The Expanse - Full series review!

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of the young rebels who venture illegally into the Zone, one of six areas on Earth that have been profoundly changed by the visitation of aliens to Earth. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And despite the danger, the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answers he's been looking for. 

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video

Similar books we recommend: 

• Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/rendezvous-with-rama)
• No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
• Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom by Ted Chiang (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/ted-chiang)

Space ships whip across the solar system, ice haulers burn in from the gas giants, stolen Martian corvettes sneak behind enemy lines, and very human characters tie it all together and make the incredible journey worth the ride. Miraculously all 9 books (plus a collection of short stories) are fun, well-done adventures that will keep you turning the pages and racing to find out what happens next. Seriously, if you haven’t read the Expanse yet, it’s time for a treat that goes down easy.

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video

Similar books we recommend: 

• House of Suns – Alastair Reynolds (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/house-of-suns)
• Children of Time – Adrian Tchaikovsky (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/children-of-time)
• Memories Legion – James S.A. Corey

In the One State of the great Benefactor, there are no individuals, only numbers. Life is an ongoing process of mathematical precision, a perfectly balanced equation. Primitive passions and instincts have been subdued. Even nature has been defeated, banished behind the Green Wall. But one frontier remains: outer space. Now, with the creation of the spaceship Integral, that frontier -- and whatever alien species are to be found there -- will be subjugated to the beneficent yoke of reason. Unless D-503 can find a space within himself - that disease the ancients called a soul.

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video

Similar books we recommend: 

• 1984 by George Orwell (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/1984)
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/brave-new-world)
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

A starship is taking off from Mars, and just before it does one of the crewman arrives with a strange new creature. What will the Wub bring to those on board, and the headstrong captain who can't stop thinking with his stomach?

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!

PS We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is still coming soon, but Brent had a family emergency, so Cody stepped up to bring y'all this gem in the meantime.

Rumors are swirling about a species of super-intelligent octopus living off the coast of Vietnam. As corporations and other non-state actors begin to investigate, it becomes clear that we are not alone in the universe - alien life has evolved right here on earth. DIANIMA, a giant tech company known for its machine learning prowess, buys the islands to study the octopuses and try to monopolize their unique brains for profit. They send Evrim, the world’s first true android / AI, and Dr. Ha Nguyen, a brilliant marine biologist, to study the octopuses, and Altantsetseg, a battle-hardened drone operator, to defend the islands from rapacious automated fishing vessels. 

Can they learn to communicate with the octopuses? Or will this new intelligent life be destroyed by global corporations run amok?

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video
• Check out Ray Nayler's answers to your questions about the book!

Similar books we recommend: 

• Children of Ruin - Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Story of Your Life - Ted Chiang (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/ted-chiang)
• The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/the-windup-girl)

Ranking our top 15 sci fi books of all time:

• 15 - Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu 
• 14 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• 13 - Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
• 12 - Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
• 11 - Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
• 10 - The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
• 9 - The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
• 8 - Hyperion by Dan Simmons
• 7 - A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
•  6 - Exhalation by Ted Chiang
• 5 - Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• 4 - Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
• 3 - Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
• 2 - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
• 1 - Contact by Carl Sagan

If you think something deserves to be on the list, drop us a line on Discord!

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video

Paul Durham has begun experimenting on his own mind. He uploaded a copy of his neural patterns - everything that makes him who he is - into a computer simulation. The more he experiments, the more the lines between the real person and the virtual person begin to blur. What he discovers there, out at the edge of consciousness and the pattern that defines him, give him an impossible idea. A permutation city, where immortality might be possible.

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video

Similar books we recommend: 

• The Hidden Girl and other Stories - Ken Liu (our interview with Ken Liu: https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/ken-liu)
• The Last Question - short story by Asimov (available free here: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html)
• Diaspora - Greg Egan

We talked with Peter about:

• Why he quit science to write fiction
• The real-world science that inspired Blindsight
• Why vampires?!
• Blindsight movie(s) in the works
• What's coming next (the sequel to Echopraxia!)

Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video, or join the Hugonauts book club on discord!

And if you haven't listened to our episode about Blindsight, check it out here.

Tyler, Jason, and Diane are growing up together in the suburbs of Washington, DC. One night, as they are outside looking up at the sky, something shocking happens - all the stars go out at once. The 'Hypotheticals' have wrapped the earth in a spin membrane that isolates the Earth, making time move millions of times slower inside the barrier than outside. In Tyler, Diane, and Jason's lifetime the sun will turn into a red giant and consume the earth - unless they can figure out how to escape the Spin!

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video
• This week we were joined by Jonathan from Words in Time - check out his channel on YouTube!

Similar books we recommend: 

• Contact - Carl Sagan (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/contact)
• Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke
• Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/the-three-body-problem)

Winston Smith is a Party member living in London. He, like every other member of the Party, is under constant surveillance. Despite the risk, he dares to buy a blank book and begin to write down his thoughts. From the first moment he writes “down with Big Brother” he believes he is doomed to die in the torture chambers below the Ministry of Love. Will his deviance be caught, or will Winston succeed in finding a way to resist the totalitarian control of the Party?

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord!
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video

Similar books we recommend: 

• Animal Farm - George Orwell
• Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
• Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (https://hugonauts.simplecast.com/episodes/brave-new-world)