7 Philosophical Science Fiction Novels You Need to Read

I'd add Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. It's a classic novel about what makes a being "human" and what is the right path to choose. It's highly philosophical.

The Three Body Problem, definitely / Rememberance of Earths Past as a trilogy is one I would add. I’m happy to have already read many of these but have a few new ones to check out now!

Frankenstein holds up and is always relevant. The fear of creating something that will destroy us will be timeless until it becomes timely.

I would maybe add Slaughter House 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, especially if you like thinking about the nature of time and some of Shelley's themes.

Add mine to what will inevitably become a chorus of voices recommending the works of Olaf Stapledon. Particularly 'Star Maker' and 'Last and First Men'

To give a small taste here's the inspiration for Sagan's Pale Blue Dot (Star Maker, chapter 1):

"I sat down on the heather. Overhead obscurity was now in full retreat. In its rear the freed population of the sky sprang out of hiding, star by star.

On every side the shadowy hills or the guessed, featureless sea extended beyond sight. But the hawk-flight of imagination followed them as they curved downward below the horizon. I perceived that I was on a little round grain of rock and metal, filmed with water and with air, whirling in sunlight and darkness. And on the skin of that little grain all the swarms of men, generation by generation, had lived in labor and blindness, with intermittent joy and intermittent lucidity of spirit. And all their history, with its folk-wanderings, its empires, its philosophies, its proud sciences, its social revolutions, its increasing hunger for community, was but a flicker in one day of the lives of stars."

Foundation (I) was essential reading for me as a child and remains a re-readable favorite today.

Solaris, the book, is waaay better than either movie. Which I fell asleep watching, both, before reading it. And. Shrt 😊. As opposed to looong ☹️. Clever, rather than pretentious.

Even if contemporary, you cannot miss out Cixin Liu and his Trisolaris cycle ….

The Sirens of Titan is another great one

The Matrix 1-3

Reccomendations: 'Terminal Boredom' and 'Hit Parade of Tears' by Izumi Suzuki [they are both anthologies of her short stories! They have a very non-traditional take on the genre and that is fascinating!]

All SF is philosophical. Here is a good one, The Death of Grass

You put in the culture novels and not Le Guin or Wolfe? Disgraceful lmao

I think Lem's best novel is Return from the Stars with another intriguing topic: what will society and human life in general be like in a hundred years?

Dissapointed not to see Vonnegut on here. Slaughterhouse Five and/or Player Piano

I have one piece of media that I have to lobby to add to this list - Gattaca. Not sure if it's a book, but it deserves a place here,

Thanks, WOW a new reading list, looking forward to it....

2001 A Space Odyssey?

These are hard classics

When I read Frankenstein, it struck me as a treatise on the morality of genetic engineering … grappling with scientific achievement out striding society’s ability to contextualize the relevant morals or ethics. Shelley seems to ask again and again, “If we could, should we?”

As the saying goes, knowledge is understanding that Frankenstein isn't the monster, and wisdom is understanding that he is.

Do you have any recommendations for philosophical fiction (broadly speaking) like Nausea and Crime and Punishment?

"In Entopy's Jaws" by Robert Silverberg. Seriously influenced me as a college student.

As a fan of Lem, personally I prefer "His Master's Voice" over "Solaris" (although the latter one is still a captivating and thought-provoking novel; nothing wrong with it).

It's even more philosophical and doesn't involve space travel - it's basically scientists attempting to decode an interstellar transmission.

Lem is breaking pretty much every s-f trope - the process is gruelling, there's real-world politics at play, and at some point it feels like the attempts tell you more about humanity than about the senders.
If you're truly into the "thinking man's s-f", you couldn't get a better book.

Thoughts on Hyperion?

Blindsight by Peter Watts is the one Sci-Fi book that actually changed my core philosophical beliefs. It's hard Sci-Fi and can be hard to get into, but once you do, it's very worth it

J . G . Ballard ... ? or is that more sociology ?

“The Glass Bead Game” Herman Hesse

Can't believe you never mention "More Than Human", by Sturgeon. Amazing sci-fi/psyche novel. A must read before you die. Mindblowing and deep af.

Paul Atreides is a classic (ancient greek style) tragic hero. There is not a shred of doubt about this. If you understand that - and you will if you went to any college worth its salt - then you understand everything about the Dune books.

Solaris was the most boring movie I ever tried to watch. I never heard of Anathem but the rest were epic.

Great video, thanks for making it.

Cloud Atlas = you BELIEVE there's seven stories?? WTF?

I just found your channel and subscribed. I enjoyed this list. Especially because of the (somewhat) lesser-known novels like Yevgeny (Eugene) Zamyatin’s “We” (assigned to me to read in the late ‘70’s in a Sci-Fi lit course at the University of Virginia) and “A Canticle for Leibowitz”. Speaking of the Vatican in Space (an entire sub-genre, it turns out), and maybe you cover it in another vid, let me recommend “The Sparrow” by Mary Doris Russell. As a lapsed Catholic and aspiring Jesuit philosopher from Syracuse, NY, the fact that this was written by a LeMoyne College professor made it inevitable (G) for me. A Scientist/Priest at a Roman Catholic observatory in the western US ( they have one!) is sent on a mission (double meaning there) to a planet with intelligent life. Philosophy ensues; first contact, ethical evaluation of alien culture, Catholics in Space!
Another obvious one you probably cover in another vid is the Hyperion Cantos (or series) by Dan Simmons. More Vatican intrigue in space, jam packed with so many complex and interesting themes, great characters, and great writing that it may not carry the “philosophical” label, but it is, baby, it is.

One novella I would highly recommend is E. M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops”, published in 1909. Six years after the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, he imagined a world in which air travel is obsolete and people live in hive like structures because of the inhospitable environment and communicate via video tablets. Imagine reading that in 1909…

If you’re looking for a really fine philosophical sf novel, imho you couldn’t do better than “Star of the Unborn” by Franz Werfel. Consider it “The Brothers Karamazov” of science fiction.

Anathem is so underrated

I have. What now?

If you haven’t seen Tarkovsky’s Solaris, you’ve missed out.

I tend to think that the entire genre of alternative history is one that is great for some good old fashioned philosophical pondering: how might things have gone differently given different circumstances. Two of my favorites in this genre are Man in the High Castle by Dick (I tend to like the book more than the TV series) and Years of Rice and Salt by Robinson.

Have you read anything by Octavia Bulter? Specifically her Xenogensis and Patternist series?

The stochastic man?

I’ve never read Dune but have always been fascinated by Dune lore. I’m not surprised but very pleased to see it first on this list

I think you missed Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged...

I feel like Lem does not belong in a top 7 or a top 10. Who's better? Everyone else in your list, Heinlein, Dick, Orwell. Seriously, Lem might not be a top 100 Sci Fi author. I would put Lem below Heppner, Weil and Aer-ki Jyr.

Great list! Flowers for Algernon might also be considered.

I would recommend "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein. My favorite sci-fi of all time.

I have two further recommendations: The Question Mark, by Muriel Jaeger, and Wild Harbour, by Ian MacPherson. I'm happy to see A Canticle for Leibowitz here.

The Culture series is my favorite philosophical sci-fi. It sneaks up on you rather than hitting you over the head. Foundation felt clumsy in comparison. It also felt more relevant than sci-fi that explores extremely abstract, far-fetched ideas. Instead it asks: what does one do with one’s life once material and health concerns are no longer an issue? Anyone entering retirement or fortunate enough to attain financial independence asking what to do with their spare time will identify.

Recommended: Limbo by Bernard Wolfe. "In the aftermath of an atomic war, a new international movement of pacifism has arisen. Multitudes of young men have chosen to curb their aggressive instincts through voluntary amputation—disarmament in its most literal sense." (Goodreads)

Uhhh-Blindsight? Actually used in philosophy courses? Or maybe Peter Watts is just too much of a drag. "Whenever I feel my will to live becoming too strong, I read some Peter Watts." - actual review blurb on one of his books.