Top 10 Best Sci Fi Books I've Read 

Good list. You helped me to decide what book read next after I finish Swan Song, namely Rendezvous with Rama which I happen to own but haven't read yet. Culture is also my top favorite SF series alongside with Hyperion. I wish success to you and your channel.

I love that you included summaries, thank you!

Philip K Dick is a whole different category of SF! He’s so unique & wild you can’t really compare him to typical SF writers! I treat him on a different level completely. Reality Bending SF really! 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

Great video dude! Not sure about my top 10 but my top 5 is probably: 1. Childhood's End 2. Hyperion 3. Dune 4. Neuromancer 5. Gateway

Rendezvous with Rama! 🛸 Such an amazing page-turner and unique take on first contact. 👽

Great picks! I LOVE the Dark Forest, Project Hail Mary, and Children of Time and the whole Expanse series. Blindsight sounds amazing as does Excession for me

I am so happy to have found this channel!😮 not enough people talk about SF 🚀

Great video. Love the list. Couple books there that I have not read but may pick up: Altered Carbon and Excession. I really have to start meeting the Culture series. Your choice as a favorite book is interesting as I t’s not one that I hear people talk about. Most usually mention Use of weapons or Player of games as their favorite. Ubik, Children, Blindsight, Project, and Rendezvous are all books that I would at least consider when putting together my top 10. I gotta make that list at some point soon!

You know a trilogy is good when you read it, and then read it again. I did that with Remembrance of Earth's past.

Thanks. I may try Dark Matter again. I don’t think I gave it a fair shake. Children of time appealed to me from your description. BTW your descriptions are great.

I love seeing other people's favorites and why they like them. Thank you.

Great list. Among those I've read, I agree Children of Time and The Dark Forest are 5 star reads. I haven't read Rendezvous with Rama yet but I recently really enjoyed 2001 and would like to read more Clarke. Ubik is another I one really need to read. Have you read Hyperion or A Fire Upon the Deep? Looking at your tastes, I think they would appeal to you.

If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". It's got humor and also very poignant and based upon what you've recommended, I think you'd like it.

This is a great list! Have you ever read the expanse series ? I haven’t but I heard it is good too. I like the cyberpunk genre, looking forward to read altered Carbon and Neuromancer.

Super interested to see how this list evolves over time 👍

"I know I did say vampires, and it sounds silly" I love that. Adding that book to the wishlist (and hunting pretty versions) Several books on there I haven't read and (gasp) a couple I hadn't heard of. Great ranking.

Great list, a lot I've heard of and intend to read and a few I haven't!

Love your list.... Others worth a go are : Ringworld - Larry Niven; Riverworld series - Philip Jose Farmer; Dayworld - Philip Jose Farmer;Gatewway series - Frederick Pohl; Lucifer's Hammer - Jerry Pournelle & Larry Niven; The Mote in Gods Eye - Jerry Pournelle & Larry Niven; Hothouse - Brian Aldiss; Wool Trilogy - Hugh Howey; Nexus trilogy - Ramez Naam.... I could go on....

Interesting list. Never got the Warhammer books but I knew a few friends who were into them. I think Gaunts Ghosts were the ones they mentioned to me. Glad to see Iain M Banks there, but I'd personally replace Excession with Player of Games (but I know the fanbase is split with which one to recommend). I see from some of your other replies that you've read some other classics this year, so they might make the list next time. My list would probably go 1. Dune - Frank Herbert 2. The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester 3. Lord Of Light - Roger Zelazny 4. Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion - Dan Simmons 5. Player Of Games - Iain M. Banks 6. Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan 7. Stations of The Tide - Michael Swanwick 8. To Say Nothing of The Dog- Connie Willis 9. The Diamond Age- Neal Stephenson 10. Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C Clarke But now I feel bad for not including a bunch of authors who I really enjoy like Neal Asher, and Alastair Reynolds.

I’ve been wanting to getting into Warhammer for a little bit now. Maybe I’ll start with Soul Hunter! Also a lot of epic sounding books that I haven’t even heard of! My TBR list just grew! Great video Benjamin

Great list!! I loved altered carbon! The Netflix series (season 1 only) is really good also they tried to stick to the book. I loved project Hail Mary as well. I read Martian first and loved it and for me project Hail Mary was just as good if not a bit better. One of my favorites of all time is old man’s war by John Scalzi. I’d highly recommend that one if you haven’t read it already. Great video!!

Rendezvous with Rama is Amazing, it's a masterpiece. It's paced so well, it read like a great scifi movie. one of the best books I've ever read. it's so good that I can't bring myself to read the sequels .

Excession was my intro to The Culture. What a great universe to explore! I wonder how much anxiety one would have living there given the power levels of the Minds.

Great list! I watched expanse series I’ve been wondering if the book is very different then the show. The show got kinda wierd I love the belters! The idea of living in the belt!! Feels closer to home like it could maybe a realistic future.

Most of these sound really interesting! I couldn't get Three Body Problem, but I like Project Hail Mary so far. Does Excession have a lot of POV's? I usually get confused after more than two, but it sounds like it could have quite a few.

If the Culture series is divisive on Booktube, that's simply an indictment of Booktube. Iain Banks is brilliant and the Culture series stands above just about all the other grand scope science fiction in existence.

It's unusual to see a top ten science fiction book list that omits Dune., I would also include Ender's Game, and the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but I am a lot older.

Rendezvous With Rama #1! I don't feel so crazy anymore. Can't wait for the Denis Villenueve adaptation. "Arrival on steroids," he said.

So glad to see Children of Time on the list because it's absolutely fantastic. That book had everything I love in a sci-fi novel. Huge world building, first contact, evolution, strong characters (some of which are spiders). One of my favorite sci fi books. Blindsight and the entire Remembrance of Earths Past series are also fantastic. Both of those books were practically life changing lol.

Excellent list, many are on my to read list :). Have you read any books by Alastair Reynolds, if you like epic space stories with no FTL, I recommend his Revelation Space series. Scratch that I just saw your play list 😅.

Sci-fi isn’t my go to genre. I’m more into horror/extreme horror and thrillers, but Project Hail Mary was my intro to sci-fi and I got a kick out of the story. I think I’m going to read the three body problem once I’m done with what I’m currently reading.

Finally, someone who reads “normal” AND Warhammer 40k!! Great list, esp. Ubik, Blindsight, Iain M. Banks, and agree the Soul Hunter trilogy is great - personally prefer Horus Heresy series, Primarch novellas, Infinite and the Divine, Eisenhorn series, Peter Fehervari’s Coil series, Ciaphas Cain series, and a million others. Just about every PKD book is a great, then William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Reynolds, etc. are logical next thematic choices.

Thanks!

Not sure about individusl books, bit if i was creating a list it would start with books by... 1) Simmons 2) Hamilton 3) Reynolds 4) Corey 5) Herbert 6) Morgan 7) Donaldson 8) Vinge 9) Stephenson

I was told altered carbon is hard to get through. I think it honestly depends on personal taste. I have it sitting on my shelf, I’m more tempted to read it now after this review 😊 I was told Dune was a hard read too but I didn’t have an issue with it, I thought it was epic!

nice video m8

Great list! I've read all ten and loved 8 of them. I found Blindsight confusing; I need to reread it. I didn't care for Ubik, but that's more about me than the book. My top ten is completely different, and admittedly it's dominated by "classic" sci-fi highspots: 10. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon; 9. Gateway by Frederik Pohl' 8. Ender's game by Orson Scott Card; 7. Hyperion by Dan Simmons; 6. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury; 5. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller; 4. The Left hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin; 3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley; 2. 1984 by George Orwell; and 1. Dune by Frank Herbert.

Why is Neverness never mentioned? Absolutely the best book I have ever read. Period. of any genre.

Altered Carbon was good,

I tried Dark Matter and didn’t stick with it. Maybe I should have. I’ll try again. I do like space things though!

The characters in the Culture are not human, per se. They’re all aliens. The short story The State of the Art confirms it.

If my count is correct, sounded like 3 books had some object found in deep space as a major plot point of the book.

I loved 'Rama' but book 2+ 3 had very disturbing moments.

I’m not a sci-fi reader but I loved Project Hail Mary and The Martian. Can you and your subscribers make any recommendations for me? I like character driven books but I also like a good chase/battle scene. I like the sound of Rama.

I really desliked "the three body problem', is the second one worth it?

What is darter?

As someone from mainland China and now lives in Australia, I have to say that I hate Liu's 3 body problem books. Upon first read they are great and thought provoking. But if you grow up in China where most people believe the society to be a jungle, you either give in to the jungle and become part of the competition, or you choose to leave. If you give in to the jungle, you will have to compete for every resource, the you become super utilitarian, like everyone else, then social Darwinism takes center stage. And if you "believe" in the way of the jungle, these books are like confirmation on their way of thinking: even the aliens are like this(not many actually think like this because they are not even aware of the words like social Darwinism, they just want to be better than their neighbors). Then there are the rebellious ones that hate the game but are also lucky enough to be able to leave, like me. We hate the books because it's a reminder of the jungle. Also there's almost no character building in the books, the people seem like machines that react to inputs, but not people with flesh and blood(just like many Chinese people I know that work their ass off and save up only for the sake of saving up).

PHM shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as some of the other books you listed. PHM is the fast food of science fiction.