8 points andsoitis 2 hours ago 3 comments

ggm 1 hour ago | parent

Kim Stanley Robinson appears to me to be doing this. Even Arthur Clarke was, if the ultimate outcome was sometimes a bit messianic, the pathway to the end was the "best of all possible worlds" -which in some ways is what you are evoking.

We've been on this pathway since the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755.

oersted 15 minutes ago | parent

> We've been on this pathway since the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755.

What an intriguing thing to say :)

What are you referencing?

sdenton4 31 minutes ago | parent

A couple of my favorites in this genre:

Ada Palmer's terra ignota. It takes 'the past is another country' and really sends it forward. The world she draws is fundamentally different from our own, as ours is from medieval France. Absolutely fascinating books, with their own set of Utopians trying to make a better world for the future...

And I'm the vibey solar punk direction, Becky Chambers' 'Monk and Robot' is a fascinating pair of novellas about humanity reestablish ing contact with robots after they decided to just leave 250ish years previously. It is very much a book about a Good Future, where people still have people sized problems.