It’s about the end of the year, and I know there will all sorts of lists of the best books published this year, so this is a different question: regardless of when published, which SF books that you personally read this year did you enjoy the most. I’m also asking which you enjoyed instead of which you thought were the best, so feel free to include fluff without shame.
I’ll go first. Of the 60+ books I read this year, here are the ones I liked most. No significant spoilers, not in any order.
Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky
- A project to uplift monkeys on a terraformed world, at the peak of human civilization, is sabotaged by people who don’t think humans should play god. There follows a human civil war that nearly destroys civilization. A couple thousand years later, an ark ship of human remnants leaving an uninhabitable earth is heading towards that terraformed planet. This is a great book, with lots to say on intelligence, the nature of people, and both the fragility and heartiness of life.
Kiln People, David Brin
- Set a couple hundred years in the future, technology is ubiquitous that lets people make a living clay duplicate of themselves that has their memory and thoughts to the point they were created, lasts about a day, and whose memories can be reintegrated with the real person if desired. The duplicates are property, have no rights, and are used to do almost all work and to take any risks without risking the humans. A private detective and some of his duplicates gets pulled into an increasingly complex plot that could reshape society. This is a thoroughly enjoyable book, with lots of twists, and an interesting narrative as we follow copies who may or may not reintegrate with our detective.
Sleeping Giants, Sylvain Neuvel
- A little girl falls down a deep hole in the woods and lands on a gigantic, glowing, metal hand that’s thousands of years old. This is a wonderful alien artifact story with some interesting twists. I really enjoyed this book. Not exactly hard SF, but checks a lot of the boxes for me, including the wonder of discovery.
The Peripheral, William Gibson
- A computer server links the late 2020s to a time 70 years later, allowing communication and telepresence between the two times. A young woman in the earlier time witnesses a murder in the later time and gets sucked into a battle between powerful people in both times. This is a great book; I think I could have recognized it as Gibson’s writing even if I hadn’t known it in advance. Very interesting premise, engaging characters, and fun without feeling like fluff.
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
- A coalition of human planets has sent the first envoy to an icy world where the people are gender neutral and sterile most of the time, but once a month become male or female (essentially randomly) and fertile. This is a classic, written in 1969, and my second reading - the first being in the late 80s. Le Guin creates an amazingly rich world, even with its harsh, frozen landscape. The characters grow to understand how gender impacts their cultures, and the biases they didn’t know they had. It’s also aged remarkably well for an SF book written 55 years ago. There’s nothing about it that feels outdated.
A couple notes:
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If I hadn’t stuck to my own “enjoyed” constraint, the list might have looked different. For instance, Perdido Street Station, by Meiville, is a really great book, but there’s so much misery and sadness that it’s hard to say I “enjoyed” it.
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I hesitated to put The Left Hand Of Darkness on the list, simply because Le Guin is so widely recognized as a great master, and the book one of her greatest, that it seemed unfair. In the end, it seemed unfair to exclude it for such an artificial reason.
Translation State by Ann Leckie, and Fall, or Dodge in Hell, by Neal Stephenson.
I loved them both: the Leckie because the cultures of her characters are so varied and interesting; and Fall despite me not being into computer games at all. It’s fascinating though, having a main character become digital and see how that would play out.
I’ve read both of those and agree they’re both excellent. Really good books. Very different from each other.
That’s what I’ve always loved about sci-fi - the variety, the wild imaginations of the best writers, there’s something for everyone.
@MrsDoyle @AFKBRBChocolate
My book ‘A Suggestion in Space’ https://mybook.to/asuggestioninspace is an interstellar adventure with romance, coming of age, secrets and surprises, tragedy and joy.
Children of Time was an amazing read!
This year I am reading Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. Really good book so far!
Revelation Space sounds interesting. Let us know how you liked it after you finish.
Revelation Space is great! It’s Interstellar sci-fi with no faster-than-light travel which leads to some really interesting timelines. Also, the only description I’ve ever read of a space battle as ships are travelling at relativistic speeds. Very cool books. Diamond Dogs is a short-ish story that gives you the feel of the universe. It’s a bit nasty at times but I feel like it doesn’t go into unnecessarily gruesome detail
Loved both of those books, but revelation space was way more cerebral
I loved revelation space! unfortunately, most of Alastair Reynolds audio books are narrated by by a voice actor who’s narration I personally find off-putting. I find him very affected and self absorbed, so much so that it distracts from the characters and story. it’s nice to actually stop and read though, just harder to find the time.
Both great series. Revelation Space was my intro into hard sci-fi. What a freaking ride that story is.
I dont know that Reynolds has a bad book, and everything that touches the Revelation Space universe is in my opinion gold. Even his short stories Diamond Dogs Turquoise Days is a great and intense read.
Some of his standalone novels are also awesome like House of Suns, and Pushing Ice.
Stop what you’re doing right now and get in the Bobiverse. Now.
And if that’s your jam, The Murderbot Diaries pairs well!
Micky 7 works on similar lines. a bit longer with a bit more to say, but basically a fun read
I’ve read all of those - quick, fun reads.
Okay, I finished We Are Legion (Bobiverse book one). It was fun, and I’ll probably read the next. Nothing especially deep, but amusing. A few things bugged me a little:
Minor spoilers
- They spent all that time and energy trying to figure out how to feed the people on earth while they built ships, then put them in stasis for a multi-year trip. Why didn’t they start by building the stasis chambers and not having to worry about feeding them?
- He has a rationale for life in the galaxy being compatible with earth life, but it doesn’t explain why the animals are so similar (e.g., birds with feathers). That’s not super unusual, but it seemed odd that the first intelligent beings they found were psychologically so human. Strains credibility.
- I liked all the different story threads as we follow the different Bobs, but the sacrifice was that we didn’t go very deep into any of them and the ending felt kind of abrupt.
Some of the later books might be more your speed if you like sticking with a single Bob. I personally didn’t care for those ones.
I assume the reason things look like other things is cause we have a tendency to describe new things as similar to other things even when they aren’t. Plus there’s probably some scientific evidence behind form and function. See https://www.google.com/search?hl=en-us&q=carcinization&spell=1
I’m very keen on where the story is going as it stands right now. But I’m impatient for more books. And inevitably will be disappointed in the end I’m sure. Most of the time these situations lead to philosophical cop outs.
I worked through both the Sprawl trilogy and the Three Body Problem trilogy and they were both fantastic. Almost ruined the rest of my reading for weeks after that. The Three Body Problem and The Dark Forest might be the most original science fiction since Neuromancer
If you liked the Three Body Problem, might I recommend The Killing Star by Pellegrino, Charles R? It’s another slant on some similar themes.
While Cixian Liu coined the words “dark forest” to describe this particular solution to the fermi paradox, he did not invent it.
Having also read the series, I find myself always having to mention that while the books do some of the best exploration of more complex sci-fi concepts, they are WEIRD about gender.
The whole thing with men becoming “feminized” by an age of peace, reeks. The author goes out of his way to equate competence, decisiveness and conviction with the male gender, and tries to very akwardly make the point that without strife, these things become unnecessary, and even abhorred. To the point that “masculinity” as a social construct disappears from society. Then replaced entirely by “femininity” which the author VERY explicitly equates with “beaty”, naivete, indecision and weakness.
As if women choose to be with men only out of necessity, and if given a easy life and therefore the choice, they would pair off with other women. Which is effectively what happens because according to the author such a society would pressure men into becoming indistinguishable from women in order to remain appealing.
Like if I had to boil the trilogy down to a message about gender, it would be “men are ugly but useful, women are beautiful but useless”. That’s not exactly progressive…
One major female characters entire character is that she is the “perfect” woman, and she is literally given as payment to the main-character, by the government. And no-one in the story bats an eye at this! Including the woman herself!
She barely has any lines. I kept expecting her to be disingenuous. You know, because she was literally treated like an object, given as a prize. But then it time-skips to her having the dudes kid! So apparently shes’s fine with it?
Execept then when the government says so, she’s perfectly down with up and leaving the guy, this time to force him into action by withholding her. Again she’s a mere plot device, treated like a thing that can not only be given, by also taken. She barely exists as anything more than the concept “perfect woman”, but you can’t just have a human character without there being a person in there. Yet Liu just goes ahead anyway.
Like, the subtext about gender in the writing isn’t subtle, and it really fucking bothered me when reading the series. I tuned out a lot when listening to the audiobooks.
The sci-fi concepts are so cool! The way the books explained FTL travel is some of the most compelling I’ve seen!
But I really can’t imagine recommending the series without a disclaimer about it contianing some of the most sexist writing I’ve ever come across.
Interesting take. I read her part as more of a discourse on power disparity. The man had all the power in the world and used it to find his idea of the perfect woman. I don’t remember it digging too deeply into her character or even at all into her motivations, but from the power dynamic it wouldn’t have mattered to him anyway. I read it more as uncomfortable subservience to male domineering. The plot in this arc was driven by his fantasy, and his fantasy alone.
Also, Haldeman did the same gender changes with The Forever War as an exaggeration of his return from Vietnam. I saw the gender arc as more of a “hard times make soft men, soft men make hard times” thing and an exploration of complacency and opulence. But I see your point, there could be other ways to make a similar point
The plot in this arc was driven by his fantasy, and his fantasy alone.
Her appearance and then disappearance was engineered by the government. Because they wanted him to save a world he didn’t feel like fighting for. Both times.
Ok fine. The government can find a perfect woman, who also loves him for real.
It cannot then just take her back. You can’t tell me she’s fine with just up and leaving the love of HER life, cuz some government dude said so.
She is treated like a non-person, by the author. Not just the people in the story. The personality that would have to exist in her head for her to be the way she was in the story, is not possible.
Maybe it works for people who are less intuitive about people, but psychologically she’s a gaping plot hole. The same way physics or math errors can be.
I fundamentally disagree here. Her choices are to stay where she is in whatever kind of life that is and know her species is doomed, or sleep until he secures her child’s future. Those are heavy stakes and the world in the story could support either decision. I’m certainly not in the position to guess what a parent would do with that choice.
However, I do agree that the author did not give her enough agency for us to know how this decision happened. It definitely could have been explored more. The greater tragedy is that her husband treats her like a non-person, like she’s his imagination incarnate, and that is never explored in any detail.
Why would she not stick around for that? Why is her first way to drive her partner to fulfill a wish of hers what should be a last resort in any sane relationship?
And by hibernating into the future, she is taking the child towards the danger, not away from it.
Why is saving the world his (and hers) responsibility at all? There is no guarantee he’ll succeed. In fact the earth IS destroyed in the end.
If the decision was hers, it’s pretty objectively the wrong one. Even moreso within the framework of what is known about her. She doesn’t make sense.
Maybe if you could see each plot device in isolation, you might be able excuses the stuff. But the sexism is an ever-present background noise in the whole series.
The plot doesn’t put a woman in charge except when it wants bad things to happen. Contacting trisolaris. Surrendering to trisolaris.
It doesn’t have a single woman charachter that isn’t a caricature of personhood. Even the female perspective lead is written like her head is empty, and she’s making decisions based on essentially nothing. Stuff just happens to her. And the one decision she makes, dooms earth.
The story literally makes a point of the fact that even a woman from hard times, is always the wrong person to put in charge. And that what is needed is a man, and a “real one”, at that. (The other candidates)
The whole damn series ends on a man absolving the woman that doomed earth by explaining that her being a woman isn’t her fault. That she was elected because she was “fairest of them all” by a humanity that was “at its fairest”. As if beauty and femininity goes hand in hand with weakness and incompetence.
As if humanity’s beauty comes at the expense of its drive for survival.
I found the sci-fi cool as hell, but as far is can tell, the message of the story is outright disgusting.
It tries to uplift women as the “fairer half” of man. And completely infantilizes them as it does so.
As if beauty and strength, sensitivity and intelligence, innocence and ferocity, etc. are different mutually exclusive sides of the coin that is humanity. And as if man and woman can only ever represent one or the other.
I kept hoping for a plot point or charachter that would break that mold. There were so, so many chances.
It doesn’t happen.
I can see that. I might have to go through the series again and see how I notice it now.
But in the context of the story the first woman was abused by a draconian regime and hated humanity. And the second woman didn’t really have a choice. Humanity was doomed either way, from the trisolarans or any other sufficiently advanced species, and she chose to stop fighting. In the end, it was all the same and the absolution she receives is to address her guilt about a lose-lose situation.
Also how do I tag spoilers? I’ll go back and edit
I know I’m an outlier, but I didn’t really care for The Three Body Problem. Characters did too many things that just didn’t seem like likely responses, and some of the premise felt unrealistic to me. But I know I’m in the minority.
The Sprawl trilogy is great. I read it when it was out originally, and reread Neuromancer more recently. Oh, but if you’re ever tempted, don’t listen to the Neuromancer audiobook narrated by Gibson. Wonderful writer, atrocious reader.
You might be less of an outlier than you think, just read the replies to this comment
I don’t get the TBP fanboi-ism, it reads like it was written by a teenager that’s never encountered SF before. It’s certainly not in the same class as Neuromancer, for crying out loud.
I’m sure there’s an odd element caused by the fact that it was translated from Chinese (which involved tweaks for a western audience), but it certainly didn’t come close to living up to the hype for me.
I know what you mean about not living up to the hype; I read all that Hugo fanfare and thought, I’ll just buy the whole series. I got one and a half books in and thought to myself, what a waste of money, I can’t make myself finish this book, let alone the series.
I remember reading a thread a few years back on reddit that someone who was a native speaker said it was even worse in the original Chinese.
Just working my ready through a reread of the expanse since it’s been a few years and the…final? book has been released. I definitely enjoyed the first 4 books not than 5 and 6. But book 7 is back up to snuff!
Is Fantasy but I need to mention that I’ve been devouring The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson! These books might just be my all time favorites for fantasy!
I started reading The Expanse series (including the short stories) after watching the series. I got through The Churn, which is the short story after book 3, and haven’t read further. I didn’t decide not to read more, but every time I go to pick the next book from my list, I don’t feel motivated to read the next Expanse book. They’ve all been good - not sure what the issue is for me.
Have you read The Mistborn series and, if so, do you think it or Stormlight Archive is the better starting place for Sanderson?
I’d recommend starting with Mistborn, it’s a bit less all at once in your face and a great read regardless. Plus all his Cosmere books are interconnected to a degree, with Stormlight being the most by far, and I’d say you’ll get a bit more out of it having read some of the other Cosmere stuff.
All that to say though, Stormlight’s fantastic and if you just want to yolo in you’ll get it fine!
Okay, thanks for the recommendation
Just did Mistborn. Dropped out at the 4th book. Just couldn’t care about the characters any longer. Too bad, everyone else loves it.
Stormlight just feels… bland. I say it’s a great read if you’re stuck in an airport. Otherwise there are better, popular series to read. Namely, The Expanse and the Silo series. Patrick Rothfuss is also great, but like George RR Martin, he’ll never finish the last book.
I dropped ASOIAF in the middle of the third book. It probably had something to do with knowing it’d never be finished, but I just felt bored. It was all so high stakes and meaningless, not for me.
The writing in The Expanse is grating, it’s all he said, she said, he said, they said, he said, said said said said said said said said said said said. If I hadn’t been listening to it while at work I’d have bailed in the first book. If you can get past that the series has great world building and I love Avarsarsla.
Rothfuss is indeed great but I can’t recommend it to anyone knowing we’re only getting two nights of the three promised.
Silo is actually on my list.
I’ve also been rereading the Honorverse by David Weber. I love it still but it gets to be a slog and the story is feels like it’s the same everytime. I want to get past book 6 or 7 but never have.
I can’t say enough good things about the Stormlight Archive.
But then again I also enjoyed the hell out of Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer series which seemed to be mostly disliked on the whole. I read it before the 4th and 5th books were released so I’m not sure where it goes and need to get back to it some day.
Speaking of Weeks, the Night Angel Trilogy is bomb. It’s no literary masterpiece but it’s a dark and gritty world that sets your expectations and fulfills them over and over again. The story is cliche and I like it. The characters are fun to follow as they navigate the plot points I can see coming from books away.
The Expanse definitely has a bad start. They’re terrible at introducing characters, despite their attempts to do so. But everything after that is great.
I read Mistborn and loved it, my partner finished it a week or two later and then we both struggled to get into the second book. Vin, the main character treats a creature that is in her thrall with extreme prejudice. While it certainly fits the character it was such a change of tone that it threw both of us right out of the series. Mix in a whole new world of politics and coalition building and the story plods. I dropped the Mistborn series like 7 or 8 chapters into The Well of Ascension.
I’ll come back to it in audiobook form.
Interesting, thanks
Expanse books are great. I’m still pissed Amazon hasn’t made the final books into series seasons.
I wasn’t impressed with the current SA Corey novel. It was extremely dull.
I’ve tried to start the stormlight archives like 5 times lmao
Don’t force it! I think if you read books solely because other people say it’s good then you’re doing it wrong! :)
If you were interested in the Cosmere but wanted something light…much lighter. Then try Tress and the Emerald Sea. The narrator breaks the 4th wall a bit and speaks directly to you but if that isn’t an immediate deal breaker the story is light-hearted and adventurous. It follows a girl, Tress, as she leaves home to save her beau.
Some Favorites from this year;
Adrian Tchaikovsky is the best - “The Final Architecture” series is also rad, and his standalone novel from this year “Service Model” was great.
August Kitko and the Mechas From Space by Alex White. “Evangelion by way of David Bowie”
Space Opera Catherynne Valente. A very literal play on the genre!
Fractal Noise & To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Christopher Paolini
Murderbot Diaries Martha Wells
The Murderbot series is so great, I read them all last year. I don’t think I’ve read any of the others on you list, though Tchaikovsky is quickly becoming one of my favorite all time authors, so I’m sure I’ll get to that.
Just to add to Gison’s “The Peripheral” - it’s the first in his new “Jackpot Trilogy” with second book “The Agency” being equally, if not more awesome.
Also, Peripheral got adapted to a TV show (one season so far) pretty successfully.
The show was renewed for season two, then Amazon rescinded the renewal last year… So unfortunately, it’s not likely we’ll see that show picked back up unless another network steps in.
Damn… These executives at Prime have no idea what’s good. Better blow buncha millions on another Lord of the Rings slop or animated anthology Love Death and Robots wannabe…
I really enjoyed season 1. Was hoping they’d see it through but they did drop the expanse. Not exactly known for good judgement Books are worth it then?
The bobiverse books ended up being what I enjoyed most in 2024. Really looking forward to more of those.
Yeah, I did all of these twice this year. They’re a lot of fun.
Pretty sure the paper/ebook of 5 should be released early Jan. He always does a thing with Kindle for audiobook only for 6 months so they cover the narrator costs
I’ll give it a try.
The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach.
Oh god what a powerful book.
Added to my list
Dungeon Crawler Carl.
Dear god I love that series.
Probably the one that grabbed me the most was Made Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I read Children of Time years ago, but bounced off of Children of Ruin and hadn’t read anything else by him. But reading Made Things on a whim this past year set me off on a Tchaikovsky binge that took up much of the rest of the year. I especially liked The Final Architecture books.
The one that I enjoyed the most just in and of itself was probably Early Riser by Jasper Fforde. It’s a fascinating concept, and more straightforwardly written than most of Fforde’s books (I like his writing, but he has a regrettable tendency toward style over substance that was refreshingly absent from this one).
Children of Time and its sequels are top notch, especially if you love animals and commentary on societal roles. It’s in my top Sci-Fi.
If you enjoyed Children of Time, definitely check out “A Memory Called Empire” by Arkady Martine. It’s a Sci-Fi political mystery with lots of fun word play. Aside from some really cool tech, the book really tackles what it means to be “Other” and how colonialism effects one’s idea of self. Some really cool ideas in this book. Easily my top Sci-Fi read this year.
I read the Martine book and its sequel last year - I agree, they’re great.
I almost put one of the Children of Time sequels on the list, but wanted to keep it to five and had the others I wanted to mention.
Children of Ruin was my favourite. The slight horror tones of some of the story really got me! And also… 🐙
It’s really fantastic. Would be hard to pick a favorite of the three.
My problem with Children of Ruin is that aside from the horror vibe, which was really fresh, the rest of the story felt like a rehash of the first book.
I love Children of time so much!, I’m currently working my way through the Red rising series, highly recommend
I read The Left Hand of Darkness this year as my first foray into Ursula K Le Guin and I loved it! I had to read The Dispossessed right after and loved that even more.
I fell more down the “fantasy” side of things this year. Looking back at my library account I see I devoured the “Odd Thomas” series, one of my all time favorites, yet holds tended to expire for excellent scinfi authors like William Gibson and Ursula K Leguin.
I’m really hit by inconvenience here. I need new ideas available on Kindle without a lengthy wait. There was one book where I was 52nd in queue: there’s no way to hold my interest that long
Oh, I certainly get that one. I read quite a bit, so it would be awfully expensive if I didn’t use Libby.
My strategy is to put a tag on all the books in interested in reading. I use lists of award nominees, recommendations from friends, and threads like this to find books to tag. Then in Libby I show all tagged books, make sure I have one or two with a wait that I have a hold on, then filter by available now. Seems to work pretty well.
Oh! Did you know you can have more than one library card in Libby and it will see if the book is available at any of them? For instance, I’m in Los Angeles, and I can legitimately have cards for the LA county library, the Sacramento library because anyone from the state can have that, and the San Bernardino library, I forget why. So that helps a lot.
I was going to reply that my library is part of a statewide network …… but apparently only a 41 library network. I always assumed another coward wouldn’t be worthwhile but the network is a lot smaller than I thought
I don’t know how different California is from other states, but it might be worth looking into the situation for your state.
For sure. Apparently my library’s network is only for “the metro area”, but perhaps the nearby city has more resources
