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
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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.
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!
The mote in gods eye. Classic sci-fi space opera.
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!
Thank you!
I will check it out!
I can't seem to edit my original post but I wanted to another series of classic sci-fi compilations I have. These were published to honor works that were published before the institution of the Nebula Awards.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1, 1929-1964 - Includes the Roads Must Roll by Heinlein and Nightfall by Isaac Asimov.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 2-A - Includes The Marching Morons by C. M. Kornbluth, and Who Goes There by John W. Cambell Jr. Who Goes There is the story on which John Carter's 1982 film The Thing was based.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 2-B - The Big Front Yard by Clifford D. Simak, The Martian Way by Asimov. This one also includes The Machine Stops that is included in the first compilation I recommended so there is some overlap.
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.
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
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.
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 🤩
I wonder if they integrate with carplay....
Libby does!
Humm, I am a Swede and it looks like my local library uses Biblio...
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 😄
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.
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 😁
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 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 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
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