What are the most recommended books matching 'hardcore idea driven sf'?

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"War of the Worlds for the 21st century." - Wall Street Journal

The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved sc... Read more about The Three-Body Problem

The Red Union commander was anxious, though not because of the defenders he faced. The more than two hundred Red Guards of the April Twenty-eighth Brigade were mere greenhorns compared with the vetera...

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At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times)

This is the way the world ends. . .f... Read more about The Fifth Season

For the past ten years you’ve lived as ordinary a life as possible. You came to Tirimo from elsewhere; the townsfolk don’t really care where or why. Since you were obviously well educated, you became ...

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"Fantasy as it ought to be written . . . Robin Hobb's books are diamonds in a sea of zircons."-George R. R. Martin

Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by his father's gruff stableman. H... Read more about Assassin's Apprentice

A history of the Six Duchies is of necessity a history of its ruling family, the Farseers. A complete telling would reach back beyond the founding of the First Duchy, and if such names were remembered...

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"Remarkable . . . Scott Lynch's first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, exports the suspense and wit of a cleverly constructed crime caper into an exotic realm of fantasy, and the result is engagingly entertaining."-The Times (London)

An orphan's lif... Read more about The Lies of Locke Lamora

LOCKE LAMORA’S RULE of thumb was this: a good confidence game took three months to plan, three weeks to rehearse, and three seconds to win or lose the victim’s trust forever. This time around, he plan...

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FIRST BOOK FEATURING CORDELIA NAISMITH. Journey back to where it all started, from multiple New York Times best selling author, Hugo Award winner, Lois McMaster Bujold.

When Cordelia Naismith and her survey crew are attacked by a renegade group from ... Read more about Shards of Honour

A sea of mist drifted through the cloud forest—soft, gray, luminescent. On the high ridges the fog showed brighter as the morning sun began to warm and lift the moisture, although in the ravine a cool...

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A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.... Read more about Hyperion

The Consul awoke with the peculiar headache, dry throat, and sense of having forgotten a thousand dreams which only periods in cryogenic fugue could bring. He blinked, sat upright on a low couch, and ...

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National Bestseller!

The acclaimed modern science fiction masterpiece, Hugo Award winner for Best Series!

Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space-and one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far re... Read more about The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Living in space was anything but quiet. Grounders never expected that. For anyone who had grown up planetside, it took some time to get used to the clicks and hums of a ship, the ever-present ambiance...

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From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, the Mistborn series is a heist story of political intrigue and magical, martial-arts action.

For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved i... Read more about The Final Empire

Vin watched the downy flakes drift through the air. Leisurely. Careless. Free. The puffs of soot fell like black snowflakes, descending upon the dark city of Luthadel. They drifted in corners, blowing...

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From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic-a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years.

What would happen if the world ... Read more about Seveneves

An amateur astronomer in Utah was the first person on Earth to realize that something unusual was happening. Moments earlier, he had noticed a blur flourishing in the vicinity of the Reiner Gamma form...

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Adrian Tchaikovksy's award-winning novel Children of Time, is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet.

Who will inherit this new Earth?

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new h... Read more about Children of Time

There were no windows in the Brin 2 facility—rotation meant that “outside” was always “down,” underfoot, out of mind. The wall screens told a pleasant fiction, a composite view of the world below that...

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