The Fantasy Review‘s list of 27 Incredibly Popular Hard Science Fiction Books. If you haven’t heard of these books and you love the science fiction genre, it’s about time you had!
#1 – Dune by Frank Herbert
From the blurb:
The Duke of Atreides has been manoeuvred by his arch-enemy, Baron Harkonnen, into administering the desert planet of Dune. Although it is almost completely without water, Dune is a planet of fabulous wealth, for it is the only source of a drug prized throughout the Galactic Empire. The Duke and his son, Paul, are expecting treachery, and it duly comes – but from a shockingly unexpected place.…
#2 – Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
From the blurb:
THE HUMAN RACE FACES ANNIHILATION
An alien threat is on the horizon, ready to strike. And if humanity is to be defended, the government must create the greatest military commander in history.
The brilliant young Ender Wiggin is their last hope. But first he must survive the rigours of a brutal military training program – to prove that he can be the leader of all leaders….
#3 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
From the blurb:
It’s an ordinary Thursday lunchtime for Arthur Dent until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and his best friend has just announced that he’s an alien. At this moment, they’re hurtling through space with nothing but their towels and an innocuous-looking book inscribed, in large friendly letters, with the words: DON’T PANIC.
The weekend has only just begun . . .
#4 – The Martian by Andy Weir
From the blurb:
I’m stranded on Mars.
I have no way to communicate with Earth.
I’m in a habitat designed to last 31 days.
If the oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death.
So yeah. I’m screwed.
#5 – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
From the blurb:
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS – and his massive fortune – will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation.…
#6 – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
From the blurb:
Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called The Hunger Games.
There is only one rule: kill or be killed.
When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her younger sister’s place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence.
But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.
#7 – Foundation by Isaac Asimov
From the blurb:
The Galactic Empire has prospered for twelve thousand years. Nobody suspects that the heart of the thriving Empire is rotten, until psychohistorian Hari Seldon uses his new science to foresee its terrible fate.
Exiled to the desolate planet Terminus, Seldon establishes a colony of the greatest minds in the Empire, a Foundation which holds the key to changing the fate of the galaxy….
#8 – Neuromancer by William Gibson
From the blurb:
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
William Gibson revolutionised science fiction in his 1984 debut Neuromancer. The writer who gave us the matrix and coined the term ‘cyberspace’ produced a first novel that won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards, and lit the fuse on the Cyberpunk movement.
#9 – Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
From the blurb:
Humanity has colonised the solar system – Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond – but the stars are still out of our reach.
Jim Holden is an officer on an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew discover a derelict ship called the Scopuli, they suddenly find themselves in possession of a deadly secret. A secret that someone is willing to kill for, and on an unimaginable scale. War is coming to the system, unless Jim can find out who abandoned the ship and why.…
#10 – The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
From the blurb:
1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China’s Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind.
Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang’s investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable and unpredictable interaction of its three suns….
#11 – All Systems Red by Martha Wells
From the blurb:
All Systems Red by Martha Wells begins The Murderbot Diaries, a new science fiction action and adventure series that tackles questions of the ethics of sentient robotics. It appeals to fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie’s Imperial Raadch series, or lain M. Banks’ Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans. In a corporate dominated s pa cef a ring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company.…
#12 – Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
From the blurb:
On a remote jungle island, genetic engineers have created a dinosaur game park.
Now one of mankind’s most thrilling fantasies has come true. Creatures that have been extinct for millions of years roam Jurassic Park, and all the world can visit them – for a price.
But when a catastrophe destroys the park’s defence system, what was once a scientific dream becomes a living nightmare. . .
Now scientists and tourists alike are left fighting for their lives.
#13 – 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
From the blurb:
The discovery of a black monolith on the moon leads to a manned expedition deep into the solar system, in the hope of establishing contact with an alien intelligence. Yet long before the crew can reach their destination, the voyage descends into disaster . . .
#14 – Divergent by Veronica Roth
From the blurb:
In the world of Divergent, society is divided into five factions – Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful) and Erudite (the intelligent). Every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. Beatrice Prior must choose between staying with her family and being who she really is. Her choice shocks everyone – including herself.…
#15 – Hyperion by Dan Simmons
From the blurb:
It is the 29th century and the universe of the Human Hegemony is under threat. Invasion by the warlike Ousters looms, and the mysterious schemes of the secessionist AI TechnoCore bring chaos ever closer.
On the eve of disaster, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set fourth on a final voyage to the legendary Time Tombs on Hyperion, home to the Shrike, a lethal creature, part god and part killing machine, whose powers transcend the limits of time and space. The pilgrims have resolved to die before discovering anything less than the secrets of the universe itself.
#16 – The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
From the blurb:
Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place.
As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.
#17- Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
From the blurb:
‘Are you happy in your life?’
Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.
Before he awakes to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.
Before the man he’s never met smiles down at him and says, ‘Welcome back.’
In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible….
#18 – Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
From the blurb:
Twenty-five years ago, the first manned mission to Mars was lost, and all hands presumed dead. But someone survived…
Born on the doomed spaceship and raised by the Martians who saved his life, Valentine Michael Smith has never seen a human being until the day a second expedition to Mars discovers him.
Upon his return to Earth, a young nurse named Jill Boardman sneaks into Smith’s hospital room and shares a glass of water with him, a simple act for her but a sacred ritual on Mars.…
#19 – Red Rising by Pierce Brown
From the blurb:
Darrow is a Helldiver. A pioneer of Mars.
Born to slave beneath the earth so that one day, future generations might live above it.
He is a Red – humankind’s lowest caste. But he has something the Golds – the ruthless ruling class – will never understand.
He has a wife he worships, a family who give him strength. He has love.
And when they take that from him, all that remains is revenge . . .
#20 – Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
From the blurb:
Billy Pilgrim – hapless barber’s assistant, successful optometrist, alien abductee, senile widower and soldier – has become unstuck in time. Hiding in the basement of a slaughterhouse in Dresden, with the city and its inhabitants burning above him, he finds himself a survivor of one of the most deadly and destructive battles of the Second World War. But when, exactly? How did he get here? And how does he get out?
#21 – Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
From the blurb:
Mary Shelley’s chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley on Lake Geneva. The story of Victor Frankenstein who, obsessed with creating life itself, plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, but whose botched creature sets out to destroy his maker, would become the world’s most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.
#22 – Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
From the blurb:
Enter the Metaverse – cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons, where anything and just about everything goes. Newly available on the Street – the Metaverse’s main drag – is Snow Crash. A cyberdrug that reduces avatars in the digital world to dust, but also infects users in real life, leaving them in a vegetative state.…
#23 – Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
From the blurb:
At seventy-five years old, John Perry is after a fresh start – so, naturally, he joins the army. Earth’s military machine can transform elderly recruits, restoring their lost youth. But in return, its Colonial Defence Force demands two years of hazardous service in space. This is how Perry finds himself in a new body, crafted from his original DNA. A genetically enhanced and upgraded new body, ready for battle.…
#24 – The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
From the blurb:
When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn’t expecting much. The ship, which has seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past.…
#25 – Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
From the blurb:
For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness.
The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic.
Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown….
#26 – The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
From the blurb:
William Mandella is a soldier in Earth’s elite brigade. As the war against the Taurans sends him from galaxy to galaxy, he learns to use protective body shells and sophisticated weapons. He adapts to the cultures and terrains of distant outposts. But with each month in space, years are passing on Earth. Where will he call home when (and if) the Forever War ends?
#27 – The Maze Runner by James Dashner
From the blurb:
When the doors of the lift crank open, the only thing Thomas remembers is his first name. But he’s not alone.
He’s surrounded by boys who welcome him to the Glade – a walled encampment at the centre of a bizarre and terrible stone maze. Like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they came to be there – or what’s happened to the world outside.
All they know is that every morning when the walls slide back, they will risk everything – even the Grievers, half-machine, half-animal horror that patrol its corridors, to try and find out …
