Genre
Best Hard Science Fiction for Adults
Late Clarke, late Heinlein, late Banks. Cassutt at the ISS. Harrison in 1999 New York at 35 million people. The hard SF that has aged into being more relevant rather than less.
6 books on this list.
The Light Of Other Daysby Arthur C. Clarke
4.0“The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter 2000 review. Wormhole technology lets anyone look anywhere, anytime. The end of privacy and the end of secret history arrive in the same decade.”
The Triggerby Arthur C. Clarke
3.0“The Trigger by Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Kube-McDowell 1999 review. A field that detonates all chemical explosives within range arrives in a near-future America. The Second Amendment debate gets a hardware upgrade.”
The Algebraistby Iain M. Banks
5.0“Iain M. Banks's standalone space opera. A galaxy without faster-than-light travel, a millennia-old gas-giant civilization, and one of his best villains.”
Tango Midnightby Michael Cassutt
3.0“Tango Midnight by Michael Cassutt 2003 review. A near-future ISS-set thriller in which a crew member is exposed to an airborne pathogen and the rescue mission is forty-eight hours of orbital choreography away.”
Make Room Make Roomby Harry Harrison
5.0“Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison 1966 review. The 1966 Hugo-nominated overpopulation novel that became the 1973 film Soylent Green, and is meaningfully better than the film remembers.”
To Sail Beyond the Sunsetby Robert A. Heinlein
4.0“To Sail Beyond the Sunset by Robert A. Heinlein 1987 review. The final Heinlein novel, narrated by Maureen Johnson Long, mother of Lazarus Long, across a hundred and fifty years of Howard Families history.”