Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time

If you thought The Martian was intense, let's just go ahead and raise the stakes. 

We break down the movie version of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, comparing the film with the fun technical problem solving of the original novel. We take a close look at how the movie brings the "astrophage" threat and and action to life, more importantly, whether it is possible to have your hair tousled 100% of the time. 

We dig into which complex scientific explanations were streamlined for Hollywood pacing and which "science-ing the heck out of it" moments remained intact. We also evaluate Ryan Gosling’s performance as the amnesiac-turned-savior, Ryland Grace, comparing his onscreen energy to the internal monologue that made the book a bestseller. Whether you’re a die-hard Rocky fan or a casual viewer who just loves a good space movie, this episode highlights the hits and misses of the transition from page to screen. 

We wrap up by answering the ultimate questions: is the movie worth watching? Is the book worth reading? Settle on in, enjoy, and fist our bump. 

Join the Hugonauts book club on discord

Or you can watch our episodes on YouTube if you prefer video

As always, no spoilers until the end when we give a heads up before getting into the full plot discussion.

Similar books and movies we recommend: 

The Martian (book and movie) 

Story of Your Life (novela) and Arrival (movie) 

2001 (book and movie) 

Solaris (book and movie) 

Roadside Picnic (book) and Stalker (the movie) 

Children of Men (book and movie) 

Edge of Tomorrow (movie) and All you Need is Kill (book) 

War of the Worlds (book and movie) 

Dune (we love eyebrows) 

This episode is sponsored by STARLØK by J.T. Michaelstar: https://www.starløk.com/ 

If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for the episode:

00:00 Intro and review 

02:26 Sponsor – STARLØK by J.T. Michaelstar 

03:04 Differences in the movie 

8:13 Jokes vs cheesiness 

10:15 How long can you look at Ryan Gosling? 

12:16 Ever-tousled hair 

16:27 Read or watch first? 

17:53 The Martian 

18:33 Story of Your Life & Arrival 

19:46 2001 20:56 Solaris 

22:03 Roadside Picnic & Stalker 

23:54 Children of Men

25:30 All You Need is Kill & Edge of Tomorrow 

26:38 War of the Worlds 

28:16 Annihilation 

28:56 Dune (we love eyebrows) 

30:11 POST SPOILERS discussion

We had so much fun revisiting Mid-World for this episode – it’s the first series that brought us together as book nerds twenty years ago, and it’s absolutely just as good as the first day we read it. So thankful it helped tie our friendship together, and laid the foundation for meeting all the rest of you Hugonauts all these years later! 

The Dark Tower defies (or bridges) genres, with elements of sci-fi, fantasy, western, horror, and more, all rolled into one legendary package. And Roland Deschain, the Gunslinger, is an incredible main character, and we’ll never forget the rest of the Ka-Tet either. And the ending – we won’t spoil it here, but man do we like thinking about this ending (it’s one of the most polarizing in all of literature). You may be picking up on the fact that we kinda like these books.

Join the Hugonauts book club on discord

Or you can watch our episodes on YouTube if you prefer video

As always, no spoilers until the end when we give a heads up before getting into the full plot discussion.

Similar books we recommend: 

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey

Book of the New Sun series - Gene Wolfe

This episode is sponsored by The Rising and the Fall of Hell by Sean Miller

If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for the episode:

00:00 Intro

01:58 Our review (5/5)

03:35 Sponsor – The Rising and the Fall of Hell by Sean Miller

04:09 About Stephen King

07:26 Incredible character writing

08:56 A 20 year series

10:30 Should we be reading on drugs?

12:38 Cody hates Star Wars

15:52 Every genre combined

18:02 Our favorite books in the series

19:39 The King Multiverse

21:10 The Dark Tower movie

22:03 Inspirations from other fiction

27:44 Similar books we recommend

31:27 POST SPOILERS discussion

We’ve got 15 books and series here, so there should be something to love for almost every reader (although we need some traditional fantasy page turners – send us some recommendations in the comments please)! Plus, at the end of the episode we each rank our personal top 3.

We intentionally excluded YA and military sci-fi books, although those are often also page-turners - look out for episodes about each of those soon!

Brent’s brother, Alex, joined us for this episode, and brought us a whole new batch of books (and frankly a couple new subgenres) to enjoy. LitRPG / progression fantasy just keep getting more popular, and we can see why – the books we’ve picked up have all been so, so fun to read (although it probably helps we’ve been reading Alex’s recommendations so far, the best of the best from the hundreds of LitRPG books he’s read).

No spoilers anywhere in this episode.

Join the Hugonauts book club on discord

Or you can watch our episodes on YouTube if you prefer video

This episode is sponsored by Quinto’s Challenge by Peter McChesney

All the books we recommend, plus timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:48 Sponsor – Quinto’s Challenge by Peter McChesney

03:26 Silo by Hugh Howey

5:06 Mother of Learning by Domagoj Kurmaic

7:19 Murderbot by Martha Wells

9:10 Beware of Chicken by Casualfarmer

12:26 Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

14:49 Mark of the Fool by J.M. Clarke

18:18 Project Hail Mary and The Martian by Andy Weir

19:40 Iron Prince by Bryce O'Connor

22:33 Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

24:04 He Who Fights With Monsters by Shirtaloon

28:47 Daemon by Daniel Suarez

31:07 The Perfect Run by Maxime J. Durand

33:39 The Bobiverse by Dennis E. Taylor

36:24 Eight by Samer Rabadi

38:37 Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

46:18 Rankings: Top 3 page turners

We've got 18 books and series we highly recommend, so there's something here for all kinds of readers - and at the end of the episode we rank our top 3 to bring you the best of the best. 
What is space opera? Books with big characters and a bigger world - they usually even come with big 'ol wordcounts. Space opera is often multi-pov, with interstellar travel and the fate of the galaxy at stake. 
No spoilers anywhere in this episode.
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord
Or you can watch our episodes on YouTube if you prefer video
This episode is sponsored by indie sci-fi publisher Lil' Factory
All the books we recommend, plus timestamps:
00:00 Intro 
00:36 Sponsor - Lil' Factory 
1:24 What is a space opera? 
2:58 The Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold 
4:45 The Expanse - James S.A. Corey 
6:38 Hyperion - Dan Simmons 
9:51 House of Suns - Alistair Reynolds 
11:32 Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky 
13:11 Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge 
15:04 The Culture - Iain M. Banks 
17:17 Peter F. Hamilton's whole discography 
20:19 Embassytown - China Mieville 
21:45 A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine 
23:34 Dune - Are you happy now? 
24:47 Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie 
26:34 Downbelow Station - C.J. Cherryh 
26:05 The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle 
29:24 Startide Rising - David Brin 
31:16 The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers 
33:01 Foundation - Isaac Asimov 
35:22 Rankings: 3rd best Space Opera 
37:27 Rankings: 2nd best Space Opera 
38:50 Rankings: 1st best Space Opera

This might be the best sci-fi book out there about nanotechnology. But Stephenson has so many good ones that this one isn't his best book - some of the characters lose their way, and it drags in the middle. 
Oh, and one more good recommendation we forgot while we were recording - check out Blood Music by Greg Bear if you want a biological twist on nanotech!
Join the Hugonauts book club on discord
Or you can watch our episodes on YouTube if you prefer video
As always, no spoilers until the end when we get into the full plot explanation and discussion.
Similar books we recommend: 
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Cory Doctorow
Prey by Michael Crichton
This episode is sponsored by Har Megiddon by Ron Bennett.
If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for the episode:   
00:00 Intro
00:47 Book setup
1:49 Sponsor - Har Megiddon
2:22 Our review 3.25/5
3:53 Great sections - and stinkers
4:47 Incredible technology
7:33 Hard to visualize?
9:38 Dances with Wolves
10:17 Labor saving devices
13:59 Neal's infodumps
19:25 Book structure
25:47 Sponsor - Har Megiddon
26:08 Similar books we recommend
28:40 Spoilers section - book summary
31:30 Spoilers section - discussion