Now tying off the thread with new Fourth Quarter entires and final rankings. In 2025 I will be reading some other genre.
(1) The Expanse (9 books) by James A Corey. In the year 2350, swashbuckling space heroes take on Earth politicians, the Martian military, asteroid belt terrorists, and aliens. Epic, fun, profound, and fantastic - characters, plot, "realism" all top notch.
(2) Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (5 books) by Douglas Adams. More a study in absurdity than traditional sci fi but cannot leave it off the list. A top-ten book in any category.
(3) The Black Cloud by Ed Hoyle. Earth's scientists race to understand an approaching darkness. Written by the real-world astrophysics legend who coined "The Big Bang" (in derision). Old fashioned but the plot and writing are tight and the concept is a realistic first-contact with an alien very different from us.
(4) Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. A psychologist visits a spooky space station above a spooky ocean-planet that appears to be one giant conscious brain. The two endeavor to understand each other, the latter with more success. A mysterious first-contact story. Written in Communist Poland, there is an ominous existential feel to the story.
(5) Dune (2+ books) by Frank Herbert. Classic. A chosen-one boy helps desert natives defeat a space empire through omniscience, omnipotence, and drugs. Epic world-building and genre-defining elements. Book #2 and further books delve into political theory.
(6) Three Body Problem (3 books) by Cixin Liu. Aliens are coming and they are smarter than us. Fresh idea, good writing. The sequels feature a very dark study of intergalactic game theory in a first-contact context.
(7) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. A 30th Century monastery in Colorado gathers and protects books after a 20th Century nuclear war made the few survivors hate books and attack book-readers. Good characters and great writing.
(8) Rendevous with Rama by Arthur C Clark. In 2130 Earth sends a ship to investigate an alien vessel as it circles the sun. Fairly realistic for a SciFi book. Good action and quick pace as the crew explores the mysterious ship and attempts first-contact with its crew.
(9) Culture (series) by Iain Banks. Set in a utopian future when the computers that run society are apparently benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent – and have a robust sense of humor. A nice break from the usual distopian AI-wary books in the genre. Consider Phlebas (the first in the series) is weak but can be skipped; Player of Games is a fun story of a champion gamer sent to challenge a potentially hostile empire at its own game.
(10) Hail Mary by Andy Weir. A spaceman travels to discover what is eating the sun and makes a new friend. Good “first contact” premise, good writing.
(11) Hyperion (2+ books) by Dan Simmons. A diverse group tell their stories a la Canterbury Tales as they travel through space and time while battling a mysterious monster. Excellent multiple-perspective narrative and world-building in book #1; book #2 is fine but just more of the same plot.
(12) A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick. A detective gets hooked on a brain-splitting drug he was investigating which prevents him from knowing when the investigation focuses on himself. He has a futuristic mask that prevents the police department from knowing the two are the same person. This is more about drug use than about science, but the trippy dialogue makes it worthwhile.
(13) Foundation (series) by Isaac Asimov. A psychologist predicts the end of the Galactic Empire. His successors run an intellectual “foundation” that preserves knowledge, minimizes the chaos, and uses its scientific advantage to cow and control the nearby militaristic space kingdoms.
(14) Mote In God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The human empire sends a ship with a large and diverse cast to conduct a first contact meeting with aliens; a first-contact story with aliens who are realistically different from humans.
(15) Blindsight by Peter Watts. A team of mental misfits goes to meet and understand an alien ship. Clever take on consciousness in context of first-contact story.
(16) The Wall by John Lanchester. England builds a wall to exclude climate-change refugees. Two young heroes are drafted to man the wall and fight off immigrants. Kind of young-adulty but excellent premise and good story.
(17) City by Clifford Simak. When humans tire of the earth and move to Jupiter, intelligent dogs take over the earth, and eventually regard humans as a myth. Told in the form of Aesop-like fables presented and disputed by learned academic authorities such as Rover and Bounce.
(18) Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. More psychedelic than sci-fi but they call it sci fi. Whatever the category, a fun read.
(19) The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin. An physicist from a socialist-anarchist moon finds intrigue and culture clash with capitalist and communist civilizations when visiting its home planet.
(20) Shadow and Claw (series) by Gene Wolfe. An unreliable narrator guides you through a fantasy world that you gradually realize is a future earth where old tech functions like magic. A long slog and difficult slog but it has good moments and a worthwhile grand narrative.
(21) The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu. A set of short stories. In the first story, humanity must live underground and propel the Earth away from the sun before it explodes.
(22) Gods of Mercy by James A. Comey. Humans dropped on a planet with different DNA struggle against two competing alien invaders. Begins a new series to follow The Expanse.
(23) The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. A human space warrior struggles with the challenges of fighting in space-time and struggles more with the changes on Earth while away each campaign (by a Vietnam vet with obvious parallels).
(24) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Stories involving connected characters (dating from 1850s Pacific islands, 1930s Belgium, modern London, futuristic Korea, and post-apocalyptic Hawaii) are layered so you read half of each story before finishing in reverse order. Great narrative idea but some stories are better than others and the connections could have been developed more. The first half is fun but it ends with a big “so-what.”
(25) Carpathians by Paul Dixon. Spacefaring and corporate espionage in the 30th Century. A decent story with good characters but nothing profound here.
(26) Children of Time by Adrian Tschaikovsky. A futuristic planet-wide evolution experiment goes wrong and is discovered centuries later. Not very “realistic” (even as sci fi) but a good read.
(27) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Boy plays games, beats aliens. Fun little book, but pretty young-adulty. Sequel is deeper.
(28) Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu. A pacifist scientist fascinated by ball lightning uses the Chinese military in order to study it (and it uses him).
(29) The Sparrow. Earth discovers alien life and the Vatican races the UN to colonize it. Good first-contact premise, and good narrative use of time-differential affecting those who travel at lightspeed. Overall, the premise is wasted through dumb execution and poor writing.
(30) Long Way To A Small Angry Planet. Woke in Space. Fun but forced liberal world-building, and dialogue tries too hard to be clever. There are more books in the series but I will not read them.
(31) Cloud Cuckoo Land. Time-bending myth-bending story(ies) about saving civilization from Turks and Climate Change. "Intellectual" but really just OK.
(32) Red Rising. Young man mining on Mars is unhappy. Seems to be a Young-Adult thing. Lost interest, Did Not Finish.
(33) Station Eleven. Thespians in the Apocalypse. Lost interest, DNF.
(34) Resisters. Rebels turn to baseball to resist climate-change totalitarian government. Lost interest, DNF.
(35) Startide Rising. Sarcastic dolphins in space. Lost interest, DNF.