Best Starter Science Fiction Books

Nov 25, 2025
30 mins

Episode Description

Whether you like ripping page turners, incredible characters, books that make you laugh out loud, exploring unforgettable new worlds, or literary books that will make you see the world in a new way, there's a great intro to scifi out there for everyone!

If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for all the books we talked about: 

  • 00:00 Intro 
  • 00:38 Incredible Characters - Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold 
  • 3:07 A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers 
  • 4:04 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 
  • 4:52 Unforgettable Worlds - The Expanse by James S.A. Corey 
  • 6:58 Hyperion by Dan Simmons 
  • 8:24 House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds 
  • 9:20 Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky 
  • 10:56 The Forever War by Joe Haldeman 
  • 12:22 Funny SF - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams 
  • 13:36 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson 
  • 14:50 Old Man's War by John Scalzi 
  • 16:01 Page turners - Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir 
  • 17:43 Dark Matter or Recursion by Blake Crouch 
  • 18:52 All Systems Red by Martha Wells 
  • 20:01 Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card 
  • 21:35 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 
  • 22:34 Literary SciFi - The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin 
  • 24:55 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 
  • 26:26 The Road by Cormac McCarthy 
  • 27:49 Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 
  • 28:40 Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
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