As an example, I love the Martian, and I think a lot of older books from authors like Asimov are heavily into engineering / competence porn. Other favs in this category include the standalone novel Rendezvous with Rama to leave you wishing for more, most of the Culture series for happy utopian vibes, Schlock Mercenary for humor, Dahak series for fun mindless popcorn.

Edit: I’m so happy to have found a replacement for r/books and the rest of them.

  • wax
    3·
    2 days ago

    Enjoyed project hail mary, but bobiverse didn’t quite do it for me. >!Atheist gets recruited by religious cult. Proceeds to go to planet of the apes to play god. I found it to be mostly ok up to that point though. !<

    Religion as portrayed in this book makes the characters very one dimensional. It’s also peppered with references to popular culture, which doesn’t really do that much for me.

    • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 day ago

      I found it to be mostly ok up to that point though.

      I’m a bit confused by this statement. The religious cult stuff takes place in like the first 15% of the first book and is then essentially dropped. What part were you ok with then? Just the 10 pages of Bob 1.0 before he got hit by a car?

      • wax
        1·
        1 day ago

        !Didn’t make it clear, but I was mainly referring to the storyline on the inhabited planet. I got annoyed by the main character essentially slaughtering natives and then at some point admitting to himself that he knew nothing about them as a species. Towards the end of that plot line there was some negotiation with the cult leader back on earth, at which point I was quite fed up.!<

        There were a lot of fun aspects too though, like bob discovering stuff and making gadgets.

    • Brainsploosh@lemmy.world
      3·
      2 days ago

      Wow you read a lot more into the religious theme than I did. I found it an exploration of the engineering behind almost every SciFi trope rather than playing god.

      And as an atheist I found the religious characterisation entirely adequate, it is a minor part of the characters personality, and it’s only in the obnoxious ones that it becomes dominating. Which is quite close to how it is in my daily life.

      But yes, the whole series is made within and to serve nerd culture, it is a long long stream of references and in-jokes at multiple levels, including the main premise. It just happens to also be intelligently written.

      • wax
        1·
        1 day ago

        I wouldn’t say that there’s a major religious theme. It’s just that Bob doesn’t interact with that many characters except himself, so those interactions felt more important to the plot. Then again, I wouldn’t say that the Brazilian navy AI was a very multifaceted character either.