Ten Must Read Sci-Fi Books Written From A 1st Person POV!
Do you prefer sci-fi written from a specific point of view? Do you notice how it changes your relationship to the story and the characters? All narrative approaches have their advantages of course, but when you are looking to gain real insight into the protagonist and form a greater connection to them, nothing beats a book written from a first person point of view!
Next time you are looking for a sci-fi read that will immediately pull you in and give you unfettered access to the heart and mind of the main character, look no further than this list of can't-miss titles, all written from a First Person Point of View!
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
Widely acknowledged as one of Robert A. Heinlein's greatest works, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress rose from the golden age of science fiction to become an undisputed classic—and a touchstone for the philosophy of personal responsibility and political freedom. A revolution on a lunar penal colony—aided by a self-aware supercomputer—provides the framework for a story of a diverse group of men and women grappling with the ever-changing definitions of humanity, technology, and free will—themes that resonate just as strongly today as they did when the novel was first published.
Read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Gateway by Fredrik Pohl
When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!
Get Gateway in paperback here. Also available on audiobook
Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
Michael Marshall Smith’s surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. Now part of the Voyager Classics collection.
May we introduce you to Stark.
Oh, and by the way — good luck.
Stark is the private investigator who goes to work when Something Happens to you. And when a Something happens it’s no good chanting ‘go away go away go away’ and cowering in a corner, because a Something always comes from your darkest past and won’t be beaten until you face it. And that’s not easy in a city where reality is twisting and broken, a world in which friends can become enemies in a heartbeat — and where your most secret fear can become a soul-shredding reality.
And the worst of it is, for this nightmare you don’t even have to be asleep…
Get your copy of Only Forward here on Amazon.
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats “existence” as something that can be bought and sold.
Read Altered Carbon here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.
When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself.
Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win.
Grab Ready Player One here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
The Martian by Andy Weir
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
Get your copy of The Martian here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
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Rogue Star: Frozen Earth by Jasper T. Scott
A DEAD STAR IS HEADED FOR EARTH...
THE SHIFT IN EARTH’S ORBIT WILL UNLEASH A NEW ICE AGE...
AND THIS SUMMER WILL BE OUR LAST.
THE NEWS BREAKS
Logan Willis’s life is falling apart: he lost his job and found out that his wife is cheating on him all in the same day. Thinking that his world has ended, Logan checks into a hotel and turns on the TV to see that he's not far wrong—radio telescopes have detected mysterious signals coming from inside our solar system, and the source is moving toward us at over 500 miles per second. The media concludes that these signals must be of an alien origin. Still reeling from the news, Logan gets a phone call from his brother-in-law. Richard is talking crazy about the end of the world again, but this time he doesn’t sound so crazy.
A DEADLY CONSPIRACY UNRAVELS
Meanwhile, Richard, who is an astronomer working with the James Webb Space Telescope, is at the White House briefing the president to announce what he and the government have known for almost a decade: aliens are not invading, a frozen ball of gas is. The so-called rogue star is predicted to make a near pass with Earth, disrupting our orbit and unleashing an ice age, the likes of which we haven’t seen for millions of years.
WE’RE PUTTING A COLONY ON MARS
Government insider, Billionaire Akron Massey, has received a steady flow of funding over the past decade for his company, Starcast, to put a colony on Mars. Over the same period he’s been using his personal fortune to create a colony closer to home where he plans to ride out the coming storm along with a thousand of the smartest people on the planet. Humanity will need seeds to plant in the ashes after the chaos clears.
AND WARS IGNITE
When the true nature of the threat becomes known, the nations of Earth prepare to fight over all the warmest parts of the planet. But as war fleets set sail and armies begin marching south, a stunning discovery is made that will change a lot more than just the weather....
Dive into Rogue Star here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells
Having captured the hearts of readers across the globe (Annalee Newitz says it's "one of the most humane portraits of a nonhuman I've ever read") Murderbot has also established Martha Wells as one of the great SF writers of today.
No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall.
When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)
Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!
Again!
Dive into Fugitive Telemetry here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Invasion by Jay Allan
The future. It holds all sorts of positive potential…technological advances, increased life expectancy, improvements in society. But there are negative possibilities too, and perhaps the worst of these is the arrival of an alien race…not just anyone, but a hostile one, intent on conquering humankind.
Hugh McDaniel lives in Queens, New York. He is a genius, and he has been struggling to pick one area to focus his life’s work on. His brother and best friend, Travis, is a Marine officer. They get along very well, despite the differences in their lives, but when the aliens suddenly invade and destroy their entire culture, they are forced to struggle in the ruins, at first just to survive, just to find basic food and medicine. But soon, they set their sights on more…on resistance, and on reclaiming their planet from the invaders.
The path is a long one, and almost impossibly difficult, but they begin their journey, finding other survivors and searching for food, medicine…and weapons. The enemy does not remain silent for long, and they start sending missions into the ruins, seeking to gather the humans, to carry them off for whatever purposes they have. Hugh and Travis lead a constant battle, a fight against the enemy that will not end, that cannot end, until only one side remains.
The aliens send more and more robots to New York, and the McDaniels and their followers dig in to resist viciously. But amidst the almost constant fighting, they also mount their own mission, to seek out and explore, to determine what it is the enemy truly wants.
The invaders finally launch a massive attack, large enough to utterly destroy the humans in New York, but Hugh has a forlorn plan, a way to, just maybe, defeat the assault. But while he is frantically preparing his crazed operation, Travis is leading the desperate mission to find the enemy, to discover what they really want. And when he does, it is more terrible than anything he had ever imagined. He tries to return home, to bring the news to everyone that the engagement between humans and aliens is absolutely a fight to the finish, that surrender isn’t even a possibility. But will he even have a home to return to?
Get your copy of Invasion here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Upgrade by Blake Crouch
“You are the next step in human evolution.”
At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.
But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.
The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.
Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.
Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.
And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?
Intimate in scale yet epic in scope, Upgrade is an intricately plotted, lightning-fast tale that charts one man’s thrilling transformation, even as it asks us to ponder the limits of our humanity—and our boundless potential.
Start reading Upgrade here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Space Raiders by Ken Lozito
"After years of searching, Nathan Briggs is finally on the verge of making an incredible discovery. Unfortunately, the aliens have other plans.
When Nathan stops a brutal attack on an unsuspecting victim, he gets more than he bargained for and sets into motion events that will change his life forever. They told him he should’ve run away, and maybe they were right.
Nathan is about to embark on an adventure of a lifetime.
Aliens are real. He has something they need, and they’re not the only ones hunting for it.
Embark on the adventure of a lifetime with Bestselling Author Ken Lozito in this brand new science fiction series. If you’re a fan of old school heroes and villains in a galaxy full of unknowns, then this might be the adventure for you."
Start reading Space Raiders here on Amazon.
Have you read any of these sci-fi reads written from a first person point of view? Which ones will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Have a personal favorite that didn't appear on our list? Give it a shout out in the comments here, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group!
*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.
Many of RAH’s books are first person, my personal favorite is still Starship Troopers, despite the botch job of the movies.