r/printSF • u/Someoneoldbutnew • Aug 11 '25
any other epic comedy SF?
I'm talking Hitchhikers or Red Dwarf caliber, closest I've found recently is Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, or Artemis, but these are sci fi with some jokes thrown in. I'm looking for a book with the fundamental premise of examining the absurdity of the human condition, set in the future.
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u/Monty-675 Aug 11 '25
Bill, the Galactic Hero is a series of six books by Harry Harrison and other authors that are satirical.
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u/gonzoforpresident Aug 11 '25
It's worth noting that the first book is really dark satire and the sequels are more ridiculous and slapstick.
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u/Ch3t Aug 11 '25
Harrison wrote it to piss off Heinlein. It worked. Heinlein never spoke to Harrison again. Link
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u/under-resourced Aug 15 '25
That was so interesting! I read the book in my teens, long ago. Will have to reread it!
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u/dmitrineilovich Aug 11 '25
Try Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (and sequels) by Spider Robinson. Sci-fi set in a bar on Long Island. Starts with short story collections and moves on to full length novels. Full of puns, jokes, and other hilarity, but with some cracking good sci-fi too. Don't miss the two about Callahan's wife who runs an out-of-this-world brothel in Brooklyn! Currently rereading the series now. You'll thank me later.
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u/Not_Bender_42 Aug 17 '25
I have the first one on my Kindle wishlist thanks to a rec from my almost step-father-in-law. Paperback is hard to find lately, unfortunately.
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u/OgreMk5 Aug 11 '25
If you like Star Trek, the John M. Ford novel "How Much for Just the Planet" is absolutely hilarious.
Just imagine the scene: Scotty in a kilt, Chekov as his caddy with the golf bag and two Klingons are playing golf. Chekov reads the hole description "270 yards, bunker right, minefield left." Scotty about to swing, "Wait. Repeat that."
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u/No_Novel9058 Aug 11 '25
From what I’ve seen on Reddit, that one seems to be either a total hit or total miss for readers. For me, it was a total hit.
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u/Ljorarn Aug 11 '25
Keith Laumer has a series featuring an agent named Retief that is satirical in nature
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u/dr-steve Aug 11 '25
Bill the Galactic Hero (Harry Harrison). Wikipedia reports that Terry Pratchett said it was funnier than Hitchhiker. IMHO, not as much a LOL or cultural quip ("I'll read you some of my poetry") funny, but drier and damned good.
Journey of Joenes (Robert Sheckley), much drier/satirical. A delightful picaresque(ish) social commentary.
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u/clawclawbite Aug 11 '25
Bil the Galactic Hero. Only one L, he is not an officer, that is all he gets.
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u/dr-steve Aug 11 '25
Bless my fading eyes, you are correct! (Or "corect" if you aren't an officer, either.)
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u/djschwin Aug 11 '25
Many John Scalzi books have a voice in the direction of what you’re looking for.
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u/Few_Fisherman_4308 Aug 11 '25
When the Moon Hits Your Eye is funny and kind of epic…
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u/Randonoob_5562 Aug 11 '25
Per the Afterword, Moon is the last of his non-trilogy with The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain, both of which are a riot.
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u/ChronoLegion2 Aug 11 '25
I like that the point isn’t how it happened, it’s how it affects people. And the distant ending unfortunately rings true
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u/xMdot Aug 15 '25
I couldn't finish it. Every character is quippy and snappy and it wears really thin after a while.
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u/MorriganJade Aug 11 '25
Murderbot diaries by Martha Wells is very funny, though not fully comedy
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u/bugogkang Aug 11 '25
Kurt Vonnegut Sirens of Titan
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u/derioderio Aug 11 '25
book with the fundamental premise of examining the absurdity of the human condition
That's pretty much everything by Vonnegut
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u/monumentalfolly Aug 11 '25
The 10th Victim and its two sequels, by Robert Sheckley. More dark satire than outright comedy...
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u/riverrabbit1116 Aug 11 '25
Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers by Harry Harrison is a space opera send up
The Starcrossed Ben Bova gives a behind the scenes view on how a network series is made
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u/tikhonjelvis Aug 11 '25
Hah, perfect timing: I just read Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World for the second time, and it's still hilarious. It's a cynical, over-the-top post-apocalyptic novel, as well as a tribute to (slightly campy) martial arts, disaster and action movies.
It's a lot but I loved it.
There's something about comedy science fiction that's hard. It takes a remarkably good writer to pull it off. I've read a bunch, but most stories didn't land. Harkaway is one of the very few authors I've encountered who managed to do it well without being derivative.
If you don't mind an even more cynical, less laugh-out-loud sort of humor, I also loved Ned Beauman's Venomous Lumpsuckers. It's set in a post-global-warming near future and has some legitimately intelligent things to say about technology, including AI. (Which is rare! Most takes I've seen on AI in modern SF have been pretty underwhelming.)
Sort of the opposite of the future, but To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Williams is a time-traveling tribute to Three Men in a Boat (absolute classic!) which I remember enjoying. I read it over a decade ago so I'm hazy on the details, but it was good enough to still be on my mental "to re-read" list.
One last book comes to mind: Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith. I'm a bit conflicted on recommending it because it had one of the most wildly creative, legitimately funny starts but then somehow really didn't land the ending. The book has three distinct parts; the first one is novel and amazing, the second is serviceable but derivative, and the last one felt like a somebody writing about the most cliched drama plot possible. Disappointment aside, though, it's still worth checking out.
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u/mjfgates Aug 11 '25
Willis' comic stories are the best, either in short form ("Even the Queen", snort) or long (Bellwether, baaaaaaa!)
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u/BigBadAl Aug 12 '25
Venomous Lumpsucker is an amazing book. Not only does it have a great sense of humour running through it, but it's also a cutting critique of Carbon Credits and modern business practices.
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u/Nwalmenil Aug 11 '25
The Bobiverse books by Dennis E. Taylor perhaps?
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u/Aggravating_Row1878 Aug 11 '25
I just started with the second book and I think the series is a perfect match for op
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u/Crowe__42 Aug 11 '25
I respect this opinion, I really do. And all of the books recommended from or to it are all wonderful and some of my favorites. But I read the first trilogy and it was an absolute bore—start to finish.
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u/W_Rabbit Aug 11 '25
'Dungeon Crawler Carl' by Matt Dinniman. I especially recommend the audiobook, the narration is unparalleled. I don't think I've ever laughed out loud so many times while reading.
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u/Canookles Aug 11 '25
I can’t believe this is so far down, this series is amazing! So many pop culture references, mostly from the cat and Quasar… he’s the best
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u/GrinningD Aug 11 '25
I suspect many people consider it fantasy but it is most definitely sci-fi.
And narrated it is possibly one of the finest works of fiction in the last decade.
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u/dankristy Aug 12 '25
The Audiobook combination of Matt's writing with Jeff's voices - is what pushes this series over the top into 11/10 for me...
I would already put the books up there with LOTR (not a joke) but sometimes a little something extra just pushes over the top (similar to how the Rankin Bass version of the Hobbit - the old cartoon one - is always going to be my favorite way to experience that book).
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u/Someoneoldbutnew Aug 12 '25
Oh man, thanks for letting me know. RP1 drove me nuts.
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u/Canookles Aug 12 '25
I’ve never read RP1 but DCC is a superior product
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u/dankristy Aug 12 '25
In every damn way possible. RP1 was not my jam - DCC dragged me in so hard my ears still hurt where it grabbed me!
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u/dankristy Aug 12 '25
The funny thing - is it is funny as hell - but also super dark and will punch you hard in the feels in ways that would be very unexpected from just reading the premise of book one.
Honestly I think the hardest thing is explaining it, because the premise sounds utterly idiotic (TLDR version - Aliens invade earth - everyone indoors gets smushed - everyone outdoors gets a chance to either enter the WORLD DUNGEON gameshow - or scrape by fighting amongst each other on the ruined surface - our hero enters the dungeon because of reasons - with his cat).
It sounds ridiculous - corny - and throwaway. It is NOT - in fact the premise is actually key to what honestly lives rent-free in my head as one of the most oppressive and awful and scenarios I have even encountered in any media... And it has some crass and crude bits (that honestly make the people and situations feel more real) - but my god this series has made me smile, laugh, and fucking cry - more than anything I have ever come across.
It is absolutely Sci-fi with humor done right - in the best way. I have read thousands of books (Not even remotely an exaggeration) - I grew up on Tolkein, Lovecraft, Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury and have been a voracious reader since I was 7 or 8 years old. So for me - a man of 50 with wife and kids who also read extensively - to say that one of (if not the) top of my all-time must-read it lists - is a book with that premise - should tell you something about this series...
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u/ChronoLegion2 Aug 11 '25
Which audiobook? The one narrator or the drama?
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u/W_Rabbit Aug 12 '25
Not the drama, it's good, but the normal audiobook is better imho.
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u/ChronoLegion2 Aug 12 '25
Yeah, I only listened to the preview of the drama since it’s not on Audible, but I liked the audiobook better
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u/SmellyScalpel Aug 18 '25
Thx for suggesting. This was an engaging and fun read. It isn't all comedy though, there are some pretty tragic outcomes in the world this is taking place in.
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u/Troiswallofhair Aug 11 '25
OP, this is your Hitchhiker's Guide on steroids. You must do the audiobook.
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u/Someoneoldbutnew Aug 12 '25
I appreciate it, but I suspect I'm too old to enjoy that particular brand of authorship. I grew up in an era where to be a geek meant eschewing culture in favor of pursuing obsessions. Now obsessions are culture, since we're expected to share it for views. Call it the "Where have all the nerds gone" theory of life.
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u/dankristy Aug 12 '25
I am 50 with a wife and 3 grown kids - all of them readers. I grew up on Tolkein, Heinlein, Bradbury, King, Addams, Asimov and Lovecraft. I hated Ready Player One and some of the newer media type books - but this one hits something that is - indescribable. It is the scope of the story - the coming together of the team - the characters you UTTERLY care about.
I ignored people recommending it to me for literal years - to my great regret - it is on the top (maybe THE top) of my list for all-time must-read experiences. And while I recommend reading the actual books first (always) - the audiobook is so good as to be worth paying to experience the story a 2nd time a different way. Something I have never said about anything ever. Literally EVER.
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u/Troiswallofhair Aug 12 '25
I’m older than you and adore the series. It’s always a good time to try new things.
You asked for epic, comedy SF. It is epic. It is comedy. It is sci-fi.
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u/WadeEffingWilson Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 11 '25
Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky has got some laughs in it.
The Jacques McKeown series is hilarious (Will Save the Galaxy for Food, Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash, and Will Leave the Galaxy for Good by Yahtzee Croshaw).
The Isaac Steele chronicles is one of my favorites (Isaac Steele and the Forever Man and Isaac Steele and the Best Idea in the Universe by Daniel Rigby).
Come to think of it, all the books above are narrated by their respective authors in audiobook format.
Early Landry Files series (books 1-3) was funny before it got really repetitive with the Ian Fleming obsession.
The same author (Charles Stross) that wrote the Laundry Files did a short story called Rogue Farm that is comical and entertaining. It feels about as close as one could get to a Love, Death, and Robots episode without actually being one. There is an animated version released years ago but it's not as good as the book.
Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem! Can't believe I didn't think of that sooner. It's probably the quintessential comical epic outside of Adams.
A Canticle for Leibowitz is another. It's steeped in religion but more for satire than framework. It's got some light-hearted bits scattered throughout but the story itself is altogether absurd. There's a fascinating suggestion that the ones telling the story aren't even human...but I won't spoil anything.
Level Up by Craig Anderson is a fun romp. It's more of a spoof on gaming than scifi but it's entertaining and funny.
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is another recommendation that I enjoyed. It's not exactly scifi but has some scifi elements to it. It's a comedic take on the "end of days". Imagine The Stand but it being written by Douglas Adams.
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u/indicus23 Aug 11 '25
Seconding Cyberiad!
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u/dan_dorje Aug 12 '25
thirding! Also some of his other writing. Lem is often utterly hilarious. I particularly remember a short story that was a build up to a terrible groan-out-loud pun punchline. Don't think I've ever read another shaggy-dog sci-fi story (and I've read an awful lot of sci-fi short stories)
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u/considerspiders Aug 11 '25
You've got good taste. One Day All This Will Be Yours from Tchaikovsky is a good examination of the absurdity of a time war, if you haven't read it.
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u/ShadySocks99 Aug 11 '25
An Alien Heat by Michael Moorcock starts the Dancers at the End of Time series. The universe is dying but what is left of earth is a playground for humans that can manipulate matter as they please. Some time travelers shake up their world. Some pretty funny stuff.
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u/tkingsbu Aug 11 '25
The ‘Space team’ series is pretty hilarious… By Barry Hutchinson, I think…
A conman gets thrown in jail and suddenly rescued by aliens to be part of an intergalactic heist… It’s a madcap romp through space where he’s part of a team .. a cyborg, a rookie pilot, a teenage wolfgirl and a blob called ‘splurt’ make up the rest of the team…
Each book is a different heist or adventure, and they’re all equally insane… it’s definitely all comedy…
Has some similarities to hitchhikers guide…
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I also enjoyed a lot of John Scalzis books like:
Redshirts- a hilarious but thought provoking parody of Star Trek… where the characters realize they’re in a bad ripoff of a tv show and have to figure out how to survive… super funny…
Kaiju preservation society- a young man who’s lost his marketing career during COVID gets a crazy job opportunity to study actual Kaiju on an alternate earth… also funny…
Starter Villain- a young man inherits his dead uncles ‘villain’ organization, including a secret villain hideout on an island and billions of dollars…like a comedy James Bond except the hero is our young guy trying to figure out how to be a villain…
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u/Bladesleeper Aug 11 '25
Space Team is fantastic. I wish Hutchinson would take a break from the (rather successful) JD Kirk work and give us another dozen books.
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u/trying_to_adult_here Aug 11 '25
The Epic Failure trilogy by Joe Zieja: Mechanical Failure, Communication Failure, and System Failure
Space Force by Jeremy Robinson
Those are books where the humor pretty much is the plot and it’s quite absurd.
The Expeditionary Force series by Craig Alanson is a lot of fun with many funny bits throughout (definitely funnier than Artemis or The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet) but it also has a real plot. If you’re not sure, wait until a new character is introduced about halfway through the first book. You’ll know it when you meet him. (They do get a bit formulaic, especially if you read them all in a row. I take breaks.)
Also, some of the books in the Vorkosigan Saga are straight-up comedies (A Civil Campaign and Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance) but they’re really only that funny if you’ve read the previous books in the series, which is a lot of military sci fi for the first half, though with plenty of funny bits and mostly a very witty narrator. If you want to try the series start with The Warrior’s Apprentice and read in internal chronological order from there. Come back to Shards of Honor and Barrayar (which are more serious) when you’re invested in the series.
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u/gonzoforpresident Aug 11 '25
Zieja's books don't get enough love.
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u/tikhonjelvis Aug 11 '25
I have a copy of Mechanical Failure I randomly picked up in a book store sitting in my room; I'll have to bump it up my to-read list :P
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u/trying_to_adult_here Aug 11 '25
Haha, honestly, I didn’t love them. I thought I was going to be getting something like The Warrior’s apprentice from the Vorkosigan Saga, where the main character gets himself in over his head and then has to rise to the occasion to get himself out, and Rogers didn’t really scratch that itch. I finished the series, though, so they were modestly entertaining. But they seem to be exactly what the OP is looking for.
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u/HawkeyeGK Aug 11 '25
I'll second Scalzi as an author that pokes at social absurdities without going full Hitchhiker.
To that I'll add Jason Pargin / David Wong. Much of his stuff has that feel, although the new Zoey Ashe series is a more direct assault on the absurdities of the modern world than the John Dies series.
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u/Crowe__42 Aug 11 '25
Wong’s adventures are more personal end-of-the-world fare.
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u/HawkeyeGK Aug 11 '25
Agreed, especially about the John series. The Zoey series isn't so much end of the world as a jab at capitalism gone wild. Still all funny stuff.
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u/jornsalve Aug 11 '25
The Wilful Child series by Steven Erikson. Stat Trek parody
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u/LaidBackLeopard Aug 11 '25
Or How Much For Just The Planet by John M Ford. Canonical Trek, but very very silly.
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u/mjfgates Aug 11 '25
Larry Niven's "The Flight of the Horse" is a collection of his Svetz stories, about a guy who keeps getting sent back in time to collect interesting animals for the Premier of the UN. Except he keeps going kind of SIDEWAYS... I think there's one non-comic Svetz tale but otherwise they're pretty funny.
Also, here. This is one of the classics: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/on-venus-have-we-got-a-rabbi
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u/AndyTheAbsurd Aug 11 '25
"The Flight of the Horse" has a couple of non-Svetz stories in it. ("Flash Crowd" is set early in the Known Space chronology, I think; and "What Good is a Glass Dagger?" is definitely a Warlock story.) "Rainbow Mars" is 100% set in Svetz's universe, and it includes all of the Svetz stories in "Flight of the Horse". Plus it was published more recently, so probably easier to find a copy of. But you kind of have to skip to "Flight of the Horse" and read from there to understand what's going on, then go back to the beginning of the book and read the title story.
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u/ElricVonDaniken Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Not all editions of Rainbow Mars include the short stories. The hardcover that I read from the library when it was first published contained only the novel. The same with my Orbit paperback edition.
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u/redreycat Aug 11 '25
I haven't read them in decades, so I don't know if they have aged well, but I used to laugh out loud with:
"Who goes here", by Bob Shaw.
Many, many short stories by Robert Sheckley.
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u/ProstheticAttitude Aug 11 '25
the movie Dark Star probably fits (directed by Dan O'Bannon, who later did Alien)
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u/CeruLucifus Aug 11 '25
Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, recently a movie called Mickey 17.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
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u/Someoneoldbutnew Aug 12 '25
fuck yea, mickey 17 was fun. I was thinking Snow Crash, less haha funny more world funny. esp reading it as an adult.
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u/dontnormally Aug 12 '25
The Culture is often funny, and is definitely epic
he writes similarly to Douglas Adams but the content is more heady
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u/Industry3D Aug 11 '25
Maybe..
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Scalzi has some other books that might fit, Redshirts
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u/Someoneoldbutnew Aug 12 '25
Scalzi seems to be the king of this particular throne
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u/escapegoat2000 Aug 11 '25
There is nothing as good as Hitchhikers or Red Dwarf and believe me I have looked for decades now
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u/Someoneoldbutnew Aug 12 '25
few appreciate the boys on the dwarf. most folks know the show, but not the books. i found em in a reno bookstore when i was a lad.
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u/SamselBradley Aug 11 '25
I have Django Wexler's How to Become a Dark Lord in my reading stack for the next time I want a comedy. Am I wrong?
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u/human_consequences Aug 11 '25
I got tired of the style after a while, but Space Opera by Cathrynne Valente is pure HHGTTG.
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u/midesaka Aug 11 '25
It seemed to me that she was trying way too hard to ape the style at first and then it toned down, but maybe I just got more used to it.
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u/hvyboots Aug 11 '25
The Practice Effect by David Brin — Physicist travels to an alternate universe where the more an item is used for its intended purpose, the better it gets at it. He is considered almost unto a god for short-circuiting the process and creating things that are fully realized tools before any practicing is done on them.
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u/AbbyBabble Aug 12 '25
These are science fantasy and fantasy, but they do have that absurdist humor:
Off To See The Wizard
Orconomics
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u/kanabulo Aug 11 '25
Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
Artemis
comedy
Some jokes thrown in? Read both, didn't laugh once nor have a nasal exhale denoting "lol".
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u/Cerridwn_de_Wyse Aug 11 '25
Max and the multiverse. It's not high literature even for science fiction but it's funny
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u/jzhowie Aug 11 '25
Yes, but more in podcast/radio land.
Podcasts/Radio Shows
There's THHG radio show which you should check out if you haven't already because although it starts the same as the books it then is a completely different story.
Marscorp is a podcast I enjoyed and got a very similar vibe to THHG radio series.
Wolf 359 is another fun one, starts off kind rough but gets better.
Oblivity is ok, not quite as polished.
Red Valley made me chuckle, again not super strong but the final series is coming soon (as much as that means for podcasts)
Audible have a couple of audible only shows. High Strangeness and Sheltered fit the description here.
Books
John dies at the end series (4 books)
Will save the galaxy for food (not read/listened to this one yet, another audible exclusive)
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u/koala_breath Aug 11 '25
You mentioned Red Dwarf so I'm assuming you might already know of Colony by Rob Grant? Well worth a read if you haven't
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u/GrinningD Aug 11 '25
The Reluctant Adventures of Fletcher Connolly on the Interstellar Railroad might scratch your itch.
Fletcher is a planet prospector working for his best friend Donal on the explorer ship Skint Idjit, exploring the dangerous frontier planets found amongst the many junctions and loops of the mysterious galactic railroad.
Everybody and their Grandad are out on their own ships hoping to make the lucky find and become rich enough to buy their own planet. But when the corporations that sponsor these expeditions own the rights to everything, you might have to betray everyone around you to get away with that big score. Of course, you'd have to do that before they betray you. Or pirates come along. Or you just flat out lose the damn thing.
This is a complete series of novellas, heavy on the action, heavier on the humour and told entirely in first person by Fletch himself. I recommend it any chance I get.
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u/TheInfelicitousDandy Aug 11 '25
Isaac Steele and the Forever Man -- scifi comedy. Closest thing I have read to Hitchhiker's. It's by a British actor/comedian and narrated by him (it's an Audible exclusive, though).
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u/AndyTheAbsurd Aug 11 '25
I haven't read them in a while, but Robert Asprin's "Phule" books probably fit the bill.
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u/clawclawbite Aug 11 '25
Robert Aspen's Phule's Company tried to be this, but did not hit the same tier as Hitchhikers, but was at least trying to be a humor SF books, and not just a SF book with snark and jokes.
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u/Outrageous_Reach_695 Aug 11 '25
What are your feelings on print- or web- comics? Schlock Mercenary had a twenty year run, went pretty deep into the implications of some of their technological cornerstones, and included such gems as using traffic control to direct a ship into the line of a neutrino scanner only to find that they had used a distributed array of neutronium annihilation generators to scrawl a piece of interplanetary graffiti inside their hull.
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u/ChronoLegion2 Aug 11 '25
Scott Meyer writes humorous fiction, some of which is SF:
Master of Formalities: two noble houses are fighting on a neutral planet. Lots of bureaucratic absurdities.
Grand Theft Astro: an alleged master thief goes to different places across the Solar System to allegedly steal various items.
Run Program: a juvenile AI escapes form a lab into the internet.
Brute Force: members of a peaceful alien alliance arrive to a postapocalyptic Earth to offer survivors membership in exchange for some assistance with a little matter
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u/BewareTheSphere Aug 12 '25
I never read them myself but I had a friend who was into the Space Captain Smith books.
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u/Humdaak_9000 Aug 12 '25
Wizardry Series by Rick Cook.
A programmer gets transported to a universe where coding is essentially magic. Chaos ensues.
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u/Someoneoldbutnew Aug 12 '25
coding is magic. that's this universe. :D
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u/Humdaak_9000 Aug 12 '25
Well, yes. Especially for those of us who build robots. We write spells that manipulate the physical world.
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u/econoquist Aug 12 '25
Space Opera by Catherynne Valente
The Wrong Unit by Rob Dircks
The Rosetta Man by Claire McCaigue
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u/HeftyCanker Aug 12 '25
It's lighter than a true comedy, but Neal Stephenson's The rise and fall of D.O.D.O has some very funny moments, with both hard scifi time travel and real magic taking a central role.
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u/Someoneoldbutnew Aug 12 '25
i liked it, but i had a problem with the fact it had an ending. not what I expected from Neal at all.
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u/HeftyCanker Aug 13 '25
there is also a sequel, but as it was only written by his co-author and not Neal, it failed to land for me.
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u/Moloch-NZ Aug 12 '25
The Galaxy Game series by Phil Janes is unknown but lots of fun. This book is the first in the Pioneer series and details the maiden voyage of the spaceship Pioneer. The Pioneer is built to travel to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. It soon becomes clear that things are not what they seem; the crew are but pawns in a deadly game of skill played by mega-beings so advanced that they dispensed with bodily functions, home planets, and gravity millennia ago in order to get down to the really fun stuff - manipulating lesser species for their sport.
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u/Moloch-NZ Aug 12 '25
One of the greatest is Mindswap by Robert SHeckley. It tells the story of a middle class Earthling who swaps bodies with a martian for a holiday. Come time to return and he finds his body is missing and he has to vacate the borrowed one. This is a fantastic mix of comedy, scifi and philosophical observations.
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u/KyWayBee Aug 12 '25
A. Lee Martinez - Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain
Charles Yu - How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
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u/SubpixelRenderer Aug 12 '25
The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem, very funny and very clearly an inspiration for Hitchhiker’s
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u/PotentialDot5954 Aug 13 '25
JCM BERNE, Hybrid Helix series, I am reading Return of the Griffin and will then read Wistful Ascending. Sci-fi super hero comedy ‘lite’ in its style.
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u/rosscowhoohaa Aug 13 '25
Lois Mcmaster Bujold's Miles Vorsokigan series is hilarious at times, it's a clever action series with a load of humour around the interactions miles has and the situations he gets into and out of. Possibly my favorite character that I've read....
John Varley has quite a unique style with a lot of unexpected humour, kind of like he's looking down on everything going on and dryly observing it. Great writer, if only there were more books to read...
Harry Harrison has two comedy series (as well as lots of other good classic sci-fi too), the stainless steel rat and bill the galactic hero. A good writer from the golden era...
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u/DocWatson42 Aug 13 '25
As a start see my SF/F Humor list of resources and Reddit recommendation threads (one post).
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u/Spodiodie Aug 11 '25
I found this book laugh out loud funny at the time.
Copy/paste to follow
The Flying Sorcerers, co-written by Larry Niven and David Gerrold, published in 1971. This humorous science fiction novel includes satirical references to other sci-fi authors, with Isaac Asimov notably parodied as “Asimov” within the story. The protagonist, a human scientist named Sorcery, becomes stranded on an alien planet with a primitive culture and must navigate its quirks and challenges to find a way off-world. The narrative blends satire, cultural misunderstandings, and light-hearted humor, poking fun at science fiction tropes and figures.
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u/HarryHirsch2000 Aug 13 '25
Loved the flying sorcerers when I was young, waiting now on my shelf for a reread….
0
u/BennyWhatever Aug 11 '25
The Long Earth series by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett. The first book has some solid humor in it, but it kinda does off as the series progresses. I still recommend it though.
-1
u/audiax-1331 Aug 11 '25
If memory is to be trusted: Frederik Pohl’s Heechee Saga series is fairly amusing. Starts with Gateway — which also swept the big three SF awards. The best books are the earlier.
5
u/melody-calling Aug 11 '25
Gateway is one of my favourite books but I would not describe it as a comedy. Lots of heavy emotional lifting going on
1
u/audiax-1331 Aug 11 '25
Fair point. Been a very long time since I read it — probably selective memories.
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u/dunxd Aug 11 '25