100 Best Science Fiction Books of All Time

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

Brilliant. The author advocates placing limits on machine intelligence. [source]

Jeff Bezos

Founder/Amazon

I’m a big science-fiction fan. I love this book. [source]

Adam Savage

If you haven't read it, just go read it. It is amazing! [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Steve Jobs

Founder/Apple

called this book "one of his favorite" and recommended it to the hires. The book also inspired one the greatest TV ad (made by Jobs) [source]

Andra Zaharia

These books and their core ideas have stuck with me the most and continue to guide me when I hit crossroads along the way. [source]

Mark Zuckerberg

Founder/Facebook

Oh, it’s not a favorite book or anything like that, I just added it because I liked it. I don’t think there’s any real significance to the fact that it’s listed there and other books aren’t. [source]

Timothy Ferriss

Author & Entrepreneur

At one point, this was the only book listed on Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page. If it’s good enough to be the sole selection of the founder of Facebook, maybe there’s something to it. The plot: In anticipation of another attack from a hostile alien race, the search for a brilliant military strategist has led to Ender Wiggin. In space combat school, Ender stands out, demonstrating exceptional leadership and unconventional strategy. But it is lonely at the top for Ender, as he struggles with relentless pressure from his instructors. Through Ender’s journey, you’ll learn how to capitalize on your strengths and those of your teammates, as well as exploit your adversaries’ weaknesses. Ender is a futuristic Level 5 Leader we can all learn from. [source]

Travis Kalanick

About a kid who is trained by the military to play video games … But he realizes at the end that the video games he was playing were an actual war. [source]

Steve Jurvetson

A gift to all of my Apple II programming buddies from high school and Dungeons & Dragons comrades. [source]

Astro Teller

So much fun. [source]

Brian Burkhart

The last novel I read was Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One: A Novel,” because my buddy Mike Maddock said, “You gotta read this book!” And I tore it up. I read the whole book in less than two days. It’s something I wish everyone, including myself, did more of. [source]

Craig Barrett

Former CEO/Intel

This book didn’t really change my mind, but rather reinforced the concept of the power of the individual. At a time when we depend more and more on big institutions to solve our business and social problems the real solutions are crafted by individual actions and initiative. This is true in the business world, where ideas from individual researchers or entrepreneurs can create mega companies overnight, and in the social sector, where such actions as high performing charter schools run circles around a moribund K-12 education system. Best we all remember that the next meaningful advances will come from individual initiative rather than massive governmental programs. After all, Google, Facebook, Uber, microloans and countless other success stories were not products of big government. [source]

Dan Christensen

@EconTalker @cable_co1 The Martian... hey it can’t all be economics and it’s a great book [source]

Fabrice Grinda

I have lots of books to recommend, but they are not related to my career path. The only one that is remotely related is Peter Thiel’s Zero to One. That said here are books I would recommend. [source]

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

I guess when I was around 12 or 15... I had an existential crisis, and I was reading various books on trying to figure out the meaning of life and what does it all mean? It all seemed quite meaningless and then we happened to have some books by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in the house, which you should not read at age 14 (laughter). It is bad, it’s really negative. So then I read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which is quite positive I think and it highlighted an important point which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer is the easy part. So, to the degree that we can better understand the universe, then we can better know what questions to ask. Then whatever the question is that most approximates: what’s the meaning of life? That’s the question we can ultimately get closer to understanding. And so I thought to the degree that we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness and knowledge, then that would be a good thing. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Michael Arrington

Founder/TechCrunch

Not sure what you’ll learn from HHGTTG, but it’s one of the funniest series of books of all time and if you haven’t read it you pretty much have to. It’s actually a five book series that’s called a trilogy, and if Adams hadn’t died of a heart attack at age 49 in 2001 there would have likely been more books written. HHGTTG and the WWII epic Catch-22 are among my favorite books when contemplating the meaninglessness and hilarity of life (HHGTTG begins with the Earth being destroyed to to make way for a hyperspatial express route). Like Dune, skip the movie, it doesn’t do the books justice. [source]

Yuval Noah Harari

Historian

The most prophetic book of the 20th century. Today many people would easily mistake it for a utopia. [source]

Andra Zaharia

These books and their core ideas have stuck with me the most and continue to guide me when I hit crossroads along the way. [source]

Catherine Mayer

It shows the ways in which technology, our need for certain creature comforts and consumer culture can be used to manipulate us. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012. [source]

Robert Muchamore

A brutal, exciting, action-based sci-fi novel. Hugely popular and excellent fun. [source]

Catherine Mayer

Atwood takes all the hard information about gender inequality that she sees around her and then turns it up a few notches. [source]

Cliff Bleszinski

@HandmaidsOnHulu Done. Love the show, book is a classic, can't wait for season 2. [source]

Grady Booch

I read this several years ago but — much like Orwell’s 1984 — it seems particularly relevant given our current political morass. [source]

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

In terms of sci-fi books, I think Isaac Asimov is really great. I like the Foundation series, probably one of the all-time best. [source]

Adam Gazzaley

Life-changing for me as a kid, and have still read it multiple times throughout my life. [source]

Amy Webb

Asimov was a masterful fringe thinker, and this first book in the Foundation series shows just how attuned he was to possible and plausible future scenarios. Although it’s 50 years old, Foundation is especially provocative reading given our current state of world affairs — in order to save humankind and the vast knowledge we have accumulated, the main character gathers the smartest thinkers and forms a secret society. But that doesn’t go exactly as planned, either. [source]

Timothy Ferriss

Author & Entrepreneur

This classic work on state censorship remains as relevant in today’s world of digital delights as it was when published in the black-and-white world of 1953. In a futuristic American city, firefighter Guy Montag does not put out blazes; instead, he extinguishes knowledge and promotes ignorance by conducting state decreed book burnings. After an elderly woman chooses a fiery death with her books rather than a life without the written word, he begins questioning not only his profession, but also a society that allows itself to be lulled into complacency by constant exposure to state-controlled, mind-numbing television shows. If you wonder why some people take censorship so seriously, this book will give you the answer. It’s also a fantastically inspiring story of a one-versus-a-million fight that’s worth fighting. Who knows when your turn will come? [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

I’m not sure what compelled me to pick Fahrenheit 451 back up but I’m so glad I did because I was able to see the book in a very different context. Bradbury’s message (made explicit in his 50th Anniversary Afterword) is much less a warning against government control and much more about a road to hell paved by people attempting to rid the world of offensive speech and conflicting ideas. In a world of microaggressions and outrage porn, this is an important idea to see in such a timeless work of fiction. [source]

Sergey Brin

Co-Founder/Google

Brin said he is a big sci-fi fan, and Stephenson's acclaimed 1992 novel "Snow Crash" is one of his favorites. The book "was really 10 years ahead of its time," Brin said. "It kind of anticipated what's going to happen, and I find that really interesting." [source]

Adam Savage

It's a tough call because I prefer other books of this author. But this book is so important within the history of science fiction. [source]

Marvin Liao

Partner/500 Startups

My list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make sense of life and Science fiction to picture what the future could be like (not always utopian). [source]

Adam Savage

This series changed my life. [source]

Aleks Krotoski

This is the seminal cyberpunk book: it’s the thing that the web is based on. [source]

Burly Vinson

As I said, I’m a SciFi nerd, so right now I’m reading Neuromancer by William Gibson. As for what I expect to get from it? Probably not a lot from an entrepreneur point of view, but that’s fine by me. [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

As a devoted reader, the president has been linked to a lengthy list of novels and poetry collections over the years — he admits he enjoys a thriller. [source]

Mark Zuckerberg

Founder/Facebook

It's a Chinese science fiction book that has gotten so popular there's now a Hollywood movie being made based on it. This will also be a fun break from all the economics and social science books I've read recently. [source]

Adam Savage

I felt like I was getting a Chinese version of Chinese culture. And that frame felt unique. [source]

Adam Roberts

It is a short novel, almost a novella, but it is smoothly and evocatively written, and it manages to open a chink in the reader’s mind that gives a her dizzying, thrilling glimpse down the vertiginous perspectives of long time. My favourite moment comes near the end, after the time traveller has left the Eloi and Morlocks behind him (as it were) and travelled more than 30 million years into the far distant future. He finds himself on a desolate beach, seemingly lifeless but for green slime on the rocks, the sun grown to massive proportions, and witnesses an eclipse [source]

Adam Roberts

It is a short novel, almost a novella, but it is smoothly and evocatively written, and it manages to open a chink in the reader’s mind that gives a her dizzying, thrilling glimpse down the vertiginous perspectives of long time. My favourite moment comes near the end, after the time traveller has left the Eloi and Morlocks behind him (as it were) and travelled more than 30 million years into the far distant future. He finds himself on a desolate beach, seemingly lifeless but for green slime on the rocks, the sun grown to massive proportions, and witnesses an eclipse [source]

Roger Luckhurst

It invents the idea of far-future visions that science fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke have constantly tried to achieve. [source]

Bertalan Meskó

Preparing for my opening keynote, Science Fiction in Healthcare, at #futurelink18 this morning. Please get your tweets ready and challenge me about what the best sci-fi movie or book is. Ever. My vote is for 2001: A Space Odyssey. #digitalhealth [source]

Laurie Voss

2001 the *book* has a great plot and if you've read the book it's clear what's happening but if you haven't read the book the movie is impenetrable, and the movie should not get a pass just because an Explainer Guide was published at the same time. [source]

Bill Liao

The human world occurs in language so best get good at it! [source]

Sean Kerner

@campuscodi the Expanse series is awesome (first book is Leviathan Wakes) The Culture series from Iain M. Banks (starting with Consider Phlebas) are classic too.. [source]

Adam Savage

An impressive and powerful experience. [source]

Adam Roberts

Ursula Le Guin may be the writer I most admire. The Left Hand of Darkness, published in 1969, may be her best novel….The Left Hand of Darkness is often discussed, and indeed taught, as a machine for thinking about gender, and it performs that function admirably. But there is much more to it than that. There is a rather dangerous gender-essentialism in the assumption that Le Guin, being female, must have subordinated her aesthetic project to feminist proselytising. Le Guin’s writing is always much more balanced than that. Indeed, that balance as such forms one of her major concerns. [source]

Adam Roberts

Ursula Le Guin may be the writer I most admire. The Left Hand of Darkness, published in 1969, may be her best novel….The Left Hand of Darkness is often discussed, and indeed taught, as a machine for thinking about gender, and it performs that function admirably. But there is much more to it than that. There is a rather dangerous gender-essentialism in the assumption that Le Guin, being female, must have subordinated her aesthetic project to feminist proselytising. Le Guin’s writing is always much more balanced than that. Indeed, that balance as such forms one of her major concerns. [source]

Bernard Tan

I’m also a Murakami and Vonnegut fan, Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, Slaughterhouse-Five, etc. Now that I look at the books listed, they seem to carry an existential theme. I guess I like to understand humanity and human behaviour ultimately to better understand myself. I find reading a means to connect with people who may have lived before my time, or in a distant country, that I may never have had the chance to connect with in real life. As three-dimensional humans, we are all made up of so many faces and emotional layers that we find it hard to dissect them all, and when we find writers who can explain these thought processes in a way that’s tangible and digestible, there’s this incredibly comforting eureka moment of feeling understood. [source]

Carlos Eire

Even though he is no philosopher Vonnegut is still able to ask the questions that all of us think about – how time affects our lives. [source]

Dan Christensen

@MetaHumean Love that book. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Probably the science fiction book I read the most when I was younger. [source]

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

Elon Musk recommended this book as one of his favorite books about space. [source]

Orson Scott Card

Author

Robert A Heinlein is, quite seriously, the creator of modern science fiction, in the way that Jane Austen is the creator of the modern novel. [source]

Primoz Cigler

Here's the non-business one that I'm reading as well. It's a science fiction book by Dan Simmons - Hyperion. It's a pleasure reading, so no expected gains from this one :) [source]

Yuriy Zaremba

Amazing, complex stories, which trigger a lot of thoughts and new ideas. I think what people miss sometimes is how many similar values and ideas these book series communicate. [source]

Michael Arrington

Founder/TechCrunch

Shelley wrote this book as a teenager, and most of us read it in high school. Often credited as the first science fiction novel. You can read just about any political viewpoint you want into the book, and there are strong undertones that technology isn’t all good. But what I get out of it is the creativeness that can come with solitude, and how new technology can be misunderstood, even perhaps by the creator (see Twitter). Key thing to remember: Frankenstein is the name of the scientist/creator, not the Monster. Everybody forgets that. [source]

Adam Roberts

Brian Aldiss has famously argued that science fiction starts with Mary Shelley’s novel, and many people have agreed with him. [source]

Adam Roberts

Brian Aldiss has famously argued that science fiction starts with Mary Shelley’s novel, and many people have agreed with him. [source]

Clancy Brown

@theBrianBurgess I have not read anything by John Steakley. I have read Robert Heinlein's book STARSHIP TROOPERS which is the book the movie is based upon. I recommend that one to you and, if you like future-war stories, FOREVER WAR by Joe Haldeman is one of the best. [source]

Daniel H Wilson

This is a story of war in the future with advanced weaponry against aliens. This story is so grounded, and so realistic – the way that the characters interact, their language, their lingo, the way the military is set up, the way they utilise their weaponry – everything is just pitch perfect. When you read it, you pretty quickly find – at least I did – that you aren’t worried that it is science fiction. I was thinking, ‘This is just so real, these are soldiers, and this could be Spartans fighting shoulder to shoulder – this could be a war that had occurred at any time.’ It’s just human soldiers fighting together, dying together, and that’s really what I took away from this – not the technology, or the crazy sci-fi aspects, and certainly not the political overtones. The politics are not my favourite part about this book, although Heinlein fans might have a different perspective. [source]

Cat Williams-Treloar

I loved the Hugh Howey "Silo" trilogy. An epic science fiction story about the above ground world coming to an end and the remaining society living underground in Wool Silos. Makes me shiver thinking about what could happen in the future. It's an intense set. [source]

Damien Mulley

I'm expecting to not be able to tell what happens next as I like surprises. [source]

Adam Roberts

Childhood’s End is Clarke’s best book by a long way. Alien overlords land on Earth and impose – by force – a benign and workable utopia. That sounds like a whole story there, but that’s only the start of Clarke’s compact, evocative novel. [source]

Adam Roberts

Childhood’s End is Clarke’s best book by a long way. Alien overlords land on Earth and impose – by force – a benign and workable utopia. That sounds like a whole story there, but that’s only the start of Clarke’s compact, evocative novel. [source]

Ben Shapiro

The best science fiction book probably ever. [source]

Bertalan Meskó

Even William Gibson said it might be one of the best science fiction war novels ever. The far future of humanity, biology and warfare. Check out The Forever War and dive into the far future of human life while keeping the focus on long-term military tactics. #book https://t.co/h9fyE4KPHJ [source]

Peter Boghossian

@krazyowl I don’t have one. The Forever War is probably my favorite fiction book. (I love sci fi.) [source]

David Goldberg

There’s a lot in this trilogy that’s subtle and buried. For example, there’s a lot of talk about the bigness of space that really gives you a sense of the actual size of space in a way that a textbook typically doesn’t. [source]

Estelle Francis

This is a tale with countless humorous moments, and it’s so bizarre that I instantly fell in love with it. [source]

Marko Rakar

This is the Bible of science fiction. It’s funny and anyone with the remotest interest in science fiction must read it. [source]

Michael Arrington

Founder/TechCrunch

Valentine Michael Smith is a human raised by Martians on Mars, orphaned when the crew of a human expedition to the planet died. He comes back to Earth as an adult when a subsequent expedition finds him. He is initially weak because of the high gravity of Earth, but recovers. He’s superhuman and psychic, and teaches these skills to others. Just about everyone in power on Earth wants him and his followers dead. In addition to being an absolutely great book, Heinlein also coined the term grok for the first time in the novel. He also invented the notion of the waterbed in the novel. [source]

Timothy Ferriss

Author & Entrepreneur

Ever feel like you don’t quite fit in? Don’t want to follow society’s silly rules? Then you can probably relate to human-born and Martian-raised Valentine Michael Smith. In this controversial 1960’s cult classic, Heinlein questions long held assumptions on religion, government, and sexuality (free Martian love for all!). It’s also where the term “grok” originated. [source]

Gunhee Park

I just finished up Stranger in a Strange Land, and am also reading Churchill, A Life and The Perennial Seller. I can’t really pinpoint what I expect to gain from any books I read, but am hoping to gain perspective and some valuable lesson that I can take away from each book. What that is exactly is different for every book. [source]

Oprah Winfrey

CEO/O Network

It's got everything that's grabbing the headlines in America right now. It's about race and class, the economy, culture, immigration and the danger of the us-versus-them mentality. And underneath it all, pumps the heart and soul of family love, the pursuit of happiness, and what home really means. [source]

George Monbiot

This is possibly the most important environmental book ever written. It is a thought-experiment that imagines the world without a biosphere. That is the fundamental thought-experiment at the heart of environmentalism. All the horrors of that story arise from the disappearance of the biosphere, leaving people without any means of feeding themselves and without any means of survival. They are thrown into a brutal and fatal competition where the only thing left to eat is each other. [source]

Greg Garrett

There is no creature that has been transformed by leaking chemicals or radioactive satellites. But, on the other hand, there are human beings who consume other humans and that informs the major conflicts of the book. So, you’ve got a post-apocalyptic setting and you’ve got ethical quandaries for the main characters. There’s the sense of menace that permeates the zombie apocalypse. It’s not bad enough that they’re going to kill you, they’re also going to eat you. What I love about this story is its literary quality. We tend to think of the zombie apocalypse as a low-culture, pulp phenomenon. [source]

Alfred A. Knopf

“What sets Station Eleven apart from so many other recent dystopian novels is the warmness of @EmilyMandel's writing, the lived-in details of each of these characters’ lives… It’s the kind of book that stays with you.” —@TomiObaro https://t.co/tWakW2L6Tq [source]

Holly Brockwell

@nmsonline @katebevan Great book though 🤷‍♀️ [source]

Kurt Braunohler

@randbot @jackiekashian @nkjemisin that book is GREAT. [source]

Nicholas Whyte

It’s about a future war and the dialogue between people and artificial intelligences. There’s also a very interesting gender aspect to it as well, in that her protagonist doesn’t distinguish people by gender. What is at first presented as a slight deficiency in the way that the computer intelligence sees the world, makes us realise it’s a deficiency in the way we’re seeing the world. [source]

Matthew Taylor

Oryx and Crake is here because it’s about the logical conclusion of a whole set of processes that we could have called progress. In my lecture I talked about the logic of progress: the logic of science and technology, the logic of markets, the logic of bureaucracy. And if you want a wonderful dystopian vision of what happens if you take these forward without any recourse to ethical considerations – without asking what progress represents – then Oryx and Crake does that. This novel was recommended by Karen Buck MP and it has influenced me as a wonderful account of a world run by large biotech corporations, where society is deeply dysfunctional and on the verge of self-destruction because nobody has stopped to say, ‘Is this the right thing to do? Is this the human thing to do? What does it mean to be human and are we still human beings?’ The book is a scream of, ‘When do we ask the big questions about any of this?’ [source]

Tim @Realscientists

The theme of hopelessness was the most profound I thought, as the narrative rattles through the devastatingly self-conscious decay of the main character's mind, the echoes of his life writhing and senescing inside his withering brain. Please read this great book :) https://t.co/1XVpw92bbb [source]

Whitney Cummings

Whitney Cummings recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show". [source]

Vlad Tenev

When I was in sixth grade I remember being very upset by the ending of this book. [source]

Heather Brooke

I picked Animal Farm because it is an allegory about power and its seductive and corruptive influence on people regardless of their initial good intentions. [source]

Bradley Voytek

World War Z is told from multiple different perspectives and multiple different cultures. It’s about how they respond to the impending apocalypse: what the Americans do and what happens in the Middle East, how individuals respond. So you have a couple of people who are already preparing for the end of the world and you’ve got the military view. It’s great because Max Brooks really pulls together this multi-cultural viewpoint, it’s not just a Brad Pitt action-movie vehicle. [source]

Geoffrey Miller

World War Z (the book, not the movie) by @maxbrooksauthor is an incredibly well-researched, thoughtful, horrifying page-turner that explores the many ways that people, media, & gov'ts are likely to mismanage global pandemics. Highly prescient must-read. https://t.co/04YMqnu06e https://t.co/7dyx0F9qqB [source]

Greg Garrett

World War Z is a novel that bridges the gap between pulp and high literature. It takes a subject matter which we would think of as mainstream geek culture, but it finds universal human themes, develops characters that you care about, and also manages to be culturally critical. It is clearly critical of many of the post-9/11 choices made by the United States and Britain. [source]

Max Levchin

Co-founder/PayPal, CEO/Affirm, Investor

A very fun read that I would classify as part of the guilty pleasure section of my personal library. [source]

Cat Williams-Treloar

I loved the Hugh Howey "Silo" trilogy. An epic science fiction story about the above ground world coming to an end and the remaining society living underground in Wool Silos. Makes me shiver thinking about what could happen in the future. It's an intense set. More recently, "Artemis" by Andy Weir will give you the same feeling but in Space. [source]

Tom Terry

Going to be so cool when we return soon! Although fiction, a great book to read about what life might be like in the future on the moon is #Artemis by Andy Weir of #TheMartian. https://t.co/M1dEf8uIbT [source]

Antonio Eram

This book was recommended by Antonio when asked for titles he would recommend to young people interested in his career path. [source]

Joanna Kavenna

You think you’ve acquired one truth: but that truth is really that there are infinite truths and infinite worlds, and nobody knows what the hell is going on, basically. [source]

Marvin Liao

Partner/500 Startups

My list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make sense of life and Science fiction to picture what the future could be like (not always utopian). [source]

Hope King

@JerryCremin @amazon @JeffBezos It’s the best book [source]

Kelly Starrett

Kelly is a legitimate fantasy and sci-fi nerd. He knows Dune by Frank Herbert and The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson inside and out. Kelly has daughters and texted me about the latter book, which follows a young female protagonist: "How do you raise girls that are of the system but crush the system while rebuilding a better one?" [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

Just like us, the president enjoys a good beach read while relaxing in the sun. In 2016, he released his list of summer vacation books: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, William Finnegan H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins Seveneves, Neal Stephenson The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Seveneves reminded me of all the things I love about science fiction. It is a great novel to get lost in, learn from, and think about. More than anything else, it has me thinking I should get back to reading sci-fi again. [source]

Adam Savage

A better book than 'Snow Crash'. [source]

Stephen King

Author

I'm loving THE SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY, by Jeff Vandermeer. Recommended by an indie bookseller. Creepy and fascinating. [source]

James Bradley

In the introduction to The Weird, the 2011 anthology that Jeff Vandermeer and his wife Ann edited, they suggest the weird isn’t a genre or a form so much as a technique or an affect, a thing that lurks in the interstices, and which emerges in unexpected and unsettling ways. I rather love this idea, not least because it captures something of what makes both Annihilation and its two sequels, Authority and Acceptance, so compelling, the way reading them leaves you feeling like you’ve been colonised yourself, your brain permanently altered by your descent into the world of the books. [source]

Kate Marvel

Annihilation evokes two things very well: that sense of confusion and powerlessness, and the drive to exert some sort of control over the situation by exploring and learning. [source]

Dez Blanchfield

@isotopp wasn't that an awesome book ( and movie ) [source]

Tess Gerritsen

This was the first science thriller I ever read. I remember thinking it was the first book to make real science so exciting. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Alan Kay

A formative book in so many ways. [source]

Jan Zalasiewicz

Re-reading it recently, I was struck not just by its dynamic plot, but also by how much science he smuggled in. [source]

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

Compelling picture of a grand, semi-utopian galactic future. Hopefully not too optimistic about AI. [source]

Mark Zuckerberg

Founder/Facebook

This is a change of pace from all the recent social science books. Instead, it's a science fiction book about an advanced civilization with AI and a vibrant culture. [source]

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

SpaceX, the rocketry firm he founded in 2002, owns two ocean-going barges that serve as mobile landing pads for its rockets. One is called Just Read the Instructions, the other Of Course I Still Love You. Both are named after sentient spaceships in the “Culture” books, all of which have similarly playful names (one warship, which spends most of its time waiting idly to be called up for action, is called the Killing Time.) [source]

Demis Hassabis

excited for this, Banks' Culture series is brilliant. Consider Phlebas is one of my favourite books, I read it back in the day when I was programming Theme Park, the cheat code for the game is 'Horza', the main character from the book... https://t.co/rUPwVpZU1f [source]

John Quiggin

Iain Banks is the writer you probably think of as being furthest from utopia in all sorts of ways. But the underlying conceit is that this is a post-scarcity society where people are free from any kind of material concerns. If they want to tear down their existing planet and build a whole new one, they can just go ahead and do it. It’s quite a successful imagining of what things might be like, and how people might react to an end to scarcity. [source]

Adam Savage

I felt like I was getting a Chinese version of Chinese culture. And that frame felt unique. [source]

Ben Brode

@noahmp @devonzuegel I thought book 2 and of the series that starts with “the three body problem” fulfilled this condition and was awesome [source]

The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk

It makes the point that humanity is fairly weak, and that if we’re ever faced by a really big threat, we most likely won’t survive it. [source]

Naval Ravikant

CEO & Co-Founder/AngelList

I’m rereading Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. It’s one of my favorite sci-fi novels. [source]

Meltem Demirors

finally reading Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and i have basically been crying since i opened my kindle such a beautiful writer and such profound topics. division by zero was my favorite of the collection, but the story the book is titled after is stunning 😍 https://t.co/2c5SuDEfkh [source]

Ryan Len

One of the best sci-fi books I’ve read in my life! [source]

A.r. Moxon (Julius Goat)

“A beautiful, harrowing, thrilling book....It’s a wild ride and a great read.” —Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife THE REVISIONARIES Published by Melville House Dec 03, 2019 | 608 Pages | Hardcover https://t.co/cKLZBnrQda [source]

Gabriel Coarna

Audrey Niffenegger's "The Time Traveler's Wife" and Garth Stein's "The Art Of Racing In The Rain" made me cry. [source]

Alison Alvarez

I have one friend who unfailingly recommends books that I love. She is a high school English teacher. She recommended Kindred by Octavia Butler, which is just an amazing work of science fiction. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but just trust me that it’s a good read. [source]

Denise Morris Kipnis

This was a tough book for me, brought me to tears. Imagine having to save your slave master, because he’s your ancestor? A wonderful study in empathy, the nature of humanity, and how we’re all intertwined. After reading this book I refocused my practice from diversity to inclusion. [source]

Nate Bowling (Is Thankful For A/c)

I'm reading "Kindred" by Octavia Butler. I can't do it justice on this silly platform. The book is grim in its depiction of slavery, insightful about modern racial dynamics, and contains the best execution of time travel, as a plot device, you'll ever read. https://t.co/Z4J4jlQbwG [source]

Marc Andreessen

Co-Founder/Andreessen Horowitz

The Sovereign Individual—written 20 years ago, this is the most thought provoking book on the unfolding nature of the 21st Century that I’ve yet read. It’s packed with ideas on every page, many that are now fast becoming conventional wisdom, and many that are still heretical. Two related books to read are The Twilight of Sovereignty and Cryptonomicon. [source]

Risto Siilasmaa

CEO/Nokia

The one book on Siilasmaa's list is this fantasy offering from Neal Stephenson. The novel relates two parallel stories, one about an elite group of code-breakers in World War II, and another set in the present day, about two grandchildren of members of the group trying to track down a previously unknown – and rumored to be unbreakable – Nazi code. The book's subject matter resonates with current issues surrounding data liberty, computer surveillance and cyber security. [source]

Marko Rakar

This is a novel about a new world order where information is the currency, a virtual currency in the world. [source]