10 Essential Modern Sci-fi Books

Fantastic list as always! I just bought In Ascension and I am sooo excited!

My favourite and essential sci-fi books are varied and many. But top essential sci-fi book is "Your Home Cooking: Glorbodax's 6th Edition.". I especially liked the expose on how to cook a meefkrom without a shpoingle and ensuring it remains moist (tricky!). |Not such a big fan of the foreword by Schlingmeister Bafoonene, but it is what it is. 5 Worms out of 7 books.

What a fabulous video Willow. Thankyou. So I'm now heading to the bookstore. I've read Temi Oh and it didn't completely work for me, but I will read her again. Annihilation was bonkers. I read it and watched the film. I tried to read the second book, but got completely lost. I would love to hear your take on it once you read it. I have How High we go in the Dark, Ancillary Justice and A Memory Called Empire - All unread. As I trust your judgement, I will add THe Hierarchies, In Ascension and Time War to my shelves. Do I need to read anything before I read Sea of Tranquility - THe Glass Hotel ?????? Thankyou so much for sharing your thoughts with us. Happy reading and goth girling

The Hierarchies kept going to places I wasn't expecting it to go. Not sure how much I liked it, but it certainly has stuck in my brain.

I lately discovered Dan Simmons. For me he becomes a Master of Scifi/Spaceopera. Hyperion is so complex. It simply blowed my mind

Loved it ! Thanks very much, I didn't know most of them 😊

I've read most of the books you assumed I had. Feeling called out 😅 Thanks for the recs though. Definitely added a few new titles to my TBR

Annihiliation is the book that got me into science fiction and back into reading. Whenever I am in a slump I can turn to it and know I’ll want to continue reading after. I added most of these books to be tbr so thank you! I’m going to binge your other videos now. ❤

Ahh how do you read so many books?? I always want to read the books you recommend but I always feel like I don’t have enough time with School :/ (and I’m slightly addicted to my phone 🥴)

If you have not read Peter F Hamilton's sci-fi series, you should read it. Your list of contemporary sci-fi books will surely change.

This is just what I was looking for. Thank you for these fabulous recommendations!!

I love sci-fi but for some reason I always feel out of the loop on what sci-fi I should read next so I end up not reading that many, thanks for this video!

Have you read Greenwood by Michael Christie? It is not precisely a Sci-Fi novel, but it has time jumps in the same fashion of Sea of Tranquility, but it focuses on members of the same family in different generations, and their relationships with trees. It is so Canadian. It was part of this year’s Canada Reads competition.

Annihilation, memory called empire and ancillary justice are some of my favourite books. Im definitely thinking of picking up the terra-2 now. Have you tried Sparrow or Semiosis yet?

Omg my tbr just get longer ❤

I read Ancilary Justice 2 times already, one when the translation finally launch on my country and after in english

How High We Go In The Dark broke me but is so good

Just found your channel through this video, and I am so glad I did, because we sure have similar tastes when it comes to scifi. All books you mentioned I know/read or had already on my TBR, and you definitely convinced me to prioritize some.🥰

Wow wow wow! What a great video! I haven’t read any of these books, most of them have been added to my TBR now. The way you reviewed each of them made me so very interested. I can’t wait to read In Ascension now. You’re a great and very engaging book reviewer. I can’t wait to dig into more of your videos.

FINALLY! I've watched about 8 videos looking for something new to read, since moving through sample reading is so slow going, and this is the first video I've watched that actually had books written AFTER the year 2000. I don't know if they will pan out, but thank you for not providing me with yet another video discussing Dune, Foundation, Ender's Game and so on. Looking forward to checking them out. Big thumbs up!

I have a love/hate relationship with your descriptions, love the way you describe the stories, hate that I love them so much I need to get them and go broke. I don't even like sci-fi and already added three books I'm getting next week.

Recommend some books from the subgenre diamond (ultra) hard sci fi.

Brilliant reviews, especially in Ascension which is amazing, martin macinnes other books are amazing as well, i loved how high we go in the dark, amazing twist!!
On your recommendations i am taking ancillary justice and tranquility on holiday ti Greece 👍🙏

Absolutely loved this. Your tone of delivery and your style of description make for very easy listening and digestion, genuinely making me want to read the majority of these books

Im returning back to reading because i suddenly got writers block

Such great recommendations. Thanks so much!

Thanks for these recommendations. You have inspired me to read some modern sci-fi!

wow the way you described that first book, instant sub and on my tbr now! you have a beautiful way with words!

Awesome! Thanks for the list.

They sound fabulous. Annihilation particularly sounds intriguing.

u made me so excited to read again. thank u

I came to Annihilation cold, had not heard about it, had not seen it. Mind was Blown!
OK, you sold me. Ancillary Justice has been ordered.

You Bastard!!!! My tbr pile is larger than an Egyptian pyramid ( but not the biggest one - I don’t want to exaggerate) and now I need to add 9 more to it ( I read “how to lose a time war and really liked it). Have you no pity!!!!!!

Who is this?

Of the ones ive read ....
Annihilation - i hated the book and film equally 😂
Ancillary Justice -loved it haven't read the sequels though
Memory called Empire .. OMG not sure which i dislike most this dull book or Annihilation ... ok its Annihilation.

One of my personal favorites (dont judge me) is Battlefield Earth. A very long sci fi book with, in the authors own words, as much stuff crammed into it as possible. Space western, cyberpunk, mystery, crime drama, all of that. The author even said he just wanted to have fun with it. Only its slightly misogynistic as it was written in the 80s. But if you can look past that and not allow it to affect the reading experience, its a very fun and entertaining book. Kind of messed up at times too.

Subbed.
I just want to add that Ancyllary is a trilogy ( that I am currently reading, I am at the second book) , after Justice there is Sword, and the 3rd is Mercy.
And I should had add that every subject is referred to as female.
The trilogy is even printed as a single big book.
bybye

Thanks for an interesting and informative list. I loved Ancillary Justice so much i moved heaven and earth to get and read Sword and Mercy, i was not disappointed.

Omg I just read How High We Go In The Dark and it was so sad but I gave it 5 stars. I loved it so freaking much.

I'm researching sci-fibooks to buy for my partner's birthday and you've just convinced me I need to give sci-fi a go!! All these books sound incredible and right up my street, thank you :)

SF has literally vanished!!

Go on to SF.....OK?.......leave queer talk out of it!!

Bought In Ascension because of your recommendation. Couldn't even get through it. The writing style drove me nuts.

- Long winded. So much detail that it's difficult to tell what is relevant to the story.
- Extremely long, complex sentences that sometimes don't even make sense. At first I thought this must be a (poor) translation to English. Impossible to skim sections that were less interesting.
- Analytical treatment of emotion and experience. I didn't feel invested in any of the characters.

Sci-fi is my favorite genre but this novel was a real bust for me.

Not complaining, just wanted to express another opinion.

Hi Willow, I had no intention of commenting, but I sorted comments by most recent, which was a very big mistake. I felt very sad and shocked seeing some of the hate comments on this video (most of them just mad about your identity rather than the quality of the video, which is very high of course). I just wanted to tell you that I enjoyed the video very much and that I hope you can just ignore those nasty people. You seem like a great person, and I hope you're having a great day whenever you read this! :)

Thank you for all of the recommendations!! I’m looking forward to reading a few of these and checking out more of your videos!! <3

Are you a woman 🤨

Wow my gratitude towards you and your advise on reading Sci fi
Thank you ,
immensely appreciated !
Best of Luck n Love to you

Terra Two sounds a bit like Ender's Game, if you haven't read Ender's you definitely should!!! 👌🏻

On the subject of classics, A Canticle for Liebowitz. That one never comes up when people discuss old science fiction. I remember it being better than most.…It's been about 40 years since I read it and I'm working toward a revisit.