Science Fiction Books

What will the next global conflict look like? Two of America's leading defence experts, P W Singer and August Cole, turned to science fiction to explore the prospect of a future war, and how existing technology might be used in one. Here, they choose five novels depicting a fictional World War Three that served as inspiration.

The best fiction allows us to hold ideas in our heads about time and space and causality and connection that are difficult to articulate in other ways, argues the Australian author James Bradley. It helps its readers engage with dangers and possibilities that are at the very edge of imagination

In the rapidly-emerging field of existential risks, researchers study the mitigation of threats that could lead to human extinction or civilisational collapse. We met with four researchers from The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, to discuss their recommendations of the best books to get a grasp of this dense subject.

Young Adult science fiction extends far beyond the typical dystopian novels which immediately come to mind. Estelle Francis, a teenage author who recently published her first book, shares her favourite YA sci-fi reads.  

Award-winning author Philip Reeve talks us through the science fiction and fantasy books that shaped him and his work in profound ways; among indubitable classics are vibrant lesser-known works awaiting discovery.

Catherine Mayer—author, journalist and president of the Women's Equality Party—talks to Five Books about her optimism for a more equal future for society by way of her favourite science fiction visionaries and their work.

Neurological disorders lead to far more surreal stories than those we find in science fiction, argues University of California neuroscientist Bradley Voytek.

Warnings about the future of society contained in novels such as Nineteen Eighty-Four may seem less important since the fall of the Soviet Union, but they are all too relevant to China today, argues the Chinese writer

These days robotic technology is developing so fast that sci-fi is having a hard time keeping up, says best-selling author and roboticist, Daniel H Wilson. He picks the best books on robotics.

The Book of the New Sun is a series by American novelist Gene Wolfe (1931-2019). It was recommended as one of the best sci-fi series in our interview with novelist Ada Palmer.