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FlyingPasta t1_jdi9jjx wrote

Reply to comment by hogwildwilly in As a newbie to sci-fi, reading complicated sci-fi is making my brain hurt, but it's also really enjoyable. by justkeepbreathing94

I’ll say if you’re a physics “hobbyist” of any kind it flows. I watch surface level videos on quantum and astrophysics and nothing in the book was a slog. Actually extremely enjoyable, he has some very fresh takes on science. There’s an insane part on computer engineering I’ll probably remember forever

And to add to your list of what it does well, there’s a lot of good psychology, on human, community and societal level. The way he fleshes out available options in situations and how decisions are contemplated is crisp and deep. For example the two ships with the resource problem, the humans as a whole facing a problem, and the one man and woman with the immense responsibility come to mind

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hogwildwilly t1_jdppfut wrote

It's been a few years since I've read them, but I don't remember any good guy/bad guy dichotomy. Just multiple layers of survival. Also something about using gravitational waves as catapults? I need to reread

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FlyingPasta t1_jdpq3ck wrote

Yeah it didn’t have clearly defined morality, just groups fighting for resources or conquest. Gravity waves were for propulsion iirc and how they discovered FTL, like that demo the woman did in the bathtub with the soap and water. The coolest part imo was how they played with the dimensions and sizing of subatomic particles if you remember that, or the spying mechanism using quantum-entangled light speed particles. How the “dark forest” theory was fleshed out made scary amount of sense. Very fresh as far as the sci in scifi goes, much different from the usual tired “are robots really alive??” tropes and such.

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