I have recently got into audiobooks, with a focus on classic sci-fi, I just finnished Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clark (narrated by Peter Gamin), which is absolutely brilliant, highly recommended, and The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (narrated by Kelsey Grammer, free on Apple Books), also brilliant, very different from the 1960s film.

Anyway do you have any tips on classic sci-fi (1870s-1990s) that I should listen to?

I use Apple Books to buy the books, I am not really interested in audiobook streaming, I want to own my books, not rent access to them.

At the moment I have several books that I need to listen to, but I want to buy more now so I have them in my library.

I have the following books in my library:

  • Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C Clark - Narrated by Peter Gamin
  • The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells - Narrated by Alexandra Coles
  • The Time Machine - H. G. Wells - Narrated by Kelsey Grammer
  • The World Set Free - H. G. Wells - Narrated by Sebastian Blackwood
  • I, Robot - Isaac Asimov - Narrated by Scott Brick
  • Ignition, An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants - John Drury Clark - Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross

I am planning on getting 2001: A Space Oddesy and some even more Arthur C. Clark…

  • KingArnulf@lemmy.world
    01·
    1 day ago

    If you like Classic SciFi, allow me to recommend The Ultimate Science Fiction Mega Collection: 24 of the Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time

    It includes 24 public domain works by numerous authors such as Verne, Bradbury, Vonnegut, Wells and others. It includes the initial John Carter of Mars books by Burroughs, War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and many more.

    It also includes one of my favorite stories, The Machine Stops by E M Forster. This story just wows me. It’s about a society that lives in little apartments in huge underground arcologies that are all run by The Machine. It provides everything they need including food and air. While the arcologies are huge, the people never go outside and rarely if ever leave their pods (apartments) or see each other outside of video chats on social media. Many of the people have come to see The Machine as God.

    The Machine Stops basically predicts modern social media and all it’s isolating and deleterious effects and it was written in 1928 before the electronic computer was even invented!

  • Badabinski@kbin.earth
    1·
    3 days ago

    I love The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks. The audiobook is narrated by Peter Kenny and he does such a good job with it.

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksMEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    Your list of audio books is very similar to how I started. I stumbled across a torrent with a bunch of Hugo winners, and those were included.

    Some recommendations off the top of my head:

    • Project Hail Mary (Weir).
    • Snow Crash. (Stephenson).
    • Cryptonomicon (Stephenson. Not sci-fi, but I highly recommend it anyway).
    • The End of Eternity (Asimov. His only time travel book).

    And of more recent date, the “Dungeon Crawler Carl” series as released by sound booth Theater is pretty much the gold standard in Audio book production. Seems pretty shallow at first, but the sci-fi element becomes more and more prevalent with time, and it weaves a pretty interesting story. On top of being hilarious. I cannot recommend this series enough.

    In addition to those, Discworld makes for some great audio books as well.

    • TheFunkyMonk@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 days ago

      Project Hail Mary was my first thought when I read “audiobooks” and “sci-fi”. Not only is there an aspect to the story that lends itself particularly well to the audiobook format, but the narrator (Ray Porter) is so good I’ve sought out other books he’s narrated.

  • icerunner_origin@startrek.website
    0·
    4 days ago

    Arthur C Clarke is an excellent author and the Rama series is one of my all-time favourites. I’d recommend anything by Philip K Dick, though honestly I think a good reference would be to pick works listed in the SF Masterworks collection, it’s how I found many of my favourite SF novels.

    If you fancy venturing into modern SF classics, my favourites are by Peter F Hamilton, Iain M Banks and William Gibson; though does Gibson count? He doesn’t even have a middle initial 😄