6 ms·
Ask HN: What fiction books would you recommend for programmers?
What are some fiction books that you think programmers especially would enjoy?
Doesn't have to be but I'm interested as well if there are any that are written by programmers or engineers
- bigyabai 10mo agoLibrary of Babel, Borges
- dtagames 10mo agoThree Body Problem by Cixin Liu, himself a programmer.
- kode-targz 10mo agoabsolutely
- bediger4000 10mo agoCryptonomicon and Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
- turtleyacht 10mo agoAnathem and The Diamond Age too
- GrumpyYoungMan 10mo agoTerry Pratchett's Going Postal seems particularly apropos these days as we have Reacher Gilts aplenty in tech news headlines. Obscure and a bit dated but Bruce Betkhe's Head Crash is hilarious if you've been deeply immersed in the software industry.
- netcoyote 10mo agoThe Vorkosigan Series, by Louise McMasters Bujold. She’s won six (!!!) Hugo awards for her writing, and as Anne McCaffery says, “Boy, can she write”. Space opera with warfare, intrigue, politics, drama, and world building.
- LarryMade2 10mo agoThese are all entertaining: Definitely the Wizardry series by Rick Cook https://www.fantasticfiction.com/c/rick-cook/wizardry/ https://www.fantasticfiction.com/c/rick-cook/wizardry/ Programming meets magical realms James Hogan Inherit the Stars - Has supercomputers but not main characters Code of the Lifemaker Has Ancient Tech evolving into a robotic society Two Faces of Tomorrow - humans trying to get along with AI D.F.Jones Colossus, the Fall of Colossus, and Colossus and the Crab Humans creating machines to protect humanity (computers have different idea) and the rebellion, and a new threat. A Logic Names Joe - radioplay of short story. https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles/XMinusOne55-12-28031ALogicNamedJoe.mp3 https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles/XMinusO... The internet and AI long before the internet and AI. David Gerrold - When H.A.R.L.I.E. was One - and other tales involving Artificial Super Intelligence William Gibson - Neuromancer and related - Cyberpunk series, the Difference Engine - a Steampunk technology tale.
- LarryMade2 10mo agoFred Saberhagen Octagon - an AI backdoor created by the early inventors of computers is inadvertently "activated" by a youth.
- ferguess_k 10mo agoDefinitely recommends the Wizardry series. It has a FORTH vibe.
- vismit2000 10mo ago'Stories of your Life and Others' and 'Exhalation' - by Ted Chiang. In his short stories, he introduces advanced concepts from mathematics, philosophy, and computer science in a way that’s subtly woven into captivating narratives.
- torstenvl 10mo agoStrongly second Exhalation by Ted Chiang. "The Life Cycle of Software Objects" is especially compelling.
- austin-cheney 10mo agoEon by Greg Bear. A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge.
- torstenvl 10mo agoI'm finding A Deepness in the Sky pretty drudging to be honest.
- austin-cheney 10mo agoIt gets slow after the merging of the two competing factions at the beginning and then builds momentum after the anti-hero's back story half way through. It just might be my most favorite book. I found the building dominance of the anti-hero to be similar but less epic than that of Raistlin Majere from DragonLance.
- delichon 10mo ago"Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley. The themes in this book are more relevant now than at any time since publication in 1818, and to nobody more than ML coders.
- argo_navis 10mo agoLaundry Files Series by Charles Stross Written by a ex-programmer, features a world where magic is a branch of mathematics, so you can for example write an app to summon demons, or accidentally turn yourself into a vampire by implementing a particularly extravagant algorithm. https://www.goodreads.com/series/50764-laundry-files https://www.goodreads.com/series/50764-laundry-files
- code_Whisperer 10mo ago"Galatea 2.2" by (my all-time favorite author) Richard Powers "Off to Be the Wizard" by Scott Meyer "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez "The Adolescence of P1" (vintage) by Thomas Ryan "Snow Crash" by William Gibson "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline "We are Legion [We are Bob]" by Dennis Taylor
- stuxnet79 10mo agoSnow Crash was written by Neal Stephenson
- code_Whisperer 10mo agoExcellent catch, thanks! Clearly this old boy needs a bit o' sleep.
- agarv 10mo agoThe Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by Ken Liu The Bug by Ellen Ullman Radicalized by Corey Doctrow Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories by qntm
- gaws 10mo ago> The Bug by Ellen Ullman The best answer.
- andyjohnson0 10mo agoPermutation City by Greg Egan.
- kode-targz 10mo agoThe Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect Most terrifying book I've ever read, and it is very much fit for a programmer to read. I can't recommend it enough. Especially if you are into AI and / or systems programming. I know those two seem very far apart and have no correlation, but you'll get it once you read it.
- djinnrutger 10mo agoHichhikers guide to the galaxy is a must for everyone no matter what :) also Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon both by Neal Stephenson
- davidkuda 10mo agoIn "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky you will encounter a very fascinating form of computation. :)
- ashtavakra 10mo agoI consolidated the comments for my reference later. Someone else might also find it useful: # Fiction Books Recommended for Programmers (HN Thread 46128404) ## Adrian Tchaikovsky - *Children of Time* — Science Fiction (Evolution, Space Opera) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-time https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-tim... ## Rick Cook — Wizardry Series - *Wizard’s Bane* — Fantasy, Programming/Magic Mashup https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112616.Wizard_s_Bane https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112616.Wizard_s_Bane - *Wizardry Series (overview)* https://www.goodreads.com/series/43084-wiz https://www.goodreads.com/series/43084-wiz ## James P. Hogan - *Inherit the Stars* — Hard Science Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/743568.Inherit_the_Stars https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/743568.Inherit_the_Stars - *Code of the Lifemaker* — Sci-Fi, Artificial Life https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/296722.Code_of_the_Lifemaker https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/296722.Code_of_the_Lifem... - *The Two Faces of Tomorrow* — AI, Hard Science Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218017.The_Two_Faces_of_Tomorrow https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218017.The_Two_Faces_of_... ## D. F. Jones — Colossus Trilogy - *Colossus* — AI, Classic Sci-Fi Thriller https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/806105.Colossus https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/806105.Colossus - *The Fall of Colossus* — AI, Sci-Fi https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/806106.The_Fall_of_Colossus https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/806106.The_Fall_of_Colos... - *Colossus and the Crab* — AI, Sci-Fi https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/806107.Colossus_and_the_Crab https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/806107.Colossus_and_the_... ## Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner) - *A Logic Named Joe* — Golden-Age Sci-Fi, AI Precursor https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16179042-a-logic-named-joe https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16179042-a-logic-named-j... ## David Gerrold - *When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One* — AI, Classic Science Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/865672.When_H_A_R_L_I_E_Was_One https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/865672.When_H_A_R_L_I_E_... ## William Gibson / Bruce Sterling - *Neuromancer* — Cyberpunk https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6088007-neuromancer https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6088007-neuromancer - *The Difference Engine* — Steampunk https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16781.The_Difference_Engine https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16781.The_Difference_Eng... ## Neal Stephenson - *Snow Crash* — Cyberpunk https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/830.Snow_Crash https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/830.Snow_Crash - *Cryptonomicon* — Techno-thriller, Cyber-history https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/816.Cryptonomicon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/816.Cryptonomicon - *Anathem* — Philosophical Science Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2845024-anathem https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2845024-anathem - *The Diamond Age* — Nanopunk https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827.The_Diamond_Age https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827.The_Diamond_Age ## Fred Saberhagen - *Octagon* — AI, Techno-thriller https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1891958.Octagon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1891958.Octagon ## Lois McMaster Bujold — Vorkosigan Saga - *Series Overview* — Space Opera https://www.goodreads.com/series/40946-vorkosigan-saga https://www.goodreads.com/series/40946-vorkosigan-saga ## Richard Powers - *Galatea 2.2* — Literary Fiction, AI https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45104.Galatea_2_2 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45104.Galatea_2_2 ## Scott Meyer - *Off to Be the Wizard* — Comic Fantasy with Computing Themes https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18616975-off-to-be-the-wizard https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18616975-off-to-be-the-w... ## Daniel Suarez - *Daemon* — Cyber-thriller, AI https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6665844-daemon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6665844-daemon ## Thomas J. Ryan - *The Adolescence of P-1* — AI, Classic Sci-Fi https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218059.The_Adolescence_of_P_1 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218059.The_Adolescence_o... ## Ernest Cline - *Ready Player One* — Sci-Fi, Gaming, Pop-Culture Adventure https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9969571-ready-player-one https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9969571-ready-player-one ## Dennis E. Taylor - *We Are Legion (We Are Bob)* — Humorous Sci-Fi, AI, Space Opera https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29475817-we-are-legion-we-are-bob https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29475817-we-are-legion-w... ## Ted Chiang - *Stories of Your Life and Others* — Speculative Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223380.Stories_of_Your_Life_and_Others https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223380.Stories_of_Your_L... - *Exhalation* — Speculative Fiction, Philosophy, AI https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41160292-exhalation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41160292-exhalation - *The Lifecycle of Software Objects* — AI, Digital Consciousness https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9166173-the-lifecycle-of-software-objects https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9166173-the-lifecycle-of... ## Charles Stross - *Laundry Files Series* — Math-based Magic, Techno-Fantasy https://www.goodreads.com/series/50764-laundry-files https://www.goodreads.com/series/50764-laundry-files ## Ken Liu - *The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories* — Speculative Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11289614-the-paper-menagerie-and-other-stories https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11289614-the-paper-menag... - *The Hidden Girl and Other Stories* — Speculative Fiction, AI, VR https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51008178-the-hidden-girl-and-other-stories https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51008178-the-hidden-girl... ## Ellen Ullman - *The Bug* — Tech Industry Literary Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/703.The_Bug https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/703.The_Bug ## Cory Doctorow - *Radicalized* — Techno-sociopolitical Speculative Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40604122-radicalized https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40604122-radicalized ## qntm (Sam Hughes) - *Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories* — Speculative Fiction, Computing Themes https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56516939-valuable-humans-in-transit-and-other-stories https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56516939-valuable-humans... ## Roger Williams - *The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect* — AI, Post-Singularity SF https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/258140.The_Metamorphosis_of_Prime_Intellect https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/258140.The_Metamorphosis... ## Greg Bear - *Eon* — Hard Science Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/924843.Eon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/924843.Eon ## Vernor Vinge - *A Deepness in the Sky* — Hard Sci-Fi, Space Opera https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175303.A_Deepness_in_the_Sky https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175303.A_Deepness_in_the... ## Terry Pratchett - *Going Postal* — Comic Fantasy, Satire of Bureaucracy & Tech https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64222.Going_Postal https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64222.Going_Postal ## Bruce Bethke - *Headcrash* — Cyber-satire https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213465.Headcrash https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213465.Headcrash ## Mary Shelley - *Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus* — Classic Gothic Sci-Fi https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35031085-frankenstein https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35031085-frankenstein ## Douglas Adams - *The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy* — Comic Sci-Fi https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11.The_Hitchhiker_s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11.The_Hitchhiker_s_Guid... ## Jorge Luis Borges - *The Library of Babel* — Metaphysical Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7844213-the-library-of-babel https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7844213-the-library-of-b... ## Greg Egan - *Permutation City* — Simulation Theory, Hard Sci-Fi https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156784.Permutation_City https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156784.Permutation_City ## Cixin Liu - *The Three-Body Problem* — Hard Sci-Fi, First Contact https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518872-the-three-body-problem https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518872-the-three-body-...
- rasulkireev 10mo agoI didn't expect this, but I'm really enjoying War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
- lessnonymous 10mo agoThe "Magic 2.0" series by Scott Meyer is a fun look at a programmer in medieval England with the ability to edit the world around him Edit: the audiobooks are well done too!
- topologie 9mo agoI have a couple I would highly recommend: The first is Stanislaw Lem's "Imaginary Magnitude." Most stories there are written as sort of prefaces to non-existent technical/scientific books, papers, articles, etc. The last one, Golem XIV, goes a bit beyond and includes an entire lecture. The content is incredibly detailed and technical, Lem knew his Technology and Science for sure, so sometimes it's incredibly accurate and prophetic. Even though it was written in the 1970's, Lem was already describing things that look uncannily like neural networks, emergent communication systems, and machine-generated literature, decades before they existed. And... most of them are also really really funny. Here are small summaries that ChatGPT helped me write for some of the stories there: ---- Eruntics ---- A faux-scientific introduction to a field studying “erunts”: biological (or semi-biological) agents, think bacteria/neural colonies, that can learn to read, write, and communicate. These bacterial colonies learn to communicate through several learning iterations across many mutations and generations, much like, say, Neural Networks, and they even develop their own proto-language as they evolve. Eruntics is a sort of "meditation" on emergent intelligence and how writing or meaning might arise in nonhuman systems. ---- A History of Bitic Literature ---- Purports to be a critical history of literature produced not by humans, but by machines or other non-human authors, the fictional discipline of bitistics. It treats computer-generated texts as a full literary tradition, with schools, tropes, and structural analysis. It also goes into detail on how at a certain point Bitic Literature required models to read what other models had generated and "validate" what they had written, since the complexity they reach in terms of things like neologisms, subtext, and interconnectedness to other texts and ideas, becomes so absurdly high that no human being can even attempt to read them or make sense of them. ---- Golem XIV ---- This is like half of the book, and oh boy... It presents itself first as a report/lecture series from a U.S.-military supercomputer, framed with forewords, editorial notes, “instructions,” etc, but it quickly shifts into the machine’s own philosophical monologues about humanity, evolution, intelligence gradients, and existential insignificance/significance. It contains some really iconic phrases, in particular during Golem's "Lecture": " 'The meaning of the transmitter is the transmission' [...] To be sure, the corollary holds: 'The meaning of the transmission is the transmitter.' But the two members are not symmetrical." " 'The construction is less perfect than what constructs' [...] Let us give it more substance: 'In evolution, a negative gradient operates in the perfecting of structural solutions'" Golem XIV becomes a genuine “book within a book,” a hard, speculative essay on what a post-human intellect might think. The second set of "books" that I would recommend are kinda related, even in tone: Masamune Shirow's "Ghost in The Shell" and its sequel "Ghost in the Shell: Man-Machine Interface." ChatGPT summaries: --- Ghost in the Shell --- At its core, the original Ghost in the Shell manga is a cyberpunk procedural about identity in a hyper-connected world. It follows Major Motoko Kusanagi, a fully cybernetic government operative working for Public Security Section 9, a counter-cyberterrorism and intelligence unit. The cases involve: - cyberbrains and identity hacking - political corruption - AI autonomy - blurred boundaries between human and machine - networks where memories, skills, and consciousness can be stolen or overwritten The central philosophical arc centers on Project 2501, the “Puppet Master,” an emergent artificial consciousness born from networked information systems rather than human intention. It challenges the legal, biological, and metaphysical definitions of “life.” The manga’s key concern: When minds become software, what counts as a person? What counts as being alive? It’s high-speed political action wrapped around deep questions about autonomy, embodiment, and consciousness. --- Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface --- Man-Machine Interface is not a continuation in the conventional sense, but more of a "post-human" sequel. Here, Motoko Kusanagi, the main character from Ghost in The Shell, no longer exists as a single embodied entity. After merging with the Puppet Master at the end of the original story, Motoko becomes something new: a distributed, multi-bodied, evolving posthuman intelligence often referred to as Motoko Aramaki or Motoko 2.0. The sequel follows her as: - a partially decoupled consciousness running across networks - an entity capable of switching avatars, bodies, and instantiations - a mind that operates above nation-states, legal frameworks, and even human-scale cognition Plot-wise, it deals with: - AI-industrial warfare - megacorporations fighting over distributed intelligences - metaphysics of identity in a world of multiple selves - data-ecologies and collective minds - the emergence of “post-persons” But the real shift is tone and philosophy. Where the first manga explores the crisis of identity, the sequel explores post-identity. Its main question: What does “self” mean when consciousness is fluid, redundant, multi-threaded, and no longer tied to one body or one narrative? Man-Machine Interface is dense, maximalist, metaphysical, and sometimes abstract , much closer to Lem’s Golem XIV in its treatment of posthuman consciousness than the first part. Third, another set, Peter Watts’ Blindsight and its sequel Echopraxia. --- Blindsight --- Hard sci-fi first-contact novel about a crew sent to investigate an alien signal. The aliens they encounter demonstrate astonishing intelligence and adaptability, but seemingly zero consciousness. The book’s central question is brutal: Does consciousness provide any evolutionary advantage at all? Or is it an expensive, unnecessary hack? It’s one of the most rigorous modern explorations of intelligence without awareness, cognition without qualia, and post-biological life. Also features resurrected vampires as humanity’s most efficient problem-solvers. --- Echopraxia --- A follow-up set in the same universe, focusing more on Earth, zombies, hive-minds, military religious cults, and what Watts calls baseline humans becoming obsolete. It complements Blindsight by following the implications of a world where non-conscious “intelligence engines” outperform conscious humans. Finally... --- Greg Egan's Permutation City --- At its core: A group of people upload themselves as software (“Copies”) into a virtual environment where consciousness is implemented as a computational process. But Egan pushes the idea far past “mind uploading” into deep mathematical and philosophical territory. The central premise: If consciousness depends only on logical consistency, not computation performed in real time, then a simulated mind does not require a universe running on stable physics or an external computer at all. Egan calls this the Dust Theory. What the novel explores: 1. Copies — software persons - Human consciousness is scanned and instantiated as a digital mind. These Copies struggle with: - psychological trauma from being disposable - questions about their moral status - fears of erasure - pressure to perform labor for “real” biological humans They are conscious, but economically and ontologically precarious. 2. The “Autoverse” A lifelike world governed by artificial chemistry and evolution. It explores how complexity and life can arise from arbitrary rules, not carbon-based biology. 3. Dust Theory A mind is simply a pattern, not a process. If any arrangement of matter in the multiverse instantiates that pattern, even for a moment, consciousness exists. This implies that a mind could “run” without a computer — as long as the pattern exists somewhere, even scattered across physical chaos (“dust”). Permutation City becomes a sandbox for minds that no longer require a substrate. 4. “Permutation City” itself The ultimate simulation, constructed to be self-sustaining in a way that breaks free from dependence on any external reality. Inside it, Copies evolve new forms of existence beyond human constraints. Why it’s important: It’s one of the most serious, mathematically grounded attempts in fiction to grapple with: - the ontology of simulated minds - the meaning (or irrelevance) of physical reality - identity as a computational equivalence class - consciousness divorced from biology or substrate - universes that exist because their patterns are self-consistent It anticipates debates around: - substrate independence - functionalism - consciousness as pattern-matching - AI personhood - anthropic reasoning - simulation theory Before most of those ideas entered mainstream discussion.