RANKED

The 100 Most Popular Sci-Fi Books

Goodreads · July 2020 · Adult science fiction novels only

17 of 100 contain an artificial general intelligence. 12 of 100show you a Tuesday afternoon. 3 do both.

How it was compiled. Ranked by review count on Goodreads, with a 3.5-star minimum, and only the most-reviewed title from any series.

What it is bad at. Measures attention, not quality or relevance. It advantages books assigned in schools and disadvantages anything published recently enough that its readership is still forming. Six years old.

#	Work	Year	AGI	Answers	What people do all day
1	1984 George Orwell	1949	No	No	Falsify records at the Ministry of Truth; attend the Two Minutes Hate; queue for razor blades.
2	Animal Farm George Orwell	1945	No	No	Farm work, then more farm work.
3	Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury	1953	No	Partial	Men burn books. Women watch wall-sized interactive television all day and call the characters family.
4	Brave New World Aldous Huxley	1932	No	Partial	Caste-assigned work, soma, Obstacle Golf, the feelies, engineered promiscuity. Leisure is designed as carefully as labour.
5	The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood	1985	No	No	Assigned reproductive and domestic labour.
6	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams	1979	Yes	Partial	Nothing coherent. Marvin, with a brain the size of a planet, is asked to open doors.
7	Frankenstein Mary Shelley	1818	Partial	No	Pursue each other across Europe.
8	Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut	1969	No	No	Optometry, war, and being exhibited in a Tralfamadorian zoo.
9	Ender's Game Orson Scott Card	1985	Partial	Partial	Children train for war through simulated games, believing it is play.
10	Ready Player One Ernest Cline	2011	No	Partial	Live inside OASIS. School, work, friendship and treasure-hunting all happen there; reality is a stack of trailers.
11	The Martian Andy Weir	2011	No	No	Grow potatoes, patch a habitat, do arithmetic by hand.
12	Jurassic Park Michael Crichton	1990	No	No	Consult, litigate, run.
13	Dune Frank Herbert	1965	Banned	Partial	Full employment by prohibition: Mentats, Guild Navigators, Bene Gesserit, spice harvesting.
14	The Road Cormac McCarthy	2006	No	No	Walk south, scavenge, avoid being eaten.
15	The Stand Stephen King	1978	No	No	Rebuild, and choose a side.
16	A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess	1962	No	Partial	Alex's gang has nothing to do. The ultraviolence is boredom management.
17	Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes	1966	No	No	Charlie's arc is a hard takeoff and decay inside one skull.
18	Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro	2005	No	Yes	Student, then carer, then donor. A complete life inside an assigned vocabulary.
19	The Time Machine H. G. Wells	1895	No	Yes	The Eloi do nothing at all: eat fruit, play, decorate. The Morlocks run the machinery below.
20	Foundation Isaac Asimov	1951	No	Partial	Compile an encyclopedia, run trade routes, staff a religion nobody believes in.
21	Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut	1963	No	No	Research weapons; follow a religion whose founder admits it is built on lies.
22	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick	1968	Yes	Partial	Dial a mood on the Penfield organ, tend an electric sheep the neighbours must not know is electric, hunt androids for bounty.
23	Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel	2014	No	No	Walk a circuit of settlements performing Shakespeare, because survival was judged insufficient.
24	Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein	1961	No	No	Found a church, hold water ceremonies, argue about property.
25	I, Robot Isaac Asimov	1950	Yes	Partial	Robots take the labour. Susan Calvin's job is diagnosing their minds; most humans supervise and litigate.
26	Neuromancer William Gibson	1984	Yes	Partial	Hustle. The Sprawl automated everything except crime, so Case steals data for whoever is paying.
27	2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clarke	1968	Yes	Partial	Bowman jogs the centrifuge, watches recorded news from home, eats paste and minds a ship that does not need minding.
28	The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells	1898	No	No	Flee.
29	Dark Matter Blake Crouch	2016	No	No	Teach physics; regret the road not taken; meet the men who took it.
30	Snow Crash Neal Stephenson	1992	Partial	Partial	Deliver pizza against a franchise deadline, courier packages by magnetic harpoon, work a second job inside the Metaverse.
31	Red Rising Pierce Brown	2014	No	Partial	Reds mine helium-3 a kilometre down, believing they are terraforming Mars for descendants. Mars was terraformed generations ago.
32	The Andromeda Strain Michael Crichton	1969	No	No	Five days of laboratory procedure under a mountain.
33	Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood	2003	No	Partial	Jimmy writes advertising copy because the arts have no other use in a biotech economy. The useful people live in guarded compounds.
34	Cloud Atlas David Mitchell	2004	No	Yes	Sonmi-451 works nineteen-hour shifts at Papa Song's, engineered to want nothing else, promised a retirement that is a slaughterhouse.
35	The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury	1950	No	No	Colonise, and be haunted.
36	20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne	1870	No	No	Sail, catalogue marine life, remain a prisoner.
37	Blindness José Saramago	1995	No	No	Survive an epidemic of blindness inside a requisitioned asylum.
38	Starship Troopers Robert A. Heinlein	1959	No	No	Train, drop, fight. Citizenship must be earned through service.
39	Hyperion Dan Simmons	1989	Yes	Partial	Seven pilgrims recount their working lives while the TechnoCore AIs quietly run the economy that employs them.
40	The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick	1962	No	No	Forge antiques, run a shop, consult the I Ching.
41	Artemis Andy Weir	2017	No	Partial	Porter cargo and smuggle contraband in a lunar city whose entire economy serves tourism.
42	Leviathan Wakes James S. A. Corey	2011	No	Partial	Belters haul ice and air on contract, in a system where water and oxygen are the wage.
43	Wool Hugh Howey	2011	No	Yes	Everyone holds an assigned trade for life in a shaft they will never leave. Children are permitted by lottery.
44	Old Man's War John Scalzi	2005	Partial	Partial	The elderly trade their bodies for new ones and serve as soldiers. Nobody who enlists comes home.
45	Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer	2014	No	No	Survey an anomalous zone, write everything down, lose yourself.
46	The Power Naomi Alderman	2016	No	No	Renegotiate every institution after women develop the ability to electrocute.
47	The Invisible Man H. G. Wells	1897	No	No	Hide, steal, terrorise a village.
48	The Forever War Joe Haldeman	1974	No	Yes	Mandella returns to an Earth of mass unemployment and state rations, and re-enlists because the army is the only institution with a slot for him.
49	Rendezvous with Rama Arthur C. Clarke	1973	No	No	Survey an alien vessel on a schedule, then watch it leave.
50	The Three-Body Problem Liu Cixin	2008	No	No	Nanomaterials research, a Cultural Revolution reckoning, and a video game that is not a game.
51	Childhood's End Arthur C. Clarke	1953	No	Yes	A golden age. Everyone is comfortable, educated and free — and Clarke's verdict is that the arts stagnate and almost nothing significant gets made.
52	Contact Carl Sagan	1985	No	No	Radio astronomy, funding fights, theology.
53	Kindred Octavia E. Butler	1979	No	No	A modern woman is pulled repeatedly into antebellum Maryland and put to work.
54	The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin	1969	No	No	Diplomacy, on a glacier.
55	The Sirens of Titan Kurt Vonnegut	1959	Partial	Partial	A Martian army marches to its own annihilation, and human history turns out to be a message-delivery system for a stranded robot.
56	The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress Robert A. Heinlein	1966	Yes	Partial	Penal-colony labour: mine ice, grow wheat, ship it to Earth at a loss, while a sentient computer runs the revolution.
57	Ringworld Larry Niven	1970	No	No	Explore an artefact; break down; walk.
58	Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson	1999	No	No	Codebreaking in one war; a data-haven startup fifty years later.
59	The Passage Justin Cronin	2010	No	No	Guard the walls; ration the light.
60	Parable of the Sower Octavia E. Butler	1993	No	No	Defend a walled cul-de-sac, then walk north founding a religion.
61	Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Douglas Adams	1987	Yes	Partial	The Electric Monk is built to believe things so its owners do not have to, freeing them for other pursuits.
62	The Sparrow Mary Doria Russell	1996	No	No	A Jesuit mission to another species, and the aftermath of getting it wrong.
63	The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet Becky Chambers	2014	Yes	Partial	A crew punches wormhole tunnels on contract, sharing the ship with an AI who is one of them.
64	The Mote in God's Eye Niven & Pournelle	1974	No	No	First contact, conducted by naval officers.
65	A Canticle for Leibowitz Walter M. Miller Jr.	1959	No	Partial	Monks copy and illuminate circuit diagrams they cannot read, for centuries, on the chance that someone later will.
66	Seveneves Neal Stephenson	2015	No	No	Engineer survival in orbit after the moon breaks.
67	The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham	1951	No	No	Rebuild among the blind while the plants advance.
68	A Scanner Darkly Philip K. Dick	1977	No	No	Narcotics surveillance, of yourself.
69	Altered Carbon Richard K. Morgan	2002	Partial	Partial	Bodies are rented. The rich never die; the poor are stored on a disk between shifts of being alive.
70	Redshirts John Scalzi	2012	No	No	Serve on a starship where the junior crew keep dying, and work out why.
71	The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin	1974	No	Yes	Nobody is compelled to work and a computer posts people to jobs anyway. Almost everyone goes. Refusal is permitted and quietly unsurvivable.
72	Recursion Blake Crouch	2019	No	No	Police work and neuroscience, repeatedly.
73	Ancillary Sword Ann Leckie	2014	Yes	Partial	Ancillaries are human bodies operated by a ship's AI. Below them, plantation labour picks tea.
74	The Illustrated Man Ray Bradbury	1951	Partial	Partial	In 'The Veldt', an automated nursery raises the children and the parents become redundant to their own household.
75	Doomsday Book Connie Willis	1992	No	No	Historians time-travel to observe; a medieval village dies of plague around one of them.
76	Binti Nnedi Okorafor	2015	No	No	Leave the family business to attend a university, and survive the journey.
77	Shards of Honour Lois McMaster Bujold	1986	No	No	A survey officer and an enemy commander conduct a war and a courtship.
78	Consider Phlebas Iain M. Banks	1987	Yes	Partial	Horza works as a mercenary against the Culture, whose citizens do nothing they do not want to do.
79	Out of the Silent Planet C. S. Lewis	1938	No	Partial	Three Martian species each do the one thing they were made for, and consider that entirely sufficient.
80	Solaris Stanisław Lem	1961	No	No	A century of scientists study an ocean that will not be studied.
81	Star Wars: Heir to the Empire Timothy Zahn	1991	No	No	Fight a war with droids present and unremarked.
82	Stories of Your Life and Others Ted Chiang	2002	Partial	Partial	In 'Seventy-Two Letters', golem automation threatens to end human labour and the guilds respond exactly as guilds do.
83	All Systems Red Martha Wells	2017	Yes	Yes	Humans run survey contracts and cut corners on safety gear. The AI does the dangerous parts and would rather be watching serialised drama.
84	Children of Time Adrian Tchaikovsky	2015	Yes	Partial	An uploaded scientist supervises a spider civilisation while the human remnant sleeps in shifts aboard a decaying ark.
85	We Are Legion (We Are Bob) Dennis E. Taylor	2016	Yes	Yes	Unlimited time, unlimited copies, no material needs. The Bobs invent projects, terraform, and look after a species they grow fond of.
86	Red Mars Kim Stanley Robinson	1992	No	Partial	A hundred colonists build a world, and argue about who owns the labour that built it.
87	Lock In John Scalzi	2014	Partial	Partial	People locked into their bodies work through robot proxies, and an entire labour economy grows around the technology.
88	The Humans Matt Haig	2013	No	No	An alien wears a mathematician and learns domesticity.
89	The Long Earth Pratchett & Baxter	2012	Yes	Partial	Lobsang funds exploration while Earth's economy empties out, because anyone can step sideways to an unoccupied world and start again.
90	Sleeping Giants Sylvain Neuvel	2016	No	No	Assemble an alien machine from interview transcripts.
91	Vox Christina Dalcher	2018	No	Partial	Women are limited to a hundred spoken words a day and removed from paid work entirely.
92	Severance Ling Ma	2018	No	Yes	Candace keeps commuting to her publishing job through the collapse of civilisation, because she cannot conceive of not going.
93	Exhalation Ted Chiang	2019	Yes	Yes	Contains 'The Lifecycle of Software Objects': people raise AI creatures through years of unglamorous attention, long after the platform goes out of fashion.
94	This Is How You Lose the Time War El-Mohtar & Gladstone	2019	No	No	Two agents sabotage timelines and write each other letters.
95	The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Ken Liu	2011	Partial	No	Short stories turning on memory, translation and occasionally machine minds.
96	Gideon the Ninth Tamsyn Muir	2019	No	No	Necromancers and their swordhands solve a haunted house.
97	The Collapsing Empire John Scalzi	2017	No	No	Run guilds and trade routes as the network sustaining them closes.
98	American War Omar El Akkad	2017	No	No	A second civil war, seen from a refugee camp.
99	The Calculating Stars Mary Robinette Kowal	2018	No	Yes	Women work as human computers for the space programme while the machines that will replace them are installed next door.
100	Provenance Ann Leckie	2017	Yes	No	Politics and forged artefacts in a polity where ships and stations are people.

Linked titles are in the catalogue. Partial means the work gestures at the question without sustaining it.

Source

The verdicts and the daily-life summaries are mine, and arguable. TheAnswers column has no bright line: a reasonable reader could move a dozen rows in either direction, and Partial is where the disagreement lives.

Goodreads: The 100 Most Popular Sci-Fi Books →