Best List Of Science Fiction (Sci-Fi) Books To Read | Top 20 |
Hey, are you getting bored reading all those fictional books and need something to freshen up your mood? If yes, then here is something special for you. I have mentioned some of my personal favourite Science Fiction books here, which I hope will interest you :)
These books are for you if you are
- a school/college student
- a housewife or a working women
- a working man who needs something to freshen up his mood after returning home
- a book geek who always is in search of books to ponder about
- a grandma/grandpa who still have a curiosity about the world and its beautiful unknown facts.
Consider giving them a read, as they all are worth reading! Disclosure — Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase! If you make any purchase, please feel free to add a comment below. It’s a win-win for both of us:). Making any purchase through the links will be highly appreciated and will help me keep running this blog. Thank You.
WHAT IS SCIENCE FICTION?
According to American writer Isaac Asimov, “Science fiction is that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology .”
WHY READ SCIENCE FICTION (SCI-FI) BOOKS?
Though a great story stands the test of time, in spite of the genre. Science fiction books give us a little something extra-fantastical universe, wacky technology, crazy experiments gone wrong. You won’t be disappointed because-
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF READING SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS?
Reading science fiction books has so many benefits. It’s a way long list! To sum up, a few of them are listed below -
- Science Fiction books help readers think out of the box.
- Science Fiction books encourage imagination and curiosity.
- Science Fiction books teach readers to imagine about the world; what we know and what we don’t!
- Science Fiction gives readers an open mind, to think, to express and to observe the surrounding.
Are you now ready to pick up a Sci-Fi read?
I have pulled together some of the best science fiction novels of all times. Some are eerily plausible, others are wild trips of the imagination, but all present compelling visions of our possible future.
Some of them are classics from the old times and some are recent fiction novels which are under the radar.
Without wasting much of your valuable time, let’s jump into the list-
1. 1984 by George Orwell
In this age of Big Data, digital surveillance, fake news and “enemies of people”, Orwell’s list-war classic has never seemed more relevant. Set in a future Britain where the ruling “party” has placed restrictions over its citizens’ thoughts and individuality, 1984 has had an incredible impact on our modern lexicon.
Ideas from fiction rarely make its place in the public consciousness but 1984 has been used as a reference in supreme court cases and the term coined by Orwell ‘ big brother ‘ has a spot in the Oxford English dictionary.
2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Frankenstein is an old classic about a scientist who creates a monster and the awful events he unintentionally causes.
Victor Frankenstein is a hardworking young man at university who discovers how to give life to an inanimate body and uses his knowledge to create a man-monster and later he is not willing to take responsibility of his actions.
This book ultimately questions what is it to be human. One of the earliest examples of pure science fiction Mary Shelley’s debut novel has remained a cultural icon over two centuries.
3. The Time Machine by H.G.Wells
Possibly the best science fiction writer of all time, H.G. Wells wrote sci-fi classics amongst which The time machine launched his career.
This book includes several of the best Sci-Fi book themes, like out of control technology, dystopian future and post-apocalyptic human conflict.
It is often credited as the work that sparked the concept of time travel. Here a time-travelling explorer visits a future 800,000 years away.
Instead of an encountering an advanced and superior society, he finds the earth is dying and the races are at war, and hence sees the dark side of humans.
4. Dune by Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert ‘s Dune is arguably the most popular sci-fi book ever published; millions of copies have been sold since its first run in 1965.
The story takes place in the year 10,191 on the planet Dune -the most valuable planet in Herbert’s imaginative universe.
Dune includes the pieces of stuff of sci-fi fantasy magic, heart-pounding action, an iconic fictional world and the main character that is very human in an inhuman universe. Here using far-flung future setting Herbert to examine the best and the worst aspects of human nature.
5. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The first book (1979) in the highly popular series of comic science fiction novels by British writer Douglas Adams.
The saga mocks modern society with humour and cynicism and has as its hero a hapless, deeply ordinary Englishman (Arthur Dent) who unexpectedly finds himself adrift in a universe characterized by randomness and absurdity.
It’s the book that teaches time is an illusion. The book is endlessly quotable and downright hilarious.
6. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Before it grew into the gigantic mega-media franchise “Jurassic World”, Jurassic Park was a smart, thoughtful and gripping sci-fi classic written by Michael Crichton. Crichton’s tale remains great parable about the dangers of genetic engineering.
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.”
7. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Although it was written in the 1980s, this dystopian piece of social science fiction is deeply and disturbingly relevant today. As a handmaid, Offred is a part of rare class women still capable of bearing children.
Where this might be seen as a blessing for her it is a curse, she gets assigned to the household of a man known only as of the commander. From here, we see not only the terrifying realities of her life under the strict rule but also the all too believable series of events that leads society down this dark path.
8.The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Twelve districts.Twenty-four contestants.On e survivor. This is the premise of the Hunger Games, the YA dystopian mega-hit of 2008. Katniss Everdeen never wanted to get involved in the Games, but after her sister I randomly chosen, Katniss volunteers in her place -entering a battle for her own life.
Suzanne Collins’ remarkable wordbuilding both inside and outside the arena, combined with the cutting themes of extreme social inequality and human savagery, makes this a true standout amongst many similar works of recent years.
9. The Martian by Andy Weir
You’re exploring the surface of Mars when a dust storm blows up. Thinking you’re dead, your companions blast off back to Earth, leaving you behind with enough supplies to last a month, and probably four years to wait before a rescue mission might arrive.
How do you survive? That’s the intriguing situation at the beginning of Andy Weir’s marvellous debut novel.
Weir has obviously worked out all of the logistical and technical issues so that at each new setback the solution that astronaut Watney works out is utterly believable.
Meanwhile, once they discover evidence that Watney is still alive, the team at NASA have to work out ways of rescuing him, and of keeping him supplied with food.
The succession of accidents that bring new problems and new solutions leading to new accidents is a bit remorseless, and there are indeed times when you want to scream at the characters in the novel for not doing the sensible or humane thing. Yet the story is always gripping.
Acclaimed for its humour and respect for real science, The book has become a blockbuster movie starring Matt Damon.
10. Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin
Moving into more modern territory, each entry of N.K.Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy (The fifth season, the obelisk gate, the stone sky )has won a Hugo in its debut year. It’s a science-fiction story glued to fantasy elements that is one of the most stunning pieces of literature in the genre.
11. Neuromancer by William Gibson
Neuromancer has been on my “ To-Read” list for some time now, and while there might be ‘seminal works’ that are simply re-packaged good, Neuromancer is well and truly seminal work.
It thrusts the reader into a world where the language is new, the imagery is expressed in a way that is both eloquent and inarticulate.
More than once did I have to shake my head and re-read an entire page or even half a chapter in order to properly imagine the environment and actions taking place and rather than imbuing me with a sense of frustration, it only served to pique my curiosity as to what the next page/chapter might hold.
The story in one word is about “ completion” and as you read, you can get the sense that pieces are moving into place in order to facilitate some grand event.
Gibson however, masterfully prevents you from seeing the whole picture. Because no-one likes a plot that they can solve halfway through a book (regardless of how well it’s written).
Sure, reading it in the 2000s, one would not be surprised to see the usual elements of a Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk plot, but considering the book was written in 1984, the reader is witnessing the birth of some of the tropes of the genre, indeed the birth of the genre itself.
Regardless of how well-read one is in the genre of Cyberpunk, I believe Neuromancer shall still tax your imagination and if nothing else, it will earn and/or demand from you the respect it deserves as the originator of the cyberpunk genre.
12. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
After the Internet, what came next?
Enter the Metaverse — cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons, where anything and just about everything goes. Newly available on the Street — the Metaverse’s main drag — is Snow Crash, a cyber drug.
Trouble is Snow Crash is also a computer virus — and something more. Because once taken it infects the person behind the avatar. Snow Crash bleeds into reality.
Which is really bad news for Hiro — freelance hacker and the Metaverse’s best swordfighter (he wrote the code) — and Y. T. — skateboard courier, street imp and a mouthy teenage girl — because reality was shitty enough before someone started messing with it . . .
Exploring linguistics, religion, computer science, politics, philosophy, cryptography and the future of pizza delivery, Snow Crash is a riveting, brake-neck adventure into the fast-approaching future.
13. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
> NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY STEVEN SPIELBERG <
A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?
It’s the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We’re out of oil. We’ve wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty, and disease are widespread.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.
And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS — and his massive fortune — will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that the riddles are based in the culture of the late twentieth century. And then Wade stumbles onto the key to the first puzzle.
Suddenly, he finds himself pitted against thousands of competitors in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize, a chase that soon takes on terrifying real-world dimensions — and that will leave both Wade and his world profoundly changed.
14. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
The Earth’s leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand — despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away.
A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home.
But “home” maybe even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is ageing months while the Earth he left behind is ageing centuries…
Having won the Hugo and Nebula Award’s more times than any other author, Joe Haldeman is an ultimate household name in science fiction.
A Vietnam Veteran and Purple Heart recipient, since the original publication of The Forever War, Joe has maintained a continuous string of SF best-sellers, and as a speaker and panellist, has been a constant presence on the SF convention circuit.
A longtime tenured Professor of Creative Writing at MIT, beyond his own career, from Cory Doctorow to John Scalzi, Haldeman is widely acknowledged as a key mentor figure to many of this generation’s crop of rising SF stars.
15. The War Of The Worlds by H.G.Wells
On a summer night, at the end of the nineteenth century, a “meteor” lands on Horsell Common in London.
An artificial cylinder is found the next day and upon approaching it, the unsuspecting humans are instantly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray, as terrifying Martians emerge and blaze a path of fiery destruction across Victorian England.
Amid the boundless destruction that is caused, it looks as if the end of the world has come.
The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest science-fiction that explores the possibilities of intelligent life from other planets and details a conflict between humankind and an extraterrestrial race..
This novel vividly describes the mass hysteria such an invasion would stimulate and shows how unprepared our civilization is for the onslaught of forces from another world.
16. To Sleep In A Sea Of Stars by Christopher Paolini
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a masterful epic science fiction novel from the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of the Inheritance Cycle, Christopher Paolini.
Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds
Now she’s awakened a nightmare
During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first, she’s delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.
As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. The first contact isn’t at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human.
While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity’s greatest and final hope . . .
Praise for Christopher Paolini and his work:
‘Christopher Paolini is a true rarity’ — Washington Post
‘An authentic work of great talent’ — New York Times Book Review
‘A breathtaking and unheard-of success’ —
‘Christopher Paolini make[s] literary magic’ — People
17. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
“Down these mean streets, a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man.
He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour.” These are iconic words. They have defined not just hard-boiled detectives or protagonists in crime thrillers. They have defined “heroes”. And in this book, they define Takeshi Kovacs, an ex-Envoy. Takeshi is entrusted to find out the killer of a person by that person’s new sleeve (clone or body).
Police intend to write it off as suicide. There are contrasting facts. Almost everyone, including the Police Officer, is telling lies. There are too many things coming up, while Takeshi goes through his moves. At one moment he enjoys toe-curling sex.
Then comes unbelievable torture. A bloodbath, reminiscent of best of Tarantino takes place thereafter. But amidst all these, our flawed hero with the heart of tarnished gold keeps walking towards truth, maybe justice, and obviously the ‘next screen’.
I really haven’t read stunners like this one. Whether Netflix does justice to it is debatable. As far as I’m concerned, the future remains unknown, but one of the heroes have walked here, with us, in this book.
Read Altered Carbon. Perhaps it may end up altering you.
18. Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
> THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER <
What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens?
Yuval Noah Harari challenges everything we know about being human in the perfect read for these unprecedented times.
Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it: us.
In this bold and provocative book, Yuval Noah Harari explores who we are, how we got here and where we’re going.
‘I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who’s interested in the history and future of our species’
‘Interesting and provocative… It gives you a sense of how briefly we’ve been on this Earth’ Barack Obama
> ONE OF THE GUARDIAN’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY <
19. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel
‘The Sparrow is one of my favourite science fiction novels and it destroyed me in the best way when I read it. It is so beautifully written and the construction of the narrative is masterful.’
Emma Newman, acclaimed author of Planetfall
Set in the 21st century — a number of decades from now — The Sparrow is the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and talented linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who — in response to a remarkable radio signal from the depths of space — leads a scientific mission to make the first contact with an extraterrestrial culture.
In the true tradition of Jesuit adventurers before him, Sandoz and his companions are prepared to endure isolation, suffering — even death — but nothing can prepare them for the civilisation they encounter.
Or for the tragic misunderstanding that brings the mission to a devastating end. Once considered a living saint, Sandoz returns alone to Earth horrifically maimed, both physically and spiritually, the mission’s sole survivor — only to be blamed for the mission’s failure and accused of heinous crimes.
Written in clean, effortless prose and peopled with memorable characters who never lose their humanity or humour, The Sparrow is a powerful, haunting fiction — a tragic but ultimately triumphant novel about the nature of faith, of love and what it means to be ‘human’ and widely considered to be a classic of the genre.
20. Beyond Infinity by Akash Siddarth
When the world changed once and for all… In 2043, aliens arrived in huge numbers and attacked Earth. A war was waged and millions died but not in vain. The armies from all nations joined hands and finally succeeded in defeating the aliens after a fateful battle which came to be known as the Great War! The old nemesis returns…
Thirty years later, the aliens enter the solar system to invade Earth again. There’s only one way to defeat them once and for all. A space organization named Space Patrol has a plan but who’ll embark on this life-threatening mission? The desperate situation calls for desperate measures…..
There’s only one person on the planet who can hope to pull this off. His name is Drake Stryver and he’s a retired pilot who’d fought in the Great War. Space Patrol recruits him to lead this mission. Will he be able to defeat the aliens again and protect Earth? Read on to find out…
CONCLUSION:
Hope this book list will help you choose your next best read. Looking forward to better recommendations and suggestions from you all.
Originally published at https://www.hiredbike.com.