7 SCI-FI SUBGENRES (With Recommendations) 

I enjoy this type of content! I want to read all of these and explore more sci-fi! Great job differentiating these genres to this sci-fi newb, thanks! 🌌

Great list! The Hyperion Cantos is my my favorite book series. Dan Simmons does a wonderful job crossing most (if not all) of the sub genres on this list. Quite possibly the one series above all to dip your toes into each.

They also made a Childhood's End TV mini series, and it was really good.

Great to see that I have almost all of your recommendations in my TBR. Currently reading Childhood’s End, very interesting. Great video btw

Yes, I would love to see more videos like this one! Time travel and dystopian are my favorites in the Sci-fi genre. I read a good one earlier this year called All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai that features time travel and a utopian society.

Great list, loved hearing your recommendations for each sub-genre!

I read Hyperion because of your channel and loved it!!!

Thank you...❣️❣️ Should do the same video but with lesser known books as example... Like underrated books in each subgenres... Even though I not read any of these books, I already heard of them...🙏🏾🤝🏾📚

Love this kind of content - saves me a lot of time by zooming in on the books that are actually worth reading!

Another fantastic video! Thank you!

I have a new one for you. It's to do with social satire. I use it in most of my sci-fi novels. Its a method I would name after Kurt Vonnegut's techniques. Sci-fi satire maybe? Dug Adams was more like sci-fi slap-stick comedy and deserves yet another category.

For hard SF: The Martian-pretty sure was so popular he sold the movie rights, before he had book deal (it was free on his web site). Wide general appeal.

I have some alternative suggestions for you to try: 🚀 Hard SF: “Ring” book by Stephen Baxter. 🚀 Military SF: “The Palladium Wars” series by Marko Kloos. 🚀 Space Opera: “Commonwealth Saga” series by Peter F. Hamilton. 🚀 Dystopian SF: “Silo” series by Hugh Howey. 🚀 First Contact: “Semiosis” book by Sue Burke. 🚀 Cyberpunk: Not a huge fan of this sub genre, so nothing to suggest here. 🚀 Time Travel: “Weapons of Choice” book by John Birmingham. Which of these have you read already?

Military sci-fi, try Home Fires, which is Gene Wolfe stepping into Joe Haldeman territory with the story leaning into relationships after the hitch ends.

Snow Crash was really good!

Very useful style of video, and well presented. I'd like to request that the book title and author appear as text on screen when mentioned, or in the description for ease of looking them up.

great vid! don't know if I would personally put the three body problem into hard sci-fi, but I can see the merit!

You keep adding to my tbr haha. Stop it!!! lol

My favourite sub-genres are artificial intelligence, time travel & multiverse (if it counts as a sub-genre). Basically, I like to read all sub-genres so that my reading horizon keeps expanding. 😊 Speaking of space opera standalones, I finished reading Providence by Max Barry which I really enjoyed 💯🔥

I would put Three Body Problem in the first contact category and House of Suns as space opera. Hyperion is more like fantasy setup than space opera in it's purest form.

Great recommendations! I’ve been wanting to read Cixin Liu for a while, and also Sun Eater. I’m reading Leviathan Wakes right now and loving it! I DNFd Neuromancer. 😢

Speaking of time travel have you watched Dark??? I'd love to see a video on your top adaptations!

For military sf I'd swap out old man's war for Weber's "Honor Harrington" series. And for First Contact Murray Leinster specialized in that genre.

Some of the best books you could mention for each genre you recommended and I highly do to but some other under the radar recommendations and or honorable mentions including Andy Weir for hard SciFi he combined with Alastair Reynolds some of the better modern hard SciFi authors to check out as for first contact I would recommend Blindsight by Peter Watts one of the better more modern first contact books as for military/space opera Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep and a Deepness in the sky Top 20 all time SciFi for me and also Space Opera legend Peter F Hamilton Commonwealth Saga/Universe, The Reality Dysfunction and the Salvation Sequence and a more contemporary series Red Rising from Pierce Brown as well…These are just a few honorable mentions and slightly lesser known books and authors of these genres readers may want to look into as well…Thanks Jonathan

Old Man's War is the best military scifi.

I would recommend the Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell for Military Scifi. Excellent series and there are a bunch of spin off series' if you like the universe and the writer.

Hi, have you read any Star Wars books? I have never had any contact with this franchise and I intend to buy some books, but I don't know if they are good, do they look like space opera?

if nobody told you, you accidentally say replay instead if recursion 😊 great video though. more books to buy

As a rule, I dislike time travel stories. However, I can recommend two that I really enjoyed. The first is a classic, The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov. The recent Loki series borrowed several ideas from it. The second is Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill by Steven Brust, which is just a fun read.

I would like to know more books that explore aliens but in terms of horror, horror with aliens, do you know any? By the way, there is a very good trilogy of books that you might like, its name is "Sleeping Giants" by Sylvain Neuvel.

I’m here for this green screen.

I would have recommended The Culture series/universe by Iain M Banks for Space Opera. Also, for military come on.....come on.....40K.........or is that far future dystopian?

Most of your choices actually fit in the category of “hard” sf, I’d say you are a hard sf fan. Nothing wrong with that. But in my opinion you have omitted the genre of true “soft” sf, as exemplified by Margaret Atwood, James Tiptree Jr., Octavia Butler, Ursula LeGuin, Ted Chiang, and Connie Wills.

Problems with The Three Body Problem. I finally broke down and read this book. While it was innovative, character driven and told it's story in a way reminiscent of World War Z, I hope had some serious issues with the story. The pseudo science parts broke my suspension of disbelief. The science was far too speculative for the current time. I couldn't be convinced that physics was broken, or that many top scientists would behave this way. Having said that, the storytelling, world building and character development were darned amazing. I haven't decided if I will continue with The Dark Forest. I don't know that I can tolerate the flaws.