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?
This is a driving factor in a majority of Star Trek fiction.
Not sure if this is what you are looking for.
Iain M Banks Culture books centre around The Culture a human civ (but not earth humans) who are one of the most advanced civs in a milky way with tens of thousands of sentient races at various level of development.
Came here to suggest the culture series. First thing that popped into my mind while reading the question.
Ursula K. Le Guin’s books in the Hainish Cycle might also fit the bill.
James Cameron’s Avatar comes to mind
The Bobiverse is a fun read. Highly recommend
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
I’m reading Embassytown by China Mieville right now and it’s very much that. It’s also really good so far, but I’m only half way through.
The following book settings/series should work.
- The Expanse
- Alien
- Altered Carbon
- Warhammer 40,000
40K doesn’t really fit. While humanity isn’t the least advanced civilization in that universe, it’s also far from technological dominance (especially considering 10 000 years of stagnation following Horus’ Hoolabooga). I mean, even the vagina faced fish are more advanced than the Imperium!
I love the Altered Carbon book series. Each book has its own very different story where even the main character is in a different body, on a different planet, dealing with different kinds of people. The first book is very cyberpunk detective noir.
The first season of the Netflix series captured that aesthetic very well. My only critique was how they mish-mashed some stuff from all three books and added a new character at the final antagonist. The second season is not good. The whole series also changed the ideology and back story of this revolutionary group and the main character’s relation to them.Read the books. They are a blast.
Stargate SG-1 has a VERY interesting premise. Humans start from 0 and we see them gradually learning new technology and making alliances (Plus, the original cast is just stellar)
I’m in the middle of a 5th (or so) rewatch!
C J Cherry - Foreigner series. Humans more advanced but only a small community stuck on an alien planet, and may not understand the natives as well as they think (and vice versa )
Stagate comes to mind (we’re not the LEST advanced, at least) but that’s not a book.
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).
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.
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.
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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.
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.
