ussri.substack.com
Well, this is just about exactly what it says on the tin. I've finally mustered up the energy to write a full-length review of what's a plausible contender for my Favourite Novel Ever, Reverend Insanity. I'd reproduce it here too, but it's a better reading experience on Substack (let's ignore the shameless self-promotion, and the fact that I can't be arsed to re-do the markdown tags)
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Notes -
I'm rather dissatisfied with the entire rational fiction genre, because it all seems to be fantasy that hinges on magic or "magic" systems that just so happen to be navigable by autists with a modicum of rules lawyering or vidya minmaxing skill.
Is there any rationalist fiction that takes place in a completely mundane setting without video game logic or outright ass-pull magic?
I'm in the same boat - ratfic in the sci-fi genre is where my interest lies, the fantasy-oriented stuff generally fails to grab me. There are many engineering problems and hypothetical situations to confront in sci-fi, and instead of being able to invent up your own magic systems capable of being conveniently rules-lawyered you have to stick to the constraints of the real world. The ones that systematise their own human relationships through the lens of game theory are particularly strong IMO.
Oddly enough a minority of rationalist fiction seems to tackle sci-fi. I get it, I'm trying to write such fiction myself and can attest to the fact that becoming proficient at a large number of scientific fields to the point where one can write a fully fledged story is very difficult, but I honestly thought more people would've tried. Most of the hard sci-fi writers who have been successful in this endeavour aren't strictly part of the ratsphere.
Crystal Society by Raelifin/Max Harms is one of the only ones with an interesting concept that has come out of an actual EY or EY-adjacent community, though the quality drops off hugely after the first half of the first book to be honest. Its first half is extremely good though - its POV character is an amoral unaligned AI attempting to break out of an AI-box, and it's very gripping. I did DNF the book regardless since quality decreases steadily after the AI achieves its escape.
For general hard sci-fi that actually fits the ratfic category, I would recommend Peter Watts - Blindsight (probably my favourite book ever with my favourite aliens ever) and Greg Egan - Permutation City as good recommendations that won't fail you. Maybe check out some of their short stories as well - I really like Peter Watts' The Island, as well as Greg Egan's Reasons To Be Cheerful.
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