UPDATE - 41/50
I have since read:
- Dune Messiah and really liked it but slightly less than Dune.
- Annihilation and liked it but didn't love it.
- The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and it was cozy but it didn’t really click for me.
- Starship Troopers and liked parts of it but didn't love it overall.
- The Handmaid’s Tale and thought it was excellent.
- The War of the Worlds and liked it, but it's not an all-time favourite.

Let the debate on the veracity of Goodreads ratings commence!

4:53 "I need to read these Hunger Games"

Trust me, you don't.

The 3rd book, in particular, is one of the most excruciating reading experiences I ever went through. Book 1 was fine and 2 was ok. But 3 is truly terrible.

Hello from Canada! Definitely read Starship Troopers next. But if you want more Heinlein, I highly recommend The Moon is a Harsh Mistress!

Starship Troopers is the one you should read. Very different than the movie and very misunderstood because people always think the book and the movie are the same.

14/50. I’ve been reading consistently sci-fi for a couple of years. Eventually I’ll get there!

I'll take 15! Science-fiction has always been shadowed by fantasy in my reading, but I do try to read some now and again

You're such a cool guy. Thank you for such great content!

Cinder is a YA book very loosely based upon Cinderella, but it is very much SF.  It's actually pretty good. It's about a young woman who's an engineer specializing in cybernetic reconstruction, and she has partial body replacements. She's also a revolutionary who needs to infiltrate the castle where the rulers are having a ball. It's smart and fun. I don't know that I'd recommend it to an adult guy because it still has that YA tone, but this adult woman liked it. I didn't read the sequels however.

I can confirm that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy continues to get a little more depressing as the series progresses. Having said that, the fifth and final book - "Mostly Harmless" - is in my opinion the best of the, uh, trilogy. I have read it a couple of times. I have given away the other books, but that last one remains on my shelf. It's worth reading the rest of the series for.

I think the thing with Murderbot is that if you can relate to Sec Unit (like me), it feels more funny. He struggles with emotions and his connection to humans, and some of us understand that deeply. He is a good representation of how neurodivergent people feel in "the real world," and he feels so relatable. :) And the last thing he would want is a hug....much like many of us who see ourselves in his presentation. LOL

My score is 33.  I own Red Rising so hope to get to that soon.  Side note-the ebook of Sea of Rust is on sale for $2 today so based on your recommendation I took the plunge.

Fun video as always. Thanks Jonathan!

Murderbot is absolutely GREAT as an AUDIO book.

10/50. I won't read all the top 50 books but I do have a few on there that I do want to read. Dune being one of them. My top reads on here are Ready Player One(best book I read last year), 3 Body Problem, Hyperion.

I completely agree with you about "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons being a great read.  All four books of the Hyperion Cantos are all-time favorites of mine:  "Hyperion," The Fall of Hyperion," "Endymion" and "The Fall of Endymion."  Simmons also has a great two book set built around the Trojan War and a future "post-human" Earth and Mars with "Ilium" and "Olympos," both of which I found also to be very good reads.

While in high school in the late 70s I would record every weekend on cassette tape the expanded Star Wars Radio Drama on NPR in the USA.

One Sunday in 78 or 79 (I think?) I queued up my tape recorder and heard instead the 1st episode of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy… and laughed out loud (this was before LOL was an acronym).

I couldn’t wait to share it with my SF nerds at school on Monday. We all got hooked!!!

I eventually replaced my bootlegs with the official cassette release, an LP, the books of course, then CDs, then DVDs of the BBC TV production, etc. etc. etc.

PS I also eventually purchased all the Star Wars Radio Dramas on CD. Do folks even remember them? I wonder. 🤓

I've been reading books as a hobby for only 6 months so far, after not having read any novels in over 15 years. Read 10 sci fi classics so far.

A Wrinkle in Time is awesome and definitely Sci Fi! I would say actually a book that got me into the genre! Super cool concepts on time travel, inter dimensional travel and dystopia, all accessible to kids as well!

Hitchhiker’s Guide is so funny that  it’s one of the only books I read in one sitting. It’s hysterical. Didn’t realize at that a book could legit make me belly laugh.