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PODCAST

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time

Brent Gaisford, Cody Troyer

Explore the best of sci-fi with Brent and Cody. Each episode dives into a single book or series in the sci-fi cannon. Author interviews, reviews and analysis, and related book recommendations. Happy reading y"all!

arts books

All Episodes

00:23:15

Double Star - A hilarious, lighthearted book that is...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2023/01/03

The story is told from the first person perspective of Laurence Smith—the self-styled “The Great Lorenzo”—a down-and-out actor who spends most of his time in bars. He's approached by a space-pilot who offers him a drink and, despite some trepidation about Lorenzo’s high opinion of himself, offers him a dangerous job at a very high pay rate. One of the solar system's most important politicians has been kidnapped, and they need someone to impersonate him until he's rescued. Lorenzo is quickly pulled

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00:28:37

Parable of the Sower - A very real dystopia that...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/12/06

It’s the year 2025, and society is descending into anarchy in the face of climate change and other disasters. We see the world through the diary entries of Lauren Olamina, a teenager living in a walled-in neighborhood in the exurbs of Los Angeles. Jobs are scarce, food and water are increasingly expensive, and armed gangs and drug addicts control the streets outside. Lauren’s father, a pastor and professor at a local college, tries to keep their little community safe, but Lauren feels things going

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00:45:51

Behind the scenes with Seth Fishman - agent for Cixin...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/10/25

Seth Fishman is one of the biggest movers and shakers in the world of sci-fi publishing, representing Cixin Liu, Ann Leckie, Mary Robinette Kowal, Becky Chambers, Mur Lafferty, River Solomon, P Djeli Clark, and many others (plus huge names in lots of other genres too, like Randall Munroe, the creator of XKCD). We had a great time talking with him about what's happening behind-the-scenes in sci-fi, what the publishers like are looking for, and an honestly inspiring speech about how to talk about your

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00:29:35

Blindsight - A haunting, mindblowing first contact book!

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/10/11

Aliens have taken a snapshot of the entire earth, down to 1 meter of resolution - we know because they lit the entire sky on fire to do it. Then, humanity detected something out at the very edge of the solar system sending a signal - but not to us. The signal is being sent out, into deep space, to another planet, or to something already on the way to Earth. A ship is dispatched with a crew of five - including two technical specialists who have been deeply biologically and technologically enhanced, a

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00:57:24

Interview with Ken Liu - author of the Paper Menagerie!

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/09/27

This week we are so excited to interview Ken Liu! All of his writing and translation work is excellent, but if you haven't read his short story collection The Paper Menagerie we recommend you start there, it's full of incredibly memorable stories.We talked with Ken about:Growing up in both China and AmericaRobo-Ken - the neural network he built to help write a storyThe singularity and uploading your consciousnessHis background as a programmer and lawyerThe importance of family in his storiesThe

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01:04:33

Author interviews from the Hugo Awards - Seanan...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/09/13

We had a great time rolling out the red carpet in Chicago, and we're excited to release the first set of interviews!The Seanan McGuire interview starts at 2:10. Seanan is a multiple Hugo award winning fantasy and sci fi author, most well known for her Wayward Children series and her Newsflesh zombie series (published under her pseudonym Mira Grant). We talked with her about how she manages to create so much content, what made her want to write about zombies, and her approach to researching her

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00:33:30

The Windup Girl - A gene-hacking dystopia full of...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/08/23

The vast majority of the world's fossil fuels have been expended, leading to a climate and economic catastrophe. In the aftermath, calories from food become the world's most important energy source, not only for human consumption, but also to power industry and technology. A few mega-corporations produce almost all the world's food, and have become the most powerful entities on earth, thriving by genetically engineering new foods, while also trying to destroy the competition by biohacking diseases

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00:40:24

Ancillary Justice – A unique take on AI and a...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/08/09

Breq used to be the Justice of Toren - the huge, complex AI that inhabited a colossal starship and all of its thousands of ancillaries in the service of the Radch, the largest of the human empires.Ancillaries are human bodies that were captured in previous Radchaai annexations (or colonizations) – those who resist the takeover are killed and their bodies frozen and stored, ready to be activated and controlled by Radchaai AI in future annexations. The ancillaries are terrifying soldiers – each one is

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00:39:12

Ranking the best sci-fi books of 2021! Who are the...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/07/26

Ranking and reviewing the best speculative fiction books of 2021! Here's the extremely abridged version of the list, with a one sentence summary of each:6. Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark - A murder mystery set in a steampunk version of Cairo with lots of genies. 5. The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers - A bunch of aliens are stuck at an interstellar truck stop, hanging out with a cute kangaroo. 4. She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan - Mulan, but Mulan acts more like Walter

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00:39:33

House of Suns - An epic space opera with solid science!

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/07/12

Gentian line is one of the most powerful forces in the galaxy - one of the 'lines' of clones (called shatterlings) who have been traveling the galaxy since the start of the star-faring era six million years ago. The shatterlings of Gentian line travel alone, but they come together for a reunion every 200,000 years to compare what they have seen on their latest circuit around the galaxy.Campian and Purslane are two shatterlings who have fallen in love and are traveling together against the rules of

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00:16:08

The Machine Stops - A dystopian short story that...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/06/28

It is truly unbelievable that this story was written in 1909 - E. M. Forster's dystopian world feels all too real in our increasingly digitally connected and physically isolated real world. The story is about ritual & superstition, resistance to change, the dangers of reliance on an all-powerful authority, the origins of knowledge and creativity, and a tumultuous relationship between a mother and son who see the world in very different ways. We're joined to talk about the story by actor and writer

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01:07:55

The Machine Stops - Complete Short Story Audiobook...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/06/28

A world where everyone occupies a tiny cell, connected to each other only by machines, and where a parent's responsibility to their child ends at birth. Where all knowledge and experience comes secondhand, through the machine. A world where the machine rules everyone's lives.We absolutely love this classic short story, and we're lucky it's old enough to have entered the public domain so we can release this complete audiobook for free! We did a full cast recording with Kiran Subramaniam joining Cody

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00:58:54

Interview with David Brin - Hugo and Nebula...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/06/14

David Brin is an astrophysicist whose international best-selling novels include The Postman, Startide Rising, and the Uplift War. He consults for NASA, companies, agencies, and nonprofits about the onrushing future. His first nonfiction book, The Transparent Society, won the Freedom of Speech Award. His newest book is Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood.Startide Rising won both the Hugo and the Nebula in 1984 - one of a very short list of books to win both awards! If you haven't read it

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00:36:12

Foundation - The rise and fall of a galactic empire!

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/05/31

These books are among the most popular works of the Golden Age of sci fi, and for good reason. The overall story arc established in the first book is very, very good. Hari Seldon combines mathematics and psychology to create the new science of psychohistory and predicts that the galaxy-wide empire that has ruled and kept the peace for tens of thousands of years will collapse within 500 years. The collapse is inescapable, but Seldon sees a single, narrow path that could shorten the dark ages after

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00:31:56

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The funniest...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/05/17

Douglas Adams passed away 21 years ago this week, so it seemed like a good time to revisit his amazing work. These are short, digestible books that are jam-packed full of jokes and mad-cap adventures. The first book in the series (the eponymous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) is especially full of non-stop zaniness - the chapters are only a few pages long, but every single one feels like it has something big happening in it, and every page has a joke. The books also raise big philosophical

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00:33:21

Station Eleven - A character-driven post-apocalyptic...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/05/03

Despite the grim nature of a story about a pandemic that destroys civilization, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is full of subtle optimism and deep characters. It jumps between timelines and between characters, and builds mystery about how all these people are going to be connected. It tells a tense story about the dangers posed by other survivors in a post-apocalyptic world, while at the same time its characters try to hold on to art and music. It even manages to explore the narcissism

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00:45:07

The Three Body Problem - some of the biggest ideas in...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/04/19

In this episode we review Cixin Liu's Hugo award winning Three Body Problem (the book that made him the first person from Asia to win the award), as well as the sequels. If you haven't read the first book yet, you should - it absolutely deserves all its acclaim, with a huge number of big tech ideas, an incredibly compelling character in Ye Wenjie, and even includes a section set during the Cultural Revolution in China to boot. Unfortunately, the sequels aren't as good - although the second book The

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00:29:36

Ted Chiang's short stories - Like the optimistic...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/04/05

In this episode we review and discuss Exhalation and Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang's two short story collections. These seventeen stories are full of novel scientific ideas, wonderful characters, and thoughtful takes on the morality of future technologies and how they will change society. We certainly aren't alone in thinking they're wonderful - Ted Chiang has won four Hugos, four Nebulas, and four Locus awards for his stories. As always, we also recommend and discuss some similar

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00:41:11

Ender's Game - The page turner where empathy is a...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/03/22

In this episode we review Ender's Game, what makes it so inspiring to generation after generation of readers, why Ender is so incredibly likeable, discuss empathy as a superpower, and talk about Orson Scott Card's bizarre and outspoken homophobia (and why you should get this book from the library or used book store as a result). As always, we also recommend and discuss some similar stories if you're looking for more great books to read. This week we recommend Speaker for the Dead (the sequel to

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00:54:27

An interview with Joe Haldeman, author of The Forever...

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time ·

2022/03/09

This week we were so excited to interview Joe Haldeman and his wife Gay! The Forever War is absolutely one of the best sci fi books of all time, and we were excited to discuss the origins, real-life inspiration, and message of the book, as well as sci-fi and writing more broadly. In addition to writing more than 30 novels, Joe was also a professor at MIT (as was Gay) where he taught science fiction writing for decades. This week, instead of us recommending similar books, we asked Joe and Gay to

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