I once commented on HN how my favorite Sci Fi novel is Accelerando and the author, Charles Stross, replied to it suggesting I try his The Rapture of the Nerds he co-wrote with Cory Doctorow; I loved it when I read it too.
I love HN - it's basically the only website I visit these days (aside checking mail, watching YouTube, and gardening my GitHub repositories).
In a thematically similar but very different vein, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series was an enjoyable read.
I also recommend Eric Nylund's work, specifically Signal to Noise and A Signal Shattered.
Edit: Well, there you go, Children of Time had 23 mentions now that I've read down further. Disappointed to see Eric Nylund's work fade into obscurity, I rate him up with Neal Stephenson.
Not long ago I came across this book in an HN thread about AI and the future. The moment I saw the title, I knew I had to read it. Crypto, AI, collective intelligence — it hits all the right notes for me.
If you want some other portrayals of the Singularity, see The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect and Friendship is Optimal (and also Caelum Est Conterrens)
I really appreciate Cory Doctorow's work on digital rights, enshittification and other topics, but I couldn't make it more than half way through 'Rapture of the nerds'. Just too strange, I couldn't connect to it. It is very original though. Some people will probably love it.
List was to a time point, and list says 42. All good! You could even say after waiting the right amount of time, 42 was the answer this computer program generated…
You should scrape 2024 also and then 2025 should be sorted by the delta. Otherwise it doesn't have that much to do with 2025 and is largely just books commonly mentioned on HN.
It's possible this idea isn't straightforward due to more or fewer total mentions but I think you could get there.
I see that there is "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury (33 mentions), and "The Martian" by Andy Weir listed much later (11 mentions), but most of mentions for "The Martian Chronicles" appears to be referencing "The Martian" instead.
Also, "Gödel, Escher, Bach" (20 mentions) and "GEB" (7 mentions) are listed as separate books, but they are the same book.
Surprised TCP/IP Illustrated (Volume 1) has only been mentioned 6 times. It's been so helpful for me, so many times. Perhaps it's because most people haven't had writing a TCP stack as part of their day job, but it's such a fundamental technology I would have thought learning about it in depth would be suggested far more frequently.
Also, a proper first edition copy is really high quality with lovely thick paper. My copy of Volume 2 on the other hand is not of the same quality, both in content and physical properties.
I think some of the book associations are wrong. It shows "the martian chronicles" for mentions of andy weir's "the martian".
Otherwise nice to see so many of the books i read this year mentioned. Except "Mein Kampf" of course, interesting top mention there. perhaps lots of people are reading it to understand the past? I'll need to see if it's worth it, I always considered it the equivalent of drinking water from the river thames to understand victorian england better.
Yesterday I finished a long listen of the audio book "The Raise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William Shirer (on audible, 60 hours). He frequently quotes "Mein Kampf". I am not sure one can stomach the whole thing but it's interesting to read quotes of it in context.
I think "Mein Kampf" is the equivalent of celebrity gossip: you are very superficially interested because why not. The depth of the book is similar to the depth of this gossip's interest.
I had a look at the book a few years ago. After a few pages (somewhere in the middle of the book), you can see the writing style (not very good, overexcited, and that would appeal to people who look for it), but it would take longer to get a grasp on the content.
It was nice seeing my 2025 reading list represented.
I started the year reading the first five books of the Foundation Series (book #1 on the list). A must read for anyone who hasn’t read it. I couldn’t believe how well it held up 70+ years later(!!)
I just finished the 3 Body Problem trilogy, and think it’s appropriate book #2 (The Dark Forest) is on the list as it’s probably the best — but all three are great.
I’m now ready Project Hail Mary. It’s been a long time since I read the Martian,but Andy Weir’s writing style is fast paced and practically a screenplay already. It’s obvious from the first chapter why it was picked up for a movie.
For what it's worth, I found (the start of the first book of) the Expanse to be this in a bad way, but the Martian to be this in a good way. I can definitely see why some people would find The Martian annoying too, but it feels more like a passion project than a TV pitch.
FWIW there are actually 4 books in the Three-Body Problem "trilogy". The Redemption of Time was written by a fan who felt the series didn't provide closure and was recognized as canon by Cixin Liu.
I finished foundation this year too. I really didn’t like how he ended it. Fun fact I learned from reading Foundation’s Edge is that he didn’t want to write Edge or Foundation and Earth.
Gnome Press owned the original series and he didn’t get any royalties for them. In 1961, his current publisher Doubleday acquired them and for 20 years he told them no to writing more Foundation books. In 1981 Doubleday said they would pay him 10 times his normal rate and that is when he wrote Foundation’s Edge.
This was all printed in the front of my copy of Foundation and Earth. Titled as “The Story Behind the Foundation”.
Funny coincidence, these are the exact sci-fi books I read this and previous year, in the exact order I read them (I read some non-sci-fi books in between to not get overwhelmed). I finished Project Hail Mary literally one hour ago. All the books were great, but Remembrance of Earth's Past series was literally life-changing, truly a masterpiece.
I'm guessing you plan to read Dune next? ;) I plan to start with it during Christmas break.
Asimov was a brilliant mind, but I'm not sure the Foundation series holds up very well since chaos theory become established (it is 40+ years since I read the books though, so I could be remembering wrongly).
Readit News
I love HN - it's basically the only website I visit these days (aside checking mail, watching YouTube, and gardening my GitHub repositories).
I also recommend Eric Nylund's work, specifically Signal to Noise and A Signal Shattered.
Edit: Well, there you go, Children of Time had 23 mentions now that I've read down further. Disappointed to see Eric Nylund's work fade into obscurity, I rate him up with Neal Stephenson.
I would still add:
Snow crash Rainbow's end
The author and book cover it is showing is for a comic book adaptation by John Carnell.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41725880
Instead of showing the author and book cover for the original text book by Douglas Adams.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11.The_Hitchhiker_s_Guid...
It's possible this idea isn't straightforward due to more or fewer total mentions but I think you could get there.
Also, "Gödel, Escher, Bach" (20 mentions) and "GEB" (7 mentions) are listed as separate books, but they are the same book.
While on the general topic, also check out the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy
Also, a proper first edition copy is really high quality with lovely thick paper. My copy of Volume 2 on the other hand is not of the same quality, both in content and physical properties.
A well behaved reference implementation would not be of help.
yeah, I'd just look up the specific thing I want to know online
Otherwise nice to see so many of the books i read this year mentioned. Except "Mein Kampf" of course, interesting top mention there. perhaps lots of people are reading it to understand the past? I'll need to see if it's worth it, I always considered it the equivalent of drinking water from the river thames to understand victorian england better.
I had a look at the book a few years ago. After a few pages (somewhere in the middle of the book), you can see the writing style (not very good, overexcited, and that would appeal to people who look for it), but it would take longer to get a grasp on the content.
I started the year reading the first five books of the Foundation Series (book #1 on the list). A must read for anyone who hasn’t read it. I couldn’t believe how well it held up 70+ years later(!!)
I just finished the 3 Body Problem trilogy, and think it’s appropriate book #2 (The Dark Forest) is on the list as it’s probably the best — but all three are great.
I’m now ready Project Hail Mary. It’s been a long time since I read the Martian,but Andy Weir’s writing style is fast paced and practically a screenplay already. It’s obvious from the first chapter why it was picked up for a movie.
Oh thanks for the warning. I was avoiding him based on a hunch. Now I know I was right.
If anyone else is weird like me and likes books to not read like a movie screenplay, same goes for The Expanse.
I like hard SciFi with no aliens and plausible rules.
Gnome Press owned the original series and he didn’t get any royalties for them. In 1961, his current publisher Doubleday acquired them and for 20 years he told them no to writing more Foundation books. In 1981 Doubleday said they would pay him 10 times his normal rate and that is when he wrote Foundation’s Edge.
This was all printed in the front of my copy of Foundation and Earth. Titled as “The Story Behind the Foundation”.
I'm guessing you plan to read Dune next? ;) I plan to start with it during Christmas break.
https://qntm.org/Self
There Is No Antimemetics Division freaked me the hell out. Recommended.