Adam Savage's Top 5 Science Fiction Books

I’ve read a lot of Neal Stephenson, but the one that I’ve returned to re-read the most is Anathem. I just love that book. Also Cryptonomicon, but it doesn’t really belong on this list because it’s not science fiction.

This dude is lving proof that Amerika is becoming stupid......

My tastes are for John Wyndham... The Kraken Wakes , but his other books also excellent. Clifford Simak...The Way Station, and some of his other stuff is okay but perhaps more in fantasy . Fred Hoyle ...The Black Cloud, and that might be his only novel . He's the astronomer who identified pulsars ,, didn't discover but identified, also had the insight that we are all stuff. . Harry Harrison is a good writer and may have been a small inspiration for Back to The Future. His Technicolor Time Machine novel is hilarious.. I read Isaac Asimov but wouldn't want to read him again.

Snowcrash was so godamn bad it’s actually insane. Can’t believe that was up there for him

"The Mote In God's Eye" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

Top 3 are easy: LM Bujold Vokosigan Saga; D Weber Honorverse Saga; F Herbert 'Dune'.
After those, it is a wealth of choice: LE Modesitt 'Parafaith War' (his others compete)? Issac Asimove 'Foundation'? C Stross 'Accelerando'? Dan Abnett 'Eisenhorn'? Richard Morgan 'Altered Carbon'? John Scalzi? John Ringo? Ann Leckie? Ian Douglas? Elizabeth Moon? Laurence Dahners? Andy Weir? Gregory Benford? Mark Lawrence? Ann McCaffrey? James Corey? William Gibson? E Flint?

Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

india has sci fi books

Did you read 'Voyage to Arcturus' by David Lindsay? If so, what are your thoughts on that book? Cheers!

If you've never read it, I suggest the Event Group Thriller Series by David L. Goleman. It's got everything from history, politics, syfi, action... the series covers everything from aliens, bigfoot, and werewolves to the Nautilus (yes, Jules Verne) and Atlantis. With El Dorado in yet another book and even the great flood and what happened to Amelia Earhart thrown in... and that just scratches the surface. Plus, the characters are SO well written... I really suggest you give it a try.

Mine is Ender's Game and the other books of that series

Three body problem was interesting when it focused on chinese culture and history but the sci fi elements fell a bit flat for me somehow. Wish i could love it as much as everyone else

Weird coincidence. I stumbled across this video totally. Also today a UN judge calculated that UK reparations for slavery should be something over £18 trillion. I am willing to bet he has never read Shikaster.

😮you know! You are right. Midword so coool

Newer one by Christopher paolini, To sleep in a sea of stars. Very good. And anything Issac Asimov, one of the founding fathers of sci-fi

PLEASE tell me someone else has read, anything from the "Bobiverse"

the man who folded himself..... was not on your list. too bad. david gerrold. read it.

I was not familiar with half the authors you spoke about, but I just had to comment that when you were talking about Shikata (one of the books/authors I'm not familiar with), I was saying to myself, "What about The Left Hand of Darkness?". And lo and behold, you mentioned a second later! Another Ursula K. Le Guin.novel that is a favorite of mine is "The Lathe of Heaven." How about Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye"? It is one I have read severa times.

Adam. Please identify the creature on couch behind you. It looks familiar but I can't place it. I thought initially it was from The Outer limits TOS but when I checked it did not look like the one from "the Invisibles" unless they had different types.

Who else thinks Adam would make a good Bob?

Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon.

Startide Rising & The Uplift War, David Brin. It's a series. Sundiver is actually the first book, but I didn't read for whatever reason and Startide/Uplift stand alone just fine.

In The Ocean of Night, Tides of Light, Sailing Bright Eternity, Across the Sea of Suns, Furious Gulf - (The Galactic Center series), Gregory Benford.

Eon, Eternity, Legacy - (The Way series), Greg Bear.

Universe Maker, A.E. Van Vogt.

Dune and all the sequels that Frank wrote. God Emporer being my favorite.

Methuselah's Children, Time Enough for Love, The Number of the Beast, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, Robert Heinlen - really, most all Heinlein though I'm sure some seems weird and/or dated now. I didn't love Stranger in a Strange Land much for some reason, but still glad I read it.

Odd extras:
Star of the Unborn, Fraz Werfel.

A World Out of Time, Larry Niven.

Midnight at the Well of Souls, etcetera (The Well World series), Jack Chalker.

Other thoughts:
Hmm. I didn't think the Three Body Problem trilogy was difficult reading at all. I was also suprised by what the author got away with as far as a balanced approach to China. And though there was a little obvious cartoonish stereotyping of Americans, it seemed pretty "global".

What I liked best about it is what it leaves up to the reader's own imagination (under direction of the author).Variable Star by Heinlen (w/ Spider Robinson completing the book) does something similar (but only at the end).

The second book in the sprawl trilogy, count zero is just as good as Neuromancer if not better. It takes the story to a new and interesting direction..the third one is kinda disappointing but has one really great character, Mona a 16 year old illiterate orphan girl who ran from the farm she lived at with some old guy who took care of her (never explained why or how, just that he wasn't her dad) with some garbage scam artist who then becomes abusive and starts forcing her to work the streets as a prostitute. She's a drug addict and for much of the story she's high af and in denial that she's addicted but she's such a tragic and yet somewhat funny character in the way people are unintentionally funny sometimes. Like she'll be super high while a battle is going on and just be fascinated by the tracers of the bullets and staring at a robot exploding thinking to her self.. "wow.. so interesting.." without any irony or sarcasm. She just kinda lucks through the story having little agency. Like she's a sort of prisoner and she realises she's likely in big trouble, maybe they plan to use her in a snuff or something. But then she just gets really high and is like.. yeah but probably not right? And kinda stops bothering to escape after she gets high or does something that complicated her situation because she's high.

I'd add Isaac Asimov's "I' Robot---(all the Robot Novels), Galactic Empire novels, Foundation novels ( all in a universe that stretches at least 20,000 years). With honorable additions of "Rendezvous with Rama", "The Mote in God's Eye", "The Time Machine", "The War of The Worlds", "The Forever War", "Dune".

It hit him like an express train, a white-hot column of light mounting his spine from the region of his prostate, illuminating the sutures of his skull with x-rays of short-circuited sexual energy. His teeth sang in their individual sockets like tuning forks, each one pitch-perfect and clear as ethanol. His bones, beneath the hazy envelope of flesh, were chromed and polished, the joints lubricated with a film of silicone. Sandstorms raged across the scoured floor of his skull, generating waves of high thin static that broke behind his eyes, spheres of purest crystal, expanding...

The true greatest story will be made by someone who has little to no interest in flowery language or their own agenda.

You should read Alien Pirates from another Planet!

I appreciate 3 Body Problem but…oof…too dark for me. And very cold characters

People need to read Roadside picnic is really underrated. It has inspire a lot of media.

If you didn't mention Dune I was gonna jump in front of a truck. For real though, I'm about 1/4 through the first book and it's already the most amazing story I've ever heard

No offense, but most of these sound like awful woke garbage.

You mean Sexless? Gender is a social construct so it doesn't matter if it exists or not and people today can change gender just by saying it. Sex and gender are different, and used incorrectly.

2 SF novels that are so incredible for me and seem to be kind of under the radar are The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester and The Long Afternoon of Earth by Brian Aldiss, they're hard to find but so well worth it and certainly in my top 5

Blindsight by Peter Watts… if you know, you know.

After reading Tolkien, Dune read like a documentary. I'm also surprised Gibson made your list, it's so Old School (I'm an epic G fan). Books that changed my life: Asimov's Foundation and Tolkien when I was young. In mid life, Gibson. In later life/old age, unfortunately not even prospects. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR LIST and COMMENTS!!! (3 Body maybe try I should? (Yoda) )

Could I add the Expance novels into the mix. I know there's plenty of books that make up the ark complete ark of the story, but as its all effectively one story, I would like to group them together as one.

Similarly with all the firefly novels and Aliens stories

Foundation [ the whole series and possibly some of the robot stories for background because they all tie together in the end ]. You mentioned Dune but all of them are really one story so should read all of them.

I truly hate the idea of claiming there could ever even be a Top 5 books of any genre.

Ranking books like this is anathema to what books should be. Reading shouldn't be some event you can quantify in such a way.

I recommend books and authors, but I never relate or compare their tales' to other authors or books in any way that quantifies their differences on a scale.

Each book and author is unique.

Your top three are my top three, which makes me trust the rest of the list to be good. Added to my list of books to read!

Thanks Adam. Reading the first Shikasta book on your recommendation and loving it. She had passed me by and i feel that you may just have opened up a whole new world for me! How did i not know about Doris Lessing!
Love and appreciation. Keep up the good work.
X

Martian Chronicles? Foundation Trilogy? Childhood's End?

O-Zone by Paul Theroux.

bunch of commie reccomendations.

How the F do you consider woke propaganda to be some of the greatest sci fi ever?

Dune occupies a weird place in my memory. I always remember jt as very densely written, like LotR, and yet it frankly isn't, it's actually a very readable book. Love it!

Snow crash is an incredible world in need of a good story

Great picks--never heard of Shikasta but it sounds really interesting! My only book series to add would be Gene Wolfe's 4-part The Book of the New Sun.

Was really hoping it would be fewer books about politics and gender.

Just read The children of time recently and it is crazy it isn’t a part of this list

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge is my recommendation. First contact between humans and less advanced non-anthropoid aliens in a unique setting, with political intrigue and people on both sides trying to do the right thing despite their governments.