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The 100 Most Popular Sci-Fi Books on Goodreads
Dystopias, alien invasions, regenerated dinosaurs, space operas, multiverses, and more, the realm of science fiction takes readers out of this world to tackle all-too-real issues, including oppression, bigotry, censorship, and the horrors of war. To celebrate the most inventive of genres, we’re exploring readers’ 100 most popular science fiction novels of all time on Goodreads.
As all good sci-fi readers know, the science behind the story is half the fun. To create our list, we ran the data to reveal the most reviewed books on our site. Additionally, each title needed at least a 3.5-star rating from your fellow readers to join this list. And, since science fiction is known for its continuing voyages, in the case of multiple titles from the same series, we chose the one with the most reviews.
Here are the top science fiction novels on Goodreads, listed from 1 to 100. We hope you discover a book or two you’ll want to read in this lineup, whether it’s a classic of the genre or one of the newer entries to sci-fi.
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How many of these books have you read? What’s your favorite sci-fi novel of all time? Let’s talk books in the comments!
Comments Showing 501-521 of 521 (521 new)
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David
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Oct 07, 2020 12:31PM
NO DAVID WEBER? Unbelievable!
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It's rather sad that there is not a single work from Poul Anderson or Vernor Vinge listed. The latter's Deepness in the Sky, for example, is one of the best hard science fiction novels ever, going through a wide range of concepts from computer science to astrophysics, social sciences and biology and does it very well indeed.
Personally, it even inspired me to study Information Systems over any other subject and provided a very legit idea for my thesis.
A Deepness in the Sky
Joni wrote: "It's rather sad that there is not a single work from Poul Anderson or Vernor Vinge listed. The latter's Deepness in the Sky, for example, is one of the best hard science fiction novels ever, goin..."
Certainly Anderson should feature in any top 100. Vinge is a bit more niche
Wow how was this list generated ? Not one Peter F Hamiliton book , Seems like some of the titles in here were paid spots as have lower ratings and less reviews than most of his books
The list is also old enough that it is possible his fans started generating the ratings and reviews necessary for him to get on the list next time.
The list is a reflection of the participants. It slants towards newer work, towards classics of the first tier, novels that could be literary, and books you might be assigned in high school. I would note that Poul Anderson's prime was generations ago and Vinge hasn't been that active of late either. Greg Benford is arguably more relevant than either Anderson and Vinge, and still active, and he's not on the list.
I care not if someone is "relevant" or not. If I want to read someone I shall, if not then I shan't. Simple as that. I read something awhile back by Benford and was not blown away. Anderson however continues to grab my attention.
C. John wrote: "I care not if someone is "relevant" or not. If I want to read someone I shall, if not then I shan't. Simple as that. I read something awhile back by Benford and was not blown away. Anderson however..."Whatever...did I say you shouldn't read Poul Anderson?
No, but you did say that Benford is more relevant and I was replying that relevance means nothing to me.
Arlo wrote: "I'm surprised at how many people have apparently failed to grasp the fact that this isn't a supposed "best" list - it's a "most popular" list.I thought it was fairly disappointing, but cynically ..."
Though that isnt the case , some of the titles in here seem "Paid Promotions " as have way less reviews and lower rating then other popular books scifi books like Peter F Hamilition etc . It would be intersting to see how they actually what data they used to generate this list
Kirt wrote: "It would be intersting to see how they actually what data they used to generate this list ...This is what it says in the introduction:
To create our list, we ran the data to reveal the most reviewed books on our site. Additionally, each title needed at least a 3.5-star rating from your fellow readers to join this list.
I just compared a recent book (nr. 94 "This is how you lose the time war") with the most reviewed book by Hamilton (Pandoras Star)
Time war: 8087 reviews
Pandoras star: 2136
So that's why there are no books by Hamilton in the list.
Personaly I gave Pandoras Star a 4 star rating and the other one a 3.
But reviewed neither...
So the message is: start writing reviews ;-)
Seems like a work around to get certain books on the list... as technically I would have classed the term "popularity" by how many people rated a book (eg read) . The more ratings a book has obviously the more "popular" it is and been read by Goodread members , just most normal people cant be bothered leaving reviews . Example Pandoras Star 42,258 ratings with 4.24 average star compared to Gideon the Nith 33,702 ratings with 4.20 star rating
Remember too that in the case of series only either the first or highest ranked book (I forget which) makes it on this list, so if an author writes a twenty book series and all garner high ratings and lots of reviews only one of them makes it on the list.
C. John wrote: "Remember too that in the case of series only either the first or highest ranked book (I forget which) makes it on this list, so if an author writes a twenty book series and all garner high ratings ..."I can understand only chosing one book per author however the the title they use for this list is popular books on good reads . Oxford dictionary states "popular as the state of being liked, enjoyed, or supported by a large number of people " hence my stated fact above . Pandora star has been read and rated more then other books on here so clearly is more popular. They should adjust the title of the list to most reviewed books on good reads to be more accurate
One pet peeve of mine when it comes to these lists regards the classification that one can put against each title. There are 3 options: Currently Reading, Read & Want to Read. So let's address the elephant in the room here. Where's the missing and obvious 4th option: "Don't Want to Read/Uninterested"?
Mark wrote: "One pet peeve of mine when it comes to these lists regards the classification that one can put against each title. There are 3 options: Currently Reading, Read & Want to Read. So let's address the ..."Actually you can create that one yourself and check it off as exclusive on the edit bookshelves feature. It then will become like Read, Currently Read and Want to Read. I have made a few of those if you want to check out my My Books. If you need help just ask, always glad to help out a fellow reader.
C. John wrote: "Mark wrote: "One pet peeve of mine when it comes to these lists regards the classification that one can put against each title. There are 3 options: Currently Reading, Read & Want to Read. So let's..."Thank you for the tip. I'll be sure to try editing the bookshelf.
You are welcome. I only found about it by accident actually. I was changing the shelf that comes up on my profile and noticed that column.
Andalite chronicles should be on this list
30Missing some Europe and Slavic writers
For me
1 dune series
2 left hand of the darkness
3 Rama series
4 dispossed
5 andremode strain
6 ringworld series
7 foundation series
Many of these books aren't sci-fi. Most of them are very good.
