Best Science Fiction Books

A high school teacher travels back to 1958 through a time portal with a mission to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

In a future where firemen burn books rather than extinguish fires, Guy Montag begins to question the society he enforces — and the books he has been trained to destroy.

Victor Frankenstein's obsessive creation of life — and his abandonment of the creature he brings into being — with consequences that pursue them both to the ends of the earth.

A Black woman in 1970s California is repeatedly pulled back in time to antebellum Maryland, where she must keep a white slaveholder alive to ensure her own existence.

In the dystopian future of Panem, sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her sister's place in a televised death match between children.

After her defiant act in the Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen finds herself the symbol of a brewing rebellion — and is forced back into the arena for an unprecedented Quarter Quell.

In 2024, a teenage girl in a walled California community watches civilization collapse and begins developing a new religion as she leads survivors north toward safety.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Spensa returns from the Nowhere with new understanding of her cytonic abilities as humanity makes its final stand against the Superiority, and the truth about the Delvers and the nature of consciousness itself must be resolved.