2025's Top Twenty Based Science Fiction
Speculative Fiction Without Apology
We spotted that trend a while ago, Jack…
…and we decided to do something about it.
Last year, The Based Book Sale referred 2186 Kindle Free E-books and 10,458 Kindle Paid E-Books. That’s 12,644 books in all. What do we mean by a “Based Book?”
based [ beyst ] / beɪst / adjective
1. Well-grounded, resting upon a firm foundation.
2. Principled, devoted to fixed standards, especially in defiance of conventional wisdom.
3. Rejecting politically correct attitudes and celebrating nonconformity with woke opinion.
4. Committed to upholding and advancing the good, the beautiful, and the true.
antonyms: debased, cringe
The Based Book Sale is where indie authors bypass the mainstream gatekeepers to share and promote their best Based Books. When a Based Book bubbles to the top as a result of thousands of crowdsourced purchase decisions for hundreds of books, Based Readers know it’s worth taking a look.
Without further ado, here are the Top Ten Based Science Fiction offerings of 2025.
It took at least seventy sales to break into the top ten, and thirty nine to secure a place in the top twenty. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll break down the results genre by genre, culminating in our top thirty for 2025. Let’s start with Based Science Fiction from currently active authors (sorry Edgar Rice Burroughs, we’ll mention you in the overall rankings).
Let’s take a closer look at what science fiction books were favorites with Based Readers in 2025.
The Top Based Science Fiction of 2025
Ryan M. Patrick surged into the lead with our first sale of 2025 and never looked back with 230 total sales of The Martian Incident: A Science Fiction Thriller. “When a mysterious aerial drone is shot down on Mars near the American colony of Columbia, NASA accident investigator John Cameron joins a joint DOD team to recover it. But, as a sandstorm moves in to blanket the area, the Americans are attacked by an overwhelming enemy force of EU soldiers in a surprise attack.”
In second place, we have Science Fiction Grandmaster John C. Wright with his Dragon-Award-winning Somewhither. lya Muromets, a misfit teenager in Oregon, is thrust into a perilous multiverse-spanning conflict when he tries to rescue the daughter of a mad scientist, wielding a squirrel-gun, a grandfather’s sword, and his faith to battle a dark force that threatens endless realities.
Wright’s narrowly topped the third place Top Based Science Fiction Awardee of 2025, Nowhither: The Drowned World (Unwithering Realm Book 2), sequel to his own Dragon-Award-winning Somewither.
Robert Kroese earned fourth place with Starship Grifters, a space opera to keep you laughing: action-packed black comedy & satire. “It’s kind of like Foucault’s Pendulum in space but without 500 pages of Italians discussing European history.” — Castalia House.
Richard Paolinelli closed out the top five with his excellent science fiction mystery noir mashup, Of All the Gin Joints in the Universe. “Fedoras. Trenchcoats. Space cigarettes. Space dames. A hard-boiled detective. Fistfights. Spaceships. Honestly, you could’ve just said ‘space dames’ and I would’ve coughed up my money.”
The Rest of the Top Ten
A reluctant hero. A rogue and rag tag crew. And a dangerous mission. In sixth place, Michael F. Kane’s After Moses takes the space western genre to a whole new level of gripping drama, moral choices, and principled action.
I’m probably going to take some heat for this, but I’ll say it anyway: After Moses is better than Firefly, better than Star Trek, and if you question if that’s even possible, this is for you.
Trevor Denning, Upstream Reviews
Mutants. Genetically engineered telepaths. Star-crossed lovers. Interstellar war. The five-volume Exile War boxed set by Bowen Greenwood is a tale of heroism and sacrifice, violence and love. Epic high fantasy set in space, martial artistry and deep back story make this a space opera of interplanetary proportions.
In eighth place, is Hans G. Schantz with A Rambling Wreck: Book 2 of The Hidden Truth. where “There’s no partial credit on a question of life and death!”
“It’s sort of like what might happen if one of Heinlein’s juvenile heroes (say Kip from Have Spacesuit Will Travel) was thrust into the modern era and was forced to use SJWs Always Lie as his freshman orientation guide while battling the Black Hats.” -Orion’s Cold Fire
John C. Wright stands in ninth place with his first Starquest book, Space Pirates of Andromeda.
“Space Pirates of Andromeda is John C. Wright’s attempt to bring back bold stories of heroism in the vein of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and John Carter of Mars. And he succeeds. This is a glorious adventure featuring a noble hero, a magical space princess, mysteries, cliffhangers, an evil empire of darkness, space knights, killer robots, non-killer robots, monsters, struggles against impossible odds, cool weapons... and a scene in which a character escapes death by riding a shark.”
In tenth place we have a tie. The first tenth place honoree? The Hidden Truth by Hans G. Schantz.
“This is a masterpiece of alternative history techno-thriller science fiction. It is rich in detail, full of interesting characters who interact and develop as the story unfolds, sound in the technical details which intersect with our world, insightful about science, technology, economics, government and the agenda of the “progressive” movement, and plausible in its presentation of the vast, ruthless, and shadowy conspiracy which lies under the surface of its world. And, above all, it is charming—these are characters you’d like to meet, even some of the villains because you want understand what motivates them.” John Walker
Robert Kroese’s alternate history Viking space epic, Iron Dragon closes out the top ten. Trapped 1300 years in the past, they have one mission: survive. In the 23rd century, humanity has been hunted to the verge of extinction by an alien race. When an exploratory ship accidentally travels back in time to Viking age Scandinavia, the human race is given a second chance.
The Rest of the Top Twenty Based Science Fiction
Russell May’s Eta Cancri secured twelfth place. Five hundred years into the future, humans have conquered the void of space and spread throughout the galaxy. But we’re about to discover that - in the cold, dark places between the stars - an ancient horror has been watching. And waiting.
Robert Kroese shows up again in thirteenth place with The Big Sheep (Erasmus Keane Book 1). With nods to Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Big Sheep is a madcap sci-fi mystery that skewers both noir and dystopia with razor wit and relentless absurdity.
E.J. Fisch’s Dakiti: Ziva Payvan Book 1 secured fourteenth place in the rankings.
“This rousing science fiction adventure yarn, in the space opera tradition, is far better crafted than today’s average first novel. Set in a far-future galaxy widely colonized by humans, who have come into contact with various alien races, it features interplanetary intrigue, strong plotting and characterization, and a LOT of well-written action. But it also pays serious attention to interpersonal relationships and moral issues; this is not a shallow novel.”
Russell May’s long awaited Solarvoid, sequel to Eta Cancri is in fifteenth.
“What do you get when you cross Aztec culture, Christianity, far future spaceships, and eldritch warp horrors that are strangely familiar? You get a genuinely original series, and a really good time in print.”
When a mysterious radio signal echoes from the abandoned colony of Serenitatis, the Vatican dispatches an elite squad of space marines to investigate. Paladin-Captain Samuel Cohen’s mission is simple: locate survivors, uncover the signal’s source, and get out. But beneath the sterile domes, something ancient stirs—an adversary that challenges not only the mission but the very foundations of his faith. Yuval Kordov’s Orders of Magnitude secured sixteenth place.
James Young is in seventeenth place with his Dispatches From Valhalla: An Alternate History Collection. This is a collection of reprinted stories from anthologies and novellas that James Young has published since 2019. They have been placed in this single volume for your entertainment and ease of discovery.
Kevin W. Bates took eighteenth place with Quarantine. Hunzuu is desperate to find the One World: the world on which the Son of God, the Anointed One was born and lived as a human. Hidden from the Commonwealth of Worlds’ trillions of inhabitants, the One World’s location is unknown. While working as an engineer aboard the star freighter Sittace, Hunzuu stumbles on a shadowy plot involving the One World. Vowing to find the One World and protect it, Hunzuu embarks on a journey that will lead him to dangers he could never imagine and a contagion that threatens the Commonwealth.
Robert Kroese’s The Cross-Time Crusade earned nineteenth place. A secret cabal of demonic forces threatens to destroy civilization and plunge the world into a new Dark Age. Humanity's only chance is a shadowy organization called GRAIL--the modern day heirs to the Knights Templar--which has discovered the secret to time travel. The past cannot be changed, but if GRAIL can send an agent into the past to recover a lost book on demonology called the Codex Babylon, they may have a fighting chance to save humanity from utter destruction. Spanning 900 years and four continents, The Cross-Time Crusade is an epic saga of the eternal struggle against evil!
Vox Day closes out the top twenty with his alternate history science fiction, Out of the Shadows. Set in The Midnight World created by author Vox Day and comics legend Chuck Dixon for their Midnight's War comic, OUT OF THE SHADOWS is vampire fiction that pulls no punches—a harrowing philosophical ride about the price of ambition and what happens when humanity discovers it's no longer at the top of the food chain.
Why Do the Based Book Rankings Matter?
Ranking books by actual purchases rather than votes provides a more reliable measure of genuine interest, as it reflects real economic commitment and is harder to manipulate than free or anonymous voting systems. Sales data captures broader market trends, incentivizes quality through consumer willingness to pay, and offers traceable metrics that indicate lasting relevance. Amazon inherently limits voters to one purchase and therefore one vote per book. While not completely immune to manipulation (e.g., bulk buying), purchase-based rankings generally offer a higher signal-to-noise ratio than popularity contests driven by casual opinions or coordinated campaigns.
The most recent Hugo Awards for which data is available had 1647 ballots cast. Compare that to the Based Book Sale rankings for 2025 which incorporate the input of over 10,000 purchases. That’s on par with the total number of votes for the better-known Dragon Awards.
How do the Rankings Work?
The numbers are generated from Amazon Affiliate links on the sale pages (from which the Based Book Sale gets a 4% royalty), and they do not include purchases outside the sale. Authors typically report sales 50% to 100% higher. Also, you have to be present to win. Books not in the sale are not eligible for Top Based Book honors. And books that appear in multiple sales have an edge over those that only appear in one sale. Nevertheless, the Based Book Rankings is a crowd-sourced list of some of the best Based Books available, crowd-selected from a list of a few hundred.
Be sure you are signed up to get the call for authors a couple of weeks in advance of each of these sales.
Our next Based Book Sale will be February 11-16, 2026.
That’s it for now. Thanks for being part of the Based Book community.
Appreciate the Based Book Sale, but maybe not quite enough to spring for a paid subscription?
Then click on the button below to buy me a coffee. Thanks!
I've got another Based Book Review. I may have to apologize.
https://open.substack.com/pub/zaklog/p/reviewing-the-martian-incident-by?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer
This is paradise. Thank you.