The Ultimate Science Fiction Mega Collection: 24 of the Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time

A Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days, John Carter of Mars Trilogy, The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 3 Ray Bradbury Stories, Flatland, & More

By: Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Edwin Abbott Abbott, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, H. Beam Piper, E.M. Forster, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip Dick, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs

Narrated by: Museum Audiobooks Cast

Length: 121 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

The Ultimate Science Fiction Mega Collection contains 24 of the greatest science fiction works ever written.

- Book 1: ‘A Journey to the Center of the Earth’, a classic science fiction novel by Jules Verne.

- Book 2: ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ is part of Jules Verne’s most popular trilogy.

- Book 3: ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ (1873) is an acclaimed adventure novel by Jules Verne.

- Book 4: Jules Verne’s masterpiece, ‘The Mysterious Island’, is a fascinating story of five men and a dog who escape the American Civil War in a hot air balloon.

- Book 5: ‘The Master of the World’ by Jules Verne is a story told by John Strock, a federal police inspector.

- Book 6: ‘In the Year 2889’ by Jules Verne is a diary of the observations of Fritz Napoleon Smith, the editor of an influential futuristic newspaper.

- Book 7: ‘The War of the Worlds’ is HG Wells’ dramatic science fiction tale of aliens invading England.

- Book 8: ‘The Time Machine’ by HG Wells is about an English scientist who entertains guests for dinner every week.

- Book 9: ‘The Invisible Man’ is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells.

- Book 10: ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’ is an 1896 science fiction novel by the English author H. G. Wells (1866-1946). The story is narrated by Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat and left on the island home of Doctor Moreau.

- Book 11: This entertaining satire ‘Flatland’ is the work of the clergyman, educator and scholar Edwin A. Abbott (1838-1926).

- Book 12: Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel ‘Frankenstein’ tells the story of Dr Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who creates a creature by grave robbing and alchemy.

- Book 13: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a gothic novella by Robert Louis Stevenson.

- Book 14: Little Fuzzy Jack Holloway mines valuable sunstones on the planet Zarathustra.

- Book 15: ‘The Machine Stops’ by E M Forster is a dystopian science fiction short story first published in a magazine in 1909, and republished in ‘The Eternal Moment and Other Stories’ in 1928.

- Book 16: 'Youth', a science fiction novelette by Isaac Asimov, first appeared in the May 1952 issue of Space Science Fiction, and was reprinted in the 1955 collection The Martian Way and Other Stories.

- Book 17: ‘2 B R 0 2 B’ is a science fiction short story by Kurt Vonnegut, originally published in a magazine in 1962.

- Book 18: In ‘The Variable Man', the growing Terran system is being suppressed and prevented from expanding by the Centaurian Empire.

- Book 19: ‘The Pendulum’ by Ray Douglas Bradbury (1920-2012). Bradbury's short story ‘Pendulum’, written with Henry Hasse, was published in 1941 in the pulp magazine Super Science Stories.

- Book 20: ‘The Fight of the Good Ship Clarissa’ is an experimental short story by Ray Bradbury.

- Book 21: ‘Asleep in Armageddon’: A space ship crashes on an uninhabited planet but the pilot survives, and requests help, which is expected in six days.

- Book 22: ‘A Princess of Mars’ is a science fantasy novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first of the Barsoom series.

- Book 23: ‘The Gods of Mars’ (1918) is a science fantasy novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the second of Burroughs' Barsoom series.

- Book 24: ‘The Warlords of Mars’ completes Edgar Rice Burroughs’ action-packed Barsoom Trilogy.

Public Domain (P)2021 Museum Audiobooks

Great collection with bad skips

Skips (due to editing?) aren't too bad when it skips back a second or so, but are bad when they skip forward, and words are lost.

audio cuts in and out

the audio jumps and you sometimes miss words or words are repeated again. it makes it hard to follow such interesting books that I had such a desire to listen to.

it's ok

the editing was awful it kept skipping and studdering. the story's are great. will not listen again

Classic science fiction

A great collection of classic science fiction! Many of these I had read over fifty years ago and I found that the rereading was a joy.

Great stories, bad reading

There are a lot of repeated parts in the book and some of the readers are insanely dull and boring

Horrible editing

repeats, cuts off, and omits sometimes important sections. madding to listen to. not worth the credit and definitely not the cash.

Forgivable technical problems, a valuable collection.

As a professional driver, I have quite a library of audiobooks, but not much (if any) science fiction, so this looked like a good addition. I have read some Asimov, Dick, Bradbury, etc., but wouldn't mind having them read to me.

I had not read any Jules Verne, and the product begins with that author. First up was *Journey to the Center of the Earth.* By chapter 5, I was wondering why Verne chose to make the two principal characters-- the narrator and the narrator's uncle-- such dislikable, pretentious, prigs.

By chapter 19, I was rooting for their deaths. At the end of the day, chapter twenty-something, I left them there, miles below the surface (where, in my opinion, they should remain). I have absolutely no interest as to what became of them.

The next day, I began *20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.* It had the same voice actor. The same occasional repeated texts, the same occasional skipping-- those both editing failures. The voice actor annoyed a bit, mispronouncing a few words, and sometimes missing the meaning as demonstrated by his inflection and emphasis. Most audiobooks have some questionable interpretation due to the voice actor's misunderstanding, and it was not that actor's fault that Verne, again, made the narrator so dislikable.

I abandoned that story early on, and settled in for Verne's *Around the World in 80 Days.* Same voice actor. Same Verne insufferable narrator style and personalty. That is when I realized: *I do not like Jules Verne-- that Verne was the dislikable, pretentious prig.*

I gave up on that work in the first chapter, and went on to listen to the final Jules Verne selection. "In the Year 2889" It was a short-story, but seemed to have been incomplete, as it ended abruptly, and I was glad of it. Then, this audiobook redeemed itself.

A new voice actor began the H. G. Wells section, and here I got my money's worth.

The voice actor was awesome. Well's prose was a delight. I had seen three *War of the Worlds* films, but this original story is so much better. I spent some effort trying to discover the name of the voice actor, as I was so pleased by his performance. I have not been successful in that. Of course, the story gets as much credit, here. The technical (editing) problems continue, but they are easy to ignore.

Happily, the same new voice actor continues with *The Time Machine.*. It is here that I realize I am an H. G. Wells fan, and glad to see a favorite, which I have read before, is next. *The Invisible Man.*

Summary: Despite some editing failures (skipping and repeating) I have not encountered in any other audiobooks, the work is of good value. Not having a text with which to follow along, I do not know how much was lost in the few, obvious, skips. From context, it seems like up to a sentence or two. The repeating is always a very few words-- as if the voice-actor has taken a sip of water, and so starts over (and so starts over). Yeah, like that.

I recently completed Ian Fleming's *James Bond* canon, and no such editing errors exist, but the varying voice-actors do make a difference, just as I have found here. In this case, however, because of the technical flaws, I am not as immersed in the production, and more aware that I am being read to. That is not a bad thing, but it is different.

Lastly, is to address the many comments about navigation. The navigation is one, very long, list of chapters. It is probably several type-written pages in length, but easily scrolled, and always opens to your current place. If you intend to listen from beginning to end, this is fine. If you plan to skip books, it is a bit cumbersome.

Glitchy on phone app

Overall these stories can stand the test of time. The narrators did phenomenal jobs bringing characters to life and relaying the stories within.
My issue is the amount of data compressed into these volumes causes the audio to skip and the listener to miss out on 1, 2, or even 3 lines of dialogue/story.
Best advice is to get these stories in smaller collections either by author or storylines.

poor editing

The reading was good but the editing is very poor. There are spots that repeat and I believe there are sections that miss some words as well,

Audio skips frequently

Title says it all. It’s super annoying and I have missed some of the story bc of it.