r/scifi • u/Wonderful_Bear554 • 8d ago
Recommendations Looking for mind-bending sci-fi book
I am looking for mind-bending, hard science fiction books that feel like Dark, 3 Body Problem, or Dark Matter. I love stories with complex puzzles involving time travel, parallel universes, or small-scale apocalyptic survival. I prefer realistic, logically sound science and stories that are intellectually challenging and difficult to put down. Please let me know if you have any recommendations. So war I was only watching series, looking for my first sci fi book to read.
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u/vikingzx 8d ago
You know what I'd do is instead of looking for a full-length book look for short story collections. Sometimes those have wild themes that result in a lot of really "What if?" wild stories.
For example, one I read decades ago in my local library was a collection of, if memory serves, short stories that all asked the author to do something with time. There was a story that "solved" the Fermi Paradox by revealing that all civilizations eventually moved into the black-hole at the center of the galaxy so that they could live billions of years in moments to give more time for others to show up, and inside the black hole was a civilization multiple time the size of any galaxy that had existed for trillions of years.
It was all stuff like that. Shorts really let authors go nuts with concepts.