Dragon's egg
by Robert L. Forward · first published 1980
67% recommend32% neutral2% critical
Why HN recommends it
Hard science fiction about life evolving on a neutron star, with speculative physics and the fast-living cheela as the draw. Suits readers who want serious science and ideas about time scales.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
In a moving story of sacrifice and triumph, human scientists establish a relationship with intelligent lifeforms--the cheela--living on Dragon's Egg, a neutron star where one Earth hour is equivalent to hundreds of their years. The cheela culturally evolve from savagery to the discovery of science, and for a brief time, men are their diligent teachers . . .
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A good science fiction book about an intelligent alien race that evolved on the surface of a neutron star, written by a physicist: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/263466.Dragon_s_Egg
on “A bug's life: Millimeter-tall mountains on neutron stars” ↗If you haven’t read RL Forward’s Dragon’s Egg then take the weekend off and treat yourself. A 1980s hard sci-fi novel depicting the saga of a species called cheela: creatures who have evolved to live on the surface of a neutron star, where the forces…
on “'Black neutron star' discovery changes astronomy” ↗If you read the article and enjoyed the idea of immense mountains being just centimeters tall, I highly recommend a scifi novel called “Dragon’s Egg” by Robert L. Forward. He actually wrote a scientific research paper on neutron stars and turned the paper into a novel! Hard science fiction at its best and makes nuclear chemistry and physics delightfully…
on “Nuclear pasta in neutron stars may be the strongest material in the universe” ↗Did you ever read Dragon's Egg? It's a speculative hard sci-fi that posits ultra-fast evolution for life on the surface crust of a neutron star!
on “Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds” ↗I love these books (Dragon's Egg and Starquake). Robert Forward isn't great with the human characters, but they're only in a handful of scenes. He really brings the cheela to life, and the speculative physics is outstanding.
on “Life on a neutron star (2004)” ↗If we're recommending scifi I'd like to add Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward. Except he's now up to three books. It's hard scifi of a neutron star passing through the solar system and Earth scrambling to research it. At the same time life is developing…
on “Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?” ↗That sounds tantalizing. I tried googling around but couldn't figure out which book that might be. Can you try to dig up the name? The only Robert Forward I've read is Dragon's Egg, which was great. I should read more by him.
on “What are your favourite sci-fi books?” ↗…little more effort into it, especially if they've been spacefaring for years. And if they haven't, wouldn't they be a lot more curious about us? I would love to see a cinematization of Robert Forward's Dragon's Egg, which I think gets this right.
on “A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)” ↗Robert L. Forward wrote a pair of hard sci-fi novels, 'Dragon's Egg' & 'Starquake' about a manned Earth probe that discovers sentient life that evolved in the hot plasma on the surface of a star. I prefer the second more, but both are very good.
on “When Did Life First Emerge in the Universe?” ↗…and his ideas are grand, such that one keeps thinking about it for a while after reading his stuff. But I don't know what it is about his writing. It just isn't very gripping. This opposed to f.e. Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward. Similar hard scifi, but much more fun to read.
on “When Did Life First Emerge in the Universe?” ↗Robert L Forward wrote a fascinating novel about life on a neutron star: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Egg
on “Ask HN: Teach me something new” ↗I really like Dragon's Egg by Robert L Forward, and its sequel as well.
on “The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works” ↗Dragon's Egg (Robert Forward) is an excellent hard science fiction novel, in which merely from knowledge of the fact that it could be done better figures prominently.
on “The Dangerous Trend Of Thinking That Ideas Can Be Owned, Sold Or Stolen ” ↗I highly recommend Dragon's Egg, a hard sci fi novel by Robert L. Forward, as well as its sequel, Starquake, for anyone wanting to expand their mind with a fascinating portrayal of neutron star physics, dealing with the hypothetical…
on “Frequency” ↗Which gives me another opportunity to hype “Dragon’s Egg” a novel by Robert Forward. From the synopsis in Wikipedia: “Dragon's Egg is a 1980 hard science fiction novel by Robert L. Forward. In the story, Dragon's Egg is a neutron star with a surface gravity…
on “An experiment caught a quantum system in the middle of a jump (2019)” ↗