A marvelous list! My only quibble is that Dune (a book that you two gave a 3 out of 5 to in a previous video, so maybe that explains it) wasn't included in even the top 15. Surely it deserves to be somewhere in there.
Haha that does explain it. Gotta stand by your guns (and your unpopular but correct opinions, we love fighting and dying on this particular hill). Fear is the mind killer is the best line in all of sci fi tho
Great list! Here’s my top 10 scifi books/series it’s somewhat a basic list lol Honorable Mentions: Starship Troopers by Heinlein, A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, Slaughterhouse 5 by Vonnegut, and 1984 by Orwell 10. Sun Eater by Christopher Ruochhio 9. The Road by Cormac McCarthy 8. Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton 7. Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds 6. Blindsight by Peter Watts 5. The Cruel Stars by John Birmingham (unfinished series but should be) 4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick 3. The Forever War Joe Haldeman 2. The Gap Cycle by Stephen Donaldson 1. Dune by Frank Herbert
Thank you for recognising the goat Carl Sagan when no one else does. A brief note (because I can't help myself) De Grasse Tyson is today's Carl Sagan, not the other way around, and still he doesn't even come close.
Great list! And I love how we can scroll back and CLEARLY hear him say "1997" and "1995." And I just ordered "Exhalation" based on this video. I hadn't heard of it before so thank you!
When Asimov and Heinlein were writing books for young people back in the day, they were called 'Juveniles'. That later got remarketed as YA. The first book that started the YA category is generally accepted to be The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, published in 1967. YA is pitched a little older than the old 'Juveniles' category, but there's overlap.
I've wanted to check out the Vorkosigan saga for a while, and you guys just made a case for using Barrayar as a starting point. Also want to try C.J. Cherryh, and still haven't read Left Hand of Darkness, although The Dispossessed and Word for World are astoundingly good. Great video. Looking forward to Mountain in the Sea!
Just rewatched your video and once again I thoroughly enjoyed it. If we're including dystopian novels as a sub-genre of science fiction, shouldn't Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and 1984 deserve consideration for the top 15?
That’s very true! 1984 probably deserves a spot in my personal top 15 not that you mention that (this is Brent). Cody’s fave dystopia is handmaids tale so maybe that would make his personal list
Nice list I must say. And not that I agree or disagree with your picks but solely because it gave me some interesting TBR´s to look into :). This is your list and not mine but maybe some of your best will be my best. Thanks guys.
Interesting video. Maybe do a top ten honorable mentions. I would have included Dune, and maybe The Stars My Destination by Bester. I've read The Forever War and Starship Troopers. Currently reading Hyperion. #1 was a surpise. Thanks.
Great list there, but I'm surprised Frank Herbert's Dune didn't even make the cut, especially when it is the top scifi novel of all time. Also, isn't The Handmaid's Tale considered speculative fiction and not science fiction, as Margaret Atwood stated? The top 10 lists are the highlight on your channel!
You gotta stand by your beliefs and we’re big DIPGBNF guys. (Dune is pretty good but not fantastic). Love the new movie though! Top sci fi novel by what metric? Handmaids Tale, for instance, has more than half as many readers again on good reads. And we think Margaret Atwood is amazing but also being pretentious when she says she doesn’t write sci fi (and which we called her out for in our handmaids tale episode)
Yea it’s blasphemy Dune isn’t on this list. I understand it’s your list and you guys were not the biggest fan. I’ve read about half of these and own 13 of them. Looks like I need to get to reading the others. Looking forward to the smart octopus with too many story ideas book discussion.
Haha we’re proud blasphemers then. For a little extra blasphemy we think the new movie is better than the book. Denis did it better, heard it hear first folks, bring your pitchforks
I sense a theme here of philosophical themed sci fi. Many of these are kind of boring and not on an epic scale bar a couple. My own list would go 15. House of Suns 14. Red Mars 13. Ilium 12. Spin 11. Nueromancer 10. Do androids dream ... 9. Children of time 8. Revelation Space 7. The Algebrist 6. The Prefect/aurora rising 5. Roadside picnic 4. A fire upon the deep 3. Seveneves 2. Hyperion 1. DUNE
I've read so many books, and unfortunately so few of them stick with me through time. I can wholeheartedly recommend most books by Philip K. Dick. He's an amazing writer. There's one trilogy I recall, that had me reading through it with such ease and eagerness because the story was very compelling, despite it being over 3000 pages in total: Peter F. Hamilton's 'The Night's Dawn Trilogy'. A space opera. Be warned, don't read anything about it online (like wikipedia), because it may spill a major reveal that the writer keeps hidden until the third book, when you're already over 2000 pages in.
Am I the only person that doesn't rate the Three Body Problem? I found it to be pretty tedious. Anyhow just added The Road to my reading list, never heard of it but looks great. Thanks guys!
You’re not alone. I thought the first book in this series was god awful and childish. Curious to see the trainwreck, I kept reading and found the 2nd and 3rd book enjoyable for the big sci-fi ideas in them.
Fun video, as always. I’ll have to consider what my specific top 10 are, though representative from the Ender Quartet, Hyperion Cantos, and Remembrance of Earth’s Past would be included
Wait? Snow Crash but no Neuromancer. You understand that EVEN NEAL HIMSELF who wrote snow crash has does interviews claiming Gibson's neuromancer is superior.
I have to reread Neuromancer in english, it sucked butt in Swedish. Snow crash has awesome ideas, but it is so obvious that he tried to bee cool, and write for the teenagers of the time, with the super scateboard pizza delivery bs, that ruined the book for me.
No Asimov either! When it got down to ranking individual books no one book of theirs quite made it, despite liking lots of their stuff. It’s also very hard to be timeless with sci fi
My 10. Red Mars The Martian Snow Crash A Scanner Darkly Starship Troopers. Jurassic Park. Dune. Three Body Problem Series. A Darkling Sea Children of Time. Bonus: Favorite indy: There is No Antimemetics Division
@@hugonautspod A Darkling Sea is about as hard SF of a space opera as can be. Sure they have to get there by FTL, but once on the planet, everything is realistic.
@@BeneficialBacteriaI get it. But there is a difference between not liking Dune and saying that Ancillary Justice and Exhalation are better than it. There are books I don’t like, but I can still recognize that they are better than books I do like
I loved Dune, but it was mostly the feel of it, ancillary justice is better on every level, so is Children o Time, my all time favorite. I would not put up Dune on my top ten. I dont understand peoples infatuation with Hyperion, it was good, but the Ending ruined it, I would not put it on my top ten Either. Many of the Strugatsky Brothers books are better than Dune, So is Solaris by Lem. There are several books by Philip K Dick that are better than dune, or Slaughterhouse 5 is better than Dune, for example.
OMG how could you guys pick The Road. It is not the best post apocalyptic book. I read this book in school and wrote my annotation full of reasons why it was not believable to me. Mccormick is an author that just like's to shock with no common sense or reasonable reality. So many things in it that took me out of the "suspension of disbelief" -- as a person who stores up food and wild harvest plants, he had so many common every day things wrong, especially when it came to food like the rotten apples on the ground or the mushrooms or the canned food. For one, if you eat bad food in canned jars you die from botulism within hours. You don't get just sick like eating spoiled food. You picked Margaret Atwood's book The Handmaid Tale, but another of hers, Oryx and Crake is a much better post apocalyptic book.
No Dune Boo!!! A great list overall. Here is something random. When I read Enders Game I viewed the video games within as Looking like a game would in 85. The final battle had a very 'life force ' style look in my mind. The game in 3 Body Problem has a very 'Fornite' type of graphics to it.
