What the title says, I’m tired of the trope where humans are the least advanced in the universe.
I’d like to read something different where we’re the more advanced ones (not necessarily the most advanced). As an example I quite enjoyed the Ender’s Game sequels and the angle of us being the more advanced ones was quite interesting.
Do you have any recommendations?
Project hail Mary was cool in the fact that it was just so… Different. Won’t say too much to avoid spoilers, but I think it’ll tick your boxes.
Was just going to suggest this same book! Very interesting take on what makes for a “more advanced” species.
Loved that book.
I highly recommend this book.
The culture series? It’s not outright said they’re human, but they’re clearly human. And they outscale basically every single thing in the universe. Or at least in the first few books. Might change later.
In Excession it felt more like
spoiler
The Culture is a race of intelligent starships that keeps humans as pets.
"Never forget I am not
this silver body, Mahrai. I am not an animal brain, I am not even some attempt to produce an AI through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side."
This is absolutely the right take on The Culture.
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Thanks, will check it out.
If you haven’t read The Culture by Iain Banks, it’s among the best and most enjoyable sci-fi ever, in my opinion. The humans of the culture are quite near the most advanced in the universe, but there are entities more advanced, their own AI ships, prominently, but other species too that chose to “sublime” and exist outside of the normal universe, but because of that such ones are ever barely around. The humans of the culture could evolve that far too, but didn’t choose to do so yet in the series.
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My understanding is that the ‘humans’ of The Culture are a genetic melange of several different, but similar species who decided to merge with one another. They essentially chose the best genetic traits of each species and ran with those. It should be noted that Earth is not a part of The Culture, if it matters to OP that the humans in the story are Earthlings or not.
The Bobiverse series eventually features some aliens. I don’t think that’s a spoiler at all… But they aren’t space-faring, so I dunno if that counts for what you’re looking for.
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I highly recommend the Bobiverse series as well, and feel free to join us over at lemmy.world/c/Bobiverse too!
I just downloaded the 2nd audiobook and plan to start tomorrow. This series is really nice. The narrator is one of my favorite after hearing him narrate Project Hail Mary.
I have a question about this series; I read maybe a third of the first book and so far it has felt a bit…i dunno, corny? So far the humor feels a little like low-hanging fruit and I have a hard time connecting with the main character because he’s just a mind and doesn’t seem to have much agency at this point. The larger world seems interesting and there’s plenty of mystery still but should I keep going or is it kinda more of the same?
Not trying to shit on it, I know a lot of people love it and I see it recommended all the time, and likewise it took me some getting used to the kind of goofiness of other series like Expeditionary Force, but just wondering if anyone else felt the same as me at first.
How you are viewing the book is incredibly valid.
The one way that I have come up with to describe a potential reason for the way the story is portrayed is this:
The ENTIRE series is from the perspective of a die hard semi-introverted software engineer and HUGE NERD who has this deep-seated need of just wanting to help and make things better.
Taking that into account everything written kind of states to make sense.
I love the series and it goes to some VERY interesting places.
There is one warning to give. At a certain point the book starts to suffer from scale creep. The characters are already able to do “X” so we need an enemy that can do “X+Y+Z” so now character learns to do "X+Y+Z TIME 10²“. At a certain point it’s best to just stop worrying about the explanations and just enjoy the story.
Highly recommend.
deep-seated
I fully blame autocorrect for that.
The ENTIRE series is from the perspective of a die hard semi-introverted software engineer and HUGE NERD who has this deep seeded need of just wanting to help and make things better.
TBH this makes it sound a lot like Ready Player One which I thought was quite bad, and I was getting similar sort of over-laden with pop culture references vibe here as well, but I’m willing to get it a bit more of a shot I think.
Starship Troopers by Heinlein. Not at all like the movie. Pretty restrained, thoughtful, even meditative on war, fascism, military. One of my favorites.
Let’s be frank, the book was pro-fascism, and Heinlein was at the time himself pro-fascism. It’s still a good book, but calling it meditations on fascism sells it short.
Seconded. In @davidbrin@mastodon.social Brin’s series humans are basically the only race that managed to uplift themselves making them a galactic oddball.
I inspired myself to reread it. So far, I’m pleased with my own recommendation
Sounds interesting, will check it out. Thanks.
No sweat!
It’s criminal that no one has mentioned District 9 yet.
I would understand people ignoring it because of the fact that there is a space ship and they have tech, but the setting is ultimately about how the aliens completely need humanity’s help. There is a certain pairity in the movie since they are refugees with some better technology.
But anyway, it has a tremendous story, great action, pulls on the heart strings, super imaginitive idea of aliens being stuck on earth.
I agree, and I’m still waiting for a follow up…
Old Man’s War series by John Scalzi. Humans are one of the newer space faring species but we are quickly becoming the most dominant group. Genetic engineering being a specialty. There are a few ascended species who are more advanced but they don’t really interact with the general galaxy anymore.
+1 for that series.
I love John Scalzi’s writing. And old man’s war is great fun. Finished the entire series in a single big binge over a few weeks.
The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove, about aliens trying to invade Earth and finding out there the less advanced race here
A fun little short story.
Joe Haldeman - The Forever War
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Technically the aliens make the first step but true, it’s mostly about humanity reaching them. Excellent read.
One of my top ten fave scifi novels. Niven and Pournelle’s best work.
Did you know there was a sequel? Caught we totally by surprise last year and decades after I originally read Mote.
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Yes, while not as good as the OG, still a great read!
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card The Noon series by the Strugatsky brothers The Culture series by Iain M Banks (the protagonists are not humans, but a multi-species civilisation that includes humans) Strata by Terry Pratchett
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, author of The Martian.
Came here to say this. Although I’m not sure the aliens are ‘primitive’ as much as they’re more advanced in certain areas and behind in others?
jazz hands
First my bump
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One of my favorite Sci-fi series books is the Ender’s game saga. I think this might meet your specifications. Don’t watch the movie! The book, as is often the case, is way better.
I’m glad I got to enjoy Ender’s Game before I learned about the author. I remember enjoying it, but teeth-grinding rage at the aims the author supports is going to prevent me from enjoying rereading it, or recommending it to anyone.
I am glad I don’t know about any of the authors politics. Now I will actively avoid information about him so as not to tarnish a good memory.
Speaker For the Dead is one of my favorite books of all time, which is exactly this concept.
I highly recommend reading Ender’s Game first, which is also an easy read.
The author won two Hugo awards for two books in a row (I think the first ever), but only wrote Ender’s Game to flesh out the backstory for Speaker for the Dead.
Both excellent books with the latter particularly so.
In “The Gods Themselves” by Isaac Asimov humans and the aliens are about equal (at least for the purposes of the story), though they don’t share the same universe. I find the idea he explores interesting, but if you’re looking for a story on how humans treat ‘lesser’ beings, this isn’t for you.
Thanks, will check it out!
if you’re looking for a story on how humans treat ‘lesser’ beings
Not really, equal sounds great as well, I’m just tired of reading about the oh-so-powerful aliens which we manage to beat not because we’re better but because of our unbreakable spirit. Same deal with elves in fantasy literature, who are just oh-so-perfect that they care more about being perfect than survival of their own race. It just reeks of bad writing to me at this point.
