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Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is this.
Also Tau Zero by Poul Anderson, to a degree.
Came here to say Seveneves as well. Just borrowed it again from the library today actually! Highly recommend.
Just chiming in to say Seveneves is a great read.
I was going to suggest Tau Zero. It might not be exactly what he's chasing but there's are some similar points. Plus it's really good and fairly short.
It certainly ticks off the hard science point, but is more about how the crew deal with everything philosophically. Nothing like the Martian I guess.
Just a loose round up so far
Seveneves Neal Stephenson
Tau Zero Poul Anderson
Metro 2033 Dmitry Glukhovsky
The Children of Time Adrian Tchaikovsky
Lucifer's Hammer Larry Niven
Pushing Ice Alastair Reynolds
Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
Diaspora by Greg Egan
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martin
The 100 Kass Morgan
Interdependency trilogy by John Scalzi.
Silo series of books by Hugh Howey
Thumbs up for the Silo series. Even though itβs not in outer space, many other boxes tick: multi-generation, environmental systems, spoiled planet β¦
Going to have to check this one out!
Seveneves is incredible, with the caveat that the last chapter of the book was almost handwavey with regards to the author's conclusion of where humanity ended up. 10/10 otherwise.
I've loved half of that list and now have to read the other half
The Expanse series is kinda like that. There are other planets, but most of the action takes place on ships, stations, and asteroids that have been converted into stations. It goes into depth about life in space, and everything from engineering to biology, sociology, politics, and theology.
The topic is straight brought up several times, including most notably in book 2 about the Jupiter moons, but they all claim it's borderline impossible because all this is super delicate system only made possible by Earth anyway. Which is later proven true in last book.
Doesn't quite fit the bill as there's a planet eventually but Children of Time by Tchaikovsky is excellent and half the book follows a generation ship. The other half follows a successive evolution of uplifted spiders. It's reasonably hard sci-fi not Martian levels of detail about the science but very well written and enjoyable. Could be worth a go for some inspiration.
The other half follows a successive evolution of uplifted spiders
This is the book I didn't know I wanted to read until now.
It does a really good job of making you empathize with giant spiders. I can also recommend the audio book, very well done.
@Berttheduck awesome. I love relatable non-human characters that are genuinely alien not just crypto humans.
It owns. Haven't read the third one yet. Not even sure if it's out but if it is it's next on the list.
The Bobiverse series is about a person who dies and wakes up as an AI that must replicate itself across the stars, while humanity ends on Earth.
Read Dune if you didn't read it it goes deep in to ecology and terraforming of Arrakis, Fremen surviving on it,water relations in environment...
Another inspiration for you may be Scavengers Reign - animated series about surviving on lush planet that is really inhospitable for humans.
Dune is a fantastic series!
Not quite what you're after but I absolutely love Diaspora by Greg Egan.
It's a different take on the same issues you're asking about (not at first, but it's not really a spoiler to say that it explores them whether or not it's as necessary as your examples state), a take that leans more into different forms of existence rather than supporting our current existence in a different environment (but touches on aspects of that too, kind of). It's mega-multi-generational while also not being that at all, depending on perspective.
The Interdependency series by John Scalzi portrays a society where some number of star systems, containing only one habitable planet which is at the very far reaches of the wormhole network, are connected together by wormholes. The society is called "the Interdependency" because every orbital habitat, dome and underground city is hugely dependent on trade with other habitats... without robust transfer of goods and raw materials EVERYONE would die... and this DOESN'T prevent stupid, short sighted, greedy humans from gambling with the stability of it all for their own personal economic and political gain. Fun books. Like most Scalzi, it's not too deep. But it's lots of fun.
That's what immediately came to my mind!
Can vouch for that series. Great fun.
Children of Time series goes over this a little bit, especially in the first book. Colonists end up waking up early due to a malfunction and end up falling into a devolving tribalistic race to the bottom on their journey to the planet.
EDIT: As for "hard" scifi, while I wouldn't say this series is at the same level as The Martian or maybe The Expanse, it is pretty good with trying to keep things real, especially with regards to the human threads of the story.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/children-of-time-adrian-tchaikovsky/113411?ean=9780316452502
Author and book information. Good series.
If you also accept TV series, Battlestar Galactica may interest you.
It deals with a small fleet of survivors desperately seeking a new home planet, who live in constant paranoia due to the enemy being able to plant sleeper agents within their crews. I remember they had to mine asteroids for fuel.
The Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson definitely fits the bill. The Ministry of the Future does too but it is more about the coming climate change disaster.
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven is a fantastic book that might be near what you are looking for. It's about an asteroid impact on Earth, this removes a lot of the population and infrastructure and the story focuses on a few different groups of people as they make do with what they can find or scavenge, and then the resource battling that goes on between groups.
A story line I remember well is on a group that found an abandoned neighborhood and were astonished to find that it still had running water from the nearby local dam/reservoir. They lived here for quite a while in their relative luxury until it just stopped working one day. A burst pipe in some other neighborhood had slowly drained the dam faster than they would have used it up.
Anyway, it's a great book because it feels so realistic as to what would really happen and the struggles people would actually be going through.
Children of Time is nearly exactly what you're looking for. The whole series doesn't follow nicely with what you're looking for but the focus remains on that aspect of things for lack of wanting to spoil anything. If nothing else read the first book, it's exceptional.
It's a very non traditional story structure (at least to a western reader) but The Three Body Problem series has a lot of plot revolving around the lack of inhabitable worlds.
Surprised no one has mentioned The Expanse series. A ton of world building in very different kinds of environments. Space stations, small ships, big ships, generation ships, asteroids, moons, planets.
The environments are well thought out in how the residents would need to adapt
It was the first thing I thought of but I thought Earth was still too viable for OP in the first few books, plus the science isn't The Martian level hard.
Cibola Burn especially was really cool with the world building. Things that you don't really hear of in other novels or even think of like the fact that alien plant life would be completely inedible to us are dealt with in detail.
All tomorrow's by c.m koseman may be interesting to you. It's a short story that examines the state of humanity several billion years in the future after they have evolved to be unrecognizable. Some civilizations thrived and became better, many devolved and live tortured existances. Quite a few lose the ability to speak or lose intelligence in general.
You might want to check out Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers. The book is about the people of the Exodus Fleet, a group of multi-generation ships that left Earth years ago. Even though the fleet eventually found other planets for them to live on, many are content to continue living out in space. It's a neat little slice of life book about this community doing their part to keep these ships going.
Tau Zero is essentially where eventually within a few months no hospitable worlds exist. This is due to a spacecraft being out of control and reaching relativistic speeds.
You might get some value from Stephen Baxter's Manifold series; while they aren't central to what you're asking for they definitely deal with humanity coping with a hostile universe. Heinlein wrote a couple of short stories set on a generation ship, although I can't bring the titles to mind. Accelerando takes place in many manufactured settings, rarely earth like (past the first major part). Brin and Benford's Heart of the Comet may also point in the direction you want.
Might not be quite "hard" enough, but perhaps try the Interdepency trilogy by John Scalzi.
John Varley's 8 Worlds books (pre- and post-reboot) have had to colonize the rocks of the Solar system, tho they're not that technical, and he rarely moves past the Moon. Also Gaea (Titan, Wizard, Demon) has an extremely alien habitat; there are other Gaea creatures, just the protagonist one is crazy but also Human-friendly.
Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky is about life on STL, multi-generation starships.
Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix is mostly set in habitats, asteroid mining, and Martian terraforming, but also a very alien hive.
- NEVER BORN. βYou mean we all came from Earth?β said Nikolai, unbelieving.
βYes,β the holo said kindly. βThe first true settlers in space were born on Earthβproduced by sexual means. Of course, hundred of years have passed since then. You are a Shaper. Shapers are never born.β
βWho lives on Earth now?β
βHuman beings.β
βOhhhh,β said Nikolai, his falling tones betraying a rapid loss of interest.
I'm going to go the other way and recommend The Fifth Season, which is technically a fantasy trilogy but which has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, because (as if that wasn't a spoiler) it's got a ton of sci Fi in it.
It's basically about people on a planet that keeps dying. They've had to deal with so many apocalyptic events that prepping for the next one defines the entirety of their civilization. If you want a window into the psychology of a society constantly on the verge of destruction, I can't think of a better series.
Maybe not "hard" enough for you (eg. it has absibles) but Becky Chambers's Record of a Spaceborn Few is about life on a fleet of generation ships.
Inverted World by Christopher Priest is kinda this.
Maybe have a look at The Long Winter Trilogy by A.G. Riddle (available at kindle unlimited)
Check out A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martin and it's sequel.
ANOTHER series I just remembered and highly recommend is the Unincorporated Man series. I think there are 4-5 books in the series. Pretty good IMHO. Similar to The Expanse, it's the Inners vs the Belters, and explores personal liberty and person hood from the perspective of owning "shares" of yourself like a company.
The conflict is awesome, and two military strategy geniuses duke it out in a Legends of the Galactic Heroes sort of way--one has all the resources and latest tech, the other is scrappy and has to deal with extreme resources shortages. Awesome story.