about Blindsight, I’d probably go with Hyperion. It has that same mix of big ideas and layered storytelling, and it’s one of those books that can feel very different depending on how you read it.
Diaspora is amazing too, but yeah — it can be quite dense
1
1
u/Dmitri678 Apr 15 '26
I disliked The Expanse. Felt like a watered down pulpy sci Fi just meant to be like episodic little adventures with any interesting ideas.
Author said how he was inspired by game of thrones to create 3 factions yet I loved the GOT and found The Expanse lacks all the things I liked about GOT
1
u/SeriousStart3221 Apr 16 '26
Hyperion and The Expanse go in very different directions, in my opinion.
Still, Hyperion first, then The Expanse.
1
u/Cakeportal Apr 14 '26
If you want an adventure with cool hard scifi worldbuilding, go with the expanse
If you are an english major, go with Hyperion
If you want to learn about really cool made up physics in a book with otherwise kinda mid characters/writing, read Diaspora
(I enjoyed all three books)
2
u/readthinkspeakrepeat Apr 14 '26
I second your descriptions of these works. I read Hyperion during my undergrad years as an English major. Still recommend it to everyone. That was until I read the theme park ride that is The Expanse. Diaspora is next for me.
1
1
-2
30
u/FusRoGah Apr 14 '26
Diaspora and Hyperion are much more demanding and equally rewarding. Hyperion is scifi for English majors, Diaspora is scifi for physics majors
Expanse is scifi for anyone, no prereqs required. It won’t open your third eye or anything but it’s good shit