What the title says, I’m tired of the trope where humans are the least advanced in the universe.
I’d like to read something different where we’re the more advanced ones (not necessarily the most advanced). As an example I quite enjoyed the Ender’s Game sequels and the angle of us being the more advanced ones was quite interesting.
Do you have any recommendations?
Protector by Larry Niven, it’s exactly what you want with a twist. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but it’s worth the read.
Now I’m curious! Thanks, will check it out.
There is a caveat here.
In the Larry Niven/Ringworkd/Known Space fan base there is a MASSIVE divide between groups regarding which order you should read the books in.
The two main groups fall into the following:
1: Read in publication order. 2: Read Ringworld then Ringworld Engineers. After that go back to the earlier works which are technically prequels.
The one thing that almost everyone agrees is don’t bother with Ringworld Throne.
Here’s what I typically suggest for the series:
First, read the Ringworld saga. Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, Ringworld Throne, Ringworld’s Children (maybe skip the last two, read reviews, make your decision based on how much you like the universe, I petrography like all of them)
They are pretty closely linked and serve as a good introduction to Known Space. You don’t have to know a lot about the Man-Kzin Wars, Beowulf Shaeffer, puppeteers or any other backstory to understand them.
Next, read all the books that fill out the universe with history and details, back stories, and lore. Crashlander, Protector, Three Books of Known Space, Flatlander, etc.
These give you more background on Earth, the colonies, Beowulf Shaeffer, and so on.
IF (big if) at this point you are still in love with everything Known Space then move on to the Fleet of World’s books. They do have a bit of retconning in them but not in a bad way that feels disingenuous, so I don’t view this as a negative mark.
One last point: If you are just looking for the “Humans as a superior species” aspect as you originally requested, just go read “Protector”, the other commenter is correct. It’s a very interesting twist on the subject.
If you want a HUGE universe of books to dive in to with an amazing amount of different intertwining stories and cool universe building: See above.
David Weber’s Honorverse and Mother of Demons by Eric Flint both come to mind. There is also the Little Fuzzy series by H. Beam Piper.
Edit: Also, The Legacy of Heorot by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
Honorable mention also to Dragons Egg by Robert L. Forward (humans start out more advanced in the beginning but get surpassed) and the Uplift Storm trilogy omnibus (or books 4-6) from David Brin (humans aren’t the most advanced in the entire universe but are in the planet that the stories take place on).
Umm, Alien?
The short story Three worlds collide (read for free at https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worlds-collide-0-8 ) has humanity at the middle of an interspecies first-contact triangle with a more and a less advanced race.
There are quite a few series where humans are on about the same level as most of the other aliens except for one specific race that’s way more advanced but driven by some weird internal logic that keeps them from lording it over everyone - John Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War” and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Architects” e.g.
Thanks, will check it out.
Basically everything by Adrian Tchaikovsky But specifically Children of Time series. Humans are essentially the “ancient” alien race. It’s a unique spin on it.
star wars
district 9
plus others as have been mentioned.
Thanks, will check District 9!
Oh damn, I didn’t know there was an hfy on lemmy. Sadly it doesn’t look like my instance is mirroring it properly though; not sure why. Might be due to the ongoing csam attack.
For some reason it looks empty on my instance. Subscribed anyway, it will probably solve itself over time. Thanks!
Evolution
You mean the movie? If so, it was a great one!
I do indeed!
Tookie tookie? Ca-caw ca-caw!
A classic: Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh. In it, the planet known to humans as Pell’s World is populated by the gentle, sentient but technologically naive Hisa. The Hisa are exploited by humans as a manual labor force. Some humans decry this exploitation and work to establish a more compassionate, cooperative relationship with the Hisa.
Will check it out, thanks!
Lest I give the impression that the book is entirely about human/hisa relations, it’s not.
That’s one of three intertwined plot threads, the other two being interstellar war among humans and the politics and logistics of running a space station overwhelmed by refugees of the war.
I’m as antiReddit as the next person, but r/HFY is exactly that. My favorite from that sub was the series Billy Bob Space Trucker. Highly recommend.
I’m still reading Deathworlders. Gets a bit repetitive and a little… furry at times but overall it’s been a fun read.
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Surely Deathworlders is the defining HFY story?
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I found this post a few days ago.
I’m now on chapter 78 and accelerating.
Thank you.Came here to say this. Nothing else even comes close. And if you want to stay away from reddit, Ralts has self-published it as Behold: Humanity! You can get in for Kindle or in dead tree form on Amazon.
Edit: Apologies Bob, I didn’t see your link was for Royal Road instead of reddit.
You can find (and support) Space Paladin’s The Nature of Predators on Patreon
Uplift novels. Been years since I read them. All I remember is humans uplifting other species to sentience. Guess it is time for a reread.
Edit, clearly I remember wrong how this one went. Sorry
The uplift series? We’re the primitive ones because we weren’t uplifted like the rest and dont have full access to the library?
Maybe it changes later, it got really slow in the middle and I’ve stalled out.
It gets even worse later actually, because they encounter some much older races that regard the ones in the “main” galactic civilization with the library and all to be basically children at best. Tho I do recall some tidbit that reveals that our CGI and general image manipulation and similar entertainment technology had become about as advanced as the library has even before first contact, so humans weren’t less advanced in that one mostly insignificant area.
Need to force myself through to the end, the middle just feels so unimaginably boring, while they keep teasing interesting bits just offscreen.
Asshole world building if you ask me.
The book series We are legion (we are bob). They encounter two or three less advanced races. Great series, I just finished the fourth book.
I was about to suggest this one too! I just finished the second book and am really enjoying the series so far.
well, since humans haven’t mastered interstellar travel, aliens would by definition by the more advanced race were they do appear in or around earth first, and vice versa i.e. star trek when humans visit planet bound aliens first
hypothetically, I could see a rare case where a very advanced but very slow growing civilization, that has the technical capacity for interstellar travel (and indeed has far exceeded that level of technology) but for some reason simply never or rarely ever actually bothered with it, has their homeworld visited by a species that has mastered interstellar travel but only recently so. Or alternatively, a species for which interstellar travel is unusually easy, like some kind of hypothetical spaceborne organism that becomes intelligent but possesses no or only primitive technology, but can slowly move between stars without need for a ship, meeting an advanced but not yet interstellar planetary species. Some sci-fi has “space whales” or space amoebas or some other similar type of life, these would be what happens if such creatures got to whatever the rough equivalent of the stone age would be for such a thing.
Well, it could be that the tech tree for intersteller travel is a road not taken by humans
The Forever Wars, maybe. There are aliens but they’re not really the focus of the book.
We Are Legion, We Are Bob has less advanced alien races but also a more advanced race. The more advanced race doesn’t show up in the first book IIRC.
A lot of the aliens encountered in Rick and Morty are quite dumb. Then again so are most of the humans. It’s a tossup.
