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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 401-450 of 521 (521 new)
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by
Deni
(new)
Jul 17, 2020 05:57AM
Neal Stephenson "Seven Eves" is on number 70, Peter Hamilton is not in the list at all, N.K Jesmin is also not in it, This list is a list of old white American guys. I don't see any Russian authors or any other nationality... This is not a Sci Fi top 100, it's a US Billboard top 100. Really disappointing. (I happen to be a huge Sci Fi fan and I have 5 read books from this list! Five!)
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Caryn wrote: "HEEEELLLLLLLOOOOOOO!!!! NK Jemison, people!!!!!!!!!!"I agree. I read her trilogy, The Fifth Season. One of the best. Strong female characters. I still think about Nassun.
futuristic violence and fancy suits by David Wong (John Dies eat the End)Feed series Mira Grant
Great list, though I'd like to add Clifford D Simak
What about Greg Bear? Eon is one of my alltime favorites. Also no mention of Connie Willis. This list seemed incomplete
He should have had at least two books in top 100.
Agree. Player of games is better. Peter F Hamiltons "Commonwealth saga" (Pandoras star and Judas unchained) is one of my all time favourites.
On this list I miss Clifford D. Simak, Harry Harrisons "Stainless steel rat" novels, Alfred Bester and lots other.On a pure space opera list, David Brin's "Uplift" series and two of A. E. Van Vogt's books should be in the top 100.
Sometimes I tell myself that I don't really read sci-fi/genre fiction all that much. I've read (and loved) a quarter of these and another quarter is on my to-read. Whoops :p
I've read 20. Added a few to my TBR. Prefer Fantasy and other genres.
I don't understand why people keep saying this is supposed to be a ranking of the best Sci Fi books. It's not, it's a list of the MOST READ Sci Fi titles by Goodreads users. So don't be surprised when your favorite isn't #1, or even the top three. Naturally, most read will be those that were required reading in school. Even if they only rate it 1 star, it's another tick up the ladder for this list.
Sam wrote: "Goodreads needs to add to the book status the category "not interested". So much of new SF is pure, ideological and substandard drivel written by the mindless "woke". It's actually painful to have ..."And Heinlein wasn’t ideological?
Margie wrote: "Anne wrote: "What about "on the Beach" by Neville Shute which was foretelling the future- or not!"Yes! "On the Beach!" One of Shute's best - great movie too!"
Both excellent, but not really sci fi, IMO.
Steven wrote: "Where is the Many Colored Land? Or the entire Galactic Mileu for that matter?!"Those are excellent!
Magali wrote: "Okay but do all of you people saying "why not that book ?" or "that book is missing !" or "that book shouldn't be number 1!" don't understand it's a "most popular" list and not a "best" list ? It j..."Because it’s fun?
Katherine wrote: "Disappointed not to find any Star Trek The Next Generation or Voyager books. I also very much enjoyed the TV shows Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard."Are you trying to be funny? ;)
R. wrote: "Agree. Player of games is better. Peter F Hamiltons "Commonwealth saga" (Pandoras star and Judas unchained) is one of my all time favourites."Mine too!
Abigail wrote: "I don't understand why people keep saying this is supposed to be a ranking of the best Sci Fi books. It's not, it's a list of the MOST READ Sci Fi titles by Goodreads users. So don't be surprised w..."Personally I have not included anything I read in school, save for items from Grade 13 as I had to buy those books. Same with university. If I bought a book then it might be here, if I recall the title or if I still have it.
Людовика wrote: "Wow! Whole THREE books by not English-speaking authors! Congratulations."I agree that it was sad to see so few global books. I myself didn't realize how skewed my bookshelf was until a few years ago. Since then, I've made a effort to read AT LEAST one book a month from another country & have found some real gems.
I also started an online book club to read global books along with a web site which lists books from other countries. If you're looking for more sci fi written by authors outside of the US/UK/Canada, check out our current list of global sci fi here:
https://www.AWorldAdventureByBook.com...
Roadside Picnic, God Emperor Dune, The Sheep Look Up, Titan, to name a few missing from this list.
Interestingly there was a magazine from the publisher of Galaxy called International Science Fiction. It lasted all of two issues. The only reason I know of it was because its second issue included the famous/infamous pair of ads to do with the Viet Nam War.
I'd find it impossible to name just one book or series, but at the top today (it changes depending on my mood, amongst other factors) might be:* Lois McMaster Bujold: the Vorkosigan Saga
* C.J. Cherryh: both the Foreigner series and the Chronicles of Morgaine
* Douglas Adams: both the Hitchhiker's Guide series and the Dirk Gently books
* David Weber: both the Honor Harrington and the Safehold series
Squad312 wrote: "I was genuinely disappointed Aurora Burning wasn't on this list. It's not only the most epic sci-fi novel ever, I think it's in the running for YA novel of the year. Like, why is it not here? Kinda..."There seems to be a predilection on Goodreads' part not to let YA stuff on these lists. There are quite a few posts on the Fantasy side bemoaning the absence of a certain young wizard from that list, as well as a certain son of Poseidon.
I have read the top 9 but further down the list I have read fewer and fewer....
A lot of people are failing basic reading comprehension on a site about books..."Why isn't X on this list?" Because it's purely a list of what has been read the most (more specifically, rated on the site). It has almost nothing to do with quality. Some of the works that are higher up in the list are so high up because they are often assigned for reading in school.
JasperKazai wrote: "A lot of people are failing basic reading comprehension on a site about books..."Why isn't X on this list?" Because it's purely a list of what has been read the most (more specifically, rated on t..."
Because it doesn't make any sense. Let's say for example take The Minority Report. Compare this book's stats to 100th book of this list & you will find that The Minority Report has more ratings on the website than that 100th book. So how the hell did it not make the list? I'm pretty sure even if there are some other kind of stats which they might have used to make this list it's still more popular than that 100th book.
Read some 11, so far; but not disappointed in general.Gene wrote: "Is there any reason "The Expanse" series books are not mentioned?" (And similar comments.)
It's an auto-generated list, based on disclosed parameters. Audience to blame; and also, which novels are counted to the genre.
Людовика wrote: "Wow! Whole THREE books by not English-speaking authors! Congratulations."
See above; it figures. I guess you needn't be open-minded when there's so much output in your mother tongue. (Goes for TV and film as well; music, it seems, to a far lesser extent.)
"Joseph wrote: "Not read 1984 since I was in school. Must re-read it. I dont remember it being good enough to be in the top 50. Influential? Sure. But thats not the list title."
Agreed, partially. Didn't like the novel. Think it's in the list partially because many non-English speakers DO read English as well as their native authors. Also, it's a popular secondary school-level literature read. Sheer all my country(wo)men were half-forced to read that book. All that distorts the image.
Colin wrote: "Phil Hartley wrote: "Really? No Sanderson? Mistborn is absolutely epic, no Feist? Lawrence? GRRM? Gemmell? This list is terrible, old does not equal best."
It's SF not Fantasy"
Agreed with Colin (except: GRRM wrote SF decades ago already). And a good thing, too, that SF gets its own attention. I like Fantasy, too, but often having SF be shoved under Fantasy is a travesty.
Wendy wrote: "My favourite sci-fi book of all time is 2001 a space odyssey. It's the best sci-fi book in existence."
Agreed.
Katie wrote: "Read 51 of these, for those commenting on the missing names etc. it is the all time most popular SF books on Goodreads so you are not likely to see all of your favourites, it is in my view a pretty good list to get you started in the genre and a feel for its development, really new books are not going to appear because they have not as yet got a following which will make them the best sellers of the future, give it time."
Well put.
Ok so I made a mistake with A Scanner Darkly turns out it is indeed in this list( the cover they used here didn't help). I have edited my original post.But my point still stands. This list is not accurate there are books which are missing & they are more popular than some of the lower ones.
I've read 46, with 34 in TBR pile. Reading the comments, I've notice that a large number of people think this list was voted on by people who read SF. It's not. It's a list of the most read SF books on Goodreads. Some of these "votes" may be from someone who doesn't read SF. It's a list of "popular" books, not "great" books.
Mystic wrote: "Because it doesn't make any sense. Let's say for example take The Minority Report. Compare this book's stats to 100th book of this list & you will find that The Minority Report has more ratings on the website than that 100th book. So how the hell did it not make the list? I'm pretty sure even if there are some other kind of stats which they might have used to make this list it's still more popular than that 100th book."Yes, I did notice a few discrepancies like that. #76 and #77 have 43k and 28k reviews respectively, whereas the books around them have 70k+ reviews. #95 has less reviews than #99. I can only wildly guess that the author of this blog post did add some editorial spin to it. Minority Report is a fairly popular film, whereas that Ann Leckie novel at #100 is not, so they gave a bump.
OR, because the number of reviews listed does not differentiate between scoreless reviews and scored reviews, whereas this list only takes into account scored reviews, that the discrepancy there is explained by that. But that is quite a large gulf in numbers to account for.
My point still stands, though. Most of the comments I was referring to are saying various versions of "I can't believe X isn't on this list when something like Y is, X is way better!" But this list is not making that kind of qualitative argument.
I noticed some of my favorites were not on this list. Then I realized I hadn't rated them on GoodReads. Off to do that now, to make sure they get to the list.
A Top-100 Sci-Fi list excluding Peter F. Hamilton is inherently flawed.
Gerald wrote: "A Top-100 Sci-Fi list excluding Peter F. Hamilton is inherently flawed."As I already said this list is so stupid & flawed I can't believe there are idiots actually defending this.
Goodreads decided to make a 100 most popular list on the basis of total no. of reviews & not on the total no. of ratings. How many percentage of people even write reviews lol like 20-30% at most I think? Can't get more stupid than this.
I've read only 18 but a lot of them are on my to-read list.
Mystic wrote: "Gerald wrote: "A Top-100 Sci-Fi list excluding Peter F. Hamilton is inherently flawed."As I already said this list is so stupid & flawed I can't believe there are idiots actually defending this.
..."
They do use ratings, but they use average ratings, not number of ratings. It requires more effort to write a review of a book then to rate it, thus by looking at the number of reviews you are basing these rankings on the most committed readers to some extent.
Probably their works do not have a high enough average rating or enough reviews (or possibly both) to qualify for this list.
Animal Farm number two,? Whilst it is a great read, I don't see it as sci-fi but as a parody of Stalinism.
I would put Under the Skin by Michel Faber on my top 100 SF books.
Interesting how many of these books ended up on my Did Not Finish shelf.
I'm surprised I've even read 5 of them haha
I thought this list very typical of what people think of Sci-fi. I have read many but not all of these titles. H.G. Wells, was a great and inventive writer for his time but his novels and ideas have been surpassed many times by modern authors as have those of Huxley, Orwell and Atwood. Yet they are rarely featured here. Iain. M. Banks, Dan Simmons and David Brin have out-written and out imagined them all. As have many others. Plus there are many not mentioned here that wrote better books than some that have been mentioned.
Phillip Wiley's End of the Dream should be somewhere on that list, if only for his wonderfully predictive look at future society. I believe it may be out of print, but copies regularly turn up in used book stores.
I read 12 and there are 3 in my to read list. Are there other lists like these? I would love lists for brazilian literature, sociology, magical realism, dystopian books - among others
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 unsurprising. Yes - as so many have noted - there are many much better books that are not on that list. Unfortunately, they're just not as widely popular as many of the mediocre ones that are.
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 ..."
I think people wish their favorites were more popular. Any "best" list would be rather subjective anyways...
L7od wrote: "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, b..."
Yeah, pretty much what you said. I long ago decided that my favourite authors were not going to be other's favourites. I can live with it. You asked earlier about lists. I know Goodreads does a Mystery and Thrillers week and I believe they have done a horror week. Aside from those I don't know. I would think they do a Western week at least, but since I have very few westerns in my library I have never really paid attention for that,
I've read 52 of them. Some books in there but the only author I re-read is Neal Stephenson. I re-read about every five years and his work just keeps on giving. Cryptonomicon remains my ultimate and firm favourite. I just finished re-reading the Quicksilver trilogy and it was an utter joy. If you have not enjoyed Stephenson yet...start with Snowcrash and work your way through them in chronological order: Epic and joyous reading of the highest order.
