One of my goals for 2021 was to actively seek out science fiction stories as part of my reading goal. Recently, I’ve read some incredible sci-fi stories – Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, Dune by Frank Herbert and A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. If you haven’t read these stories, I highly recommend giving these books a read! This got me thinking about some of the other amazing Sci-Fi series I keep hearing about and what should move to the top of my TBR. Without further ado…. let’s find out what sci-fi stories I’m interested in reading!

The Expanse by James S. A. Corey

The Expanse has been on my radar for a long time now! I remember hearing about this series back when my wife and I started watching the Game of Thrones TV series back in 2017. This was well before I picked up reading again. We were searching for a new TV Show to watch and started watching a few episodes of The Expanse before stopping. I decided I would rather read the series before getting invested in the show. Flash forward 4 years…. I still haven’t started reading The Expanse. Why? At the time I only wanted to start series that were finished and back in 2017 the books weren’t complete. This won’t be my excuse anymore with the 9th and final book Leviathan Falls coming out November 30th. The Expanse will be the next big series I will be tackling after I finish The Wheel of Time!

The Divide series by J. S. Dewes

The first thing that made me interested in this series was the title and cover. There is something so exciting about the title The Last Watch. “They’re Humanity’s Last Chance” To me this already has epic written all over it. J. S. Dewes is a very active author on Instagram. She made a video a while back of what her inspiration for The Last Watch was. Mass Effect was a huge inspiration for the series. I personally haven’t played the Mass Effect games but this definitely makes me curious enough to want to pick up a copy and try it. The Last Watch came out early this summer and shortly after that the sequel The Exiled Fleet came out. I’m excited I won’t have to wait to read the sequel! It was also announced that the third book in the Divide is coming in 2023!

The Foundation Trilogy by Issac Asimov

Let’s take a step back into time to 1942 when Foundation was published. After enjoying Dune, I found out that Dune was inspired by Foundation. I don’t really know what to expect with this story. Issac Asimov has been on my list for a long time. A lot of people are familiar with I, Robot whether they saw the movie featuring Will Smith or read the short story. The biggest reason I have him on the list is I want to see how he inspired the sci-fi genre and what some of his futuristic ideas were. Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation make up the main trilogy. There are two prequel novels – Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation – as well as two sequels, Foundation’s Edge and Foundation and Earth. There is a lot of content to read outside the original trilogy!

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender’s Game has been on my list since High School. I was looking for sci-fi series similar to Star Wars so I picked this up because it was a popular sci-fi book. I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t read this story after buying it. This is probably one of my biggest reading mistakes. In college I picked up the movie because it had Harrison Ford in it and I knew I had interest in the series… If you haven’t watched the movie do yourself a favor and read this book first. The twist at the end of the movie entirely ruins wanting to read the story. It’s quite an interesting surprise that I wish I read first. I’m not really sure if the movie was a success in the box office but I actually enjoyed. Now I’m more curious how close of an adaption the movie is to the book. There are 18 books in the Ender’s Game series and 5 in the Ender Series which is the series that Ender’s Game takes place.

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor

I recently was doing some digging into podcasts that tell stories and stumbled across this title. Welcome to Night Vale is a popular podcast that airs a new story twice a month. You can find this series on a multiple platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Youtube. This series has quite a lot of content! At the moment of writing this there are 195 episodes, 3 stand-alone Novels, Live Shows and music! The Episodes of the show have also been compiled into four collections for people to read. I also discovered they are going to be doing a Live Show next year in a city really close to me! If I manage to read and listen to all of the content maybe you will find me there!

I’m really excited about these five science fiction series. I’m curious what sci-fi series you are interested! Have you read or listened to any of these titles? Do any of ours align? Let me know in the comments below! Happy Reading!