The 50 Best Science Fiction Books to Give You the Perfect Escape

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Defining “science fiction” (so that one can say, definitively, this book is a sci-fi book) is a little like defining “spiritual” or some other vague belief category that includes so many contradictory and peripheral and quasi-mystical tenants and offshoots that your friend who swears by it probably has no idea what it really is. “Sci-fi” is a term that says everything and nothing simultaneously. We know what it means, intuitively, but not so much definitionally. It involves, we think, kombucha.

Some works that seem obviously sci-fi (like Star Wars) are really not (Star Wars is a space western inspired by myth and samurai films, damnit. Fight us.) While other works that seem far from sci-fi (the early nineteenth-century’s Frankenstein, for instance) are the genre’s very DNA.

At its core, science fiction is a conceit. It’s a thought experiment beginning with a “what if X” or an “imagine a world in which Y.” It has something we might call a Device. And the Device cannot be peripheral, some incidental feature of the world. No, the narrative must turn upon this make-believe conceit. It must be its axis, it’s inciting incident, its reason for existence. The story cannot be the story without the Device. (You might then say, well isn’t “the Force” this Device? Or is more of a “power,” closer to the superhero genre. But would you not call something like X-Men science-fiction? Yes? You can see how tricky this becomes.)

The Device can be both a Thing or an Event. And so works centered on some “extinction-like event”—books like The Road, or The Handmaid’s Tale, or The Leftovers—do, in effect, count as science-fiction. (Though, we’ve included far less of this type of sci-f, what we’ll call “naturalistic sci-fi,” versus other, more traditional tech-driven sub-genres.)

And while loosening the sci-fi definition may open up just about the entire library, we’ve narrowed a list down to (in no particular order) some amazing reads. Here are the best sci-fi books for all readers, whether you haven’t touched a book since high school or you daily burn incense to the alter of Arthur C. Clarke.

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

If you're gonna take a trip down the sci-fi rabbit hole, there's no better guide than PKD. Dick may not appear on college syllabi (for whatever reason, "sci-fi" tends to get caught in the academic's throat when discussing essential literature), but make no mistake: Dick is as great and important an American novelist as there ever was. Prolific, prophetic, and hilarious. Start with Ubik, one of his best.

Dune by Frank Herbert

Dune is epic sci-fi. Operatic sci-fi. It’s the sci-fi of world (nay, universe) building, and in that sense it shares much with the fantasy genre—those works inspired by myth, geopolitics, and Arthurian romance. Maybe we call Dune "fantasy sc-fi"? Also, if you can judge the strength and epicness of a book based on the number of failed adaptation attempts, Dune is certainly up there. Need another incentive? Look at how cool Timothée Chalamet looks in the most recent movie version, and picture him in your head the entire time reading. You're welcome.

Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges is your favorite writer who is not yet your favorite writer, simply because you haven't yet read him. While Labyrinths is actually a short story collection (Borges' preferred form), each story is as expansive and brain-prodding as any massive or epic work of literature. Sci-fi's debt to Borges deserves to be proclaimed.

1984 by George Orwell

In a sense, 1984 has become increasingly more difficult to even consider science fiction—it’s Device (complete and utter surveillance of an entire state during war) no longer feels, well, like fiction. The work helped launch a thousand similar sci-fi stories in the "dystopian" sub genre. It's a goddamn classic.

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Neuromancer IS cyberpunk. The dystopian hacker hero who faces off against the underworld and the artificial intelligence therein—yep, Neuromancer brought that genre westward. Add it to the sci-fi syllabus.

The Ghost in the Shell by Shirow Masamune

Just as Star Wars owes debt to the Japanese samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, so does The Matrix (that other seminal and largely imitated American film series) owe it’s basic narrative conceit to Eastern cinema, and, in particular, Japanese anime: the film, Ghost in the Shell. That film was adapted from the manga. And given the impact The Matrix had on global sci-fi storytelling, The Ghost in the Shell is maybe one of the most influential pieces of sci-fi literature in recent memory.

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

Yeah, we weren't gonna just put one PKD book on here. Androids is a property you probably know by another name: Blade Runner. Which is a cool title. But not as cool as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? If the answer is "yes," boy are we in trouble.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Like all great novelists, Murakami is his own genre. Only after he has written, does "Miruakami-like" become a term; he creates his own predecessors. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is thus its own unique sub-genre of sci-fi we might call "surrealist detective sci-fi." It's amazing. And totally original.

Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo

Before it became one of the best anime films ever, Akira ran as a manga between 1982-1990. The manga falls in the cyberpunk (that's cyberpunk before even Gibson), and features a teenage biker gang leader in post-apocalyptic Tokyo. The work also helped popularize the manga medium in the United States.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro charges into the sci-fi genre with this one, about a group of children synthetically grown to have their organs later harvested. It was ranked by Time as one of the best English language novels since 1923.

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

In the spirit of Borges, here's another fantastic collection of short stories. It features Chiang's most well-known and award winning work, including the titular piece, the inspiration for the breakout film Arrival. Let this be a hint, Hollywood: adapt more Chiang.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Yes, Frankenstein, a work published in 1818 and well before the "tech" of modern "sci-fi". Still, it's the story of a scientist synthetically creating a sentient being whose existence throws into question social, political, and physical identity—and, yeah, that's some archetypal sci-fi stuff right there.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

While we're riffing on sci-fi a bit, we might go into the surreal. Kafka's The Metamorphosis resists most categorization, but its absurd and impossible conceit (waking up one day as a giant beetle/cockroach/something your father will throw fruit at) is pretty much what we mean by "Device." It's the perfect example of a thought experiment novel: simple and affecting.

Three-Body Problem Trilogy by Cixin Liu

Named after a problem in physics, Three-Body definitely puts the "science" in science fiction. Maybe one of the most famous works of Chinese sci-fi, it's also lauded by George R.R. Martin and President Barack Obama, who said reading the book made his problems with congress "seem fairly petty." If you want a trilogy that you can really sink your teeth into, you'll love this one.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

From China to Poland. Lem's Solaris (the basis for the famous Tarkovsky film) is an endlessly-dissectible novel seemingly about orbiting astronauts confronting a strange planet, but also really about our failure to confront foreignness and artificial intelligence, which itself might be a stand-in for communism, the USSR, or just everything.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Hitchhiker's Guide is, in short, a phenomena, something between outright parody and philosophical opus. It also provides the answer to everything you will ever need to know, all in a nice two-digit number.

The Martian by Andy Weir

The Martian was published serially through author Andy Weir's website. Literary agents that had scoffed him then came calling and the book soon took shape, became a New York Times best seller, and turned into a fun movie in the series of People Trying to Rescue Matt Damon.

The Children of Men by P.D. James

The Children of Men exists in that same subgenre of world-ending events and what we might term “naturalistic science-fiction”— the Device acts as a kind of deprivation, a return to nature. In this case, the Device is sudden, widespread infertility. Of all the books on the list, this one has by far the best film adaptation.

Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut

Perhaps more than any other novel, Slaughterhouse-Five showcases how sci-fi is best used. Here, time travel (the Device) isn't employed as a plot convenience or drama-inducing spectacle; it's used in the service of character and as a means to better understanding everything that's very much not fiction: here, war.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

In the same spirit: Aldous Huxley. Brave New World reads more as cautionary allegory than an other-worldly drama. Published during an age of eugenics fever and developing European genocide, its conceit of hierarchies and castes feels, in all eras, too close to home.

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

Alan Moore's V exists within the 1984 dystopian genre, and, given the Guy Fawkes mania it helped inspire—the image against all forms of supposed totalitarianism—the graphic novel may just be equally iconic.

2001: a Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

Written concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001 is just one of author Arthur C. Clarke's massive array of sci-fi novels. Clarke was so prolific and essential in the sci-fi cannon, there's even an award named after him. And many books on this list have won that award.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Bradbury borrows from Orwell for his surveilled police state, focusing, however, on one consequence: the erasure of knowledge. He takes the image of thought suppression (book burning) and turns it into the motivating drama. While it can be, at times, overly moralistic, Bradbury's prose make it something we'd grab and save from any inferno.

The Blazing World and Other Writings by Margaret Cavendish

If you're a fan of classics and want to know what some of the first (retroactively named) sci-fi reads were, you'll enjoy The Blazing World. The book is centered on a utopian world accessed via the North Pole. Even in the 17th century, we spent much of our time wondering how different life could be if our world were slightly different.

Ringworld: A Novel by Larry Niven

Part of the charm of the sci-fi and fantasy genres is just how invested writers can get into their worlds. There may be standalone reads, but there can also be lifelong projects to tell every story they can think of. In the case of Ringworld, there's a whopping nine novels in the overall Ringworld series. The first book follows a group who find themselves on a mission to Ringworld, an artificial world they have to traverse.

Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Besides his movie tie-in novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke had an illustrious writing career. If you want a starting point to his large bibliography, Rendezvous with Rama is a solid entry point. It's set in the future, when Earth one day discovers a strange alien spacecraft heading toward the planet. A crew is sent to unlock the secrets of the ship, called Rama.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Another prolific writer often lauded as one of the best of all time, Ursula K. Le Guin pushed science fiction in new directions, weaving in themes of sex and gender into her work. The Left Hand of Darkness is part of the Hainish Universe, one of the major worlds Le Guin often wrote her work within.

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells

Another great classic writer, H.G. Wells set the stage for many of the tropes and images we have within Western science fiction literature. The Island of Dr. Moreau follows a shipwrecked man who comes upon a mad scientist who experiments on animals, transforming them into human-like beings. This one's not for the squeamish.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel by Charles Yu

Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

Butler was a pioneer in science fiction. The first sci-fi writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, she paved the way for other Black sci-fi writers with her work. Wild Seed is the fourth book in her Patternist series, but the first chronologically.

Jurassic Park: A Novel by Michael Crichton

You may have seen the Jurassic Park movie adaptation, but have you ever read the book it came from? Crichton was a celebrated writer in his time, even making his way into film and television( he created ER, for example).

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott

If you're a casual sci-fi fan, you may have heard whispers about Flatland, but have no idea what it's about. Well, this 1884 novella explores a fictional two-dimensional world, and uses its setting to critique Victorian culture. It's a strange book, but one that has had an impact on popular culture since its publication.

Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov

Along with Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science-fiction writers in his day. One of his most popular works to date is the Foundation series, which was initially published as a trilogy until he followed it up with sequels. Apple TV+ now has a TV series based on the books.

Rosewater (The Wormwood Trilogy, 1) by Tade Thompson

The best part of literature is that new classics are created every day. Winner of the 2019 Arthur C. Clarke award, Rosewater follows an agent who uses his psychic powers to investigate an alien structure.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The first in a series, Children of Time is a more recent entry in the "must-read" category of sci-fi books. It follows scientists who attempt to terraform a planet to prepare it for human arrival, and the subsequent fallout when the last of Earth's inhabitants come to visit the planet in the many millenia after.

Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer

This creepy sci-fi trilogy centers on an uninhabited region overseen by a secret government agency, who sends expeditions to unlock the mysteries of the land. You may have seen the film adaptation based on the first book in the trilogy, Annihilation.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Besides Foundation, Asimov is also best known for his "Robot" series, which consists of short stories and novels exploring a world in which sentient robots perform various tasks for humanity. You've probably heard of I, Robot, particularly because of its film adaptation.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

One of the "Big Three" sci-fi writers of his time, Heinlein was big on hard science in fiction; giving scientifically accurate basis for his fiction. Stranger in a Strange Land follows a human man raised by Martians, who one day returns to Earth and seeks to change Earth's culture.

The Martian Chronicles

We can't talk sci-fi without talking about Ray Bradbury. For both kids and adults, Bradbury is a staple in getting people into the genre. Besides Fahrenheit 451, which you may or may not have read in school, The Martian Chronicles edges more toward solid sci-fi than dystopia. It follows the settlement of Mars following World War II. If you want a bit of philosophy, religion, and politics in your sci-fi, check this one out.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Another dystopia-sci-fi classic, A Clockwork Orange is a fascinating read. Not only is the plot itself engrossing, but Burgess created his own slang for his main character and his friends to speak in. You may find yourself a little disoriented at first, but soon enough you'll find yourself fully immersed. Without giving too much away, the book follows a young man named Alex who enacts violence on innocent people with his friends, or "droogs." When he's finally captured, he's forced to see the world in a very different lens.

Hyperion By Dan Simmons

Winner of the Hugo Award, Hyperion is the first in Simmons' Hyperion Cantos series. To try and describe the novel wouldn't do justice to its wide scope. Much of the story takes place in flashbacks over the course of six stories, which then come together to make the overall story.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

One of the classics in sci-fi, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a riveting adventure read for anyone of any age. While it may not seem like sci-fi by modern standards, Verne's descriptions of submarines chasing after a mythical creature will have you wondering how he thought of tech far beyond his time.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Presented as a group of interconnected stories, Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is often listed as a major must-read for anyone interested in modern sci-fi. It may not be the easiest to parse through, but for anyone willing to take on the challenge, you'll enjoy the intense structure and incredible plot.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

While best known for her Handmaid's Tale books, Atwood is a highly celebrated writer for more than just her dystopian books. While it may not fall under the exact purview of sci-fi, it has many of the aspects of the genre that we love. Oryx and Crake follows a Snowman, who only has creatures called Crakers for company in a post-apocalyptic world.

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

James S.A. Corey is a pen name of two writers who have taken over the sci-fi scene. Leviathan Wakes is the first in Corey's Expanse series, which has since been adapted into a popular sci-fi TV series of the same name. The series focuses on a future world in which humans have colonized much of the solar system. And while the technological advances are worth marveling over, there's complicated politics and class warfare that make the future anything but peaceful.

Station Eleven: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel

Looking for a sci-fi read that'll make you cry? Station Eleven may be a little too close to home for some, but could also some comfort. After a fictional swine flu wipes out much of humanity, a group of traveling actors band together, searching for those they've left behind.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Stephenson is a prolific writer, first appearing on the scene with The Big U in 1984. His 1999 novel Cryptonomicon was a Locus Award winner and nominated for both the Hugo and Clarke awards. The book takes place in two different timelines–World War II and the '90s–as it follows two code-breaking teams.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

The first in this space opera trilogy, Ancillary Justice is the only novel to have won the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke award. This one is as sci-fi as it gets. It follows the sole survivor of a spaceship who sets out to get revenge on her civilization's ruler.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

This novella is an science-fiction horror book about a woman who attends an intergalactic university. But on her way there, her ship is boarded by an alien species. On publication the book won both a Hugo and Nebula Award.

Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe

Okay, so this one is more of a hybrid between sci-fi and fantasy, but it's still in our category of best science-fiction reads. Gene Wolf's The Book of the New Sun series follows a disgraced torturer who is forced to wander the world. The science-fiction parts comes into play with its setting, which takes place in a world where the sun has dimmed and the Earth is dying.

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