Best Science Fiction Books of All Time
A Game of Thrones (Released: January 1996)
Author(s): George R.R. Martin
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.37 (2416 Ratings, 116 Reviews)
Pages: 819
Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun. As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must ...and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty. The old gods have no power in the south, Stark's family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne.
Genre(s): Fantasy, Fiction, Adventure, Classics, Science fiction, War, Young Adult Fiction
Project Hail Mary (Released: January 2021)
Author(s): Andy Weir
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.45 (2321 Ratings, 317 Reviews)
Pages: 496
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission – and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance. Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian – while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.
Genre(s): Science fiction, Fiction, Space, Fantasy, Dystopian, Aliens, Historical Fiction, photography, Adventure, Mystery
All Systems Red (Released: January 2017)
Author(s): Martha Wells
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.07 (1819 Ratings, 243 Reviews)
Pages: 144
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid -- a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
Genre(s): Science fiction, Space, Adventure, Fiction, Mystery, Dystopian, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Thriller
A Clash of Kings (Released: November 1998)
Author(s): George R.R. Martin
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.34 (1467 Ratings, 63 Reviews)
Pages: 930
A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. And from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war. It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel . . . and the coldest hearts. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.
Genre(s): Fantasy, Fiction, Adventure, War, Comics & Graphic Novels, Magic, Science fiction, Comics
Dark Matter (Released: January 2016)
Author(s): Blake Crouch
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.04 (1354 Ratings, 195 Reviews)
Pages: 340
A mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy. “Are you happy with your life?” Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.
Genre(s): Science fiction, Fiction, Kidnapping victims, Mystery, Suspense, Fantasy, Dystopian, Time Travel, Thriller, Adventure
Leviathan Wakes (Released: January 2011)
Author(s): James S. A. Corey
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.23 (1234 Ratings, 142 Reviews)
Pages: 621
From a New York Times bestselling and Hugo award-winning author comes a modern masterwork of science fiction, introducing a captain, his crew, and a detective as they unravel a horrifying solar system wide conspiracy that begins with a single missing girl. Now a Prime Original series. Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach. Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why. Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything. Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe. "Interplanetary adventure the way it ought to be written." —George R. R. Martin The Expanse Leviathan Wakes Caliban's War Abaddon's Gate Cibola Burn Nemesis Games Babylon's Ashes Persepolis Rising Tiamat's Wrath Leviathan Falls Memory's Legion The Expanse Short Fiction Drive The Butcher of Anderson Station Gods of Risk The Churn The Vital Abyss Strange Dogs Auberon The Sins of Our Fathers
Genre(s): Science fiction, Adventure, Dystopian, Aliens, Fiction, Space, Fantasy, Interplanetary voyages, Mystery, Suspense
Piranesi (Released: April 2019)
Author(s): Susanna Clarke
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.24 (1239 Ratings, 193 Reviews)
Pages: 246
<b><i>New York Times </i></b><b>Bestseller</b><br><b>Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction</b><br><b>World Fantasy Awards Finalist</b><br><b><br></b><b>From the <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell</i>, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality.</b><br> <br> Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.<br><br>There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.<br><br> For readers of Neil Gaiman's <i>The Ocean at the End of the Lane</i> and fans of Madeline Miller's <i>Circe</i>, <i>Piranesi</i> introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.
Genre(s): Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery, Magical Realism, Genre Fiction, Curiosities and wonders, Magic, Fiction / Literary, Dark Fantasy; Fantasy; Fiction; Literary; Magical Realism, Science fiction
Artificial Condition (Released: May 2018)
Author(s): Martha Wells
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.17 (1143 Ratings, 109 Reviews)
Pages: 144
It has a dark past -- one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself "Murderbot." But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more. Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don't want to know what the "A" stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue. What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks...
Genre(s): Science fiction, Fiction, Space, Adventure, Dystopian, Humor, Quests (Expeditions), Fantasy, Picaresque, Suspense
Rogue Protocol (Released: January 2018)
Author(s): Martha Wells
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.17 (943 Ratings, 78 Reviews)
Pages: 160
SciFi's favorite antisocial A.I. is back on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah's SecUnit is.And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.Martha Wells' Rogue Protocol is the third in the Murderbot Diaries series, starring a human-like android who keeps getting sucked back into adventure after adventure, though it just wants to be left alone, away from humanity and small talk. Read Rogue Protocol and find out why Hugo Award winner Ann Leckie wrote "I love Murderbot!"
Genre(s): Science fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Space, Adventure, LGBTQ, Dystopian, Free will and determinism, Space colonies
Watchmen (Released: January 1987)
Author(s): Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons (Illustrator/Letterer), John Higgins (Colorist)
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.42 (975 Ratings, 40 Reviews)
Pages: 415
Considered the greatest graphic novel in the history of the medium, the Hugo Award-winning story chronicles the fall from grace of a group of superheroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the superhero is dissected as an unknown assassin stalks the erstwhile heroes.
Genre(s): Classics, Fantasy, Adventure, Fiction, Science fiction, Comics, Dystopian, Adventure stories