Five top sci-fi novels with reasonably believable futuristic technology

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well.

At the B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Somers tagged five books that resist the handwave with believable futuristic technology ("The Handwave is a powerful thing is sci-fi: the ability to fix a problem with a science-y sounding solution that isn’t even remotely plausible"), including:

The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson

The result of both meticulous research and good old-fashioned thoughtfulness, Robinson’s Mars Trilogy manages to take something that potentially bone-chillingly boring (the centuries-long effort to terraform and settle Mars) and make it into a fascinating, exciting, often shocking story of politics, economics, genetics, and very believable science. Robinson’s secret isn’t so much the plausibility of his science as it is the thoughtful way he explores its consequences, deftly avoiding the common problem of technology that exists in a vacuum, fulfilling only a specific need, with no unforeseen ripple effects. To say that’s not the case in this incredible series is a vast understatement.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson is among James Mustich's five notable books on Mars and beyond.

--Marshal Zeringue