The best science fiction audiobooks, ranked by the data
Ranked by weighted listener rating, the best science fiction audiobook in our dataset is The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: 4.51★ across 176 ratings and 6.4 estimated listening hours. We scored every published science fiction audiobook in our dataset: 390 qualify (science fiction-shelved titles with full pages here), carrying 27,459 listener ratings between them. The top 20 are below. No opinions: the formula in the method note decides the order.
The top 20
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
About 7 days at an hour a day, 39% shorter than the average science fiction audiobook.
Watchmen by Alan Moore
About 13 days at an hour a day, 13% longer than the average fantasy audiobook.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
About 15 days at an hour a day, 20% longer than the average thriller audiobook.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
About 16 days at an hour a day, 37% longer than the average fantasy audiobook.
The Martian by Andy Weir
About 12 days at an hour a day, 9% longer than the average fantasy audiobook.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
About 10 days at an hour a day, 7% shorter than the average science fiction audiobook.
The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan
About 14 days at an hour a day, 22% longer than the average fantasy audiobook.
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
About 10 days at an hour a day, 10% shorter than the average science fiction audiobook.
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
About 25 days at an hour a day, 119% longer than the average fantasy audiobook.
Dune by Frank Herbert
About 18 days at an hour a day, 59% longer than the average fantasy audiobook.
Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
About 7 days at an hour a day, 33% shorter than the average science fiction audiobook.
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
About 10 days at an hour a day, 15% shorter than the average fantasy audiobook.
Death's End (The Three-Body Problem Series Book 3) by 刘慈欣
About 22 days at an hour a day, 104% longer than the average science fiction audiobook.
Tiamat's Wrath by James S. A. Corey
About 16 days at an hour a day, 51% longer than the average science fiction audiobook.
Making Money by Terry Pratchett
About 12 days at an hour a day, 7% longer than the average fantasy audiobook.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
About 28 days at an hour a day, 120% longer than the average thriller audiobook.
Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett
About 12 days at an hour a day, right at the average fantasy length.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
About 9 days at an hour a day, 23% shorter than the average fantasy audiobook.
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan
About 5 days at an hour a day, 59% shorter than the average science fiction audiobook.
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan
About 5 days at an hour a day, 55% shorter than the average science fiction audiobook.
How this ranking works
Every published science fiction audiobook in our dataset qualifies: 390 books. Each is scored by its Open Library listener rating weighted by its rating count: score = (v·R + 50·C) ÷ (v + 50), where R is the book's rating, v its number of ratings, and C = 4.04★ the mean across all 1,508 published books we measured. Fewer ratings pull a score toward that mean, so a high rating on a handful of votes can't outrank a slightly lower one backed by hundreds. A book ranks here only when its own Open Library subject data confirms the science fiction shelf; surfacing in a science fiction search alone doesn't qualify it. Children's titles, memoirs and autobiographies are excluded from these rankings; they keep their regular book pages. No editorial picks, no sponsored placement. Dataset build 2026-07-14; rankings recompute with every data refresh. Full methodology · All science fiction audiobooks we measured
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