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.
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Was just going to suggest this same book! Very interesting take on what makes for a "more advanced" species.
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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.
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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.
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.
I highly recommend the Bobiverse series as well, and feel free to join us over at lemmy.world/c/Bobiverse too!
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 your 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 seeded 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.
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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.
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Joe Haldeman - The Forever War
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.
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Seconded. In 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
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
The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove, about aliens trying to invade Earth and finding out there the less advanced race here
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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.
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A Fire Upon the Deep
Will check it out, thanks!
Good recommendation indeed, the zones of thought are awesome. One of my all time favourites!
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
Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi.
Terran Republic series by Charles Gannon has humans more advanced than one or two, but definitely not at the top of the pack.
Sector General by James White has humans as part of the large alliance of races. The alliance is more advanced than some of the races they encounter.
Foreigner series by C J Cherryh has humans far more technologically advanced, however the small number that reach the alien world have to learn to live peacefully with the aliens.
Most of the Stars wars books have humans as very advanced.
Fuzzy Nations is a retelling of Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper. Having read both, I can report that I liked Fuzzy Nation 300% more. But if someone likes one they may as well try the other.
Little Fuzzy is kind of hilariously western, with everyone smoking and gun-toting :P it's also decidedly more sexist and less interesting in the way it handles the aliens and the legal fight around them. Very dated. But it can be fun anyways.
I know referring people to Reddit is generally considered bad form around here, but check out reddit's r/hfy. It's mostly amateur stuff, but the subreddit centers around people writing stories about humans being good at something. I haven't taken a look at it in a while, but some of the series I used to enjoy are: First Contact (the ralts_bloodthorne one), the Deathworlders (spawned the Deathworlders trope on TV tropes), Debris (ausnerd), Transcripts (squiggle story studios), They Are Smol (this is a god-tier scifi shitpost series by tinypracinghorse) along with its companion series The Smol Detective (frank leroux), and anything by regallegaleagle like Memories of Creature 88, Billy-Bob Space Trucker and Material Differences.
Memories of Creature 88 was amazing. It's one of my favorite stories on HFY.
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If you is talking about the intellectual aspect The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is a good one. The only thing that aliens are more developed than humans are in the technology, but their smartness are kinda average and similar to human standards. Sometimes they're even stupid.
The Damned Trilogy for sure!
Basically humans are stumbled upon during a long intergalactic war and end up being the entire key to winning it. Really no way else to describe it without giving things away.
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.
@rikudou
For a deeper philosophical spin on the idea, you might try "The Mote In God's Eye" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
Thanks, will check it out!
r/HFY has a plethora of such (short) stories. HFY stands for Humanity Fuck Yeah. Sadly I am yet to find an active HFY community/magazine on lemmy/kbin
The 'known space' universe by Larry niven has humans at least as sort of equal. Lower than some life forms, but on par or higher than some.
I recommend starting with the ringworld series.
Warhammer 40k also has humans as a dominant species from what I've gathered. I've tried to get into the lore, but it's massive amounts and no clear "start here" so Iv'e just picked up snippets.
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I recently read the short story The Long Game by Ann Leckie - it presents quite a large gap in capability between species.
In most any Star Trek episode where the Prime Directive is relevant, the humans have encountered primitive (pre-warp) aliens. Usually, some disastrous problem has befallen the aliens that the humans' technology can easily solve, and the humans must struggle to decide whether to help and bear the consequences (both legal and practical) of intervening, or leave the aliens to their fate as the Directive demands.
I think Mars Attacks counts, although perhaps the humans and aliens were portrayed as being equally stupid 😄
EDIT: did not realise I was posting in a books group. Just came up in my main feed. Anyway Ima leave Mars Attacks here in case anybody forgot about this excellent film.
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It's YA but Sandersons Skyward series has humans basically at the bottom of the tech totem pole
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