The best recent and classic science fiction novels
As a teenager, I devoured sci-fi novels, and my addiction resumed for extended periods later in life. I was attracted above all by the sheer creativity the writers demonstrated in speculating about life and reality from new perspectives. And I must admit I was a bit of a nut about space travel, too. I’ve always frustrated my progressive friends for supporting the space program.
From pulp literature to speculative fiction
In times past, including the years of my youth, science fiction was widely regarded as pulp literature suitable only for 14-year-old boys. Those days are long past. Now the field is often referred to as speculative fiction. Which makes sense. The term allows such mainstream authors as Kurt Vonnegut and Margaret Atwood to deny vehemently that they write science fiction. Even if they really do.
In the lists below, you’ll find 67 great sci-fi novels reviewed in recent years on my blog, Mal Warwick on Books. Some of these titles will be familiar to you if you’re a science fiction fan. You’re less likely to know others. Each title is followed by a link to my review. Within each list, titles are grouped in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names.
In the first list, I’ve included only the top 10 books I’ve read and reviewed on this site over the past nine years — not any I might have read earlier. Following the top 10 is a list of 57 other great sci-fi novels. Again, those include only books I read and reviewed here. Finally, I’ve listed 41 classic sci-fi novels, most of which I read long ago. Actually, for the most part, when I was one of those 14-year-old boys.
The top 10 great sci-fi novels reviewed here
Omar El Akkad, American War — A chilling tale, lucidly told, of a Second American Civil War
Margaret Atwood, The Maddaddam Trilogy — Margaret Atwood’s classic dystopian fiction
Paolo Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl — One of the best science fiction novels I’ve ever read
Octavia E. Butler, The Parable Novels — A superb dystopian novel
The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut #1) by Mary Robinette Kowal — This novel shows just how good hard science fiction can be
Ira Levin, This Perfect Day — A superb tale of a future where artificial intelligence rules
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven — Life on Earth after the apocalypse
Ramez Naam, The Nexus Trilogy — The post-human future explored in an outstanding SF novel
Annalee Newitz, Autonomous — In 2144, Arctic resorts, autonomous robots, and killer drugs
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time — Accelerated evolution is the theme in a superior science fiction novel
57 other great sci-fi novels reviewed here
M. T. Anderson, Feed — A terrifying vision of the future in an award-winning young adult novel
M. T. Anderson, Landscape with Invisible Hand — A clever new take on an alien invasion in a humorous young adult novel
Madeline Ashby, Company Town — An imaginative look at a corporate future in a strange sci-fi novel
Paolo Bacigalupi, The Drowned Cities Series — Another exceptionally good sci-fi novel from an emerging master
Paolo Bacigalupi, The Water Knife — Dystopian fiction that breaks the mold
Aliette de Bodard, On a Red Station, Drifting — In this remarkable sci-fi novella, we enter a disorienting future reality
Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr (Vorkosigan Saga #11) — The best book in the Vorkosigan Saga?
Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust– A science fiction novel set after the war between robots and humans
Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) — A delightful modern space opera that’s all about character development
Becky Chambers, A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) — Lovable characters in this off-beat space opera
Becky Chambers, Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3) — A brilliant invented universe in an unusually good new science fiction novel
Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen — A novel treatment of time travel in this promising science fiction debut
Blake Crouch, The Wayward Pines Trilogy — A truly original work of speculative fiction
Blake Crouch, Dark Matter — A journey into the multiverse
Cory Doctorow, Little Brother — Terrorism. Homeland Security. Teenage rebellion.
Meg Elison, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife — A powerful feminist story in a dystopian landscape
Joe Haldeman, The Forever War (Forever War Trilogy #1) — This classic science fiction war novel won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards
Robert Harris, The Fear Index — A taut thriller about the world of multibillion-dollar hedge funds
Susan Hasler, Project HALFSHEEP: Or How the CIA’s Alien Got High — The CIA, LSD, and a drug-addled alien from the planet Utorb
Hugh Howey, Wool Omnibus Edition (Silo 1–5) — Hugh Howey’s outstanding science fiction
Stephen King, 11/22/63 — A new take on the JFK assassination
Mary Robinette Kowal, The Fated Sky (Lady Astronaut #2) — An astonishingly good science fiction novel about the first manned mission to Mars
Maggie Shen King, An Excess Male — A great science fiction novel set in a future totalitarian China
Marina J. Lostetter, Noumenon — A visionary science fiction novel with hard science at its core
Marie Lu, Legend (Legend Trilogy #1) — Far-future teens battling for survival in dystopia
Prodigy (Legend Trilogy #2) by Marie Lu — In this YA sci-fi trilogy, Marie Lu imagines a novel future for the United States
China Mieville, The City and the City — The most original sci-fi novel I’ve read in years
Sylvain Neuvel, The Themis Files — An entertaining if puzzling sci-fi novel
Emma Newman, After Atlas (Planetfall, A) — A 22nd century police procedural in a fascinating future Earth
Emma Newman, Before Mars (Planetfall #3) — A psychological thriller in a science fiction setting
Nnedi Okorafor, Binti (Binti Trilogy #1) — An African student travels to the stars in the first book of the Binti Trilogy
Malka Older, Infomocracy (Centenal Cycle #1) — Does the future of democracy look like this?
Matt Richtel, Dead on Arrival — Neurology meets high-tech in this gripping science fiction novel
H. C. H. Ritz, Absence of Mind — In an unusually original sci-fi technothriller, technology meets neuroscience
H. C. H. Ritz, The Robin Hood Thief — A grim look into the near future that’s all too plausible
Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Moon — China and the US face revolutionary change
John Sandford and Ctein, Saturn Run — First Contact: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind
John Scalzi, Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas — Diabolically clever, and very, very funny
John Scalzi, The Collapsing Empire (Interdependency #1) — A promising start to a new John Scalzi series
Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story — Gary Shteyngart’s dark vision of the future
Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Expert System’s Brother — An exceedingly clever science fiction story
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Player Piano — Kurt Vonnegut’s warning about automation
Jo Walton, The Farthing Trilogy — Chilling alternate history: If Nazi Germany had won the war
Andy Weir, The Martian — Hard science fiction at its best
Martha Wells, All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries — A reminder that technology doesn’t always work well in the future, either
Martha Wells, Artificial Condition (Murderbot Diaries #2) — Far away and long in the future, an augmented human designed to kill
Robert Charles Wilson, Spin (Spin Trilogy #1) — A Big History of the future in this popular visionary science fiction novel
Robert Charles Wilson, Axis (Spin Trilogy #2) — In this sci-fi novel, God is a networked intelligence scattered through the galaxy
Robert Charles Wilson, Vortex (Spin Trilogy #3) — The Spin Trilogy concludes with the heat death of the universe [but not highly recommended]
Ben H. Winters, Golden State — A riveting hybrid science fiction mystery novel that questions reality
To these 66 great sci-fi novels I’m tempted to add all the other books in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, which is perhaps the best-known and most loved of recent ventures into the realm of space opera. However, the series includes at least 17 novels by my count as well as a number of novellas and short stories, and I’ve only read and reviewed 13 of the novels so far. (You’ll find my review of the first book, Falling Free, at An outstanding sci-fi series.)
Now, I don’t pretend for a minute that this is a list of the best science fiction novels of all time. It just happens to be those I’ve read and loved over the past decade.
Lots of dystopian novels listed here
You may notice that the list above includes a disproportionate number of dystopian novels. That’s no accident. It’s the result of my research. Recently I wrote a book in which I discuss 62 such novels, including several of those listed above. The book is entitled Hell on Earth: What we can learn from dystopian fiction. You can find the book here.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t list at least some of the classic science fiction novels that I read in years past — in most cases, many years past — that should be included on any list of top science fiction novels. (So should some of the top 10 books listed above. In fact, some of them already appear on one or more such lists that can be found online today.) Here are the 41 older titles that come to mind now.
The classics: 41 great sci-fi novels
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy
Isaac Asimov, I, Robot
Greg Bear, Darwin’s Radio
Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar
Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
Arthur C. Clarke, Rendevous with Rama
Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End
Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle
Philip Jose Farmer, To Your Scattered Bodies Go
William Gibson, Neuromancer
Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Frank Herbert, Dune
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula LeGuin, The Dispossessed
Stanislaw Lem, Solaris
Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
Larry Niven, Ringworld
George Orwell, Animal Farm
George Orwell, 1984
Frederik Pohl, Gateway
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Mars Trilogy
Robert J. Sawyer, The Hominids Trilogy
Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
George R. Stewart, Earth Abides
Theodore Sturgeon, More Than Human
Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cat’s-Cradle
H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds
H. G. Wells, The Time Machine
Connie Willis, The Doomsday Book
If your taste runs to the dark side, you might be interested in The top 10 dystopian novels reviewed here (plus dozens of others). You may also be interested in the Three science fiction novelettes by Paolo Bacigalupi reviewed here.
