Books with "Big Ideas"

growler

Happened across this list of 10 recent science fiction novels that were about big ideas http://io9.com/5929436/10-recent-science-fiction-books-that-are-about-big-ideas , which I thought was an interesting concept, sadly I've only read Anathem (and not certain the idea was as big as the book is). Obviously lots of the Sci-fi genre was based on big ideas, Asimov, Dick, Niven, Banks etc. all came up with *new* plots / tech / futures.

So, any you'd add to the list or thoughts on those listed?

ixoy

Some of Greg Egan's stuff works on Big Ideas. "Schild's Ladder", for example, involves us trying to meet and explore another universe with its own laws of physics and manages to treat it very seriously.

mcgovern

Is this the list?

ixoy

mcgovern wrote: »

Is this the list?

Read half of those - "Accelerando" is a good choice and deals heavily with the Singularity.
Not sure I entirely agree with "Rainbow's End" but then it could just be that I didn't like it.

How about Greg Bear's "Eon"? Big giant object appears over earth but it gets really unusual once they go inside. Might not be new enough to qualify though.

growler

mcgovern wrote: »

Is this the list?

that's it, post fixed now thanks.

Playboy

Depends on what you mean by big ideas? There are ideas in terms of imagination and then there are ideas in terms of themes. For imagination look no further than China Mievielle and for themes look at R Scott Bakker

Dades

ixoy wrote: »

How about Greg Bear's "Eon"? Big giant object appears over earth but it gets really unusual once they go inside. Might not be new enough to qualify though.

Could have been a contender for that list, if the recent idea wasn't a rehash of Rendezvous with Rama. (Not taking away from Eon, which I enjoyed, just the originality of the concept )

growler

Playboy wrote: »

Depends on what you mean by big ideas? There are ideas in terms of imagination and then there are ideas in terms of themes. For imagination look no further than China Mievielle and for themes look at R Scott Bakker

Mievielle's City in the City is a great example of a big idea, not read Bakker (note to self, read up on Bakker)

ixoy

growler wrote: »

Mievielle's City in the City is a great example of a big idea, not read Bakker (note to self, read up on Bakker)

Bakker has a very strong element of philosophy in his books - it's core to them. Because it's something he's educated in, it works very well and makes musings in many other fantasy books look childish by comparison. Bit heavy at times but definitely worth a shot. You could check out his blog on-line but that's even heavier (in my opinion).

i liked the first bakker book but the second one was a bit too bogged down about the war, i stopped reading it

Goldstein

Anderson's Tau Zero gets fairly grand in scale though I remember the character development was poor enough which rendered them difficult to relate to or empatise with. Still though, the intriguing central premise and undeniably big ideas in that hard sci-fi framework made for a satisfying read nonetheless.