Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time

For all six of the nominated books we'll give you a quick summary (with no spoilers), a review, and a rundown of what kind of reader is likely to love (and who might hate) each book.Featuring: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler Babel by R.F. Kuang Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree Spear by Nicola Griffith Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn MuirAnd join us for our next episode on A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick!Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video (and see the short videos we've started posting every other week)

Set in a futuristic, unified World State, Brave New World tells the story of a very different kind of dystopia. The population is not tightly controlled in the traditional sense - instead they are free to do what they choose, and live phenomenally happy lives. However, people are born in test tubes and modified in-vitro to fulfill their role in the caste system, to love their work, and to love the hedonistic lifestyle that the World State provides. Bernard Marx is not perfectly happy though. He arranges a trip to a reservation to see a different way of living, and there meets someone born outside the system - The Savage - who begins to question the social order and chafe against the World Controllers who mastermind the system.Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video (and see the short videos we've started posting every other week)

Four soldiers are serving a four year tour of duty as the only crew members on a super-advanced AI battleship, dispatched to fight the alien Salamanders who have been spewing black holes everywhere and killing humans in space. The ship is fully controlled by AI, and as the mission goes on our heroes feel more and more like window dressing - they sure are killing a lot of aliens, but are they anything more than passengers on this ship? Or are they just window-dressing for the military industrial complex?Thanks to Lori from the Hugo, Girl podcast for joining us for this episode! Hugo, Girl is a monthly show featuring three very funny space feminists reading and discuss Hugo Award-winning fiction. Cody joined them on their most recent episode, talking about the hugely underrated book Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang. Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!Related books we recommend:The Forever War by Joe HaldemanBlindsight by Peter WattsLexicon by Max BarryOr you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video (and see the short videos we've started posting every other week)

All of Becky's writing is excellent, but if you haven't read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet  it's a great place to start. It's a wonderful, warm, and character-driven space opera that follows the tight-knit crew of a wormhole-drilling starship working their way across the galaxy. We talked with Becky about:Growing up in a 'space' familyGoing from self-publishing to winning a Hugo Her process for creating her wonderful characters Using the search for identity as central conflict Becky's biggest influencesOr you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video (and see the short videos we've started posting every other week), or join the Hugonauts book club on discord!

Ellie is a brilliant radio astronomer who has often felt alone in the world. When she detects an indisputably intelligent signal emanating from the Vega system, that all changes - for her and for the entire human race. The nations and people of the world begin to come together in the face of the alien intelligence, and humanity faces a simultaneous revival and crisis of faith. Ellie works with an international team of scientists to decode the layers of the Message, and eventually, they realize the Message contains plans for some kind of Machine. Should humanity invest the resources to build the Machine? And if they do, what will happen when they turn it on?Join the book club on discord!Related books we recommend:Cosmos by Carl SaganSolaris by Stanislaw LemThe Three Body Problem by Cixin LiuOr you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video (and see the short videos we've started posting every other week).Hope you love it, keep reading y'all!

Hiro Protagonist is a self-described hacker working as a pizza-delivery driver and living in a storage unit at LAX. He lives in a US that has been fully corporatized - from Judge Bob’s Judicial System to Pastor Wayne’s Pearly Gates. To get away, Hiro spends much of his free-time in the Metaverse, where he wrote many of the subroutines that underpin the virtual world. One of his hacker friends, Da5id, is given a new virtual drug called Snow Crash that not only crashes his computer, but also destroys his brain in the real world. Hiro (and a hilarious cadre of friends) are drawn ever deeper into the worldwide conspiracy that is spilling out of the virtual world to threaten the real world.Link to buy the book (and help support the show!)Join the book club on discord!Written (and more shareable) reviewRelated books we recommend:Neuromancer by William GibsonBabel-17 by Samuel DelanyGood Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil GaimanOr you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video.Keep reading y'all!

Michael Crichton was fresh out of Harvard Medical School when he wrote the Andromeda Strain - and we're so glad he did! The book that launched his literary career and all that followed, from Jurassic Park to Sphere.Here's the setup:A US government program is sending satellites with scoops into orbit, looking for alien organisms that can survive the void of space. When one of the scoops comes down in the Arizona desert two soldiers are sent out to pick it up. But as they get closer, they realize the signal has moved - someone has already picked up the object and moved it into the tiny town of Piedmont. As the two men pull into town, bodies line the streets. In less than five minutes they are dead too. The United States government is forced to mobilize Project Wildfire, a top-secret emergency response protocol. Four of the nation’s most elite biophysicists are summoned to a clandestine underground laboratory where they must race to understand and contain the crisis. But the Andromeda Strain proves different from anything they’ve ever seen - and what they don’t know could not only hurt them, but lead to unprecedented worldwide catastrophe.Link to buy the book (and help support the show!)Join the book club on discord!Related books we recommend:The Hot ZoneJurassic ParkChildren of RuinRendezvous with RamaRed MarsOr you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video.Keep reading y'all!

The story is told via the diary of a Handmaid - a young woman living in Gilead, an extremely repressive, patriarchal society that has taken over the United States. We explore the dark world through her eyes, and follow her struggle to express herself, escape, or just take control back over any part of her life. What are the rules of this brutal society? And will the Handmaid ever see the people she loves again?Link to buy the book (and help support the show!): https://amzn.to/3DqPTxPJoin the book club on discord! https://discord.gg/fHejh3PpR2Related books we recommend:1984 - https://amzn.to/3Y71TMOThe Testaments - https://amzn.to/3XTM1OaBrave New World - https://amzn.to/3kW4CKMNever Let Me Go - https://amzn.to/3DsPFWPOr you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video.Keep reading y'all!

Jason Dessen is walking home one night when he realizes he is being followed. A strange man in a geisha mask abducts him at gunpoint, drives him to an abandoned building, takes his phone and clothes, and injects him with a strange drug. When Jason wakes up, he’s surrounded by strangers congratulating him for something he’s supposed to have achieved. In this world he’s not a college professor - they say he’s created something that seems impossible. He looks for his wife - but in this world she says she’s not his wife. His son was never born.Is this world real, or a dream? And no matter what this place is, how can he get back to the people he loves?Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video.We also launched three new things this week!A website - hugonauts.org - where you can read written reviews & see related books!A Hugonauts book club discord to talk about books together (and everything else)! We're giving away 8 great sci-fi books to kick off the channel, enter to win on the discord channel.Providing links to buy the books we recommend. It doesn't cost you any extra, but a percentage of anything you buy after clicking these links goes to the show, and the support really means a lot!Keep reading y'all!

The story is told from the first person perspective of Laurence Smith—the self-styled “The Great Lorenzo”—a down-and-out actor who spends most of his time in bars. He's approached by a space-pilot who offers him a drink and, despite some trepidation about Lorenzo’s high opinion of himself, offers him a dangerous job at a very high pay rate. One of the solar system's most important politicians has been kidnapped, and they need someone to impersonate him until he's rescued. Lorenzo is quickly pulled deeper and deeper into the conspiracy, and has to keep up the act to avoid his own death and an all-out planetary war.Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video.Drop us a line:https://twitter.com/hugonautspodhttps://www.instagram.com/hugonautspodcast/https://www.tiktok.com/@hugonautspodcast hugonautspodcast@gmail.com