Existence
by David Brin · first published 2012
76% recommend18% neutral6% critical
Why HN recommends it
Idea-dense hard sci-fi about first contact, the Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter, with a near-future world of trillionaires and a pyramid-scheme take on alien contact. Suits big-picture space opera fans.
Common criticism: Some find it padded with skippable sections, including blog-style interludes
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Bestselling, award-winning futurist David Brin returns to globe-spanning, high concept SF with Existence. Gerald Livingstone is an orbital garbage collector. For a hundred years, people have been abandoning things in space, and someone has to clean it up. But there’s something spinning a little bit higher than he expects, something that isn’t on the decades’ old orbital maps. An hour after he grabs it and brings it in, rumors fill Earth’s infomesh about an “alien artifact.” Thrown into the maelstrom of worldwide shared experience, the Artifact is a game-changer. A message in a bottle;
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"Off to be the wizard" is pretty light and fun. "John dies at the end" was fun, not really sci-fi, more buffy the vampire slayer esque. "Existence" by David Brin made me want to puke it had so many good ideas. A tiny bit dated, but very smart. "The Martian" I expect you've read it. Good romp, easy to read. Reminded me of a Michael Crichton. "World…
on “Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?” ↗David Brin's Existence is an excellent 300-page novel hiding in a 500-page novel amid a couple of hundred pages of self-indulgent garbage. If you're good at skipping over junk (for starters, ignore the blog-post styled sections),…
on “Six more radio signals from deep space deepen mystery” ↗…(assuming you have already read Asimov's Foundation series) A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom - David Wingrove Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie Neutron Star - Larry Niven Existence - David Brin The Dosadi Experiment - Frank Herbert The Space Merchants - Pohl and Kornbluth Sun of Suns - Karl Schroeder All the Traps of Earth - Clifford Simak Test of Fire - Ben Bova The Diamond…
on “Ask HN: What's your favorite sci-fi book?” ↗…close together. I find they have an interesting theme throughout regarding the role of truth and manipulation. I would not recommend the sequels to 3 body problem. If you like big picture space opera, Existence by David Brin and Exultant by Stephen Baxter are better.
on “Interviewing Tim Sweeney and Neal Stephenson” ↗Have you read Existence by David Brin, it has a lot of great AI stuff in it.
on “AlphaGo beats Lee Sedol 3-0 [video]” ↗…die off, and could certainly send autonomous robot probes. When you don't die anymore, 8 years roundtrip (or more) suddenly doesn't seem so long. BTW in the fiction arena, I suggest reading David Brin "Existence" if you're so inclined which is related to this :)
on “Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox”: The Percolation Theory Hypothesis” ↗It's from a David Brin book IIRC... Existence. Good book.. there are a class of people worth trillions of dollars and he explores all kinds of weird things that could happen. Like trillie teenagers launching themselves into space on joy riding…
on “Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B” ↗…(http://www.amazon.com/Greenflies-Andrew-Darling-ebook/dp/B00...) that has a fun example of a super-predator type-3-ish civilization, and the motivations that would create the galaxy we see today. David Brin also has a great book, Existence (http://www.amazon.com/Existence-David-Brin-ebook/dp/B0079XPM... ), that is an example of a super-predator meme that may also be a natural great filter for any intelligent civilizations that pop up. Full…
on “The Fermi Paradox” ↗If you haven't read David Brin's Existence, this kind of thing factors in quite significantly.
on “Can Someone Turn Me On?” ↗David Brin (you may remember him as the author of "The Postman", but not the screenwriter of the movie) has a fantastic novel on this.[0] [0] http://www.amazon.com/Existence-David-Brin-ebook/dp/B0079XPM...
on “Artificial intelligence: machine v man” ↗Or for a longer read, David Brin gives it an excellent and lengthy treatment in Existence [1]. He even works in an exhaustive analysis of the possible answers to the Fermi Paradox, as well as possible events constituting The Great Filter. I won't give spoilers but it's definitely worth reading.…
on “The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)” ↗Except that we have a very big moat. I liked David Brin's take on this in Existence, where anything sent such a long way is likely to resemble a virus.
on “Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly” ↗I don't think people will understand the point you're making here, so let me recommend the absolutely fabulous analogous exploration of your point in David Brin's Existence. http://www.davidbrin.com/existence.html
on “Princeton’s Ad-Blocker May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race” ↗David Brin's Existence. I could list a lot of others, but that is the one I'd list at top by a wide margin.
on “Ask HN: What's your favorite sci-fi book?” ↗That is somewhat the premise of David Brin's novel Existence. I don't want to spoil the premise, but it's a wonderful read.
on “With a Second Repeating Radio Burst, Astronomers Close in on an Explanation” ↗