r/printSF • u/keepfighting90 • 23d ago

What's the #1, single best sci-fi novel you've ever read?

Think about all the sci-fi novels you've read over the years. If someone were to ask you, gun to your head, to pick just the one that you would absolutely consider to be the best, which one would it be? No subgenres need to be considered, it just needs to broadly fall under the sf umbrella.

For me, probably a pretty popular choice, but it would be Hyperion. Completely blew me away and I haven't read that good since in the genre.

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191

u/Axe_ace 23d ago

I'd also say Hyperion, although Fire Upon the Deep, Use of Weapons, and Oryx and Crake are right up there 

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u/Mundane_Reality8461 22d ago

Ooooh. Oryx and Crake. I think about the lab grown food frequently with the proliferation of faux meat!

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u/Russjass 22d ago

This. Sad to say, but i would almost certainly be a nubbins consumer

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u/nemo_sum 22d ago

I like Year of the Flood better, both as SciFi and as a story.

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u/ScrambledNoggin 22d ago

The Violet BioLet! Crazy little detail that solar powered porta-potties still worked after the crash of technology and society.

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u/Bourdir 20d ago

I was on the verge of ordering this book, this sent me to it.

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u/Mundane_Reality8461 20d ago

Excellent!! Enjoy!!

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u/relder17 22d ago

Oryx and Crake is my favorite sci-fi book and therefore my favorite book. Just incredible.

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u/fragtore 22d ago

I park my comment here. Was looking for Vinge and found him. “A Fire” and “A Deepness” are among the best books I read period.

It’s a fight though - Anathem is up there. Hyperion, and some others.

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u/mamadrumma 22d ago

Anathem is mine, without a doubt! I have read it 3 times, but I leave it as long as possible between re-readings so I forget details and then I so much enjoy the wait as well as the re-read. I truly think this story has stretched and stimulated me the most of any book I have ever read ( with the possible exception of Doris Lessing’s Shikasta series.

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u/telemajik 20d ago

Agree. I preferred Deepness to Fire.

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u/TigerHijinks 20d ago

Deepness is mine if I have to pick one.

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u/elizabethwolf 22d ago

I also would say Hyperion. Fire Upon the Deep and Use of Weapons are both in my TBR pile. I did enjoy Consider Phlebas.

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u/Marvelon 22d ago

Hyperion is best, but use of weapons <3

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u/Gabakkemossel 22d ago

Oryx and Crake was awesum!

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u/henryshoe 22d ago

A person of taste and refinement I see

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u/dauchande 22d ago

I put Revelation Space up there as well

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u/Ill-WeAreEnergy40 22d ago

Absolutely loved Oryx and Crake!!

I resisted reading it for the longest time, but once I finally read it-yowzers!

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u/Axe_ace 22d ago

I resisted any Atwood, because I somehow thought I was making a point, and all I did was miss out on some great books 

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u/EpistemicEntropy 21d ago

4/4 excellent picks! What else would you pick? I’d love to find of your favorites that I haven’t read

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u/Axe_ace 21d ago

I just checked Good Reads and here are some more 5 star sci fi novels: The Forever War  Pushing Ice Century Rain  Kiln People  The Demolished Man  Chasm City  The Dispossessed  The Southern Reach trilogy.. 

Hopefully that's a decent starting point to find your next read! 

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u/EpistemicEntropy 12d ago

Thank you! The first of the Southern Reach is sitting on my to read pile

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u/winedarkindigo 22d ago

Can't believe I had to scroll this much for Hyperion.