Project hail Mary,
this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2025
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One of my recent reads might meet your need. Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time (2015). Recommended by a friend
Strong recommend on this as well.
Tschaikofsky is amazing in general, my new favourite sci-fi writer. The Children trilogy is great hard sci-fi while the Architects trilogy is equally awesome epic space opera.
The hitchhikers guide starts normal, for like a dozen pages.
Using "Old Man's War" and "The Matrix" as a vibe guide (intimate stories with some brain bending twists), here's some I haven't seen mentioned here, yet:
- "The Long Earth" by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
- "The Peace War" by Vernor Vinge
- "A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge
- "Walkaway" by Corey Doctorow
- "Paycheck" and "The Minority Report" by Philip K Dick - Both also got decent movies and much of Philip K Dick's work fits this vibe, actually.
- "The Door Into Summer" by Robert Heinlein
seveneves is kind of like that
14 by Peter Clines.
The Expanse series.
It's a good example of relatively "real" science fiction but doesn't start normal, pretty much sets the tone and sticks with it. Some reveals come but it's now in the vein of mystery.
Gotta disagree. We start flying in spaceships bound by real physics as we understand it, albeit with better tech, doing normal human stuff, like blowing each other up, and then each book progressively unfolds another layer, literally logarithmicly more alien than before, while also expanding the scope of the Expanse.
Project Hail Mary fits the bill. Though it's popular enough you've likely already read it.
This looks really cool, thank you!
I loved it. You're in for a treat.
The Expanse series is kind-of near scifi that goes cosmic.
Gurren Lagann, its an anime but the beginning of the show to the end of the show is such a fantastical journey.
I'm not a huge anime fan in general but I fucking love Gurren Lagann.
That show feels like every episode is competing to be the most ridiculous, but the only other competitor is the previous episode of the same show.
I did not notice this was a books community -.-
You probably already read it, but 2001 is awesome
Three Body Problem. The first book builds up like that, and the next two just keep going. It's a wild ride.
Yes- I've read them. Just found out about the 4th one; "The Redemption of Time," although it is fan fiction, even Liu Cixin recommended it, apparently made the author Baoshu an established writer.
Oooh, I didn't know that existed. I'd better go find it, thanks for the tip!
Greg Bear is a master of that style.
Eon especially when paired with Eternity its sequel.
Forge of God and Anvil of Stars.
I always like the first 100 or so pages and the last 100 pages of his books. The middle is always such a slog to get through.
Hmm. I'd never really thought about that before and totally agree.
Accelerando by Charles Stross.
The bobiverse series could fit for you as well, quite a strong ramp up but starting, well, now.
"To Sleep in a Sea of Stars" starts pretty grounded, has a weird thing happen to the main character, then massively increases in scope.
It's not quite hard sci-fi, as tech for ftl travel exists. It has some proto-molecule McMuffin as well.
It's by the writer of Eragon, I enjoyed it but I also don't have a discerning taste in author.
I too enjoyed that one, it's nice to see him grow from Eragon, the writing in this I feel is much better. Definitely goes from small personal level stuff to let's save the universe type deal. A good read.
Horror oriented, but Tales from the Loop and its sequel, Things from the Flood, go like this, the first book rather normal despite its subject, but setting up for the shift into the cosmic horror from the second book. Didn't read The Electric State or The Maze to know if they're part of the same narrative.
The Expanse series
The Wandering Inn has some moments like this at the beginning. The reader slowly realizes how vast the universe is and it just keeps going.
The Perfect Run is very good as well. The universe and the MC are really fun to read.
"starts grounded in reality" oh woops! NVM. Feel free to ignore then!
Books or comics?
Whichever