The article makes the case for the world descriptions and concepts introduced in SF being an inspiration to real world entrepreneurs, such as Stephenson inspiring the PayPal co-founders and a series of portal companies.

But science fiction has a greater impact in being one of the few forms in 20th century arts that dared to present an optimistic view of the future and of values that led to a better world, be it Picard's exemplary leadership in Star Trek TNG, or Heinlein's "normal person finding their courage and values has an impact" novels.

Apocalypse Now or Brazil may be "great" movies but they are incredibly depressing. "Resign yourself to the brokenness of the world, people. The state/realpolitik will crush you." "No", says Asimov, "your actions matter and have an impact. Courage and reason are great qualities, go build the world you want." How many other mainstream movies, books or artworks have this message, outside of science fiction?

I was surprised to agree a lot on what Disney's Tomorrowland stated on that exact matter.

Well... I'd say by definition, only science fiction can present any view of the future, optimistic or not. There are tons of great movies and books about the present and past that are uplifting and optimistic, and certainly plenty of incredibly depressing science fiction novels. I do agree that it's the inspirational character of science fiction that's more important than the particular facts, though.

Good article. Anyone here a fan of Greg Egan? I found "Schild's Ladder" the best piece of Sci-Fi I ever read. Can anyone suggest similar authors?

Did you read Blindsight by Peter Watts? It has, among other things, a 100-item scientific bibliography in the end.

The Three Body Problem is reasonably good, and comes from a Chinese author Link to NPR article about it because I'd rather you chose your own bookshop. http://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363123510/three-body-problem-a...

I can't recommend this book and it's follow up enough! The description of a machine made of a single particle unfolding into higher dimensions is one of my favorite passages in recent sci-fi. I think the last book in the trilogy is out, but haven't had time to read it yet.

Hannu Rajaniemi, Ted Chiang and Neal Stephenson come to mind as hard sci-fi authors worthy of comparison to Greg Egan.

Schild's Ladder looks really cool. Thanks for the reference.

Meanwhile, any William Gibson fans out there? The description of cyberspace in the Sprawl Trilogy is still one of the most compelling visions of the future of humanity and computers I have ever read. We're still only a fraction of the way down that path.

I'd like to know this as well. I've never found anything quite like Greg Egan.

Some works of Vernor Vinge maybe.

I love Egan and have read most of his stuff. Two of my favorites are Diaspora and Permutation City.

This question has been put to /r/printsf a couple of times [1], [2] with a decent range of answers.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/33mjz9/looking_for...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/29o35b/who_are_som...

Have you tried Alastair Reynolds? One of the best hard sci-fi writers I’ve come across.

Would you recommend someone new to Reynolds start with Revelation Space or the Poseidon's Children trilogy?

I haven't read Poseidon's Children, but Revelation Space was amazing despite the fact that I'm a bigger fan of more optimistic and less gritty SciFi. The first book is really good and I read several others as well. Fantastic world-building.

Pushing Ice. It's a one-off and excellent taste test in case you don't want to commit to a series.

I'm reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem now. I feel like it's a book that will stay relevant in the future, partly because of how cultural persistence is an element of the story.

edit: I spelled the title incorrectly.

Anathem was Stephenson's first book that I read; I was absolutely mind blown. It's a slow burn (like most of his books), but the ending is more than worth it. Later I picked up Cryptonomicon, and it's a big reason why I'm doing a PhD in crypto now.

Does Anathem have an ending or just sort of ends like the rest of Stephenson's books? Just curious.

It's the least bad of his endings, and quite big. Worth going to the end.

Its ending is a bit more traditional, as well as explicitly making fun of the fact that people criticize him for his endings.

Stephenson seems to think it does: https://youtu.be/lnq-2BJwatE?t=10m53s

As someone who has read several dozen sci-fi books, that one stands out as one of the absolute best. It's definitely an inspiration for the startup I'm working on now.

What kind of a startup is that? !

It was only from a minor plot line, but I really liked the idea that they grew all their own food and baked bread. The app is for community farming--it's called terrafarm (terrafarm.io).

I liked Anathem, but it is more of a philosophical work. Personally I think The Diamond Age is Stephenson's hard sci-fi masterpiece.

I agree, The Diamond Age is my favorite book from Stephenson so far (I have the baroque cycle and pre-snowcrash books left to read), but something about Anathem makes me feel like it has staying power. Just my opinion though.

The Baroque Cycle I never quite could make myself read fully, despite liking other books of his a lot.

The Baroque Cycle seems like it was a ton of fun to write, much less so to read.

Very interesting read. It would be interesting to know if there are people here that can point to a particular book that gave them an idea for a startup or even a side project.

+1

I'd also point you to Eliot Peper, William Hertling, and Nick Thacker

A must watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjlF_iSo1Og

William Shatner presents a light-hearted look at how the "Star Trek" TV series have influenced and inspired today's technologies, including: cell phones, medical imaging, computers and software, SETI, MP3 players and iPods, virtual reality, and spaceship propulsion.