[mrlambchop]

I'm visiting my parents this weekend and what with all the nostalgia of that, seeing this pop up on HN really felt like a punch to the gut.

Whenever I see his name, I'm transported back to a small town public library in the UK where his novel, Eon and its Arthur C. Clarke nomination took me from a young boy reading more popularist Sci-Fi authors straight into a much harder world of sci-fi authors and it left a huge impression.

Another big loss to the Sci-Fi literary community.

[qubyte]

Same. Eon blew my mind when I first read it, coming from coffee-table sci-fi (which I still love too). Eon is my favourite of his books.

[danparsonson]

+1 for Eon - such an epic conception and an incredibly coherent world; one of my all time favourite novels.

[nullc]

> one of my all time favourite novels.

Likewise. I've used it to introduce many people to more serious sci-fi.

[lproven]

"The seventh chamber went on forever."

</3

[goldenshale]

Yes, Eon! Amazing book. Darwin's Radio is a really fun idea too. Definitely recommend that if you enjoyed Eon. Very different, but equally creative and fascinating.

[Firmwarrior]

The only Greg Bear books I've read are Forge of God and Anvil of Stars.. they were well-written, but the story sucked IMO. It was just so dark, and full of vengeance. A whole universe burning in the fires of vengeful rage, haha.

Are his other books like that too? Or is the tone a little less murderous?

[PaulHoule]

So many sci-fi books come across as basically the same, I like Forge of God precisely because it is so dark and uncompromising and is like works like Gateway and Worlds or Ballard’s works that read more as literature than genre sci-fi.

Also from the view point of SETI there is the awful truth that we really shouldn’t be trying to communicate w/ other life because the most practical meaningful form of interstellar communication is bombing with relativistic or sub-relativistic projectiles. See The Killing Star where aliens watched Star Trek: The Original Series and thought we might be dangerous, then saw Star Trek: The Next Generation and realized they could take us.

[Firmwarrior]

That's a good point, I can see the appeal of a different perspective.

I think that was my favorite part of the Three Body Problem. The "F You" attitude it has toward optimism, individuality, liberty.. haha

[thefringthing]

Much of the appeal of Eon is that it describes a fairly believable and coherent post-scarcity/transhuman society.