Tim’s Comments (group member since Mar 21, 2019)

Tim’s comments from the Hard Sci-Fi Lovers group.

Hi all,

We've been contacted by an new indie author who would like to showcase their book to us. I think this is a great initiative and would be happy to open the floor to new authors to do the same.

That being said, I'm aware that this could be a breading ground for spam too, so I've made this new section in our discussions area and will actively monitor it.

Our new author will introduce themselves and their book soon.

Great to see our little group growing! Welcome to everyone new.

John: your book seems like something I'd be into reading. I'll try to check it out at some stage soon. Glad to have some bona fide authors in our mix too!

I was thinking about what else we could do with the group in the near future. A few things that come to mind at the moment:

1. Add a discussion section that connects purely to books on our bookshelves. We can add in our own personal reviews of each and/or field questions, generate discussions about the themes and science within.

2. Discuss scientific concepts that you would be interested in exploring in a sci-fi context, but so far have not come across any work that does so. Hopefully other members can point you in the right direction, or seed ideas for our resident authors.

3. Answer questions about possibly tricky to understand concepts in books that members are reading. Not everyone who is a sci-fi fan is working in a science related field - so there is always the possibility of not quite grasping a concept in a story that may end up being crucial to enjoying the book. Looking at the bios of a number of our members, we have a good selection of scientists and other technical specialists already, so I think we could cover most questions that come up.

What do you think about those points? Do you guys have any other ideas we could do as a group?

Hopefully this is what we can do together Emanuele! We have started already over on our bookshelf. Feel free to add some that you have read yourself, or start a topic about some you haven't—perhaps others could suggest your next read.

Hi Massimo!

It's small and quiet because I created the group only a few months ago, didn't spend that much time working on it (since it was a group of one at the time) and didn't advertise it at all. Now I see we have 5 members!

Yes, exactly. I think the most difficult thing for authors about the genre is trying to make things actually seem interesting when they also must bog themselves down into some technical rabbit hole. I'm reading through the Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy at the moment and see that Robinson did exceptionally well to that end about half the time, otherwise he was far too dry.

Jules Verne: I have many of his books but haven't got around to reading anything more than The Time Machine. Story wise, it was enjoyable, although I don't remember it being all that rooted in a science basis. Of course, that's a bit difficult to critique for a book published in 1895. So you could indeed have a point with that! How are his other books? Which do you recommend to read next?

Another good anecdote that is perhaps timely (although not in the hard sci-fi context): John Bradley (the actor who plays Samwell Tarly in Game of Thrones) was once asked why his character was still so fat after running around in the winter fighting white walkers with barely any food. His response: "In a show where there are dragons, zombies... there's a woman who gives birth to a cloud! And the one thing that you can't buy and don't get is me being a bit podgy!"

In the spirit of an ice breaker, perhaps everyone could share a bit about themselves?
I live in Stockholm, Sweden, but come from Melbourne, Australia. PhD in Physics, currently working as an Earth Systems researcher on global climate / biosphere / society interactions and policy. Favourite hard sci-fi: I've added a few to the groups bookshelf already. Mostly anything by Greg Egan that would fit into the category: Schild's Ladder and Diaspora mostly. Stephen Baxter's Time (the rest of the Manifold is not as good). Would be interested to hear your recommendations, and feel free to add your favourites to the bookshelf too!