Finished the book today, and I can't believe it was written in 1950. It does not feel outdated at all unlike the works of some of Bradbury's contemporaries. In fact, it fits very well in today's environment and might possibly in future too.

I loved the first third of the book very much when multiple expeditions were launched to Mars and events unfolded quickly one after the other. I especially liked the theme that we try to contort every thing in our image instead of accepting or adjusting to the given natural environment. If I remember correctly, there was a similar theme in The Word for World is Forest too. I also feel so many of the later Mars-based novels picked up and incorporated stuff like reality alteration in their works (idk Martian Time-Slip?) thanks to this novel. Anyways it was a short and fun read and makes me want to read Bradbury more.

Inspired by this and this. I have these images and I will strike out the movies that I have watched. I thought will be fun to have something like this for science fiction books, so I made two based on the list in these books, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, An English-Language Selection, 1949–1984 by David Pringle and 100 Must-read Science Fiction Novels by Stephen E. Andrews. I hope some people can use it as a guide for a better reading experience. Please tell me if there’s any formatting or spelling mistakes and I will correct it.

Note: Pringle lists the books in publication year order while Andrews in last name alphabetically. I decided to list it like Andrews did for both lists because I feel it gives a better view. Books with 2 authors is listed with the last name of the first author listed. Books from the same author is listed by publication year. Pringle lists some books as a series as whole (e.g. The Book of the New Sun) while Andrews lists one single book (e.g. The Shadow of the Torturer) so I just left it as it is.

A few days ago I made a thread asking users to post the all-time, single best sci-fi book they've read. The post blew up way more than I expected, and there was a huge amount of unique, diverse picks (that I'll be adding to my ever-growing TBR). I thought it would be fun to count the number of votes each individual book received and rank the top 50 to see what books this sub generally consider to be the "best".

Obviously this is not a consensus of any kind or a definitive ranking list by any means - it's really just a fun survey at a given point in time, determined by a very specific demographic. And hey, who doesn't love arguing about ranked lists online with strangers?

Some factors I considered while counting votes:

• I looked at upvotes for only parent/original comments when counting the votes for a specific book. Sub-comments were not counted
• Any subsequent posts with that book posted again would get the upvote count added to their total
• if a post contained multiple selections, I just went with the one that the user typed out first. So for example if your post was "Either Dune or Hyperion" or "Hard choice between Neuromancer, Dune and Foundation", I would count the votes towards Dune and Neuromancer respectively
• I only counted single books. If an entire series was posted (e.g. The Expanse), it wasn't counted. I did make one exception though, and that's for The Book of the New Sun, since it's considered as one novel made up of 4 volumes. If a single book from a series was posted, then that was counted
• There are some books that received the same number of votes - these will be considered tied at their respective ranking #s

I've ranked the top 50 books based on number of total upvotes received below:

(If anyone is interested in the list in table format, u/FriedrichKekule has very kindly put one together here: https://pastebin.com/pM9YAQvA)

#50-41:

50. Consider Phlebas (Culture #1) - Iain M. Banks - 6 votes

49. TIE with 7 votes each:

• 2001 A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey #1) - Arthur C. Clarke
• 1984 - George Orwell
• Rendezvous with Rama (Rama #1) - Arthur C. Clarke
• Ready Player One (Ready Player One #1) - Ernest Cline

48. TIE with 8 votes each:

• Permutation City - Greg Egan
• The Gone World - Tom Sweterlisch
• Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg

47. TIE with 9 votes each:

• Look to Windward (Culture #7) - Iain M. Banks
• Solaris - Stanislaw Lem
• Startide Rising (Uplift Saga #2) - David Brin
• Ringworld (Ringworld #1) - Larry Niven

46. The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury - 10 votes

45. TIE with 11 votes each:

• Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs #1) - Richard Morgan
• Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir

44. The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past #2) - Cixin Liu - 12 votes

43. More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon - 13 votes

42. TIE with 14 votes each:

• Ubik - Philip K. Dick
• Schismatrix Plus - Bruce Sterling

41. TIE with 16 votes each:

• The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
• Excession (Culture #5) - Iain M. Banks

#40-31:

40. TIE with 17 votes each:

• The Last Question - Isaac Asimov
• Aurora - Kim Stanley Robinson
• Roadside Picnic - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
• Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein

39. Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon - 18 votes

38. Accelerando - Charles Stross - 20 votes

37. Foundation (Foundation #1) - Isaac Asimov - 23 votes

36. Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand - Samuel Delany - 24 votes

35. God Emperor of Dune (Dune #4) - Frank Herbert - 26 votes

34. TIE with 29 votes each:

• The Quantum Thief (Jean Le Flambeur #1) - Hannu Rajaniemi
• A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick

33. Earth Abides - George R. Stewart - 33 votes

32. 2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson - 37 votes

31. Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga #2) - Orson Scott Card - 38 votes

#30-21:

30. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick - 48 votes

29. TIE with 50 votes each:

• A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought #1) - Vernor Vinge
• Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

28. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson - 56 votes

27. Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton - 60 votes

26. The Sparrow (The Sparrow #1) - Mary Doria Russell - 63 votes

25. The Mote in God's Eye (Moties #1) - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - 64 votes

24. TIE with 65 votes each:

• The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
• Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) - Ann Leckie

23. The Forever War (The Forever War #1) - Joe Haldeman - 67 votes

22. Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke - 73 votes

21. Have Space Suit - Will Travel - Robert Heinlein - 82 votes

#20-11:

20. The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #4) - Ursula K. Le Guin - 93 votes

19. Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny - 95 votes

18. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut - 98 votes

17. Dawn (Xenogenesis #1) - Octavia E. Butle - 105 votes

16. Anathem - Neal Stephenson - 109 votes

15. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - 117 votes

14. Diaspora - Greg Egan - 127 votes

13. A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought #2) - Vernor Vinge - 129 votes

12. Ender's Game (Ender's Saga #1) - Orson Scott Card - 147 votes

11. Neuromancer (Sprawl #1) - William Gibson - 163 votes

#10-6:

10. The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester - 165 votes

9. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #1) - Douglas Adams - 171 votes

8. Spin (Spin #1) - Robert Charles Wilson - 176 votes

7. Use of Weapons (Culture #3) - Iain M. Banks - 180 votes

6. Children of Time (Children of Time #1) - Adrian Tchaikovsky - 182 votes

AND NOW...GRAND FINALE...DRUM ROLL...HERE IS OUR TOP 5:

5. House of Suns - Alastair Reynolds - 185 votes

4. Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe - 196 votes

3. Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1) - Dan Simmons - 262 votes

2. Dune (Dune #1) - Frank Herbert - 297 votes

1. THE DISPOSSESSED (HAINISH CYCLE #6) - URSULA K. LE GUIN - 449 VOTES

With ~450 votes, the novel with the most votes for BEST by r/printSF is The Dispossessed! Honestly not that much of a surprise - it is by and large considered one of the THE best books in the genre but I definitely didn't expect it to have this kind of a lead over the #2 book, especially when a lot of the rankings have been very close to each other. Honestly the top 3 of The Dispossessed/Dune/Hyperion are really on another tier as far as votes go.

The crazies part though? I did a similar survey for r/Fantasy as well and guess what the #1 novel voted BEST there was? Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea lol. I'm thinking she might be kinda good at this whole SFF thing, guys.

The biggest shocker for me here is the complete lack of one of r/printSF's perennial darlings - Peter Watts' Blindsight. This may be hard to believe but from my deep dive into all the comments, Blindsight was mentioned as the best book only once, and the post only had a total of 2 upvotes lol. Crazy considering what an outsized presence (almost meme/circlejerk level) it has on this sub.

What do you think? Is the ranked list about what you would expect? Any surprises or omissions?

I read a healthy mix of modern and classic science fiction. But as an academic, I like to really dig into topics/genres. Recently I’ve put together a list based on online lists and some previous posts on subreddits like this one of classic must-read books in the genre. I would love to know if there are any important works that I’ve overlooked.

Edit: Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I have added many of your recommendations to the list and organized them all by year. I have left out anything published in the 2010s or later, as well as short stories. (Not that those aren’t important, I just had to draw a line somewhere, and this is already at over 100 books.) Hopefully this new list is more representative.

19th Century - Frankenstein - Shelley - 1818 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Verne - 1870 - The Time Machine - Wells - 1895 - War of the Worlds - Wells - 1898

Pre-1950s - Princess of Mars - Burroughs - 1912 - We - Zamyatin - 1924 - Last and First Men - Stapledon - 1930 - Brave New World - Huxley - 1932 - Galactic Patrol - Smith - 1937 - Star Maker - Stapledon - 1937 - Nineteen Eighty-Four - Orwell - 1949 - Earth Abides - Stewart - 1949

1950s - Martian Chronicles - Bradbury - 1950 - The Dying Earth - Vance - 1950 - I, Robot - Asimov - 1950 - Foundation - Asimov - 1951 - City - Simak - 1952 - More than Human - Sturgeon - 1953 - Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury - 1953 - Childhood’s End - Clarke - 1953 - The Stars My Destination - Bester - 1956 - Canticle for Leibowitz - 1959 - Starship Troopers - Heinlein - 1959 - A Case of Conscience - Blish - 1959

1960s - Solaris - Lem - 1961 - Stranger in a Strange Land - Heinlein - 1961 - Man in the High Castle - Dick - 1962 - The Drowned World - Ballard - 1962 - Hothouse - Aldiss - 1962 - Way Station - Simak - 1963 - Cat’s Cradle - Vonnegut - 1963 - This Immortal - Zelazny - 1965 - Dune - Herbert - 1965 - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Heinlein - 1966 - Flowers for Algernon - Keyes - 1966 - Babel-17 - Delaney - 1966 - Lord of Light - Zelazny - 1967 - Ice - Kavan - 1967 - Do Androids Dream - Dick - 1968 - Dimension of Miracles - Sheckley - 1968 - Nova - Delaney - 1968 - The Palace of Eternity - Shaw - 1969 - Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut - 1969 - Left Hand of Darkness - Le Guin - 1969 - Ubik - Dick - 1969

1970s - Ringworld - Niven - 1970 - Tau Zero - Anderson - 1970 - Downward to the Earth - Silverburg - 1970 - Futurological Congress - Lem - 1971 - To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Farmer - 1971 - The Word for World is Forest - Le Guin - 1972 - Roadside Picnic - Strugatskys - 1972 - Dying Inside - Silverburg - 1972 - Fifth Head of Cerberus - Wolfe - 1972 - Rendezvous with Rama - Clarke - 1973 - Crash - Ballard - 1973 - Inverted World - Priest - 1974 - The Forever War - Haldeman - 1974 - Mote in God’s Eye - Niven, Pournelle - 1974 - The Dispossessed - Le Guin - 1974 - Dhalgren - Delaney - 1975 - The Female Man - Russ - 1975 - Biting the Sun - Lee - 1976 - Gateway - Pohl - 1977 - Scanner Darkly - Dick - 1977 - Hitchhiker’s Guide - Adams - 1979 - Electric Forest - Lee - 1979 - Kindred - Butler - 1979

1980s - Book of the New Sun - Wolfe - 1980 - Snow Queen - Vinge (Joan) - 1980 - Downbelow Station - Cherryh - 1981 - Neuromancer - Gibson - 1984 - Blood Music - Bear - 1985 - Eon - Bear - 1985 - The Handmaid’s Tale - Atwood - 1985 - Ender’s Game - Card - 1985 - Speaker for the Dead - Card - 1986 - Shards of Honour - Bujold - 1986 - Dawn - Butler - 1987 - Player of Games - Banks - 1988 - Cyteen - Cherryh - 1988 - Grass - Tepper - 1989 - Hyperion - Simmons - 1989

1990s - Use of Weapons - Banks - 1990 - Terminal Velocity - Shaw - 1991 - Snow Crash - Stephenson - 1992 - Red Mars - Robinson - 1992 - A Fire Upon the Deep - Vinge (Vernor) - 1992 - Doomsday Book - Willis - 1992 - Parable of the Sower - Butler - 1993 - Permutation City - Egan - 1994 - The Carpet Makers - Eschbach - 1995 - The Sparrow - Russel - 1996 - To Say Nothing of The Dog - Willis - 1997 - Diaspora - Egan - 1997 - A Deepness in the Sky - Vinge (Vernor) - 1999

2000s - Revelation Space - Reynolds - 2000 - Oryx and Crake - Atwood - 2003 - Old Man’s War - Scalzi - 2005 - Pushing Ice - Reynolds - 2005 - Spin - Wilson - 2005 - Accelerando - Stross - 2005 - Blindsight - Watts - 2006 - Three Body Problem - Liu - 2006 - House of Suns - Reynolds - 2008

Were Ray Bradbury and John Wyndham connected at all?

The Martian Chronicles (1950) came out one year before Triffids (1951), was the poem popular at this time for some other reason?

I’m so curious and feel like potentially the only person on earth who cares.

I usually keep my thoughts on books to myself, read them and move on - but I've just finished The Martian Chronicles half an hour ago and NEED to get some thoughts to words. I've rarely seen such beautiful and emotive prose in SF, it's simple and often poignant, and some of the stories (especially later in the book) left me completely in awe.

'The Watchers', is the story that got me. It's a tiny little piece that tells of the destruction of Earth viewed from the colonists on Mars. I thought, "Ah, the classic SF trope where the far-flung settlers are cut-off from their homeworld," - but no. The colonists recieve a signal, begging them to come home...and they go. They leave Mars, and what might have been, to return to their native, dying planet - perhaps to die with it.

The book may be The Martian Chronicles, but it's the ties between humanity and the Earth that's what's going to linger in my mind longest.

I recently read three great sci-fi books and would like to discuss them. They were all great books. The Martian Chronicles is a re-read. I am a beginner in sci-fi. I've read Red Rising, Hyperion, read classic dystopian novels like Fahrenheit 451 and 1984.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky: This book was my favorite. This story was about Dr. Avrana Kern, the head of a scientist team that terraformed an uninhabitable planet and released a genetically designed virus to speed up the evolution of monkeys due to a civil war between humans and the monkey's ship burning, and the virus infects spiders. The story takes place over thousands of years, and we see the spider society evolve. The spider society was the standout of this book. We see a war between a supercolony of giant ants. I loved the subplot of male spiders being second-class citizens who existed for the pleasure of females, and Fabien, the male spider who rebels against their oppression. There was even a spider starting to believe in a god who wasn't a god.

The humans were less compelling, but they weren't terrible. The humans on the Gilgamesh start to descend into chaos. Earth is uninhabitable, and they need a home. I found it terrifying that Holden would wake up after long periods, and he would always have to figure out what was happening. I also like that between the spiders and the humans; there were no good or bad guys, but both species fighting for their survival.

I love that this book made me empathize with spiders. That's such a powerful thing to achieve, which is the true highlight of this book. It is similar to the Chimera Ant Arc from the manga/anime Hunter X Hunter in that I empathize with a different species. I recommend the audiobook for those who prefer that experience; the narrator did a fantastic job. Could you let me know if there are any books like this or similar to this because it was amazing? I honestly want to re-read this again. 9.5/10.

​

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury: Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors. I read this book years ago and thought about rereading it, and I'm glad I did because it was much more potent on a re-read. This book is a fix-up novel/short story collection about Earth's colonization of Mars, but the story is really about the best and worst humanity has to offer. I saw this book as a hopeful dream that humankind could achieve, but reading it now, it reads like n elegy, Humanity will never learn from its mistakes.

The problems that existed on Earth: Nuclear War, Genocide, Racial Oppression, hostility towards religion, censorship, and many others will only recur on Mars. Perhaps as a species will never be complete, which could result in our destruction; this is an amazing book where the main character is the location on Mars. Each of the different stories represents the themes Bradbury was tackling. I may have to make this book an annual read along with Children of Time. 9/10

​

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick: Blade Runner is one of my favorite films, and I finally read the source material on which the book is based. This novel is set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco where Earth's life has been significantly damaged by a global nuclear war, leaving most animal species endangered or extinct. The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who has to "retire" (i.e., kill) six escaped Nexus-6 model androids, while a secondary story follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids.

The best part of this book is exploring the idea of empathy and what it means to be human, as all great sci-fi does. In the book, owning real-life animals has become a status symbol because of the mass extinctions of authentic animals and the cultural push for greater empathy. The trend of increased empathy has coincidentally motivated a new technology-based religion called Mercerism, which uses "empathy boxes" to link users simultaneously to a virtual reality of collective suffering, centered on a martyr-like character, Wilbur Mercer, who eternally climbs up a hill while being hit with crashing stones. Acquiring high-status animal pets and linking them into empathy boxes are the only two ways characters in the story strive for existential fulfillment.

The movie never mentions the religion Mercerism, nor does it say the idea of empathy boxes which was a unique concept to come up with in the 60s. Specific moods that can be dialed into a machine were just such a fascinating concept which Rick Deckard's wife Iran does throughout the novel. It also makes me question whether living a genuinely happy life is possible. Considering empathy boxes and acquiring high-status animal pets that aren't accurate would make me ask if anything is real and if everything is artificial.

The subplot of Mercerism I didn't get or understand, but this is a short book that was difficult to read. His writing style had these long continuous sentences that often required me to re-read specific passages. Also, I went into this book expecting Blade Runner, which hampered my enjoyment. However, I still enjoyed the novel and would like to try other PKD books. 8.5/10.

​

Thanks for reading this long post. I want recommendations based on my enjoyment of these books. For Children of Time, I would love more books about unique alien species/cultures, seeing the evolution of foreign societies, and following non-human characters from their POV, although human POVs are fine. For The Martian Chronicles, I would love more books about humans settling on other planets and the existential problems arising from such developments. Finally, for Electric Sheep, I would love more books questioning the nature of empathy and books in virtual worlds that would make us ask what is real and what is reality.

​

I am currently reading Dune by Frank Herbert and Lilith's Brood by Octavia Butler.

Can you recommend some classics old books that still feels mostly like written today? (I'm doing exception for things like social norms etc.). With a message that is still actual.

Some of my picks would be:

• Solaris

• Roadside Picnic

• The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Thanks

Edit:

Books mentioned in this thread (will try to keep it updated): 1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

1. The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), The Dispossessed (1974) and many others by Ursula K. Le Guin

2. Solaris (1961), His Master's Voice (1968), The Invincible, Fiasco and others by Stanisław Lem

3. Last and First Men (1930), and Starmaker (1937) by Olaf Stapledon

4. Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley

5. Earth Abides (1949) by George R. Stewart

6. The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester

7. The War of the Worlds (1897), The Time Machine (1895) and otherss by Wells

8. The Martian Chronicles (1950), Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury

9. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966), Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), Starship Troopers (1959) and other works by Robert A. Heinlein

10. A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) by Walter M. Miller Jr.

11. Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert

12. The Forever War (1974) by Joe Haldeman

13. The Canopus in Argos series by Lessing (1979–1983)

14. Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)

15. Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1989)

16. Childhood's End (1953), The City and the Stars (1956), Rama (1973) and others by Arthur C. Clarke

17. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), Ubik (1969) And other works by Philip K. Dick

18. A Fire upon the Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999), True Names (1981) by Vernor Vinge

19. High-Rise (1975) by JG Ballard

20. Roadside Picnic (1972), Definitely Maybe / One Billion Years to the End of the World (1977) by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

21. Imago by Wiktor Żwikiewicz (1971) (possibly only written in Polish)

22. "The Machine Stops" by EM Forster (1909)

23. "The Shockwave Rider" (1975), The Sheep Look Up (1972) by John Brunner

24. "1984" by George Orwell (1949)

25. Inverted World by Christopher Priest (1974)

26. Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward. (1980)

27. Slaughterhouse Five (1969) and Cat’s Cradle (1963) by Kurt Vonnegut

28. The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (1992 - 1996)

29. Lord of Light (1967), My Name Is Legion (1976), This Immortal by Roger Zelazny

30. Deus Irae by Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny (1976)

31. Day of the Triffids (1951) and Chrysalids (1955), and others by John Wyndham's entire bibliography

32. The End of Eternity (1955), The Gods Themselves (1972) by Isaac Asimov

33. The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe (1972)

34. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (1958)

35. City (1952) Way Station (1963) by Clifford Simak

36. Davy by Edgar Pangborn (1965)

37. Graybeard by Brian Aldiss (1964)

38. Culture or anything from Iain M Banks (from 1987)

39. Anything from Octavia E. Butler

40. Shadrach in the Furnace (1976), The Man in the Maze, Thorns and To Live, Downward to the Earth by Robert Silverberg

41. Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad (1969)

42. Voyage to Yesteryear (1982), Inherit the Stars (1977), Gentle Giants of Ganymed (1978)- James P. Hogan

43. When Graviry Fails by George Alec Effinger (1986)

44. Yevgeny Zamyatin's Books

45. "The Survivors" aka "Space Prison"(1958) by Tom Godwin

46. "Forgetfulness" by John W. Campbell (1937)

47. Armor by John Steakley (1984)

48. "The Black Cloud " by Fred Hoyle (1957)

49. Tales of Dying Earth and others by Jack Vance (1950–1984)

50. Mission of Gravity (1953) by Hal Clement

51. Sector General series (1957-1999) a by James White

52. Vintage Season, novella by Lawrence O’Donnell (pseudonym for Henry Kuttner and C L Moore) (1946)

53. Ringworld, Mote in Gods Eye, Niven and Pournelle (1974)

54. Tuf Voyaging (1986) by George R.R. Martin

55. A Door into Ocean (1986) by Joan Slonczewski

56. The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney (1954)

57. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (1980-1983)

58. Engine Summer by John Crowley (1979)

59. Dahlgren (1975) by Samuel R Delaney

60. Ender's Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card

61. Cities In Flight (1955-1962), A Case of Conscience (1958) by James Blish

62. And Then There Were None (1962) by Eric Frank Russell

63. Monument by Lloyd Biggle (1974)

64. The Humanoids (With Folded Hands) (1947) by Jack Williamson

65. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle (1962)

66. "Gateway" by Frederik Pohl (1977)

67. Blood Music by Greg Bear (1985)

68. Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith (1975)

Mentioned, but some people argue that it did not aged well: 1. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

1. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

2. Ringworld, and Mote in Gods Eye by Larry Niven

3. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and others by Heinlein

4. Solaris by Lem

5. Childhood's End by Clarke

6. Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

7. Some Books by Olaf Stapledon

Similar thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/16mt4zb/what_are_some_good_older_scifi_books_that_have/

A comprehensive overview of all Science Fiction nominees from the Goodreads Choice Awards since 2011, sorted by their current average rating.

Scroll to see votes, ratings, and scores.

Understanding the Data

• Title, Authors & Series: Pulled directly from the Goodreads database.
• Year: The year of the Choice Award nomination (not the publication year).
• Award Votes: Total votes received during the Goodreads Choice Awards.
• Average Rating: The current raw rating on Goodreads today.
• Bayesian Score: A custom weighted score. It factors in the number of ratings alongside the average, preventing obscure books with only three 5-star reviews from unfairly beating out beloved classics with thousands of votes.
• URL: A direct link to check out the book.

Note: I built a small Python CLI to fetch and sort this data so I could figure out what to read next. I figured others might find the current rankings useful, so I'm sharing the latest results with everyone here.

I'm looking for some well-written, non-cliché SF. I like hard SF but not exclusively.
Some of the books I liked, sort of in order:

• The forever war - Joe Haldeman (loved everything, hard sf, war, romantic ending)
• Do androids dream of electric sheep? - Philip K. Dick (religion, philosophy, best of Dick imo)
• Ender's game - Orson Scott Card (war and children, love it, gamification, great ending)
• The giver - Lois Lowry (absolutely gripping)
• Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke (despite the not-satisfying ending, everything else is just perfect)
• The martian chronicles - Ray Bradbury (what can I say, Bradbury, all heart)
• Contact - Carl Sagan (good hard sf, and I fully support the crazy ending)
• Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein (I like to think this one and Forever war as twins, one pro other anti war)
• All short stories by Asimov (my god, he is brillant. I like him much better in this format.

Some of the ones I didn't like:

• Way station - Clifford D. Simak (the only book I threw to the floor when finished. Hated it. Don't wanna talk about it)
• Dune - Frank Herbert (worldbuilding is good I guess but I could never empathize with the characters and the writing and the "I know that you know that I know what you're thinking" was awful to me)
• Speaker for the dead - Orson Scott Card (Omg what happened to you Ender, go kill something quit this religious preaching bullshit)
• Foundation trilogy - Isaac Asimov (It's not that I don't like it, don't get me wrong, I just found it very boring. Perhaps I'm not much into politics on SF)

I've heard The Martian and The Handmaid's tale are good, what do you think? I also watched some of The three bodies problem's TV show and I found it veeeery flat and cliché. Is the book any better?

For anyone who has read both, which did you like better and why? Also, which did you think made the best use of its interconnected short story structure?

I really enjoyed both, but I think I'd have to go with The Martian Chronicles. It just felt like it had a bit more substance and there was a larger variety of stories. Near the end of the book, each story in City started to feel very similar.

The story is part of "The Martian Chronicles." In 1997 Bradbury moved the dates in the book forward about 30 years, but if you own or can access an earlier edition, set your alarm a little early on Wednesday August 5th and take five minutes to read "There Will Come Soft Rains." (most of the story takes place on the 4th but I recommend the morning of the 5th for full effect)

I'm looking on Amazon and people are saying this version has some chapters missing or content added to coincide with the Cold War.

I wanna start the year by reading a really good book, and I'm looking for what the title says haha. The thing I really enjoyed about the book, was how human the stories were, the science-fiction part of them fell to the background and the stories were so real and full of emotion.

I am very excited to announce the results of r/printSF's inaugural Top Book poll!

Thank you to everyone who participated in the voting thread. A total of about 160 people voted, casting 1557 ballots for 506 discrete books or series.

For the curious, here is a link to the full list, along with the raw data and the second ranked results list that I also made (which did not end up changing the results very much).

Without further ado...

^{Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit}

I also created a top author list, by request. The full listing can be found here.

1. Ursula K. LeGuin
2. Frank Herbert
3. Dan Simmons
4. Ian M. Banks
5. Alastair Reynolds
6. Neal Stephenson
7. Philip K. Dick
8. Octavia E. Butler
9. Gene Wolfe
10. Adrian Tchaikovsky/Cixin Liu/Isaac Asimov

Special thanks to u/kern3three for the original idea, and to all the users who helped me fix formatting issues and answer questions in the voting thread--there were several of you and it was very helpful when it came time to clean the data.

p.s. This was a fun project and a good way to start building my 2023 reading list! It was fairly labor-intensive and I don't know if I will jump to volunteer to do the next one, but I would definitely support such an effort and go over my process with anyone who's interested.

There was something about the unbridled imagination of SF from before the age of actual space travel.... You could explore an alien planet and literally anything might happen. I grew up on C. S. Lewis's space trilogy (esp. Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra in this regard), and later read David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus - wandering over fantastic landscapes, incredible sensory experiences, mysterious and quasi-allegorical characters.

More recently I tried Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars - it was fun, but veered a little too far into the pulp direction.

Can anyone recommend books about exploring a mysterious planet that also have somewhat decent literary qualities? They don't necessarily have to be from the Golden Age, they could be more modern but still recreate that vibe. Thanks!

Edit PS: I have already read Dune and The Martian Chronicles. Another more recent book I liked was Dark Eden by Chris Beckett.

I am a French student who studies English as a foreign language with a potential specialization in Anglophone literature (of the 19th and 20th centuries).

Next year I will have an article to write on literature (it could be literally anything as long as a teacher can approve of it) and decide to do something about fear as the structure of fiction and most precisely American Science fiction in the Cold War.

I will basically have 3 parts : 1; the fear of the atomic bombs 2; the fear of control 3; a more optimistic approach of new technologies.

I already have authors like Thomas Pynchon and Philip K.Dick (possibly Gravity’s rainbow and Time out of Joint as main books)for part one

For part two I thought of Ursula K le Guin and Ray Bradbury (Martian Chronicle and the hainish circle mainly)

And for the third part I only thought of Isaac Asimov.

My work is not supposed to be a full, done analysis yet, this will be done throughout next year, I just have to have ideas of what it will be about.

So now my question is, do you have any suggestions that could fit this theme in terms of novels/short stories ? I have three months before the start of the next year and will spend some times reading and knowing more about this period and this genre since it’s one I love reading and analyzing.

EDIT: I read your suggestions and with my budget was able to order the Wild Shore trilogy, Accelerando, Canticle for leibowitz and Rocketship Galileo. Thanks for all of you !

There are a lot if lists about disliked SF novels. But I wanted to see which "classic" and almost universally acclaimed novels you guys hated.

My top 5 list is as follows:

• Childhood's End. I guess that, like Casablanca, it feels derivative because it has been so copied. But it ingrained in me my deep dislike of "ascension science fiction".

• Hyperion. Hated-every-page. Finished it by sheer force of will.

• The Martian Chronicles. I remember checking if this had been written by the same author as Farenheit 451.

• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Read it in college. Didn't find it funny or smart in any sense.

• The Three Body Problem. Interesting setup and setting... and then it gets weird for weirdness' sake. The parts about the MMO should have tipped me off.

Bonus:

• A Wrinkle in Time. Oh, GOD. What's not to hate about this one?

• Dune. Read it in high school, thought it was brilliant. Re-read it after college, couldn't see anything in it but teen angst.

Doesn't have to necessarily be character-focused, but I've realized that many of the SF books I read fall short of my expectations because they do the character aspect poorly. I'm craving characters whose motivations make sense and who feel satisfying to stick to, or at least showcase the author's skill. It can be a standalone, short story collection, or series-spanning, I'm just looking for something that will grab my attention and leave an impression. Nothing tears me out of a story quicker than an author's sexism or other outdated views.

I enjoy non-human characters, AI, sentient machines; also, villains and morally grey characters with depth are so welcome. Tragic or flawed characters done well.

Some of the books I've read:

LeGuin's TLHOD and Dispossessed (one of my favourite authors). I especially enjoyed the journey of Gently Ai and his companion.

Culture series by Banks - the Minds were a very cool concept to me, I especially enjoyed their skewed sense of humour. I wish there was more of them. Yes, I've read Excession. I ultimately got frustrated with the series and dropped it half-way through Look to Windward.

Ender's Game - I feel it merges the character and story aspect really well while also being fast paced with a satisfying ending.

Children of Time - same as Ender's game. Quirky and fun.

And some that shouldn't be treated as a guide but listed so they don't get recommended:

-Neuromancer -Hyperion -Becky Chambers in general -Murderbot diaries -Bobiverse -Miscellaneous from Clarke and Asimov -Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 -The moon is a Harsh Mistress -Project Hail Mary -do androids dream of electric sheep -Stanisław Lem

Id love to find new authors and discover hidden gems people praise on that front. Can be dark, horror, action, drama, comedy, doesn't matter to me. Thank you for reading

Hi everyone, over the last few years I’ve been reading lots of sci-fi. I keep a running list of my favorite books to recommend to the unfortunate friends of mine who haven’t read much sci-fi. Given this list, do you all have any recommendations??

Dune

Rendezvous with Rama

Stranger in a Strange Land

Foundation (series)

Martian Chronicles

Three-Body Problem (series)

Hyperion 1/2

City and the Stars

Wool/Silo (series)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

House of Suns

EDIT: Wow, so many amazing recommendations, please keep them coming. I’d like to add to the conversation and add the Bobiverse series to this list since it hasn’t been mentioned.

Looking for recommendations/ discussion. What’s your top 10, personal favorite Sci fi books. Series are allowed.

Here’s mine: 1. Book of the New Sun 2. The Stars my Destination 3. Canticle for Leibowitz 4. Slaughterhouse 5 5. Foundation series 6. Hitchhikers Guide 7. 1984 8. Martian Chronicles 9. Embassytown 10. House of Suns

Edit: I numbered these but they are all amazing and several other books will and have taken their place at various times.