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People who had this thought have also liked "The Dark Forest" and "Death's End" by Liu Cixin :) (These are part 2 and 3 in the "Three Body Problem" series.)

I just started Death's End! Great books so far, though The Dark Forest felt very slow compared to The Three-body Problem.

Unrelated to this topic, but Death's End is also a great book if you haven't started reading it. I can also recommend Ball Lightning which more or less takes place before the events in the The Three-Body Problem.

Remembrance of earth's past trilogy. There are three books in the series: 1) The Three Body Problem, 2) The Dark Forest, and 3) Death's end. It talks about the ongoing tension between humanity and the alien race. It explores many facets of human nature and humanity. Must read.

* Currently reading: Edgedancer

* Flowers for Algernon

* Going Rogue: Spells, Swords, & Stealth

* Split the Party: Spells, Swords, & Stealth

* NPCs

* Children of Time

* Death's End

* The Shining

* IT

* All 7+1 books of The Dark Tower

It caught my eye that you said 'book' rather than 'books'. You might not be aware Three Body is part of a trilogy? If you've not read The Dark Forest and Death's End, you are in for a real treat.

> On a side note, I like how The Expanse sidesteps the scientific issues of interstellar travel with alien magic.

I thought the "alien magic" behind the gates technology was the same old K. Thorne wormholes.

> On yet another note, I read an unsettling sci-fi/theory about how the expansion of space is perhaps being caused by whatever tech allows interstellar travel in lightspeed-like time. So whatever intelligent species that evolved first may have a monopoly on such tech, while inadvertently altering the fabric of physics to make interstellar travel gradually impossible for any younger species.

Do you have a link to read more about that? Reminds me of the FTL technology in the books "The Dark Forest" and "Death's End" by Liu Cixin.

The books I always fall back on giving as a gift:

Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds.

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
A modern classic, Einstein’s Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds.

Remembrance of Earth's Past by Cixin Liu
It is hard to explain how deep my love for this series is. My all time favorite science fiction but what it is is just page after page of ideas that get more and more fantastical. Can't recommend this enough

The Three Body Problem (PartI)
The Dark Forest (Part II)
Death's End (Part III)

I read the Broken Earth trilogy a few years ago-- didn't remember it had won the Hugo award for all 3 books, and don't really understand why it would have won, unless that was a particularly weak couple of year?

It is a moderately decent fantasy series, but the writing is kind of clunky.

Looking at the 2017 Hugo, I'd say Cixian Liu's "Death's End" was a much better novel than "The Obelisk Gate", and would have given it to that book.

For the 2016 Hugo I've read 3 of the finalist("Fifth Season", "Ancillary Mercy", "Seveneves"), but I don't think
any of them were all that great... guess just a weak year.

I really enjoyed The Three-Body Problem/The Dark Forest/Death's End and highly recommend them because of their unusual ideas.

It was also refreshing to read a book coming from totally different cultural mindset that goes after familiar sci-fi goals.

We all have biases and failures in our perspective, and it was interesting read a novel where the authors biases were so different from my own. Liu seemed bipolar in his treatment of women for example. Half the women presented felt vibrant (Ye Wenjie for example) while others, such as Luo Ji's perfect wife were fanfiction quality.

Overall, the ideas presented in The Three Body Problem and The Dark Forest are thought-provoking enough to recommend these books. Death's End on the other hand, was mediocre but worth a read just to finish the series.

Not op, but I'm a big fan of both authors. I enjoy Vinge more, but I wouldn't say his science is any more plausible than Liu Cixin's (with the exception of "A Deepness in the Sky"). I actually enjoyed "The Dark Forest" and "Death's End" more than the Three Body Problem. All three books have some fun, novel ideas. While the plot arc is not very traditional, it is complex and interesting -- lots of characters with vastly different motivations interacting in interesting ways. The main plot driver over all three books (that the universe is a dark forest) is highly plausible.

Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff
Brilliant. It's considered "literary fiction" but I found this book to be an absolute page-turner, much more so than what is usually described as a "page-turner". The summaries / back-cover marketing copy can't do it justice.

Florida - Lauren Groff
Sublime, poetic, haunting collection of short stories.

Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang
Exhalation - Ted Chiang
Being released in May 2019 (I got an advance copy), but many of the stories are previously published and/or available online. "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" is just wonderful. Ted Chiang's work is the definition of economy in storytelling. Absolutely quality over quantity.

The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death's End - Liu Cixin
I’m not sure how fulfilling it would be to just read the first one. They really feel like a single (big) novel. Worth it.

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O - Neal Stephenson, Nicole Galland
Kind of Stephenson-light(?). Smart, entertaining and seems destined to be a TV series.

The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A bit slow to get going. Lots of Greek, snow, and booze at a private liberal-arts college in Vermont.

The Grownup - Gillian Flynn (short story)

3 or 4 Discworld books, as in every year. Starting with Soul Music this time, in publication order.

Designing Data Intensive Applications.

Some books on leadership from the recent HN discussion, not decided which yet.

Death's End (book 3 of The Three Body Problem). The first two were really good.

The Algorithm Design Manual. Domain Driven Design.

Some chess books. Some general science and history. The yearly random self help book.

If I manage all that plus whatever I'll decide I want in the actual year, it will be a good year for reading, but maybe I need to have some more focus. We'll see.

Reminds me a bit of one of the points of the book Death's End (third part of the Three Body Problem trilogy by Cixin Liu).

A small spoiler follows.

The point raised in this book is - the Earth looks much different thanks to life it has than it would without it. Consider e.g. mountains that erode slower because there are forests and foliage that disperse the wind. Would it not be the case that advanced alien life existing in the universe also affects its evolution? So what if some of the physics we study is actually not how the universe looked at the start? Could the speed of light have changed because of aliens weaponizing physics in past wars? Could the curled up dimensions string theory postulates be actually be another consequence of powerful entities doing wide-scale manipulation of the universe? Maybe initially, before life, the universe actually had 11 full, expanded spatial dimensions?

I do highly recommend the book.