Best Science Fiction Books

In a future dystopia, teenager Wade Watts escapes reality in the OASIS virtual reality world and joins a global competition to find a hidden treasure that will determine control of the internet.

A secret military project during China's Cultural Revolution makes contact with an alien civilization, setting in motion events that will determine the fate of humanity.

A monolith of alien origin guides humanity from its ape origins to a journey beyond Jupiter in this landmark novel written alongside Kubrick's film.

In post-nuclear San Francisco, bounty hunter Rick Deckard hunts down rogue androids nearly indistinguishable from humans — the basis for the film Blade Runner.

Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger, pursues the man in black across a vast desert in the first volume of Stephen King's magnum opus.

Meg Murry, her genius brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin travel through space and time using a tesseract to rescue Meg's father from an evil force controlling the universe.

Kathy H. narrates the story of her childhood at Hailsham boarding school and her adult relationships with Tommy and Ruth — as the nature of their existence as clones destined to donate their organs gradually becomes clear.

A neuroscientist builds a device that can record and restore memories, effectively allowing people to return to pivotal moments in their lives. But when her technology is weaponized, it threatens to destroy the very fabric of reality — and only a New York detective who has lived through multiple timelines can stop it.

Six years after the Jurassic Park disaster, a separate island — Site B — is discovered still teeming with dinosaurs that have been surviving without human interference. Ian Malcolm leads a small expedition to study them, unaware that they're not the only ones there.

In a future Chicago divided into five virtue-based factions, sixteen-year-old Tris Prior must choose where she belongs — and discovers she may not belong anywhere.

An Artificial Friend named Klara, powered by sunlight and possessed of extraordinary observational gifts, narrates her life alongside a sickly teenage girl and her mother in a near-future America.

Katniss Everdeen becomes the Mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion against the Capitol, as all-out war engulfs Panem and extracts a devastating personal cost.

A human raised by Martians returns to Earth and, unable to comprehend human society, begins to transform it from within.

Thomas wakes up in a box with no memory, arriving in a community of boys trapped inside a massive, deadly maze — and his arrival immediately begins changing everything they thought they knew.

A physics professor is kidnapped, wakes up in a version of his life where he made different choices, and must navigate a multiverse of parallel worlds to find his way back to the family he loves.

In the aftermath of the Erudite attack, Tris navigates shifting faction alliances, survivor's guilt, and a massive revelation about the true purpose of the faction system.

A prequel following eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow as he mentors a District 12 tribute in the 10th Hunger Games, charting his transformation into Panem's future tyrant.

The Gladers escape the Maze only to face another WICKED trial — a scorched, sun-devastated wasteland they must cross while battling crazed Cranks and uncovering deeper layers of manipulation.

Henry DeTamble has a genetic condition that causes him to involuntarily time travel, always to times and places connected to his own life — including the childhood of the woman he will one day marry.

The twelfth expedition into the mysterious Area X sends four unnamed women scientists into an environment that defies biological and physical understanding.

An alien soul inhabits a human body and must navigate two sets of memories, loyalties, and loves in a world occupied by a parasitic alien race.

Tris and Four escape the city to discover the truth about their world's genetic experiments, leading to a final sacrifice that divided readers and defined the trilogy's legacy.

Victor Frankenstein creates life from dead matter and then abandons his creation. Shelley's 1818 novel, written when she was 18, invented science fiction as a genre and remains the most philosophically profound horror novel ever written: a meditation on creation, abandonment, and what it means to be human.

The unflappable English gentleman Phileas Fogg bets his fortune at the Reform Club that he can circumnavigate the globe in eighty days — and immediately sets off with his new valet Passepartout, pursued by a detective who believes Fogg is a bank robber. Verne's most beloved novel is propulsive, funny, and ingeniously plotted: an argument that the world is finite, knowable, and worth racing across.