I'm right there with you, and so are a lot of people. I still respect him for being one to inspire young children (he's kind of the Bill Nye of this generation), but he has lost a lot of credibility in recent years.
Recently read a book - Seveneves, and I'm pretty damn sure one of the main characters is NDT.
To those interested why exactly, please do yourself a HUGE favor and read this book. https://www.amazon.com/Second-After-John-Matherson-Novel-ebook/dp/B002LATV16 It has two more in the series. Best urban survival fiction story i have ever read. EMP's are fucking scary because the human nature is scary. I was recommended this book on this subreddit a while back and i thank you, whoever you are.
One Second Later by William R. Forstchen. I have a T1 son and read it before his diagnosis. Reflecting on it post-diag makes it so much scarier. https://www.amazon.com/Second-After-John-Matherson-Novel-ebook/dp/B002LATV16
Bobiverse is good. have you read the Frontlines Series by Marko Kloos? Excellent books. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CIXX144/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2
Colapsing Empire series by Scalzi.
Ian DOuglas's stuff is pretty good.
Rachel Bach's Paradox series
The Legend of Zero series - Sara King
> Meanwhile they create an elaborate scenario where an eccentric billionaire kickstarts a series of successful new tech companies like a private aerospace manufacturing and transportation company, and an full electric transport manufacturing company. > > All wrapped in future hype, but in reality it's all founded by governments to bootstrap space-colonization as fast as possible.
Sounds not too different than the Neil Stephenson book SEVENEVES. Blurb on Amazon has huge spoilers, so skip it if you want to discovery the story as you read it. If you liked "The Martian" for its near future sci-fi spaceflight, you will like SEVENEVES.
There's even a character in the book that reads very much like Elon Musk.
You should drop everything and read Snow Crash.
I have been on an EMP fiction kick. (Books about what happens after an EMP hits and we lose all electronics.) They are fun, and I learn things. I am learning things necessary to survive after something like this, and having fun doing it. No, they aren't true, but the writers tend to do their research.
I really enjoyed this one: One Second After by: William R. Forstchen
Not mind blowing, but a good read. ;)
In the Breakers series, humanity faces not one apocalypse, but two: first a lethal pandemic, then a war against those who made the
virus.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breakers-Books-Edward-W-Robertson-ebook/dp/B00E9YL3HM
Altered Carbon (the books) might fit what you're looking for, although not progression fantasy.
This sort of thing occurs during Marko Kloos’ Frontlines series. If you’re down for military scifi it’s a good set of books. Not really done as a series yet.
First book.
There is a book series (wich I quite like) wich is far in the future where the major powers do not fight on earth anymore but on distant planets.
Terms of Enlistment is the name. Has also good Audiobooks
FYI:
For those wanting to bunker it out, I'm afraid bunkers just aren't going to cut it! Sorry to burst your ~~bubble~~ planet!
Essentially the entire sky is literally going to be glowing insanely bright red, radiating such intense heat that will char you within a few seconds on the surface.
And then...
Not to mention plummeting oxygen levels. Not that you would want to breathe the superheated oxygen into your lungs anyways.
Not to mention how all forests on all continents of the Earth will burn down at once--all within less than 24 hours after impact.
Not to mention countless multiple, massive tidal waves.
Not to mention insane Earthquakes in many parts, that are unprecedented and off the charts in human history...
And lots of other apocalyptic fun mayhem. It's a true miracle anything survived that impactor 65 million years ago.
Again: I seriously have no clue how anything survived that. Life finds a way I guess!
Anyways, given the profound nature of this question, OP might enjoy the awesome SciFi novel:
Seveneves (By Neal Stephenson)
Seems like there's more than a few negative reviews for the novel on Amazon, but I have to say as someone who has read a HUGE whack of SciFi novels, this one absolutely ranks in my top 10 (personally speaking).
FYI:
For those wanting to bunker it out, I'm afraid bunkers just aren't going to cut it! Sorry to burst your ~~bubble~~ planet!
Essentially the entire sky is literally going to be glowing insanely bright red, radiating such intense heat that will char you within a few seconds on the surface.
Not to mention plummeting oxygen levels. (Not that you would want to breathe the superheated oxygen into your lungs anyways.)
Not to mention how all forests on all continents of the Earth will burn down at once--all within less than 24 hours after impact.
Not to mention countless multiple, massive tidal waves.
Not to mention insane Earthquakes in many parts, that are unprecedented and off the charts in human history...
And lots of other apocalyptic fun mayhem. It's a true miracle anything survived that impactor 65 million years ago.
Again: I seriously have no clue how anything survived that. Life finds a way I guess!
Anyways, given the profound nature of this question, OP might enjoy the awesome SciFi novel:
Seveneves (By Neal Stephenson)
Seems like there's more than a few negative reviews for the novel on Amazon, but I have to say as someone who has read a HUGE whack of SciFi novels, this one absolutely ranks in my top 10 (personally speaking).
To the planet itself? Not much.
To a couple billion people in rural / 3rd world conditions? Not much.
To us in first-world, moderate-to-highly-urban environments? Utter catastrophe.
This is probably the scariest book I've ever read.
On that note, if you wanna dig deeper on the philosophical concept of memes, check out the book Snow Crash. Basic story concept is the idea of memes that can act like computer viruses to the human brain stem, spreading from person to person virally using the avenue of language, and of people learning to "write" these virally intrusive memes. It's one of Neal Stephenson's better ones, imo, and I like quite a few of his novels.
Orson Scott Card, in the preface to one of his short story collections, wrote about how "stories are the atomic units of society".
The fictional story <em>Snow Crash</em> is of course on a similar theme, taken to an extreme.
Anyway, lots of people that are socially awkward treat the little stories and memes that link people together as silly. Admittedly, they are silly. But they are also important.
Think about religious cultures. What food to eat on a holiday is not important. It's the stories about why we that food on that day that matters.
C. S. Lewis wrote about his ideal Christianity as a "good infection". Whatever your little stories and memes are, enjoy them by yourself and you can enjoy sharing them with others. For good or ill, that is most of society.
I keep getting the title wrong. It's 1 second after and here it is. Very realistic look into what we would think of as mundane things not working. https://www.amazon.com/Second-After-John-Matherson-Novel-ebook/dp/B002LATV16/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=One+Second+After&qid=1613963217&sr=8-1 Did you know you can look inside for free of the 1st chapter?
Try this book series off of Kindle:
Terms of Enlistment (Frontlines Book 1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CIXX144/ref=cm_sw_r_u_apa_L0f4Fb9Q2GCG4
Chronicles of the Black Company (Chronicles of the Black Company Series Book 1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009WUG56M/ref=cm_sw_r_u_apa_p4f4FbB4BGWA6
Day to day lives of soldiers in a sci-fi and fantasy setting. Pretty good and chill reads. Also maybe try and pick up an MMO like WoW that you can use to a lot of sink time into.
and I assume you also use the amazon.com marketplace on audible? (ie audible.com and US dollars). If that's true I would guess your settings are set up for amazon.com kindle books too, if you can buy kindle books on .com and use the whispersync feature (again it would charge you in USD).
An easy way to check is to go to amazon.ca and see if you are able to buy a kindle book. My guess is, it wont let you and say you have to go to amazon.com (obviously unless you have been changing your country settings recently).
Because yes, I am very sure that it doesnt work with an amazon.ca account. The audible.ca rep I spoke to said as much... although I guess they dont always give customers the right information.
What I found out is you can change your country settings for Kindle though, in your amazon account management. And so I just had to give it a US address and it transferred my books over without issue. And because I already had the book on audible.com (I assume) whispersync started working. In the future if I want to use whispersync I will just switch my country back to Canada to buy the kindle ebook (so I pay CAD with no conversion fees) and then switch back to use whispersync. Unfortunately I think I would be stuck paying USD on audible though, from what I can tell.
Hopefully they do implement whispersync in canada, I think its a good feature and definitely a reason for me to buy kindle ebooks over kobo. But to be honest, unless its a quality narrator/cast for the audio book, with all the hassle that it took me I will probably just stick to ebooks and using my iphone's screen reading ability to read the book to me. Its not as good as an audio book but its a lot less hassle. Until they bring the whispersync feature to canada properly anyway.
Every ebook in the Prime Reading library is available to Prime members, at least in the US.
For example, the ebook 1984 lists a price of $0.00 for the Kindle version.
I have two options where the 'buy' link is normally found. The first button is labeled "Read for free." That's the button you should press.
The second button is labeled, "Buy now for $9.99". Amazon likes to try to sell you stuff it is already provided you for free. Yes, that's dumb and annoying and they should not do that.
I don't know if 'beautifully written' is the way I would describe it, but the first 100 pages of Snow Crash are amazing. Read the 'Look Inside' at Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FBJCJE/
The story slows down after that, but I think it's still a fun read.
I'd recommend both Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. I guess both are a bit dated now, but less so than Gibson's novels.
Have you read Red Rising? The first quarter of the book is just a little bit slow, but I call it the safety checks that need to happen before the rocket launches. The setup needs to happen, but once it get's going you literally don't stop for three straight books...
Deal link: Amazon
^^Note: ^^The ^^deal ^^may ^^have ^^expired ^^by ^^the ^^time ^^you ^^see ^^this ^^post.
none of them are scary, but they can create interesting scenario's.
slightly related, books, i read the Breaker Series (amazon free books) and enjoyed the idea that aliens only need to create a virus to wipe out man and move into the unpopulated earth. I'm not saying it's good writing, or series, but it was interesting for me to read.
Deal link: Amazon
^^Note: ^^The ^^deal ^^may ^^have ^^expired ^^by ^^the ^^time ^^you ^^see ^^this ^^post.
>the Breakers
For some reason, that whole series is free on amazon!
https://www.amazon.com/Breakers-Books-Edward-W-Robertson-ebook/dp/B00E9YL3HM/ref=sxts_entity_rec_bsx_s_def_r00_t_aufl?cv_ct_cx=the+breaker+ed+robertson&dchild=1&keywords=the+breaker+ed+robertson&pd_rd_i=B00E9YL3HM&pd_rd_r=808a7c8c-0f27-403a-af9c-b9cf46759755&pd_rd_w=LIYyT&pd_rd_wg=XK3NG&pf_rd_p=1ef18a0f-7643-4ccc-add8-09ffed2c5a47&pf_rd_r=KZJRSA7QBZ6S1C1SY37G&qid=1594129698&s=digital-text&sr=1-2-795edd5f-cc24-47c7-9173-701523fd4bcf
Every ebook in the Prime Reading library is available to Prime members, at least in the US.
For example, the ebook 1984 lists a price of $0.00 for the Kindle version.
I have two options where the 'buy' link is normally found. The first button is labeled "Read for free." That's the button you should press.
The second button is labeled, "Buy now for $9.99". Amazon likes to try to sell you stuff it is already provided you for free. Yes, that's dumb and annoying and they should not do that
When you install the Kindle app on your phone or tablet, you will register it to your Prime account. Then you can browse the Prime Reading library from your phone or tablet, or your desktop PC.
When browsing from my desktop PC, if I click the "Read for free" button I am registering the lending to a specific device I have already registered for my Prime account.
So, for example, everyone in my family borrows Prime ebooks. We can all use the desktop PC in our home to pick books and mark them to be borrowed on our individual tablet or phone. Then we open the Kindle app on our tablet or phone and the app naturally checks to see an ebook is waiting and it downloads the ebook.
The Breaker series, best self published thing I've ever read. Huge number of positive reviews, this is no hobbyist, this guy has chops.