Hi everyone welcome back to my channel for my top 10 sci-fi novels. I absolutely love doing these
top 10 genre videos and I’ve been trying to update a few of mines over the past few months. You may
have seen top 10 horror, you may have seen top 10 romance and I definitely have plans for a few more
but the last time I did a top 10 sci-fi video was about four years ago and my favourites have
definitely changed because I wasn't as familiar with certain formats of sci-fi back then. I’ve
read a lot more like high sci-fi, space setting sci-fi since then and really fallen in love with
a few more books so I thought it was about time I updated you all. So let's actually kick things off
with the slightly lighter sci-fi novels on this list, the two books that would fall under the
time travel category but aside from the time travel deal with themes very far removed from
what I think a lot of people consider sci-fi. So these books would be perfect introductions to the
genre for people who aren't super into high sci-fi and the first one is Kindred by Octavia E Butler.
This is a novel about women who time travels back to the era of American slavery in the US.
She is living in the 1970s which is when this book was written so it's already a few decades old in
terms of when we're living, when you're watching this video, but she has to survive in a time so
in contrast with the time that she's been brought up in. And she is a black woman so when she finds
herself stranded in the antebellum south, she has to lead the life of a slave in order to survive.
Now there's never really any explanation to how she is time traveling and she does flip back and
forth between her own time and the slavery era, but there appears to be a connection between
her and the white slave owner that she is continually sent back in order to save the life
of and it is absolutely fascinating. It feels and reads like a piece of historical fiction
but with this incredibly well used genre element that allows the author to explore
slavery era from a modern or 1970s perspective and address the idea of ‘I would have behaved
this way’ or ‘I would have behaved that way if I was alive then’. It really forces the reader to
face up to what it was like back then and it does not shy away from the horrors of slavery and the
abuses of the enslaved during that period. And it does touch on racism in the 1970s
whilst doing that. It's so incredibly well written, such an incredible use of a sci-fi genre
element to explore something so deep, meaningful and incredibly educational as well as just being a
really really compelling narrative and I would highly recommend this one. The second book that
features time travel on this list is Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi which was
originally written in Japanese. Now this one is a little bit different because it's about this very
unique cafe in Japan where visitors can travel back in time but the only place they can travel
back in time to is this café. The time travel is restricted to the exact location that you
are currently in which is only one seat at one table in this cafe so unless the thing that you
want to revisit happened in this cafe it's a kind of useless form of time travel. Then there's a lot
of rules about the time travel including what you can and cannot do or say when you're back there
and the fact that you have to return before the coffee gets cold. This book isn't about
changing the past or great sci-fi innovations, it's about exploring the meaning of the past
to us as individuals. It explores grief, explores love, it explores human connection and all through
this time travel element which you see occur to multiple different guests and staff members.
So you follow a whole group of different people and their experiences and their short stories of
what in the past they wanted to see and what matters to them and it is the most beautiful
emotional little book because it's not a big book but it packs such a punch. And I actually haven't
yet picked up the sequel which takes place in the same cafe and I assume explores new characters
stories so I really need to get around to doing that but in the meantime I would highly highly
recommend this one. I think it's more commonly defined as literary fiction but that just goes
to show that sci-fi or any other genre can easily cross over with what is deemed literary fiction.
Moving away from the past however to the future this is the category of sci-fi that I think
people most commonly associate with sci-fi and that is the high space antic adventure
type storyline set in the far flung future. The first book I want to mention in this category is
one of my favourite reads of the past few years and that is The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
by Becky Chambers. This book is Firefly if it were a book. If you enjoyed the tv show firefly
and you have not read this book yet then trust me you will adore it. I could not think of a better
tv show to book comparison and that's not to say it's not unique in its own way
but it is full of so many of the elements I know a lot of people love about firefly
and myself included. This is about the crew on a ship that are tasked with creating space tunnels
in order to facilitate faster space travel over greater distances and it's about each member of
that crew and their own journeys and their own personal growth and their own personal stories.
As well as them as a cohort, as a group, as a supportive entity full of genuine connection,
and I can't say human connection because there are alien species here too but that real genuine
friendship and sometimes romantic connection that is so simple in essence but so difficult to often
find explored in a positive way in books. And the positive vibe of this book is one of the things I
absolutely adore of it. Yes there are moments of tension, yes there are moments of danger,
yes there are moments of sadness but all round this book is incredibly positive
and hopeful and it just brings me so much joy. Again I haven't continued on with the series
yet but I absolutely cannot wait to and I know that each book explores new characters in the
same distant future. Might I add that the sci-fi world building is also absolutely impeccable
and it felt so in-depth and well constructed, so massive kudos to becky chambers for that.
If you want relatable though there is no sci-fi novel more relatable in my opinion than All
Systems Red by Martha Wells. So this is actually the first again in a novella series although there
is more recently a novel that has been added to that series so it is ongoing and continuing
and that is something that brings me so much joy because I could just spend forever
with this character. We follow a cyborg, android creature in the future, they are a combination
of uh organic and mechanical elements and they refer to themselves as Murderbot,
although they've never shared that name with anybody else. And they are in effect
protection for hire, bodyguard for hire, to spaceships that don't have a regular staff member
that fulfils this when they're going on slightly more dangerous missions. But all they really want
to do is to sit in their private cabin on their spaceship and watch soap operas and they have
hacked their internal systems in order to free themselves from the control of the organization
that rents them out although it still goes on these jobs but uses every available opportunity
to basically fulfil their own life mission which is to watch as many soap operas as possible
whilst not being discovered as having hacked their system because this
would lead to them being dissolved and retired and deconstructed. And they are just the most
relatable character ever to have been written in a book ever and they're not even a human.
And even if you typically veer away from sci-fi set in space you may want to pick
this one up because my goodness is it just so endearing and relatable and I’ve used that word
a million times now but I cannot think of a better word for it. I absolutely adore it.
On the topic of novellas I have another series that is published by Tor, as is all systems red,
and that is the Binti series by Nnedi Okorafor. So this one is all about a young woman named
Binti who has been accepted to Oomza university which is a intergalactic university for all alien
races but she's actually the first ever human to have applied and been accepted and attend.
Her family are very reticent to the idea of her traveling to this university because they feel
their place and their energy is better spent at home on earth, which leads to her sneaking away
in the early mornings in order to board a ship and head off to this university because she's
trying to establish her own path. She's trying to find a balance between her traditional culture,
her family ties and also her desire to explore something new and to go off into space and attend
this university. But things don't go as smoothly as she's hoped for pretty much
from the get-go and I won't say any more in terms of plot because a lot happens in what is
for book one only about 80 pages and it is incredible how much Nnedi Okorafor is
able to pack into these novellas honestly. You become so invested in the characters
you learn so much about the world about the different cultures and people and politics
and like I said they're all novellas, they're all pretty darn short and that is really really
impressive. I absolutely adore these novellas and would 100% read more if more were published.
Honestly however for me there is no intergalactic story quite like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy. This was one of the first sci-fi novels I ever fell in love with and it's one I have reread
countless time. It is a comedic sci-fi novel but through comedy explores very very human themes and
emotions. We follow Arthur Dent, an incredibly ordinary human man whose best friend is called
Ford Prefect, a little bit of an unusual name for an ordinary human but it turns out Ford Prefect
isn't actually a human at all. Ford Prefect is an alien hitchhiker who has been stranded
on earth for a little while now and become friends with arthur dent until a fleet of
vogon spaceships arrives to demolish the earth in order to make way for a hyper space
bypass and ford is able to hitch a lift with his friend in order to escape the earth's destruction.
And pretty much against his will and any of his desires or plans arthur dent is flung into
an intergalactic adventure aboard the spaceship Heart of Gold. There is robots and aliens,
a little bit of romance and even you might discover some time travel in there too.
There is so much going on in the series, they are completely wacky and out there but they are so
much fun and they are a classic in the sci-fi genre so I cannot recommend them more highly.
I have one more story set in outer space to mention to you before I move on to what I would
consider more of the apocalyptic dystopian sci-fi section of this video and that is the Tea Master
and the Detective by Aliette De Bodard. So this one's actually more of a short story novella, it's
very short but it would be remiss of me to not include it in this list because I absolutely
adore it and I sit and think to myself quite often how much I would love more long format stories
about these same characters so it's definitely a favourite. This is basically like sherlock holmes
if Sherlock Holmes was set in a far-flung future in outer space and sherlock holmes
was a spaceship while dr watson was a tea master. It’s pretty much everything I could ever hope for
in a piece of sci-fi literature and like I said I would love more about these characters or
in this setting. As you can already gather from what I’ve said there is a crime
or mystery element to the plot and we have those two central characters that strike up a bond,
and are two of the most, and are one of the most unusual pairings in a sci-fi novel given
that one of them is literally a spaceship. I absolutely love it. I think it's so clever
and it's beautifully written. Aliette de Bodard is the most stunning writer. Everything I have read
by this author has been truly beautiful, breathtaking in its prose and this is no
different. I have yet to be disappointed with any of their work but this is probably my favourite.
Then like I mentioned we move on to the apocalyptic dystopian section of this video. So
the first book I have to include for apocalyptic literature is the Day of the Triffids by John
Wyndham. John Wyndham is a classic sci-fi author of the mid-20th century who I’ve read a number of
books by and is definitely one of the authors that got me into reading more sci-fi. He was definitely
part of my journey as a sci-fi reader and my favourite book I have read by him is also probably
his most popular which is of course the day of the triffids. Day of the Triffids is a sci-fi
classic. The story begins the morning after a spectacular sight filled the skies
the night before and as a result of whatever this spectacular sight was, nobody's quite sure, almost
the entire population of earth has lost their sight. They are now blind minus a few exceptions
like our protagonist a man who was in hospital having his eyes treated um and therefore covered
during the night so he could never see what was going on in the sky that made everyone else lose
their sight. It immediately highlights from page one the way in which our society is not properly
adapted for the blind and whilst this is all going on there are these slightly ominous plants
running amok. So these plants, the trifids are already well known. They started cropping up
quite a few years ago and humans have been farming them with no real understanding of
where they originated from. Triffids seem almost alive but they themselves cannot see however now
that humanity is entirely sightless and completely confused it's their opportunity to have the upper
hand. And yes the villain of this novel is a plant and it is so well done I cannot recommend it more
highly. It's so atmospheric and so evocative and again like I said an absolute classic.
One that's a little bit on the quieter side, one that is again more of an exploration of human
connection and about a small cohort of characters living in a very different future is Never Let Me
Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. In this book we follow three friends in an indistinct future where children are
raised in these boarding schools from birth, they have no biological family they have no parents but
they are being raised and taught and educated with one purpose in mind and we don't know as readers
what that purpose is until about the midway point of the book. It’s not the culmination discovering
what this purpose is but it is something that you gradually come to learn as a reader and I think
that's a really interesting narrative structure and way of revealing information because the main
characters know why they're here they just don't say it out loud to the reader because it's not
necessarily their primary focus. They're focused on growing up and experiencing all the things that
young people and teenagers experience and making friends and falling out and falling in love and
again like I said that human connection and really what it means to have experienced that
human connection with one another. It's a very forlorn but beautiful story about three friends
living in a world very close to our own but not quite the same and I don't want to
say too much more than that. But the author is literally a nobel prize winner so I don't need
to tell you how beautifully this one is going to be written if you haven't read it already,
let this just be a little sign if you haven't checked it out yet to go and pick it up.
Then last but not least the epitome of the end of the world when it comes to literature
and that is zombies, yes there is a zombie book on this list. And that is the Girl with all the
Gifts by M.R. Carrie. This is the book that convinced me zombies were not everything I
thought they were. I had always been incredibly dismissive of the zombie sub-genre of dystopian
apocalyptic sci-fi novels, I had had absolutely no interest in it until this book. This book does
such interesting things with the zombie trope. It is set in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic or
in the middle of apocalyptic setting and humans have had to create like cordoned off
military communities and we follow a young girl that is being educated at this underground bunker
of a school along with other children of her age but with no real memories of the past
or how they got there or why they're there or exactly what kind of world they are living in.
They seem to be very closely watched by their educators and the military personnel around them
and I don't necessarily want to say much more than that, you obviously know this is a zombie book,
but I absolutely love the way this story unfolds I think it is so clever and the
ending of this book is perfection. This one also could be described as verging in
to the horror genre ever so slightly and if you are interested in more horror books that I love
including some with sci-fi niches then I will link my top 10 horror books down below. But those
however are my top 10 sci-fi novels or novellas or short stories. I hope you have enjoyed hearing
about them, I'd love to hear if you've read any of them and also what your favourite sci-fi books
are because I have really grown to love the genre over the past few years and would love
more recommendations. But until next time happy reading and I'll see you again soon bye everyone.