The Year of Reading Sci Fi heads into the Fourth Quarter and provides a much-needed distraction from football, national, and world events.
(1) The Expanse (9 books) by James A Corey. Swashbuckling 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.
(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 concise and pretty realistic for sci fi.
(4) 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 world-building in book #1; book #2 is fine but just more of the same plot.
(5) Three Body Problem (3 books) by Cixin Liu. Aliens are coming and they are smarter than us. Fresh idea, good writing, but the Chinese names lose me. The sequels feature a very dark study of intergalactic game theory.
(6) Hail Mary by Andy Weir. A spaceman travels to discover what is eating the sun and makes a new friend. Good premise, good writing.
(7) 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.
(8) Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. A psychologist visits a spooky space station above a spooky ocean-planet that appears to be a conscious brain.
(9) 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.
(10) Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. More psychedelic than sci-fi but they call it sci fi. Whatever the category, a fun read.
(11) 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.
(12) Gods of Mercy (1+ books) by James A. Comey. Humans dropped on a planet with different DNA struggle against two competing alien invaders. Perhaps a continuation of The Expanse.
(13) The Wall by John Lanchester. England builds a wall to exclude climate-change refugees. Kind of young-adulty but excellent premise.
(14) 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).
(15) Ender's Game (2+ books) by Orson Scott Card. Boy plays games, beats aliens. Fun little book, but pretty young-adulty. Sequel is deeper.
(16) 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).
(17) The Sparrow. Earth discovers alien life and the Vatican races the UN to colonize it. Good premise, poor writing.
(18) Long Way To A Small Angry Planet. Woke in Space. Fun but forced liberal worldbuilding, and dialogue tries too hard to be clever. There are more books in the series but I will not read them.
(19) Cloud Cuckoo Land. Time-bending myth-bending story(ies) about saving civilization from Turks and Climate Change. "Intellectual" but really just OK.
(20) Red Rising. Young man mining on Mars is unhappy. Lost interest - seems to be a Young Adult thing.
(21) Station Eleven. Thespians in the Apocalypse. Lost interest.
(22) Resisters. Rebels turn to baseball to resist climate-change totalitarian government. Lost interest.
(23) Startide Rising. Sarcastic dolphins in space. Lost interest.