Science Fiction Books with Realistic Science

by Ian J Miller

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9 books

Much of science fiction is simply fantasy but dressed up with spacecraft, desert planets, etc. There is nothing wrong with that, but there are some that attempt to convey something related to science and how it affects humanity. That is what I like to read, it is what I try to write, and it is what this list is about. While facts and mathematics are important for science, that is not what it is about. Rather, it is a method by which we can learn more that is of use to us and sometimes learn more about ourselves. In each case, the author is bound by what was known at the time of writing, and sometimes this can be just as interesting.

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The Epic of Gilgamesh

This may seem an odd choice by some, and it is probably the first book ever written, yet it has some elements of science fiction. It was written on clay tablets in Sumer, but it has parts that almost certainly had to be carried down by spoken word from the time that agriculture was just starting, which gives the conflict between hunting/gathering and “city” dwelling and the attitude of each to the problems of the other. It eventually leads to Gilgamesh’s search for immortality; he finds the magic material, then his hubris leads him to lose it. It then proceeds to an ending that can never be bettered.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Jules Verne, 2017

I have picked this because, while a little simplified so it is suitable for a young audience, it nevertheless introduced people of the time to the fact that there was plenty going on under the sea and the concept that people could go down and see it, with diving suits and submersibles. On top of that, Verne knew how to tell a story. I enjoyed reading Verne as a teenager.

The War of the Worlds

H. G. Wells, 2016

This was my introduction to science fiction. The time period was Victorian England, and humans had the steam engine, rifles, cannons, etc. The Martians have technology far more advanced, and they are happy to use it to destroy humans. Their major weapon was a heat ray, and to some extent, Wells failed to think about a defence to this. The great physicists of the time should surely have come up with something. The book has a lot of criticism of the social status of Victorian England, but for me, it has one great advantage. It does not have some heroic figure that, against all odds, does the impossible. No, the Martians fail due to a scientific factor they have overlooked, and that, in part, is what science fiction is about.

Foundation

Isaac Asimov, 2004

This is a bit of a cheat because “Foundation” is really a series of books, and Asimov joined others in as well. But the concept of a future history in a large series of novels is a concept I have adopted, admittedly on a much smaller scale. Asimov introduced much of what occurs in modern science fiction: space elevators, robots, and space colonization, but what interests me more is Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian. Asimov postulated that, in a sense, history repeats itself, and Seldon, using mathematics, can predict the future. It is likely that Asimov had the widest original imagination of any such writer. While Asimov postulated such physical advances, his approach to the psychology of them makes the stories work, and many other science fiction stories are really dwarfed by Asimov.

October the First Is Too Late (Valancourt 20th Century Classics)

Fred Hoyle, 2015

Hoyle was a genuine leading scientist, and I recognize his views on how the science community works, including how the hacks behave. He combines the "slices of spacetime" concept from relativity and the many-worlds interpretation from quantum mechanics to construct a story where Earth suddenly gets fragmented into a number of different time zones. As with Asimov and Wells, Hoyle proposes how the future will turn out. To keep the science simple, the story is recorded by a composer. In some ways, this book is very personal to me. I am involved in quantum theory, I write science fiction, and I compose music as a hobby. Leaving aside Hoyle's talent, I can see myself here and see Hoyle's understanding of both science and music.

Rendezvous With Rama

Arthur Charles Clarke, 1990

Technically, another series. Rama is a gigantic spinning alien spaceship that enters Earth’s solar system on a flyby. Earth sends a spaceship to investigate, and the crew enter the giant spaceship, only to find it apparently uninhabited, although parts are inaccessible. The book then goes on to describe what it would be like in one such ship. There is a problem: the ship seems empty and there are no real clues as to its origin, so much of the book is devoted to the physics of being inside such a giant cylinder. Probably more effort should have been put into clues about the aliens, but this book came out in the early 1970s, and at the time, it impressed me that one could write a book that had some real science in it, and people would read it.

Red Mars

Kim Stanley Robinson, 2003

About the colonization of Mars and the interplay of governance and economics, it strongly influenced me. Red Mars was first published in 1992, and the others followed. The series includes a historical perspective of the then-accepted science and descriptions of Mars. I found the enthusiasm for terraforming to be over-optimistic, but only when I put some numbers on it did I realize by how much. We are now reasonably convinced terraforming is not possible. Nevertheless, it made me more realistic about my Mars stories, so it had a big influence on me. I found it very strong in terms of the social aspects of the settlement and the conflict that will arise. I find it excellent for a story about people. The book had the first human on Mars in 2019. Oops.

The Martian

Andy Weir, 2014

Again, a personal reason for selecting this. I was one of the very early people to review this when Andy was independent. Andy made spectacular use of the "Journal Entry" form, which usually does not work; he had a good understanding of science and of Mars and how life could work. The science is not quite right. The storm that stranded him was wrong, but needed to get the story going. The winds on Mars might be very fast, but the atmospheric pressure is so low the force is no more than a gentle breeze on Earth. Further, the chemistry of making water was bizarre. He takes hydrazine and devises a catalytic method of making hydrogen, then burns it to make water. Instead, he blew up his garden enclosure. Weir correctly noted hydrogen is very active and difficult to control, so why not burn the hydrazine? He got it from a fuel tank! Leaving that aside, it is overall a clever story and Weir uses science to get out of very poor circumstances. I applaud his descriptions of the Martian terrain and geography and how he used them to make the story interesting.

Proxima

Stephen Baxter, 2014

Humans attempt the colonization of Proxima Centauri 4, a world tidally locked to a red dwarf but in the habitable zone. The description of the planet is good. We have the substellar point, a harsh desert, and the antistellar point, a massive ice cap in perpetual darkness. Colonization has to be somewhere in between. Unfortunately, the description does not explain how there can be any water there; it should have all migrated to the dark side, as would the gases in the atmosphere. However, in such a strange environment, they find life, albeit very strange life. I was struck by the highlighting of some of the sociological problems of colonizing such a strange world. It touches on the scientific aspects, the sociological aspects of being that far from home, and the economic issues. There is also a good story; I found it both entertaining and imaginative.