My girlfriend really likes the Southern Reach trilogy and is thoroughly enjoying Nicholas Binge’s Ascension right now after I lent it to her, so I’m trying to find more books that fit this mold. Along the lines of “an expedition is sent into a mysterious/dangerous/shifting/alien landscape and has to survive when everything gets extremely fucked up.”

So far I’ve suggested Darwinia and Ringworld, but what are some others?

    • gray7090@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      If non-fiction is OK I’d recommend Frozen In Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie & John Ge or Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson.

  • KimchiMaker@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Dan Simmons The Terror is amazing and fits quite well.

    It is based on a true historical event. Victorian era explorers were trying to find the Northwest Passage (a channel that would let them cross the Americas) but they get stuck in the ice and things go very badly.

    It’s horror but with a heavy dose of historical fiction. Very atmospheric. It’ll make you feel a chill on a hot summer’s day.

  • AprilStorms@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    The Sparrow! It’s science fiction about a group making first contact with aliens. Insightful thoughts on faith and humans being humans, kind of the definition of >!the road to hell is paved with good intentions!<.

  • lentilpasta@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Not Sci-Fi so maybe not what she’s looking for, but one of my all-time favorite novels is Heart of Darkness. Everything about that expedition is most definitely fucked up, and you can follow it with an Apocalypse Now movie night.

    • tgrantt@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      And follow THAT with the documentary, “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse” It’s about making the movie, shot by Coppola’s wife.

  • kanyesutra@alien.topOPBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Thanks all! These are great suggestions, especially the one with the >!mermaids!<. I don’t think she reads a lot of non-fiction but I’ll send all of these her way.

  • AliceReadsThis@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Many James Rollins books would fit, Amazonia, Subterranean and Excavation come to mind.

    Older so tamer than what she might be looking for but: Arthur Conan Doyle’s. The Lost World

  • Fuschiagroen@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    River of Doubt, by Candace Millard is about Theodore Roosevelt’s trip to the jungle and it is a wild ride. And it’s all true.

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    1·
    10 months ago

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  • orodruinx@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I’m not sure exactly how it would stand up as a stand-alone read, but book 4 of The Expanse series, Cibola Burn, is very much like this. Despite being in the middle of a long series it is pretty small scope, like a bottle/filler episode of a tv series.