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.
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
47 points (100.0% liked)
Ask Lemmy
34955 readers
1367 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I adore those books, but I never considered audiobooks. Have you listened to others by Banks?
I've listened to most of the Culture series and I really liked it all. Look To Windward was especially good imo.
That's fantastic; I'll check them out! I see that my library has some.
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.
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.
One of the single most enjoyable audiobooks I've ever "read". Was just thinking of starting it again this morning, I'll take this as a sign from the universe that I should.
I've just recently listened to book 1 of Dungeon Crawler Carl on audible. I'm really not sold on his partner(I won't say more than that). Just a style thing, it's not for me. However I'm enjoying it enough to continue reading more of them. Do you know if there are different audio book versions?
I read He Who Fights With Monsters and have really enjoyed the voice work in that series.
I only know of the version I've heard on Audible, and that's the Sound Booth Theater one (autocorrect butchered the studio name in my comment. Fixed)
Ahh okay cool that is the one I just finished
Friendly reminder that a lot of libraries lend audio books as well.
I wonder if they integrate with carplay....
Libby does!
Humm, I am a Swede and it looks like my local library uses Biblio...
Also: oftentimes, you don't have to live in a library's locality to be a "member" and check out digital works. 🤘🏼 Libby, et al, as archive.org, essentially 🤩
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 😄
Thank you for your suggestions!
As for getting into modern sci-fi, I am sure that will happen sooner or later (:
Bit off topic, since I didn't listen to the audio version, but the Culture series from Banks is fantastic.
Seconded fervently.
See my handle... and profile 😁
Rendezvous with Rama is one of my very favorite sci-fi books. It's incredibly atmospheric. While I liked the sequels co-(mostly)written by Stephen Baxter, they have much more focus on character drama and a quite different tone.
Before the recs I just want to shout out libro.FM - they sell audiobooks and donate half of the profits to independent book stores.
Classic sci fi:
- The dispossessed - also the left hand of darkness (which is meant to be good buy Inhavent read)
- Foundation series
- permutation city
I think the more modern sci fi is good too so I will give you some recommendations anyway:
- Project Hail Mary - mentioned by other commenters, really good
- Children of time - first and best of a series, really good
- Expanse - series of books set in the near future, hard sci fi and a bit of space opera
- Red rising - a space opera a bit like a fantasy book in a sci fi setting
- Murderbot - series with a bit more more comed, very entertaining and easy to get into
Their audiobooks are also DRM-free!
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Hands down the best audio book series I've ever listened to. If you like video games, sci-fi, or fantasy, you will not be disappointed.
It's hilarious, but far from the classic sci-fi OP is looking for.
Speaking of classics, there is a Tim Curry performance of Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
If you're a fan of Tim Curry (who isn't?), it's an excellent one to listen to.
I am a fan of Jules Verne, and Tim Curry is brilliant, this sounds amazing, thanks for the suggestion
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Heinlein
The Mote in God's Eye - Niven / Pournelle
Solaris - Lem
Fire Upon the Deep - Vinge
Flowers for Algernon - Keyes
Diamond Age - Stephenson
Startide Rising - Brin
The Demolished Man - Bester
Have Space Suit - Will travel - Heinlein
Out of the Silent Planet - CS Lewis
Uplift War - Brin
The John Carter books are a good read/listen.
I started with A Princess of Mars
--//--
Also, plenty of SciFi short-story collections on Librivox.org
Or search for Harry Harrison on there.
--//--
For commercial stuff Greg Egan(hard SciFi) is great, and I remember Jeff Noon, Vurt/Pollen were also great.
Thank you for these links! The ERB Mars books were some of my first sci-fi, and they are still great stories.
I think you can get hitchhikers guide on archive.org for free (copyright free too). Great collection!
The mote in gods eye. Classic sci-fi space opera.
I would highly recommend The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. There's an excellent audio book version available for free on Archive.org.
It's very well written classic sci-fi.
Some others that I thoroughly enjoyed:
- Starwolf - Edmond Hamilton
- The Stainless Steel Rat - Harry Harrison
- The Jameson Satellite - Neil R. Jones
- Gunner Cade - Cyril Kornbluth & Judith Merrill
- The Shockwave Rider - John Brunner
- Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
- Phaid the Gambler - Mick Ferran
- The Dispossessed - Ursula Le'Guin
I enjoyed War of the Worlds in audiobook form
I have that on my list of future books to get (:
Try to find the radio show version 🖖🏼
I seem to recall that Liam Neeson did a reading of the book with an orchestra
The one, back in the day, that was intentionally engineered to mimic a live radio broadcast of said events and ended up causing listeners to panic, flee, etc.
Yes, definitely Heinlein. The moon is a harsh mistress, and stranger in a strange land are both great.
And Philip K Dick as well, but it's a bit more surreal than what you've been listening to.