Ask Lemmy

Basically most Terry Pratchett books really. Some will take more than a day, but it's like a mix of Lord of the Rings and Monty Python. Whimsical and silly with some good moments that make you think.

I know they're not everyone's cup of tea, but The Stormlight Archive books speak to me like no other books ever have. They're a huge time investment, but they're all about the journey, not the destination. 😉

Someone else already suggested it, but I would second Terry Pratchett. Even though most of the books are standalone, I recommend start with the Colour of Magic and follow publication order.

For you, I'd suggest 'I, Robot,' by Isaac Asimov.

It's a short story collection with a bunch of logic puzzles. the writing is clear and easy to follow and the conundrums are engaging.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It and its sequel Children of Ruin both explore what it means to be a person and makes you feel empathy for “the other”, beings that get more and more alien as the story moves on. Compared to most of what others mention here it is rather new. But it will become a cult classic, I am certain of that.

The Culture by Ian M. Banks. It's a little difficult to approach, but an incredible exploration of Sci-Fi, humanity, AI, and life in general. Unlike a lot of other great Sci-Fi (like The Expanse, which I also highly recommend) it's gritty, but overall The Culture is a hopeful and optimistic take on the progress of humanity and technology.

The best books are The Player of Games, Look to Windward, and Excession.

Depending on how you're feeling, I think you can skip The State of the Art, Matter, and Inversions, though they're worth an eventual read. They're just less connected to the main Culture story.

It's a series that truly changed me and my perspective on life.

Fahrenheit 451, really awesome dystopia that predicted a lot of things in our modern era

It's a super generic choice, but Catch-22 (if you're looking for something less generic, Heller also wrote the more obscure Something Happened that focuses his satirical prowess on 1960s family life, but that's a longer book). It's just so effortlessly funny.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide, you likely won’t be able to finish each of the 5 books in the trilogy in a day but it’s something you can read a hundred times and find a new witty joke somewhere, much like all the Discworld novels.

The Expanse is another that you could burn through a book a day but wow it’s a hell of a story and worth taking your time on each character’s perspective, Outlander is also a good one for the same reasons but those are 1k pagers

murderbot series is fantastic, I love every single entry in the series so far, and they're not very long or unnecessarily complicated; you can finish one in a day or two easy.

The first entry is called "All systems red"

Cryptonomicon. It's not really a short book, but it's easily digestible as it has clear divisions where it is suitable to take a break.

The way the WW2 plot and the 90's-plot intertwine is so much fun to read, especially since the 90's characters are descendants of the ww2 characters.

And of course GEB Kavistik would grow up to be a pretentious cunt...

Recently, I finished Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(Asimov_novel) It's a collection of a few stories, so you can read it one by one.

Anything by Terry Pratchett (look for one of the "where to start" guides). Funny, a bit ridiculous, but always super intelligent with lots of good social commentary.

Ursula Le Guin has lots of bangers. Slow burning sci-fi with deep atmosphere and social philosophy. Any of her Hainish books are good for that. Earthsea series is beautiful. The Birthday Of The World is my favourite short stories book.

Neuromancer by William Gibson if you're into cyberpunk.

UNSONG if you're keen on religion-themed absurd fantasy. It's amazing. Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman is also great on that front.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Fictional account of the dustbowl migration in the US. It will make you righteously angry, especially when you realise the same shit is still happening in other ways.

Do androids dream of electric sheep by Philip K. Dick. It's the basis for the blade runner movie. Short, easy to read.

I have two fantastic recommendations that are pretty short reads.

Enders Game is fantastic Sci fi and quite cut throat. Great Story. Far better than the marginal movie that came out based on it.

The Martian. Sci fi, but more realistic and the author must have researched the hell out of things to put this book together. The movie they made was actually pretty good, but the book outshines it by leaps and bounds. The internal monolog of the main character is outstanding in the book and it just can't happen through the movie.

The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf is a short book about the adventures of an alienated young man in a big city. Hesse also wrote a really good novella about Buddha titled Siddharta.

Ray Bradbury’s Mars Chronicles is a collection of short stories around the settlement of Mars.

Hyperion Cantos. All 4 books are great, even if the 3rd and 4th are quite different. But it's a masterpiece. It's kind of like the LOTR for sci-fi if you ask me.

The Lathe of Heaven by LeGuin is pretty short, and great

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers easily can be finished in a day.

Then Murderbot series by Martha Wells. They are fun, yet insightful and novellas. Easily finished in a day too.

Blood Meridian is critically acclaimed and you could read it in a day. I only got around to reading it last winter despite my "litbro" friends recommending it for years. It's very violent but the prose style is really unique and original. The plot is kind of Moby Dick-esque where it examines mankind's place in nature (mixed with a fair amount of Heart of Darkness).

Actually Heart of Darkness is extremely worth reading and it is probably less of an ordeal. Maybe start with that if you haven't read it. Conrad spoke like 5 languages and English was the ~3rd he learned so he has a very interesting prose style.

Finish in a day isn’t a great requirement to put alongside “best ever”, as others have already covered. That aside, check out The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. You’ll be surprised by how fun it is to learn about medieval technology development and stone cathedral building techniques when it’s all wrapped up in a gripping narrative.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is the most impactful book I've ever read. It completely changed my perspective of the system I was born into. A Farewell to Arms is the first book I read that mirrored my inner emotional state, and let me know it was okay for me to feel as I did back then. Both are top-tier books.

Short book that hit hard:

• Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
• Never let me go, Kazuro Ishiguro
• The last unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
• 1984, George Orwell
• Prince of Thieves, Chuck Hogan

I've never read a fictional book. They don't exist. hurhurhur

But seriously, I did kind of enjoy reading the Manifold series (Origin, Space, Time) by Stephen Baxter way back when. If you're a quick reader, I reckon you could probably zip through one of the novels in a day.

And I'd recommend reading at least a couple in order to get to know the characters, because then you could pick up the short story anthology set in the same multiverse (Phase Space), where for some you'd only need half an hour.

(Baxter has a bunch of other books and short stories - the Xeelee Sequence springs to mind - but I never got around to those, so have no idea how long the novels are, or whether they're any good.)

I have an ambitious offering i dont think anyone else will suggest.

ambitious but you also want something you can read a day at a time. Books are fairly small.

My favourite BIG STOMPY ROBOTS but in chronological order.

Battletech Novels.

Book descriptions

The Martian and Project Hail Mary are some of the best sci-fi-of-tomorrow books I have ever read. Maybe not a single day, but neither are overly long.

I think Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes fits the bill. Not too long and has punched everybody I've recommended it to in the guts.

Just read Terry Pratchett or Larry Niven. Also Lois McMaster Bujold is a writer that will make you laugh and often start look at the world around you differently.

Roadside Picnic. it's a story of unmanaged survivors guilt, in an increasingly desperate and accurately depicted Soviet dystopia, where the players hustle and vie for mediocre survival even in an exceptionally bizarre, hostile, and literally alien environment, just as they would in any other terrestrial conflict zone.

There's a good reason it spawned an epic film and 4 outstanding games so far

Pretty much anything in the "Known Space" series by Larry Niven (et al - there are works by some other authors in that space).

Rn I'm currently rereading The Inheritance Cycle, it's fantasy, but it goes very in depth, there are your different races, elves, "orcs", dwarves, you got dragons, there are different languages that the author made, its very good. Of course I might be biased since I'm rereading it rn lmao

Edit: I did not read the bit about reading it in a day. I guess you could if you read fast

Cradle! Or better, the cradle series. It's a sort of adventure story in a fantasy world.

The End of Eternity (Asimov) might be short enough for you, and has some interesting ideas about the implications of time travel.