BEGINNER to EXPERT - 12 Sci-Fi Book Recommendations
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 มิ.ย. 2024
- In today's video I recommend 12 science fiction novels for the beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert categories.
My links:
Discord Server - / discord
Patreon - / wordsintime
Amazon Wishlist - www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls...
Use code JONATHANFANS for 15% off book orders from the Tertulia online bookstore:
tertulia.com/book/dark-matter...
tertulia.com/book/snow-crash-...
tertulia.com/book/sea-of-rust...
tertulia.com/book/spin-robert...
tertulia.com/book/ubik-philip...
tertulia.com/book/contact-car...
tertulia.com/book/blindsight-...
tertulia.com/book/blood-music...
tertulia.com/book/the-quantum...
tertulia.com/book/diaspora-gr...
tertulia.com/book/accelerando...
tertulia.com/book/dragon-s-eg...
00:00 - Introduction
00:29 - Dark Matter
01:52 - Snow Crash
02:50 - Sea of Rust
03:33 - Spin
04:24 - Ubik
05:13 - Contact
06:20 - Blindsight
07:25 - Blood Music
08:26 - The Quantum Thief
09:41 - Diaspora
10:50 - Accelerando
11:51 - Dragon's Egg
#ScienceFiction #Books
I am a big fan of "Dragon's Egg," which I read about forty years ago, and there is one scene that has stuck with me all these years. The cheela "astronaut" has boarded the human ship and determines that interspecies communication is impossible because of the speed differential between the two sentient entities. Then, the cheela "astronaut" detects a cancerous growth in one of the humans and then proceeds to removes it. Just a short scene but I really thought that was a nice touch to describe the speed differential which was what the book was all about.
That’s a great scene! I loved the ending and the interaction between the humans and the cheela.
A good beginner's sci-fi: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
Absolutely! I loved Project Hail Mary!
Strongly disliked. So much worse than Martian that it was hard to believe it was the same author.
Yes! Watch Contact! 😊
Will do!
This was an incredible vid! Read the first two but none others, and can’t wait to try some of the intermediate and advanced ones!
Thanks Benghis! I hope you enjoy!
Amazing concept for a video and great recommendations.I'm already feeling this could be a series or at least have a "part 2",
Thanks Cristian, I’m glad it was helpful!
Definitely intrigued by 'Spin'! I think I've heard it mentioned on other sf videos at some point and your mention of it here has confirmed its addition to my tbr. Cheers 👍
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Highly recommend Spin and the follow up novels Axis and Vortex. The way it all ends is so out there but satisfying.
Thank you for this great list, I have read and enjoyed all but three, which are either currently or soon to be on my TBR.
Keep up the recommendations.
Nice, I’m glad you enjoyed them! I hope you like the other three!
Awesome video!
Hope you make more like this
Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start reading scifi
Thanks Guillermo, I’m glad it was helpful!
Great recommendations Jonathan! I added several of these to my list. Dark Matter is one of my favorites.
Thanks Chas, I’m glad you enjoyed Dark Matter. Hope you like the others!
Amazing list! Love the green screen work!
Haha thanks John!
Great video! I love your passion for these books! Youve had my wanting to check out Quantum Thief for months. I already have Sea of Rust and am excited for that. Im reading Service Model in a couple of weeks! Thanks as always for great content, you rock!
Thanks for the kind words! Let me know what you think of Service Model when you read it!
@@WordsinTime Will do, I got the special edition from Broken Binding and it just came in!
What a fun way to order your list! I'm gonna work my way through your syllabus. 😊
Haha hope you enjoy! 🎓
Ubik is one of my all time favorites. So weird and such an experience. Great recs!
I’m glad you loved it too!
Great video!! I've read Dark Matter, Blood Music, and Diaspora. Enjoyed them each very much, but the one that I think will stick with me the longest is Diaspora. I'm now looking forward to reading several of the others on this list! I think I might start with The Quantum Thief.
Thanks Curtis! I’m glad you enjoyed those three, I hope you like The Quantum Thief as much as I did!
Great list! I'll need to read a few of those. I'd like to throw in some honorable mentions... Seveneves from Neil is great. Pandoras Star was amazing, and I'm surprised Hamilton nor Reynolds made your list. Both authors are amazing imo. Salvation Sequence was also great. Quantum Magician is also good! Thanks for the vid!
Those are all great authors! I’ve made some other videos on them and Reynolds especially is one of my favourites!
Brilliant video!
Thanks Rachel!
Bro I've been waiting so long for someone to talk about egan. I've been obsessed with his work for so long and I hate that he's so underrated
Permutation City is one of my all-time favourite books. Egan is incredible!
Thanks for the suggestion, I started reading Dragons Egg and it’s exactly the type of book I like.
That’s great!
Solid list; I've read and enjoyed all of them except for sea of rust, blood music and dragon's egg --- I have purchased all 3 and look forward to reading them, thank you!
Awesome! Hope you enjoy!
Wow. I am NOT an expert yet. But there’s some things to add to my TBR. And the film Contact is very much worth a watch. Thanks so much!
I’m glad you enjoyed the film!
I read Dragon’s Egg soon after it came out. Thought it was a fun read. I did not find it that much harder to read than Niven’s Ringworld.
Recommend the movie version of Contact.
Really enjoyed this video. Thank you!
Thanks Jerald!
Great list - Blind Sight and Diaspora are both favorites of mine. If you can get through these you should try Risen Empire. The Golden Age by John C Wright is in my top three of all time
Awesome! Thanks for the recommendation!
So good to see you holding one of favourite author's books ever: Greg Egan's Diaspora. The opening is mind melting. Fans of hard sci fi should also check out Egan's anthology Axiomatic and look up his phenomenal short Tap.
Thanks for the recommendations! I’m looking forward to reading more Egan!
I’m gonna buy blood music right now, great video
Awesome, hope you enjoy!
Great video. I'll take your beginner recs as I'm trying so hard to get into adult sci-fi. Haha
Haha hope you like them!
@@WordsinTime I think I will. Great video. Best sci-fi YTer!
Ha I just reviewed Diaspora, it was very very out there, but I ended up loving it. It did break my brain a bit, my advice for books like that is to treat the math and science like you would a magic system, you don't need to grasp it 100% to enjoy it, its enough to know the characters did, just like it's not all that important to understand how a wizard conjures a fireball.
I also loved Ubik and Blindsight, Dark Matter dissapointed me just abit, I think just because it was overhyped in my head.
I need to read Quantum Thief it sounds right up my alley.
Haha science is a bit like a magic system. I’m glad you enjoyed Ubik and Blindsight. I hope you like The Quantum Thief!
Glad to hear your thoughts on Diaspora, in particular. It was such a tough read for me. Usually I can skim over hard science things when it's just a sentence or a paragraph here and there. This was something different. There was one page where I had no idea what it was talking about and most of the words I either didn't know the definition of or I had never heard before. That made it a slog. I'm sure, for a very smart person, it's A good book. Too hard for me to enjoy. I wonder if the author was just flexing his brain to show off. I read his short stories book Axiomatic and it was really good. Thanks Jonathan
Haha I enjoyed Diaspora, but it was tough. I found Permutation City an easier and better read.
Yep. Permutation city is mindbending but palatable. Love Egan!
@@mhbackman Glad to have you on Team Permutation City haha
Diaspora went way way way over my head. 😂
Awesome video: idea + execution TOP
Haha me too! Thanks Bart!
A few for me to try here, thanks! A fire in the deep was expert level for me, but now I'm reading Babel 17. Eek not a before bed read, too much brain power required. Although perhaps with the weirder books, letting it wash over you rather than trying to fully understand, is a better way to go?
I haven’t read Babel-17, but I found his novel Nova a bit hard to connect to and that’s supposed to be one of his easier ones haha. And yes, I think that’s a good approach!
I need to get PKD onto my TBR later this year. Btw I met Robert L. Forward briefly during my bookselling days when I worked for Waldenbooks. He was very friendly and much smarter than I'll ever be. I read part of Dragon's Egg, but it's above my pay grade.
That’s cool! I’m glad Robert was friendly when you met him. PKD has lots of good books, I hope you enjoy them!
Cool list! I like how you describe the books without anything remotely approaching a spoiler. Will definitely check some of these out eventually.
If I had to make my own list,
Beginner: Recursion by Blake Crouch
Intermediate: Children of Time
Advanced: The Dispossessed by Ursula K LeGuin
Expert: uhhh…House of Leaves by MZD (does this count as sci fi?)
I’m glad you enjoyed the video! Those are some good selections. I haven’t read House of Leaves but have heard good things!
Loved Sea of Rust (and the prequel Day Zero) they were written really well and super engaging!
I’m glad you enjoyed them!
Just getting into Dark Matter so I can watch the TV series afterwards. I can't wait to read Diaspora though, thanks for the recs!
Awesome, hope you enjoy!
I was hoping to hear The Golden Age (aka The Golden Oecumene #1) by John C. Wright with your expert level books. I consider it teeth shattering hard sci-fi, and even reading the description might sound intimidating depending on where you read it from. It sounds like Accelerando in your list (that is, full of technobabble), except our entire solar system is the setting. The protagonist found out he and EVEYRONE ELSE was given amnesia over something he said or did. Him trying to find out what serious crime he did is the main focus of the first book. The primary form of communication is a mix of video phone, virtual reality, and telepathy. A form of AI do most of the work, while everyone else mostly pursue their own projects and artwork. There is only one court, and the entire military is just one guy... in which most people forgot about.
I’ll have to look it up!
@@WordsinTime Just note it was written to be one book, but the publisher wanted to turn it to a trilogy. This caused some issues. The first act (book) fires plot twists in rapid succession and is the best of the three as it has all the world building. The third is just one overlong reveal.
Dark Matter is on my list - would you recommend reading or watching first? Hey, maybe even do a video on the topic - 3 Body, Station Eleven, Sweet Tooth, Shogun (not sf but just awesome show) - book or tv first?
I’d say read Dark Matter first. I haven’t read those other three, but thanks for the suggestion!
Robert Charles Wilson has become one of my go to authors. Two of his books : The Harvest, & Darwinia, were top draw. Looking forward to reading your recommendation, Spin, at some point.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Another wonderful sci fi 'philosophical' writer from Australia to track down is Terry Dowling. His book Rhynosseros was s beautiful, toughing, thoughtful and truly original. I'd rank it as light sci fi or middling, along with Philip K Dick.
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll look it up!
The Contact film is one of my FAVORITES but I have yet to read the book. Definitely think you should check it out!
That’s great!
Contact is an enjoyable film
Nice!
Great video! It seems to me only that maybe the advanced ones are harder to follow than the expert one? I haven´t read Dragon´s egg yet, but I can´t imagine it being "more difficult" than The Quantum Thief, only more science-oriented :D...So it´s just a matter of definition
Yes, that’s a good point. Not necessarily more confusing, but even more science.
For The Quantum Thief, Though I might have been lost on the sentence, I was never lost on the page.
Love that description!
"And....the dropout Colin"
Somebody is salty that I've been reading Shogun recently instead of SciFi.
Hahaha, readmissions are welcome!
@@WordsinTime - It won't be long until I'm reading SciFi again. Despite the fact that Shogun is over 1200 pages I'm blazing through that doorstop of a book.
Highly recommend.
@@colin1818 That’s awesome!
Yes! Watch "Contact." To your "expert" list I would add "Vast" by Linda Nagata, a far-future space opera filled with fascinating ideas.
I haven’t read that one, I’ll have to look it up!
I've only read a couple of your recommendations, & both books were good : Ubik, which is one of PKD most entertaining SF novels.
& Blood Music : I found it very character driven, which is alright, but I wished there were more depictions of it's transformed world, than was actually shown in the book - it also had a chilling ending, which was absolutely perfect.
I’m glad you enjoyed those two!
I liked this approach! I feel most sci-fi works could be categorized as such to make it easier for the non-hardcore sci-fi fans to pick.
Thanks! I’m glad it was helpful!
You listed several of my favorites. Dragon's Egg actually has a sequel called Starquake but don't know if it'll give you any more satisfaction assuming u haven't already read it. Also the Contact film is pretty good though recall it introduces a religious character don't think was in the book and makes the plot a little too much about the science vs religion conflict which is why I prefer the novel. Just hope if u really like jody foster's character try to keep your appreciation within bounds as some of her past admirers unfortunately have not haha. ⚛😀
Thanks for the info Frank!
Wasn't aware of most of these. Really appreciate you breaking them up into categories and putting some less popular titles on here. Nothing hurts like getting halfway into a sf book thinking you're going to get your mind blown and then it turns out you're just reading something like Dark Matter 😂
Haha glad it was helpful!
I like Stephenson and have read Cryptonomicon and Seveneves. I started Snowcrash a few days ago and just couldn't get into it. 😔 I might try again ...
That’s okay. Snow Crash is supposed to be a bit more tongue in cheek than his other books. I plan to read Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon and Seveneves eventually!
I loved Snow Crash but it’s definitely doing double duty as a satire but also a book that exemplifies the best tropes of cyberpunk. Seveneves was one of those books that made me depressed about humanity.
It was a pretty different experience reading it when it came out... it was simultaneously a lethal parody of, and an ultimate example of, the cyberpunk genre as it stood at the time.
Quantum thief is absolutely expert level. But it is also very good.
I’m glad you enjoyed it too!
I've read none of the beginner level here but have read and reviewed Spin, Ubik, Blindsight, The Quantum Thief, Accelerando. I started to appreciate Accelerando after about a hundred pages when I could see more clearly what Stross was doing with the story and the reader. Here's a part of my review on Hardcover:
"He packs every sentence with crazy terminology and new concepts so that many sentences don't make sense, although page by page it's somehow coherent. There's a famous sentence in writing, 'colorless green ideas sleep furiously' which is nonsense as a sentence and filled with self-negations even though it is grammatically correct. That is this book in a nutshell.
About two thirds the way through I suddenly thought, "This is one giant piss-take. He's filling the story with all this crazy stuff and all the while sitting there with a smirk thinking, 'See, I'm still doing it to you.' "
Haha that’s a fair review!
👨🏫 Exciting curriculum, sir! You’ve set some ambitious homework ahead of your students. I fear I won’t be passing this course with a Degree with Distinction as I suspect I’ll top out at Advanced, despite being a mature student 👨🎓
Haha I believe in you Tufty!
Contact is great LOVED Dragon’s Egg 🤗
Awesome! I’m glad you enjoyed those two!
Enjoyed DARK MATTER
UBIK
Cannot wait for SNOW CRASH 💥 😂
Haha hope you enjoy!
hmmm, where would deaths end lie? Maybe low advanced or high intermediate??
Good question, I’d say advanced!
@@WordsinTime gotcha, makes sense, Ty. Just finished the book and it was mind boggling. Love your videos ❤️
@@lightningbolt4126 That’s great! Glad to have you as part of the channel!
Your videos always get me to run to ABE books and drop some coin.
Haha we can fight the TBR together!
I think I got through Dark Matter in a day. Loved that book 😃
Haha it’s a page turner!
Think I just got a double masters with Terra Ignota by Ada Palmer… But I enjoyed it!
Haha I have just read the first book so far.
🔥🔥🔥
🤜 🤛
I’ve read half of these….not bad….😊 more for my ever increasing TBR 📚
Haha the war with the TBR continues!
great list all winners. the 1985 contact book is great the movie did not stick to the book . i also believe that they put a movie version of the book out with the same name ( not sure of this )
Thanks!
Where would remembrance of earth's past be placed?
Good question. I’d say Advanced. But it has been very successful, so it must be fairly readable to a broad sci-fi audience.
contact is a great movie. i read to book first decades ago, and i remember wondering whey they made some of the changes they did in the movie, but to be honest, I don't even remember what they are now. I've read the book once, but have watched the movie probably 9 or 10 times.
That’s a strong endorsement!
@@WordsinTime I love both the book and the movie!
Dragons Egg is great. The sequel Starquake is also great.
Nice!
I'm now reading the Portal, from brandon q morris. I'm past half the book and it's very good so far. Give it a try
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll look it up!
@@WordsinTime it's very refreshing for me. The story has some adventure, mistery, exploration and clearly some hard sci fi. Also a lot of action happens underwater, and It does a very good job making the reader feeling that way.
To use a gaming metaphor, Greg Egan is hard mode.
Haha this is true.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro is a good beginner novel. It is sci-fi disguised as literary fiction.
Yes, I just recently read it and made a video discussion with some guests. It definitely combines science fiction and literary fiction.
Oh I will go check it out!! I love book discussions, best part of booktube.
man i love scifi
Haha me too!
I would have counted Blindsight as 'expert level'. Now I'm wondering how much more 'scifiy' Dragon's Egg is.
Haha, Dragon’s Egg isn’t necessarily more confusing but is definitely heavier on the science.
👾
Greetings 👽
Of the books on this list that I have read, I did not really care for Snow Crash, Spin or Ubik. I know that I read Blood Music, but it's been so long that I have no idea what happened.
That’s okay, I hope you like some of the others!
Sneaky beyond expert: The Book Of The New Sun (and the Long Sun/Short Sun followups).
Haha true!
@@WordsinTime I mean...there aren't too many sci-fi books from which people can attain a doctorate through analyses...I've been reading BoTNS since the early 80's and am still finding new twists and turns...Wolfe was one of our all-time greats.
Great idea for a video, thanks! Sci-fi does require more brain power and some are more intimidating than others
Thanks Michael! I think anyone could potentially enjoy all of these books, but it helps to know what type of sci-fi book it is beforehand.
I stick with what Asimov said (paraphrased) that there are some writers who deliberately make their writing obtuse , too abstracted to cover up the fact that there's no real ideas or plot and also think they are being "clever" and it's a battle between author and reader. If a books too complicated long hard to read just bin it the author is being a dick
I couldn't get into Blindsight at all. There was no back story to any of the characters or world building that would explain why they were the way they were. Not that I'm much into character driven novels, I do prefer the big ideas and concepts but I couldn't connect with any of the characters at all. Made the story very dry.
I didn’t connect with it at first but later on it clicked for me.
throw me straight to another planet. and preferably another galaxy!
Haha love it.
NIce list. Apart from Quantum Thief. Only useful for testing that your new shredder works. Not sure I'd go totally with the order though. Id put Hyperion in there somewhere and have Accelerando top in terms of expert, its probably as hard core as hard SF gets. Sea of Rust is the only one Ive not read, need to get round to that.
Ive been recommending to a friend of mine that her book club reads Slaughterhouse 5, even though they dont normally do SF. So that maybe could be in there perhaps instead of Ubik. But hey another day Id choose some other books. Apart from yes Hyperion, yes Accelerando and NOT Quantum Thief.
Hyperion and Slaughterhouse-Five are two of my all-time favorites!
5:47 - I beg to differ. (BTW, yes, the film is OK.)
**** SPOILER ****
AVERT YOUR EYES!
Ahem, OK. So, "classical" first contact story is about contact with "ordinary" aliens, someone like us, but different, if you see what I mean. Here the our protagonist SETI scientist meets what/whom you might consider God(s) or at least creators. Our Universe is an artifact (as I often say, a Cosmogony 101 exercise on some university for mata-beings; OK, perhaps this was a practical PhD thesis.)
I understand your differentiation. I meant it was classic in terms of the setup, but I agree the way it ends up playing out is different.
@WordsinTime Yes, the setup _was_ the classic first contact, but only from the human side. In, say, Rama we soon reach the actual contact.
You crack me up, Jonathan! I would note that there was not a single female author on your list so I will provide one for some of the categories. 😁 Beginner: A Long, Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers; Intermediate: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jamisin; Advanced: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. I haven't got a good one for Expert, but I'll continue to noodle on it.
Good picks! I have made videos on Ann Leckie and Jemisin, and I plan to read Chambers very soon!
i think contact is one of the very few books where the movie is superior.
Interesting!
I believe the Hugonauts had this as their top SciFi book of all time.
As soon as I hear the word cyberpunk I’m immediately turned off. Can’t help it.
That’s okay, there’s lots of other subgenres to enjoy!
😅 it’s a good list if you want to read books written by white men. If you’re not and don’t -try anything written by Octavia E butler. Dhalgren, Nendi Okafor’s work. Dark matter by Sheree Thomas. River Solomon’s work - an unkindness of ghosts . Nicky Drayden’s Escaping Exodus.
Thanks for the recommendations! I have read and enjoyed books from Butler and Delany, and I own but haven’t read Okorafor yet.