Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time

A world where everyone occupies a tiny cell, connected to each other only by machines, and where a parent's responsibility to their child ends at birth. Where all knowledge and experience comes secondhand, through the machine. A world where the machine rules everyone's lives.We absolutely love this classic short story, and we're lucky it's old enough to have entered the public domain so we can release this complete audiobook for free! We did a full cast recording with Kiran Subramaniam joining Cody and Brent to voice all the parts.Let us know if you liked (or didn't like) this episode so we can keep doing more (or quit doing) these free audiobooks! Drop us a message to let us know what you think on Instagram or Twitter (search 'Hugonauts Podcast'), or via email at hugonautspodcast@gmail.com.Keep reading y'all!

David Brin is an astrophysicist whose international best-selling novels include The Postman, Startide Rising, and the Uplift War. He consults for NASA, companies, agencies, and nonprofits about the onrushing future. His first nonfiction book, The Transparent Society, won the Freedom of Speech Award. His newest book is Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood.Startide Rising won both the Hugo and the Nebula in 1984 - one of a very short list of books to win both awards! If you haven't read it yet, here's the setup:Startide Rising follows a spaceship from Earth, named Streaker, that is primarily crewed and captained by dolphins. The main conceit of Brin’s uplift series is that humanity has ‘uplifted’ dolphins and chimpanzees by speeding up their evolution. Streaker’s crew has discovered something of great interest to the entire galaxy, and is trying to get back to Earth with the information. Unfortunately, the galaxy is not a friendly place, and when word gets out about what Streaker is carrying, the entire galaxy converges on Streaker to try and stop them. Streaker is damaged and lands on an ocean planet to hide and buy time to repair themselves, while meanwhile the forces of all the other galactic civilizations battle it out in the solar system above them, trying to be the last one’s standing so they can capture Streaker. It’s a plot driven space opera, with each chapter following one of many different characters (even including a few aliens) as the crew of the Streaker races to repair their ship, to understand the strange planet they’ve crashed on, and tries to come up with a plan to escape and get back to Earth.If you want to learn more about David Brin's recent books: davidbrin.com/vividtomorrows.htmldavidbrin.com/outoftime.htmlringoffirepress.com/shop/melody-of-memoryOr you can watch the show on YouTube here if you prefer video. Happy reading y'all!

These books are among the most popular works of the Golden Age of sci fi, and for good reason. The overall story arc established in the first book is very, very good.  Hari Seldon combines mathematics and psychology to create the new science of psychohistory and predicts that the galaxy-wide empire that has ruled and kept the peace for tens of thousands of years will collapse within 500 years. The collapse is inescapable, but Seldon sees a single, narrow path that could shorten the dark ages after the collapse from 30,000 years to 1,000 years, and establishes a Foundation at the barren edge of the galaxy to enact that plan. The books are essentially organized as collections of short stories, each story detailing the story of a new generation of foundationers as they seek to navigate a crisis that threatens the plan and the very existence of the Foundation.The technology holds up as well - Asimov was a master of making things futuristic without being too specific about how they worked, and its made his series into a timeless classic. Asimov's view of history as the result of the collective work of humanity rather than the actions of a few great men is also very refreshing and real - a nice change of pace from the typical hero's journey.As always, we also recommend and discuss some similar books if you are looking for more great books to read. This week we recommend I, Robot by Isaac Asmiov, A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.Or you can watch the show on YouTube here if you prefer video.

Douglas Adams passed away 21 years ago this week, so it seemed like a good time to revisit his amazing work. These are short, digestible books that are jam-packed full of jokes and mad-cap adventures. The first book in the series (the eponymous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) is especially full of non-stop zaniness - the chapters are only a few pages long, but every single one feels like it has something big happening in it, and every page has a joke. The books also raise big philosophical questions, but answers them in a truly unique way. Instead of trying to dispense wisdom or tell you how to live your life, the books poke fun at the entire notion of universal answers to life's big questions. Instead, Adams suggests we could all do with taking life a little less seriously and finding our own answers to those big questions.As always, we also recommend and discuss some similar books if you are looking for more great books to read. This week we recommend Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.Later on this week we'll also be giving away a complete set of all five HGTTG books, as well as Adam's final, posthumously published work, The Salmon of Doubt. Find us on twitter or instagram @hugonautspodcast to enter to win!If you'd prefer to watch the video version, you can find it at this link.

Despite the grim nature of a story about a pandemic that destroys civilization, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is full of subtle optimism and deep characters. It jumps between timelines and between characters, and builds mystery about how all these people are going to be connected. It tells a tense story about the dangers posed by other survivors in a post-apocalyptic world, while at the same time its characters try to hold on to art and music. It even manages to explore the narcissism created by celebrity in the 'present' timeline. The book was first published as sci-fi, but after the release of the TV show has been moved to the general fiction section in most book stores, so this also seemed like the right episode go deep on what exactly counts as sci-fi. As always, we also recommend and discuss some similar books if you are looking for more great books to read. This week we recommend Barrayar (or any book in the Vorkosigan Saga) by Lois McMaster Bujold, The Glass Hotel  by Emily St. John Mandel, any book by Mario Vargas Llosa, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy.If you'd prefer to watch the video version, you can watch it at this link.

In this episode we review Cixin Liu's Hugo award winning Three Body Problem (the book that made him the first person from Asia to win the award), as well as the sequels. If you haven't read the first book yet, you should - it absolutely deserves all its acclaim, with a huge number of big tech ideas, an incredibly compelling character in Ye Wenjie, and even includes a section set during the Cultural Revolution in China to boot. Unfortunately, the sequels aren't as good - although the second book The Dark Forest does contain the single most disturbing solution to the Fermi Paradox we've ever read! As always, we also recommend and discuss some similar books if you liked Three Body and are looking for more great sci fi to read. This week we recommend the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, Legends of the Galactic Heroes by Yoshiki Tanaka, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and House of Suns by Alastair ReynoldsIf you'd prefer to watch the video version, you can watch it here.

In this episode we review and discuss Exhalation and Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang's two short story collections. These seventeen stories are full of novel scientific ideas, wonderful characters, and thoughtful takes on the morality of future technologies and how they will change society. We certainly aren't alone in thinking they're wonderful - Ted Chiang has won four Hugos, four Nebulas, and four Locus awards for his stories. As always, we also recommend and discuss some similar books if you're looking for more great sci fi short story collections to read. This week, we recommend The Paper Menagerie and other Stories by Ken Liu, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by Ken Liu, I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, and Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut.If you'd prefer to watch the video version, you can watch it here.

In this episode we review Ender's Game, what makes it so inspiring to generation after generation of readers, why Ender is so incredibly likeable, discuss empathy as a superpower, and talk about Orson Scott Card's bizarre and outspoken homophobia (and why you should get this book from the library or used book store as a result). As always, we also recommend and discuss some similar stories if you're looking for more great books to read. This week we recommend Speaker for the Dead (the sequel to Ender's Game), Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, The Giver by Lois Lowry, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.Youtube link if you'd prefer to watch the episode.NO SPOILERS BOOK SUMMARY: Ender’s Game is the story of Ender Wiggin, a boy who is recruited into the elite orbital Battle School. There, young men and women are trained into the next generation of military leaders to command the forces of humanity against the buggers. The buggers are insect-like aliens who have attempted to invade the solar system twice, nearly wiping out humanity in the most recent invasion, and now humanity has sent fleets to attack the bugger worlds and try to avoid a 3rd invasion. Ender is a brilliant, empathetic kid, but has felt mostly alone his entire life. His older brother Peter is a violent sociopath, and only Ender’s older sister Valentine prevented Peter from attacking Ender. Now, at battle school, Ender feels even more alone, surrounded by children older than himself and adults who are constantly pushing him to his limits and trying to force him to be violent in an attempt to either break him or mold him into the best military commander Earth has ever produced. NOTE - at the very end of this episode we discuss the twist and the ending of the book. We give you plenty of verbal notice before we talk about any spoilers, but we wanted to give you a heads up here as well just in case. Make sure to tune out at 30:44 if you haven't read the book yet and don't want to spoil anything.We're also excited to announce we've been named one of the best sci fi podcasts of 2022!

This week we were so excited to interview Joe Haldeman and his wife Gay! The Forever War is absolutely one of the best sci fi books of all time, and we were excited to discuss the origins, real-life inspiration, and message of the book, as well as sci-fi and writing more broadly. In addition to writing more than 30 novels, Joe was also a professor at MIT (as was Gay) where he taught science fiction writing for decades. This week, instead of us recommending similar books, we asked Joe and Gay to recommend their favorite sci-fi books. Among Joe's books, they recommended Camouflage, the World's Trilogy, and The Accidental Time Machine. For books by other writers, they recommended anything by Vonnegut, The Murderbot series by Martha Wells, Ted Chiang, N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, and Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga (as well as some love for John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway if you want to read some non science fiction).YouTube link if you prefer to watch the episode.NO SPOILERS SUMMARY OF THE FOREVER WAR: William Mandella was a physics student when he was conscripted into the UNEF. Human colony ships had been disappearing, apparently at the hands of a newly discovered alien species called the Taurans, and humanity is conscripting the best and brightest to go out and fight the aliens in deep space.Mandella and the rest of the recruits undergo dangerous and brutal training to learn how fight for control of the collapsars that greatly speed interstellar travel. During training and through the difficult fighting that follows, Mandella falls in love with another member of his unit, a woman named Marygay Potter.Mandella and Marygay do everything they can to survive the war, but even if they survive, they still can’t return to the world they left behind. Even with the collapsars to speed their interstellar journeys, travelling through the gaps between the stars still requires accelerating to near lightspeed, and the resulting time dilation means every trip takes them farther and farther into the future, away from their families and the society they knew.

 In this episode we review Adrian Tchaikovosky's most popular book, talk about how he pulled off making giant spiders likeable, discuss how the book started off so strong, and debate whether a book's optimism or pessimism should impact how we view it. We're also joined by a guest - Hasan, a listener who reached out and we invited to guest host an episode - shoot us a message at hugonautspodcast@gmail.com if you're interested in apply to guest host a future episode! As always, we also recommend and discuss some similar stories if you're looking for more great books to read. This week we recommend Startide Rising by David Brin, Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (and to a lesser extent the sequel A Deepness in the Sky), The Dark Beyond the Stars by Frank M. Robinson, and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky (the sequel to this book).YouTube link if you prefer to watch the episode.NO SPOILERS BOOK SUMMARY: Earth has been destroyed in an unknown cataclysm, but just before the fall, a scientific ship in a nearby system terraforms a planet and drops a super-evolutionary nanovirus onto the planet - where it starts working on spiders and ants. In the generations after the fall, humanity recovers enough to send out a few ark ships, one of which is heading toward the burgeoning spider world. We rotate between two narratives: one that describes the evolution of various spiders and spider characters across the generations, and one that details the events aboard the ark ship Gilgamesh as it’s human cargo wakes and sleeps over the eons.