,

The difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy is arbitrary but it should be clear enough for this list. Looking for SF books with over 99,999 thousand ratings on goodreads.

And in case it isn't clear - any book on this list with less than 100,000 ratings should be removed without any thought or notice. mjf

Other SF Lists of Note:
Best Science Fiction
Best Science Fiction of the 21st Century
Best Science Fiction of the 20th Century
Best Forgotten Science Fiction of the 20th Century
Popular Highly Rated Science Fiction
Best Science Fiction Fantasy Books

SF Subgenres:
Alternate History
Dystopian and Post Apocalyptic Fiction
Space Opera
Steampunk

Locus Recommended Science Fiction:
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015,
2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010
2009, 2001, 2000

Sci Fi Award Nominees
2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010
2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

Science Fiction By Decade:
1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s,
1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s

Science Fiction By Year:
2023, 2022, 2021, 2020
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010
2009

Can't Wait Sci-Fi/Fantasy By Year:
2021, 2020
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

New Speculative Writers by Decade:
2000s, 2010s

Science Fiction By Ratings:
100,000 and more, 50000 to 99999, 25000 to 49999, 10000 to 24999
1000 to 9999, 100 to 999, Less than 100
1

by
4.29 avg rating — 1,609,046 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
2

by
4.22 avg rating — 2,000,693 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
3

by
4.31 avg rating — 1,466,298 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
4

by
4.20 avg rating — 5,379,538 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
5

by
3.97 avg rating — 2,794,702 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
6

by
4.42 avg rating — 1,271,406 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
7

by
4.17 avg rating — 591,513 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
8

by
3.99 avg rating — 2,057,076 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
9

by
4.23 avg rating — 1,288,891 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
10

by
4.35 avg rating — 9,788,760 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
11

by
4.27 avg rating — 294,892 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
12

by
4.15 avg rating — 2,388,601 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
13

by
4.16 avg rating — 283,952 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
14

by
4.21 avg rating — 376,445 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
15

by
4.10 avg rating — 1,472,884 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
16

by
4.23 avg rating — 222,022 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
17

by
4.24 avg rating — 784,426 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
18

by
3.97 avg rating — 1,275,400 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
19

by
3.90 avg rating — 1,852,468 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
20

by
4.09 avg rating — 507,844 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
21

by
4.35 avg rating — 828,753 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
22

by
4.14 avg rating — 179,456 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
23

by
4.18 avg rating — 334,494 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
24

by
3.92 avg rating — 325,741 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
25

by
4.13 avg rating — 1,053,132 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
26

by
4.11 avg rating — 269,939 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
27

by
3.89 avg rating — 561,244 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
28

by
4.20 avg rating — 314,140 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
29

by
4.12 avg rating — 172,517 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
30

by
4.12 avg rating — 2,780,553 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
31

by
3.83 avg rating — 347,283 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
32

by
4.12 avg rating — 182,792 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
33

by
3.89 avg rating — 361,224 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
34

by
4.01 avg rating — 296,601 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
35

by
4.35 avg rating — 4,105,369 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
36

by
4.32 avg rating — 179,343 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
37

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,025,383 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
38

by
4.02 avg rating — 564,040 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
39

by
3.89 avg rating — 274,809 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
40

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 764,556 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
41

by
4.16 avg rating — 249,220 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
42

by
4.39 avg rating — 591,116 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
43

by
4.13 avg rating — 4,346,148 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
44

by
4.08 avg rating — 143,292 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
45

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,852,998 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
46

by
4.10 avg rating — 217,159 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
47

by
4.12 avg rating — 3,676,411 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
48

by
4.22 avg rating — 224,596 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
49

by
4.27 avg rating — 734,061 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.89 avg rating — 396,118 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
51

by
4.38 avg rating — 337,129 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
52

by
3.91 avg rating — 270,333 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
53

by
4.12 avg rating — 1,005,855 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
54

by
4.15 avg rating — 151,785 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
55

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 285,770 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
56

by
4.15 avg rating — 434,391 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
57

by
4.08 avg rating — 184,379 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
58

by
3.82 avg rating — 164,925 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
59

by
4.27 avg rating — 201,324 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
60

by
3.88 avg rating — 136,935 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
61

by
4.26 avg rating — 323,744 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
62

by
3.85 avg rating — 841,807 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
63

by
3.59 avg rating — 233,696 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
64

by
4.23 avg rating — 272,134 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
65

by
4.07 avg rating — 605,934 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
65

by
4.16 avg rating — 359,479 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
67

by
4.01 avg rating — 4,481,395 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
68

by
3.63 avg rating — 215,490 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
69

by
3.84 avg rating — 706,087 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
70

by
3.97 avg rating — 148,008 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
71

by
4.15 avg rating — 156,604 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
72

by
4.31 avg rating — 314,468 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
73

by
4.01 avg rating — 245,033 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
74

by
4.17 avg rating — 184,823 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
75

by
3.87 avg rating — 216,269 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
76

by
3.88 avg rating — 178,966 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
77

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 136,042 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
78

by
4.05 avg rating — 1,666,216 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
79

by
3.96 avg rating — 1,614,300 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
80

by
4.50 avg rating — 1,036,297 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
81

by
3.86 avg rating — 1,046,065 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
82

by
4.17 avg rating — 247,903 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
83

by
4.03 avg rating — 1,609,551 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
84

by
3.99 avg rating — 131,708 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
85

by
3.95 avg rating — 280,224 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
86

by
4.13 avg rating — 703,370 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
87

by
3.84 avg rating — 197,190 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
88

by
3.85 avg rating — 223,081 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
89

by
3.95 avg rating — 337,776 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
90

by
3.90 avg rating — 297,869 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
91

by
3.97 avg rating — 244,297 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
92

by
3.92 avg rating — 245,590 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
93

by
3.89 avg rating — 637,389 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
94

by
4.35 avg rating — 640,305 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
95

by
4.15 avg rating — 561,424 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
96

by
4.10 avg rating — 987,006 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
97

by
3.83 avg rating — 658,868 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
98

by
3.79 avg rating — 185,431 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
99

by
4.14 avg rating — 312,522 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
100

by
3.93 avg rating — 351,328 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
264 books · 506 voters · list created April 12th, 2013 by Mitchell Friedman (votes) .
255 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Mitchell 11461 books
168 friends
Arielle 648 books
50 friends
Mike 3165 books
6 friends
Andrew 1761 books
51 friends
Steven 10802 books
235 friends
Cynthia 664 books
0 friends
Villain 6185 books
129 friends
Helen 2283 books
30 friends

More voters…


Comments Showing 1-20 of 20 (20 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman wow. not a lot of classic sf has 50 thousand ratings.


message 2: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Hyperion didn't have quite enough ratings and was removed.


message 3: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman I added http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/39... for science fiction between 25 thousand and 50 thousand ratings. I'm certainly surprised at how few books are in this class but I am still looking.


message 4: by Lu (new)

Lu Thanks for the SF lists!


message 5: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Royal Assassin and Assassin's Apprentice removed due to being fantasy. I did review Robin Hobb's place on all the fantasy lists and at least one of her books was missing.


message 6: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman If you haven't voted on this list in awhile, you should revisit it as there are more sf books that have reached 50,000 ratings.

Also you should take a look at the other sf lists by ratings - I'm sure there are lot's of sf books missing on the <100 and 100-999 lists and event the 1000 to 9999 list.

All science fiction with 25,000 to 49,999 ratings
All science fiction with 10,000 to 24,999 ratings
All science fiction with 1,000 to 9,999 ratings
All science fiction with 100 to 999 ratings
Best Science Fiction on Goodreads with less than 100 ratings


message 7: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Not sure how I feel about A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Animal Farm being on this list. I just don't think of either one as being science fiction.


message 8: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Mitchell wrote: "Not sure how I feel about A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Animal Farm being on this list. I just don't think of either one as being science fiction."

Removing Animal Farm as fantasy rather than science fiction. And it is #26 on https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...


message 9: by Laura (new)

Laura L. Van Dam I fail to see how The Hunger Games is a science fiction book.


message 10: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Laura wrote: "I fail to see how The Hunger Games is a science fiction book."

The problem is with the term science fiction, it's not really a big-tent kind of term. Where speculative fiction is a heck of a lot more open. Alternate History isn't an obvious fit for science fiction for me. And I kind of like the idea that says that faster-than-light travel is fantasy.

This list at least is taking one of the bigger views of what is science fiction with the only caveat being not-fantasy.

Personally I prefer the Damon Knight approach - "At the start of a series of book review columns, Knight stated the following as one of his assumptions: "That the term 'science fiction' is a misnomer, that trying to get two enthusiasts to agree on a definition of it leads only to bloody knuckles; that better labels have been devised (Heinlein's suggestion, 'speculative fiction', is the best, I think), but that we're stuck with this one; and that it will do us no particular harm if we remember that, like 'The Saturday Evening Post', it means what we point to when we say it." This definition is now usually seen in abbreviated form as "Science fiction is [or means] what we point to when we say it."


message 11: by J_BlueFlower (new)

J_BlueFlower Batman: The Killing Joke? Really?

Not SF: Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Yes, Verne was in general a Science Fiction writer, but not this book.


message 12: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman J_BlueFlower wrote: "Batman: The Killing Joke? Really?

Not SF: Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Yes, Verne was in general a Science Fiction writer, but not this book."


as far as I'm concerned, if it was sf at one time it can remind sf. And if it has over 500 shelves as science fiction, it also can be counted as science fiction.

As for Batman the Killing Joke - that's a bit of a different case - I'd definitely rather have more books on this list than less - there just aren't that many with over 50,000 ratings.


message 13: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman I have not read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I am wondering if this isn't clearly fantasy?


message 14: by Laura (new)

Laura L. Van Dam Mitchell wrote: "J_BlueFlower wrote: "Batman: The Killing Joke? Really?

Not SF: Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Yes, Verne was in general a Science Fiction writer, but not this book."

as far as I'..."


It wasn´t science fiction at the time it was written. Verne got the idea from a newspaper article that stated that due to new technologies in ships and railways, it was then possible to go around the world in less than 3 months.
I read it in a biography of Verne some time ago.


message 15: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Just a heads up... I will be splitting this list sometime soon. This list will switch to require 100,000 ratings. A new list will be for 50,000 to 99,999. There are are just over 100 books on this list with less than 100,000 ratings.


message 16: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman this list has been renamed to "Most Popular Science Fiction on goodreads" and the minimum criteria changed to 100,000. A new list has been created as Popular Science Fiction on Goodreads with between 50000 and 99999 ratings. Books from this list that have less than 100,000 ratings have been added to that list, and are in process of being deleted from this one.


message 17: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman And all but the last few books have been moved over to the new list. Which could use some votes - since I'm limited to 100 - and there are a few book more to move.


message 18: by Emrys (new)

Emrys It seems Goodreads members aren't able to post links to external websites, but if you search for "100 Years of Science Fiction" by Bethanie Maples, Srini Kadamati, and Eric Berlow, you should be able to find a map of books based on Goodreads data that groups books by level of similarity.


message 19: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Just added 10 more books to this last, graduated from the 50,000 to 99,999 list. You can find them at the end of this list. As always, to help maintain any of the science fiction lists, the easiest way is to vote for 100 books already on that list - that have only one vote.

As of 2024-03-17 this list has 222 books with 524 voters and only 34 books have only one voter.


Mynameisntcollins Three books on this list do not belong (less than 20 ratings)

The Arbonox Syndrome by Michael Spitzkoff (currently #64)

Imber by Deborah Mistina (currently #184)

The Woman in the Well by Dmetri Kakmi (currently #250)


back to top



Related News

The bartender says, “We don’t serve time travelers in here!” Two time travelers walk into a bar… It’s an old joke, but a good one, and as...

Anyone can add books to this list.