Best Science Fiction Books

In a future dystopia, teenager Wade Watts escapes reality in the OASIS virtual reality world and joins a global competition to find a hidden treasure that will determine control of the internet.

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.

Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger, pursues the man in black across a vast desert in the first volume of Stephen King's magnum opus.

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.

Six years after the Jurassic Park disaster, a separate island — Site B — is discovered still teeming with dinosaurs that have been surviving without human interference. Ian Malcolm leads a small expedition to study them, unaware that they're not the only ones there.

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.

Darrow must rebuild the revolution from almost nothing, rallying allies across the solar system for a final war to dismantle the Society and free the color castes from oppression.

Darrow has risen within Gold society as a decorated student, but his mission to dismantle the Society from within deepens as he navigates treacherous political and military warfare across the solar system.

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.

Spensa dreams of becoming a pilot in humanity's fight against the alien Krell, but her father's disgrace as a supposed coward has barred her from flight school. When she discovers a crashed, ancient starfighter with an unlikely AI, she finds a path to the sky — and to truths about the war her society would rather keep buried.

Three thousand years after Ender's Game, the now-ancient Ender Wiggin becomes a Speaker for the Dead on a world where a second contact with aliens threatens to become the second genocide.