Science Fiction Books

Ken Liu, the multi-award winning author of The Paper Menagerie, explains how using elements of fantasy and science fiction can help us examine deep truths about the human condition, as he recommends the best of contemporary speculative fiction.

"Imagination is a national security imperative," according to acclaimed novelist, journalist and decorated US Marine Elliot Ackerman. He's written a novel with retired Admiral Jim Stavridis, about what would happen if the US went to war with China. Here, he talks us through his favourite books of apocalyptic fiction—and the truths they reveal about war, humanity, and literature.

The best sci-fi explores humanity’s anxieties and concerns and is in some sense about the future. But it doesn’t try to predict what’s to come. The literature professor and sci-fi writer recommends five classics of the genre.

Every year, the judges for the Arthur C. Clarke Award select the best of the latest batch of new scifi books. In 2022, the science fiction award's shortlist includes new work from Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro, a novel-in-verse from the Scottish writer Harry Josephine Giles, and a new title in Arkady Martine's beloved Teixcalaan series. Andrew M. Butler, academic and chair of the judges, talks us through the finalists.

Many works of science fiction and fantasy involve a character changed forever after they meet a powerful being—sometimes a god, sometimes a not-quite-god. Karen Lord, an award-winning sci-fi author whose latest novel combines the seductive powers of celebrity and alien contact, recommends five books where gods or god-like beings turn the hero’s world upside down.

Douglas Adams found huge success with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a surreal science fiction satire in which a dressing gown-clad Englishman finds himself roaming the multiverse in an improbability-powered spaceship. Here, Kevin Jon Davies—editor of a new book that puts together material from 60 boxes Adams left behind—talks us through the comedy writer's life and work.

The concept of parallel worlds is no more dubious than that of a single reality, and it's something that writers have known for centuries, says British novelist Joanna Kavenna. She recommends some of her favourite books that focus on parallel realities.

If you could go back, or forward, in time — would you? Science journalist and sci-fi novelist Annalee Newitz recommends some of the best time travel books and talks us through the dangers and delights of the genre, which take us from the Ordovician period through to the present day.

There needs to be a lot more sci-fi for kids, especially if it's got a good dose of horror, argues Dan Smith, author of the sci-fi mystery series Crooked Oak. He recommends five works of science fiction for 8 to 12 year olds, from books written more than half a century ago to more recent jewels.

Serious philosophy need not take the form of a journal article or monograph, argues the philosopher and U.C. Riverside professor Eric Schwitzgebel, as he selects five science fiction books that succeed both as novels and provocative thought experiments that push us to consider deep philosophical questions from every angle.