Okay, my question is a bit tricky. Let me explain: I read a large portion of The Fireman by Joe Hill, and I hated it. It felt like a book with a brilliant idea but one that went absolutely nowhere, even though I was already more than halfway through. Which is a shame because I really enjoyed Hill's short stories.

So, I'm looking for science fiction books set during the end of the world that you consider good and would recommend.

Looking forward to your suggestions!

In this universe, each planet is a humanoid being that can generate a shell (surface) around their body, and each one has it's own timeline. It's hidden in the planet's or surface's insides. A being that is not a holder of it can jump right Into any moment in life of the planet. If someone changes a timeline, the celestial body creates a paradox that is like an conflicting thought or logic for them, and it starts to Alter later points in the timeline to be like the altered event (but the people living here unpainfully (unless they knowingly try to resist it, winch is uncommon) mix with their previous variant, but hold some things and memory of the now ceased future). The user of time travel can only belong in chosen time period in area close to the planet they traveled from (mostly with radius of a system).The other planets also alter their history when something changes via time travel. If a planet is developing Into adulthood, they experince teleportation across their time in the universe. This mostly isn't even an inconvinece, since they should develop in a big gust of stardust. But if one was to go out of their supposed "woumb" they would experince more shocking for them jumps that they are able to take part in & change the future. It happens as part of a Planet's puberty, when a timeline starts forming, even when a planet lived long before.

Critiques are welcomed

The book has a lot of great reviews but I'm two chapters in and it is painfully obvious that Catherynne is emulating The Hitchhiker's Guide but not in a good way.

When Hitchhiker's Guide leaves the main story narrative to do world building, it does it in the voice of the Guide itself, which is natural and makes sense. And Douglas Adams doesn't overdo it.

In Space Oddity, Catherynne goes off on needless and divergent tangents every paragraph that tries to do world building but it lacks any cohesive structure for these random factoids to fit into a larger world.

For example, Space Oddity felt the need to use three pages of text, three humans that span several centuries, dozens of different random aliens,and ex- phenomenons to explain what a Black Swan Event means. As a reader, the sheer amount of random alien species introduced here signals that none of them are important or are meant to be remembered for later. But that becomes a tedious experience to get all these concepts that both uninteresting and useless to the narrative.

I hope things improve soon.

Not an attempt to start fights just interested

For me it was Babylon 5 back in the day and Arcane now.

I don't know what it is I tried a few times with B5 and don't get it.

Same with Arcane, love the music and the art style, just can't finish it

Nanomachines? Sentient robots that run off bio matter? Or actual plague

Been thinking alot about different weapons and their strengths and weaknesses in science fiction settings recently, as I like to do theorycrafting of world build for rpgs and short stories in my spare time.

When it comes to more advanced settings, how do you see weaponry progressing?

I'm looking for great short stories about aliens. I think the only book I've read with these characteristics is The Martian Chronicles by Bradbury.

Can you think of any others?

How advanced were the Ancients, in comparison to some of the other species in sci-fi. Obviously pretty advanced, which is unsurprising for a race of mad scientists, but when compared to things like the forerunners, of the Daleks, how do they fare?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_City_(1998_film)

In some sci fi movie or game, the time is stopped and the characters are able to move into the frozen world. Sometimes, the objects are imossible to move, and sometimes the object are possible to move (for example, in the game Quantum Break, they are pushed back as if they were in zero gravitiy).

In every case, I always wonder how the character are able to see if the photons are frozen too ? Of course the creators of the show don't bother to find an explanation and there is maybe none, but I wonder if someone as a thoery on that

So I am working on a Science Fiction project, and decided that FTL travel should occur through what I am currently calling 'Quantum Catapults', which basically launch ships at FTL speeds and allows for them to travel between systems safely. But I prefer some grounding to my projects, so theoretically how could this work if we actually tried to do this, and what would stop this from being a reality?

(New to this subreddit, and the rules are a bit vague, so sorry if I break any rules)