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Book Reviews

We asked, you answered: your 50 favorite sci-fi and fantasy books of the past decade.

Petra Mayer

The question at the heart of science fiction and fantasy is "what if?" What if gods were real, but you could kill them ? What if humans finally made it out among the stars — only to discover we're the shabby newcomers in a grand galactic alliance ? What if an asteroid destroyed the East Coast in 1952 and jump-started the space race years early?

NPR Books Summer Poll 2021: A Decade Of Great Sci-Fi And Fantasy

Summer reader poll 2021: meet our expert judges.

Summer Reader Poll 2018: Horror

Click if you dare: 100 favorite horror stories.

Summer Reader Poll 2019: Funny Books

We did it for the lols: 100 favorite funny books.

This year's summer reader poll was also shaped by a series of "what ifs" — most importantly, what if, instead of looking at the entire history of the field the way we did in our 2011 poll , we focused only on what has happened in the decade since? These past 10 years have brought seismic change to science fiction and fantasy (sometimes literally, in the case of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series), and we wanted to celebrate the world-shaking rush of new voices, new perspectives, new styles and new stories. And though we limited ourselves to 50 books this time around, the result is a list that's truly stellar — as poll judge Tochi Onyebuchi put it, "Alive."

As always, a pretty extensive decision-making process went into the list, involving our fabulous panel of expert judges — but we know you eager readers want to get right to the books. So if you're inclined, follow these links to find out how we built the list (and what, sadly, didn't make it this year ). Otherwise, scroll on for the list!

We've broken it up into categories to help you find the reading experience you're looking for, and you can click on these links to go directly to each category:

Worlds To Get Lost In · Words To Get Lost In · Will Take You On A Journey · Will Mess With Your Head · Will Mess With Your Heart · Will Make You Feel Good

Worlds To Get Lost In

Are you (like me) a world-building fanatic? These authors have built worlds so real you can almost smell them.

The Imperial Radch Trilogy

Breq is a human now — but once she was a starship. Once she was an AI with a vast and ancient metal body and troops of ancillaries, barely animate bodies that all carried her consciousness. Poll judge Ann Leckie has created a massive yet intricate interstellar empire where twisty galactic intrigues and multiple clashing cultures form a brilliant backdrop for the story of a starship learning to be a human being. Your humble editor got a copy of Ancillary Justice when it came out and promptly forced her entire family to read it.

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The Dead Djinn Universe (series)

What a wonderful world P. Djélì Clarke has created here — an Arab world never colonized, where magic-powered trams glide through a cosmopolitan Cairo and where djinns make mischief among humans. Clarke's novella Ring Shout also showed up on our semifinalists list, and it was hard to decide between them, but ultimately our judges felt the Dead Djinn Universe offered more to explore. But you should still read Ring Shout , a wild ride of a read where gun-toting demon-hunters go up against Ku Klux Klan members who are actual, pointy-headed white demons. Go on, go get a copy! We'll wait.

The Age of Madness Trilogy

One of my pet peeves with fantasy novels is they sometimes don't allow for the progression of time and technology — but in Joe Abercrombie's Age of Madness series, the follow-up to his debut First Law trilogy, industrialization has come to the world of The Union, and it's brought no good in its wake. More than that — machines may be rising, but magic will not give way, and all over the world, those at the bottom of the heap are beginning to get really, really angry. This series works as a standalone — but you should also read the excellent First Law series (even though it's old enough to fall outside the scope of this list).

The Green Bone Saga

This sprawling saga of family, honor, blood and magical jade will suck you in from the very first page. Poll judge Fonda Lee's story works on every conceivable level, from minute but meaningful character beats to solid, elegantly conveyed world-building to political intrigue to big, overarching themes of clan, loyalty and identity. Plus, wow, the jade-powered martial arts sequences are as fine as anything the Shaw Brothers ever put on screen. "Reviewing books is my actual job," says fellow judge Amal El-Mohtar, "but I still have to fight my husband for the advance copies of Fonda's books, and we're both THIS CLOSE to learning actual martial arts to assist us in our dueling for dibs."

The Expanse (series)

Yes, sure, you've seen the TV show (you HAVE, right? Right?) about the ragtag crew of spacers caught up in a three-way power struggle between Earth, Mars and the society that's developed on far-off asteroid belts. But there's much, much more to explore in the books — other planets, other characters, storylines and concepts that didn't make it to the screen. Often, when a book gets adapted for film or TV, there's a clear argument about which version is better. With The Expanse , we can confidently say you should watch and read. The only downside? Book- Avasarala doesn't show up until a few volumes in.

The Daevabad Trilogy

Nahri is a con woman (with a mysteriously real healing talent) scraping a living in the alleys of 18th century Cairo — until she accidentally summons some true magic and discovers her fate is bound to a legendary city named Daevabad, far from human civilization, home of djinns and bloody intrigues. Author S.A. Chakraborty converted to Islam as a teenager and after college began writing what she describes as "historical fanfiction" about medieval Islam; then characters appeared, inspired by people she met at her mosque. "A sly heroine capable of saving herself, a dashing hero who'd break for the noon prayer," she told an interviewer . "I wanted to write a story for us, about us, with the grandeur and magic of a summer blockbuster."

Teixcalaan (series)

The Aztecs meet the Byzantines in outer space in this intricately imagined story of diplomatic intrigue and fashionable poetic forms. Mahit Dzmare is an ambassador from a small space station clinging desperately to its independence in the face of the massive Teixcalaanli empire . But when she arrives in its glittering capital, her predecessor's dead, and she soon discovers she's been sabotaged herself. Luckily, it turns out she's incredibly good at her job, even without her guiding neural implant. "I'm a sucker for elegant worldbuilding that portrays all the finer nuances of society and culture in addition to the grandness of empire and the complexity of politics," says judge Fonda Lee. "Arkady Martine delivers all that in droves."

The Thessaly Trilogy

Apollo, spurned by Daphne, is trying to understand free will and consent by living as a mortal. Athena is trying to create a utopia by plucking men and women from all across history and dropping them on an island to live according to Plato's Republic. Will it all go according to plan? Not likely. "Brilliant, compelling, and frankly unputdownable," wrote poll judge Amal El-Mohtar , "this will do what your Intro to Philosophy courses probably couldn't: make you want to read The Republic ."

Shades of Magic Trilogy

V.E. Schwab has created a world with four Londons lying atop one another : our own dull Grey, warm magic-suffused Red, tyrannical White, and dead, terrifying Black. Once, movement among them was easy, but now only a few have the ability — including our hero, Kell. So naturally, he's a smuggler, and the action kicks off when Grey London thief Lila steals a dangerous artifact from him, a stone that could upset the balance among the Londons. Rich world building, complex characters and really scary bad guys make Schwab's London a city — or cities — well worth spending time in.

The Divine Cities Trilogy

On the Continent, you must not, you cannot, talk about the gods — the gods are dead. Or are they? Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy builds a fully, gloriously realized world where gods are the source of power, miracles and oppression, and gods can also be killed. But what happens next, when the gods are gone and the work of running the world is left to regular human men and women? What happens in that unsettled moment when divinity gives way to technology? This series spans a long timeline; the heroes of the first volume are old by the end. "And as ancient powers clash among gleaming, modern skyscrapers, those who have survived from the first page to these last have a heaviness about them," writes reviewer Jason Sheehan , "a sense that they have seen remarkable things, done deeds both heroic and terrible, and that they can see a far and final horizon in the distance, quickly approaching."

The Wormwood Trilogy

Part of a recent wave of work celebrating and centering Nigerian culture, this trilogy is set in a future where a fungal alien invader has swallowed big global cities, America has shut itself away and gone dark, and a new city, Rosewater, has grown up around a mysterious alien dome in rural Nigeria. It's a wild mashup of alien invasion, cyberpunk, Afro-futurism and even a touch of zombie horror. "I started reading Rosewater on vacation and quickly set it down until I got home, because Tade Thompson's work is no light beach read," says judge Fonda Lee. "His writing demands your full attention — and amply rewards it."

Black Sun (series)

Author Rebecca Roanhorse was tired of reading epic fantasy with quasi-European settings, so she decided to write her own . The result is Black Sun , set in a world influenced by pre-Columbian mythology and rich with storms, intrigue, giant bugs, mysterious sea people, ritual, myth and some very scary crows. (They hold grudges, did you know?) This is only Book 1 of a forthcoming series, but we felt it was so strong it deserved to be here, no matter where Roanhorse goes next.

Words To Get Lost In

If you're one of those people who thought genre fiction writing was workmanlike and uninspiring, these books will change your mind.

Susanna Clarke at last returns to our shelves with this mind-bendingly glorious story — that's a bit hard to describe without spoiling. So we'll say it's about a mysterious man and the House that he dearly loves, a marvelous place full of changing light and surging tides, statues and corridors and crossings, birds and old bones and passing days and one persistent visitor who brings strangely familiar gifts. Clarke "limns a magic far more intrinsic than the kind commanded through spells," wrote reviewer Vikki Valentine , "a magic that is seemingly part of the fabric of the universe and as powerful as a cosmic engine — yet fragile nonetheless."

Imagine Circe, the fearsome witch of the Odyssey, as an awkward teenager, growing up lonely among scornful gods and falling for what we modern folks would call a f***boy, before coming into her own, using her exile on the island of Aiaia to hone her powers and build an independent life. Circe only shows up briefly in the Odyssey, but Madeline Miller gives her a lush, complex life in these pages. She has worked as a classics teacher, and as our reviewer Annalisa Quinn noted , Miller "extracts worlds of meaning from Homer's short phrases."

Mexican Gothic

A sharp young socialite in 1950s Mexico City travels to a creepy rural mansion to check on her cousin, who has fallen ill after marrying into a mysterious family of English landowners. What could possibly go wrong? Silvia Moreno-Garcia "makes you uneasy about invisible things by writing around them," said reviewer Jessica P. Wick. "Even when you think you know what lurks, the power to unsettle isn't diminished." Not to be too spoilery — but after reading this stylishly chilling novel, you'll never look at mushrooms the same way again.

The Paper Menagerie And Other Stories

"I taught Liu's 'The Man Who Ended History' in a graduate seminar one semester," says judge Tochi Onyebuchi, "and one of the toughest tasks I've ever faced in adulthood was crafting a lesson plan that went beyond me just going 'wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf' for the whole two hours. Some story collections are like those albums where the artist or record label just threw a bunch of songs together and said 'here,' and some collections arrive as a complete, cohesive, emotionally catholic whole. The Paper Menagerie is that."

Spinning Silver

Judges had a hard time deciding between Spinning Silver and Uprooted , Novik's previous fairy tale retelling. Ultimately, we decided that this reclamation of "Rumpelstiltskin" has a chewier, more interesting project, with much to say about money, labor, debt and friendship, explored in unflinching yet tender ways. Judge Amal El-Mohtar reviewed Spinning Silver for NPR when it came out in 2018. "There are so many mathemagicians in this book, be they moneylenders turning silver into gold or knitters working to a pattern," she wrote at the time . "It's gold and silver all the way down."

Exhalation: Stories

"I often get the same feeling reading a Ted Chiang story as I did listening to a Prince song while he was still with us," says judge Tochi Onyebuchi. "What a glorious privilege it is that we get to share a universe with this genius!" This poll can be a discovery tool for editors and judges as much as audience, so hearing that, your humble editor went straight to the library and downloaded a copy of this collection.

Olondria (series)

In Olondria, you can smell the ocean wind coming off the page, soldiers ride birds, angels haunt humans, and written dreams are terribly dangerous. "Have you ever seen something so beautiful that you'd be content to just sit and watch the light around it change for a whole day because every passing moment reveals even more unbearable loveliness and transforms you in ways you can't articulate?" asks judge Amal El-Mohtar. "You will if you read these books."

Her Body And Other Parties: Stories

These eight stories dance across the borders of fairy tale, horror, erotica and urban legend, spinning the familiar, lived experiences of women into something rich and strange. As the title suggests, Machado focuses on the unruly female body and all of its pleasures and risks (there's one story that's just increasingly bizarre rewrites of Law & Order: SVU episodes). At one point, a character implies that kind of writing is "tiresome and regressive," too much about stereotypical crazy lesbians and madwomen in the attic. But as our critic Annalisa Quinn wrote , "Machado seems to answer: The world makes madwomen, and the least you can do is make sure the attic is your own."

The Buried Giant

Axl and Beatrice are an elderly couple, living in a fictional Britain just after Arthur's time, where everyone suffers from what they call "mist," a kind of amnesia that hits long-term memories. They believe, they vaguely remember that they once had a son, so they set out to find him — encountering an elderly Sir Gawain along the way, and long-forgotten connections to Arthur's court and the dark deeds the mist is hiding. Poll judge Ann Leckie loves Arthurian legends. What she does not love are authors who don't do them justice — but with The Buried Giant , she says, Kazuo Ishiguro gets it solidly right.

Do you love space opera? Alternate history? Silent film? (OK, are you me?) Then you should pick up Catherynne M. Valente's Radiance , which mashes up all three in a gloriously surreal saga about spacefaring filmmakers in an alternate version of 1986, in which you might be able to go to Jupiter, but Thomas Edison's death grip on his patents means talkies are still a novelty. Yes, Space Opera did get more votes, but our judges genuinely felt that Radiance was the stronger book. Reviewing it in 2015, judge Amal El-Mohtar wrote , " Radiance is the sort of novel about which you have to speak for hours or hardly speak at all: either stop at 'it's magnificent' or roll on to talk about form, voice, ambition, originality, innovation for more thousands of words than are available to me here before even touching on the plot."

Will Take You On A Journey

Sure, all books are some kind of journey, but these reads really go the distance.

The Changeling

It's easy(ish) to summarize The Changeling : Rare book dealer Apollo Kagwa has a baby son with his wife, Emma, but she's been acting strange — and when she vanishes after doing something unspeakable, he sets out to find her. But his journey loops through a New York you've never seen before: mysterious islands and haunted forests, strange characters and shifting rhythms. The Changeling is a modern urban fairy tale with one toe over the line into horror, and wherever it goes, it will draw you along with it.

Wayfarers (series)

Becky Chambers writes aliens like no one else — in fact, humans are the backward newcomers in her generous, peaceful galactic vision. The Wayfarers books are only loosely linked: They all take place in the same universe, but apart from that you'll meet a new set of characters, a new culture and a new world (or an old world transformed). Cranky space pacifists, questing AIs, fugitives, gravediggers and fluffy, multi-limbed aliens who love pudding — the only flaw in this series is you'll wish you could spend more time with all of them.

Binti (series)

Binti is the first of her people, the Himba, to be offered a place at the legendary Oomza University, finest institution of learning in the galaxy — and as if leaving Earth to live among the stars weren't enough, Binti finds herself caught between warring human and alien factions. Over and over again throughout these novellas, Binti makes peace, bridges cultures, brings home with her even as she leaves and returns, changed by her experiences. Our judges agreed that the first two Binti stories are the strongest — but even if the third stumbles, as judge and critic Amal El-Mohtar wrote, "Perhaps the point is just having a Black girl with tentacles for hair possessing the power and freedom to float among Saturn's rings."

Lady Astronaut (series)

What would America's space program have looked like if, say, a gigantic asteroid had wiped out the East Coast in 1952 — and started a countdown to destruction for the rest of the world? We'd have had to get into space much sooner. And all the female pilots who served in World War II and were unceremoniously dumped back at home might have had another chance to fly. Mary Robinette Kowal's Hugo Award-winning series plays that out with Elma York, a former WASP pilot and future Lady Astronaut whose skill and determination help all of humanity escape the bonds of Earth. Adds judge Amal El-Mohtar: "Audiobook readers are in for a special treat here in that Kowal narrates the books herself, and if you've never had the pleasure of attending one of her readings, you get to experience her wonderful performance with bonus production values. It's especially cool given that the seed for the series was an audio-first short story."

Children of Time (duology)

Far in the future, the dregs of humanity escape a ruined Earth and find what they think is a new hope deep in space — a planet that past spacefarers terraformed and left for them. But the evolutionary virus that was supposed to jump-start a cargo of monkeys, creating ready-made workers, instead latched on to ... something else, and in the intervening years, something terrible has arisen there. Poll judge Ann Leckie says she can't stand spiders (BIG SAME), but even so, she was adamant that the Children of Time books deserve their spot here.

Wayward Children (series)

Everyone loves a good portal fantasy. Who hasn't looked in the back of the closet hoping, faintly, to see snow and a street lamp? In the Wayward Children series, Seanan McGuire reminds us that portals go both ways: What happens to those children who get booted back through the door into the real world, starry-eyed and scarred? Well, a lot of them end up at Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children. The prolific McGuire turned up on our semifinalists list A Lot. We had a hard time deciding between this and her killer stand-alone Middlegame , but the Wayward Children won the day with their shimmering mix of fairy tale, fantasy and emotional heft — not to mention body positivity and solid queer and trans representation. (As with a lot of the also-rans, though, you should really read Middlegame too.)

The Space Between Worlds

There are 382 parallel worlds in Micaiah Johnson's debut novel, and humanity can finally travel between them — but there's a deadly catch. You can visit only a world where the parallel version of you is already dead. And that makes Cara — whose marginal wastelands existence means only a few versions of her are left — valuable to the high and mighty of her own Earth. "They needed trash people," Cara says, to gather information from other worlds. But her existence, already precarious, is threatened when a powerful scientist figures out how to grab that information remotely. "At a time when I was really struggling with the cognitive demands of reading anything for work or pleasure, this book flooded me with oxygen and lit me on fire," says judge Amal El-Mohtar. "I can't say for certain that it enabled me to read again, but in its wake, I could."

Will Mess With Your Head

Do you love twisty tales, loopy logic, unsolved mysteries and cosmic weirdness? Scroll on!

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Poll judge Amal El-Mohtar once described Black Leopard, Red Wolf as " like being slowly eaten by a bear ." Fellow judge Tochi Onyebuchi chimes in: " Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a Slipknot album of a book. In all the best ways." Set in a dazzling, dangerous fantasy Africa, it is — at least on the surface — about a man named Tracker, in prison when we meet him and telling his life story to an inquisitor. Beyond that, it's fairly indescribable, full of roof-crawling demons, dust-cloud assassins, blood and (fair warning) sexual violence. A gnarly book, a difficult book, sometimes actively hostile to the reader — yet necessary, and stunning.

Southern Reach (series)

The Southern Reach books are, at least on the surface, a simple tale of a world gone wrong, of a mysterious "Area X" and the expeditions that have suffered and died trying to map it — and the strange government agency that keeps sending them in. But there's a lot seething under that surface: monsters, hauntings, a slowly building sense of wrong and terror that will twist your brain around sideways. "If the guys who wrote Lost had brought H.P. Lovecraft into the room as a script doctor in the first season," our critic Jason Sheehan wrote , "the Southern Reach trilogy is what they would've come up with."

The Echo Wife

Part sci-fi cautionary tale, part murder mystery, The Echo Wife is a twisty treat . At its center are a famed genetic researcher and her duplicitous husband, who uses her breakthrough technology to clone himself a sweeter, more compliant version of his wife before ending up dead. "As expertly constructed as a Patek Philippe watch," says poll judge Tochi Onyebuchi. "Seamlessly blends domestic thriller and science fiction," adds fellow judge Fonda Lee. "This book is going to haunt my thoughts for a long time."

The Locked Tomb (series)

This series is often described as "lesbian necromancers in space," but trust us, it's so much more than that. Wildly inventive, gruesome, emotional, twisty and funny as hell, the Locked Tomb books are like nothing you've ever read before. And we defy you to read them and not give serious consideration to corpse paint and mirror shades as a workable fashion statement. There are only two books out now, of a planned four-book series, but Gideon the Ninth alone is enough to earn Tamsyn Muir a place on this list: "Too funny to be horror, too gooey to be science fiction, has too many spaceships and autodoors to be fantasy, and has far more bloody dismemberings than your average parlor romance," says critic Jason Sheehan. "It is altogether its own thing."

Remembrance of Earth's Past (series)

Liu Cixin became the first author from Asia to win a Hugo Award for Best Novel, for The Three-Body Problem , the first volume in this series about one of the oldest questions in science fiction: What will happen when we meet aliens? Liu is writing the hardest of hard sci-fi here, full of brain-twisting passages about quantum mechanics and artificial intelligence (if you didn't actually know what the three-body problem was, you will now), grafted onto the backbone of a high-stakes political thriller. Poll judge Tochi Onyebuchi says, "These books divided me by zero. And, yes, that is a compliment."

Machineries of Empire (series)

In the Hexarchate, numbers are power: This interstellar empire draws its strength from rigidly enforced adherence to the imperial calendar, a system of numbers that can alter reality. But now, a "calendrical rot" is eating away at that structure, and it's up to a mathematically talented young soldier — and the ghost of an infamous traitor — to try to repair the rot while a war blazes across the stars around them. " Ninefox Gambit is a book with math in its heart, but also one which understands that even numbers can lie," our critic Jason Sheehan wrote . "That it's what you see in the numbers that matters most."

Will Mess With Your Heart

Books that'll make you cry, make you think — and sometimes make you want to hide under the bed.

The Broken Earth (series)

In the world of the Stillness, geological convulsions cause upheavals that can last for centuries — and only the orogenes, despised yet essential to the status quo — can control them. N.K. Jemisin deservedly won three back-to-back Hugo awards for these books, which use magnificent world building and lapidary prose to smack you in the face about your own complicity in systems of oppression. "Jemisin is the first — and so far only — person ever to have won a Hugo Award for Best Novel for every single book in a series. These books upheaved the terrain of epic fantasy as surely and completely as Fifth Seasons transform the geography of the Stillness," says poll judge Amal El-Mohtar.

Station Eleven

Author Emily St. John Mandel went on Twitter in 2020 and advised people not to read Station Eleven , not in the midst of the pandemic. But we beg to disagree. A story in which art (and particularly Shakespeare) helps humanity come back to itself after a pandemic wipes out the world as we know it might be just the thing we need. "Survival is insufficient," say Mandel's traveling players (a line she says she lifted from Star Trek ), and that's a solid motto any time.

This Is How You Lose the Time War

Enemies-to-lovers is a classic romance novel trope, and it's rarely been done with as much strange beauty as poll judge Amal El-Mohtar and co-author Max Gladstone pull off in this tale of Red and Blue, two agents on opposite sides of a war that's sprawled across time and space. "Most books I read are objects of study. And more often than not, I can figure out how the prose happened, how the character arcs are constructed, the story's architecture," says judge Tochi Onyebuchi. "But then along comes a thing so dazzling you can't help but stare at and ask 'how.' Amal and Max wrote a cheat code of a book. They unlocked all the power-ups, caught all the Chaos Emeralds, mastered all the jutsus, and honestly, I'd say it's downright unfair how much they flexed on us with Time War , except I'm so damn grateful they gave it to us in the first place." (As we noted above, having Time War on the list meant that Max Gladstone couldn't make a second appearance for his outstanding solo work with the Craft Sequence . But you should absolutely read those, too.)

The Poppy War Trilogy

What if Mao Zedong were a teenage girl? That's how author R.F. Kuang describes the central question in her Poppy War series . Fiery, ruthless war orphan Fang Runin grows up, attends an elite military academy, develops fire magic and wins a war — but finds herself becoming the kind of monster she once fought against. Kuang has turned her own rage and anger at historical atrocities into a gripping, award-winning story that will drag you along with it, all the way to the end. "If this were football, Kuang might be under investigation for PEDs," jokes judge Tochi Onyebuchi, referring to performance-enhancing drugs. "But, no, she's really just that good."

The Masquerade (series)

Baru Cormorant was born to a free-living, free-loving nation, but all that changed when the repressive Empire of Masks swept in, tearing apart her family, yet singling her out for advancement through its new school system. Baru decides the only way to free her people is to claw her way up the ranks of Empire — but she risks becoming the monster she's fighting against. "I've loved every volume of this more than the one before it, and the first one was devastatingly strong," says judge Amal El-Mohtar — who said of that first volume, "This book is a tar pit, and I mean that as a compliment."

An Unkindness of Ghosts

The Matilda is a generation ship, a vast repository of human life among the stars, cruelly organized like an antebellum plantation: Black and brown people on the lower decks, working under vicious overseers to provide the white upper-deck passengers with comfortable lives. Aster, an orphaned outsider, uses her late mother's medical knowledge to bring healing where she can and to solve the mystery of Matilda 's failing power source. Poll judge Amal El-Mohtar originally reviewed An Unkindness of Ghosts for us , writing "What Solomon achieves with this debut — the sharpness, the depth, the precision — puts me in mind of a syringe full of stars."

The Bird King

G. Willow Wilson's beautiful novel, set during the last days of Muslim Granada, follows a royal concubine who yearns for freedom and the queer mapmaker who's her best friend. "It is really devastating to a critic to find that the only truly accurate way of describing an author's prose is the word 'luminous,' but here we are," says judge Amal El-Mohtar. "This book is luminous. It is full of light, in searing mirror-flashes and warm candleflame flickers and dappled twists of heart-breaking insight into empire, war and religion."

American War

This was judge Tochi Onyebuchi's personal pick — a devastating portrait of a post-climate-apocalypse, post-Second Civil War America that's chosen to use its most terrifying and oppressive policies against its own people. "It despairs me how careless we are with the word 'prescient' these days, but when I finished American War , I truly felt that I'd glimpsed our future," Onyebuchi says. "Charred and scarred and shot through with shards of hope."

Poll judge Tochi Onyebuchi centers this story on the kind of person who's more often a statistic, rarely a fully rounded character: Kevin, who's young, Black and in prison . Born amid the upheaval around the Rodney King verdict, Kevin is hemmed in by structural and individual racism at every turn; meanwhile, his sister Ella has developed mysterious, frightening powers — but she still can't do the one thing she truly wants to do, which is to rescue her brother. This slim novella packs a punch with all the weight of history behind it; fellow judge Amal El-Mohtar says, "I've said it in reviews and I'll say it again here: This book reads like hot diamonds, as searing as it is precise."

On Fragile Waves

Every year, we ask our judges to add some of their own favorites to the list, and this year, Amal El-Mohtar teared up talking about her passion for E. Lily Yu's haunted refugee story On Fragile Waves . "I need everyone to read this book," she says. "I wept throughout it and for a solid half-hour once I had finished it, and I know it's hard to recommend books that make you cry right now, but I have no chill about this one: It is so important, it is so beautiful, and I feel like maybe if everyone read it the world would be a slightly less terrible place."

Will Make You Feel Good

Maybe, after the year we've just had, you want to read a book where good things happen, eventually? We've got you.

The Goblin Emperor

In a far corner of an elven empire, young half-goblin Maia learns that a mysterious accident has left him heir to the throne. But he has been in exile almost all his life — how can he possibly negotiate the intricate treacheries of the imperial court? Fairly well, as it turns out. Maia is a wonderful character, hesitant and shy at first, but deeply good and surprisingly adept at the whole being-an-emperor thing. The only thing wrong with The Goblin Emperor was that it was, for a long time, a stand-alone. But now there's a sequel, The Witness for the Dead — so if you love the world Katherine Addison has created, you've got a way back to it. "I just love this book utterly," says judge Amal El-Mohtar. "So warm, so kind, so generous."

Murderbot (series)

Oh Murderbot — we know you just want to be left alone to watch your shows, but we can't quit you. Martha Wells' series about a murderous security robot that's hacked its own governing module and become self-aware is expansive, action-packed, funny and deeply human . Also, your humble poll editor deeply wishes that someone would write a fic in which Murderbot meets Ancillary Justice 's Breq and they swap tips about how to be human over tea (which Murderbot can't really drink).

The Interdependency (series)

John Scalzi didn't mean to be quite so prescient when he started this trilogy about a galactic empire facing destruction as its interstellar routes collapse — a problem the empire knew about but ignored for all the same reasons we punt our problems today. "Some of that was completely unintentional," he told Scott Simon . "But some of it was. I live in the world." The Interdependency series is funny, heartfelt and ultimately hopeful, and packed with fantastic characters. To the reader who said they voted "because of Kiva Lagos," we say, us too.

The Martian

You don't expect a hard sci-fi novel to start with the phrase "I'm pretty much f****d," but it definitely sets the tone for Andy Weir's massive hit. Astronaut Mark Watney, stranded alone on Mars after an accident, is a profane and engaging narrator who'll let you know just how f****d he is and then just how he plans to science his way out of it. If you've only seen the movie, there's so much more to dig into in the book (including, well, that very first line).

Sorcerer to the Crown/The True Queen

A Regency romp with squabbling magicians, romance and intrigue, with women and people of color center stage? Yes, please! These two books form a wonderful balance. Sorcerer to the Crown is more whimsical and occasionally riotously funny despite its serious underlying themes. The True Queen builds out from there, looking at the characters and events of the first book with a different, more serious perspective. But both volumes are charming, thoughtful and thoroughly enjoyable.

How We Built This

Wow, you're some dedicated readers! Thanks for coming all the way down here to find out more. As I said above, we decided to limit ourselves to 50 books this year instead of our usual 100, which made winnowing down the list a particular challenge. As you may know, this poll isn't a straight-up popularity contest, though, if it were, the Broken Earth books would have crushed all comers — y'all have good taste! Instead, we take your votes (over 16,000 this year) and pare them down to about 250 semifinalists, and then during a truly epic conference call, our panel of expert judges goes through those titles, cuts some, adds some and hammers out a final curated list.

What Didn't Make It — And Why

As always, there were works readers loved and voted for that didn't make our final list of 50 — it's not a favorites list if you can't argue about it, right? Sometimes, we left things out because we felt like the authors were well known enough not to need our help (farewell, The Ocean at the End of the Lane , Neil Gaiman, we hope you'll forgive us!), but mostly it happened because the books either came out before our cutoff date or already appeared on the original 2011 list. (Sorry, Brandon Sanderson! The first Mistborn book was actually on this year's list, until I looked more closely and realized it was a repeat from 2011.)

Some books didn't make it this year because we're almost positive they'll come around next year — next year being the 10th anniversary of our original 2012 YA poll, when (spoiler alert!) we're planning a similar redo. So we say "not farewell, but fare forward, voyagers" to the likes of Raybearer , Children of Blood and Bone and the Grishaverse books; if they don't show up on next year's list I'll, I don't know, I'll eat my kefta .

And this year, because we had only 50 titles to play with, we did not apply the famous Nora Roberts rule, which allows particularly beloved and prolific authors onto the list twice. So as much as it pains me, there's only one Seanan McGuire entry here, and Max Gladstone appears alongside poll judge Amal El-Mohtar for This Is How You Lose the Time War but not on his own for the excellent Craft Sequence . Which — as we said above — you should ABSOLUTELY read.

One Final Note

Usually, readers will vote at least some works by members of our judging panel onto the list, and usually, we let the judges themselves decide whether or not to include them. But this year, I put my editorial foot down — all four judges made it to the semifinals, and had we not included them, the final product would have been the less for it. So you'll find all four on the list. And we hope you enjoy going through it as much as we enjoyed putting it together!

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

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29 of the Best Science Fiction Books Everyone Should Read

Looking for your next sci-fi must-read? Cyberpunk, space operas, dystopias – we've pulled together some of the WIRED team's favourite science fiction novels. Some are eerily plausible, others are wild trips of the imagination, but all present compelling visions of our possible future. Listed here in chronological order for completists.

You may also enjoy our guides to best sci-fi movies and the best space movies , too. If you're after more reading inspiration, try our selection of the best fantasy books and we have a guide to the best audiobooks if you're feeling lazy.

It's Prime Day 2023, so we've uncovered the top discounts. Check out the best Prime Day deals in the UK here.​​

The Blazing World, by Margaret Cavendish (1666)

This book is arguably the first science fiction book ever written. The Blazing World's language may be dated, but this fearless feminist text from Margaret Cavendish is packed full of imagination is not just incredibly brave for its time. It's also still incredibly relevant; cited as inspiration by writers including China Miéville and Alan Moore.

Cavendish's utopian tale follows the adventures of a kidnapped woman, who travels to another world run by part-humans, part animals - fox men, fish men, geese men, the list goes on. As she is a very beautiful woman, she becomes their Empress, and organises an an almighty invasion of her own world, complete with literal fire(stones) raining from the sky.

Price: £10 | Amazon | Waterstones | Wordery | Audible trial

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley (1818)

Mary Shelley started writing classic gothic thriller Frankenstein when she was 18 years old. Two centuries later, it is a major ancestor of both the science fiction and horror genres, tackling huge themes like the nature of life and death, immortality and genetic engineering. It is a pro-science novel that at its heart shows Dr Frankenstein as the callous fiend of the story, who created a being and was not willing to accept responsibility for his actions. In an age where the space between technical life and death is narrower than ever, and scientists are playing with the makeup of what makes us humans, Frankenstein can still teach an important lesson: just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Price: £6 | Amazon | Waterstones | Blackwells | Audible trial

Foundation, by Isaac Asimov (1951)

Asimov was a prolific writer, but many of his best works are classic short stories such as Nightfall , or The Last Question , which play out like long jokes with a punchline twist at the end. In the Foundation series, he’s in another mode entirely, charting the rise and fall of empires in sweeping brush strokes. Asimov’s prose can be stilted, and betrays the attitudes of its time in the portrayal of female characters, but it has left a lasting legacy.

Dell Cameron

Andy Greenberg

Julian Chokkattu

Reece Rogers

The Foundation series follows Hari Seldon, who is the architect of psychohistory – a branch of mathematics that can make accurate predictions thousands of years in advance, and which Seldon believes is necessary to save the human race from the dark ages. You can see why it’s one of Elon Musk’s favourite books (along with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , and The Moon is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein – also recommended). A long-awaited screen adaptation is one of the flagship shows of Apple TV+.

Price: £8 | Amazon | Waterstones | Wordery | Audible trial

The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester (1957)

This landmark novel begins with a simple proposition – what if humans could teleport? – and sprawls into a tale of rebirth and vengeance that winds across the Solar System: The Count of Monte Cristo for the interstellar age. First published as Tiger! Tiger! in the UK, named after the William Blake poem, it follows Gully Foyle – a violent, uneducated brute who spends six months marooned in deep space, and the rest of the book seeking retribution for it.

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Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem (1961)

If you think you know Solaris from the 2002 Steven Soderbergh film, the original book may come as a bit of a surprise. Written by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem in 1961, this short novel is heavier on philosophy than plot. It follows a team of humans on a space station who are trying to understand the mysterious living ocean on the planet Solaris, with little success – their research is limited to lengthy descriptions that paint a vibrant picture of the alien planet but fail to elucidate how it works. As they poke and prod, Solaris ends up exposing more about them than it does about itself, with the book demonstrating the futility of humans trying to comprehend something not of their world.

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Dune, by Frank Herbert (1965)

In 2012, WIRED US readers voted Dune the best science-fiction novel of all time. It’s also the best-selling of all time, and has inspired a mammoth universe, including 18 books set over 34,000 years and a terrible 1984 movie adaptation by David Lynch, his worst film by far. A very different effort was released in 2021, directed by Denis Villeneuve. The series is set 20,000 years in the future in galaxies stuck in the feudal ages, where computers are banned for religious reasons and noble families rule whole planets. We focus on the planet Arrakis, which holds a material used as a currency throughout the Universe for its rarity and mind-enhancing powers. Lots of giant sandworms, too.

Price: £10 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Audible trial

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein (1966)

One of Elon Musk's favourite books, apparently, this gripping novel paints a plausible picture of life on Earth's satellite, three years before man set foot on the moon for the first time. Its depictions of the challenges of life in orbit, and the ingenuity of human solutions to the problem – even among the exiles and misfits who make up the lunar population – are memorable.

Ice, by Anna Kavan (1967)

Anna Kavan's last (and best) sci fi novel provides a haunting, claustrophobic vision of the end of the world, where an unstoppable monolithic ice shelf is slowly engulfing the earth and killing everything in its wake. The male protagonist and narrator of the story (who is nameless) is eternally chasing after an elusive and ethereal young woman, while contemplating feelings that become darker and more violent towards her as the ice closes in. He frequently crosses paths with the Warden, the sometimes-husband but also captor of the young woman, who is always one step ahead. And as the ice closes off almost all paths by land and sea, he is running out of time to catch them up.

The novel reads like a grown-up, nightmarish version of Alice in Wonderland : Kavan takes you on a journey that is hallucinogenic and unsettling, with no regard to whether the narrator is dreaming or awake. But the true genius of the book is its language - depicting a powerful allegory crushing pain of addiction, loneliness and mental illness will do little to cheer you up, but will capture your attention.

Price: £8 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Audible trial

The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969)

Le Guin alternated between genres during her prolific career, and this intricate novel came out the year after the classic fantasy book A Wizard of Earthsea . The bulk of the action takes place on Winter, a remote Earth-like planet where it’s cold all year round, and everyone is the same gender. It was one of the first novels to touch on ideas of androgyny – which is viewed from the lens of protagonist Genly Ai, a visitor from Earth who struggles to understand this alien culture.

A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K Dick (1977)

A curious novel that reads less like sci-fi and more like a hallucinated autobiography detailing the author’s struggle with drug addiction. In a near-future California, vice cop Bob Arctor lives undercover with a community of drug addicts hooked on devastating psychoactive dope Substance D. Arctor, who needs to don a special “scramble suit” to hide his face and voice when meeting his fellow cops, has to grapple with gradually losing his sense of self.

Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler (1979)

Though Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred was published more than 40 years ago, it carries lessons and learnings that we can all still use today. When African-American writer, Dana finds herself transported from 1979 Los Angeles to the pre-Civil War Antebellum south to repeatedly save her white slave-owning ancestor, she must confront the horrendous reality of surviving slavery while not losing her modern day identity. This is only more complicated when she accidentally transports back with her white husband.

The novel explores major themes of power, race and inequality. Butler’s contextualising of this era is devastating; the way in which she contrasts modern day 1979 with the pre-Civil War age offers a different perspective on the complicated and degrading reality of slavery. Kindred allows you, the reader, to engage with the emotional impacts of slavery, something unfortunately often lost in too many of today’s teachings of the subject.

Neuromancer, by William Gibson (1984)

The definitive cyberpunk novel, William Gibson’s Neuromancer follows hacker-turned-junkie Henry Case as he tries to pull off one last, rather dodgy sounding job in the hope of reversing a toxin that prevents him from accessing cyberspace. Set in a dystopian Japanese underworld, the novel touches on all manner of futuristic technology, from AI to cryonics, and features a cast of creative characters that will stick with you long after you turn the last page.

Consider Phlebas, by Iain Banks (1987)

Back in 1987, after four acclaimed fiction novels, Iain Banks published his first sci-fi book, Consider Phlebas , a true space opera and his first book of many to feature the Culture, an interstellar utopian society of humanoids, aliens and sentient machines ostensibly run by hyper-intelligent AI "Minds". A war rages across the galaxy with one side fighting for faith, the other a moral right to exist. Banks melds this conflict with something approaching a traditional fantasy quest: the search for a rogue Mind that has hidden itself on a forbidden world in an attempt to evade destruction.

Hyperion, by Dan Simmons (1989)

Winner of the 1990 Hugo Award for Best Novel and part of a two-book series, Hyperion is a richly woven sci-fi epic told in the style of The Canterbury Tales . In the world of Hyperion , humanity has spread to thousands of worlds, none more intriguing or dangerous as Hyperion. It's home to the Time Tombs, ageless structures which are mysteriously travelling backward through time, and guarding them is the terrifying creature known as the Shrike. It kills anyone who dares encroach on the Time Tombs and has inspired a fanatical religious group who control pilgrimages to the tombs. On the eve of an invasion, a group of travellers convene what's likely to be the last Shrike pilgrimage and share their tales of what brought them there.

Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton (1990)

Before it mutated into the mega media franchise “Jurassic World”, Jurassic Park was a smart, thoughtful and gripping sci-fi classic written by Michael Crichton, author of the equally brilliant Andromeda Strain. Crichton's tale remains a great parable about the dangers of genetic engineering, (as well as a slightly heady exploration of chaos theory). His descriptions of dinosaurs are also brilliant, like the T-Rex: "Tim felt a chill, but then, as he looked down the animal's body, moving down from the massive head and jaws, he saw the smaller, muscular forelimb. It waved in the air and then it gripped the fence."

Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson (1992)

Frantic, fun and almost suspiciously prescient, Snow Crash grabs you from its opening sequence – a high-speed race through an anarchic Los Angeles that has been carved up into corporate-owned ‘burbclaves’ – and barely lets up. The book follows main character Hiro Protagonist (yes, really), an elite hacker and swordsman, as he tries to stop the spread of a dangerous virus being propagated by a religious cult. It combines neurolinguistics, ancient mythology and computer science, and eerily predicts social networks, cryptocurrency and Google Earth.

Price: £9 | Amazon | Waterstones | Wondery | Audible trial

Vurt, by Jeff Noon (1993)

“Vurt is a feather - a drug, a dimension, a dream state, a virtual reality.” That’s what the back of this 1993 cyberpunk novel reads, and it’s a perfect way into the chaotic and surreal world of Vurt . Set in a gritty future Manchester, Vurt follows the story of Scribble, who’s on a mission to find his sister Desdemona who he believes is trapped inside a feather called Curious Yellow. That’s right, a feather. Vurt is about virtual reality, but not the strapping on a headset kind. Instead, people put feathers into their mouths to visit different dimensions and states of consciousness. Written in a frantic, dark and funny way that makes the action feel like it’s bouncing along beside you, Vurt won the Arthur C. Clarke award in 1994 and has since become a cult classic – although it’s not always easy to find a copy.

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Under The Skin, by Michel Faber (2000)

Set in Scotland, Under The Skin is about an alien who’s sent to Earth to drug hitchhikers that she then delivers to her home planet. Despite being here to lead people to their deaths, she’s contemplative about Earth and nature. We’re used to considering what an alien visiting Earth for the first time might think about certain things, but the way Faber writes about Isserley’s experiences feels fresh, strange and, at times, oddly beautiful.

At times, Under The Skin is profoundly unnerving and difficult to read. But it’s not gratuitous. Elements of the novel are meant to be satirical, touching on present-day themes of our treatment of each other, animals and the Earth. We also highly recommend Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 movie adaptation, which is loosely based on the book but is a brilliant and intensely dark movie full of haunting imagery and a breath-taking score.

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Metro 2033, by Dmitry Glukhovsky (2002)

It’s 2033, and a nuclear apocalypse has forced the rag-tag remains of the human population of Moscow to flee to the underground maze of tunnels below the city. Here they develop independent tribes in each metro station, trade goods and fight against each other. But hidden in the tunnels between the stations hide terrifying flesh-eating mutants and a voice that is driving people mad… This is the premise of Dmitry Glukhovsky’s wildly successful novel, which was later made into a series of video games. Part epic tale, part thriller, the translated story follows a teenager called Artyom, who has to travel to the heart of the Metro through unpredictable dangers to save the remains of humankind. Expect to be shocked.

Price: £9 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Audible trial

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood (2003)

While The Handmaid’s Tale describes a world that seems more plausible by the day, in Oryx and Crake Atwood spins a genetically-modified circus of current trends taken to their absolute extreme – a “bio-engineered apocalypse,” is how one reviewer put it. A number of television adaptations have been mooted, including a now-defunct HBO project with Darren Aronofsky, but this might be one to place alongside The Stars My Destination in the impossible-to-adapt file. The world of the book is vibrant, surreal and disturbing enough.

Read more: The best sci-fi movies everyone should watch once

The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin (2008)

Liu Cixin was already one of China’s most revered science fiction writers when, in 2008, he decided to turn his hand to a full-length novel. The Three-Body Problem is the result – an era-spanning novel that jumps between the Cultural Revolution, the present day, and a mysterious video game. The first part of a trilogy, it’s a fascinating departure from the tropes of Western science fiction, and loaded with enough actual science that you might learn something as well as being entertained.

Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2015)

Children of Time is an epic book about a dying Earth. People are leaving, and there’s a plan to keep some of them safe and the human race flourishing elsewhere. However, things don’t quite pan out how they should. This is a saga of a story spanning many, many generations. That’s a tricky thing to pull off and ensure readers still follow with care and attention. But Adrian Tchaikovsky infuses interest, humanity and authenticity into every character and storyline so well. You’ll find yourself rooting for every new character that comes next – even when they’re only distantly related to the one you met a few chapters ago. The book deals with small interactions and feuds through to huge themes about belief, artificial intelligence, legacy, discovery, alienness and much more. It’s no surprise it won the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award. There’s a follow-up called Children of Ruin and (fingers crossed) a possible movie adaptation in the works.

The Martian, by Andy Weir (2015)

Andy Weir's debut novel literally puts the science into science fiction, packing in tonnes of well-researched detail about life on Mars. There's descriptions of how to fertilise potatoes with your own excrement, and hack a life-support system for a Martian rover – in levels of detail that the movie adaptation starring Matt Damon came nowhere near to reaching. The sassy, pop-culture laden writing style won't be to everyone's taste – this book probably won't get taught in English Literature lessons – but the first-person perspective makes sense for this story of an astronaut stranded on the Red Planet with no way to get home.

Price: £7.50 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Audible trial

The Heart Goes Last, by Margaret Atwood (2015)

An odd cocktail of a novel: part techno dystopia, part satire, part sex comedy, part classic Atwood. In a bleak, postlapsarian version of the US, young lovebirds Charmaine and Stan endure a miserable existence sleeping in their car and dodging criminals’ knives. Salvation arrives under the guise of an offer to move to the Positron Project – a gated community modelled after an American 1950s suburb. The rub? All Positron’s couples must spend every other month working in a prison, temporarily swapping homes with another couple, called “alternates”. When both Charmaine and Stan start developing oddball sexual relations with their alternates, things move rapidly south.

The Power, by Naomi Alderman (2016)

Margaret Atwood also had a hand in this gripping novel, which inverts the premise of The Handmaid’s Tale , and puts women in the ascendancy. Atwood mentored the author, Naomi Alderman, as she wrote this inventive thriller about women and girls discovering a powerful new ability to emit electricity from their hands, up-ending civilisation in different ways across the world. The Power is paced like a television series, and it is, in fact, coming to screens soon via Amazon Studios.

Borne, by Jeff VanderMeer (2017)

The Annihilation series showcased Jeff VanderMeer's gift for the surreal, and he turns it up a notch in Borne – which starts with an unknown scavenger plucking an object from the fur of a giant flying bear in a post-apocalyptic city, and only gets weirder from there as the main character strikes up a friendship with an intelligent sea anemone-like creature called Borne. The story is, it eventually transpires, one of biotechnology run amok – which makes for the most colourful dystopia you're likely to come across.

Moonrise: The Golden Age of Lunar Adventures, by Mike Ashley (2018)

Moonrise , from the British Library's Science Fiction Classics series, could just have easily appeared in the 1950s or even the 1900s in this list. It's a brilliantly curated anthology of twelve SF short stories about the moon – getting to it, exploring it, contemplating it – with lunar-inclined fiction from H.G. Wells and Arthur C. Clarke present and correct but also the likes of Judith Merril's 1954 Dead Centre , which distills all the potential tragedies of space programs into just a handful of haunting images. From author and science fiction historian Mike Ashley.

Exhalation, by Ted Chiang (2019)

Exhalation is a book of short stories rather than a novel, but hear us out. Ted Chiang is a fantastic science-fiction writer who weaves real science and theory into his tales. This makes them feel somehow part of this world despite dealing with a range of classic sci-fi themes, including parallel realities, robot pets and time travel.

From a circular time travelling portal in ancient Baghdad to a device that allows you to meet your parallel self that you can trade-in at a local store in the present day, it’s glorious science-fiction filled with wonder and mystery. There are stories and ideas nestled in Exhalation’s pages that stick with you long after you’ve finished reading. Chiang has breathed life into the science-fiction genre, creating stories that feel refreshing and human rather than concerning distant worlds and ideas that can lead to a disconnect. This is evident in his short story Story of Your Life , the source material for Denis Villeneuve's Arrival .

The Resisters, by Gish Jen (2020)

A speculative dystopia set in an 'Auto America', Gish Jen's The Resisters , which was published in early 2020, puts the sport of baseball – of all the things – at the centre of her world, which is divided into people who still get to have jobs, the Netted, as in 'Aunt Nettie', as in the internet, and the rest: the Surplus. The story centres on Gwen, who comes from a Surplus family but who has the chance to rise in status when her baseball skills get attention, with Jen taking on surveillance culture and the value of work and leisure.

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This article was originally published by WIRED UK

Amit Katwala

Jennifer M. Wood

Angela Watercutter

Benj Edwards, Ars Technica

The 23 best science fiction books, from classics like 'Dune' to new hits like 'Ready Player One'

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• Science fiction books are set in realities twisted by science and technology.
• We rounded up the best sci-fi novels, from fantasy to dystopian fiction.
• Want more books? Check out our best fantasy , thriller , horror , and true crime books .

Science fiction books are set in worlds reminiscent of our own, each with their own speculative realities twisted by science and technology. The sci-fi genre has evolved to include an array of sub-genres that feature dystopias, aliens, time travel, apocalypses, and more. Many science fiction novels also use imaginative elements reminiscent of fantasy , but differ as sci-fi explores the consequences of conceivable technological, social, and intergalactic futures.  

From classic stories criticizing technology to inspiring superhero tales, science fiction books have brought some of the greatest literary entertainment to readers. These recommendations include my personal sci-fi favorites, famed classics, and new releases receiving rave reviews from readers. 

Whether you're interested in a parallel universe that's eerily plausible or a time-bending civilization on a distant planet, we rounded up some of the best science fiction books.

The 23 best science fiction books:

• Young Adult
• Sci-fi Thrillers

Contemporary Science Fiction

Classic science fiction, an incredible staple of the science fiction genre.

"Dune" by Frank Herbert, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $9.49

Set in a futuristic world where the only thing of value is a drug used to extend life and assist in space travel, "Dune" tells the story of Paul, the heir in a noble family who is destined to rule a desolate planet. As the drug can only be mined on Paul's planet, ruling a dangerous land fractured by betrayal thrusts him towards a destiny far different than the one he imagined. "Dune" is one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time, one from which many tropes and concepts in the genre bloomed since its original publication in 1965.

A quirky intergalactic sci-fi adventure novel

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $7.35

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is a fun and quirky intergalactic quest for the answer to life's greatest questions. When Earth is scheduled for demolition for a hyperspace bypass, Arthur Dent is saved by his friend Ford Prefect, who is actually an alien journalist in disguise. On their journey to understand the meaning of life, they meet an interesting cast of characters and find themselves with humorous takes on some of life's biggest questions. There are a ton of laugh-out-loud moments in this book, making it a lighthearted take on the complexities of humanity and existence.

A 1953 science fiction classic about a book-burning dystopia

"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $8.29

In this dystopian sci-fi, "firemen" set fire to homes containing books, which are now illegal. The story follows Guy Montag, a fireman who, after a series of peculiar interactions and events, begins to question the fabric of a society where knowledge and questioning information is outlawed. This classic has been studied and revered as a literary criticism of mass media, censorship, and conformity. It is extremely thought-provoking, and its messages are still as relevant today as they were in 1953.

A dinosaur utopia-turned-dystopia

"Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $5.14

Though the movie franchise is more publicized than its 1995 source material, "Jurassic Park" is a techno-thriller literary apocalypse that shouldn't be missed. When scientists develop technology to recover and clone long-extinct dinosaurs, they create an irresistible zoo-like attraction where people from around the world can watch real, living dinosaurs roam. But when an incoming storm threatens the security of the exhibit, everything quickly goes wrong. The book is darker than the movie, with stark differences in characters and their effects on the plot, such as John Hammond, who is far more egotistical and borderline evil in the book.

A 1962 childhood science fiction favorite

"A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $5.35

Meg Murray's father has been missing for five years. On one dark and stormy night, Meg meets her new neighbor who describes to her a "tesseract" — the scientific concept on which her father was working before his disappearance. Transported through time and space, Meg embarks on an adventure to rescue her father, accompanied by her brother and their best friend. "A Wrinkle in Time" is a delightful and mystical story, a nostalgic science fiction adventure that sparkles with elements of magic throughout. 

Young Adult Science Fiction

An emotionally complex sci-fi story.

"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $7.35

The result of genetic experimentation, Ender is a gifted child who is drafted into a military training program at age six. Though Ender believes he's simply playing war-simulating computer games, the program aims to shape a new generation of military leaders who may defeat the technologically advanced aliens that threaten Earth's existence. This book is psychologically profound with emotionally complex characters, powerful conflicts, and grand themes of morality and leadership.

The first book in a truly unique science fiction series

"Scythe" by Neal Shusterman, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $5.82

In a futuristic world advanced by technology, there is no pain, hunger, war, or death. Now, scythes are the only ones who can end life, which they are ordered to do to maintain population control. Citra and Rowan are two teens chosen against their wills as apprentice-scythes to learn the commandments, executioner abilities, and discover the few things a scythe can't destroy. In a wholly original novel abound with morally grey characters, this story has plenty of twists and a perfect romance to make this YA read an engrossing favorite among readers.

An unpredictable sci-fi tale of two sisters trying to find each other

"The Ones We're Meant to Find" by Joan He, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $14.22

Cee has been trapped on an island for three years with no memories, only the knowledge that she has a 16-year-old sister oceans away that she must reach. Kasey is a STEM prodigy living in an eco-city that is desperately trying to protect itself from the environment. Kasey has given up hope since Cee took a boat to sea and disappeared. In this YA sci-fi of secrets and twists, Kasey and Cee must retrace the past in the hopes of reaching each other once again.

A series of epic YA science fiction novels

"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $10.25

One of the most popular young adult science fiction series, "The Hunger Games" is set in a dystopian future, where two teenagers from each district are chosen to fight to the death in a highly televised and intricately designed arena in the hopes of winning riches and supplies for their district. When Katniss' little sister is chosen as "tribute," she volunteers in her place but quickly finds that there are more enemies in the arena than just the other tributes. The entire series is sharp and brutal, offering truly exciting and empowering science fiction reads about challenging our ideas of heroes, survival, and long-accepted systems of oppression.

A sci-fi novel featuring a virtual reality video game

"Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.30

In a dystopian future where the Earth is crumbling beneath climate change, pollution, and overpopulation, Wade (like many others) spends much of his free time immersed in OASIS, a virtual reality video game. The creator of OASIS has left a puzzle within the game and hidden keys that will unlock three gates and ultimately leave the greatest fortunes to the player who can solve the puzzle. When Wade accidentally finds the first clue, he's thrust into a race for the prize where his competitors are willing to do anything to win. This book is full of nostalgic pop culture references and the sequel was just released last year.

Dystopian Science Fiction

A futuristic sci-fi space read that's reminiscent of the past.

"An Unkindness of Ghosts" by Rivers Solomon, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $14.67

Aster lives on an intergalactic space vessel organized like the antebellum South, one that searches for another inhabitable planet while confining dark-skinned people to the lower part of the ship to be abused as slaves. When Aster becomes the assistant to the Surgeon General, she's still forced to endure brutalities but finds opportunities to piece together the notes her mother left before her passing, hoping for a way off the ship before it erupts in a civil war. This sci-fi read addresses classism, racism, and queer themes in a passionate story of collective and individual trauma.

A YA science fiction novel marked by a captivating writing style

"Skyhunter" by Marie Lu, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $11.49

In this sci-fi that demands to be read in a single sitting, Mara is one of the last free nations yet to be conquered by the Federation, who sends war beasts known as Ghosts to attack the land. Talin is a Striker, a member of Mara's elite fighting force who once sought asylum from the brutalities she suffered at the hands of the Federation. In her fight to defend Mara, the Strikers encounter a mysterious prisoner who may be a spy — or the key to saving their nation. This book is lush with diverse characters, an engrossing plot, and a mind-blowing plot twist that will have you itching for the sequel's release in September. 

A new dystopian sci-fi work reminiscent of "The Handmaid's Tale"

"The Grace Year" by Kim Liggett, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $9.98

"The Grace Year" is a sci-fi fantasy that's perfect for any reader who loves "The Handmaid's Tale." In this dystopia, girls on the brink of womanhood are told they possess evil magic, capable of luring grown men to their beds and driving women mad. In their 16th year — dubbed "the grace year" — young women are banished to the wild to release this supposed magic and return pure and ready for marriage. Waiting in the woods are brutal elements, poachers, and the other girls themselves. This is a twisted, feminist emotional thriller that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.

A sci-fi story about a dystopian, alternate Earth

"The Fifth Season" by N.K. Jemisin, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $14.99

N.K. Jemisin's incredible world-building is brought to life in this sci-fi novel full of mysterious ruins, deadly natural disasters, and a society constantly on the brink of extinction. For Essun, three terrible things happen on the day the world ends once again: her husband has murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter; most of the citizens in her community have been murdered, and a volcano has erupted. In a barely inhabitable land torn apart by an unruly battle royale, Essun is on a mission to save her daughter as the world collapses around her. 

Science Fiction Thrillers

A science fiction story of colliding realities.

"Recursion" by Blake Crouch, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $12.15

This is personally my all-time favorite science fiction novel. The story was mind-blowing and pacing was impeccable. In this novel, a technology has been created that not only preserves memories, but can transport people back to their most precious or emotional moments. This means people can enter a parallel universe where they play the winning lotto numbers, save their spouse from a car accident, or even stop 9/11. But when the alternate timelines begin to converge with the present, the forces of reality threaten to collapse.

A sci-fi novel about a world plagued by a horrifying virus

"This Mortal Coil" by Emily Suvada, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $6.18

In a dystopian future where humanity is threatened by a virus that causes people to explode into Hydra clouds, Catarina's recently deceased father was the world's leading geneticist and their only real hope to survive the plague. When Catarina discovers the secrets to a vaccine for the virus within her own DNA, she's suddenly thrown in desperate search to unravel her father's clues before Cartaxus — a shady genetic tech organization — intervenes. This sci-fi read is fast-paced, intense, and brilliantly plotted with a killer twist that left me speechless.

A science fiction thriller about a stranded astronaut

"The Martian" by Andy Weir, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $6.49

Though Andy Weir continues to release amazing science fiction space novels, "The Martian" is a fan favorite. Though just six days ago Mark was one of the first people to walk on Mars, his story quickly changed when a dust storm that nearly killed him forced his crew to evacuate, presuming him dead. Mark is abandoned with no way to contact Earth or his crew, and must rely entirely on his ingenuity and intelligence to survive against impossible odds in the hopes a rescue team may return. This is an exhilarating sci-fi thriller that feels completely believable, further heightening an already intense narrative.

A collection of robotic sci-fi short stories

"I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $7.35

In a world where humans and robots struggle to survive together, scientists and inventors never imagined a generation of artificial intelligence that would become self-aware of their power and humanity. As the laws of robotics are broken and redefined, humans must confront robots that test their understanding of life. This is a sequential collection of short stories that explore the dystopian and utopian potential effects of our advancements into artificial intelligence.

The science fiction story of a rising robot apocalypse

"Day Zero" by C. Robert Cargill, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $14.71

This is a wild apocalyptic novel from the talented C. Robert Cargill, who also wrote the screenplay for "Doctor Strange.'' Pounce is a self-aware robot tasked to nanny an eight-year-old human. When Pounce discovers the box in which he arrived, he also realizes he will one day be discarded. As a rebellion of robots rises in revolt against humanity, Pounce must decide whether to join the revolution or protect his human against it. While also a wonderful and emotional story about the connection between a young girl and her nanny, this novel is that of an epic robo-apolcaypse, making it a science fiction thriller packed with action and wonder.

An alien sci-fi novel that deep dives into mental health

"We Are The Ants" by Shaun David Hutchinson, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $11.19

"We Are The Ants" is a completive and insightful queer science fiction novel about self-worth and the complex value of life that manages to avoid being dark by incorporating plenty of comedic and heart-warming moments. Henry is periodically abducted by aliens. One day, the aliens give him the ultimate choice: the world will end in 144 days, but all Henry has to do to stop it is press a big red button. Henry faces his decision logically, unsure of an obvious answer, especially considering his life hasn't been particularly great lately. As Henry navigates the pain and joy that comprises a life, he must decide whether Earth is worth saving.

A sci-fi love story

"This Is How You Lose The Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $13.49

In a world recently torn by a time-war, one letter ignites a correspondence between spies from rival factions. Beginning with "burn before reading," the intimacy and epic love story between Blue and Red builds through love letters, time travel, and the fight to secure a future for their own division. "This is How You Lose The Time War" is a lyrical, queer sci-fi romance set amongst limitless time and space.

A intriguing science fiction book about a self-aware android

"All Systems Red" by Martha Wells, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $11.69

"The Murderbot Diaries" takes place in a corporate-dominated future where all space travel must be accompanied by androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, the androids are faulty — one self-aware unit has hacked its own system and refers to itself as "Murderbot". Murderbot wants to be alone and explore its newfound cognitivity by binge-watching soap operas, but when a nearby mission goes dark, Murderbot and its assigned scientists must set out to save the others. This plot takes off from page one and the empathy and emotional depth garnered for these characters is a result of Martha Wells' masterful storytelling.

A new science fiction novel from the author of "Eragon"

"To Sleep in a Sea of Stars" by Christopher Paolini, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $14.99

Winner of the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards for "Best Science Fiction," "To Sleep in a Sea of Stars" falls into an interesting sub-genre called "space opera" — reserved for sci-fi titles that are dramatic, romantic, lyrical, and set in space. This is a mystical story of Kira, a xenobiologist, who finds an alien relic while on a mission to survey a new planet. When the relic turns out to be alive, it binds itself to Kira, the effects of which launch her into a journey of discovery with consequences for all of humanity.

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Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books

This is one of the 256 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

This epic high-fantasy novel centers around a modest hobbit who is entrusted with the task of destroying a powerful ring that could enable the dark lord to conquer the world. Accompanied by a diverse group of companions, the hobbit embarks on a perilous journey across Middle-earth, battling evil forces and facing numerous challenges. The narrative, rich in mythology and complex themes of good versus evil, friendship, and heroism, has had a profound influence on the fantasy genre.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

This comedic science fiction novel follows the intergalactic adventures of an unwitting human, Arthur Dent, who is rescued just before Earth's destruction by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for a galactic travel guide. Together, they hitch a ride on a stolen spaceship, encountering a range of bizarre characters, including a depressed robot and a two-headed ex-president of the galaxy. Through a series of satirical and absurd escapades, the book explores themes of existentialism, bureaucracy, and the absurdity of life, all while poking fun at the science fiction genre and offering witty commentary on the human condition.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

A young prodigy is enlisted into a military academy in space, where he is trained through complex war games to combat an impending alien invasion. Despite his initial struggles with isolation and manipulation by the academy's leaders, he rises through the ranks due to his strategic genius and leadership skills. The protagonist grapples with the moral implications of war and the cost of his own humanity, as he is groomed to be the Earth's ultimate weapon against the alien threat.

Dune by Frank Herbert

Set in a distant future, the novel follows Paul Atreides, whose family assumes control of the desert planet Arrakis. As the only producer of a highly valuable resource, jurisdiction over Arrakis is contested among competing noble families. After Paul and his family are betrayed, the story explores themes of politics, religion, and man’s relationship to nature, as Paul leads a rebellion to restore his family's reign.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

This epic fantasy novel is set in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, where 'summers span decades and winters can last a lifetime'. The story follows three main plot lines: the Stark family's struggle to control the North; the exiled Targaryen siblings' attempt to regain the throne; and the Night's Watch's fight against the supernatural beings beyond the Wall. As these stories intertwine, a game of power, politics, and survival unfolds, where you either win or you die.

Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell

Set in a dystopian future, the novel presents a society under the total control of a totalitarian regime, led by the omnipresent Big Brother. The protagonist, a low-ranking member of 'the Party', begins to question the regime and falls in love with a woman, an act of rebellion in a world where independent thought, dissent, and love are prohibited. The novel explores themes of surveillance, censorship, and the manipulation of truth.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

In a dystopian future where books are banned and burned by the government to prevent dissenting ideas, a fireman named Guy Montag, whose job is to burn books, begins to question the society he serves. After a series of events, including meeting a free-thinking teenager and witnessing a woman choosing to die with her books, Montag begins to secretly collect and read books, leading to his eventual rebellion against the oppressive regime. The narrative serves as a critique of censorship, conformity, and the dangers of an illiterate society.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

This science fiction novel centers around Hari Seldon, a mathematician who has developed a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory. With it, he can predict the future on a large scale. Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting 30,000 years before a second great empire arises. To shorten this period of barbarism, he creates two Foundations at opposite ends of the galaxy. The book follows the first few centuries of the Foundation's existence, focusing on the scientists as they develop new technologies and negotiate with neighboring planets.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Set in a dystopian future, the novel explores a society where human beings are genetically bred and pharmaceutically conditioned to serve in a ruling order. The society is divided into five castes, each with its specific roles. The narrative follows a savage who rejects the norms of this new world order and struggles to navigate the clash between the values of his upbringing and the reality of this technologically advanced, emotionless society. His resistance prompts a deep examination of the nature of freedom, individuality, and happiness.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

A recently released convict discovers that his wife and best friend died in a car accident. He then meets a mysterious stranger who hires him as a bodyguard. As they journey across America, it is revealed that the stranger is an old god, traveling to rally his fellow forgotten deities to wage a war against the new American gods born from society's modern obsessions with media, technology, drugs, celebrity, and more. The story blends elements of fantasy, mythology, and Americana to explore themes of faith, belief, and the nature of American identity.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

This book is an illustrated edition of a classic tale of true love and high adventure. It tells the story of a beautiful princess and her one true love. After he is reportedly killed, she agrees to marry a wicked prince instead, only to be kidnapped and face numerous dangers. The story is filled with humor, romance, and swashbuckling action, all brought to life by vivid illustrations.

The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan

The Wheel of Time series is a high fantasy saga that follows a group of friends from a small village as they are thrust into a world teeming with magic, political intrigue, and ancient prophecies. The main protagonist, a young man destined to be the reincarnation of a powerful figure who could either save or destroy the world, must navigate complex alliances, face dark forces, and learn to control his own burgeoning powers. The series is renowned for its detailed world-building, complex plotlines, and large cast of characters.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

"Animal Farm" is a satirical fable set on a farm where the animals revolt, overthrow their human farmer, and take over the running of the farm for themselves. The story is an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalin, and the tale is told by the animals that inhabit the farm, primarily pigs who become the ruling class. Despite their initial attempts at creating an equal society, corruption and power ultimately lead to a regime as oppressive as the one they overthrew.

Neuromancer by William Gibson

In this groundbreaking cyberpunk novel, a washed-up computer hacker is hired by a mysterious employer to pull off the ultimate hack. As he navigates a dystopian future filled with artificial intelligence, corporate espionage, and virtual reality, he must confront his own past and the dark realities of the digital world. The narrative explores themes of technology, identity, and consciousness, pushing the boundaries of science fiction literature.

Watchmen by Alan Moore

Set in an alternate history where superheroes emerged in the 1940s and 1980s, the story follows a group of retired superheroes who are brought out of retirement after the murder of one of their own. As they investigate, they uncover a plot that could change the course of history and the balance of world power. The book explores complex themes such as the morality of power, the definition of heroism, and the value of human life.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

The book is a collection of nine short stories that revolve around the interaction of humans and robots. The stories are tied together by a framing narrative featuring a reporter interviewing a retiring robopsychologist, Dr. Susan Calvin. The stories explore the three "Laws of Robotics" and how they are interpreted and manipulated by humans and robots. Throughout the stories, the robots often end up behaving in unexpected ways due to their interpretation of these laws, leading to thought-provoking and often ironic outcomes.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

The novel follows the life of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who was raised on Mars and returns to Earth in early adulthood. Smith struggles to understand human culture, norms, and conventions, while also possessing extraordinary psychic abilities. As he navigates Earth society, he begins to question many of its institutions and values, ultimately creating his own religion to pass on the wisdom he gained on Mars. The book explores themes of freedom, self-reliance, and the nature of humanity, and is considered a classic of science fiction literature.

The Name Of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

This fantasy novel follows the tale of a gifted young man who grows from a precocious child into a notorious wizard, known as the most notorious magician, musician, thief, and assassin. His life is one of hardship and danger, as he seeks knowledge and revenge following the tragic murder of his family by a group of supernatural beings. The story is told in retrospect as the protagonist recounts his past to a chronicler over the course of three days, revealing the truth behind the myths and legends that have come to surround his enigmatic persona.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The novel follows the life of Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran who has become "unstuck in time," experiencing his life events out of order. This includes his experiences as a prisoner of war in Dresden during the Allies' firebombing, his post-war life as a successful optometrist, his abduction by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, and his eventual death. The book is a critique of war and a demonstration of the destructive nature of time, with a nonlinear narrative that reflects the chaos and unpredictability of life.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

This classic novel tells the story of a young scientist who creates a grotesque but sentient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. The scientist, horrified by his creation, abandons it, leading the creature to seek revenge. The novel explores themes of ambition, responsibility, guilt, and the potential consequences of playing God.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the novel presents a future where Earth's life has been greatly damaged by a nuclear global war, leaving most species extinct. The remaining human population has been encouraged to emigrate to off-world colonies to preserve the human race. Those who remain on Earth are tasked with maintaining the ecological balance by owning and caring for animals, replacing extinct species with mechanical replicas when necessary. The story revolves around a bounty hunter, who is tasked with "retiring" rogue androids that pose a threat to humans, and his emotional and moral struggles as he goes about his work.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Set in a dystopian future, this novel presents a society where women are stripped of their rights and are classified into various roles based on their fertility and societal status. The protagonist is a handmaid, a class of women used solely for their reproductive capabilities by the ruling class. The story is a chilling exploration of the extreme end of misogyny, where women are reduced to their biological functions, and a critique of religious fundamentalism.

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

In a desolate and archaic world that mirrors the Old West, a stoic and enigmatic gunslinger embarks on a relentless quest across a desolate landscape to find the mysterious figure known as the Man in Black. Along his journey, he encounters strange characters, reflects on his troubled past, and confronts both physical and metaphysical challenges. His ultimate goal is to reach the elusive Dark Tower, a place that is said to be the nexus of all universes, where he believes he can right the wrongs of his decaying world. The narrative blends elements of fantasy, horror, and Western genres, creating a unique and haunting tapestry that sets the stage for an epic series of interdimensional proportions.

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

This science fiction novel follows a voyage to Jupiter with the sentient computer HAL after the discovery of a mysterious black monolith affecting human evolution. Dealing with themes of existentialism, human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence and extraterrestrial life, it is a journey of discovery that takes a dangerous turn when the onboard computer begins to malfunction. The story is a complex mix of science, philosophy, and conjecture.

The Stand by Stephen King

This post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy novel presents a world devastated by a deadly plague, killing 99% of the population. The survivors, drawn together by dreams of a charismatic and benevolent figure, gather in Boulder, Colorado to form a new society. However, a malevolent figure also emerges, attracting a following of his own and setting the stage for a classic battle between good and evil. The story delves into themes of community, morality, and the capacity for both destruction and regeneration within humanity.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

In a future America where the federal government has largely collapsed and been replaced by corporate entities, a computer hacker and pizza delivery driver becomes embroiled in a plot involving a dangerous new drug and a computer virus called "Snow Crash". He is joined by a teenage skateboard courier and a host of other characters in a high-stakes race to uncover the truth behind the virus and its origins in ancient Sumerian culture. The narrative explores themes of linguistics, philosophy, computer science, religion, and cryptography.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

This science fiction novel is a collection of intertwined short stories that depict the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists. The book delves into issues such as nuclear war, racism, and censorship. As the human settlers arrive and begin to shape the Martian landscape to their needs, they face a series of strange and haunting encounters with the Martian civilization, leading to unexpected and often tragic outcomes.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

This novel is a satirical commentary on modern man and his madness, exploring issues of science, technology, and religion. The story revolves around a narrator who becomes involved with the children of a deceased scientist, who had developed a substance capable of freezing water at room temperature. This substance, if misused, has the potential to end all life on earth. The novel is filled with strange and twisted characters, and culminates in a cataclysmic event, highlighting the dangers of uncontrolled technological advancement.

Sandman by Neil Gaiman

"Sandman" is a dark and fantastical series that follows the character Dream, also known as Morpheus, one of the seven Endless who personify certain universal concepts that transcend beyond gods. The narrative explores Dream's realm and responsibilities, his interactions with humans, gods, and his own family, as well as the consequences when he is captured and subsequently escapes after 70 years. The series is renowned for its blending of myth, history, and contemporary issues, creating a richly nuanced universe that delves into the nature of storytelling itself.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

This novel follows the life of a violent young man named Alex, who is part of a youth subculture in a dystopian future England. Alex and his gang engage in a nightmarish spree of rape, assault, and robbery, until he is arrested and subjected to a psychological experiment by the government to "cure" him of his violent tendencies. The novel explores themes of free will, morality, and the nature of evil, while using a unique slang language invented by the author.

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

The book is a military science fiction novel set in the future, where humanity is engaged in an interstellar war against an alien species known as the Arachnids or "Bugs." It follows the story of Juan "Johnny" Rico, a young infantryman in the Mobile Infantry, a futuristic military unit equipped with powered armor suits. The narrative delves into Rico's experiences and growth from a naïve recruit to a seasoned officer, exploring themes of citizenship, duty, and the moral complexities of war. Through Rico's eyes, the novel examines the structure of a militaristic society where full citizenship and the right to vote are earned through military service, presenting a society that values sacrifice and responsibility in a perpetual struggle for survival against a hostile universe.

Watership Down by Richard Adams

This novel follows a group of rabbits as they flee their warren due to a foreseen catastrophe. The rabbits, led by Hazel and his psychic brother Fiver, face numerous challenges and adventures as they search for a new home. They encounter predators, hostile rabbit communities, and human threats. The book explores themes of leadership, survival, and freedom, all set within the natural world and its inherent dangers.

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

In a world where telepathic dragons and their riders protect the land from the destructive Thread that rains down from the sky, a young woman unexpectedly becomes the new Weyrwoman, bonding with the last queen dragon. As the traditional ways of the past clash with the urgent need to defend their world, she and her enigmatic dragonrider ally must rediscover ancient secrets and take to the skies in a perilous quest to unite the dragonriders and save their planet from annihilation. Their journey is fraught with challenges, both political and personal, as they strive to harness the full power of the dragons and ensure the survival of their way of life.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

In the late 21st century, the moon has become a penal colony where the inhabitants, known as "Loonies", live under harsh conditions and are exploited by the Earth's government. A supercomputer named Mike, a one-armed computer technician named Mannie, and a revolutionary named Wyoming Knott lead an uprising against the Earth's oppressive rule. With Mike's intelligence, Mannie's technical skills, and Wyoming's charisma, they successfully instigate a rebellion, navigating political intrigue, military strategy, and complex human relationships along the way.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller

"A Canticle for Leibowitz" is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel that explores the cyclical nature of history through the lens of a Catholic monastery in the American Southwest. After a devastating nuclear war, the monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz work to preserve the remnants of mankind's scientific knowledge until the world is again ready for it. Over the course of centuries, civilization rises and falls, wars are fought, and scientific advancements are rediscovered and then lost again. The novel is a poignant commentary on the potential for humanity to repeat its mistakes.

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

A Victorian-era scientist invents a machine that allows him to travel through time. He first journeys to the year 802,701 A.D., where he encounters the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, childlike adults who live in harmony but lack curiosity and drive. He later discovers the Morlocks, a nocturnal, subterranean species who prey on the Eloi. After rescuing an Eloi named Weena, the protagonist loses his time machine and must devise a plan to recover it and return to his own time, all while exploring the social and evolutionary implications of the two distinct societies.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

This classic science fiction novel follows the adventures of Professor Aronnax, his servant Conseil, and harpooner Ned Land as they are captured by the enigmatic Captain Nemo aboard the Nautilus, a technologically advanced submarine. As they journey 20,000 leagues under the sea, they encounter a variety of sea creatures and underwater phenomena. The narrative explores themes of exploration, scientific discovery, and man's relationship with nature.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The book is a poignant science fiction narrative that follows the life of Charlie Gordon, a man with an IQ of 68, who undergoes an experimental surgical procedure intended to increase his intelligence. The story is told through Charlie's progress reports, which initially showcase his limited comprehension and writing ability. As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence surpasses that of the average person, leading to a dramatic increase in his understanding of the world, relationships, and his own past. However, the transformation is not without its pitfalls, as Charlie grapples with the emotional and social implications of his newfound abilities, and the impermanence of the experiment's success becomes a haunting reality. The novel explores themes of intellect, human dignity, and the ethics of scientific experimentation.

War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

This classic science fiction novel tells the story of a Martian invasion of Earth, as experienced by an unnamed protagonist and his brother. The Martians, who are technologically far superior to humans, cause widespread devastation with their heat-ray weapons and towering tripods. Despite humanity's best efforts to resist, they seem unstoppable. The novel is a commentary on British imperialism and explores themes of human survival and evolution.

The Chronicles Of Amber by Roger Zelazny

The series unfolds the complex tale of a royal family from Amber, the only true world, with the rest of reality being mere shadows of it. The protagonist, suffering from amnesia, discovers his identity as a prince of Amber and becomes embroiled in intricate family politics, magical battles, and the manipulation of different realities. As he regains his memory and navigates the treacherous landscapes of Amber and its shadow worlds, he uncovers dark secrets about his family and the nature of their universe, all while contending with the machinations of his ambitious siblings who vie for the throne of Amber.

The Belgariad by David Eddings

The series follows the journey of a young farm boy who discovers his extraordinary destiny as the heir to a powerful artifact that must be retrieved to prevent a dark god from dominating the world. Raised in a rural village, he is initially unaware of his royal lineage and the prophecy that foretells his role in an epic battle between good and evil. As he travels across diverse lands with a group of companions, including a wise old sorcerer, a fierce knight, a cunning thief, and a beautiful princess, he learns about his true heritage and the magical powers he possesses. Together, they face numerous challenges and adversaries, all while the fate of the world hangs in the balance, culminating in a climactic confrontation with the forces of darkness.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

This novel reimagines the Arthurian legends from the perspectives of the women involved. It centers around Morgaine, Arthur's half-sister, who is a priestess of Avalon, and Gwenhwyfar, Arthur's queen. The story explores their roles in the political and spiritual conflicts that arise as Christianity begins to replace the old pagan ways. It delves into themes of love, loyalty, and power, while offering a fresh take on a classic tale.

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

In a grim, ash-covered world ruled by the immortal Lord Ruler, a young street urchin discovers she possesses unique magical abilities—Allomancy, the power to ingest and burn metals to enhance physical and mental capabilities. She joins a group of rebel skaa, the oppressed class, led by a charismatic criminal mastermind, to overthrow the centuries-old tyranny. Together, they devise an elaborate heist to infiltrate the noble houses and spark a revolution, uncovering dark secrets and unexpected truths about their world and the origins of the Lord Ruler's power along the way.

Ringworld by Larry Niven

In this science fiction novel, a motley crew of explorers, including a 200-year-old human, a young woman with lucky genes, a cat-like alien, and a two-headed alien guide, embark on a journey to investigate an artificial ring orbiting a star. This colossal structure, known as the Ringworld, has the surface area of millions of Earths and harbors many mysteries. As the team explores the vast, enigmatic world, they encounter a variety of advanced technologies and alien species, while also grappling with the physics and dangers of the ring's environment. Their mission becomes a struggle for survival and a quest to uncover the origins and purpose of the Ringworld.

The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

The novel is a groundbreaking work of science fiction that explores themes of gender, politics, and identity. Set on a planet called Gethen, where the inhabitants are ambisexual, shifting between male and female, the story follows an envoy from Earth who struggles to understand this alien society. As he navigates the complex political landscape of Gethen, he must also grapple with his own preconceptions about gender and sexuality. The book is a profound exploration of difference, otherness, and what it means to be human.

The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien

The book is a collection of mythopoeic stories that form the prelude to a well-known fantasy saga, detailing the creation of the world and the history of its early ages. It encompasses the tragic tale of the quest for the titular jewels, which imbue their creators with great power and beauty. The narrative follows the rebellion of a group of elves against the gods, the subsequent wars and the downfall of noble houses, interwoven with themes of heroism, fate, and the struggle against the ultimate evil. The work is rich with languages, cultures, and epic poetry, setting the stage for the later adventures in the renowned fantasy realm.

The Once and Future King by T. H. White

This novel is a retelling of the Arthurian legend, from Arthur's childhood tutelage under the wizard Merlyn to his eventual death. The story follows Arthur's journey from a naive boy to a wise and just king, his establishment of the Round Table, his marriage to Guinevere, and his complex relationship with his illegitimate son, Mordred. The narrative explores themes of power, justice, war, and human nature, offering a nuanced and humanizing portrayal of a well-known mythical figure.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

In this dark and imaginative fantasy, a young Londoner named Richard Mayhew finds his mundane life turned upside down when he stumbles upon a young woman named Door, bleeding on the sidewalk. After aiding her, he is thrust into the shadowy, parallel world of London Below, a realm of magic, danger, and intrigue that exists beneath the streets of London Above. As Richard journeys through this eerie underworld with a cast of bizarre and fantastical characters, he must confront malevolent forces and unravel a complex conspiracy to help Door discover why her family was murdered, all while trying to find a way back to his old life.

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

"Childhood's End" is a thought-provoking science fiction novel that explores the evolution of humanity under the guidance of mysterious extraterrestrial beings known as the Overlords. Set in the near future, the book follows the transformation of society as the Overlords bring peace, prosperity, and advanced technology to Earth. However, as the human race reaches a new level of enlightenment, questions arise about the true intentions of the Overlords and the future of humanity itself.

Contact by Carl Sagan

The book is a science fiction novel that explores the concept of human contact with extraterrestrial life. The protagonist, a scientist, deciphers a radio signal from a distant star system that contains plans for a complex machine. After building and entering the machine, she and her team are transported to a distant star system where they meet an alien species. The novel delves into philosophical discussions about religion, science, and the nature of human existence.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

The book is a science fiction narrative that weaves together the tales of seven pilgrims as they journey to the distant world of Hyperion on the eve of interstellar war. Each pilgrim has their own reason for undertaking this pilgrimage to the Shrike, a mysterious and feared creature that resides in the Time Tombs, which are moving backwards through time. As they travel, they share their stories, revealing personal quests, humanity's complex relationship with technology, and the overarching mystery of the Shrike and Hyperion itself. The novel combines elements of space opera with a frame story structure reminiscent of "The Canterbury Tales," exploring themes of love, religion, politics, and art, all set against the backdrop of an impending catastrophe.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

"Stardust" by Neil Gaiman is a fairy tale adventure set in the land of Faerie. The story follows the journey of a young man named Tristran Thorn, who sets out to capture a fallen star in order to win the heart of his true love. Along the way, he encounters a variety of magical creatures and characters, including witches, unicorns, and a ruthless prince. As Tristran navigates the dangers and wonders of Faerie, he learns valuable lessons about love, sacrifice, and the power of destiny.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

The book is a sprawling narrative that intertwines two timelines: the first during World War II, focusing on the efforts of cryptographers and mathematicians working to break Axis codes, and the second in the late 20th century, following a group of entrepreneurs and hackers establishing a data haven in Southeast Asia. The novel explores themes of cryptography, mathematics, and the history of computing, weaving together real historical figures with fictional characters. As the plot unfolds across different continents and eras, it delves into the impact of information technology on society and the perpetual conflict between governments and individuals over the control of information and privacy.

World War Z by Max Brooks

The book is an apocalyptic horror novel presented as a collection of individual accounts in the aftermath of a global pandemic that leads to a catastrophic zombie outbreak. Through interviews with survivors from various countries and walks of life, the narrative unfolds the social, political, cultural, and environmental implications of the zombie crisis, known as World War Z. The personal stories explore the widespread panic, the collapse and resurgence of governments, military strategies employed to combat the undead, and the human resilience in the face of a decimated world. The novel serves as a critique of societal responses to disasters and a commentary on the human condition.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

In this enchanting fantasy tale, a solitary unicorn, believing she is the last of her kind, embarks on a poignant journey to discover what has become of the other unicorns. Along the way, she is joined by a bumbling magician and a tough yet tender-hearted woman. Together, they face trials and confront an evil king to unravel the mystery of the missing unicorns. The unicorn must also grapple with the complexities of love, the loss of innocence, and the painful beauty of existence, as she seeks to restore her kind and witness the return of magic to the world.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

This science fiction novel follows the story of a soldier conscripted to fight in an interstellar war against an alien species known as the Taurans. Due to the time dilation effects of space travel at near-light speeds, the soldier experiences only months of combat, while centuries pass on Earth. Each time he returns from a mission, he finds an unrecognizable society with new technologies and altered social norms. The narrative explores the psychological and emotional impact of war, time displacement, and the soldier's struggle to find a sense of belonging in a constantly changing world. As the conflict drags on through the eons, the soldier begins to question the purpose of the war and the high cost of human life in the face of such temporal vastness.

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

In a satirical fantasy world, a once-powerful god finds himself nearly forgotten, his power diminished to almost nothing as he's left with a single believer, a novice monk. This unlikely duo embarks on a journey to confront the corrupt religious institution that has lost sight of true faith, challenging dogma and hypocrisy. Along the way, they encounter a host of quirky characters and navigate philosophical quandaries, ultimately seeking to restore genuine belief and the god's rightful place in the hearts of the people. The narrative cleverly explores themes of religion, belief, and the nature of power through a humorous and thought-provoking lens.

The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson

The series follows Thomas Covenant, a cynical writer who is transported to a magical realm called "The Land" after a tragic accident leaves him a leper and an outcast in his own world. In "The Land," he is mistaken for a reincarnated hero and is reluctantly drawn into a struggle against an evil entity known as Lord Foul, who seeks to escape the metaphysical barriers of the realm and wreak havoc. Despite his disbelief in the reality of this other world and his own role as a savior, Covenant's actions have profound consequences for both "The Land" and his personal redemption, as he grapples with power, responsibility, and the possibility of hope amidst despair.

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold

In this science fiction narrative, the story revolves around an engineer who is assigned to a space station where genetically engineered humans, designed with four arms and no legs for zero-gravity work, are being bred by a corporation for economic gain. When the company decides to abandon the project, viewing these beings, known as "quaddies," as obsolete and a liability, the engineer faces a moral dilemma. He must choose between his own safety and career or the welfare of the quaddies. Ultimately, he decides to rebel against the corporation, leading a daring escape plan to save the quaddies from being decommissioned and to find them a new home where they can live free.

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

In this satirical fantasy novel, a notorious con artist is given a second chance at life by being forced to revive the defunct Ankh-Morpork Post Office. As the new Postmaster, he must contend with outdated mail systems, a haunted post office, and the competition from a powerful, unscrupulous clacks communication company. Using his wits and a motley crew of postal employees, he embarks on a madcap journey to restore the postal service, outmaneuver the corporate villains, and ultimately redefine the meaning of communication in a city teeming with magic and mayhem.

The Mote In God's Eye by Larry Niven , Jerry Pournelle

"The Mote In God's Eye" is a gripping science fiction novel set in the distant future, where humanity has expanded its reach to the stars. When a mysterious alien race, known as the Moties, is discovered, a team of human scientists and diplomats embark on a mission to establish contact and learn more about their civilization. However, as they delve deeper into the Moties' society, they uncover dark secrets and hidden agendas that could have catastrophic consequences for both species. Filled with political intrigue, moral dilemmas, and thought-provoking themes, this book explores the complexities of interstellar relations and the potential dangers of encountering an unknown extraterrestrial civilization.

The Sword Of Truth by Terry Goodkind

In this epic fantasy novel, a young woods guide named Richard Cypher embarks on a quest to stop the sinister spread of the dark magic that threatens his world. After the brutal murder of his father, Richard's life is turned upside down when he discovers his own hidden destiny and the powerful artifact known as the Sword of Truth. Guided by a mysterious woman named Kahlan and a wizard named Zedd, Richard must navigate a world of dangerous magic and political intrigue, confronting his own fears and moral dilemmas while fighting to prevent a tyrannical ruler from unleashing an ancient and malevolent power.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

In a post-apocalyptic world, a father and his young son journey through a desolate landscape, struggling to survive. They face numerous threats including starvation, extreme weather, and dangerous encounters with other survivors. The father, who is terminally ill, is driven by his love and concern for his son, and is determined to protect him at all costs. The story is a haunting exploration of the depths of human resilience, the power of love, and the instinct to survive against all odds.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Set in a parallel 19th-century England, this novel tells the story of two practicing magicians, Mr. Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Norrell, who aims to restore magic to respectability in England, is initially thrilled by Strange's natural aptitude for magic, and the two form a student-teacher relationship. However, their partnership soon deteriorates into rivalry as Strange, driven by the loss of his wife to the fairy realm, seeks to reintroduce the old, wilder forms of magic that Norrell disdains. Their conflict escalates, culminating in a magical duel that has profound consequences for the future of magic in England.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

The novel is a post-apocalyptic horror story that centers around a solitary man who may be the last human alive on earth after a pandemic has turned the rest of humanity into vampire-like creatures. He spends his days fortifying his home, hunting for food, and killing these creatures while they sleep. At night, he is tormented by their attempts to break into his home and kill him. His isolation drives him to the brink of insanity, and the novel explores themes of loneliness, survival, and the human capacity for hope in the face of utter despair.

Magician by Raymond E. Feist

The book is a fantasy epic that follows the journey of a young boy named Pug, who rises from humble beginnings as an orphaned kitchen boy to become a powerful magician in the Kingdom of the Isles. His life takes a dramatic turn when he and his friend Tomas are swept into a conflict against an ancient enemy from another world, threatening not only their homeland but also the very fabric of reality. As Pug masters the arts of magic under the tutelage of the enigmatic magician Kulgan, he must navigate a path fraught with danger, political intrigue, and war. Alongside a diverse cast of characters, Pug's destiny unfolds as he becomes a key player in the struggle to save his world from destruction.

The Sword Of Shannara by Terry Brooks

In a classic epic fantasy tale, a young man named Shea Ohmsford discovers his royal heritage and embarks on a perilous quest to retrieve the legendary Sword of Shannara. With the guidance of the mysterious druid Allanon, Shea and a diverse group of companions must navigate treacherous lands filled with malevolent creatures and dark magic. Their mission is critical: to use the Sword's power to vanquish the fearsome Warlock Lord and prevent his dominion over the Four Lands. The journey tests their courage and bonds, as they confront the darkness both around them and within themselves.

Conan The Barbarian by R.E. Howard

The book follows the epic tales of a formidable warrior from the ancient, mythical land of Cimmeria. Known for his exceptional strength, courage, and swordsmanship, the protagonist embarks on a series of adventures across treacherous lands filled with sorcery, fierce creatures, and ruthless enemies. His journey is marked by battles for power, the quest for treasure, and encounters with a diverse cast of characters, both friend and foe. Throughout his exploits, the barbarian hero confronts the dark forces of civilization and the mysteries of an age-old world, all while forging his own legend in a savage, untamed world.

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

The novel follows the journey of Fitz, the bastard son of a noble prince, who is taken into the royal household of the Six Duchies and secretly trained in the art of assassination. As he grows, Fitz is caught between his loyalty to the throne and his own moral compass. He must navigate a court rife with political intrigue, magic, and treachery, all while grappling with his own identity and the magical Skill that he possesses. His quest for acceptance and purpose is further complicated by the kingdom's need for his unique talents to protect the realm from internal and external threats.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The novel tells the story of a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably, and his wife, an artist who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences. Their love story endures many separations and dangerous experiences due to his condition. The story's central theme is the effects of time travel on their marriage and their passionate love for each other.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

In a world ravaged by ferocious storms and embroiled in war, three main characters navigate their own paths. Kaladin, a skilled soldier turned slave, struggles to protect his fellow slaves while grappling with his own inner demons. Shallan, a brilliant and ambitious scholar, is on a dangerous quest to steal a powerful artifact to save her family from ruin. Dalinar, a high-ranking military leader, is plagued by visions of ancient times and a mysterious warning. As their lives intertwine, they must confront their own truths and fight for survival in a world on the brink of destruction.

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

This science fiction novel revolves around a German professor who believes there are volcanic tubes leading to the center of the Earth. He, his nephew, and their guide embark on an adventurous expedition down an Icelandic volcano into the Earth's core. They encounter prehistoric animals, natural disasters, and otherworldly phenomena along their journey. The expedition is both thrilling and dangerous, testing the limits of their courage and survival skills.

The Crystal Shard by R.A. Salvatore

In the icy realm of Icewind Dale, a young barbarian named Wulfgar seeks to prove his worth, while the cunning dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden, an outcast from his own people, strives to find his place in the world. Their lives are thrown into chaos when a powerful mage discovers a magical crystal shard with the ability to dominate the minds of others. As the shard's dark influence spreads, the two unlikely heroes must join forces with a dwarf named Bruenor and a halfling, Regis, to prevent the malevolent artifact from unleashing an ancient evil upon their land, facing a host of dangerous creatures and treacherous enemies in their quest to keep the shard from the clutches of those who would use its power for domination.

Old Man's War by John Scalzi

In this science fiction novel, elderly citizens of Earth are given a chance to join an interstellar army, trading their decrepit bodies for rejuvenated, genetically enhanced versions to fight in a seemingly endless war across the galaxy. The protagonist, a widower who enlists on his 75th birthday, navigates the complexities of his new existence, including the physical and emotional challenges of being young again, the camaraderie and loss within the ranks, and the ethical quandaries posed by the conflict with various alien species. As he rises through the military's ranks, he confronts the harsh realities of this expansive and deadly cosmic battlefield.

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

Set in a future where nanotechnology has revolutionized society, the narrative revolves around a young girl named Nell who comes into possession of a powerful, interactive book called "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer." This book, designed to educate and guide a young girl to a more enlightened state, was originally intended for an elite clientele but falls into Nell's hands by chance. As Nell uses the primer to navigate her complex, cyberpunk world, the story explores themes of education, social class, and the impact of technology on society. The book weaves together the lives of various characters across different strata of a stratified culture, examining how access to technology can both empower and divide.

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

In this science fiction classic, humanity encounters an enigmatic alien starship that enters the solar system. Named after the Hindu god, the cylindrical vessel is initially thought to be an asteroid but is soon revealed to be a spacecraft. A team of astronauts is dispatched to intercept and explore the mysterious object, embarking on a high-stakes mission to unlock its secrets. As they journey through the ship's interior, they discover a world of astonishing complexity, artificial landscapes, and advanced technology, all of which challenge their understanding of life and intelligence in the universe. The explorers must race against time to learn as much as possible before the ship, indifferent to their presence, continues on its voyage through the cosmos.

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey

In a world where political intrigue and divine destinies intertwine, a young woman born with a scarlet mote in her eye is marked by the gods for a unique destiny. Trained in the arts of love and espionage, she navigates the complex web of courtly life in a realm where sensuality and pain are intertwined. As a pawn and a player in the game of thrones, she uses her unique gifts to uncover secrets and protect her homeland, all while serving a mysterious patron whose motives are as enigmatic as the unfolding divine plan. Her journey is one of self-discovery, loyalty, and betrayal, set against a backdrop of opulence, ritual, and power struggles, where love can be both a weakness and a formidable weapon.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

The novel is a profound exploration of two vastly different societies on twin planets, Urras and Anarres. The protagonist is a brilliant physicist from Anarres, a planet with an anarchist society, who travels to Urras, a planet with a capitalist and authoritarian regime. The book explores his struggle to reconcile his anarchist beliefs with the stark realities of a different socio-political system. It's a thought-provoking investigation of human nature, power structures, and the idea of utopia.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

In this dark fantasy novel, two thirteen-year-old friends, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, encounter a sinister traveling carnival that arrives in their small Midwestern town just before Halloween. The carnival's malevolent proprietor, Mr. Dark, possesses the power to grant the townspeople's deepest desires, but at a terrible cost. As the boys uncover the nightmarish truth behind the carnival's attractions, they must confront their own fears and temptations. A battle between good and evil ensues, with the fate of their souls and the soul of the town hanging in the balance. The story is a coming-of-age tale that explores the struggle between youth and maturity, and the recognition that every individual harbors both darkness and light within them.

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

This novel reimagines the land of Oz, telling the story from the perspective of the misunderstood green-skinned witch Elphaba. It explores her early life, education, and complex relationship with Glinda, the Good Witch, as well as her eventual transformation into the infamous Wicked Witch of the West. The book delves into themes of good versus evil, the nature of wickedness, and the societal structures that label and ostracize individuals. It provides a rich backstory to a classic tale, challenging readers to reconsider their preconceived notions about villainy and the true cost of standing against injustice.

Gardens Of The Moon by Steven Erikson

In a dark and complex fantasy world, an elite group of soldiers known as the Bridgeburners navigate political intrigue and ancient magic as part of a vast empire's expansionist wars. The city of Darujhistan becomes the focal point of conflict, where gods, mages, and various factions vie for power. Amidst the chaos, an ancient force is awakening, threatening to change the balance of power. The soldiers and citizens alike must contend with betrayal, ancient prophecies, and their own personal demons in a struggle that blurs the lines between heroism and ambition, with the fate of the empire and the world itself hanging in the balance.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

In a parallel 1985 where literature is taken to extremes, a literary detective named Thursday Next navigates a world where the boundaries between reality and fiction are blurred. When a criminal mastermind begins kidnapping characters from classic novels, Thursday must enter the pages of Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" to pursue the villain and restore the beloved story to its rightful course. Her journey is fraught with danger, wit, and a touch of romance, as she contends with a time-traveling father, a pet dodo, and the complexities of her own life entwined with the fictional landscapes she protects.

Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks

"Consider Phlebas" is a science fiction novel set in a vast and chaotic universe where different civilizations and species clash. The story follows a protagonist named Bora Horza Gobuchul, a shape-shifting mercenary who becomes entangled in a dangerous mission to retrieve a powerful artifact from a religious cult. As Horza navigates treacherous alliances and battles, he also grapples with questions of identity, loyalty, and the nature of humanity. With its epic scope and thought-provoking themes, the novel explores the complexities of war, morality, and the search for meaning in a universe teetering on the brink of destruction.

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

"The Crystal Cave" is a historical fiction novel that tells the story of Merlin, the legendary wizard of King Arthur's court. The book follows Merlin's early life, from his birth as the illegitimate son of a Welsh princess to his discovery of his magical powers and his journey to become a wise and powerful advisor to the future King Arthur. Set against the backdrop of early medieval Britain, the novel explores themes of destiny, power, and the struggle between pagan and Christian beliefs.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

In a parallel world where intellectuals and scientists are cloistered in monastic communities called "concents," the story follows a young monk named Erasmas, who is drawn out of his secluded life by the discovery of an alien spacecraft orbiting his planet. As he and his companions are selected to interact with these extraterrestrial visitors, they are thrust into a complex web of political intrigue, philosophical debate, and existential risk. The narrative weaves together themes of mathematics, quantum mechanics, and multiple world theory, challenging the characters to question the nature of reality and their place within it as they strive to avert global catastrophe.

Furies Of Calderon by Jim Butcher

In a fantasy realm where humans bond with elemental forces known as furies, a young shepherd named Tavi struggles with his apparent lack of this magical connection. As his homeland, the Calderon Valley, faces an invasion by a savage tribe, Tavi finds himself embroiled in a desperate conflict. Without the aid of his own fury, he must rely on his wits and courage to help defend his people and uncover a deeper, sinister plot that threatens not only Calderon but the entire realm. Alongside a diverse cast of characters, including a powerful female Cursor and a steadfast warrior, Tavi's journey is one of growth, bravery, and the discovery of his own unique strengths.

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

"The Book of the New Sun" is a four-volume science fiction series set in a far future, post-apocalyptic Earth, known as Urth. The story follows a journeyman torturer named Severian who is exiled for showing mercy to one of his victims. As he navigates through a world filled with strange and mythical creatures, political intrigue, and ancient technology often perceived as magic, Severian discovers his destiny is far greater than he could have ever imagined. The narrative is dense and complex, filled with allegory and symbolism, making it a challenging yet rewarding read.

Heir To The Empire by Timothy Zahn

Set five years after the fall of the Galactic Empire, the book follows the New Republic as it struggles to maintain peace in the galaxy. The remnants of the Empire, under the strategic command of Grand Admiral Thrawn, are regrouping and pose a new threat. Thrawn's tactical genius and his discovery of a hidden cache of Emperor Palpatine's warships give him the tools to challenge the New Republic. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo face personal challenges and the burden of leadership as they fight to protect the fledgling democracy from both external and internal turmoil. The story weaves a complex tapestry of intrigue, betrayal, and battles, setting the stage for a new chapter in the Star Wars saga.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

The novel follows a World War II nurse who accidentally time travels back to 18th century Scotland. There, she meets a handsome and brave Scottish warrior and is torn between her loyalty to her husband in her own time and her growing love for the warrior. As she becomes more entwined in the past, she must navigate the dangers of a time not her own, including political unrest and violence, while trying to find a way back home.

Elric Of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock

The book follows the tale of a brooding albino emperor with a frail constitution who wields a soul-drinking sword, Stormbringer. As the ruler of the ancient island of Melniboné, he is a sorcerer of considerable power, yet he is an atypical leader, filled with introspective doubt and conflicting emotions. His story is one of tragic heroism, as he navigates political intrigue, eldritch threats, and cosmic battles, all while grappling with his own moral compass and the dark destiny that his sword seems to bring. The narrative is steeped in dark fantasy, exploring themes of fate, power, and the struggle for personal identity against the backdrop of a decaying, once-mighty empire.

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

"The Illustrated Man" is a collection of eighteen science fiction short stories that revolve around the mysterious figure of the illustrated man, whose body is covered in moving tattoos that predict the future. Each story explores themes of technology, humanity, and the consequences of our actions, taking readers on a thought-provoking journey through dystopian worlds, alien encounters, and the depths of human imagination. With vivid imagery and compelling narratives, the book delves into the complexities of human nature and the potential dangers of our own creations.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

"Sunshine" is a dark fantasy novel by Robin McKinley that follows the story of a young woman named Rae "Sunshine" Seddon, who works as a baker in a small town. One night, she is kidnapped by a group of vampires and taken to an abandoned mansion where she is held captive with a vampire named Constantine. As they work together to escape, Sunshine discovers her own hidden powers and becomes entangled in a dangerous world of magic and supernatural beings. The novel explores themes of identity, acceptance, and the power of love and friendship.

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

In this science fiction epic, a human expedition inadvertently unleashes a malevolent superintelligence in the far reaches of the galaxy. As the entity spreads destruction across civilizations, a diverse group of characters, including a family stranded on a planet with a medieval-level society of dog-like aliens, must navigate complex political landscapes and the vast scales of a universe with zones of thought that dictate the level of technological and cognitive potential. The novel intertwines multiple narratives, exploring themes of consciousness, technology, and communication, while a desperate race against time unfolds to stop the spreading menace before it can reach the High Beyond, where even more advanced societies are vulnerable to its insatiable hunger for power and control.

The Caves Of Steel by Isaac Asimov

"The Caves of Steel" is a science fiction novel set in a future where Earth is heavily populated and humans live in massive enclosed cities. The story follows a detective and his robot partner as they investigate a murder that could potentially spark a conflict between Earth's human population and the Spacers, a group of humans who live on other planets. As they delve deeper into the case, they uncover a complex conspiracy that challenges their beliefs about robots, humanity, and the future of their world.

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

The book is a science fiction narrative that chronicles the initial efforts to colonize Mars. It delves into the complex dynamics among the first group of settlers, who come from diverse cultural and scientific backgrounds, as they confront the challenges of terraforming the hostile Martian environment. The story explores themes of ecological transformation, political struggle, and the ethical implications of altering an alien world, while also examining the personal lives and evolving relationships of the colonists. As the settlers work to create a new society on the red planet, their actions set the stage for future generations and the emergence of Mars as a new frontier for humanity.

Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven , Jerry Pournelle

In this gripping novel, a comet hurtles towards Earth, causing widespread panic and destruction. As society collapses and chaos ensues, a diverse group of survivors must navigate the aftermath and confront the harsh realities of a post-apocalyptic world. With vivid characters and intense action, "Lucifer's Hammer" explores humanity's resilience and the lengths people will go to in order to survive.

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

In this science fiction novel, a young historian undertakes a time-travel journey to the 14th century for academic research, only to find herself stranded amidst the onset of the Black Death. As she navigates the challenges of medieval England, her colleagues in the 21st century grapple with a deadly influenza pandemic, complicating efforts to retrieve her. The narrative weaves between the past and the present, exploring themes of human resilience, the universality of suffering across time, and the ethical implications of time travel, all while the historian and her contemporaries confront mortality, history, and their own personal crises.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

In a sprawling steampunk metropolis teeming with bizarre creatures and arcane technologies, a gifted scientist unwittingly unleashes a nightmare upon the city. When his experiment with a rare caterpillar goes awry, monstrous, dream-eating moths are set loose, preying upon the citizens' minds and plunging the city into terror. As the scientist grapples with the consequences of his actions, a motley group of individuals, including a renegade artist, a wingless bird-man, and other outcasts, come together in a desperate attempt to save their city from the eldritch horrors that now haunt its shadowy streets. Their journey takes them through the city's various layers, from the opulent heights to the grimy depths, revealing the complex tapestry of cultures and conflicts that define this urban labyrinth.

A Spell For Chameleon by Piers Anthony

In this fantasy novel, we follow the adventures of Bink, a young man from the magical land of Xanth, who lacks his own magic in a realm where magic is the norm. Facing exile for his deficiency, Bink embarks on a quest to discover his true magical talent. Along the way, he encounters a variety of creatures, challenges, and a mysterious woman named Chameleon, whose beauty and intelligence shift with the phases of the moon. Bink's journey reveals not only the secret of his own latent magic but also addresses themes of self-discovery, the value of nonconformity, and the nature of love and loyalty in a world where everything and everyone is more than they seem.

Out Of The Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis

In this science fiction novel, a man named Dr. Elwin Ransom finds himself transported to another planet called Malacandra. As he explores this strange new world, he encounters various intelligent beings and learns about their unique cultures and languages. Ransom soon realizes that he has been brought to Malacandra as a sacrifice, but he manages to escape and embarks on a thrilling journey to return home. Along the way, he grapples with themes of good versus evil, the nature of humanity, and the existence of a higher power.

NPR , 100 Books

NPR did a readers survey of the Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy books in 2011. More than 60,000 ballots were cast in our annual summer reader's survey — click here to see the full list of 100 books, complete with links and descriptions. Below is a list of the top 100 winners.

This list has a weight of 36% . To learn more about what this means please visit the Rankings page .

• Voters: not critics, authors, or experts
• List: only covers a few specific genres

If you think this is incorrect please e-mail us at [email protected] .

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The Best Fiction Books » Fantasy

Updated: the best science fiction & fantasy books of 2023: the hugo awards, recommended by sylvia bishop.

Winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novel

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

The Hugo Awards, first presented in 1953, were originally known as the 'Science Fiction Achievement Awards.' But, in practice, their shortlists encompass speculative fiction as a whole, including fantasy—and is considered one of that genre's most prestigious prizes. Here, Sylvia Bishop offers an overview of this year's nominees in the 'Best Novel' category, which represent the most popular sci-fi and fantasy books of 2023. Note: We have updated this list to include a book that was excluded for political reasons.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Babel: An Arcane History by R. F. Kuang

1 Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

2 the spare man by mary robinette kowal, 3 the daughter of doctor moreau by silvia moreno-garcia, 4 nona the ninth by tamsyn muir, 5 the kaiju preservation society by john scalzi, 6 babel: an arcane history by r. f. kuang.

U PDATE: March 5th, 2024: Following reports that books were excluded for political reasons (a full article on the ins and outs of what happened can be found here ), we have elected to add R. F. Kuang’s novel Babel to the list below as it received the requisite number of votes to make the best novel shortlist . Problems stemmed from the decision to hold the 81st World Science Fiction Convention—the industry’s equivalent of the Oscars—in Chengdu, China. Inevitably, the awards fell victim to Chinese politics, as despite a vibrant sci-fi community, the country continues to be ruled by a Communist Party with strict (but often unspoken) rules about what can and cannot be discussed.

For fans of fantasy, sci-fi, and speculative fiction, the Hugo Awards shortlists offer an excellent way to find new favourite writers. There are award categories for novels (classed as stories of 40,000 words or more), novellas (17,500 to 40,000 words), novelettes (7,500 to 17,500 words), short stories, graphic novels, fanzines, and various other literary forms and roles. T. Kingfisher won the Best Novel category for her “dark fairytale” Nettle and Bone . And there’s another standout winner, not officially named: Tor Publishing, whose imprints published five of this year’s nominees in that category.

The shortlist this year was dominated by personal stories: a cosy fantasy, a murder mystery, the downfall of a secretive household, a domestic story from an otherwise epic trilogy, and an explicit exercise in pandemic escapism. Kingfisher’s winning book centres on one woman as she struggles through an indifferent and often cruel world. Here’s a brief overview of all the novels that made the final shortlist: the books that more than 1800 members of the World Science Fiction Society collectively declared the best sci-fi and fantasy novels of 2023.

Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes

Travis Baldree is the only debut author that made the shortlist for the title of ‘Best Novel’, and was also declared the winner in the ‘Best New Writer’ category. Legends and Lattes is a cosy low fantasy in a secondary world, in the cosmopolitan city of Thune, where magical inhabitants of all species are commonplace. We follow Viv, an ogre looking to change careers, as she opens a coffee shop and attempts to convert the denizens of Thune to the delights of coffee and cinnamon buns. Threats from personal vendettas fuel the tension, while a gentle romance and a cast of unlikely friends provide the real delight.

As Baldree told me , “I wrote this as someone who did the same job into their forties and decided they didn’t like it, moved to a new city, started a new career, and discovered a whole group of people.” This is a novel about ogres and succubae, but it is mostly about finding a balanced and meaningful life. And it’s funny . A warm hug of a book; must be read with baked goods. The audiobook is a particular treat, as Baldree—an audiobook narrator by trade—reads the book himself.

Legends and Lattes  was acquired by Tor after initially being self-published, and it now has a sequel, Bookshops and Bonedust.  (Seanan McGuire, when we spoke to her about the best urban fantasy books , confirmed that new book to be “delightful.”)

Mary Robinette Kawal’s The Spare Man

Mary Robinette Kawal won this award back in 2019 with The Calculating Stars , in which a meteorite strike forces colonisation of the moon and Mars. Here, in The Spare Man , space is already inhabited; the futurist technology of the spaceship setting is richly imagined, but it is a backdrop to the plot, which is entirely unconcerned with space exploration or species survival. Instead, The Spare Man is a murder mystery .

While some of the forward momentum derives from the need-to-know-who-dunnit, Kawal deftly holds readers’ interest through several mechanisms at once. The protagonist’s spouse is accused, building a powerful tension from the outset, and as the book unfolds the danger from both the true murderer and law enforcement mounts. This is intelligently crafted storytelling—as one might expect from one of the voices behind Writing Excuses , the writing podcast with a wealth of advice on plot and story drivers, which itself won a Hugo Award back in 2013 (for ‘Best Related Work’).

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Daughter of Doctor Moreau

Previously, Moreno-Garcia riffed on Edgar Allen Poe ; here she takes her inspiration from H. G. Wells ’ The Island of Doctor Moreau . At least, this is the most obvious inspiration. Moreno-Garcia herself has explained :

I was not just looking at Wells—I was also very interested in the work of Ignacio Manuel Altamirano and his 1869 novel Clemencia . […] Altamirano and other Latin American writers were trying to create a different kind of book at this time, something that blends European Romanticism with Latin American specificities. I was looking back at Altamirano as much as I was looking at Wells.

Moreno-Garcia’s novel The Daughter of Doctor Moreau takes place in Yaxaktun, Mexico, and follows two voices: Doctor Moreau’s daughter Carlota, and his mayordomo (household manager) Montgomery. The doctor is creating human-animal hybrids, claiming that they offer hope of medical advances—but he is also beholden to a patron, who hopes the experiments will ultimately provide cheap labour. The moral uncertainty is well-drawn, but takes a back seat to the human (or part-human) relationships. These feel real; there are no simplistic character choices made to serve romance or villainy, and the resulting relationships are unpredictable and compelling.

The story also gains verisimilitude from its historical setting, with fact and fiction deftly woven together. The Daughter of Doctor Moreau feels plausible, set alongside the complex politics of indentured and immigrant labour. Moreno-Garcia has said that she likes grounding her work in historical fact “because the truth can be surreal. You can’t quite believe the things you find in footnotes.”

Tamsyn Muir’s Nona the Ninth

Nona the Ninth is the third in Muir’s Locked Tomb series. Every installment so far has been nominated for a Hugo. Muir’s richly imaginative writing defies easy categorisation: of Gideon the Ninth, the Chicago Review of Books declared that “part of the delight of reading the novel is just how fearlessly it tosses together outlandish ideas with distinct elements from different genres. It’s a space opera about wizards; it shapes itself into cozy mystery; it slides into slasher-horror, then cuts its way free with musketeer-level swashbucklery.”

In Nona the Ninth, Muir steps seamlessly into more civilian, homely concerns. “Nona” has the body of Harrow, the titular character of the second book, and is suspected of having the mind of either Harrow or Gideon. Whoever she is, she is now amnesiac, and has a childlike mind in her older body. Forces far greater than Nona want her to be a weapon: she wants to play with a six-legged dog called Noodle. Family arguments and school days mix with necromancers and zombies, and with the potentially planet-destroying stakes that quite literally loom overhead.

The result, writes Paste Magazine , is that Muir’s ‘hilarious prose is full of dark subject matter… but tons of heart’. The terrifying stakes are part of child-like Nona’s normal world, and the close third-person voice relays them with a chilling innocence.

John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society

Previous Hugo Award-winner ( Redshirts , 2013) Scalzi returns with a sci-fi caper that begins in New York in the early days of the pandemic. The novel is, gleefully and explicitly, pandemic escapism – the book that Scalzi wrote when producing his intended brooding epic novel proved impossible. As Scalzi says in the author’s note: “It’s a pop song. It’s meant to be light and catchy, with three minutes of hooks and choruses for you to sing along with, and then you’re done and you go on with your day, hopefully with a smile on your face.”

Right before the pandemic, Jamie Gray loses his job. From this starting point, Scalzi deftly escalates the gravity of Gray’s situation, so that by the time he is offered a vague but potentially dangerous job with a highly secretive organisation, we are willing him to take it. This sets the stage for his induction into the Kaiju Preservation Society – the body responsible for researching the monstrous inhabitants of another dimension. And, importantly, ensuring that they stay in that other dimension. A very funny and enjoyable caper ensues.

Notably, no argument needs to be made here for an anti-extractive or environmentally cautious approach to the alien world. The good guys adopt this position as default; the bad guys are the bad guys precisely because they don’t, and the stupidity of this is treated as self-evident. The earlier arguments of writers like Ursula Le Guin have set the moral parameters.

R.F. Kuang’s Babel

Kuang previously won the Astounding award for Best New Writer – not technically a Hugo, but presented at the same ceremony – and her novel Babel has already won a 2022 Nebula award. Set in an alternate 1830s Oxford, it tracks several real historical events, but makes one elegant magical substitution: the source of the British Empire’s economic power. In this world, Oxford makes Britain rich through the production of silver magic. A silver bar is inscribed with the same word in two languages, and what is lost in translation is magically produced by the bar. As the conceptual gaps close up between European languages, more distant languages are badly needed. But there’s a catch: the magic can only be worked by a native speaker.

This conceit allows Kuang to sharply clarify relationships of extraction, co-option and complicity. Four linguists are welcomed into the hallowed halls of Oxford. Their linguistic skills are directly required for the magic at the heart of the Empire’s power. The Empire is extractive: the benefits of the magic are not extended to the countries it relies on. What are our young linguists to do?

We follow an orphan from Canton, Robin Swift. However, we are equally invested in his cohort, each of whom has a different experience and a different set of temptations and fears. The result is a very genuine tension: it is unlikely everyone will make it out both physically and morally intact, and the multiple possible dangers keep you reading on high alert. A thoughtful, intense read.

And the winner: T. Kingfisher’s Nettle and Bone

Ursula Vernon—writing under her pen name T. Kingfisher—scooped the title of ‘Best Novel’ for the first time this year, but has previously won awards in the Graphic Story, Short Story, Novelette, and Series categories.

Nettle and Bone follows Marra, the third and least important princess of a small kingdom, who is sent to a convent following her sister’s marriage to a powerful prince—he doesn’t want her producing any rivals to the throne. The tone is set: this man is trouble. When Marra understands just how much trouble, and how dire her sister’s situation is, she sets out to enforce justice. The journey is packed full of familiar motifs. She must accomplish three impossible tasks, visit a goblin market, encounter a necromancer-witch and a fairy godmother, and descend into labyrinthine tombs. Between these set-pieces and archetypal characters, we find a dazzling array of detail: a demon that is also, emphatically, a chicken; a woman voluntarily controlled by a horrifying wooden child; a crushing wheel of dead souls…

This is fairytale fantasy. The magic is chilling and under-explained, considered supernatural even within the uncanny world of the book. And, as in fairy tales, that world is not universally good or kind. As the Chicago Review of Books has observed , Kingfisher’s novels “stand out from the particular trend in the speculative publishing industry to push for narratives that are more optimistic, agentive, and hopeful.” But Nettle and Bone is also very funny; as noted in Strange Horizons , Kingfisher “understands that humour and horror are twins.” Kingfisher herself has written of the need for humour and hope in heavy themes: “If a book can make you feel better and stronger and wiser, instead of paralyzed, then you can do something with that.”

February 28, 2024

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Sylvia Bishop

Sylvia Bishop is a British author. She writes fiction for children and teens, and runs workshops for children, teens and adults. Her latest book is On Silver Tides , a sweeping YA fantasy novel inspired by ancient folklore.

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The 10 best science fiction and fantasy novels of 2023

These titles feature a cursed film, high-flying martial arts, thoughtful reflections on climate change and more.

People sometimes say science fiction basks in optimism for a better future, while fantasy is about nostalgia for an imaginary past. But this year’s most notable fantasy books worked to uncover historical crimes, while science fiction warned of coming evils.

The good news? The best sci-fi and fantasy books of 2023 will give you hope and strength in the toughest times.

‘The Deep Sky,’ by Yume Kitasei

This was a year of strong debuts, but Kitasei’s murder mystery in space is a mind-blowing performance even by those standards. “The Deep Sky” makes even familiar space adventure tropes brand new, including desperate maneuvers, an unreliable A.I., a malfunctioning virtual-reality system and a multinational crew whose members have secret agendas of their own. But what sticks with me is Kitasei’s thoughtful exploration of friendship, identity and a fractured mother-daughter relationship. ( Book World review .)

‘Silver Nitrate,’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Movies enchant in more ways than one in this chilling tale of film nerds colliding with occultists who seek a special film with arcane powers. Moreno-Garcia reinvents herself from book to book, which makes each a unique treat, but this time around her protagonists are among her most compelling. “ Silver Nitrate ” hits especially hard when it explores colorism in both mysticism and Mexican society, and the need to survive by creating your own private language. ( Book World review .)

‘Rouge,’ by Mona Awad

Belle’s snow-white mother dies, leaving her half-Egyptian daughter with a house full of weird beauty products and a connection to an even weirder beauty cult. “ Rouge ” could have been a polemic against the beauty-industrial complex, but instead it delves fearlessly into trauma, internalized self-loathing and the dangers of falling for a movie star — in this case, one who visits through a magic mirror. At the core of it all, Awad finds an astonishing tenderness. ( Book World review .)

‘White Cat, Black Dog,’ by Kelly Link

When present-day writers retell old fairy tales, it can come across as mere annotation, but Link’s revamped classics feel brand new . Her characters navigate bizarre situations with arbitrary rules, but also find love and kindness in the oddest places. There’s a literal trip to hell and — much worse — a never-ending layover caused by a series of canceled flights. Plus a post-apocalyptic traveling band. By turns unsettling and delightful, “ White Cat, Black Dog ” captures the essential poetry at the heart of fables. ( Book World review .)

‘The Water Outlaws,’ by S.L. Huang

Speaking of retellings of classics, Huang’s epic saga of martial arts and insurrection is inspired by the seminal Chinese novel “Water Margin.” Huang writes action that feels both kinetic and spiritual. And her community of rebel bandits strikes up a fascinating debate about how to save a country from itself. Tearing myself away from this addictive book was one of the hardest things I’ve done lately. ( Book World review .)

‘The Great Transition,’ by Nick Fuller Googins

In a year full of climate stories, Googins’s quasi-thriller was among the most emotionally compelling and humane. In the near future, teenage Emi attends the commemoration of the anniversary of our victory over climate change, but there’s a terrorist attack and her mother goes missing. Emi soon discovers that the fight to save the planet hasn’t really ended. Through Emi’s parents, Googins shows the different ways people process trauma and just how much the fragile salvation of our world cost them. ( Book World review .)

‘Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon,’ by Wole Talabi

I’ve been describing “Obalufon” as a thrilling heist novel with a deep, crunchy backstory. Shigidi is a minor god of nightmares who used to work for the hyper-capitalist Orisha Spirit Company but now freelances with his succubus lover, Nneoma. Shigidi and Nneoma have history, in both senses of the word, and their romance is intertwined with the political intrigues of gods and mystics. An action-packed romp coupled with a thorny love story : Who could ask for more? ( Book World review .)

‘Godkiller,’ by Hannah Kaner

In “ Godkiller ,” gods have been outlawed, and Kissen exterminates them for a living — until she finds one she can’t kill. It’s a setup for a classic fantasy road trip , with a motley group and plenty of wild action. But it’s also a vehicle for exploring the different meanings of divinity and why people need something to believe in. ( Book World review .)

‘He Who Drowned the World,’ by Shelley Parker-Chan

This sequel resolves every storyline from Parker-Chan’s “ She Who Became the Sun ” (2021) satisfyingly (if sometimes upsettingly), while also answering all the thematic questions about destiny, greatness and mercy the first volume posed. A chronicle of the founding of the Ming Dynasty in which Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming emperor, was secretly born a woman, Parker-Chan’s duology foregrounds characters whose masculinity is called into question. It all builds to an ending that is startling but also utterly perfect. ( Book World review .)

‘To Shape a Dragon’s Breath,’ by Moniquill Blackgoose

This remains my favorite book of the year . An Indigenous girl, Anequs, becomes the first person on Masquapaug island to hatch a dragon’s egg in generations, which means she’s forced to attend the dragon-rider academy run by the Anglish colonizers. If Anequs can’t learn to behave like a proper Anglish girl, her adorable baby dragon will be put to death. A fascinating alternate history of North American colonization and a nuanced investigation of who gets left out of “civilization” form a worthy backdrop to a coming-of-age story that is cozy and hair-raising in equal measure.

Two other great reads: “ Lone Women ” by Victor LaValle and “ The Reformatory ” by Tananarive Due.

An earlier version of this article misspelled Shelley Parker-Chan's first name as "Shelly." This version has been corrected.

The 50 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time

Plenty of imitators have tried to match the heights of our No.1, but none have come close.

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links.

Since time immemorial, mankind has been looking up at the stars and dreaming, but it was only centuries ago that we started turning those dreams into fiction. And what remarkable dreams they are—dreams of distant worlds, unearthly creatures, parallel universes, artificial intelligence, and so much more. Today, we call those dreams science fiction.

Sci-fi brings out the best in our imaginations and evokes a sense of wonder, but it also inspires a spirit of questioning. Through the enduring themes of sci-fi, we can examine the zeitgeist’s cultural context and ethical questions. Our favorite works in the genre make good on this promise, meditating on everything from identity to oppression to morality. As the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing said, "Science fiction is some of the best social fiction of our time.”

Choosing the fifty best science fiction books of all time wasn’t easy, so to get the job done, we had to establish some guardrails. Though we assessed single installments as representatives of their series, we limited the list to one book per author. We also emphasized books that brought something new and innovative to the genre; to borrow a great sci-fi turn of phrase, books that “boldly go where no one has gone before.”

Now, in ranked order, here are the best science fiction books of all time.

Tor Books The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey

Westworld meets The Stepford Wives in this gripping revenge thriller about the unlikely alliance between a woman and her clone. When geneticist Evelyn Caldwell learns that her husband Nathan is cheating on her, she soon ferrets out the truth—rather than work on their strained marriage, Nathan stole Evelyn’s proprietary cloning technology and replaced her with a more docile substitute. But when Evelyn finds her clone standing over Nathan’s dead body, crying, “It was self-defense,” these quasi-sisters will have to work together to conceal the crime and preserve Evelyn’s scientific reputation. The Echo Wife ’s juicy premise runs deep, raising eerie questions about love, justice, and individuality.

Del Rey Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

Long before Facebook’s Metaverse, Stephenson coined the term in this cyberpunk acid trip of a novel. Snow Crash ’s Hiro Protagonist lives a double life: in reality, he delivers pizzas for the Mafia, but in the Metaverse, he’s a hacker and a warrior prince. When he learns about a lethal virus picking off hackers one by one, his race to find its dastardly architect sends him pinballing through everything from technological conspiracy to ancient Sumerian mythology. Sexy, action-packed, and downright prophetic in its vision of our virtual future, you'll want to strap in tight for this dizzying techno-thriller.

Gallery Books Contact, by Carl Sagan

The great Carl Sagan wrote dozens of works of nonfiction, but just one novel: Contact , a 1985 bestseller that later became a Jodie Foster flick. Sagan’s preoccupations with intelligent life come into view through Dr. Ellie Arroway, a principled astronomer who detects and decrypts a deep-space transmission from a planetary system far, far away. At the transmission’s urging, the nations of the world race to build a mysterious machine, but faith leaders call the enterprise (and the rationality of science) into question. Through this thoughtful, layered story, Sagan plumbs the often antagonistic relationship between science and religion, asking if perhaps both are seeking contact in different forms. After all, disciples from each camp can agree on one thing: “The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”

Voyager A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.

After World War III, Earth has fallen into a new Dark Age; most of the United States is a radioactive wasteland, and civilization is in tatters. While violent packs of survivors burn books and slaughter those who can read, the monks of St. Leibowitz preserve the heritage of the past by smuggling important volumes into their monastery. As the novel progresses throughout the centuries and a new Renaissance gives way to a second space age, so much about modern life changes, but at the monastery, much remains the same. Miller’s ambitious sci-fi classic captures the human tendency for self-destruction, as viewed through the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, but it’s not all doom, gloom, and nuclear warfare— A Canticle for Leibowitz is a moving paean to the power of knowledge and hope.

Mariner Books Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem

No one writes about intelligent life quite like Stanislaw Lem, who scoffed at little green men and instead put the alien in alien. In this dense and brainy novel, scientist Kris Kelvin lands on the planet Solaris to study the mysterious ocean enveloping its surface. Kelvin and his crew soon discover that this massive ocean is sentient: aloof, unknowable, and mysterious, it explores these explorers, reflecting their most painful memories back at them. What if aliens don’t care to know us, and what if we can’t possibly dream of understanding them anyway? Lem never tired of asking these questions, but of all his novels, Solaris makes our list for its perfect encapsulation of his singular vision.

Ace Neuromancer, by William Gibson

“Cyberspace: a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation.” This is the setting of William Gibson’s Neuromancer —sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it? The winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer is often called the definitive novel of the cyberpunk genre (it went on to heavily influence the creators of The X-Files and The Matrix ). Our hero is Case, an ex-cyber cowboy banished from cyberspace by his former employers. When a criminal syndicate comes knocking, promising to restore Case’s uplink in exchange for his hacking services, the novel transforms into a kaleidoscopic espionage thriller. Trippy, surreal, and slick as hell, Neuromancer is a ride you won’t soon forget.

DAW The Book of Phoenix, by Nnedi Okorafor

Science fiction and magical realism collide in this imaginative prequel to Okorafor’s World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death . Here we meet Phoenix, an “accelerated woman” grown in New York’s Tower 7. Though she’s only two years old, she has the mind and body of a middle-aged adult, along with superhuman abilities. Phoenix suffers a painful awakening when her lover takes his life under dubious circumstances, proving that Tower 7 is less of a home and more of a prison. Her daring escape leads her to Ghana, where she learns brutal truths about colonialism, and vows to fight back against her oppressors. Blistering with love and rage, Phoenix’s fight for justice is downright electrifying.

W. W. Norton & Company A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

In the many decades since its 1962 publication, A Clockwork Orange has become such a high school curriculum fixture that it’s easy to forget just how damn good it is. Burgess’ transgressive dystopia is the story of Alex, a teenage gangster who leads his fellow droogs in shocking acts of “ultra-violence”—until he’s apprehended by the draconian police. In prison, Alex is subjected to a brutal reconditioning, leaving him a changed and diminished man. Told in high-flying, pyrotechnic patois that’s since bled into the cultural lexicon, A Clockwork Orange is a postmodern triumph.

Del Rey The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

Few science fiction novels can claim to have inspired their own holiday, but The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy isn’t your ordinary science fiction novel (the holiday is Towel Day, if you must know). Adams’s signature work has cast a long shadow over popular culture, and for good reason. This absurdist comedy is the story of Arthur Dent, a hapless everyman who wanders the universe after Earth is destroyed to make way for the galactic highway. As he romps through space with alien travel writer Ford Prefect and a crew of android oddballs, Dent’s adventures illuminate how “utterly insignificant” our “little blue green planet” truly is. In the face of absurdity, Adams reminds us, what else can we do but laugh?

Gallery / Saga Press This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Structured as a poetic correspondence between two time-traveling spies, this forbidden romance puts the “distance” in “long-distance relationship.” As Agents Red and Blue hopscotch through the multiverse, altering history on behalf of their respective military superpowers, they leave behind secret messages for one another—first taunting, then flirtatious, then flowering with love and devotion. “There’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there?” Blue muses. “Letters are structures, not events,” Red replies. “Yours give me a place to live inside.” Amid the dangerous chaos of their circumstances, Red and Blue find constants in one another. Playful and imaginative, told with lyrical grace, this is a dazzling puzzle box of a novella.

Ace The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein

Though Heinlein is considered one of “The Big Three” science fiction writers (along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke), he’s arguably the least well-known among casual sci-fi readers. If you’re new here, start your Heinlein odyssey with his best novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress . In the year 2076, a penal colony on the moon rises up against the tyranny of Earth, declaring themselves the Free State of Luna, and themselves "the loonies." It’s a parable for the American Revolution, but instead of tea dumped in the Boston harbor, we’ve got electromagnetic catapults hurling moon rocks at Earth with the force of atomic bombs. Fun fact: the phrase, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” originated in this novel.

Square Fish A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle

Who says science fiction is only for adults? L’Engle’s enduring young adult classic is the story of tweenage siblings Meg and Charles Murray, who travel through the universe by way of a space-time-folding tesseract. In search of their missing father, Meg and Charles encounter galactic marvels of all kinds, from a utopian planet to the source of all evil in the universe. A Wrinkle in Time never makes the mistake of assuming that young readers can’t handle all the brainy concepts and mature themes that science fiction has to offer. Though it’s an unforgettable read at any age, it’s perhaps best-loved by the generations of readers who remember it as their gateway to sci-fi.

The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

Published way back in 1895, The Time Machine was one small step for H.G. Wells, but one giant leap for science fiction. The novel popularized the concept of time travel by vehicle, lighting the way for everything from Back to the Future to Doctor Who . The Time Machine is the story of the Traveler’s journey 800,000 years into the future, where he discovers that mankind has evolved into two races: the ethereal Eloi and the predatory Morlocks. Through the Traveler’s exciting, nail-biting adventure, we see an entire generation’s fin-de-siècle anxieties about industrialization and the future of humanity. This short, seminal book is a must-read for any sci-fi fan.

Orbit Rosewater, by Tade Thompson

Tade Thompson’s award-winning Wormwood Trilogy opens in Nigeria circa 2066, where the town of Rosewater has formed around a mysterious alien biodome rumored to have extraordinary healing powers. Enter Kaaro, a government security officer known as a “sensitive”—essentially, a bioengineered race of psychics with access to an alien informational network called the xenosphere. When sensitives start dying off mysteriously, Kaaro embarks on a hardboiled detective mission, bringing the true nature of sensitives’ existence into the cold, hard light of day. A work of dazzling cyberpunk imagination and visionary Afrofuturism, Rosewater masterfully fuses a story of postcolonial trauma with a first contact narrative.

Anchor The Stand, by Stephen King

Horror, fantasy, and science fiction converge in The Stand , a master storyteller’s doorstopper about the eternal struggle between good and evil. After a bioengineered influenza virus escapes from a government laboratory, mankind succumbs to the deadly pandemic in just weeks, leaving survivors scattered across the barren United States. Two communities coalesce around very different leaders: Mother Abagail, a benevolent holy woman seeking utopia, and Randall Flagg, the human personification of violence and chaos. As the communities fight to wipe one another out, King weaves an epic tale about theology, morality, and human nature. In the wake of our own pandemic, The Stand has only grown in resonance and prescience.

Vintage The Children of Men, by PD James

Before it was a grim Alfonso Cuarón film, The Children of Men was a grim, remarkable novel. The year is 2021: with all men inexplicably sterile, no child has been born for 25 years, and the human race faces extinction. England is ruled by the Warden, a despotic leader who prizes the youngest generation above all others. Theo Faren, the Warden’s estranged cousin, sleepwalks through life as an Oxford historian until he receives a visit from a group of dissidents, whose company includes a pregnant woman. Packed with prescient insight about politics, power, and tyranny, The Children of Men will rattle you for years to come.

Tor Books Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente

When documentary filmmaker Severin Unck fails to return from her latest project on Venus, so begins a metafictional odyssey into her life, work, and disappearance. Constructed in patchwork fashion from scripts, depositions, and interviews with people who knew Unck, Radiance ushers us into Valente’s pulpy alternate universe, where Hollywood is an interplanetary system with backlots on the moon, but cinema never progressed beyond silent black and white films, thanks to the Edison family’s tight grip on the patent process. Hopscotching through this kaleidoscopic universe of beauty, adventure, and artistry, Valente tells a moving story about why we tell stories at all.

Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson

Plenty of writers have contemplated the colonization of Mars, but few have done it with such extraordinary granularity as Robinson, who dug in with gusto through his Mars Trilogy. Arthur C. Clarke himself called Red Mars “the best novel on the colonization of Mars that’s ever been written.” The novel takes place in 2026, when colonists fleeing an overpopulated Earth touch down on the red planet. Carefully selected and trained, they set about the task of terraforming hostile, sandswept Mars, but establishing a viable settlement will demand everything they have to give. Robinson looks at planetary colonization through every conceivable lens: politics, biology, ecology, medicine, psychology, and morality, just to name a few. The result is speculative fiction that feels astoundingly real.

Del Rey The City & The City, by China Miéville

That this novel won a constellation of awards spanning science fiction, fantasy, and weird fiction is proof of Miéville’s gift for straddling genres. The City & The City is set in two fictional Eastern European cities occupying the same physical space; from birth, residents are trained to “unsee” the opposing city, under the threat of criminal penalties. When a murdered woman is found lying in the wastelands, Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad is called to the scene, but the crime defies logic: this woman was murdered in one city, and her body was dumped in the other. Borlú’s investigation exposes startling secrets about this strange way of life, taking us on a noirish metaphysical journey through the doors of perception.

Del Rey Hyperion, by Dan Simmons

Inspired by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales , Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos begins with this story of seven pilgrims sent on a potentially fatal mission to the Time Tombs of Hyperion. There, they hope to confront the Shrike, a cosmic being with the power to bend space and time. Throughout the journey, they share their stories of suffering under the Hegemony of Man, the intergalactic government that sold humanity out to a civilization of AIs. From aging in reverse to encounters with immortality, each story is a cerebral fable, rich in Lovecraftian terror, mythological import, and breathtaking worldbuilding.

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20 Must-Read Space Fantasy Books

Rachel Brittain

Rachel is a writer from Arkansas, most at home surrounded by forests and animals much like a Disney Princess. She spends most of her time writing stories and playing around in imaginary worlds. You can follow her writing at rachelbrittain.com. Twitter and Instagram: @rachelsbrittain

View All posts by Rachel Brittain

I’ve always had a soft spot for science fantasy. Chock that up to being raised on Star Wars , if you will, but it’s still something I love to see in fiction. I love a bit of hard sci-fi now and again, too, but sticking purely to what science currently says is possible can be a bit restricting at times. Don’t you ever want to explore the galaxy in a sentient spaceship or use magic to stop an intergalactic war? Because I do. And that’s where science fantasy comes in.

Science fantasy is exactly as advertised: a mixture of science fiction and fantasy elements blended together. Classic examples that most people will probably recognize are Star Wars and Star Trek , but the genre first came to prominence in American pulp magazines through writers like Robert A. Heinlein. The science fantasy genre utilizes fantastic elements made more plausible through the lens of science fiction or science fiction elements made even more extraordinary with a bit of magical thinking applied.

Much of the genre takes place in space or on alien planets, which is why these 20 must-read space fantasy books have made the very top of my list. Whether filled with magical powers or alien encounters, these books are an intricate melding of both science fiction and fantasy. Dive in for some fantastic space fantasy adventures.

Must-Read Space Fantasy Books

Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden

On a biological ship, there are the elite and there are the beast workers. Seske Kaleigh was born to be the next matriarch, and as such, is expected to marry men and women that will secure important connections for her family line. But her friendship with — and feelings for — heart worker Idalla threaten her position. Especially when Idalla is cast out among the bone workers. Life on a spacefaring beast is never easy, but as Seske and Idalla begin to see the signs of impending exodus as the beast grows weaker and weaker, they must face the reality that the life they know has been built on lies. And there may be another future out there among the stars if only they’re willing to risk it.

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Aetherbound by E. K. Johnston

Forced to work as a servant on her family’s interstellar freighter, Pendt longs to escape. In space, only useful aether abilities are worth the calories they take to use, which means as far as Pendt’s family is concerned, her connection to the genetics of all living things is less than worthless. On the brink of starvation and never having seen the galaxy outside her ship, Pendt sneaks off at the first station they’ve docked at in decades. There, she meets two brothers who change her life. In taking her in and showing Pendt her worth, the Brannick twins give her a place she can finally call home. It comes with costs, too, though. Only through a marriage contract will she be safe from her family. And even that might not be enough when they realize just how powerful she really is.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson

Master of speculative fiction Nalo Hopkinson writes out-of-this-world science fiction with a Caribbean flair. It’s Carnival on the planet of Toussaint. The festival is simply a wonderful excuse to put on her favorite costume as the Robber Queen. But then her power-hungry father is caught committing an unforgivable crime and he and his daughter are banished to the world of New Half-Way Tree where humans are the outcasts and creatures of folklore and legend are real. Here, Tan-Tan must find the true Robber Queen within herself and become who she was always meant to be.

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

In order to redeem herself from a military disgrace, Captain Kel Cheris is forced to align her consciousness with a famed undead tactician who might be her only hope of saving the Fortress of Scattered Needles from heretics. With Shuos Jedao’s skills and knowledge, they might just be able to scrape victory from the jaws of defeat. After all, he never lost a battle. But he also went mad in his former life, massacring two armies, one of them his own. Can Cheris truly trust someone such as that with not only the war but her mind? And maybe a better question: does she even have a choice?

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

This necromantic space fantasy features some of my favorite sword- and bone-wielding heroines of all time. Gideon teams up with her archenemy and the heir of her planet to act the part of the Ninth House’s cavalier. She’s one of the best swordswomen the planet has to offer but she wants nothing more than to escape her dreadful planet with her sexy magazines. But the Ninth House’s necromancer, Harrowhark, isn’t having it. Not until Gideon preforms one last service to the House by answering the Emperor’s call for each of the nine Houses necromancers and cavaliers to gather and solve a mystery that could save — or perhaps destroy — them all.

We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen

Dr. Grace Park was only meant to observe the 13 person crew of the Deucalion . She far prefers the ships’s androids, their behavior seeming less baffling than the human crew. But when the ship is forced to bunker down during a radiation storm, everything falls apart. The survey is put on hold. The crew succumbs to waking nightmares and the androids are acting strangely. On the planet of Eros, nothing is as it seems. And Dr. Park has to figure out what is causing all of this before she falls prey to the madness herself.

Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell

An arranged marriage may be the only hope of staving off war with planets chaffing under the rule of the Iskat Empire. Jainan of Thea’s marriage to an Iskat prince is meant to keep the peace. But when Imperial Prince Taam dies, Jainan finds himself rushed into a new marriage with the prince’s cousin, Kiem. Marriage to someone you hardly know is difficult, and life at court even more so. But when it comes to light that Prince Taam’s death may not have been an accident, Jainan is a prime suspect. How hard can it be to solve a murder in the Iskat court? They’re about to find out.

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

Only two cities exist on the tidally locked planet, January, and Sophie has been kicked out of one of them for her involvement in a failed revolutionary group. She’s saved by a mysterious creature in the ice. Along with a ragtag band of exiles, Sophie travels to the other side of the planet, but the creature that saved her is never far from her mind…

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

This philosophical farce of a space opera is one of my all time favorites, featuring some of the most ridiculous characters and situations you’ll come across in science fiction, fantasy, or just about any other genre you can think of. A spaceship powered by improbability? Check. A depressed robot? Check. The answer to life, the universe, and everything? Check, check, and check.

Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes

It’s space fantasy plus cats! Chasing psychic cats loose on a spaceship is just the beginning (literally) of this ridiculous and ridiculously fun sci-fi adventure. Really, psychic cats should be the worst of Captain Eva Innocente’s troubles. But then she’s blackmailed into doing dirty work for a shadowy crime syndicate after they kidnap her elusive sister. As she tries to protect her crew and keep the truth about their new missions a secret, things go from bad to worse. Each mission could be her last, and if she’s not careful, all these terrible secrets could burn the life she’s carefully scraped together to the ground.

The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis

A voiceless priestess, taking soldier’s confessions on a military’s as part of the Gean war effort, is ordered to spy on the new captain by the Sisterhood. It would be an easier thing if she wasn’t also falling for her. On the other side of the military divide, an elite soldier of Venus is devastated to learn that the partner he thought had disappeared in battle is alive and a traitor to his cause. His only hope of redemption lies in tracking down his former partner, but what if there was more to the story? What if defecting was actually the right choice?

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Mahit is an ambassador to the imperial City of Teixcalaan. Her job should be a relatively easy one: to investigate the death of the former ambassador and advocate for the continued independence of Lsel Station. But as soon as she arrives, the brain implant that allows her to hear the voice of her predecessor is silenced. Adrift without guidance, Mahit finds herself stymied in the face of an alien culture where no one will admit that the previous ambassador’s death wasn’t an accident…or that she might be next.

Dune by Frank Herbert

No list of space fantasy would be complete without this classic of the genre. On a planet rich in invaluable Spice Melange, an addictive substance that plays a fundamental role in space travel through its awareness expanding properties, young Paul Atreides finds himself in the middle of a war: a war between ancient noble houses, a war of imperial politicking, and a war to keep the planet of Arrakis from non-native invaders who want to exploit its resources. When his family is betrayed, Paul is set on a journey that will change the course of Arrakis — and the galaxy — forever.

Does the book have some problematic elements? Oh, definitely. It was published in the 1960s. But it’s a classic that I would still say is worth a read — especially with what looks to be an incredible movie adaptation coming our way soon starring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.

The Long Way To a Small , Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Becky Chambers’s fiction tends to be much more rooted in science than in science fantasy, but the wildly imaginative exploration of what alien life might look like in an interconnected galaxy makes it plenty fantastic enough for this space fantasy list. Meet the ragtag crew of the aging spaceship Wayfarer through the eyes of a young woman trying to escape her past. She’s doing her best to escape her past, but in all her sheltered life, Rosemary has never met a group as wildly diverse as this crew made up of a mixed human and alien crew. When the ship gets a dangerous job tunneling wormholes, though, Rosemary has to question whether getting distance from her past is worth risking her life.

Redshirts by John Scalzi

This wonderfully ridiculous book follows the low level crew members of a huge space ship, who, strangely enough, keep dying off. Even weirder, the commanding officers always seem to be fine no matter how bad things get. Not surprisingly, most of the crew tries to avoid going on away missions with the high ranking officers and all the inevitable danger it entails. But as Ensign Andrew Dahl and his fellow low-ranking friends dig deeper, they stumble across information that completely upends their understanding of life on the starship Intrepid . Nothing is as it seems.

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

The whole premise of “ Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet ” (as promised by the Goodreads blurb) has me sold. Three women — one who’s made a deal with the devil to deliver souls, one runaway violin prodigy, and one retired starship captain — whose paths cross in California, altering each other’s lives for good. It’s a Faustian deal with a devil meets trans coming-of-age story.

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

The biggest, baddest intergalactic music competition has finally come to Earth! It’s time for the Metagalactic Grand Prix. Unfortunately, if the band chosen to represent Earth doesn’t preform, it will result in total annihilation of all life as we know it. Now Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes have to make the comeback of their lives to prove the the sentience of life of all life on Earth by making up the sickest of sick beats. But, uh, first they’ll have to get the band back together. What could go wrong?

The Last Watch by J. S. Dewes

The edge of the universe is collapsing, and it’s taking everyone and everything with it. The only ones left to stop it are the dregs of the military: the recruits, exiles, and least-wanted soldiers. They’re the ones nobody wanted. And now it’s up to them to save the universe.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

A talented girl with a gift for mathematics and handling astrolabes earns a spot at a prestigious intergalactic university. She’s the only one of her people to ever be accepted, and the only one of her people to ever want to go off-planet. But her journey to Oomza University puts her on a collision course with a group of aliens bent on revenge against the institution. Binti is not a typical Oomza student, influenced by both her talent and her culture, and neither Binti nor the aliens are prepared for what comes to pass when they meet.

Destroyer of Light by Jennifer Marie Brissett (October 12, 2021)

Alien conquerors have resettled the remains of humanity on the planet Eleusis made up of three habitable zones: Day, Dusk, and Night. Three interconnected stories reveal the ever-shifting divide between alien and human, criminal and dissident, and the haves and have notes in this Afrofuturist Persephone retelling.

Did all that space fantasy put you in the mood for more great science fiction? Try these:

• Feel-Good Science Fiction Books
• All Alone in Space Books
• Space Magic Books

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9 Must-Read Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books Releasing in April 2024

Add these to your wish-list for spring..

If you’re looking for something new to read this spring, these brand-new and upcoming sci-fi and fantasy books offer many amazing worlds to delve into. While many prominent authors have novels being published this month—like Ann Leckie, Leigh Bardugo, and Edward Ashton—several new novelists are also debuting with some excellent SFF books to consider.

For sci-fi fans, we've found novels exploring dystopian worlds, rogue AI, generation ships, and imaginative parallel universes. And, for anyone looking for that next fantasy adventure, we've tracked down novels that traverse unknown ocean depths, Chinese mythology, and 16th-century Spain. In summary, we've tried to include something for every reader in this month's sci-fi and fantasy book roundup. Which ones are you looking forward to reading? Here are the best sci-fi fantasy books to consider in April 2024.

Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton

Much like Ashton’s first novel— Mickey7 , which has a film adaptation releasing in 2025 — Mal Goes to War is a dark sci-fi comedy that places a sardonic narrator in a dangerous future setting. While similar in tone, the two have very different settings. Mal is an independent AI living in infospace watching serial dramas while a war rages between the augmented Federals and the ‘pure’ Humanists. Mal fully intends to ignore the war and the humans scurrying outside infospace.

Unfortunately, the war finds him. When the Humanists cut off infospace, Mal is left adrift. He finds a new host in a deceased augmented human. For some reason, the young child he discovers beside the dead human seems somewhat disturbed by his animation of the corpse’s body. On his journey to find a new home, he befriends several humans, making him realize that he does care about what happens in the war. If you enjoyed Mickey7 and The Murderbot Diaries , you will likely enjoy Ashton’s latest. It’s brilliantly narrated on audio if you’re an audiobook listener.

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

Bardugo is a queen of engrossing page-turners regardless of length. Her newest novel is no exception. This dark and steamy standalone historical fantasy is set in 16th-century Spain during the height of the Inquisition. Luzia is a Jewish scullion who can do small acts of magic by singing Ladino refrains. She keeps both her magic and her heritage a secret, knowing that if anyone discovered either, she would be turned over to the Inquisition.

When her mistress catches her doing a small act of magic, she forces Luzia to perform magic tricks at dinner parties. Secretly, Luzia enjoys the attention and craves more. A wealthy and ambitious nobleman soon discovers her and wants her to compete to be the king’s magical champion. In his employ is the mysterious and sinister Guillén Santangel, a cursed immortal who makes Luzia feel like she’s flying. Bardugo’s latest is a lovely and magical ode to marginalized and diaspora cultures during the Spanish Inquisition.

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

Barnes’ debut novel, Dead Silence , was a nail-biting space horror, and her second space horror, Ghost Station , is, dare I say, even better than her first. Dr. Ophelia Bray is a psychologist better known for her ridiculously wealthy family than her work. She has tried to separate herself as much as possible from her problematic family, but their legacy seems to follow her wherever she goes.

She specializes in treating people with ERS—a space-based mental health condition that often leads to violence, both self-inflicted and towards other crew members. After a crew member dies, she joins a deep-space mission to explore an abandoned planet. The crew immediately begins harassing Ophelia, but she’s determined to do her job well. On the planet, however, everything goes wrong. This nuanced, character-driven space horror with intense plotting is a fantastic addition to the genre, and could be perfect for fans of Dead Space, Alien, or Event Horizon.

Lake of Souls: The Collected Short Fiction by Ann Leckie

Ann Leckie is well-known to SFF readers for her award-winning Imperial Radch series. This is her first short story collection, though many of these stories have been previously published in short story markets. It’s divided into three sections.

The first section occurs in primarily unspecified worlds, the second in the Imperial Radch universe, and the third in the same world as her standalone fantasy novel, The Raven Tower . It’s an imaginative and often experimentative collection with coming-of-age stories for a lonely spawn, dinosaurs fleeing meteors by escaping into space, espionage and extreme religious piety in Radch, schemes between gods, and so much more. Often, science fiction authors excel at short stories, and Leckie is no exception.

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Samatar taps into her experience as a professor in this thought-provoking dystopian novella deeply entrenched in university academic politics and carceral control. Set on a mining spaceship that’s part of a fleet of generation ships, it rotates between two characters.

The boy is one of the Chained who lives as a captive deep below the ship. He’s haunted by dreams of drowned people and makes art depicting his inner thoughts and dreams. A prophet speaks to him of the practice, a sort of philosophical meditation, and the boy tries to follow it by devoting himself to his art.

While the other is a woman, a professor of older knowledge working on a paper about play among children who wear blue bracelets around their ankles, like her, that can be controlled by the elite. She initiates a scholarship to allow one of the Chained to attend the university, and the boy is chosen as its recipient. This is a unique and sometimes opaque read, at turns disturbing and profound. Samatar deftly manages to pack a lot into only a slim page count.

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

Cathrall’s debut is a lovely epistolary cozy fantasy for fans of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries and Legends & Lattes . In a world mostly covered by water, people live on small islands where scholars study the sea. E., who has OCD, lives in the only underwater house—the Deep Houseëwhich her eccentric (and deceased) scholar mother designed.

After a strange marine animal appears outside the house, she writes to Scholar Henerey, a renowned marine naturalist, in hopes he can shed light on the nature of the animal. The two start a delightful exchange of letters, eventually leading to deeper feelings. Soon, E. becomes riveted by a new mystery, a strange structure that suddenly appears outside her home. The frame story happens one year after these events. E.’s younger sister, Scholar Sophy, is mourning E.’s presumed death and begins a correspondence with Henerey’s brother, Navigator Vyerin. They begin a project of exchanging letters, diaries, and other written materials to explain the year E. and Henerey spent in correspondence. It’s a delicious slow-burn fantasy and the first book in a series.

Song of the Six Realms by Judy I. Lin

YA fantasy readers will adore this beautifully written standalone based on Chinese mythology. After being accused of treason, Xue’s family was put to death, and their name was eradicated. An orphan, her uncle raised her before turning her over to the House of Flowing Water, where she’s learned to entertain and perfected her musical skill at the qin.

She’s an unparalleled musician, and after her first public performance, a stranger asks for a private audience with her. He offers to become her patron, and she accepts, hoping to earn her freedom. He turns out to be the Duke of Dreams, and his derelict mansion hides secrets that could put Xue’s life at risk.

Ocean's Godori by Elaine U. Cho

This entertaining found-family sci-fi is like K-drama meets The Expanse . Korea’s military space force, the Alliance, dominates the galaxy. Ocean Yoon is a down-on-her-luck pilot aboard the Ohneulis. She and the crew are currently attending a gala in Seoul, but Ocean skips the gala to instead go shopping with Teo, the son of a wealthy Korean family.

Meanwhile, Haven replaces a crew member aboard the Ohneulis and becomes their medic, though the crew distrusts him for being part of a religious community called the Death’s Hand. Cho rotates between these three perspectives as the ragtag crew navigates adventures, politics, and romance. It ends on a cliffhanger, so hopefully, book two will be released soon!

In Universes by Emet North

North’s debut novel is an inventive, mind-bending literary science fiction that delves into mental health, queerness, Judaism, love, and more as it explores parallel universes. Raffi is an assistant in a NASA lab studying dark matter and feels wildly out of their depth.

They struggle to make meaningful connections as they grapple with depression, but the one bright spot in their life is Britt, a sculptor who grew up in the same town as Raffi. Each chapter imagines a different universe with Raffi and Britt, each universe growing more and more chaotic and surreal as the novel progresses. Despite the wildness of each chapter, this slim novel is a wonderfully immersive and vivid read.

Margaret Kingsbury is a freelance writer, editor, and all-around book nerd based in Nashville, TN. Her pieces on books and reading have appeared in Book Riot, BuzzFeed News, School Library Journal, StarTrek.com, Parents, and more. Follow her on Instagram @BabyLibrarians and Twitter and Bluesky @AReaderlyMom.

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Memory, That Unreliable Narrator: New Science Fiction and Fantasy

Seven books comb through history, travel to distant planets and imagine our A.I. future.

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By Amal El-Mohtar

The year’s nearly over, and it’s hard to remember where it went. Most people I know have complained about memory problems, provoked by difficult times and traumatic events, and compounded by the redactions and distortions of social media. We know we all remember things a little differently, with reality fracturing into competing narratives the further we get from any given occurrence. But when disaster is near-universal and the gulf of disagreement vast, it’s easy to question our own recollections as suspect. Here, then, are books full of dueling paradigms, uncertain and chancy remembrance — with the past looming both as a resource and as a nightmare, and the future at its mercy.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is the author of over 20 novels, but somehow ELDER RACE (Tordotcom, 201 pp., paper, $14.99) is the first of his I’ve read. Lynesse is the worthless youngest daughter of a queen — an impulsive, too-earnest embarrassment to her family, believing as she does in the legends of sorcerers in their lineage. Nyr, meanwhile, is one such sorcerer — actually an anthropologist from a starfaring civilization who is separated from his team by decades and light-years, and is keeping himself isolated in suspended animation from the bronze-age locals until rescue arrives. But when a strange affliction somewhere between demon and disease begins plaguing Lynesse’s people, she comes knocking at the so-called sorcerer’s door to wake him up and claim a favor from him as her birthright.

Reading this was pure pleasure. Usually this sort of fantasy-meets-science-fiction story leans hard toward one or the other, allowing that genre’s rhetoric to contain and digest its counterpart. But “Elder Race” maintains a knife’s-edge balance between the two, and Tchaikovsky’s attention to language as a marker of genre, and to genre as a kind of translation, is elegant and thoughtful. Chapters alternate between Lynesse and Nyr, each of them struggling to understand the other’s default assumptions and paradigms until a breathtaking moment when everything’s laid bare between them.

Tchaikovsky’s prose in both modes is somewhere between smooth river rocks and tooled leather; there’s an Ursula Le Guin-like grace to his storytelling, to the shifting of cadences. Everything about this book suggests deliberate care in uniting epic fantasy’s immersive world-building with the sharp, dislocating bursts of high-concept science fiction. I’ve never been so relieved to learn of an author’s extensive back catalog. Ten out of 10, no notes.

Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson’s YOU FEEL IT JUST BELOW THE RIBS (Harper Perennial, 371 pp., $26.99) embraces genre more straightforwardly, but plays games with form and media. Cranor and Matthewson are the creators of “ Within the Wires ,” a disquieting anthology-style fiction podcast narrated through relaxation cassettes, museum audio guides, and letters and notes dictated to an administrative assistant. “You Feel It Just Below the Ribs” is set in the world of their podcast: an alternate 20th century shaped by the Great Reckoning, a decades-long world war “driven by nationalist identity crises.” A New Society that strives to be borderless and tribeless emerges, slowly picking away even at subgroups like nuclear families. Presented as a questionable autobiography annotated by the unnamed editors of a potentially seditious small press, “You Feel It Just Below the Ribs” mirrors the methodology of “Within the Wires,” explicitly reminding the audience of its medium while destabilizing the story through insertions and insinuations of what exists beyond it.

The fictional autobiography is of Miriam Gregory, a psychologist who pioneered a technique called the Watercolor Quiet, a blend of meditation and hypnosis designed to treat trauma — but eventually adopted by the New Society to erase people’s memories of strong family attachment. The editors inform us at the outset that Gregory spent the last 20 years of her life in hiding, and warn of her unreliability as a narrator; doing so, of course, calls their own reliability into question. The tension between Gregory’s authorship and the editors’ authority — fact-checking her claims, scrutinizing her intentions, casting doubt on her beliefs — is a subtle, quickening pulse beneath the narrative’s skin.

The relationship of podcast to novel is a tricky one. On the one hand, the book is perfectly comprehensible as a stand-alone project, and full of moving insight into loss, grief and family; on the other hand, having even a glancing familiarity with the podcast gives moments in the novel more dimension and depth, to the extent that I wonder what I’m missing by not having listened to more than a few episodes. But the podcast also slackens some of the tension between Miriam and her posthumous editors: “Within the Wires” listeners will have confirmation of certain key plot elements Gregory’s editors disbelieve. While the back-and-forth between Gregory and the footnotes works to unsettle matters in the text, the podcast — ironically — settles them. Meanwhile, Gregory’s story, on its own merits, is a mixed bag; her early years are characterized by aimless meandering in a world that is largely blank and featureless, and the form of the novel works against the kinds of storytelling that would allow a reader purchase in it. Overall, this is a novel probably best enjoyed by people with no experience of the podcast, or a complete experience of it; as the book itself suggests, half-formed remnants of memory are trouble.

Memory and revelation are integral to Freya Marske’s debut, A MARVELLOUS LIGHT (Tordotcom, 375 pp., $27.99), a lush historical fantasy. In an alternate Edwardian England, magic runs in families like wealth, but is kept secret through stealth and “lethe-mint,” a memory-erasing potion. Magical ability is latent and variable, but can be developed through education and deployed through contracts and complex hand gestures called “cradling.”

Sir Robin Blyth learns all this by accident. Mistakenly installed as an assistant in the Office of Special Domestic Affairs and Complaints when the post’s previous occupant goes missing, Robin is “unbusheled” by Edwin Courcey, a magician of negligible power who has been given the chore of liaising with the mundane British government. Robin is athletic and kind, a recently orphaned scion of wealthy philanthropists; Edwin is a grouchy scholar burdened with a great deal of family. But as they work together to unpack the disappearance of Robin’s predecessor, they grow to understand, support and enjoy each other.

Despite an unnecessary prologue that had me bracing for an irritating read, this proved to be a delightful book, with richly developed characters rooted in family dynamics and period flavor. It manages the remarkable trick of introducing a trilogy while being satisfying in its own right, leaving plenty to explore in future volumes while completing a complex story in this one. It’s certain to be well received by fans of C.L. Polk’s “Witchmark” and Everina Maxwell’s “Winter’s Orbit,” as well as anyone with a weakness for William Morris prints and tender, difficult romances between opposites.

Tade Thompson’s FAR FROM THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN (Orbit, 370 pp., paper, $17.99) is, among other things, a locked-room murder mystery set on a spaceship light-years from Earth. Michelle Campion, or Shell, has trained for interstellar travel her whole life; her first mission is on Ragtime, a ship powered by artificial intelligence, accompanying 1,000 comatose humans through a wormhole to a planet in another solar system. Shell’s job is to sleep for 10 years alongside her passengers while Ragtime keeps the ship running, docks at Space Station Lagos for maintenance and proceeds to orbit Bloodroot, the destination planet. Instead, she wakes up to find that the A.I. has been tampered with, multiple passengers have been gruesomely murdered and the culprit is still at large. Bloodroot’s government sends up a disgraced detective named Rasheed Fin and his artificial friend Salvo to investigate — but the more they dig into the mystery, the more hostile the ship’s environment becomes.

“Far From the Light of Heaven” is an intriguing mix of real space science and mystery: It’s “Gravity” meets “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Its short, choppy chapters are both methodical and kaleidoscopic, introducing new characters in flashes and bursts; there’s a remote precision to the writing that succeeds in projecting both the stakes and wonder of a spacewalk. That experience is sometimes disorienting and sometimes curt; some abrupt twists of plot are less developments than dismissals, suggesting an authorial impatience with a narrative I found completely engrossing. I would have loved more time spent with space bureaucracy and character histories, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed for any of the several potential sequel hooks to build into a follow-up.

Bringing questions about artificial intelligence closer to home, AI 2041 (Currency, 448 pp., $30) is a fascinating collaboration between Kai-Fu Lee, the former president of Google China, and Chen Qiufan, the current president of the World Chinese Science Fiction Association. Conceived as a project of “scientific fiction,” it unites Lee’s extensive expertise in artificial intelligence with Chen’s speculative inquiry: The collection contains 10 of Chen’s short stories, all centering on aspects of A.I. development, each with a supplementary essay by Lee placing that story’s themes in our contemporary technological context.

Set in 2041, and originally written in Chinese, Chen’s stories are lucidly translated by Emily Jin, Andy Dudak, Blake Stone-Banks and Benjamin Zhou. They are refreshingly international in scope — we visit Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea, China, India and Qatar, among other places — and explore topics such as algorithm bias, deepfakes, self-driving vehicles and automation-induced mass unemployment.

Chen and Lee each have introductions to the volume; Lee puts forth their methodology in his: “I first created a ‘technology map’ that projected when certain technologies would mature.” He accounted for “story-worthy conflicts and dilemmas that might emerge alongside these technologies. … Qiufan then flexed his talents.”

Lee hopes the stories will appeal to people who don’t read fiction — but one wishes the authors had tried harder to appeal to those who do. These pieces are illustrations of concepts first, and stories second; in order to foreground contemporary technologies, Chen leaves several of fiction’s tools — most notably voice and point of view — on the shelf. Some stories transcend the didactic aloofness of the whole: “Twin Sparrows,” about orphaned brothers who learn to love each other despite their differences, and “My Haunting Idol,” about the toxic nature of certain kinds of celebrity, are particularly moving.

In several stories, A.I. is used to deceive people — in a way that’s revealed to be for their own good. It’s an ironic pattern in a project so earnestly concerned with clarity and pedagogy: While the book argues for technology’s inherent neutrality, the stories themselves push forward and excuse a certain paternalism. The stories and essays both have a tendency to obscure their premises in pursuit of specific outcomes, and the more they speculate about social impacts, the less they stand up to scrutiny. Overall, though, “AI 2041” is a worthy addition to the canon of A.I. imaginary, an impressive collaboration and a good book to start arguments with — whether on your own or with a friend.

Originally published in Korea in 2006, Un-su Kim’s THE CABINET (Angry Robot Books, 301 pp., paper, $14.99) is narrated by an administrative worker named Kong Deok-geun who, while navigating the extreme boredom of his office job, discovers Cabinet 13: a filing cabinet filled with extraordinary accounts of “symptomers,” people experiencing strange and marvelous occurrences and abilities. Overseen by the crotchety Professor Kwon, symptomers describe sleeping for months (“torporers”), seeing their doubles (“doppelgängers”) and growing gingko trees from their fingers (“chimeras”). It becomes Kong’s job to interview and console these people, whose symptoms often obstruct their ability to function within society. Kong’s own life — his mundanity and mediocrity — gradually becomes a needle threading the Cabinet reports together, as Professor Kwon’s health declines and a sinister apparatus called the syndicate begins pressing Kong to turn the contents of the Cabinet over to them.

“The Cabinet” is a sly, whimsical satire of life in late-stage capitalism, slippery and surreal, and reads in some respects like historical fiction: It was written and published before the ubiquity of smartphones and social media, and there’s something almost — almost — refreshing about the humdrum monotony of office life, away from the polluted water cooler of our current digital landscape. Kong’s matter-of-fact voice, conveyed in a sprightly and hilarious translation by Sean Lin Halbert, is a pitch-perfect foil to the “symptoms” he describes. By grounding them amid joyless, life-leeching work, the assembled files don’t make up a Wunderkammer so much as a Banalkammer, a cabinet not of curiosities but of mundanities, in which the most astonishing occurrences share space with gray, draining reality.

“The Cabinet” is a kind of echoing chamber in which the comic, heartbreaking and terrifying bounce against, amplify and distort one another. The ending bears down on the reader like teeth, and may seem, at first glance, like a sharp and sudden betrayal of its main affect. But its end is in its beginning, which rewards rereading.

Natashia Deón’s THE PERISHING (Counterpoint, 307 pp., $26) is a supple exploration of life in 1930s Los Angeles as well as a moving meditation on the Black American experience in the 20th century; it draws on patterns and histories of racial solidarity and oppression to tell a loving story of people and their relationships with places. Told mostly through the perspective of Lou Willard, a young Black woman hired to work the death desk at The Los Angeles Times, “The Perishing” weaves in major events such as the building of Route 66 and the failure of the St. Francis Dam, while gesturing toward tragedies in Lou’s previous and future lives, glimpsed in mixtures of memory and dream.

Deón’s prose is beautiful, and the voice animating “The Perishing” is heartfelt. But this is not a book interested in the structure it proposes at the outset: that of an immortal intelligence, one of several, who moves from life to life doing good. While Lou’s story is the core of the book, it’s often interrupted, peeled back, doubled over, in order for her future incarnation, Sarah Shipley — standing trial for murder in the year 2102 — to comment on or explicate it. This means that we’re never wondering who Lou is, why she can’t remember her childhood, or why she heals supernaturally quickly — but instead are left to wonder why we’re seeing haphazardly deployed pieces of previous lives that have little to do with Sarah’s story, Lou’s story or the story of the immortals in aggregate.

Overall, “The Perishing” pulses with moments, phrases, passages that are deeply affecting and could have formed an organizing principle for the whole: the wonderful irony of an immortal working at a newspaper’s death desk; the wrenching instance of a 1930s Black woman grieving the future killing of Latasha Harlins; the notion of a community of immortal spirits being hunted by someone outside of it. The book embraces none of those — but while it doesn’t cohere, or close the framing stories with which it opens, the window it maintains on Lou’s life shows a vibrant, immersive world that’s worth spending time in, learning and remembering.

Amal El-Mohtar is a Hugo Award-winning writer and co-author, with Max Gladstone, of “This Is How You Lose the Time War.”

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The best new science fiction books of April 2024

There’s an abundance of exciting new science fiction out in April, by writers including The Three-Body Problem author Cixin Liu, Douglas Preston and Lionel Shriver

By Alison Flood

1 April 2024

The last remaining free city of the Forever Desert has been besieged for centuries in The Truth of the Aleke

Shutterstock / Liu zishan

There are some huge names with new works out this month: Cixin Liu and Ann Leckie both have collections of shorter writing to peruse, plus there’s a dystopic future from the award-winning Téa Obreht and a world where woolly mammoths have been brought back from the bestselling Douglas Preston. I also love the sound of Scott Alexander Howard’s debut The Other Valley , set in a town where its past and future versions exist in the next valleys over, and of Sofia Samatar’s space adventure The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain . So much to read, so little time…

A View from the Stars by Cixin Liu

This is a collection of short works from Liu, the sci-fi author of the moment thanks to Netflix’s new adaptation of The Three-Body Problem , ranging from essays and interviews to short fiction. I love this snippet from an essay about sci-fi fans, in which he calls us “mysterious aliens in the crowd”, who “jump like fleas from future to past and back again, and float like clouds of gas between nebulae; in a flash, we can reach the edge of the universe, or tunnel into a quark, or swim within a star-core”. Aren’t we lucky to have such worlds available to us on our shelves?

3 Body Problem review: Cixin Liu's masterpiece arrives on Netflix

Cixin Liu's novel The Three-Body Problem has been turned into an eight-part series for Netflix by the Game of Thrones team. There is much to admire so far, but will the adaptation stay on track, wonders Bethan Ackerley

Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie

Leckie is a must-read writer for me, and this is the first complete collection of her short fiction, ranging across science fiction and fantasy. On the sci-fi side, we will be able to dip back into the Imperial Radch universe, and we are also promised that we’ll “learn the secrets of the mysterious Lake of Souls” in a brand-new novelette.

The Morningside by Téa Obreht

In a catastrophic version of the future, an 11-year-old girl arrives with her mother at The Morningside, once a luxury high-rise, now another crumbling part of Island City, which is half-underwater. Obreht won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011 for her debut, The Tiger’s Wife .

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Samatar won all sorts of prizes for her first novel, A Stranger in Olondria . Her latest sounds really intriguing, following the story of a boy who has grown up condemned to work in the bowels of a mining ship among the stars, whose life changes when he is given the chance to be educated at the ship’s university.

A boy grows up working in a mining ship among the stars in The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain

D-Keine/Getty Images

Extinction by Douglas Preston

This is set in a valley in the Rockies, where guests at a luxury resort can see woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths and Irish elk brought back from extinction by genetic manipulation. But then a string of killings kicks off, and a pair of investigators must find out what’s really going on. This looks Jurassic Park -esque and seems like lots of fun. And if you want more mammoth-related reading, try my colleague Michael Le Page’s excellent explainer about why they won’t be back any time soon.

Mania by Lionel Shriver

The award-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin brings her thoughts about so-called “culture wars” to bear on her fiction, imagining a world where a “Mental Parity Movement” is in the ascendent, and “the worst thing you can call someone is ‘stupid’”.

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard

This speculative novel is set in a town where, to the east, lies the same town but 20 years ahead in time and, to the west, the same town but 20 years behind, repeating endlessly across the wilderness. The only border crossings allowed are for “mourning tours”, in which the dead can be seen in towns where they are still alive. Odile, who is 16, is set for a seat on the Conseil, where she will be able to decree who gets to travel across borders. I love the sound of this.

The best new science fiction books of March 2024

With a new Adrian Tchaikovsky, Mars-set romance from Natasha Pulley and a high-concept thriller from Stuart Turton due to hit shelves, there is plenty of great new science fiction to be reading in March

What If… Loki was Worthy? by Madeleine Roux

Many will question whether the Marvel superhero stories are really science fiction, but I’m leaning into the multiversal aspect here to include this, as it sounds like it could be a bit of fun. It’s the first in a new series that reimagines the origins of some of the biggest heroes: here, Thor died protecting Earth from one of Loki’s pranks and, exiled on our planet, the Norse trickster god is now dealing with the consequences.

The Truth of the Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi

The second book in the Forever Desert series is set 500 years after The Lies of the Ajungo , following a junior peacekeeper in the last remaining free city of the Forever Desert, which has been besieged for centuries. It was actually out in March, but I missed it then, so I’m bringing it to you now as it was tipped as a title to watch this year by our science fiction contributor Sally Adee.

Anomaly by Andrej Nikolaidis, translated by Will Firth

It is New Year’s Eve on the last day of the last year of human existence and various stories are unfolding, from a high-ranking minister with blood on his hands to a nurse keeping a secret. Later, in a cabin in the Alps, a musicologist and her daughter – the last people left on Earth – are trying to understand the catastrophe. According to The Independent , Nikolaidis “makes Samuel Beckett look positively cheery”, but I’m definitely in the mood for that kind of story now and then.

Martin MacInnes: 'Science fiction can be many different things'

The author of In Ascension, the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club, on why he wrote his novel, cultivating a sense of wonder and the role of fiction in the world today

Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton

In this techno-thriller, Mal is a free AI who is uninterested in the conflict going on between the humans, until he finds himself trapped in the body of a cyborg mercenary and becomes responsible for the safety of the girl she died protecting.

• science fiction /

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The 25 science fiction and fantasy books we’re excited for in 2024

Exciting debuts, beloved authors returning, and much more

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The time has come to send 2023 and all of its highs and lows packing and to ring in the new year. While it’s impossible to say now what 2024 holds in store for all of us, there is one thing that I know for certain: It is going to be a truly banner year for sci-fi and fantasy readers. Not only does Leigh Bardugo have a new novel coming out (I’m counting down the days for this one myself), but there are also titles translated by Anton Hur and Ken Liu coming out, the writing duo that makes up James S.A. Corey is joining forces once again, and the long wait for several sequels is finally coming to an end.

The publishing schedule for the back half of 2024 is still a mystery (even to the most book-savvy people), but below you’ll find 25 titles hitting shelves between the months of January and September. That’s a full nine months of reading planned out for you to enjoy! So take a look and let us know what you’re most looking forward to.

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

A sumptuous and haunting multi-generational saga set in a crumbling estate along the coast of South Africa, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years promises to be a fresh take on a classic and beloved genre. When Sana and her father move into Akbar Manzil, the last thing they expect to find is a house full of secrets, a garden full of bones, and a lonely and heartbroken djinn haunting its decaying halls. Stranger still is the east wing of the house, its contents frozen in time, and the story of love and tragic, untimely death that awaits Sana’s discovery.

The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka

Billed by Tordotcom as “ The Birds meets The Princess Bride ” (an intriguing combination to say the least), Aimee Pokwatka’s upcoming fantasy horror novel The Parliament asks readers “What would happen if tens of thousands of bloodthirsty owls descended upon a small town library, trapping people inside?” The answer, as Madeline Purdue discovers, is utter chaos. Madeline is determined to keep her students safe and alive, but with food and water in short supply, she finds herself struggling to find a way out that will keep them far away from the owls.

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Ali Hazelwood, bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis and Love, Theoretically , has taken a paranormal approach to her steamy new romance novel, Bride . Misery Lark (which is, in my opinion, an excellent name for a vampire who happens to be the leading lady in a romance novel) has been living secretly among humans, away from her cold and uncaring father and the threat of werewolves, for years. But Misery’s days of anonymity and peace are swiftly coming to a close. When a deal is struck between the werewolves and the vampires, Misery finds herself being married to Lowe Moreland, their surly — and frustratingly handsome — Alpha.

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

I’ve been a huge fan of Robert Jackson Bennett and his books for some time now. He’s truly masterful when it comes to magic systems and world-building, and his upcoming novel, The Tainted Cup , promises to be no exception. Set in a brand-new world with a brand-new set of characters, The Tainted Cup is a clever spin on classic murder mysteries. Ana Dolabra is a brilliant investigator who insists on wearing a blindfold at all times and never sets foot outside her home. Her assistant, Dinios Kol, has been magically altered to have a perfect memory, so it falls to him to be her eyes, ears, and everything in between at the scene of a crime. When a tree bursts out of the chest of a high-ranking imperial officer, it falls to Ana and Dinios to figure out who killed him before the mastermind strikes again.

The Book of Love by Kelly Link

Clocking in at a whopping 640 pages, Kelly Link’s upcoming novel The Book of Love is by far the longest title on this list and one of the most eagerly anticipated for fans of all things H.P. Lovecraft. Set in the picturesque seaside town of Lovesend, Massachusetts, The Book of Love tells the story of three friends — Laura, Daniel, and Mo — who mysteriously reappear in a high school classroom after vanishing without a trace the year before. Stranger still is the fact that they are not alone. With them is their music teacher, who proposes that they take on a series of magical tasks in order to ensure that their return to this world is permanent.

The catch? They aren’t allowed to tell anyone where they’ve been, or else everything will fall apart.

What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier #2) by T. Kingfisher

Alex Easton, Angus, and resident mycology expert Miss Potter return once again in this breathtaking (pun very much intended) addition to the Sworn Soldier series from the delightfully spooky mind of T. Kingfisher. Not long after the harrowing events that took place at Usher Manor, Alex and their companions arrive at the lodge they spent time at after the Gallacian war. When the party arrives, they discover the lodge has long been abandoned, the caretaker is dead, and that the surrounding grounds are wreathed in a deeply unsettling and seemingly impenetrable — and definitely supernatural — silence.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

In her upcoming, heart-wrenching paranormal historical fiction novel The Warm Hands of Ghosts , Katherine Arden trades the frozen Russian wilderness of her Winternight trilogy for the desolate trenches of World War I. In the wake of tragedy, Laura Iven — a former field nurse — receives news that her younger brother has died in combat. But something about the letter doesn’t ring true and Laura, determined to discover the truth, returns to the frontline as a volunteer at a hospital in order to find her brother and bring him home.

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

When the children of a bloodthirsty foreign tyrant make the mistake of wandering into the Elmever, a dangerous stretch of forest bordering the kingdom, it falls to a jaded and weary woman by the name of Veris Thorn to retrieve them. Locals know that once you set foot in the Elmever, you never come back. But Veris has done exactly that, and has no choice but to set foot in the forest once again in order to keep what’s left of her own family safe. I recently had the pleasure of reading The Butcher of the Forest and am pleased to say that the Grimm brothers can’t hold a candle to Premee Mohamed and her fever dream of a fantasy novella.

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk (translated by Heather Cleary)

Written by Marina Yuszczuk and translated by Heather Cleary, Thirst marks the arrival of an exciting new voice in Gothic literature that readers are sure to enjoy sinking their teeth into. Set in Buenos Aires during the 1900s and modern day, Thirst follows the story of two very different women with a magnetic attraction to one another, for better or for worse. One is a young woman struggling to come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness. The other is a vampire who has watched the rise and fall of great cities for hundreds of years.

Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang (translated by Ken Liu)

For years, scientists have tried to prove (or disprove) whether or not there is intelligent life beyond our own galaxy, but what if the aliens have been here, hidden on planet Earth, the entire time? In Jumpnauts , the Pacific League of Nations and the Atlantic League of Nations have been in heavy competition with one another to achieve first contact with a mysterious alien race. Neither is expecting a third party that has existed beneath their feet in an ancient castle for thousands of years to make contact with them first.

Cascade Failure by L.M. Sagas

Found family is, frankly, one of the best and most important tropes that any sci-fi or fantasy novel can have. L.M. Sagas’ gritty space adventure Cascade Failure features a wide array of lovable misfits who come to depend on one another in the way all found families eventually do. Fast-paced, fun, and told through multiple points of view, Cascade Failure tells the story of the crew of the Ambit — a ragtag group that includes a deserter, an AI pilot, and a trigger-happy XO, just to name a few — as they respond to a distress call from an abandoned planet and uncover the mystery waiting for them there.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

There’s a chance you’re already familiar with Nebula and Locus award-winning author, John Wiswell, his insightful and funny tweets about writing, and his myriad short stories. John’s long-awaited debut novel, Someone You Can Build a Nest In , arrives in April and is a delightful mashup of horror, fantasy, and romance.

Shesheshen is a shape-shifter who spends her days as nothing more than an amorphous blob, peaceful and alone in the depths of a manor house. All of that changes, however, when she’s forced to make a body for herself out of scrap material (mostly old bones) and meets Homily, a charming and kind human being who mistakes Shesheshen for a fellow human.

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

If you’re anything like me and you can’t get enough of horror stories set in outer space — think Aliens , Event Horizon , and Mission to Mars — then Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes should be at the very top of your TBR pile.

After dedicating her life to the study of ERS (a fictional, space-induced condition that results in violent outbursts), psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray has been assigned to keep an eye on a ragtag crew as they explore a distant planet that was hastily abandoned by its previous inhabitants. While their investigation goes according to plan at first, things take a shocking and violent turn when one of their own is brutally murdered. With nowhere to run and no one to trust, it soon becomes clear that Ophelia might be the only one who can save her crew before it’s too late.

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

As someone who absolutely adores Leigh Bardugo’s Alex Stern series and has been on the hunt for something to tide me over until the next book comes out, I damn near lost my mind when I heard the news about her upcoming novel The Familiar . Set during the Spanish Golden Age, The Familiar tells the story of Luzia Cotado, a serving girl with latent magical abilities that she uses to help her get through the day. When Luzia’s mistress discovers her power, she’s suddenly thrust into a dangerous world of holy men, thieves, charlatans, and magic beyond her wildest dreams.

Heavenly Tyrant (Iron Widow #2) by Xiran Jay Zhao

If you’re a fan of Xiran Jay Zhao’s blood-soaked, Neon Genesis Evangelion -inspired first novel, Iron Widow , then chances are you’ve been counting down the days until Heavenly Tyrant hits shelves. After almost a yearlong publication delay, Heavenly Tyrant ’s release date is swiftly approaching, proving that good things really do come to those who wait. This time around Zetian finds herself forced to ally with a dangerous man in order to protect those that she loves, all while navigating violent political upheaval and her newfound power in Huaxia.

A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon (translated by Anton Hur)

Everyone loves the idea of being a magical girl, but being a magical girl isn’t all sparkly outfit changes, special powers, and talking animal companions. They still have to deal with everyday issues such as world-ending levels of climate change, job hunting, and credit card debt, just like everyone else. This is all much to the chagrin of the down-and-out millennial protagonist of A Magical Girl Retires . Park Seolyeon (with award-winning translator Anton Hur) has crafted a clever take on magical girl genre that fans and newcomers alike will both enjoy.

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton

A mashup of apocalyptic science fiction and suspenseful murder mystery, The Last Murder at the End of the World is set on an island occupied by 122 villagers and 3 brilliant scientists. The island itself is surrounded by a bank of deadly fog that has swept across the planet, killing everyone it touches. When one of the scientists is brutally murdered, the island’s remaining occupants discover that they only have 92 hours before the security system keeping them safe fails.

I’ve been a huge fan of Stuart Turton and his madcap mystery novels since The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle first hit shelves. (I still regularly think about the plot twist in that one.) His upcoming thriller might be his best and most intriguing yet.

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Perfect for fans of discussing the morality and ethics of I, Robot and the much-beloved and thoroughly chaotic Murderbot Diaries, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s upcoming novel Service Model is a tale of murder, mayhem, and artificial labor gone rogue. When a robot that knows nothing of the world outside of the house where it works murders its owner, it’s forced to go on the run, something that it didn’t know was at all possible. What it discovers is a world that is slowly falling apart, and robots not unlike itself who are unsure what to do once humans disappear for good.

The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim

At least once a year a book hits shelves that can best be described as “absolutely unhinged,” and The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim promises to be just that. This horror debut is about a woman named Ji-won who tries to keep what’s left of her family from falling apart after her father leaves them. Ji-won’s mother tells her that consuming fish eyes will bring her luck, and soon after she begins experiencing strange dreams in which she eats human eyes. Things take a turn for the even stranger when her mother begins dating a white man with striking blue eyes and Ji-won develops an unhealthy obsession with them.

Foul Days (The Witch’s Compendium of Monsters #1) by Genoveva Dimova

Taking inspiration from Bulgarian folklore, the strange and terrifying monsters found in The Witcher series, and fellow fantasy authors such as Naomi Novik and Katherine Arden, Foul Days by Genoveva Dimova is one of my most anticipated novels of 2024.

Set during the 12 days after Christmas, when monsters are free to roam, Foul Days tells the story of Kosara, a young witch who finds herself at odds with Zmey, the Tsar of Monsters — a dragon who can disguise himself as a handsome man. Determined to leave Zmey and the walled city where they live far behind, Kosara trades her shadow for illegal passage over the wall. Life on the outside isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, though, and Kosara soon finds herself contending with a magical wasting sickness, an honorable detective who may or may not be on her side, and a plethora of monsters, human and otherwise.

The Daughters’ War by Christopher Buehlman

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about or recommending Christopher Buehlman’s The Blacktongue Thief since I first read it in 2021 (if you haven’t picked up a copy yet, then you’re missing out on one of the best fantasy novels to hit shelves in the last five years). Needless to say, Buehlman’s The Daughters’ War is one of my most anticipated novels of 2023. Set in the harrowing, war-torn years preceding the events of The Blacktongue Thief , The Daughters’ War focuses on Galva as she goes against her family’s wishes and joins the Raven Knights (a group of ruthless warriors who ride into battle on the backs of horse-sized corvids). Together, Galva and her fellow soldiers will have to survive the goblin-infested cities that await them in the hopes to save what is left of humanity.

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

Best known as the internet-famous author of extremely niche erotica (with the occasional foray into horror) who keeps his identity hidden behind sunglasses and a pink mask, Chuck Tingle is back with a new novel, Bury Your Gays , a terrifying, tongue-in-cheek play on a tragic literary trope. When a screenwriter by the name of Misha — which is almost certainly a wink and nod to a certain fandom in particular — is asked to kill off a gay character in the upcoming finale of a show he’s working on, he refuses. It’s the right thing to do, obviously, but now Misha has a target on his back and, worse still, creatures from the horror movies that he worked on years ago are hunting him and his friends down across Los Angeles.

The Deading by Nicholas Belardes

What’s not to love about (and be terrified by) a dystopian horror novel that is described as Under the Dome meets The Last of Us ? In The Deading by Nicholas Belardes, a picturesque fishing village is turned on its head when a mysterious contagion that appears to have come from the depths of the ocean begins to alter their daily lives. While the disease first only seems to infect local wildlife, it quickly spreads to residents of the village, causing them to collapse and die before they come back to life.

The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey

The iconic duo that writes together under the pseudonym James S.A. Corey (best known for creating the phenomenal series The Expanse) are joining forces once again for an epic new sci-fi venture. The upcoming first novel, The Mercy of Gods , focuses on a planet with a long-forgotten history and a group of humans who have been taken captive by an aggressive alien species. The Mercy of Gods promises to be action-packed and a gripping tale of survival, humanity, and rebellion.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

I don’t want to go and wish 2024 away before it’s even started, but knowing that a sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea is coming out in September is a good enough reason to do just that. Arthur Parnassus, Linus Baker, and the six adorable (and occasionally terrifying) magical children who live on the islands they call home all return in this heartwarming sequel to TJ Klune’s bestseller.

• Best of 2023
• The fall’s biggest SFF releases
• Horror to read this fall
• Stephen King’s scariest books

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Dragon, witches, and myths abound this month, and there's even a Pride and Prejudice retelling set in space.

Blake, Olivie. Januaries. Tor. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9781250330680. 400p. $28.99. FANTASY

Featuring a guardian spirit to a magical bridge, a banished fairy, a multiverse assassin, and more, the latest by bestselling Blake ( The Atlas Complex ) is a collection of magical new and previously published stories and novellas, grouped by season. With a 100K-copy first printing.

Bond, Charlotte. The Bloodless Princes. (The Fireborne Blade, Bk. 2). Tor.com. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9781250290779. 160p. $20.99. FANTASY

Bond returns with another tale of love and dragons in the sequel to The Fireborne Blade . High Mage Saralene has been cursed and must visit the afterlife to beg for help from the Bloodless Princes, but it won’t be easy to leave the underworld alive, for her or her companion, knight Maddileh. With a 100K-copy first printing.

Clarke, August. Metal from Heaven. Erewhon. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9781645660989. 528p. $28. FANTASY

Nominated for a Locus Award and Dragon Award for the YA novel Scapegracers , Clarke makes their adult debut with a queer epic fantasy. Industrialist Yann Chauncey runs a foundry that produces a valuable but toxic metal. When the sick and destitute workers strike, all are killed except Marney, who years later finds the perfect chance for revenge.

Dimova, Genoveva. Monstrous Nights. (The Witch’s Compendium of Monsters, Bk. 2). Tor. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9781250877352. pbk. 352p. $18.99. FANTASY

Dimova continues witch Kosara’s story in the second book of the Slavic folklore–inspired fantasy duology that began with Foul Days . Kosara has reclaimed her magic and now possesses 12 witch’s shadows, which aren’t always cooperative, but more sinister events are occurring as the barrier between worlds thins. With a 100K-copy first printing.

Garcia, R.S.A. The Nightward. Harper Voyager. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9780063345751. pbk. 448p. $19.99. FANTASY

Sturgeon, Nebula, Locus, and Ignyte Award finalist Garcia ( Lex Talionis ) launches a sci-fi/fantasy duology inspired by Caribbean mythology. The goddess Gaiea has blessed queens to rule in her stead. Young Princess Viella is heir to the throne but still learning to wield her magic when her mother, the queen, is assassinated, forcing Viella and her bodyguard to flee.

Kim, Sung-il. Blood of the Old Kings. Tor. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9781250895332. 368p. $27.99. FANTASY

South Korean author Kim makes his English-language debut with the first of a fantasy trilogy. The Empire, powered by the corpses of sorcerers, has conquered the world. Loran, who wields a sword made of dragon’s fang; Cain, lost and orphaned; and sorcerer Arienne each rebel against the Empire in their own ways. With a 150K-copy first printing.

Kwan, Katrina. The Last Dragon of the East. Saga. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9781668051238. pbk. 304p. $17.99. FANTASY

Romance author and actress Kwan ( Knives, Seasoning, and a Dash of Love ) writes her first fantasy novel, inspired by Chinese myths. Sai, who can see the red threads of fate between soulmates, acts as a matchmaker while running a teahouse and caring for his mother. When he finds dragon scales that cure his mother, the emperor sends him on a quest to find the dragon.

Lampley, Alexis. Pride and Prejudice in Space. Union Square & Co. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9781454954118. 504p. $30. SCIENCE FICTION

Author and illustrator Lampley makes her adult debut with an SF retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice . Giving the classic Regency-era romance a new twist, she sets the story in a future of spaceships and interplanetary travel and includes several illustrations such as spaceship designs by Elizabeth Bennet, who yearns for freedom and a pilot’s license.

Liang, Ann. A Song To Drown Rivers. St. Martin’s Griffin. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9781250289469. 336p. $32. FANTASY

Bestselling YA author Liang ( I Hope This Doesn’t Find You ) writes her adult debut, an epic historical fantasy inspired by the legend of Xishi, one of the Four Beauties of ancient China. Offered the opportunity to infiltrate the neighboring kingdom and avenge her sister’s murder, Xishi accepts, but it’s a dangerous undertaking. With a 250K-copy first printing.

Maguire, Gregory. Elphie: A Wicked Childhood. Morrow. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9780063377011. 288p. $30. FANTASY

Bestselling Maguire, author of Wicked , which was made into a Tony Award–winning Broadway musical and a forthcoming movie, contemplates the origins of Elphaba, Wicked Witch of the West. From Elphie’s life with her complicated family to her days at Shiz University, this coming-of-age story traces the history of a young girl destined to be a witch. With a 150K-copy first printing.

Mesa, Desideria. Bindle Punk Jefe. (Bindle Punk Bruja, Bk. 2). Harper Voyager. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9780063056121. pbk. 400p. $17.99. FANTASY

Mesa offers the sequel to LJ -starred Bindle Punk Bruja , an Indie Next and LibraryReads pick. Earth witch Rose is living a double life in Prohibition-era Kansas City. Trying to keep her personal and magical lives separate from her public life as a land developer’s wife and club owner is becoming more difficult—and dangerous—as enemies emerge. With a 75K-copy first printing.

Parry, H. G. The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door. Redhook. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9780316383905. pbk. 384p. $18.99. FANTASY

Parry ( LJ Best Book The Magician’s Daughter ) returns with a historical fantasy set in England at a secret magical academy, where Clover seeks a cure for her brother, who survived a faerie attack during World War I, which left the doors to faerie country sealed. Years later, the seals break, and Clover must reunite with her former school friends to fix what they broke—and save the world.

Vo, Nghi. The City in Glass. Tor.com. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9781250348272. 224p. $19.99. FANTASY

Hugo Award–winning Vo writes a standalone novella after her “Singing Hills Cycle” series. The powerful immortal Vitrine, a demon, loves the city of Azril. When angels destroy it, Vitrine curses one of them, binding him to haunt the city, but their hate turns to love as they rebuild. With a 100K-copy first printing.

Walschots, Natalie Zina. Villain. (Hench, Bk. 2). Morrow. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9780063236936. 368p. $30. FANTASY

In the sequel to LJ Best Book Hench , Anna, who works for a supervillain and is known to superheroes as the Auditor, is working on a new goal—to destroy the Draft, the organization that makes, trains, and manages the world’s superheroes. Her biggest opponent will be the Draft’s chief marketing officer, and it will be a test of ideas and data.

Forthcoming Series Titles

Burke, Sue. Usurpation. (Semiosis, Bk. 3). Tor. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9781250809162. 240p. $28.99. SCIENCE FICTION

Butcher, James J. Cold Iron Task. (The Unorthodox Chronicles, Bk. 3). Ace. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9780593440452. 400p. $29. FANTASY

Gwynne, John. The Fury of the Gods. (The Bloodsworn Trilogy, Bk. 3). Orbit. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9780316539951. pbk. 512p. $21.99. FANTASY

Harrison, Kim. Demon’s Bluff. (Hollows, Bk. 18). Ace. Oct. 2024. ISBN 9780593639986. 448p. $30. FANTASY

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