I’m in the middle of reading Project Hail Mary. I’m loving the long science/engineering tests/explanations. I was wondering, as somebody working in biology myself, if there are any books similar to this but with biology/ecology as a focus instead of astronomy/astrophysics/engineering/etc
by rmb69540
8 Comments
Maybe Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I haven’t read project Hail Mary yet, but I did just read Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer and it’s from the POV of a biologist/her role is part of the plot. I won’t go more in depth than that!
If you are open to stretching to non-fiction take a look at [The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature ](https://www.abebooks.com/Forest-Unseen-Years-Watch-Nature-Haskell/32216523634/bd#:~:text=Synopsis,Wilson%20Literary%20Science%20Writing%20Award)by David George Haskell. Amazing detail
**Winner of 2013 Best Book Award from the National Academies.**
**Finalist for 2013 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.**
**Winner of the 2013 Reed Environmental Writing Award.**
**Winner of the 2012 National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature.**
**Runner-up for 2013 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.**
*A biologist reveals the secret world hidden in a single square meter of forest*
In this wholly original book, biologist David Haskell uses a one- square-meter patch of old-growth Tennessee forest as a window onto the entire natural world. Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace nature’s path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its inhabitants to vivid life.
Each of this book’s short chapters begins with a simple observation: a salamander scuttling across the leaf litter; the first blossom of spring wildflowers. From these, Haskell spins a brilliant web of biology and ecology, explaining the science that binds together the tiniest microbes and the largest mammals and describing the ecosystems that have cycled for thousands- sometimes millions-of years. Each visit to the forest presents a nature story in miniature as Haskell elegantly teases out the intricate relationships that order the creatures and plants that call it home.
Written with remarkable grace and empathy, *The Forest Unseen* is a grand tour of nature in all its profundity. Haskell is a perfect guide into the world that exists beneath our feet and beyond our backyards.
# About the Author
**David Haskell** is a professor of biology at the University of the South and was named the Carnegie-CASE professor of the year in Tennessee in 2009. In addition to his scholarly work, he has published essays and poetry. He lives with his wife in Sewanee, Tennessee.
*The Hourglass Network* by Andre Soares brings an interesting concept to life: a device that consumes “artificial matter” and converts it back to carbon-based/organic compounds.
Well-written too but more of a speculative/spy thriller.
*Change Agent* by Daniel Suarez
Semiosis series is fantastic
Look up ribofunk. Maddaddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood. Greg bear has the Darwin duology. You might also like to explore weird fiction as a genre generally. Oh yeah, evolution by Stephen baxter which is a solid like 6 out of 10 by nifty.
Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy goes hard for the engineering and geology early on, but gets more into biology and ecology later (and actually there’s bio early, just centered on questions of humans surviving in space).
And if you find you like KSR, try his other stuff, some of which lean harder into ecology. Everything I’ve read by him has been impeccably researched in the subjects I know, but also delves into fascinating things that I don’t know about.