5 Sci-Fi Books That Are Even Better As Audiobooks

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There is still some debate among pedants and readers as to whether or not listening to an audiobook counts as having read the book. Some nitpickers feel that if one didn’t hold a physical book in their hands and failed to swivel their eyeballs across every single page of it, it doesn’t count as reading. After all, if one hears an audiobook, they are at the mercy of the reader’s performance. Even professional audiobook readers, who try their hardest to let the text speak for itself, act as an intermediary. Heck, even if the author themselves reads the text onto an audiobook, it’s still not leaving enough up to the reader.

But these are petty arguments. One may argue that audiobooks are not “technically” reading, but they’re good enough by me. Some people absorb information better aurally, while others are blind or partially sighted, making audiobooks the best way to consume literature. And I have personally spent many a long walk or car ride listening to audiobooks, enjoying a great work of sci-fi literature while idly traveling. I love reading, and I will continue to read as long as my eyeballs function. But when my eyeballs inevitably fail, audiobooks will be waiting, and I am well-practiced in enjoying them. They are part of a Homeric tradition. (Speaking of which: Want to hear Dan Stevens read Homer’s “The Odyssey”?)

Sometimes a great performance can enhance an audiobook. An actor can bring verve and personality to a text that reading may not provide. A nice swift recitation of the text, complete with fun voices, intense descriptions, and a deep understanding of the author’s intent, can make a book better. And there is a social aspect to hearing a book, a communion between author and reader that is different than on the page.

The following books have some great audio renditions that we here at /Film can wholly recommend.

H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel “The Time Machine” follows a Victorian-era time traveler into the distant future of AD 802,701, a point where humans have evolved into two new species. The novel implies that long ago, humans divided themselves by class, with the wealthy living above ground and the laborers operating machines underneath. Hundreds of thousands of years later, the wealthy evolved into the pleasure-seeking, childlike beings called the Eloi, while the subterranean laborers have become the apelike Morlocks. The book isn’t an adventure novel (despite a few fight scenes and a forest fire), and reads more like a scientist taking biological field notes. He is careful to observe and record and doesn’t jump to conclusions. Unlike in the film versions, the book describes the Eloi and the Morlocks as decidedly inhuman, and the protagonist spends more time commenting on them than interacting with them.

The book ends millions of years into the future when only a few living crab-like creatures remain on Earth. It’s a poignant and bleak ending, pointing out that humans, for all our endeavors, are destined to evolve into something different — possibly “lesser” than ourselves — and will continue our march toward planetary extinction. The time traveler will eventually return home, shaken by what he has seen. He won’t stay very long.

Wells’ prose is scientific and clear. Many professional readers of audiobooks tend to read slightly dispassionately, letting the author’s voice stand out over their performance. The version read by Scott Brick strikes a good balance, and I recommend you check it out. Incidentally, /Film once called the 1960 film version of “The Time Machine” one of the best time travel movies ever.

Jules Verne’s marvelous adventure novels, despite their fantastical nature, have always felt somewhat plausible. I know in my mind that the Earth is not hollow and that fabulous, presumed-extinct creatures do not dwell down there, but Verne’s descriptions are so vivid, and the journey so detailed, that he makes “Journey to the Center of the Earth” seem halfway plausible. Verne’s original novel was published in 1864, and it was one of the earliest novels to imply that the prehistoric world survives on Earth somewhere, located in very remote areas of the planet. This was a conceit that Arthur Conan Doyle would borrow for his book, “The Lost World” (1912), and that Edgar Rice Burroughs would borrow for his book, “At Earth’s Core” (1911).

The story is well-known to sci-fi fans. A scientist named Otto Lindenbrok has discovered that the ancient writings of an Icelandic alchemist named Arne Saknussemm point to an aperture in the Earth’s surface that leads to a wonderful subterranean world. Otto bundles up his nephew Axel and hires an eiderdown hunter named Hans to explore the aperture and see if Saknussemm is correct. Of course, he is, and the trio find rivers, ancient creatures, and a whole well-lit ecosystem down there. They end up exiting the subterranean world many, many miles from where they entered.

It may excite one to learn that Tim Curry read a version of “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” back in 2011, and he gives a humane and passionate performance. It’s the best way to hear the story. Curry knows why he’s great at playing villains and heavies, but he’s equally good at playing scientists and normal folk.

The most salient detail about Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451” is that the featured dystopia was self-imposed. The book is set in a distant future wherein humans have lost patience for the written word, preferring to get their information in faster and faster bursts via TV screens. Books became taboo, and eventually, through our own distaste for them, were banned outright. It wasn’t necessarily a totalitarian regime that wrested books from our hands — we threw them in the fire ourselves.

The main character of “451” is Guy Montag, a fireman who raids people’s homes looking for books, only to gather them together to burn them. (The title is the temperature at which books combust.) It is a pleasure to burn. Of course, Guy eventually becomes curious about books, and begins reading them in secret. His wife is disconnected from reality, unable to tear herself away from the many wall-sized TV screens in their living room. Ray Bradbury’s story grows more salient all the time. The only thing he predicted incorrectly is that the literacy-murdering screens we’d be addicted to would not line our apartment walls, but fit in our pockets.

There are many notable audio renditions of “Fahrenheit 451,” including one by Penn Badgley, and one by Tim Robbins, but the best audio version is probably the one read by Ray Bradbury himself. Sadly, the 2001 reading isn’t too widely available, and can be found on cassette or CD on the second-hand market. They’re all good versions, but Bradbury’s rendition is the most ironic, the most passionate.

How fitting that a book about not reading anymore should be made available in audio format. Bradbury, incidentally, liked the 1966 film adaptation of “Fahrenheit 451,” although he wasn’t crazy about the casting of Julie Christie.

The many fans of Douglas Adams’ sci-fi comedy novel will be able to tell you that “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” actually started its life as a 1978 radio adventure before Adams adapted the show’s first four chapters into his 1979 novel. It’s fitting, then, that one should hear the book in audio form, as read by the author. Sadly, the version that Adams reads himself isn’t readily available except at libraries and YouTube rips, but one wouldn’t suffer from listening to the more readily available version narrated by Stephen Fry.

Adams’ novel is assertively British in its mien and tells the story of an unremarkable and put-upon schlub named Arthur Dent who is rescued from the Earth moments before the whole planet is to be demolished to make way for an interstellar bypass. He finds that his friend Ford is actually a traveling alien who hitchhikes around the galaxy, writing a travel guide for other interstellar hitchhikers. Arthur eventually meets a two-headed dandy named Zaphod Beeblebrox, a fellow human who calls herself Trillian, and the man who helped design and build the Earth (he’s very fond of fjords). Arthur will also learn about an ancient quest to find the answer to life, the universe, and everything, and how the destruction of the Earth plays into that quest. In true Adamsian fashion, everything is absurd and futile.

By the time Adams wrote the novel version of “Guide,” it was well-honed, so his reading of the novel feels natural and swift; he knows how every joke ought to land. Stephen Fry, meanwhile, brings his usual dry sense of humor to Adams’ text, fully grasping the whimsical absurdity of the story.

Skip the movie, as it’s not very good. Even Stephen Fry thinks it wasn’t made correctly.

Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel “The Road” is one of the saddest you will ever read. It follows a man and his son, both unnamed, as they attempt to traverse the scorched landscape in the wake of an apocalyptic event. They only know how to survive and care about one another. Each is the other’s entire world. Humanity is starving, and many have turned to cannibalism to survive. In one brain-scorching scene, the man and his boy discover a basement of prisoners, still alive, who are slowly being eaten by their captors one limb at a time.

Throughout the novel, the father repeats to his son that they are the good guys. They are not going to fall to cannibalism and wickedness. They will continue to care, even if survival demands evil behavior. “The Road” isn’t a rage against the dying of the light, so much as it is a whimper. McCarthy’s prose is straightforward, terse, and unpretentious. He sees the blackness in the hearts of men, and envisions a world gone mad. But he also sees that fatherhood and decency will cling on to the human soul. Although aggressively bleak, “The Road” possesses more hope than McCarthy’s novels tend to. Are you carrying the fire?

Because McCarthy’s writing is so stripped down, an audio version is perfect for consumption. There isn’t a lot of florid poetry, no interpretation to make. It’s as direct as anything. The version of “The Road” most readily available in audio form is the one read by Tom Stechschulte. He brings a strange, intense energy to the book that reading it misses. The text itself is foggy, ashen. The audiobook version captures a little more of the emotion of the story — the mourning that father and son have for a fallen world.