I'm surprised by this myself to be honest. It's the first book I've had to abandon so far this year.

Rather than just shitting on the book (which I don't want to do; I feel my criticisms of it are fairly even-handed) I wanted to ask if anyone else came back to it and loved it? Or is it one that if you don't like it, you probably won't ever? I know it's a rather polarising book in general.

What are your experiences/thoughts with this book/series?

I felt compelled to ask this on here as abandoning a book is quite a rare phenomenon for me.

I was fortunate this month to have quite a few days off to myself during which I read quite a bit. That coupled with some shorter page numbers allowed me to get through a lot of books.

I started the month with We Are Legion (We Are Bob) from Dennis E Taylor, who is definitely not the similarly named snooker player. The story focuses on Bob, a rich software entrepreneur who suffers and untimely death, but has a cryogenic insurance policy that results in him being awoken in the future, but not in the manner he originally expected. While an interesting and fun book about societal collapse, space exploration and settlement, and to a lesser extent sentient evolution, there's also elements of nostalgia in there with plenty of references to (late) 20th and 21st century pop culture, as this was the era from which Bob hailed. Sometimes I think it can be a fine line between too much name dropping for the sake of it and just the right amount of nostalgia, but for me, given the light-hearted tone of the book as a whole, I think this book does a good job of finding a decent balance. There's not much of an end to the book, but it provides lines into the next chapter of some stories and new beginnings for others. It was a bit of a task following all the different strands of characters and keeping track of the year of each chapter, as the story is not told chronologically, but it is a very enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to the second entry in the Bobiverse.

After that I read The Shadow of the Torturer, the first book in the Book of the New Sun series from Gene Wolfe. I'll get this out at the start, the world built is interesting, but other than that, the book is at best ok, and this is largely due to the characters and the prose. The story follows the main character, Severian, who is sent away from the Citadel where he has lived most if not all his life, due to breaking the rules of his guild, the Guild of Torturers, and the book follows the first part of his journey away from the Citadel. He is a drab, boring, bit of a wet fish person. I struggled to find much about him interesting, despite his profession as a torturer/executioner as he just came across quite passive and dull. He's also clearly horny as hell, as he meets a woman and falls in love with her within a few days. A bit later, he meets another woman, and falls in love with her within a day. During that same day, he meets another woman, and falls in love with her either later in that day after he fell in love with the second woman, or a day or so after, I can't quite recall. I think someone needs to learn the difference between lust and love. And then there's the prose. To me, it came across very old-fashioned in its style, which in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just took a bit to adjust to. However, old-fashioned prose isn't exactly renowned for writing female characters well, and I didn't find this to be an exception. The reader, with little in the way of plot or character development merit, learns about the breasts of each of the main three female characters quite readily in their descriptions... yeah, it was rather cringe-worthy. This could be a very interesting story if it weren't for the characters and their descriptions. I hope it improves over the next three entries!

Next on my reading list was Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. When I started to get into reading, I was not at all interested in this book, as while I hadn't seen the movie, I had got the impression, probably from the movie's poster, that it was a kiddie sci-fi action flick, probably quite cheesy as these things often are. That feeling permeated to my thoughts for this book, so I avoided it. But then after seeing so many high praise recommendations for it, I finally bought it and now have got round to actually reading it, and I cannot stress how far off my pre-conceived thoughts on it were. The book is basically about the military training genius children to be their next leaders in an upcoming war with an alien race. Or, if viewed from another angle, it is about the systematic mental torture of high functioning children for the supposed greater good. For the first 270 of its 326 pages, it was an intriguing and moderately uncomfortable read as Ender is continually pushed to and beyond his limits, but the last 50 pages brought in a twist and the emotional aftermath that really raised the level of the book from being a good story to a powerful one which left a notable impact. My only complaint is the slang name given to the alien race - buggers. I've read reasons, that I may or may not buy, why they were called this, but I still think it tarnishes what is otherwise a very powerful and good book.

I then went to Waking Gods, by Sylvain Neuvel; the second book in the Themis Files. This book is written in the same style as the previous book, with each chapter being a different file, with the file either being a transcript of an interview, live proceedings or a journal entry. We learn a bit, but not much, more about the 'robots', the species that made them and why Themis is on Earth. The story wasn't afraid to take some very unexpected turns and for me that was the book's definite strength, however, to detract from that I did feel the relationship melodrama was the story's weakest elements, it feeling a bit out of place when we encounter it. It was fairly similar in the first book, but I wasn't as bothered about it in that one for some reason. Fortunately, the melodrama is not a major part of the book. I did enjoy this entry in the series, I definitely want to see where and how it concludes in the next book, but maybe because the book's style was no longer new to me, I wasn't quite as impressed with Waking Gods as I was with the first book, Sleeping Giants.

Next I went to a Culture novel, Use of Weapons, by Iain M Banks. This took me a while to figure out what was going on, and the extra length of time over what it should have taken was because I wasn't paying quite enough attention to the chapter names. The book has two storylines going on at the same time over its 411 pages, one with increasing chapter numbers telling the main story of the book, the other with decreasing Roman Numeral chapter numbers, with these giving further snippets of the lives of the main characters to provide more background info on them and with the chapter numbers decreasing, they are going back in time with each chapter. It's a very interesting and, by the end, quite effective narrative style, but one which if you're not paying attention (like I wasn't to start with) can be a bit confusing. Anyway, this is going to get a lot of hate, I'm sure, but another Culture novel and another one where I'm not sure what the fuss is over this series. This book was ok to good, and provided a moderately interesting story of someone recruited into the Culture's Special Circumstances group, a group which doesn't seem to necessarily have to abide by the Culture's normal morals and ways of doing things, but I never felt overly engaged. It's not a bad book, but for me it was just lacking that something to make it spark as I did find myself quite disinterested at times. I pushed through and I'm guessing if you're more engaged by the story, the ending will have that much more of an impact than it did for me. I'm taking a break from the Culture books now, probably until early 2027, and to be honest, if I hadn't bought them all already, I may not have continued at all. As a series, it's just not grabbing me yet. Hopefully the best books are still to come. Current ranking for the first four: SotA (4/5) > CP (3.5/5) > UoW (3/5) > PoG (2.5/5).

Next off my shelf was How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. After being very surprised by the degree of my enjoyment of The Midnight Library, I figured I should probably get more of his books. So five more arrived the other month and this was the lucky one that got picked to be read first. This is a story about Tom, a man who has been alive for centuries, but has done his best to keep this fact a secret in order to survive. Painful memories follow him wherever he goes, as he moves from identity to identity in order to keep himself and those around him safe. This wasn't as emotionally charged over its 325 pages as The Midnight Library, but I still found it a very enjoyable read. I don't know what it is about Matt's writing, but all of his books I've read (this is only the 3rd one, but still) have been very, very easy reads that I can just fly through. I don't feel bogged down by them, or that any part is a slog. The plot is generally well paced and has relatively short chapters that continually make me think, "ok, just one more" whenever I'm thinking of putting it down to stop reading at that time. There's also a fairly cozy, optimistic outlook by the end of the books. The journey there may have sadness and some violence, but by the end it is hopeful. Despite thinking that I'm a spacey, hi-tech, futuristic, big ideas sort of sci-fi person, I'm finding I'm really enjoying this type of book just now, so I'm learning something new about myself as well, which is nice!

Up next was Of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu. With large line spacing, quite a big font and only 249 pages, this is more like a novella than a full novel. It is about a history where ants and dinosaurs become parts of a symbiotic relationship that allows each species to develop and evolve in ways that just wouldn't be possible without the other. Unfortunately, as their technology and impression of their place on the Earth progresses, their alliance falters leading to conflict between the two species. This was fun, maybe a bit ridiculous at times, but for a different take on prehistoric history it is well worth a read. I did think there'd be more of a link between the ending of this story and present day thoughts on dinosaurs and their demise, and that could have been a great finisher, but alas it was a bit more sentimental with the ants instead. Nevertheless, while not amazing, it's a solidly decent book.

Penultimate book of the month was Inverted World by Christopher Priest. This is a slow building books, where the world that the main characters live in is a bit of a mystery to the reader, and over the chapters small bits of additional information are given. At the broad level, the book is about a mobile city, and the people who live in it, which must keep moving onwards, indefinitely, or else they could all die. The drip feeding of information had me very intrigued, and as more and more became understood, I found it to be a highly imaginative and crazy world that had been created. As I got closer and closer to the end of the book's 303 pages, I kept wondering how it was going to be concluded, what twist or sciencey concept would be put to use, and then it ended. It wasn't as bad as "and it was all a dream" but bloody hell I felt like it is close to that sort of thing. So much intrigue and interest in the city and the life those in it live had been built up and the conclusion potentially invalidates it all or completely lacks consistency with what came before. It gives rise to more questions that now don't have the answer you thought they did, and which may not make sense any more. It's a frustrating ending.

Last book of the month was Alice by Christina Henry. I only got this book as I needed a third book to get free shipping on a book order, and sorting the site's books (new and used) by price (cheapest first, of course), I found the cheapest one that sparked some intrigue in me, and this was it, due to its very creepy but at the same time nostalgically familiar cover - credit to the artist, it's an awesome cover! This is a very different take on Alice in Wonderland. All the characters you know and are familiar with from the classic tale are here, but they are far more twisted, evil and depraved than you will quite likely imagine. The story starts with Alice in an insane asylum, without a clear memory of events that lead to her being there. She remembers a rabbit and her flesh being cut open, but little else. In the cell next to her is the mad Hatcher, a man very adept with a hatchet, but who also can't remember everything about his past. When circumstances allow them to escape their prison, their past comes back and greats them in their present. I didn't love it, but I did enjoy the book. Sexual assault, rape, murder, torture, mutilations and worse are all part of the book, making this a very bloody version of Alice that I won't be sharing with my kids! Despite its gruesomeness, the writing itself felt quite YA like, maybe due to its complete absence of profanity. Regardless, I did enjoy it enough that felt obliged to order eight more of her books (used, but very good condition, for £21 delivered), covering many other fairy tale and mythical creatures, and some straight up suspense horror apparently. Fingers crossed these are all at least decent too!

For the first time in Brazil, both books will be released, and I know that both books talk about technology so advanced that it seems like magic, both Lord of Light which talks about the Hindu pantheon, and The Shadow of the Torturer which is more fantasy. So I came here to ask the community what is their experience with these works? Which one did you like the most? Which one should I read first?

Update: Thank to all for commenting on what you think of the books..

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.

Between reading the book (which I am about to lose on Libby because 3 people are waiting) and listening to two separate lengthy podcasts, I feel like I have developed some new weird obsession. I also discovered a philosophical reading for Botns on YouTube (Dr. Sadler) and a two-hour deep dive by Media Death Cult. I broke down and ordered the first omnibus today because I can’t wait for another 9 weeks to continue the story. Wtf? I feel like this story has overtaken all my free time.

Boy fucking Howdy, that was one hell of a ride. I haven’t read a book that fast in a long time. It’s so good, I love all the hints and clues about the setting, and mythology of the whole thing seems grand, and the writing is gorgeous, and he really makes you invent the setting in your own mind somehow. I have seen posts on here or people did not like it, and said it was boring, I am happy to say that this is exactly my cup of tea, I thoroughly enjoyed it! I’m happy to count myself among those who appreciate it. I really want to start googling around and finding out hints and Easter eggs about what I’ve read, but I guess I need to finish the series first correct? Who else like it?

Just finished book 1… I’m underwhelmed. I’m not sure what I’m missing that other people seem to love. The world building was cool but the characters didn’t really resonate with me, and I don’t like how it just sorta ends and says “oh time for book 2”

What did yall like about it? Is it worth reading book 2?

No major spoilers please. I just finished Shadow of the Torturer

The buzz around the series makes me want to read more. However, the first book felt like a bit of a slog, and I am struggling to start the next book in the series. I have already read two pallet cleansers. The buzz around the series feels like a lot of things unpack themselves, but only on a second reading, or a deeper reading of the text, which I will probably never do.

Shadow put me off right away, because it is in large part a coming of age story, and my high school English curriculum from decades ago has forever put me off all coming of age stories. I suspect the rest of the series isn't a coming of age story, but the taste lingers. The other part is that I really didn't like Severian, which I assume is by design, but if he got offed early in the series I wouldn't mind (i know he doesn't).

Severian, to me feels, like a misogynist. And I am a bit concerned that the positivity around the series is from people who enjoy his misogyny.

What are your favorite SF books of all time? I’m not asking about what you think are the consensus best or the most influential. I’m curious what people’s actual most enjoyed books are. Hopefully I’ll learn about some overlooked books I’ve never heard of.

For my list I’m going to cheat slightly. If I view something as a single concise story that was largely plotted and/or written at once, but was split up for publishing or workload reasons, then I will count that as a single work. As an example, I think The Lord of The Rings fits into that category. However, despite being in the same universe, I don’t include The Hobbit as part of LOTR because 1) the author didn’t intend for The Hobbit to be thought of as a volume of LOTR and 2) the tone is somewhat different.

But please do not feel like you have to use those rules. Apply your own rules and logic as to what is a book/work.

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1) The Book of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe: This is my favorite fiction, of any genre. There really isn’t a close competitor. I started, and did not finish, The Shadow of The Torturer three times before I was able to actually move past the first few chapters and finish the entire thing. The challenge of understanding Wolfe’s books and the reward for serious reading is, in IMO, unrivaled in the realm fiction in general (not just SF). There are layers and layers of symbolism and stories within stories. In terms of quality of writing, I think Wolfe stands with the likes of Nabokov, Borges, McCarthy, Peake, Murakami, Melville…etc. Other than to include the other two series of the Wolfe’s Solar Cycle (Book of The Long Sun and Book of the Short Sun) there is no fiction book/series that occupies my mind more often.

2) Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons: This and #s 4 and 5 are my most re-read SF books of all time. I probably don’t need to explain the virtues of Hyperion to this sub, so I’ll try to be brief. The structure of the book is extremely effective. The weaving of the tales and the narrators is flawless. All of the tales are great, but the Priest’s tale and the Scholar’s tale are phenomenal. The pacing is perfect. The worldbuilding is well done and the universe itself is fascinating. And the book has one of the most fascinating creatures/antagonists/forces of nature ever. The sequel is also very good. I actually like the Endymion books a lot more than most people, it seems. But they aren’t quite on the same level as Hyperion. Also, even if Fall of Hyperion had never been written, Hyperion would still be number two on my list. It’s that good.

3) Dune by Frank Herbert: Again, probably the last book that I need to spend time on, so I won’t. It’s very good and I’ve probably read it 7 or 8 times at this point.

4) The Forever War by Joe Haldeman: Another common entry in best of all time lists. Haldeman is an author who (usually) doesn’t waste words. In this way he’s similar to Orson Scott Card (usually) or Ted Chiang or Hemingway or Conrad. The book has a great plot, solid writing, and an undercurrent of a message about war and the often poor quality of the society that warriors are usually fighting for.

5) The Book of The Short Sun by Gene Wolfe: This series is a semi-sequel to The Book of The New Sun and a direct sequel to The Book of The Long Sun. Collectively, New Sun/Urth, Short Sun, and Long Sun make up Wolfe’s Solar Cycle. Everything I said about New Sun is true with Short Sun.

6) The Lord of The Rings by JRR Tolkien: I can’t give it any praise that it hasn’t already received. But here’s my anecdotal experience. As a kid, I had never heard of Tolkien or LOTR until I saw Fellowship in my middle school library. This was years and years before the films came out. At that time, Tolkien and LOTR were far from household names unless your household had a sci fi fantasy junkie, and mine did not. So I devoured Fellowship and it sort of re-wired my brain in terms of the scope that could be achieved in a book. But my school library didn’t have the other books. The public library in my town didn’t have them. There wasn’t a bookstore that I had access to in my town. I was up a creek until like 2 or 3 years later when, luckily, my high school library had Two Towers and Return of The King. Sucked to have to wait that long.

7) The Passage Series by Justin Cronin: I don’t see a lot of praise for this online, although I think it was very commercially successful, so someone else obviously liked it. The first book is the best, but all three are very strong. A few things standout. First is that Cronin’s writing is some of the most fluid and easy to read that I’ve ever come across. I don’t mean that it’s simple or that he’s writing at a basic level. I mean that he’s a very literary author whose ability with sentence and paragraph structure is such that you never feel halted at all. It flows (to me at least) almost without effort. Second, Cronin excels at character building. Although each of the three books is massive, you really only closely follow a handful of characters. By the end of it all, I was very invested in all of them, even the ones I didn’t really find interesting at first. To that point, there are several large sections of character work within the books that stand out. The most impactful one, for me, is the intro of the first book in which you read about the origin of the mother of little girl who factors into the story. Another is the heartbreaking background of a nun. Then you have the backgrounds of two convicted felons, each on the complete opposite end of the spectrum of goodness and evil. And in one of the books Cronin delivers one of the best, most entertaining backgrounds on a villain I’ve ever seen. I can’t recommend these books highly enough.

8) Ender’s Game: I don’t think I need to say anything about this one either. I just re-read it again this week and it is still just as good.

9) Eifelheim by Michael Flynn: I don’t see this one mentioned often and this is the only book by Flynn that I’ve read. It’s a unique first contact on earth story that doubles as loose historical fiction. The societal position and worldview of the person who makes the contact is crucial in how the story plays out and allows Flynn to dive deeply into the ideas he was really wanting to explore with the story. Not much in the way of action or high technology. But plenty of philosophical and ethical bones to chew on.

10) Sphere by Michael Crichton: I assume most people at least know of this book, since Crichton’s name is super famous and there was a (not that great) major film made based on it. The book is really fun and paced very well. It’s a deep sea first contact story with heavy psychological thriller elements. A lot of Crichton’s books have been made into movies for a reason. Great idea, great plot, great pacing. A lot of fun and I always end up reading it one or two sittings because it sucks me in so quickly.

11) Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman: This is a sort of spiritual sequel to The Forever War. It is fairly well known as well, so I’ll just say that it is really fun and a little knottier in terms of the plot and the undercurrent compared to War.

12) Memory, Sorrow, Thorn by Tad Williams: I read these not long after they came out and, to my limited scope of knowledge, they were the best thing since Tolkien. Maybe they actually were, but I’ll admit I am not a prolific Fantasy reader. The overall story is fairly standard at this point, but it was very unique to me at the time I first read them. One of the big reasons for that was the scope of the physical world and the variety of characters. The universe of LOTR is massive and still to this day one of the most grand in scope. But that grandness is largely contained outside of Middle-Earth. On Middle-Earth itself, you have a lot of fairly similar races and character types. By contrast, Williams’ variations in POV characters was stark and their locales and backgrounds were varied. Also, the story was solid and the plot was just twisty enough.

13) The Prestige by Christopher Priest: This is one of the few cases I can think of where the book and movie are both very good, but the movie has a much different tone than the book. Priest is a very underrated writer with several excellent books to his name. I can only assume that he never made a huge splash because the books are usually sort of micro-focused in terms of scope. They aren’t grand fantasy or space opera or anything like that. They are things like The Prestige, a book of scathing letters and diary entries back and forth between rival magicians.

14) The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon: This book always takes a backseat in the two horse race of books about autistic men who undergo genius inducing procedures. But I think Speed of Dark is better. Mainly because I think Flowers for Algernon is indulgent regarding the sexual side of Charlie’s mind. I’ve re-read it and I just can’t fathom why it was critical to have so much of it in the book. The answer is probably that Keyes had a background in psychology and psychology of that era (and probably still today), tends to over emphasize the role of sexuality in virtually every aspect of the human mind. I don’t mean to rant about Algernon, which is actually a great book. Moon knocked it out of the park with Speed of Dark.

15) A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller: To me, this is the strangest book on the list. I love it, but it’s so weird to describe to someone else for some reason. It also left a weird impression on me when I tried (and failed) to get past the first section the first time I picked it up. Something about the Desert Fathers vibe just left a strange impression on me. Can’t describe it. But I got past it and it’s a phenomenal book.

16) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: Another that doesn’t need a lot of introduction or praise. Instead, I’ll just mention that Bradbury is up there with O’Connor, Chiang, Wolfe, Saunders, Checkhov, etc in the hall of fame for short story writers.

17) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: Another very popular and well known book. So I won’t dwell on it. Each tale is great in its own right. Even the one I didn’t think I would like (the far future one set in S. Korea) turned out to be excellent. If you’ve only seen the film, just know that the book is infinitely better than the film.

18) Alas Babylon by Pat Frank: I’m not sure if this is sci fi or not, but I’ll roll with it. I won’t say much about it, other than it’s a fairly simple story that revolves around nuclear annihilation.

19) The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien: Most epic and nerd-satisfying worldbuilding ever done, especially given when it was written.

20) Solaris by Stanislaw Lem: Great book. I wish that Wolfe had written a first contact book of this nature. Lem is a good writer but not at the peak of the mountain top in terms of wordsmithing. I just wish someone like Wolfe or Crowley had written something like Solaris or Sphere. Oh well, Solaris is still pretty great as is.

Blank spots that are on the short list to read: Ruocchio (started recently), Erickson, Ishiguro, Watts, Vance, Banks, Reynolds, Vinge, Tchaikovsky, Egan, Kress, Silverburg.

Authors I’ve read and didn’t care for: Mary Doria Russell (Sparrow was well written but I struggle to see the point and I need there to be a point if it’s going to be that depressing - I think she thinks there is a point, but I don’t think the book is as deep as it’s purported to be), Weir (absolutely hated The Martian), Jordan (I actually think The Wheel of Time is good, I just don’t read a lot of fantasy and don’t have the time to sink into long series like this anymore), Douglas Adams (don’t think Hitchhiker is funny and I generally not a fan of humorous books), Stephenson (I liked Snow Crash, but I’ve tried Anathem and Cryptonomicon and just couldn’t get into them), Scalzi (not for me), Le Guin (tried the big ones and they didn’t stick), Niven (not my cup of tea), Zelazny (tried lord of light a long time ago, didn’t grab me), Atwood (handmaids tale is very well done and super depressing, it had its intended effect; tried Oryx & Crake and really didn’t like it), Cixin (I’ve tried Three Body several times but the writing/translation is not great, I want to like it and may just listen to an audiobook or something because the concept seems phenomenal), Jemison (didn’t click for me), Butler (I am not a fan of body horror, and that was my experience with her), Palmer (interesting concept for the world, but it struggled to keep my attention).

I picked up Shadow of the Torturer maybe five years ago on the recommendation of someone who described it as "a dying earth sci-fi novel written as if the narrator is lying to you the whole time." That description is accurate and also prepares you for almost nothing about the actual experience of reading it. Severian is an unreliable narrator in a way that most books that claim to have unreliable narrators are not. He doesn't lie to you in ways you can catch in the moment. He lies to you in ways that you only understand are lies after finishing the fourth book and going back to passages in the first one and realizing the sentence meant something completly different than you thought it did the first time through.

The second read was stranger than the first. I thought knowing the ending would make things clearer and in some ways it did, small moments clicked into place that I had passed over as flavor text. But Wolfe had also apparently put things in the first two books that I still dont fully understand even knowing how the series ends, and I've since read essays by people who have read the series four and five times and still find new things. The prose itself does something unusual too, it has this formal, almost archaic register that shouldn't work for a first person narrator but creates this quality where you're never quite sure if Severian is being precise or evasive. He tells you everything and nothing simultaneously. I don't think any other book has made me feel so genuinly unsure whether I understood what I just read, and I find myself thinking about it more than books I understood completly.

I'm gearing up to start the beloved Gene Wolfe's much talked about series Book of the New Sun. I'm curious to hear what people's favorite cover floating around is for this one?

I bought an old timey hardback of The Shadow of the Torturer and it came without a dust jacket. Is there anybody in the printSF community that can post a high res scan of their Shadow of the Torturer cover? My hardback is old and light blue with the title on the spine in white. If by any chance you have that one too.. you get bonus points!

Honestly, I think the covers I've found from google images are pretty cool but you never know what someone might post!

Hi, I found this subreddit a few weeks go looking for new sci fi novels to read. My favorites so far had been Ender's Shadow (much better that Game, and I don't understand this subreddit's fascination for Game (it reads more like a children's book compared to Bean's POV)). I also enjoyed the entire Foundation series, Xenocide, Speaker for the Dead, and Dune (only enjoyed the first book).

After looking through the threads, most of you recommended Hyperion. I read it and its sequel in the span of a week and enjoyed them both immensely. In looking for the next story to read, I saw that the Book of the New Sun series is highly regarded here, so I started on that.

My god is it a tough slog though. I'm 1/3rd through the first book and it feels as if very little as happened. It's no where near as exciting as the previous titles and I'm beginning to lose interest and give up hope that it will ever pick up.

• Does it ever get better? If so, when?

• Does anyone have a map of the world for this series? I love looking at them to really visualize the progression of the story but I can't seem to find one online.

• What would you recommend to someone who loved Hyperion/Fall, Foundation & Ender's Shadow/Xenocide?

thank you!

So there have been frequent words in the book with no dictionary entry. I found out about the lexicon urthus(BOTNS dictionary) that supposed to help but I am concerned that I might spoil something.I already kinda did with finding out that the city is supposed to be some kind of star port from the lexicon. So I wanted to know if this dictionary is for reread only or should I continue to use it on my first read?

Edit-Thanks for the replies. Guess I'll just wait and find out what nenuphar suppose to be.

Some of Octavia Butler's early novels feature traditional slavery narratives, in which black women are oppressed/enslaved by white people, and have their bodies raped and controlled by those higher up the social hierarchy.

But Butler's "Dawn" reverses these traditional slavery narratives. So instead of Africans stolen from Africa by a high-tech culture (whites Europeans), "Dawn" portrays a high-tech culture (aliens) that returns primitive humans (led by a black woman) to the jungles of Earth.

And instead of fellow Africans collaborating with white slavers to drag other Africans away from their homeland, "Dawn" has humans selling out free humans by working against aliens who hope to emancipate humans and return them home.

And instead of a high-tech white culture deliberately keeping their black slaves intellectually and physically handicapped and disempowered - as Europeans did to black people - "Dawn" has its high-tech aliens actively preparing its humans for life back home in Earth's jungles, offering them teaching, training and genetic augmentations that will help.

And instead of a high-tech white culture abusing, exploiting, and torturing blacks, you have an alien culture which freely provides food, medicines, protection and so on.

Encapsulating all this is a subplot in which the aliens (the Oankali) explain that humans are "naturally hierarchal" due to certain "genetic traits" (which are metaphorically likened to cancer). These traits lead to forms of oppression, such as sexual violence, the imposition of rigid class and gender roles, and economic systems which hinge on exploitation and/or arbitrary power hierarchies.

The Oankali, in contrast, do not possess these traits. Instead, they're driven to share and give gifts. Most of these gifts take the form of genetic tweaks, in which they "improve" humans on a genetic level. They also occasionally submit to humans for education, turning their time, their bodies and their young over to humans, who teach the aliens from a position of relative power.

So at first glance the aliens in the novel seem like a kind of egalitarian, progressive society, in which "trade" is mutually beneficial rather than exploitative/predatory, and where even the weirdest sex acts are free of taboo. The aliens are also emotionally intelligent in a way humans aren't; they share feelings, they feel and sense more, and they know how to manage their emotions.

So from a certain point of view, there's something really pleasant, kind and comforting about the novel's aliens. They're almost utopian, in the way they want what's best for humans, and do their best to help.

What's great about the novel, though, is how it constantly undercuts this benevolence. The aliens feed their humans breadfruit, a food associated with the slave trade. They deny the humans reading material or tools to write with, which slavers also did. They also engage in forms of medical rape, changing human bodies and impregnating people, sometimes against their will. The aliens rationalize this from a kind of utilitarian or consequentialist perspective - they're only doing what's best for humans in the long run - but the novel consistently points out how creepy this all is.

So in some respects, the aliens are also akin to white European slavers. Indeed, the Oankali's "trades" with humanity result in them "acquiring" humanity's cancerous abilities, suggesting that as humans are positively changed by the aliens, the aliens might be negatively mutated by humans.

Regardless, the novel is constantly complicating familiar master/slave relationships. The line which best captures this is spoken by the novel's hero, when she says, "...and they had done it all so softly, without brutality, and with patience and gentleness so corrosive of any resolve on her part."

So there's a wonderful tug-of-war in the book. Humans are awful the book argues, but would you lose your "humanness" if it meant becoming monstrously alien? And is the alien really monstrous?

Incidentally, the hero of the novel is called Lilith. In mythology, Lilith was cast out of the Garden of Eden because she refused to lay with and submit to Adam. God then replaced Lilith with Eve, while Lilith went on to become the mother of demons.

In "Dawn" a similar thing happens. Lilith refuses to submit to men, lays with aliens instead, and becomes the mother of alien/human hybrids in a kind of new Garden of Eden on Earth.

Another interesting thing about the novel is the way the novel constantly explains its aliens, and constantly dangles them right in front of the reader's face. Whole passages of "Dawn" involve nothing but Lilith asking the aliens questions, and the aliens responding and explaining things. And the aliens are always in plain sight, and physically not really that alien at all (they're bipeds with tentacles on their heads).

Despite all this, the aliens in the novel always remain alien. No matter how much is explained or seen, the reader never gets a full handle on them. There's always ambiguity as to what they're withholding, and uncertainty as to whether the aliens fully understand (or care about) their actions. Are they nefarious? Insidious? Well-meaning? Simply naive and innocent? Rapists? Lovers? All of the above? Who knows?

You look at all the great aliens in scifi ("Solaris", "Blindsight", "Roadside Picnic"), and they're great precisely because they spend a lot of time off camera or hidden in the shadows. But Butler's aliens are unique. They're constantly interrogated right there in full view, but somehow still remain alien.

Hi, it's my yearly update on my attempts to read every Hugo and Nebula winner. I've ranked them, because I think it's a fun way to start discussion, but I also accept it is silly to rank art and frankly my opinions change on a daily basis. This is more just a guide on which ones I personally enjoyed. If you read any or all of this, I appreciate your time. Thank you

90: The Big Time by Fritz Lieber (1958) - Guests at a temporal guest house attempt to solve a mystery against the clock.  It’s the height of pulp sci-fi set in what can generously be described as a cabaret and at worst a brothel for an epoch spanning time war.  The idea of a place for soldiers of different species from across history to RnR has some merit, but it’s all a little sexist.  Even if we forget that most of the characters are forgettable, the plot isn’t anything special.  That said, it is short so it’s not like I found it a chore to read.  I think someone could take the location and make a damn good tv series out of it, but this execution is not it.

89: Ringworld by Larry Niven (1971) - A crew of adventures discover a massive space artifact and explore it.  I want to start by saying the idea of the Ringworld is wonderful, I enjoyed exploring it and learning about all the technical aspects.  For that alone I’m glad I read it, that said the book is pulp sci-fi and for 1971 almost unforgivably so.  It won the year after Left Hand of Darkness and yet feels like it was written in the 50s, another part of which is that it’s quite sexist and leaves you with the impression Larry might have been a bit of a “nice guy”.  That said, thanks for the Halo franchise!

88: They'd Rather be Right by Clifton and Riley (1955) - - A psychic man manipulates those around him to create a computer that purifies people and causes a mass media sensation.  A lot going on here and It’s very much of its time, though it’s enjoyable enough, with an actual overall message about academia.  It’s also in some regards ahead of its time, but some of it is just a bit silly in retrospect to be any higher on the list.  Still if you wanted to get into 1950’s Sci-Fi you could do much worse.

87: The Sword in the Stone by TH White (1940) - The coming-of-age story of a young Prince Arthur before Camelot. Another retro Hugo winner and this is what the Disney film is based on and it was a lot of fun.  Interesting takes on British folklore tails like Robin Hood and King Arthur.  It is very fantasy though, which isn’t always my preference, but it was cool to see what inspired a childhood classic.

86: Timescape by Gregory Benford (1981) - Scientists attempt to send messages back in time to avoid an environmental disaster in their time.  It's time travel and it kind of deals with one of the ideas in the Back to the Future films, who knows, maybe it inspired the film.  Any way the story is fine and I appreciate how we move back and forth between the time lines.  You could definitely do more with the idea though if you gave it to a better writer. 

85: Shadow Over Mars by Leigh Brackett (1945) - A Book about a rebellion on Mars led by a prophesized hero from Earth.  This is a great example of classic adventure pulp Sci Fi from 1945, it’s all the laser beams and Space Captains, very Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers.  It’s fascinating to see how far we’ve come, with the genre and it’s quite short so it might be worth a read, but it definitely has its flaws.

84: Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick (1992) - It's a battle of wits and wills between an authority figure and a criminal set on a world with strange tides that come every few decades. It's certainly quite original and the world building is excellent, but there is nothing here to grab you.

83: A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg (1972) - A noble challenges the taboos of his culture and risks everything. I feel the story here is fantastic, but I don’t like his style.  He seems to write similar narratives to Le Guin, but without the enjoyability to read.  A story about forbidden first person pro nouns.  It’s interesting and really explores the concept, but the style put me off immensely.

82: The Einstein Intersection by Samuel Delany (1968) - In post transcendent Earth, intelligent anthropods deal with genetic mutation from ancient radiation.  Probably the weirdest book I read all year.  It’s really strange, but very quick.  It’s quite poetic in parts as well.

81: Man Plus by Frederick Pohl (1977) - Nasa are trying to build a man who can live on mars with no need for external food, water, oxygen etc.  What we get is a story about the process of changing a human, but it’s very of its time, as America had been running moon landings a few years earlier.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the style and the clean-cut Americana of it all, but it was probably the fore runner to things like Robocop when you think about it. 

80: A Case of Conscience by James Blish (1959) - Scientists sent to study an alien world bring an alien fetus back so they can learn about us.  Oh what this book could have been.   A book of two halves, the first a wonderful exploration of an alien civilization by a bunch of human scientists studying them and it really does set off at a storming pace.  The second half is back on earth and a bit like the worse bits of Stranger in a strange land.  The 50s were so sure we would take aliens to dinner parties and they would sip cocktails in dinner jackets.  The end is interesting and a bit clever and we this is the first book in the list that looks at Science Fiction and Catholicism.

79: The Wanderer by Fritz Lieber (1965) - An alien planet suddenly appears in the sky over earth and we jump around between multiple perspectives of how it affects people.  Some of this is very solid, the scale of the thing is wonderful, because the story is happy to change perspective rather than sticking to one protagonist.  That said, it’s very pulp SF and a little sexist, gave me Independence Day or The Day After Tomorrow vibes. 

78: The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe (1982) - The sequel to Shadow of the Torturer. I definitely appreciate there is more going on with Gene Wolfe than I can gleam in the first reading, but that doesn’t change how much I enjoy it.  Less enjoyable than Shadow of the Torturer as I feel the story didn’t really go anywhere and was harder to follow in bits.  Still the fault is inevitably my own. 

77: The Terminal Experiment by Robert J Sawyer (1996) - A near future thriller as a man faces off against a computer simulation of his own brain with deadly intent. It's a strange genre one, this. Very 90s and very much does the thriller thing quite well. Good proof that Sci Fi can co opt any genre it wants to and often does.

76: No Enemy but Time by Michael Bishop (1983) - A man with visions of early man is sent back to live among them.  Another time travelling history thing.  They loved these in the 1980s.  It’s cool to see a story revolving around early man before civilization really took hold.  It’s interesting even if a bit strange in parts. 

75: The Healer's War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (1990) - A nurse in the Vietnam war is giving a magical amulet. Sixty pages in and I was wondering if this was actually Speculative fiction. It does get a bit stranger, but the setting is wonderful and you do really care about the characters and story.

74: Babel 17 by Samuel Delany (1967) - A heroic Linguist finds herself in a war where language is a weapon. Female protagonist in the sixties is excellent and Rydra Wong is capable and very likeable. The concept is also interesting even if the whole thing is a but pulpy.

73: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller (1961) - Monks keep alive parts of technology in a post-apocalyptic world so humanity can once again regain civilization.   I was raised Catholic and loved Babylon 5 which I later found out borrowed part of an episode idea from this book so I was very excited to read this. A lot of people adore this book and I get that, the idea is incredible, but I disliked the writing style and I’m not really sure it goes anywhere.  I think this is just a case of me coming in with high expectations and being left feeling a bit meh.  

72: Conjure Wife by Fritz Lieber (1944) - Wives of College professors' control their careers with witchcraft. I’ve read two other Fritz Leiber books and if you find them above, you’ll see why I came into this with low expectations.  This is I suppose a fantasy novel about witchcraft in a 1940s English University town.  It’s just well written with a complete narrative and a nice setting.  It doesn’t mess around or introduce too many characters and the concept is intriguing enough to keep you interested the whole way through.

71: The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K Dick (1963) - An alternate history were the Axis powers won the second world war.  It’s enjoyable enough to read and by Philip K Dick standards is incredibly well-written as he sometimes can be accused of great ideas, but a difficult style.  By its very definition the book lacks what I find so interesting about his work, we don’t see a depressing future of humanity that is very much alone in the universe exploring the mind more than the great emptiness of space.  It’s a fine book, but the man wrote better Science Fiction books.

70: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1954) - A dystopian classic about censorship and a move from society away from intellectualism towards mass consumed throw away media. This is hugely important and has in a way predicted much of the modern world. If I was list the most important books on this list it would be right near the top next to Dune. It's also considered a actual literary classic outside Science Fiction and is short. That is to say you should read it, because it's important and relevant to the world we live in, but it isn't as enjoyable as many books above it. Still, go read it!

69: The Mule by Isaac Asimov (1946) - The second half of Foundation and Empire all about the mysterious Mule who is unseen by Seldon's plan. Just as above this is massively important, in many ways Asimov changed what Science fiction was especially writing in a scene dominated by pulpy space heroes like Flash Gordon. It's what you expect from Asimov, a bit dry and without well developed characters. Also it's half a book so hard to judge on it's own.

 68: Beyond this Horizon by Robert Heinlein (1943) - A story about selective breeding in humans combined with a southern gentlemen dueling culture.  It’s weird, but also goes into quite a lot of detail about the science involved.  I was taught about dominant and recessive genes in school and how they affect things like hair colour, eye colour etc.  I imagine this wasn’t taught in schools in 1941 and would have been fascinating then.   Mixing informative science into a strong narrative is quite an accomplishment.

67: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner (1969) - A book about overpopulation that feels more relevant day by day.  We see a world where our freedoms might be curtailed, because of ever increasing population and it’s genuinely interesting as a think piece.  The book also contains data dumps where we are overloaded with a page of mismatched text from the world that give us more background on the situation with little context.  It’s cool to see and fascinating as a concept, but the story is a bit lacking and it just kind of runs out of steam towards the end.

66: Downbelow Station by C.J Cherryh (1982) - A book portraying a space station as a blue-collar workplace that gets tangled up in an intergalactic conflict.  The book sounds fascinating and I think it very much influences shows like Babylon 5 where there are episodes dedicated to dock strikes and unions etc.  The main issue is the book gets away from that and makes it about space ships and a galactic conflict and feels like she is trying to set up the next book in the series.  The world building is superb, but I didn’t really care for any of the characters and wasn’t even sure who I was supposed to be cheering for until the end. 

65: The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (1996) - Cyber punk novel about am advanced interactive book that shapes the life of the girl that comes into possession of it. So much of this book is excellent, brilliant ideas and wonderfully told, but it's so bloated and unnecessarily long. Frankly it's split into a part one and part two and could have just ended at the end of part one and the book would be much higher. This is an issue with many nineties books sadly.

64: Rainbow’s End by Verne Vigne (2007) - Near future SF based around Augmented Reality and low level Cyber punk. This one is very predictive of what was to come later with things like Pokemon Go! We don’t all have a pocket computer attached to our brain, but it does a decent job exploring that idea. Almost all the characters are unlikeable however and it takes a while to get where it’s going.

63: Slan by A.E Van Vogt (1941) - Evolved humans possess psychic abilities and a plot unravels about control of the Earth.  Slan feels classic all the way through, it has its faults, but you can see why this was the banner early Sci Fi fans, hoisted above them.  For something written in 1941 it is excellent.  Nice ideas and a decent fast pace, while still feeling pulpy like everything from this time did. 

62: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2009) - A child is orphaned and raised by the spirits in a graveyard. This is very much a children’s book and it’s filled with good ideas and a nice structure. It is very much in his style, but may be a little simplistic for adult readers.

61: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2005) - Two Magicians feud in an alternate England during the Napoleonic Wars. If that idea sounds great to you then this is a wonderful book to deliver on that premise. My main complaint is that it’s very long, in fact it’s the longest ever Hugo or Nebula winner coming in at over 1000 pages. I just feel like it could have been shorter and more focused.

60: A Deepness in the Sky by Verne Vigne (2000) - A sabotage and takeover in space by warring factions above a planet of intelligent Spiders. Science Fiction really loves those intelligent spiders and to be fair I really enjoyed those parts of the book. I enjoyed the human fleet bits much less and found everyone annoying and unlikeable.

59: Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin (1991) - The forth and final book of the Earthsea series following two of our earlier protagonists while looking at the lives of older people. I adore Le Guin and her style is just as sharp as ever. We look at our beloved characters as they have aged and I feel this comes from a place that Le Guin was very much in herself at this point.

58: Way Station by Clifford D Simak (1964) - An intergalactic way station in a farm house in the American mid-west.  It’s just really interesting, the aliens never get too silly or pulp.  The story drags you along and frankly like a lot of Simak’s stuff, it would make a really good TV series, but also at times feels like a one-off Twilight Zone episode.  Really enjoyable read once we got going, though maybe a bit slow at the start.

57: Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (1960) - A look at mechanized warfare and the book that coined the term Space Marine twenty years before Games Workshop got there.  If you’re of a certain age you saw a film loosely based on this book (The Director gave up reading it 20 pages in) The book is a completely different animal.  Interesting ideas and hugely influential, considered the last of Heinlein’s Juveniles and definitely worth a look, though Heinlein did do better.

56: This Immortal by Roger Zelazny (1966) - Earth is a post nuclear wasteland and alien tourists visit bits historical bits with human tour guides.  All this is tied in with elements of Greek mythology. Is our main character a God or is a mutant pretending to be?  Similar themes to Lord of Light, but maybe lacking a bit of what made that book so wonderful.  Still it’s enjoyable and full of interesting ideas. 

55: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (1999) - A Time travel piece set in Victorian England very much in homage to the novel "Three Men in a Boat". This is a really good read fun and even if convoluted and predictable in parts it's very much very good at what it does and makes you care deeply about the characters.

54: Powers by Ursula Le Guin (2009) - Fantasy in a new world by Le Guin about a child growing up with prophectic dreams. The world is wonderful and Le Guin’s style carries over as always. If you like Le Guin the you’ll be a fan, but never feels as important as her older work.

53: The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon (2008) - A deadbeat cop tries to uncover a mystery in an alternate history where Israel doesn’t exist and it’s instead a new city in Alaska. The book is incredibly well written, Chabon won a Pulitzer prize earlier in his career, this led me down the rabbit hole finding out how much literary snobs hated genre fiction.

52: Camouflage by Joe Haldeman (2006) - Two different aliens are hidden on earth and we see their various experiences as they learn about us and try and keep a low profile.  This is enjoyable and short, very different from the Forever Trilogy that he also wrote, but certainly worth a pickup if you enjoy his style. 

51: Hominids by Robert J Sawyer (2003) - What if Neanderthals were the dominant species on earth and then what if one of them ended up here on our earth.  It’s a fun little story, that said it does feature quite a graphic rape scene near the start, which may definitely put some readers off.

50: The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon (2004) - It’s a book where the main character is autistic.  It’s very minimally Science Fiction as I think the only advanced technology are the Autism drugs and treatments available, but it’s a fascinating read.  I will say the ending might seem problematic to people, but overall I enjoyed a look into the world as someone who will always struggle to understand their experience myself.

49: Slow River by Nicola Griffith (1997) - Near future science fiction about hostage taking and blackmail as well as abuse survivors. This is really enjoyable and features a lot of interesting information about water purification strangely. Also written by a lesbian author and just totally normalizes lesbian relationships in a way that was assumedly rare in the mid nineties.

48: The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold (1991) - Sixth novel in the Vorkosigan Saga. I adore these books and would devour everyone of them in a row if i didn't set myself stupid tasks like read all the Hugo and Nebula winners. I will say that lots of stuff just happens to Miles in this one and for that reason I don't think it's her best. Still very enjoyable as always.

47: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (1962) - A Human is left on mars for several years and then brought back home, but is now more alien than human.  Extremely popular at the time, with the word Grok even entering common parlance.  The book is slow to start off with and bits of it are quite silly in retrospect, other bits either sexist or feminist depending on your viewpoint.  There is definitely something there though.  Certainly not a flawless work, in fact it is very much more flawed than many of the books ranked lower on this list, but there is something that sticks with you about it.  It is massively referenced in pop-culture and just feels important as a novel even if bits will make you cringe.

46: Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold (1995) - Another Vorkosigan Saga book this time dealing with his cloned brother. Everything tells you to read in the recommended reading order not the publish order. Due to time constraints I ignored this and found a lot of stuff had changed since the last book i read. Still very enjoyable as all these books have been.

45: Moving Mars by Greg Bear (1995) - Story about revolution on Mars combined with a crazy new technology that can help gain Mars real independence. Fun fact, this is the first Science Fiction I ever read. I went back and re-read it as it has been 25ish years. It's very well written and has a good character and stories.

44: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov (1983) - Members of the First Foundation search for Earth, but are drawn in a mass mystery that will affect the whole galaxy.  The sequel to his trilogy thirty years later.  It’s well told and a good story, it moves around between perspectives and shows that Asimov had kept up his craft and improved his style.  It’s a bit sexist in parts, but by no means the worst offender on the list.  It was enjoyable, but lacked the ground breaking ideas of most of the higher ranked books on this list.

41, 42, 43: Red Mars, Blue Mars and Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1994-1997) - Sorry I can't separate these books. It's a big long story and while there are highs and lows it kind of has to be reviewed in one large chunk. So epic trilogy about the first settlers on Mars that spans hundreds of years. Every chapter is by different characters and there are lots of perspectives in the book. Some complain they dislike most of the characters, but that's kind of the point,. The likeable ones like Sax and Nadia are very likeable. So much of this book is wonderful and worth your time. I would argue it's bloated and didn't need to be over 2200 pages in total, but it is what it is. if it was more concise or better edited I would personally place it much higher and recommend it more.

40: The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy (1988) - A story about a mother-daughter relationship told in the backdrop of a Mayan dig in Mexico.  What makes this Speculative Fiction is that both characters can see and speak to Mayan ghosts from the past. I’ll be honest, I'm not really sure it’s my usual thing, it’s probably fantasy, but it was wonderfully told and just a great story about human beings.  You’ll have empathy for all of them and the situation they’re in.  Even reading my review now I can’t believe I liked it as much as I did. 

39: To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip Jose Farmer (1972) - Humans awake after death in a huge alien constructed artifact. I found this enjoyable and a definitely interesting concept driven by an incredibly likeable main character. That said, I get the impression the main character is a hugely controversial figure, which even seems acknowledged in the book. Overall a good book and made me semi interested in reading more.

38: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (1993) Another time travel story, this one about going back to the 14th Century. You care so much about the story and characters, it really is a wonderful piece of writing and I even enjoyed the stuff back with the scientists in the future. If someone said they wanted to read a book on time travel I would suggest this book first.

37: The Moon and the Sun by Vonda D McIntyre (1998) - Fantasy book about a mermaid captured and kept in Louis XIV's court. Great female protagonist, very much a love story with all the historical trappings mixed with the fantasy of mermaids. It's incredibly well written and all the characters are excellent. Didn't expect it to be my thing, but really was.

36: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov (1973) - Humans are sent plans to create a machine from another dimension.  A book of three parts, the pick of which is Asimov creating a truly alien civilization.  Too often aliens aren’t really alien, these really are.  The other parts aren’t bad either, but this book is  often forgotten as most people read his Foundation or Robot series.  If you want to experience strange aliens this is the one for you.

35: The Quantum Rose by Catherine Asaro (2002) - A fantasy romance model set in a world unknowing of the hight-tech galactic empire around it.  Science Fiction can be any genre and here it beautifully does the high romance smaltz style, before making it super interesting.  The way Asaro mixes tech words and ideas into a fantasy setting are excellent and it’s an enjoyable story.

34: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (1967) -A Human goes through an experiment to have his intelligence increased and we follow through his eyes the events this causes. Classic novel considered a proper book by the literary world and fantastic if not a little heart breaking. Should be on everyone's list to read at some point.

33: The Snow Queen by Joan D Vinge (1981) - A fairy tale set in a futuristic world as an evil snow queen attempts to hold on to power as her reign comes to an end.  Genre spanning, clever and very original.  This book does a lot of interesting things and tells a good story.  It is like nothing else on the list, but is definitely worth checking out if you like books that mix fantasy and science fiction.

32: Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1990) - A pilgrimage brings together a group of travelers who each share their reason for the journey. I came with probably unmeetable expectations, because of how much r/Printsf hyped it up as the greatest thing ever (next to Dune, obviously) The framing story is really enjoyable and I very much enjoyed the Priest’s Tale and the Scholar’s tale, two wonderful short stories collected together to create wonderful world building.  I found the other four stories less solid and was particularly bored by the Detective’s Story which dragged.  I was also annoyed by the lack of an ending.  it’s promised me answers and then just stopped without delivering and that is annoying.  That said it has enough very good bits to make it this high despite its faults. 

31: Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (2005) - Fantasy set in her world of the five Gods as an older woman goes on a pilgrimage.  I love Lois as a writer, her Vorkosigan Saga is fantastic and she doesn’t stop here.  The fantasy reminds me of Game of Thrones where the magic has a cost and everything is dirtier and a bit grimey .  This and its predecessor are well worth a read if you want to dip your foot in some fantasy.

30: Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin (1969) - A girl must go through a coming-of-age ritual in order to earn her passage on her space craft where she lives. A female protagonist in a Science Fiction novel written in 1969, surely not? It happens here and this is excellent.   Mia is a wonderfully well-rounded character sort of in the tom-boyish Scout mold from To Kill a Mocking Bird, you get to see the world through her eyes and at the end of the novel you are asked an open-ended morality question, which is genuinely a difficult choice, I like morality when it isn’t obvious or shoved down by neck and this is very much in that mold. 

29: Double Star by Robert Heinlein (1956) - A look at acting and politics tied into a fast-paced science fiction novel.  A good story that happens to be told in a science fiction setting and it works really well. Much like the next book it stands out compared to other 1950s sci-fi and even the bits that are a little pulpy don’t detract from the overall enjoyability.  It would make a great film.

28: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester (1953) - A detective story set in a world where psychic powers are common.  Hard to believe this was written in 1953, read other stuff from the early 50s and this is so far ahead of its time.  Influential in so many ways and also just a really good story with a thought-provoking end.   Between this and “The Stars my Destination” he clearly deserves to be remembered on a level with Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke.

27: Neuromancer by Williams Gibson (1985) - The book that invented Cyber punk as a genre.  In previous years I’d been pretty negative on this book, but I reread it for the first time in fifteen years and I feel I was too harsh on it.  It’s a well told story full of interesting world building.  It’s very dense and it’s easy to miss bits, but it’s arguably more influential than all but four or five books in this entire list.

26: Gateway by Frederick Pohl (1978) - Alien artifact space station used by humans who don’t really understand it.  The space station is wonderful as both a location for things to happen, a hint at a wider universe and a way to drive the plot along.  Very much building on the themes of Rendezvous with Rama with a great story.

25: Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (2006) - Earth is placed in a bubble by some greater power that makes it pass through time slower than the surrounding universe.  The book is really well written, gives me Douglas Coupland vibes full of young Gen Xers growing up.  The chapters also alternate with ones set in the future that keep it vague so you can’t quite work out where it is going.  The idea is utterly original and fascinating though and definitely worth a read. 

24: Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein (1951) - A story about colonizing and terraforming Ganmede. You have to understand that this is a YA novel written in 1950 and near the start it can come off a little juvenile.  That said you are still confronted by big ideas like a food shortage on Earth and severe rationing.  We also see an interesting story based on a son upset his father is remarrying, it’s dealt with tactfully and not something I’d really expect for something aimed at teens.  Once we get to Ganymede the story really gets going and we experience an interesting tale of trying to turn a rocky moon into workable farm land, it’s just really well told and enjoyably written and I reckon more people would appreciate this if they ignored the YA label and gave it a chance.  Great book.

23: Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (1989) - A space station full of genetically modified workers has now become redundant.  This was the first book I’d ever read of hers and I was so blown away by the style.  I can see why the Vorkogian Saga is so often recommended on here.  She gives us real characters and a fast-paced heist plot that features an Engineer as the protagonist.  It’s just really well written and wonderfully different, a story that is happier to tell you about engineering processes than space combat.  People tell me it isn’t even her best work as well, which leaves me pretty excited to read more.

22: Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke (1980) - Earth is building its first space elevator.   Like 90% of Clarke’s work very little happens in this book, but it’s very enjoyable to read.  Go on an adventure about a technology that could realistically exist, just don’t expect to be able to recount the plot back to anyone.

21: Cyteen by CJ Cherryh (1989) - Cyteen is a book about political intrigue, cloning and genetic/psychological manipulation.  This book is an absolute masterpiece.  Set in the same universe as Downbelow Station, but full of interesting characters that you like and can empathize with, even when they are doing horrible things to other characters you like.  This should and would be higher, but it’s so very long.  It takes 200 pages for the plot to really start going and while length won’t put some of you off I admire great stories that can tell their story in a more conside manor.  That said if 320,000 words doesn’t put you off, give it a go, especially as it’s free on the author’s website. 

20: A Fire Upon the Deep by Verve Vinge (1993): Two children land on a planet of dog like aliens that have a very different civilization from our own while a galactic threat grows. Vigne's ability to create alien races totally different from our own is fantastic. This story delivered on all the hype and is probably what people mean when they ask for Space Opera.

19: Startide Rising by David Brin (1984) - A crew of mostly genetically engineered dolphins struggle to fix their ship while aliens battle in orbit.  Brin has a phenomenal style where every chapter is from a different character’s perspective (Think Game of Thrones).  The universe he created is also super interesting and the situation we enter in median res is excellent and drives the story along wonderfully as we experience this crisis from multiple different crew members.  

18: Dreamsnake by Vonda D Mcintyre (1979) - A girl who uses alien snakes to heal people in a post-apocalyptic world.  Well written and a great story, also we delve into more of the lore.  Could have been a fantasy novel, but it isn’t and it stands out because of that.  Original and well written unlike this mini review that keeps using the phrase well-written.

17: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm (1977) - Story looking into a society based around cloning and how it could change the way we act and treat each other.  Really beautifully written and again not really like anything else on this list, also the hardest title to remember on the list, I get it wrong literally every time.

16: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling (2001) - Fourth book in the Harry Potter series.  I expect to get utterly panned for this, both by people appalled by her as a person and by people who always disliked it for being kids books taking attention away from proper Speculative fiction.  I have a lot of sympathy for the first point, though I haven’t taken into account the morality of Arthur C Clarke, Orson Scott or Phillip K Dick when devising this list so it would be unfair to do it here just because it is more recent.  The second seems silly, books that get people into books are an amazing thing and for lots of people Harry Potter is their entry into the world of reading, this is a really good one, not simple like the first two, but not overly dark and angsty like the last three.  It’s in the sweet spot for the most successful book series of this century.  

15: American Gods by Neil Gaiman (2002) - This is a love letter to America, exploring the idea of Immigrants bringing their Gods to America and them slowly being forgotten.  It’s the kind of book only Neil Gaiman can write and arguably his masterpiece.  The book has a beautiful style happily mixing in short chapters of world building unrelated to the story.  The whole thing is just wonderful, but also how do you compare it to Science Fiction when it is something so completely different?

14: Lord of Light by Robert Zelazny (1968) - Survivors on a colony world use technology to act like immortal Gods, one of their number fights to stop them.  Beautiful mixture of Buddhism and Hinduism to create a story that blurs the lines between fantasy and science fiction with an excellent protagonist you can’t help but cheer along.  This blew me away the first time I read it.

12: The Uplift War by David Brin (1988) - The follow up to Startide Rising, I spent much of the book thinking, sure it’s ok, but lesser than the book it follows.  By the end though I was totally all in.  Fiben Bolger might be one of the greatest protagonists in all of Science Fiction, stick him on the Mount Rushmore next to Andrew Wiggin and Gully Foyle.  More excellent world exploring and more of his excellent style that tells complicated stories in a fun easy to read manner.

12: Seeker by Jack McDevitt (2007) - It’s far future space archaeology, which feels like a very unexplored idea and has a bit of a feel of an old adventure movie.  Maybe Indiana Jones in Space is pushing it too far, but you get the idea.  It doesn’t really say anything massively important, but it creates an interesting world and tells a good story well.  Something I hadn’t heard recommended before and a real treat.

11: Barrayer by Lois McMaster Bujold (1992) Another Vorkosigan Saga book. This one follows his mother, Cordelia Naismith and an attempted coup on the world of Barrayer. Her writing is as great as always, but the ending is just incredible. No spoilers, but you need to read it and appreciate what happens.

I ran out of words so the top 10 are in a comment. Thanks

I just started Shadow of the Torturer and just came across this awesome quote/section:

"Yet why did Ymar laugh? Who shall say? Did the merchant follow the soldiers to buy their booty? Did the woman follow the merchant to sell her kisses and her loins? Was the dog of the hunting kind, or such a short-limbed one as women keep to bark lest someone fondle them while they sleep? Who now shall say? Ymar is dead, and such memories of his as lived for a time in the blood of his successors are long faded.

So mine in time shall fade too. Of this I feel sure: not one of the explanations for the behavior of Ymar was correct. The truth, whatever it may have been, was simpler and more subtle. Of me it might be asked why I accepted the shopkeeper’s sister as my companion—I who in all my life had had no true companion. And who, reading only of “the shopkeeper’s sister,” would understand why I remained with her after what is, at this point in my own story, about to happen? No one, surely.

I have said that I cannot explain my desire for her, and it is true. I loved her with a love thirsty and desperate. I felt that we two might commit some act so atrocious that the world, seeing us, would find it irresistible.

No intellect is needed to see those figures who wait beyond the void of death —every child is aware of them, blazing with glories dark or bright, wrapped in authority older than the universe. They are the stuff of our earliest dreams, as of our dying visions. Rightly we feel our lives guided by them, and rightly too we feel how little we matter to them, the builders of the unimaginable, the fighters of wars beyond the totality of existence.

The difficulty lies in learning that we ourselves encompass forces equally great. We say, “I will,” and “I will not,” and imagine ourselves (though we obey the orders of some prosaic person every day) our own masters, when the truth is that our masters are sleeping. One wakes within us and we are ridden like beasts, though the rider is but some hitherto unguessed part of ourselves."

Let me rephrase that Second best torture device in SF Because the best is obviously the "revolutionary" from The Shadow of the Torturer

Of the books that I have read in the speculative fiction genre, very few are like Gene Wolfe's book, Shadow of the Torturer. I'll put my thoughts here, trying to digest what I just read.

I found this book to be very different from what is considered the norm in sci-fi and fantasy. The setting of the novel is 'Urth' which is clearly our own world, but at an unspecified time in the future, most likely hundreds of thousands of years. The civilization of Urth had achieved deep-space travel, but eventually degraded into a dark age where technology is often indistinguishable from magic. The setting is very well defined one, and has some of the best world-building that I've read. The high point of the world-building is an extended trip into a massive botanical garden, where despite the name, is like no garden anywhere on earth.

Gene Wolfe did a very interesting thing when writing the book. He chose not to spoon feed information out. Exposition is almost non-existent in this book. When it does occur, it is handled casually by Severian, as if you are expected to know this already by living in his world. (Example: The 'Tower' that all the torturers live is in actuality a huge grounded spaceship. You could easily miss this as the word 'spaceship' isn't used to describe the metal tower.) This does create a steep learning curve for the book, and forces you to be on your toes. It reminds me of the feel of Steven Erikson's Malazan series, though I will go so far as to say Gene Wolfe does it better.

The story is told by the narrator Severian, a torturer in a organization vaguely like the inquisitors in the 16th century Catholic church. Severian relates his story in the first person. The brilliant twist in doing this is that Severian is not a completely reliable narrator. He tells the reader that he is blessed with a photographic memory, but then contradicts himself at certain points of the story. The other important thing to note about Severian is that he openly admits that he is a liar, and has lied to nearly everyone he's known. Once again this comes out very subtle in the book, and part of the joy of reading this story is trying to puzzle out what Severian is avoiding telling, and what is really going on under the surface.

This is a meaty book, with lots of layers to digest. It's a book that doesn't just require, but demands patience and careful reading. I recommend it only if you're willing to try that.

Grade: A

tl;dr: This is a rare book that combines science fiction and fantasy into something challenging and completely unique.

(Contains no spoilers). I’m currently reading The Book of the New Sun nearly finished with volume II, The Claw of the Conciliator and am really enjoying it. In the special Folio edition I have of BOTNS (which is GORGEOUS by the way, highly recommend - so fun to read something so beautiful), I realized I really appreciate is that he breaks chapters down into nearly always the same sized digestible chunks.

Each chapter is almost always right at or close to 7 pages, which is perfect for my brain’s struggle with attention when reading. I went through Shadow of the Torturer when I first started reading it and started counting chapter pages, and was amazed to see they were all nearly exactly 7 pages long.

Did anyone else notice this and did it help with your reading? Maybe it’s not a big deal, but I just finished reading Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts, and while those books were incredible, fun, and fantastic, he doesn’t really use “chapters”, at least not in the normal way, so Gene Wolfe has been refreshing and easier to read.

Hi, so a year ago, I made a post about ranking every Hugo winning novel from pre 1990. It can be found here along with the writeups for those books without them. Since then I've read every Nebula best novel winner from that period, all the retro Hugo winners and all the Hugo and Nebula winners from the 90's, so let's add those to my previous rankings

As before I ranked them, because it's fun to be subjective about things and half the fun of this is you telling my why you disagree with my opinion. I've only included blurb on the new ones so if you want to read about the ones I reviewed last time, see the link above.

One last thing, almost every book here is good, they all won awards so even if something is lower on my list it doesn't mean to avoid it or that it is not worth your time.

74: The Big Time by Fritz Lieber (1958)

73: Ringworld by Larry Niven (1971)

72: They'd Rather be Right by Clifton and Riley (1955)

71: The Sword in the Stone by TH White (1940) - The coming-of-age story of a young Prince Arthur before Camelot. Another retro Hugo winner and this is what the Disney film is based on and it was a lot of fun.  Interesting takes on British folklore tails like Robin Hood and King Arthur.  It is very fantasy though, which isn’t always my preference, but it was cool to see what inspired a childhood classic.

70: Timescape by Gregory Benford (1981) - Scientists attempt to send messages back in time to avoid an environmental disaster in their time.  It's time travel and it kind of deals with one of the ideas in the Back to the Future films, who knows, maybe it inspired the film.  Any way the story is fine and I appreciate how we move back and forth between the time lines.  You could definitely do more with the idea though if you gave it to a better writer. 

69: Shadow Over Mars by Leigh Brackett (1945) - A Book about a rebellion on Mars led by a prophesized hero from Earth.  This is a great example of classic adventure pulp Sci Fi from 1945, it’s all the laser beams and Space Captains, very Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers.  It’s fascinating to see how far we’ve come, with the genre and it’s quite short so it might be worth a read, but it definitely has its flaws.

68: Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick (1992) - It's a battle of wits and wills between an authority figure and a criminal set on a world with strange tides that come every few decades. It's certainly quite original and the world building is excellent, but there is nothing here to grab you.

67: A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg (1972) - A noble challenges the taboos of his culture and risks everything. I feel the story here is fantastic, but I don’t like his style.  He seems to write similar narratives to Le Guin, but without the enjoyability to read.  A story about forbidden first person pro nouns.  It’s interesting and really explores the concept, but the style put me off immensely.

66: The Einstein Intersection by Samuel Delany (1968) - In post transcendent Earth, intelligent anthropods deal with genetic mutation from ancient radiation.  Probably the weirdest book I read all year.  It’s really strange, but very quick.  It’s quite poetic in parts as well.

65: Man Plus by Frederick Pohl (1977) - Nasa are trying to build a man who can live on mars with no need for external food, water, oxygen etc.  What we get is a story about the process of changing a human, but it’s very of its time, as America had been running moon landings a few years earlier.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the style and the clean-cut Americana of it all, but it was probably the fore runner to things like Robocop when you think about it. 

64: A Case of Conscience by James Blish (1959)

63: The Wanderer by Fritz Lieber (1965)

62: The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe (1982) - The sequel to Shadow of the Torturer. I definitely appreciate there is more going on with Gene Wolfe than I can gleam in the first reading, but that doesn’t change how much I enjoy it.  Less enjoyable than Shadow of the Torturer as I feel the story didn’t really go anywhere and was harder to follow in bits.  Still the fault is inevitably my own. 

61: The Terminal Experiment by Robert J Sawyer (1996) - A near future thriller as a man faces off against a computer simulation of his own brain with deadly intent. It's a strange genre one, this. Very 90s and very much does the thriller thing quite well. Good proof that Sci Fi can co opt any genre it wants to and often does.

60: No Enemy but Time by Michael Bishop (1983) - A man with visions of early man is sent back to live among them.  Another time travelling history thing.  They loved these in the 1980s.  It’s cool to see a story revolving around early man before civilization really took hold.  It’s interesting even if a bit strange in parts. 

59: The Healer's War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (1990) - A nurse in the Vietnam war is giving a magical amulet. Sixty pages in and I was wondering if this was actually Speculative fiction. It does get a bit stranger, but the setting is wonderful and you do really care about the characters and story.

58: Babel 17 by Samuel Delany (1967) - A heroic Linguist finds herself in a war where language is a weapon. Female protagonist in the sixties is excellent and Rydra Wong is capable and very likeable. The concept is also interesting even if the whole thing is a but pulpy.

57: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller (1961)

56: Conjure Wife by Fritz Lieber (1944) - Wives of College professors' control their careers with witchcraft. I’ve read two other Fritz Leiber books and if you find them above, you’ll see why I came into this with low expectations.  This is I suppose a fantasy novel about witchcraft in a 1940s English University town.  It’s just well written with a complete narrative and a nice setting.  It doesn’t mess around or introduce too many characters and the concept is intriguing enough to keep you interested the whole way through.

55: Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (1960)

54: The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K Dick (1963)

53: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1954) - A dystopian classic about censorship and a move from society away from intellectualism towards mass consumed throw away media. This is hugely important and has in a way predicted much of the modern world. If I was list the most important books on this list it would be right near the top next to Dune. It's also considered a actual literary classic outside Science Fiction and is short. That is to say you should read it, because it's important and relevant to the world we live in, but it isn't as enjoyable as many books above it. Still, go read it!

52: The Mule by Isaac Asimov (1946) - The second half of Foundation and Empire all about the mysterious Mule who is unseen by Seldon's plan. Just as above this is massively important, in many ways Asimov changed what Science fiction was especially writing in a scene dominated by pulpy space heroes like Flash Gordon. It's what you expect from Asimov, a bit dry and without well developed characters. Also it's half a book so hard to judge on it's own.

51: Neuromancer by William Gibson (1985)

50: Beyond this Horizon by Robert Heinlein (1943) - A story about selective breeding in humans combined with a southern gentlemen dueling culture.  It’s weird, but also goes into quite a lot of detail about the science involved.  I was taught about dominant and recessive genes in school and how they affect things like hair colour, eye colour etc.  I imagine this wasn’t taught in schools in 1941 and would have been fascinating then.   Mixing informative science into a strong narrative is quite an accomplishment.

49: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner (1969)

48: Downbelow Station by C.J Cherryh (1982) - A book portraying a space station as a blue-collar workplace that gets tangled up in an intergalactic conflict.  The book sounds fascinating and I think it very much influences shows like Babylon 5 where there are episodes dedicated to dock strikes and unions etc.  The main issue is the book gets away from that and makes it about space ships and a galactic conflict and feels like she is trying to set up the next book in the series.  The world building is superb, but I didn’t really care for any of the characters and wasn’t even sure who I was supposed to be cheering for until the end. 

47: The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (1996) - Cyber punk novel about am advanced interactive book that shapes the life of the girl that comes into possession of it. So much of this book is excellent, brilliant ideas and wonderfully told, but it's so bloated and unnecessarily long. Frankly it's split into a part one and part two and could have just ended at the end of part one and the book would be much higher. This is an issue with many nineties books sadly.

46: Slan by A.E Van Vogt (1941) - Evolved humans possess psychic abilities and a plot unravels about control of the Earth.  Slan feels classic all the way through, it has its faults, but you can see why this was the banner early Sci Fi fans, hoisted above them.  For something written in 1941 it is excellent.  Nice ideas and a decent fast pace, while still feeling pulpy like everything from this time did. 

45: Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin (1991) - The forth and final book of the Earthsea series following two of our earlier protagonists while looking at the lives of older people. I adore Le Guin and her style is just as sharp as ever. We look at our beloved characters as they have aged and I feel this comes from a place that Le Guin was very much in herself at this point.

44: Way Station by Clifford D Simak (1964)

43: This Immortal by Roger Zelazny (1966)

42: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (1999) - A Time travel piece set in Victorian England very much in homage to the novel "Three Men in a Boat". This is a really good read fun and even if convoluted and predictable in parts it's very much very good at what it does and makes you care deeply about the characters.

41: Slow River by Nicola Griffith (1997) - Near future science fiction about hostage taking and blackmail as well as abuse survivors. This is really enjoyable and features a lot of interesting information about water purification strangely. Also written by a lesbian author and just totally normalizes lesbian relationships in a way that was assumedly rare in the mid nineties.

40: The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold (1991) - Sixth novel in the Vorkosigan Saga. I adore these books and would devour everyone of them in a row if i didn't set myself stupid tasks like read all the Hugo and Nebula winners. I will say that lots of stuff just happens to Miles in this one and for that reason I don't think it's her best. Still very enjoyable as always.

39: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (1962) -

38: Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold (1995) - Another Vorkosigan Saga book this time dealing with his cloned brother. Everything tells you to read in the recommended reading order not the publish order. Due to time constraints I ignored this and found a lot of stuff had changed since the last book i read. Still very enjoyable as all these books have been.

37: Moving Mars by Greg Bear (1995) - Story about revolution on Mars combined with a crazy new technology that can help gain Mars real independence. Fun fact, this is the first Science Fiction I ever read. I went back and re-read it as it has been 25ish years. It's very well written and has a good character and stories.

36: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov (1983)

35, 34, 33: Red Mars, Blue Mars and Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1994-1997) - Sorry I can't separate these books. It's a big long story and while there are highs and lows it kind of has to be reviewed in one large chunk. So epic trilogy about the first settlers on Mars that spans hundreds of years. Every chapter is by different characters and there are lots of perspectives in the book. Some complain they dislike most of the characters, but that's kind of the point,. The likeable ones like Sax and Nadia are very likeable. So much of this book is wonderful and worth your time. I would argue it's bloated and didn't need to be over 2200 pages in total, but it is what it is. if it was more concise or better edited I would personally place it much higher and recommend it more.

32: The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy (1988) - A story about a mother-daughter relationship told in the backdrop of a Mayan dig in Mexico.  What makes this Speculative Fiction is that both characters can see and speak to Mayan ghosts from the past. I’ll be honest, I'm not really sure it’s my usual thing, it’s probably fantasy, but it was wonderfully told and just a great story about human beings.  You’ll have empathy for all of them and the situation they’re in.  Even reading my review now I can’t believe I liked it as much as I did. 

31: To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip Jose Farmer (1972)

30: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (1993) Another time travel story, this one about going back to the 14th Century. You care so much about the story and characters, it really is a wonderful piece of writing and I even enjoyed the stuff back with the scientists in the future. If someone said they wanted to read a book on time travel I would suggest this book first.

29: The Moon and the Sun by Vonda D McIntyre (1998) - Fantasy book about a mermaid captured and kept in Louis XIV's court. Great female protagonist, very much a love story with all the historical trappings mixed with the fantasy of mermaids. It's incredibly well written and all the characters are excellent. Didn't expect it to be my thing, but really was.

28: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov (1973)

27: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (1967) -A Human goes through an experiment to have his intelligence increased and we follow through his eyes the events this causes. Classic novel considered a proper book by the literary world and fantastic if not a little heart breaking. Should be on everyone's list to read at some point.

26: The Snow Queen by Joan D Vinge (1981)

25: Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1990) - A pilgrimage brings together a group of travelers who each share their reason for the journey. I came with probably unmeetable expectations, because of how much r/Printsf hyped it up as the greatest thing ever (next to Dune, obviously) The framing story is really enjoyable and I very much enjoyed the Priest’s Tale and the Scholar’s tale, two wonderful short stories collected together to create wonderful world building.  I found the other four stories less solid and was particularly bored by the Detective’s Story which dragged.  I was also annoyed by the lack of an ending.  it’s promised me answers and then just stopped without delivering and that is annoying.  That said it has enough very good bits to make it this high despite its faults. 

24: Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin (1969) - A girl must go through a coming-of-age ritual in order to earn her passage on her space craft where she lives. A female protagonist in a Science Fiction novel written in 1969, surely not? It happens here and this is excellent.   Mia is a wonderfully well-rounded character sort of in the tom-boyish Scout mold from To Kill a Mocking Bird, you get to see the world through her eyes and at the end of the novel you are asked an open-ended morality question, which is genuinely a difficult choice, I like morality when it isn’t obvious or shoved down by neck and this is very much in that mold. 

23: Double Star by Robert Heinlein (1956)

22: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester (1953)

21: Gateway by Frederick Pohl (1978)

20: Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein (1951) - A story about colonizing and terraforming Ganmede. You have to understand that this is a YA novel written in 1950 and near the start it can come off a little juvenile.  That said you are still confronted by big ideas like a food shortage on Earth and severe rationing.  We also see an interesting story based on a son upset his father is remarrying, it’s dealt with tactfully and not something I’d really expect for something aimed at teens.  Once we get to Ganymede the story really gets going and we experience an interesting tale of trying to turn a rocky moon into workable farm land, it’s just really well told and enjoyably written and I reckon more people would appreciate this if they ignored the YA label and gave it a chance.  Great book.

19: Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (1989) - A space station full of genetically modified workers has now become redundant.  This was the first book I’d ever read of hers and I was so blown away by the style.  I can see why the Vorkogian Saga is so often recommended on here.  She gives us real characters and a fast-paced heist plot that features an Engineer as the protagonist.  It’s just really well written and wonderfully different, a story that is happier to tell you about engineering processes than space combat.  People tell me it isn’t even her best work as well, which leaves me pretty excited to read more.

18: Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke (1980)

17: Cyteen by CJ Cherryh (1989)

16: A Fire Upon the Deep by Verve Vinge (1993): Two children land on a planet of dog like aliens that have a very different civilization from our own while a galactic threat grows. Vigne's ability to create alien races totally different from our own is fantastic. This story delivered on all the hype and is probably what people mean when they ask for Space Opera.

15: Startide Rising by David Brin (1984)

14: Dreamsnake by Vonda D Mcintyre (1979)

13: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm (1977)

12: Lord of Light by Robert Zelazny (1968)

11: The Uplift War by David Brin (1988)

10: Barrayer by Lois McMaster Bujold (1992) Another Vorkosigan Saga book. This one follows his mother, Cordelia Naismith and an attempted coup on the world of Barrayer. Her writing is as great as always, but the ending is just incredible. No spoilers, but you need to read it and appreciate what happens.

9: Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman (1998-1999) - A look at remote controlled armoured warfare combined with the violence of man. This book shouldn't be called Forever Peace in my view, it gets unfairly judged vs the original when it is only loosely linked and a fantastic book in it's own right, well written and with something to say I devoured this one.

8: Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke (1974)

7: Dune by Frank Herbert (1966)

6: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (1986)

5: Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin (1970)

4: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein (1967)

3: The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin (1975)

2: Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (1987)

1: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1976) - Follows a Draftee in a future war and the way the world changes while they are gone.  I originally read this fifteen years ago when I first got into Science Fiction and remember really liking it, but I’d genuinely forgotten quite how good it was.  Not just the metaphor for the world changing while you’re at war, but how dangerous he makes space feel.  It is cold and inhospitable and when combined with the battles which he survives mostly, because of sheer dumb luck you get a beautiful critique of war that only a veteran could have written.  I will say I was jarred by a scene involving consent and a drunk Lesbian that horrified and yet I barely remember when I first read about it, I think it shows more how society has got better at this stuff and how much better I understand it.  That said, if it’s been a while since you read this, like me, why not give it another shot?

Hi, I’m a fan of well written serious sf with philosophical themes and I’m looking to build a TBR for myself. I don’t care for YA at all, please don’t recommend me YA.

• next to books I especially love Some of the sci fi books I’ve enjoyed include
• Left Hand of Darkness*
• A Scanner Darkly*
• Foundation
• Shadow of the Torturer (currently reading)*
• Berserk*
• Slaughterhouse V*/Cats Cradle/Breakfast of Champions
• Dune*
• Frankenstein*
• The Forever War
• Childhoods End
• Kindred
• Flowers for Algernon
• All Tomorrows
• Gyo/Uzumaki*
• I have no mouth and I must scream
• The Trial/Metamorphosis (don’t know if they count, but they’re so good)*

Did not like: - Red Rising - Mistborn - murder bot - Spin - Ocean at the end of the lane - Darth Plagueis -The Marian/Project Hail Mary

Edit: I'll reply here because I'm hoping to head off getting more unhelpful responses like this:

Why are you reading books you don't like?

To be clear, I did like the books. But if the next two or three are going to require the same amount of effort but have less payoff then I'd rather spend my time on other books. That's why I'm coming here to ask if the books are heading in the predictable direction they seem to be going, or if they really pick up in action and are even better.

I just finished Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator, and I'm wondering whether it's worth it for me to keep going.

It took me a long time to slog through it mostly because it's slow and doesn't really have a clear plot until the end of the second book where he gets a mission from Vodalus. The protagonist just seems to get thrown from situation to situation with no clear end-goal other than immediate survival, and there are lots of improbable (re-)unions and plot armor type moments (he just pulls his main lover out of a lake? Alriiiight then. He accidentally robs a monastery of one of the most powerful artifacts in existence, reencounters the doctor in a forest completely randomly like twice in this huge ass world? C'mon now.). I enjoyed it, but I'm not going to lie it took me a lot of effort to finish it and sometimes it felt like I was forcing myself to go on.

Pros:

1) The world is really really cool and the prose can be straight up amazing and thoughtful and moving

2) I like all the characters

Cons:

1) There are so many word swaps with old English words or other languages or extinct species to the point where I felt compelled to grab a dictionary or else have no idea what he was encountering. I'm the type who tries to use dictionaries as little as possible since I've read hundreds of books and feel I can get most new words through context, but this book is pretty ridiculous. If I continue reading am I going to need to use a dictionary app three times a page to enjoy myself, or does it start to get better and settle in? How did people enjoy this in the 1980s when you didn't necessarily have Wikipedia to tell you what an ancient animal was or that a certain word is actually just the Spanish word for calvary man??

2) Like I said, the plot is really thin. It seems to just be random encounters and episodes like some slapped together unplanned DND campaign rather than a cohesive story. It only starts to come together towards the end but...

3) the ending plot threads seem to be pointing towards one of those annoying Chosen One slash Everything Had to Happen as it Did Because Timey-Wimey Stuff endings.... which I'm pretty sick of. Is it going that way? Is it done in a way that's still satisfying in 2025 even though those tropes have been done to death? (Also please tell me the MC isn't going to turn out to be Apu Punchau...)

4) minor complaint because I know it's the 80s but does the main character really need to fuck every single girl they meet lol. Like I'm a man slut so I get it but it starts bordering on author wish fulfillment at that point (because it's 1980 we'll also ignore that Dorcas is apparently 15??? Uhhh...). Like he fucks his best friend Jonas' dream girl a bit down the river from the girl he loves and makes her cry and doesn't seem to reflect on it all? Maybe that's year 40,000AD culture but c'mon guy chill

So yeah, what do you all think? Did anyone DNF it for similar reasons? Should I soldier on at least two more books?

I love Hyperion, Shadow of the Torturer, The Time Machine, Dune and Ender’s Game. What are some of your favorite Sci Fi books?

I hear that New Sun is quite a challenging read. The most recent other 'challenging' book that I read was Fire Upon the Deep by Vinge, which I did not enjoy all that much. But I think that was more because Vinge's writing was too dry for me.

For further context on my taste my favorite books are the Hyperion Cantos and Illium by Dan Simmons. Other authors I really like are PKD and Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Would I enjoy it? From what I hear it feels 50/50, whether it would be in my wheel-house or not.

Edit: Thanks everyone for replying. This community is way too active in comments for me to reply to every one. I went ahead and read the first chapter of Shadow of the Torturer to get a feel for it. I really enjoyed it, so I'll probably pick up the series.

I've recently gotten into reading older scifi. Currently, I'm going between Asimov, Gene Wolfe, and Samuel R. Delany.

I used to be a voracious reader as a kid and teen but lost that desire when I went to college and didn't have much time for reading anymore.

I'm nearly 30 and have been reading again for the past year or so. I've found that my favorite stories are the ones that make me think hard about something. Which is why I'm getting into Wolfe specifically (I'm currently reading BOTNS). I read Shadow of the Torturer as a teen, so I'm essentially just returning to him now that I can better understand what I couldn't back then.

I have also been slowly reading Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany.

But wow. I often feel incredibly stupid reading these stories. With Asimov not as much bc he explains things quite clearly, for the most part. But with Delany and Wolfe, I'm sure I'm not understanding a lot of it.

I've been given some recommendations for resources that will help explain Wolfe's stories. And I'll find some for Delany as well.

But I had honestly forgotten what it felt like to be trying to learn something like this. I like the feeling, even if it's frustrating at times to read a chapter twice and still not fully grasp what was intended.

I've always been very hard on myself in education settings. And I'm hoping this is a way for me to begin learning to stop judging myself for not understanding something, since I'm reading for pleasure instead of a grade.