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What Are the Most Terrifying Alien Invaders in Science Fiction?

April 9, 2020 /10 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

"One day, we might receive a signal from a planet... But we should be wary of answering back. Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well."—Stephen Hawking

This is what the brilliant Stephen Hawking had to say when discussing Gliese 832c, a possibly habitable extrasolar planet 16 light years away. It seems our favorite authors largely agree with him as oftentimes, the aliens of science fiction are painted as malevolent beings or, at the very least, those whose interests pose a serious threat to humans. But like anything, there are levels, and in the interest of turning our attention to a terror not presently making headlines, this week we are taking a deep dive into the scariest alien invaders of science fiction.

We've jump-started the conversation with a few suggestions of our own, but we want to hear from you! Add your nomination(s) for most terrifying alien invaders below and then vote on your favorite(s). If you need a little inspo, take a peek at this post from Discover Sci-Fi's own Daniel Arenson from back in January. You guys had some strong opinions on what did and didn't make Daniel's list back then and now is your chance to be heard!

As always, we base our lists on the votes and nominations from this blog and our Facebook Reader group, and we want to hear your opinion!

What Are the Best Sci-Fi Titles Written by Women?

February 27, 2020 /6 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

What Are the Best Utopian Sci-Fi Books or Series?

May 21, 2020 /6 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

What Are the Best Friendships Found in Science Fiction?

March 18, 2020 /2 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

What are the best multi-book sci-fi series of all time?

January 15, 2020 /40 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

What are the Best YA Sci-Fi Books or Series?

February 6, 2020 /5 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

What are the best one-liners from sci-fi books?

September 5, 2019 /19 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

Interview: Daniel Arenson’s latest release “The Earthling” is here.

October 12, 2019 /0 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

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This week we sat down with Daniel Arenson, author of the incredible Earthrise series to talk about his latest release.

Having written over 60 books across the sci-fi and fantasy genres, Daniel Arenson is a master storyteller.

His latest release, Soldiers of Earthrise Book 1: The Earthling, was inspired by the Philippine-American war, but it's set in space. It's about a war between Earth and a Filipino colony on another planet. And if the success of the original Earthrise series is any indicator, this new installment is sure to be one epic ride.

What are you currently writing?

I'm currently working on new novels in my SOLDIERS OF EARTHRISE series. The first novel, THE EARTHLING, was just released. This is my most heartfelt series, and something I'm really proud to share with readers.

If you write multi-book series: how do you keep up a fast paced story, spanning several different settings/situations, and still manage to keep all of your readers excited for the next part of each story?

I tend to write long series. My Earthrise series is 12 books long. A few of my other series (Moth, Kingdoms of Sand, Children of Earthrise, Soldiers of Earthrise) are 6 books long. I like big stories. I like room to immerse myself in a new world, to take the time to fully explore it. I find that shorter works are actually harder for me to write. I love having that breathing room, to really take the time to flesh out my world and characters.

When writing a book, have you ever learned something interesting/surprising, etc. that changed your life, or how you looked at life afterwards?

I often base my fictional wars and battles on conflicts from history. I spend a lot of time reading about historical battles, looking for inspiration. Even though I write books set in fantasy worlds or outer space, humans are still humans, and warfare is still warfare. Being a fantasy and science fiction writer means I read a lot of history. When you read a lot of history, you learn about how horrible we humans can be, how tragic war is, but also how noble and triumphant we can be during the most difficult times.

What technology from a sci-fi book (written by you or not) do you wish was real, and why?

A holodeck would be fun. But I worry that we'd get addicted to it and never leave... I also think a transporter would be great. A lot of my friends and family live in different countries. It would be great to just ping Scotty and have him beam me over. Yes, Star Trek has the best tech.

Have anything you've written about come true?

Since I write about alien invasions, thankfully not!

What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why?

I give away three books to anyone who visits my website: Moth, Requiem's Song, and Alien Hunters. I've probably given away tens of thousands of those by now. Want them? You can download them here: DanielArenson.com.

Get Daniel's latest release, The Earthling, available now on Amazon.

Jon Taylor is an Earthling. He doesn't care much about space. At least until his brother dies on Bahay, a war-torn planet many light-years away.

After the funeral, Jon joins the army. He learns to kill. And he flies to Bahay, sworn to avenge his brother.

Centuries ago, Filipino colonists arrived on Bahay to build a utopia. But this world has become a nightmare. Jon finds himself in a dizzying dreamscape, a world of dark jungles and neon slums, of ruthless guerrillas and intoxicating bargirls, of blood-soaked battlefields and glittering brothels. Here on Bahay, a man can lose his life in the jungle, lose his sanity in the gleaming drug dens, or lose his heart to a local girl with a sweet smile and knife behind her back.

On Bahay, nothing is as it seems. In this place of strange dreams and secrets, Jon hunts the man who killed his brother. But he learns that revenge always comes with a price...

If you loved Ender's Game, Starship Troopers, and Battlestar Galactica, you'll love The Earthling, a new tale in the bestselling Earthrise universe.

Author Biography: Daniel Arenson is a bookworm, proud geek, and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction. His novels have sold over a million copies. He's written over sixty novels in multiple series.

His bestselling series is Earthrise, the story of Earth struggling to rise after a devastating alien invasion. Children of Earthrise, a spinoff series, has recently been released, and Soldiers of Earthrise is launching Fall 2019.

In addition to Earthrise, Daniel has written the comedic sci-fi trilogy Alien Hunters.

He's also written several epic fantasy series: Kingdoms of Sand, Moth, Requiem.

You can follow Daniel on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

Are we living in the Matrix?

February 5, 2020 /2 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

Are we living in the Matrix?

I don’t mean the actual Matrix, run by maniacal robots using humans as batteries while we live out a simulacrum of life on Earth. But rather, the concept that our reality isn’t really ‘real.’

This concept is a provocative one on so many levels, and the truth is that there is just so much of science that has been leading us in this direction lately.

A significant group of futurists and renowned scientists firmly believe that we are living in a simulation: Elon Musk, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and even myself, but that’s not really a good reason for you to buy into the theory, nor am I necessarily proselytizing, but let’s take an objective look at some of the evidence:

The Mandela Effect

This was incorporated into a few popular books and movies, but if you’ve never heard of it, the Mandela Effect is the phenomenon where a collective group of people misremember events in history. The classic example is that a lot of people claim to remember Nelson Mandela dying in the 80s when in fact he died in 2013. Some people claim that this is evidence that our simulators are actively traveling back in time and altering history, or at least, evidence that there are parallel universes, which itself is a concept with strong ties to a simulated reality. A quantum computer simulation would likely simulate multiple variations of events in order to arrive at a desirable outcome. The question is what is considered desirable, and to whom?

The Fermi Paradox: Where Are All The Aliens?

Maybe there aren’t any—in this simulation. We might be the only civilization in what only looks like a vast universe. What about those points of light you see in the sky that we call stars? They could just be part of the backdrop of the simulation, a way to fool us into thinking we’re a part of something much bigger than we actually are. Simulating the rest of the universe at a great distance from us is actually relatively easy. There isn’t a lot of detail that we can see with telescopes. It’s not like we can actually travel to Alpha Centauri and go walk around on its planets. The sheer vastness of space and the difficulty we have in crossing those distances might just be an element of the simulation that’s designed to keep us contained in a manageable space, one that doesn’t overtax the resources of whatever supercomputer is running it all.

The Double-slit Experiment

Photons fired at a screen through two slits in a copper plate produce an interference pattern on the screen, behaving like a wave and passing through both slits at the same time. But if we conduct the same experiment under observation (remote, human, mechanical—doesn’t matter who or what is observing the photons): the photons behave like particles, and only pass through one of the slits, leaving no interference pattern on the screen. Electrons exhibit the same strange behavior. So what’s happening? Some say that this effect is the code of the simulation conserving resources by only simulating what it needs to. Video games today do this to great effect, only rendering what you can see at any given moment.

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Computers and Video Games Are Advancing Rapidly

In just a few short decades, we’ve gone from 2D games like Space Invaders, Pong, and Pac-Man to this:

theHunter: Call of the Wild

Given another 50 or 100 years, video games will become indistinguishable from reality. Seeing this trend in 2003, Nick Bostrom, a philosopher from the University of Oxford, put forth a compelling argument for the idea that we might all be living in a simulation. He used the principles of statistics and logic to support his argument, but the basic gist of it was that it’s easy to imagine how members of an advanced civilization would have the ability to create a simulated world like ours, but not just one such world—they would be able to create many, many simulated worlds like this one.

Nick Bostrom, therefore, argued that the vast majority of realities would be artificial ones, simply because there is only one ‘real’ world, and it cannot be multiplied or used to spawn new ones. But advanced civilizations can certainly create thousands or even millions of simulated universes within one real universe. So, statistically speaking, it becomes more likely that we are living in a simulated reality rather than a real one. Bostrom suggested that perhaps we are living in an ancestor simulation created by a far future version of humanity.

There Are Error-Correcting Codes in the Fundamental Equations of String Theory

Theoretical Physicist James Gates thinks he’s found error-correcting computer codes in the equations of string theory. These types of codes are common in web browsers, and in the error-correcting memory of computer servers, but what is error-correcting code doing in the base code of our universe?

Conclusion

I could go on and on about this, but I won’t bore you with endless speculations and implications based on scraps of evidence. I’ll write a book about it, instead ;). But whether you believe we could be living in a simulation or not, I encourage you to think about the bigger questions behind that idea. Ironically, they’re the same questions we’ve been asking since the dawn of time: why are we here? What is the possible purpose of it all? Is there a God? I’ve come up with a few disturbing possibilities as to the why of it below:

We’re prisoners from a far future society of humanity. We’re being rehabilitated in a relatively short-term (insert your hypothetical lifespan here) simulation, or else we’re just here to separate us from the ‘real’ reality and the ‘real’ people in a humane way that doesn’t allow us to hurt anyone. Our degree of suffering down here might even be commensurate with some type of sentence or eye-for-an-eye justice system.
We’re bored immortal post-humans (humans who have uploaded their consciousness to android bodies, or to a supercomputer) living in a metaverse of countless different simulations. So why all the pain and struggle in this particular simulation? Maybe we got bored of having it easy. Think about it: if you never had to struggle, never felt pain, never suffered, would you appreciate anything anymore? A simulation like this one might be the equivalent of thrill-seeking for an immortal intelligence. That said, I don’t think anyone would choose to be a starving child in Africa. It’s possible that some of the people on Earth are the equivalent of NPCs in a game (non-player characters), which means that they only appear to suffer and aren’t really real, but that’s a dangerous line of thinking to incorporate into an actual philosophy of life. You don’t know who might be real and who isn’t, so you can’t make any assumptions without committing grave errors in judgment. Plus, this is just a wacky theory, so yeah. There’s that.
Humans digitize and become immortal machines. Then what? How do you have kids? You can’t. You could program them, but they would have no notion of what it’s like to be a human. It’s likely that you would find them and their worldview utterly alien to your own (having once been a human yourself, you have that context as a base level of programming that underlies your decisions and personality). So this simulation could be a way to train and educate the ‘children’ of a race of post-human androids in matters of empathy, humanity, mortality, etc.

And finally, you may or may not be religious, but if what we think is reality is actually simulated, then there is a creator behind it all. And if this is a simulation, then any version of supernatural events becomes quite possible. Not only that, there could be a super intelligence behind it all, an AI that created the simulation and governs it. That AI would be God by all of our classical definitions. And if that AI also runs the ‘real’ world / base reality as some kind of benevolent ruler, then it would be a kind of God in that reality, too. Of course, there could be an evil AI as well. Maybe some rebels who didn’t like how things were being run in the metaverse programmed their own super-intelligent AI to run things differently. Sounds familiar somehow… I’m not saying that’s what’s going on behind the curtains, but the fact is that anything is possible.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to find out for sure without dying first. Don’t worry, I promise I won’t say I told you so when we’re all back in the base reality again.

Until then, my advice is to be the best version of yourself that you can, because one of the more frightening possibilities is that we are all prisoners in here, and if that’s so, then proving our successful rehabilitation might be the only way we’re ever getting out.

Jasper Scott is a USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 sci-fi novels including the best selling First Encounter, The New Frontiers trilogy and Dark Space series. With over a million books sold, Jasper's work has been translated into various languages and published around the world.

Jasper writes fast-paced books with unexpected twists and flawed characters. He was born and raised in Canada by South African parents, with a British heritage on his mother's side and German on his father's. He now lives in an exotic locale with his wife, their two kids, and two chihuahuas.

You can follow Jasper on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

The Top 10 Best Sci-Fi TV Series (Of the Last Two Decades) and Books That Are Similar

March 26, 2020 /11 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

You can easily find the top 10 TV series in science fiction according to various review sites.

This is my personal top 10 out of the top 100 highest-rated sci-fi series on Rotten Tomatoes. I have curated this list with one small limitation: it has to be less than 20 years old. I promise I won’t spoil anything if you haven’t already watched these series, and I’ll also be proposing some similar books that you can read, because well, we all know books are better than TV ;).

#10 Wayward Pines (Rotten Tomatoes #??)

This entry bumped Dark Matter off my top 10 (another good series to look into). Wayward Pines doesn’t have as many sci-fi elements as I typically like, but it is fantastic for two simple reasons: the twists in the plot, and the mystery that’s woven throughout the story. This series has it all: great characters, an amazing plot, and a unique setup. I really, really loved this series, and it would be topping my list if there were more Sci-Fi elements involved. I can’t say much about it that wouldn’t spoil the series for you, so just take my word for it: watch this, or better yet, read it, because it started out as a book series by Blake Crouch.

Similar Books: Wayward Pines, Broken Worlds: The Awakening

#9 The Hundred (Rotten Tomatoes #23)

The world ended in a nuclear war. The only survivors are on a space station orbiting Earth. Strict population controls drive these survivors to send 100 juvenile delinquents down to Earth to fend for themselves. They discover that the surface is habitable, and there are other survivors down there with them—ruthless tribes of humans who would sooner kill them than help them. The earlier seasons are the best, but season six actually takes a unique turn as well. A highly enjoyable sci-fi / post-apocalyptic series, but grim and bloody (in case you’re squeamish). The only negative, and it still sticks out in my mind, is that this is definitely YA sci-fi, so you’ll be continually amazed that teenagers / young adults are calling the shots when more capable / knowledgeable adults would make much more sense.

Similar Books: The 100, Hell Divers

#8 Colony (Rotten Tomatoes #38)

This series is about an alien occupation of Earth. It follows the resistance to the occupation and how we struggle to break free. There are plenty of post-apocalyptic themes here as well as sci-fi. I particularly enjoyed this series, to the point that it actually inspired one of my recent books. See below for something similar to read.

Similar Books: Occupied Earth, Occupation

#7 Stranger Things (Rotten Tomatoes #2)

This series is more of a fantasy than actual sci-fi, but it is still fantastic. Full of otherworldly monsters slipping through from another dimension known as the upside down, this series follows the lives of a group of kids in the 1980s, as well as a few of their parents. Despite the main characters being children, they’re all extremely relatable for adults, and the entire series is a nostalgic trip back to one’s own childhood. It’s hard not to love the characters, and the terrifying horror elements introduced by interdimensional monsters really make this series easy to binge.

Similar Books: It (Stephen King)

#6 The Expanse (Rotten Tomatoes #10)

This is a military sci-fi / political series with elements of space opera as well as space exploration. The special effects are fantastic, and the universe is a compelling one with more realistic science than you typically find in the sci-fi genre. This series is set in a near future of Earth where Mars, Earth, and The Belt (miners who mine the asteroid belt and live in space) are all vying for dominance in our solar system. There’s plenty of friction between the three, and open war looks to be inevitable. The story is told from multiple points of view, and there is an evolving mystery at the heart of it. This series is particularly impressive because it manages to capture both the macroscopic Space Opera elements of sweeping, epic stories as well as the down-to-earth plot lines of everyday people caught up in the middle of it all.

Similar Books: Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse Book 1)

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#5 The Orville (Rotten Tomatoes #100)

I can’t say enough good things about The Orville. This is clearly a Star Trek rip-off, but don’t let that turn you away. It actually captures the spirit of Star Trek far better than Star Trek Discovery. This series is also about space exploration, and it’s not all action-driven, which reminds me a lot of the older Star Trek series. The only possible negative, is that this series is a spoof. If you’re looking for something grim or serious, keep looking, but if you don’t mind busting a gut while exploring the universe, you won’t find a better series anywhere than The Orville.

#4 Stargate Universe (Rotten Tomatoes #58)

This is an extension of the Stargate franchise, and as far as I’m concerned it is by far the best entry into that universe. The original SG-1 is now dated, and I always found it to be highly cheesy. Stargate Atlantis was good in its day, but dated by today’s standards. By contrast, this series is more recent and definitely takes itself seriously. It truly captures the spirit of space exploration. Apart from a few boring flashback sequences, this story is all about moving forward, exploring new planets and new sci-fi concepts. If you like stories about space exploration, this is about as good as it gets.

Similar Books: Dark Space Universe (Book 1)

#3 Lost in Space (Rotten Tomatoes #63)

This is a PG-rated space adventure available on Netflix. It’s actually a remake of the older version. An interstellar colony ship gets lost in space. The colonists are forced to abandon the ship, and they crash land on a strange planet where they are faced with an ongoing set of challenges to their survival. The plot is very similar to a sci-fi version of the Swiss family Robinson, which it unashamedly mimics, even in the fact that the main characters’ last name is Robinson. But everything has a sci-fi slant to it, so I’ll let that go. This particular series is better in the first season than the second, but it still rates highly on my list, because I have seen so few space adventures, as opposed to Space Operas or Military Sci-Fi epics.

Similar Books: Into the Unknown

#2 The Mandalorian (2019) (Rotten Tomatoes #??)

I signed up for Disney+ just so that I could watch this series, and I suspect I’m not the only one. This is a Star Wars TV series (live action, not animated) about a bounty hunter who travels the galaxy making money by capturing or killing criminals. The series takes a sharp left turn from there as the main character is hired to kill an unknown target for an officer of the now-defeated Galactic Empire. The story is actually surprisingly good, and involves far fewer fantasy elements than we’re used to with Star Wars. I can’t recommend this series highly enough for fans of Star Wars and Sci-Fi alike.

Similar Books: The Mandalorian Armor

#1 Battlestar Galactica (2005) (Rotten Tomatoes #1)

This is a slightly older TV series (2005), but by far the best that I’ve ever watched. It’s about a far future of humanity in which we have colonized 13 different planets. We were forced to leave Earth behind a long time ago, but no one can remember why, or even where it is. A race of exiled androids that we created known as Cylons hatches a violent plot to wipe us out early on in this series, and the survivors are left to flee the colonies aboard an aging warship called the Galactica. With the ship being hounded relentlessly by Cylons, the main characters must flee to safety, ultimately searching for our long-lost homeworld, Earth, in the process.

This series is what I would call realistic sci-fi. With very few fantasy elements, excellent action sequences, unforgettable characters, and plenty of plot twists. Battlestar Galactica is to Sci-Fi what Game of Thrones is to Fantasy.

Similar Books: Dark Space, The Legacy Fleet Series