The story takes place some years in the aftermath of a war that ended with a reunited Korea, in a future where robots are ubiquitous. Ruijie is a disabled young girl who walks with the aid of automated braces. While exploring a scrap yard she finds a damaged but charming robot in the shape of a boy. Jun and Morgan are estranged brother and sister, each with emotional scars from the disappearance of their older brother, a lifelike robot created by their visionary roboticist father. Jun, now a cop, is investigating the disappearance of an older model child robot, and Morgan, now a roboticist herself, is preparing for the rollout of her company's new line of advanced child robots. The story has a lot going on, with a number of interesting characters, both human and robot. There's a little too much coincidence in the circumstances that reconnect the siblings for my tastes, but the story is otherwise interesting, with a lot of exploration of how we're shaped by memories and what it means to be human.

The people of Earth develop nuclear power. Naron, a long-lived Rigellian who serves as the Keeper of galactic records, notes this achievement and records humanity as having reached maturity. Until he discovers something else... Despite the seriousness of the subject, Asimov keeps a light touch in this very short story.

A 1-minute read.

Naron of the long-lived Rigellian race was the fourth of his line to keep the Galactic records.

He had the large book which contained the list of the numerous races throughout the Galaxies that had developed intelligence, and the much smaller book listing those races that had reached maturity and had qualified for the Galactic Federation. In the first book, a number of those listed were crossed out; those that, for one reason or another, had failed. Misfortune; biochemical or biophysical shortcomings; social maladjustment, etc., took their toll. In the smaller book, however, no member listed had yet blanked out.

And now Naron, large and incredibly ancient, looked up as a messenger approached.

“Naron,” said the messenger. “Great One!”

“Well, well, what is it? Less ceremony.”

“Another group of organisms has attained maturity.”

“Excellent. Excellent. They are coming up quickly now. Scarcely a year passes without a new one. And who are these?”

The messenger gave the code number of the Galaxy and the coordinates of the world within it.

“Ah, yes,” said Naron. “I know the world.” And in flowing script, he noted it in the first book and transferred its name into the second—using, as was customary, the name by which the planet was known to the largest fraction of its populace. He wrote: Earth.

He said, “These new creatures have set a record. No other group has passed from intelligence to maturity so quickly. No mistake, I hope.”

“None, sir,” said the messenger.

“They have attained to thermonuclear power, have they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, that’s the criterion.” Naron chuckled. “And soon their ships will probe out and contact the Federation.”

“Actually, Great One,” said the messenger, reluctantly, “the Observers tell us they have not yet penetrated space.”

Naron was astonished. “Not at all? Not even a space station?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“But if they have thermonuclear power, where then do they conduct their tests and detonations?”

“On their own planet, sir.”

Naron rose to his full twenty feet of hight and thundered, “On their own planet?”

“Yes, sir.”

Slowly, Naron drew out his stylus and passed a line through the latest addition in the smaller book. It was an unprecedented act, but, then, Naron was very wise and could see the inevitable as well as anyone in the Galaxy.

“Silly asses,” he muttered.

A boy takes a national intelligence test. His parents wait by the phone. Not a word is wasted in this very short story, and the twist at the very end will catch you off guard. A 3-minutes read.

The Jordans never spoke of the exam, not until their son, Dick, was 12 years old. It was on his birthday that Mrs. Jordan first mentioned the subject in his presence, and the anxious manner of her speech caused her husband to answer sharply.

“Forget about it,” he said. “He’ll do all right.”

They were at the breakfast table, and the boy looked up from his plate curiously. He was an alert-eyed youngster, with flat blond hair and a quick nervous manner. He didn’t understand what the sudden tension was about, but he did know that today was his birthday, and he wanted harmony above all.

Somewhere in the little apartment there was wrapped, beribboned packages waiting to be opened. In the tiny wall-kitchen, something warm and sweet was being prepared in the automatic stove. He wanted the day to be happy, and the moistness of his mother’s eyes, the scowl of his father’s face, spoiled the mood of expectation with which he had greeted the morning.

“What exam?” he asked.

His mother looked at the tablecloth. “It’s just a sort of Government intelligence test they give children at the age of twelve. You’ll be taking it next week. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“You mean a test like in school?”

“Something like that,” his father said, getting up from the table. “Go read your comic books, Dick.”

The boy rose and wandered toward that part of the living room that had been “his” corner since infancy. He fingered the topmost comic of the stack, but seemed uninterested in the colorful squares of fast-paced action. He wandered toward the window and peered gloomily at the veil of mist that shrouded the glass.

“Why did it have to rain today?” he asked. “Why couldn’t it rain tomorrow?” His father, now slumped into an armchair with the Government newspaper, rattled the sheets in vexation. “Because it just did, that’s all. Rain makes the grass grow.”

“Why, Dad?”

“Because it does, that’s all.”

Dick puckered his brow. “What makes it green though? The grass?”

“Nobody knows,” his father snapped, then immediately regretted his abruptness. Later in the day, it was birthday time again. His mother beamed as she handed over the gaily-colored packages, and even his father managed a grin and a rumple-of-thehair.

He kissed his mother and shook hands gravely with his father. Then the birthday cake was brought forth, and the ceremonies concluded.

An hour later, seated by the window, he watched the sun force its way between the clouds.

“Dad,” he said, “how far away is the sun?”

“Five thousand miles,” his father said.

Dick: “It won’t be long now. When they call your name, you go through the doorway at that end of the room.” He indicated the portal with his finger.

A concealed loudspeaker crackled and called off the first name. Dick saw a boy leave his father’s side reluctantly and walk slowly towards the door.

At five minutes of eleven, they called the name of Jordan.

“Good luck, son,” his father said, without looking at him. “I’ll call for you when the test is over.”

Dick walked to the door and turned the knob. The room inside was dim, and he could barely make out the features of the gray-tunicked attendant who greeted him.

“Sit down,” the man said softly. He indicated a high stool behind his desk. “Your name’s Richard Jordan?”

“Yes sir.”

“Your classification number is 600-115. Drink this, Richard.”

He lifted a plastic cup from the desk and handed it to the boy. The liquid inside had the consistency of buttermilk, tasted only vaguely of the promised peppermint. Dick downed it and handed the man the empty cup.

He sat in silence, feeling drowsy, while the man wrote busily on a sheet of paper. Then the attendant looked at his watch and rose to stand only inches from Dick’s face.

He unclipped a pen-like object from the pocket of his tunic and flashed a tiny light into the boy’s eyes.

“All right,” he said. “Come with me, Richard.”

He led Dick to the end of the room, where a single wooden armchair faced a multi-dialed computing machine. There was a microphone on the left arm of the chair, and when the boy sat down, he found its pinpoint head conveniently at his mouth.

“Now just relax, Richard. You’ll be asked some questions, and you think them over carefully. Then give your answers into the microphone. The machine will take care of the rest.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll leave you alone now. Whenever you want to start, just say ‘ready’ into the microphone.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man squeezed his shoulder and left.

Dick said, “Ready.”

Lights appeared on the machine, and a mechanism whirred. A voice said:

“Complete this sequence. One, four, seven, ten…”

Mr. and Mrs. Jordan were in the living room, not speaking, not even speculating.

It was almost four o’clock when the telephone rang. The woman tried to reach it first, but her husband was quicker.

“Mr. Jordan?”

The voice was clipped; a brisk, official voice.

“Yes, speaking.”

“This is the Government Educational Service. Your son, Richard M. Jordan, Classification 600-115, has completed the Government examination. We regret to inform you that his intelligence quotient has exceeded the Government regulation, according to Rule 84, Section 5, of the New Code.”

Across the room, the woman cried out, knowing nothing except the emotion she read on her husband’s face.

“You may specify by telephone,” the voice droned on, “whether you wish his body interred by the Government or would you prefer a private burial place? The fee for Government burial is ten dollars.”

Sequel to Foundryside, set in the same city in which inanimate objects can be "scrived” to somewhat change their structure or state (make a wooden door behave more like stone, or a sword behave like it's moving much faster than it is). In the prior book we learned that this ability was learned from recovered fragments from a long gone civilization of "hierophants” who were masters of it. Here, Sancha and most of the main characters from the prior book have settled into a new life, but learn that someone is attempting to resurrect the original and greatest hierophant, who is likely to destroy their world. As with the first, I enjoyed this book. The world is interesting, the characters relatable, and the action kept the pages turning.

There are some great novel recommendations here, but I wouldn't say that most of them are lesser-known.

What are your recommendations?

As for me, I've exclusively read well-known novels, except if you consider someone like Alfred Bester obscure, for example.

One exception: Misha Burnett's Endless Summer: Twelve Strange Tales of Mankind's Future. It's a collection of exceptionnaly well-crafted stories. It ain't a novel, though.

In an unspecified but not too distant future, classrooms give way to individual instruction on mobile devices and children are more isolated. “Artificial Friends” (AFs) - androids designed as companions - become more popular to help reduce their loneliness. Klara is an AF, bought for a very sick young girl. Though Klara is especially clever and observant, her knowledge of how the world works is very limited. This is a wonderful but very slowly paced story - if you're looking for something action packed, it's not here. I really enjoyed the way Ishiguro gives us a constant trickle of information about the future he's created, and I enjoyed Klara’s joyful nature.

There is a sweet little horror story that is only two sentences long:

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door…”

Kai is a powerful demon who awakens outside of his human body to find he's been trapped unconscious in a tomb for over a year. His long-time friends are also missing. He has to figure out who has done this, and why. The story alternates between this “present" timeline, and a "past” timeline that starts with him as a young demon in his newly-gifted human body. Wells has a real knack for creating worlds with interesting rules (far from the cookie cutter tropes of some fantasy), and then exploring the boundaries of those rules. I enjoyed it, but also felt like there was an odd detachment to the story - like there wasn't a lot of emotional attachment to the characters. As an aside, Wells has a penchant for making subtle or not-so-subtle commentary on our society and the prejudices in it. As examples in this one, demons are referred to by the gender of their demon selves, not the gender of the body they're in. Some societies have gender neutral clothing, but where it's gendered it's the men who wear skirts and women who wear pants. One culture is referred to as confusing because they stick to two genders.

Just found out about this artist, goes by Dirty Iron online. Amazing grayscale work.

Book four of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Carl, Donut, and Katia get to the next level, get into more trouble, get additional skills and levels, and figure more things out. This level has the crawlers divided up into separate domes with different circular quadrants. Also, there's getting to be a little more about the underlying factions and politics of the universe as the serious progresses. As before, if you liked the prior books, you'll probably like this one.

Zula has taken a job at a company responsible for a globally popular video game, founded by her billionaire uncle. Her boyfriend Peter has entered into an illegal transaction with someone he doesn't realize is connected to the Russian Mafia. Everything goes south, and Zula and Peter are abducted. What follows is a book with a giant scope. It's an international suspense thriller that takes a multitude of interesting main characters to the limits of their capabilities. Stephenson manages to linger on lots of small technical details in a way that's interesting, and while still making a real page-turner with characters we care about for over 1000 pages.

The shortest sci-fi story ever.

So, it's a very optimistic story. If some of you are utterly despaired, well of course it certainly won't fix the problem(s), but it could be food for thought.

In general, I'd be curious to know what did you think of this story (its very long tho compared to my usual posts, so theyre might not be a lot of readers)

Thinking of adding a comment section in the future

I'm non dénominationel Christian and id be interested by any kind of christianity inspired works, be they catholic or protestant or whatever.

Same for all religions: buddhism, islam, anything religious.

If not religious but spiritual and exceptionnal like PKD's gnosticism, Im also curious. Not only for the gnosticism, but the whole doubting if some things experienced during psychosis are not all batshit-land, so I've also put Jung in my to read list, but let's keep it sci-fi.

Maggie is an 83-year-old woman living alone while her husband is in a memory care facility with Alzheimer's. She's visited by a man who tells her that it's not a disease - her husband's memories are being erased intentionally because of something he discovered, and she needs to go inside his memories to find out what it was and to save him. There's quite a bit packed into this book. It's a thriller, a puzzle book, and especially it's a love story. There's one element of the book that seems more like mysticism than SF, but it's hard to say more - really about any aspect of the book - without spoilers. I enjoyed it and it kept me turning pages into the night.

Based on a request from a comment deep in another thread I have a quick review of the novel Katabasis by R.F Kuang

The novel in brief (without any spoilers) is about two magicians, doctoral candidates, who must venture into hell to save their thesis advisor in order to receive letters of recommendation. Its a deep look into academia and our concepts of hell and the underworld.

Overall I would recommend the book especially if you enjoy fantasy, or deep world building. Like other R.F Kuang novels is it well researched, full of real world references and root in her own experiences. In this book the experiences is academia especially the cut throat elite university of a PhD program. The book is about a journey to hell deep with references toward underworld deities and stories from around the world that add a depth and complexity to a hero’s journey. The trip to the underworld is a method to both explore the deep world building including an unique magic system as well as the protagonist personal journey of discovery. The novel is about two similar characters who are both magician going through a personal journey to rescue their advisor for their own personal reasons. Overall, its fascinating, well researched and definitely unique. Overall I would recommend it, especially if you enjoy Babel.

Like some of her other novels it can get long but in this case the multiple layers of hell do provide a direction as well a structure about its length. Like most of her other novels there are multiple themes and ideas that are explored which can seem meandering but I quite enjoyed all the ideas.

Book three of the Palleseen Sway series. Many of the main characters of the prior book figure into this one, but they're less of the focus. It takes place in the aftermath of the prior book’s war, but in Usmiat, a costal city kingdom ruled by a blind king, but with some Pal presence in the city. Most of the focus is on the woman who is the highest ranking Pal, and on the king's heir. This one seemed to take longer to get going, but as it went along the momentum kept building. Tchaikovsky does a good job creating rich and diverse cultures as they clash or align. Good.