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- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
series16 books1979
part of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Universe
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio sitcom broadcast over two series on BBC Radio 4 between 1978 and 1980, it was soon adapted to other formats, including both novels and comic books, a 1981 BBC television series, a 1984 text adventure game, stage shows and a 2005 feature film.
- The Stainless Steel Rat
series21 books1957
completed
similar byfunnyfar futurescience fictionspacespace operaadventurous
James Bolivar diGriz, alias "Slippery Jim" and "The Stainless Steel Rat", is a fictional character and a series of comic science fiction novels written by Harry Harrison.
- The Sirens of Titan
Kurt Vonnegut & Jr.standalone novel1959
similar byfunnyfar futurescience fictionspacespace opera
The Sirens of Titan is a comic science fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., first published in 1959. His second novel, it involves issues of free will, omniscience, and the overall purpose of human history, with much of the story revolving around a Martian invasion of Earth.
- Redshirts
John Scalzistandalone novel2012
similar byfunnyfar futurescience fictionspacespace operaspaceship
Redshirts is a postmodernist science fiction novel by John Scalzi that satirizes the tropes and narrative elements of Star Trek from the perspectives of several characters in a fictional TV show about the adventures of a starship and its crew who gradually become aware of their true nature.
- Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers
Harry Harrisonstandalone novel1973
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Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers is a 1973 comic science fiction novel by American writer Harry Harrison. It is a parody of the space opera genre and in particular, the Lensman and Skylark series of E. E. "Doc" Smith. The main characters are homages to Tom Swift Jr. and his buddy, Bud Barclay. It also includes a homage to Larry Niven's Ringworld (1970).
- Bill, the Galactic Hero
series10 books1964
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Harry Harrison's Bill, the Galactic Hero is a satire of militaristic science fiction, following a hapless draftee named Bill through a galactic war run by an absurd, dehumanizing military bureaucracy. Harrison expanded a 1965 novella into the novel and later co-wrote several tongue-in-cheek sequels with other writers in the 1980s-90s, sending Bill through increasingly ridiculous planetary settings. It's broad science-fiction comedy rather than the harder-edged satire of Harrison's other work.
- Moties
series4 books1974
part of CoDominium
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Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye (1974) depicts humanity's first contact with an alien species, the Moties, set within the far-future interstellar setting of Pournelle's codominium future history. The Gripping Hand continues that first-contact crisis years later, and Outies, written by J. R. Pournelle, carries the story forward into a new generation. Together the three books trace an escalating encounter between human and Motie civilizations within the codominium universe.
- Ringworld
series5 books1970
part of Known Space
similar byfar futurescience fictionspacespace operaadventurous
The Ringworld series is a series of science fiction novels written by American author Larry Niven. It is part of his Known Space series of stories. Its backdrop is the Ringworld, a giant artifact 3 million times the surface area of Earth circling a star. The series is composed of four standalone science fiction novels, the original award-winning book and its three sequels:1970: Ringworld 1979: The Ringworld Engineers 1996: The Ringworld Throne 2004: Ringworld's Children
- Retief
series61 books1960
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Retief follows Jame Retief, a wry, capable diplomat in the Terran Corps Diplomatique who solves interstellar crises through unorthodox action while his blustering, status-obsessed superiors busy themselves with protocol. Keith Laumer's satirical space-opera stories, mostly standalone adventures unified by the character and his bureaucratic universe, ran from the 1960s into the 1980s; later entries continuing under Laumer's name were completed by William H. Keith Jr. after his death. The books favor comic diplomatic farce over a continuous plot arc, so they read well in almost any order.
- Strata
Terry Pratchettstandalone novel1981
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Strata is a 1981 science fiction comedy novel by English writer Terry Pratchett. It is one of Pratchett's first novels and among the few science fiction novels he wrote, along with The Dark Side of the Sun, Only You Can Save Mankind, The Nome Trilogy and the co-authored The Long Earth.
- Starman Jones
Robert A. Heinleinstandalone novel1953
similar byfar futurescience fictionspacespace operaadventurousspaceship
Starman Jones, a 1953 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, features a farm boy who wants to go to the stars. Charles Scribner's Sons published the book as part of the Heinlein juveniles series.
- The Race for God
Brian Herbertstandalone novel1990
similar byfunnyfar futurescience fictionspacespace operaadventurousspaceship
God, it turns out, lives on the planet Tananius-Ofo in the distant galaxy 722C12009. And now, after countless millennia, He's invited us to come visit Him. Not everybody, mind you. Just an odd assortment of heathens, heriticts, pantheists, perverts and true believers of every sect and creed - all crammed into a single white spaceship piloted by a slightly crazed bio-computer. Each pilgrim is determined to be the first to reach God and learn His secrets... if they don't all kill each other on the way there.First time in trade paperback, from the international best-selling author of the Dune books!
- The Pirates of Zan
Murray Leinsterstandalone novel1959
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The Pirates of Zan is a science fiction novel by Murray Leinster, originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in 1959 as "The Pirates of Ersatz". It was nominated for the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Novel. It first appeared in book form in 1959 as one component of an Ace Double, bound with Leinster's The Mutant Weapon; this edition was reissued in 1971. A German translation was issued in hardcover in 1962, an Italian translation appeared in 1968, and a Dutch translation was published in 1972. Bart Books published a stand-alone American paperback edition in 1989. and Baen Books included Pirates in a Leinster omnibus, A Logic Named Joe, in 2005.
- Mindswap
Robert Sheckleystandalone novel1966
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"In the future, interstellar travel to alien worlds will be too expensive for most ordinary people. It certainly is for Marvin, a college student who wants to take a really good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford, a mindswap, in which a persons consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien lifeform. But Marvin is unlucky, and finds himself in the body of an interstellar criminal, a body that he has to vacate fast. But that criminal consciousness has stolen Marvins earthly body, and Marvin has to find a body on the black market. Travel from world to world with Marvin, each one crazier than the last, as he keeps finding far-from-ideal bodies in awful situations, just to stay alive"--Cover p. [4].
- Phule's Company
series6 books1990
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Phule's Company is a series of comic military science fiction novels by Robert Asprin, beginning with Phule's Company and ending with Phule's Errand.
- Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera
Robert Sheckleystandalone novel1983
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Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert Sheckley, published in 1983.
- Search the Sky
C. M. Kornbluth & Frederik Pohlstandalone novel1954
similar byfunnyfar futurescience fictionspace
Search the Sky is a satirical science fiction novel by American writers Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth, first published in 1954 by Ballantine Books.
- Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic
Terry Jonesstandalone novel1997
similar byfunnyfar futurescience fictionspacespace operaspaceship
At the heart of a galaxy of which we know nothing, the greatest, most advanced starship ever known has been built -- the Starship Titanic. It is fabulous, beautiful and technologically miraculous. On its maiden voyage it crashes into hyperspace and vanishes. The first you know of it is when you are sitting at home having a quiet evening in front of the TV and the most fabulous starship in the galaxy crashes into your home. You find your way on board (or not, if you just want to play the two min ute version of the game) and are confronted with an interior which resembles a mixture of the Ritz, the Chrysler Building, Tutankhamen’s tomb, and Venice. The ship is inhabited by traumatized robots, a lobotomized cyberintelligence, a frankly unhinged parrot and, as the ship takes off, taking you deep into unknown interstellar space, you realize that life on board as a third class passenger is going to be tough going. You find yourself in the grip of one of the most powerful forces known to modern man -- the desire for a free upgrade. Your task is to discover what has happened here, to reveal the deep conspiracy that lies behind this catastrophic failure, to repair the ship’s intelligence and guide the ship back home. To do this you will have to gain the trust of the robots, which you do the same way you would with anybody else -- by talking to them. State-of-the-art language technology lets you do this.
- Space Opera (Catherynne M. Valente)
series2 books2018
similar byfunnyfar futurespacescience fictionspace opera
Catherynne M. Valente's Space Opera imagines a galaxy where a century-old war was ended by replacing armed conflict with Galactivision, an interstellar singing contest that doubles as first contact: any newly discovered species has to compete or be judged too dangerous to exist. When aliens finally notice humanity, the fate of Earth ends up resting on a fading rock band drafted to represent the whole species on stage. It's Eurovision transplanted into space opera, played for absurdist comedy with real stakes underneath.
- Citizen of the Galaxy
Robert A. Heinleinstandalone novel1957
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On a planet far distant from Earth, a lame beggar buys a young boy slave who has forgotten his origins. The beggar is more than he seems, and gives the boy an extensive education while employing him as an observer of activity in their city. Years later, the beggar is captured by the government, and the youth must escape the planet.
- Old Man's War
series16 books2005
similar byfar futurescience fictionspacespace operaadventurous
The Old Man's War series is a series of science fiction novels by John Scalzi. The first book in the series, Old Man's War, was first published in 2005 by Tor Books, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2006. In 2026 it was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Series.
- Uplift Universe
universe13 books1980
Start hereUplift · Start here
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No species, the Galactics insist, ever climbs to sapience alone. For a billion years the elder races have "uplifted" their chosen clients — reshaping some promising animal, gene by patient gene, into a thinking being, then binding it through long ages of indenture. Patron lifts client; client one day becomes patron; and every lineage traces back through the vast Galactic Library to the vanished Progenitors who began it all. Then a ragged band of primates arrives at the stars with no patron to claim them — wolflings, self-made, an affront to a hundred thousand years of law — and worse, these humans have already started uplifting neighbors of their own: the neo-dolphins and neo-chimpanzees of Earthclan. David Brin builds this galaxy across two trilogies. The first — Sundiver, the Hugo- and Nebula-winning Startide Rising, and the Hugo-winning The Uplift War — sends an expedition into the Sun, then follows the dolphin-crewed survey ship Streaker as it flees a discovery that sets fanatical star-clans at war, and a chimp-led resistance on an invaded colony world. The second sequence, Uplift Storm — Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore, Heaven's Reach — descends to Jijo, a forbidden world where six fallen races hide as illegal settlers, and draws every loose thread toward a reckoning. Short fiction fills the margins. This is space opera with an ecologist's conscience: teeming with invented biologies, wry cross-species banter, and real unease about what we owe the minds we make. Begin with Startide Rising — the saga's beating heart, and readable on its own — or take Sundiver first and read straight through in publication order.
- Nova
Samuel R. Delanystandalone novel1968
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Nоva is a science fiction novel by American writer Samuel R. Delany published in 1968. The plot concerns the spaceship captain Lorq Von Ray's search for a nova, which will produce the essential power source Illyrion, and his vendetta with the Red family, who seek to kill him. Nominally space opera, it explores the politics and culture of a future where cyborg technology is universal, yet making major decisions can involve using tarot cards. It has strong mythological overtones, relating to both the Grail Quest and Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece.
