The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the Past Decade | Hacker News Reader

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the Past Decade

npr.org

77 pointsmooreds73 comments

I've read more than half of these, and for all but a few I think that they deserve their place on this list -- and for most of the rest, I think other books from the same authors would be better.

So, not a bad list at all.

I suspect the broadest popularity among HN readers would be:

- Ted Chiang's short story collection

- Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time

- Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries

All three of them feature really good non-human perspectives .

Yes. The books are not always the ones I would choose, but they are a pretty good selection. City of Stairs especially is one that I read without any expectations and was wonderful.

Digression: I'm always annoyed at seeing science fiction and fantasy genres lumped together. I know there is some cross-over with some books, but for those of us with strong preferences for one over the other it's always a pain to filter.

My first thought too. fantasy is not science-fiction, and science-fiction is (pretty much) not fantasy.

Admittedly, there are some authors like Ray Bradbury who have a foot in both camps, but my preference is (generally) for science-fiction over fantasy.

Probably my favourite book is Arthur Clark's 'Rendezvous with Rama', though I felt the later 'Rama' books weren't anywhere near as good as the first in the series.

Same here! I love sci fi, but I don't like most fantasy. They are very different genres. Never been sure why they get lumped together.

Linda Nagata (https://mythicisland.com/) has consistently produced some of the best hard SF available today, and in my opinion, her novels far surpass many of the entries in that list...

Maybe it's because she's self-published? (Publicity is hard.) Or is hard science fiction a niche in its genre?

Here are two of my favorites:

https://mythicisland.com/the_last_good_man.php

https://mythicisland.com/lov.php

She deserves recognition: great ideas, moral quandaries, and humane protagonists. After I first discovered her work, I binge-read everything, then had to wait months for her next novel. And it's great that one of my favorite SF authors is actually still living! (And healthy, and writing ;-)

> Sometimes, we left things out because we felt like the authors were well known enough not to need our help

This is exactly the opposite methodology as would be desirable in a "best of" list. Best ___ you haven't heard of could be useful still.

Also 3 body problem isn't worth reading and although Ancillary justice isn't a terrible book I wouldn't list it on a best of list.

Hard disagree on Ancillary Justice, I thought it was a standout book, and considering it won the Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C Clarke, Locus First Novel, and tied for the BSFA award I wasn't the only one.

I agree, Ancillary Justice was one of my favorite books in recent years. I thought the world was really interesting, enjoyed the characters, and found the exploration of federated minds intriguing.

That and the NK Jemison trilogy. I’ve listened to both more than once

I think the first one, whilst not super special, was pretty good. Definitely a promising debut.

The whole gender neutral thing felt pretty awkward and like a gimmick though.

The second book felt rather pointless, however, and that incessant obsession with tea sets was baffling (and with risk of sounding sexist, not particularly gender neutral?).

So I haven't bothered with the third book yet.

I felt exactly the same. I enjoyed the first book, found the second utterly tedious, and skipped the third. Far too many tea ceremonies and gloves!

In my opinion, Three Body Problem is worth reading, particularly if you don't read the back cover before starting. The cover spoils a fun mystery. I found the twists and turns of the series to be both entertaining and sometimes mind blowing. I like that it told a story differently than how most western authors tell theirs.

I read to enjoy good books being different isn't a virtue in and of itself. I don't know how you make the impending end of the world boring but it manages it.

I agree that different isn't a virtue in and of itself. However, western authors seem to almost treat the minimization of exposition as sacrosanct and Three Body very much does not. The latter two books in the series would often interrupt a barely established scene to spend many many pages explaining societal changes over the course of decades. For me, it worked. The dispassionate narrator giving me background on the shifting sands of society hooked me. I'm not surprised that this doesn't work for everyone, and I can't say that it would work for me if another author tried to emulate Cixin.

I don’t think it’s a best of SF you haven’t heard of, but a list that simply consisted of the really well known established names wouldn’t really be useful either.

Tastes will differ, and I doubt anybody will like everything on a list like this, but it’s certainly a good representation of books that people have been talking about. It would be interesting to hear which books really resonated with you, not just which on the list you didn’t think much of.

I wonder if the problem with 3PB is the poor quality of the translation -it was a real struggle for me to get through. AJ I thought was OK simplistic space opera, if that's what you want (and who doesn't, sometimes).

weird, 3BP and especially the sequels were mind blowing for me, among the best SF I have read (And I have read a lot...)

First two books of 3PB series were good imo, but the third one was a bit of a drag and I couldn't get through it.

Hard disagree. The Three-Body Problem is hands down best Sci-Fi book I've read.

Kind of bummed that The Stormlight Archive, or at the least the first book (The Way of Kings) isn't on that list.

I'm probably a bit biased, but if we were gonna make this the best 51 then I'd recommend anyone reading this comment check out The Way of Kings ;)

It is over ten years old so doesn’t fit the list.

I’m curious what you think it does that’s so good, I read the first one because a friend really liked it and I just found it competently written epic fantasy. In contrast I remember reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson and thinking I had never read that combination of Black Company style moral ambiguity and a world with deep history before, and really wanting to read more. Or A Game of Thrones where the writing was just so good.

I guess maybe it's not for everyone- I'm just a sucker for epic fantasy and Sanderson hits all my buttons. I enjoy his world building, his descriptive writing style, the way he writes combat gets me hype, etc.

Hah, I love this because it demonstrates just how different people's tastes can be. A Song of Ice and Fire did not jive with me: I felt like Martin's writing style got real old real quick (killing characters started to feel like a crutch) and the story just couldn't keep my attention anymore around book four.

But to each their own, that's what makes the world spin!

killing characters [...] the story just couldn't keep my attention anymore

You indirectly nailed the biggest reason why I stopped reading that series. Once it became clear virtually every character would be quickly axed, I could no longer invest emotionally in any of the new characters.

Yeah it's wild- some people seem to really enjoy it, others it's a huge turn off. My wife and I have had a few discussions about it and we both always settle on "Man I really liked it for awhile...but eventually it was just too much".

Incidentally, I'm trying to listen to Gardens of the Moon on audiobook right now and I just have no idea what's going on.

(It took me awhile to get into audiobooks; I had to start with books with a good first person narrative and work my way up to the third person. I don't know if the writing style of Gardens of the Moon just doesn't work with audiobooks or if it's just something you have to play really close attention to, but every so often I find myself going "Wait, where did the last set of people in the story go? Who are these new people and how is this related to the story that was being told earlier?")

The Malazan Book of the Fallen is the only fantasy multi-volume series I've bothered finishing.

I couldn't even get through the first volume of the Wheel of Time series...

Perhaps its strength is a lack of glaring weaknesses, which isn't as easy or common as it would sound.

Yeah, the Stormlight Archive is very re-readable.

I'd also recommend the Licanius Trilogy in the same vein -- it's one of the best pieces of time travel fiction, while also having a solid emotional journey for the protagonist to go through with fate, loss and regret.

Ryiria was also published entirely over the last ten years, unless Google is deceiving me.

The Science Fiction I've enjoyed the most over the last ten years (everything by Julie Czerneda) was mostly written more like 10-20 years ago, although the second Web Shifters and the Reunification trilogy were more recent.

Aside from that, the big thing of the last ten years for me has been LitRPG. I can't get enough of it, good, bad, high-concept, self-referential, explicitly game-like or incidentally.

Re: LitRPG. I've read a few, but I'd love some recommendations. Any you'd care to share?

You could check out https://www.royalroad.com/ which is a site where people upload web novels.

Most novels there aren't really good, but every once in a while you can find something great. And they are free to read.

I'll recommend 4 novels:

Vainqueur the Dragon: pretty good and it is completed although I never finished it.

Path of the Dragon Mage: also good, the author uploads about 10 new chapters with around 2k-2.5k words each month.

Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4: a great LitRPG and Xianxia parody. But it is in indefinite hiatus with no news from the author.

The Power of Ten: In my to-read list.

What you can often do is read the first 5 or so chapters of a novel and see if you like it. After all, they are free. There are also lots of reviews.

Another place you could look in is: https://www.webnovel.com/tags/system-novel although I haven't really checked it out and I think later chapter of the novels are locked.

There's basically four flavors of LitRPG.

1. Books where the main character is a person playing a (VR) game. Travis Bagwell's Awaken Online is a good example of this.

2. Books where it starts off as a game, but then becomes real. Sometimes it's getting pulled into a game world magically (Rachel Aaron's Forever Fantasy Online, Aleron Kong's The Land). Sometimes it's getting uploaded into a game world (James Hunter's Viridian Gate Online, Dakota Krout's Ritualist). Sometimes it's a game world and a magical world getting cross-linked (James Hunter's Rogue Dungeon, Drew Hayes' NPCs).

3. Books where the world is just the world, but it runs like a RPG (video) game. People have classes and levels. Frequently they have an inventory, go on quests, gain experience. People will even see pop-up notifications and see and navigate menus only they can see related to their classes and abilities. Frequently there are dungeons full of monsters. Anything by Jonathan Brooks usually falls into this category. Full Murderhobo by Dakota Krout.

4. Books where the world is basically a game world, but the rough edges have been sanded off. You basically have classes, levels and experience but the author attempts to justify it with the metaphysics of the world. You don't have explicit quests or popups or anything like that, but you may still have dungeons and adventurers. Dakota Krout's Dungeon Born is a good example of this.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'm going to try out the Murderhobo Series, because I'm /greatly/ amused by the name.

It's only on book 1 of N, but Krout is one of the modern machine authors who puts a book out in some ongoing series or another two or three times a year. Not the artisan wordsmith of your Rothfuss or Martin, but an enjoyable storyteller who gets the job done.

Nice, I'll check out the Licanius Trilogy! Thanks for the recommendation.

They didn't have any Sanderson on there? I'd classify Sanderson's Stormlight Archive books as the 4 best Fantasy books I've ever read. Although if you are thinking of jumping into Sanderson I'd recommend Mistborn for starters.

I was also surprised not to see Sanderson on the list. The Emperor’s Soul may be my favorite book of all time however I do think it is technically classified as novella.

I am reading The Way of Kings right now and its hard to keep it down.

It's a terrible list, but what do you expect from a survey of NPR listeners?

I read an enormous amount of science fiction and fantasy and didn't even recognize more than 10% of the authors on their list.

Of the ones listed in the link that I have read, "Children Of Time" is the stand-out for me. The sequel, "Children Of Ruin" isn't bad either.

Same here. I’ve enjoyed many of his other books (including the sequel) as well, but Children of Time was an absolute masterpiece.

I've not looked at spiders the same again...

Same, I've read a few on that list and Children of Time was my favorite.

There's not a single work by Sanderson on this list? Really surprising

I'm not surprised. I'm not a big fan of his output. Sanderson is competent, but he's more of a "writer" than an "author" in my opinion.

He's definitely impressively prolific and hard-working, and has some good ideas, but I don't think he's got "it".

I've watched some of his lectures, and read his blog back in the day, and my take is that he has this opinion that just hard work and practice can make you a good author, but I think you need underlying talent too.

I'm reminded of the time when he (to his credit) took the critique to heart that he was not very good at writing dialogue, and had this bad habit of constantly adding adjectives and adverbs to describe/reinforce the dialogue. Basically "tell, don't show" like so much of his writing is full of[1].

So he consciously spent some time "practicing" how to write dialogue. He documented this on his old blog: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/writing-exercise-dialogue/

I'm sure experience helps in making you a better writer, but to me, his approach is just too alien and "hard work beats talent"-y for me and doesn't come off as organic.

And I think it really shows (insert "show, don't tell" joke here) in his writing.

[1] I have only read his Wheel of Time stuff and the first Mistborn trilogy (Vin = Lisbeth Salander).

I read Mistborn after I read the first 3 books of Stormlight and it's very noticeable how his writing style has evolved/improved over time.

Seriously. How can Stormlight Archive not have a single listing. I read a lot of science-fiction and fantasy and the Stormlight Archive is definitely near the top of my list.

Not a bad list, out of these I enjoyed Children of Time, Gideon the Ninth, The Martian and the Murderbot books the most. Another good book which I saw an another HN post is "There is no Antimemetics Division", well worth a read.

A Long Way to an Angry Small Planet is really good, too.

Great list. I also liked "The Wall" (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094L5HQRT/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...) and "Ministry of the Future" (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084G7XRKT/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...) for their climate change centric nature. Both are very thought provoking.

I recommend "Version Control" by Dexter Palmer. Not well known but imo very good!

I really didn't like Ministry for the Future. It read like a bunch of notes for a climate change story rather than an actual story. Well worked out, but not really engaging.

Here they are for easier reference:

* Worlds To Get Lost In

- The Imperial Radch Trilogy https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/ann-leckie/the-impe...

- The Dead Djinn Universe (series) https://publishing.tor.com/amasterofdjinn-dbtmp1230658/97812...

- The Age of Madness Trilogy https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/joe-abercrombie/a-l...

- The Green Bone Saga https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/fonda-lee/jade-city...

- The Expanse (series) https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/james-s-a-corey/lev...

- The Daevabad Trilogy https://www.harpervoyagerbooks.com/book/9780062678126/the-ci...

- Teixcalaan (series) https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250186430

- The Thessaly Trilogy https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250811837

- Shades of Magic Trilogy https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765376466

- The Divine Cities Trilogy https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/228171/city-of-stai...

- The Wormwood Trilogy https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tade-thompson/rosew...

- Black Sun (series) https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Black-Sun/Rebecca-Roa...

* Words To Get Lost In

- Piranesi https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/piranesi-9781635575637

- Circe https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/madeline-miller/circe/978...

- Mexican Gothic https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/577068/mexican-goth...

- The Paper Menagerie And Other Stories https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Paper-Menagerie-a...

- Spinning Silver https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554775/spinning-sil...

- Exhalation: Stories https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/538034/exhalation-b...

- Olondria (series) https://smallbeerpress.com/books/2013/04/30/a-stranger-in-ol...

- Her Body And Other Parties: Stories https://graywolfpress.org/books/her-body-and-other-parties

- The Buried Giant https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/85613/the-buried-gi...

- Radiance https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765335302

* Will Take You On A Journey

- The Changeling https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/234343/the-changeli...

- Wayfarers (series) https://www.harpervoyagerbooks.com/book/9780062444134/the-lo...

- Binti (series) https://publishing.tor.com/binti-nnediokorafor/9781250203427...

- Lady Astronaut (series) https://us.macmillan.com/series/ladyastronaut/

- Children of Time (duology) https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/adrian-tchaikovsky/chil...

- Wayward Children (series) https://us.macmillan.com/series/waywardchildren/

- The Space Between Worlds https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/610612/the-space-be...

* Will Mess With Your Head

- Black Leopard, Red Wolf https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/561305/black-leopar...

- Southern Reach (series) https://us.macmillan.com/series/thesouthernreachtrilogy/

- The Echo Wife https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250174666

- The Locked Tomb (series) https://publishing.tor.com/gideontheninth-dbtmp1127517/97812...

- Remembrance of Earth's Past (series) https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765382030

- Machineries of Empire (series) https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ninefox-Gambit/Yoon-H...

* Will Mess With Your Heart

- The Broken Earth (series) https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/n-k-jemisin/the-fif...

- Station Eleven https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/239452/station-elev...

- This Is How You Lose the Time War https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Is-How-You-Lose-...

- The Poppy War Trilogy https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-poppy-war-r-f-kua...

- The Masquerade (series) https://us.macmillan.com/series/themasquerade

- An Unkindness of Ghosts http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/an-unkindness-of-ghosts/

- The Bird King https://groveatlantic.com/book/the-bird-king/

- American War https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/543957/american-war...

- Riot Baby https://publishing.tor.com/riotbaby-dbtmp1144773/97812502147...

- On Fragile Waves https://www.workman.com/products/on-fragile-waves#:~:text=On...

* Will Make You Feel Good

- The Goblin Emperor https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765365682

- Murderbot (series) https://publishing.tor.com/themurderbotdiaries-marthawells/9...

- The Interdependency (series) https://us.macmillan.com/series/theinterdependency/

- The Martian https://www.broadwaybooks.net/book/9780553418026

- Sorcerer to the Crown/The True Queen https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/761/a-sorcerer-to-...

Thanks for the handy list.

No thanks to whomever thought it would be a great idea to truncate URLs in posts, thus making this list non-copy/pasteable. This forum software is really and truly perplexing sometimes.

I wasn't sure how to share it on here, but I had originally parsed it in to a CSV:

https://pastebin.com/mcgpjLdA

Thank you yet again.

I've ready maybe a third of the books on the list and enjoyed most of them, but few felt particularly great, and some left me feeling pretty meh.

Nick Harkaway's Gnomon is by far the best science fiction book I've read in years, one of the best books full stop—yet it doesn't seem to make lists like this. In some ways that's a shame, but seen another way it's a good sign: this list doesn't fully characterize modern science fiction, which would not have been a great signal for the genre as a whole...

My favorites on this list are: - Station 11, just a great novel even if you don't care about SciFi - Ancillary Justice series. Also really good novels but more for SciFi fans. - Leviathan Wakes: The inspiration for the best SciFi TV series of the decade. - Murderbot!!!! Everybody loves Murderbot Diaries

I was sad to not see Seveneves. I think that novel is 2/3 amazing and you can just skip the last 1/3 and miss nothing.

Thanks for the Gnomon recommendation. There was a free preview of it that came up from Google search. I just read it blind and I'm really enjoying it so far.

Seconded for Gnomon!

One of my favourite books of the last decade must be The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.

A little hard to classify. You could call it time travelling science fiction, or put it in the "speculative fiction" genre, but however you classify it, I found the concept and execution compelling.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35066358-the-first-fifte...

So happy to see Tade Thmpson's Rosewater Trilogy on this list. It's a truly unique scifi vision that really deliveries from start to finish.

Only read the first one, but when I did, I was like, "what the heck". One of those books that disoriented me (in a good way), even though the "aliens come to earth" story is a well trodden path.

On this list, I've read maybe 20%. Of the rest, I've heard of another 10%. I wonder if this is because I've rarely been in a IRL bookstore. 10 years ago, I would have expected to at least have heard of the whole list.

Also my shifting tastes - I've read way more history in the last 10 years than I have ever before.

I suspect part of it may also be an intentional effort on the judges parts to provide more exposure to good, lesser known works.

Two I enjoyed recently-ish

* Adrian Tchaikovsky's Dogs of War: can a bio-engineered, cybernetically enhanced animal soldier still be a Good Dog when he's working for/owned by a PMC with questionable ethics?

* Kate Mascarenhas's The Psychology of Time Travel: deals with the philosophical and psychological implications of being a time traveller when your future is (a) utterly immutable and (b) known to you in intimate detail, not least from regularly hanging out with future versions of yourself.

The Red Rising series did not make this list, I am surprised. I thought it to be one of the best sci-fi I have read in a while.

I have to disagree. It felt like a weird, racially-tinged power fantasy to me. I liked how it started but it kept going in directions that surprised and disappointed me.

Have you read all of them (5 books so far) or did you give up?

Agreed - good stuff - especially the first book.

I felt the second book was a bit slow. Third was very good. The fifth book though, The Dark Age, its just crazy good.

I'd also add 'Wool' to this list. So good, such world building. https://hughhowey.com/books/wool/

The later books in the series weren't as good though.

r/fantasy's list for 2021

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/p1mwnx/the_rfantas...

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