Excellent SciFi/Fiction
Explore our curated list of excellent SciFi and fiction books. Discover top-tier reads in science fiction and imaginative storytelling for every fan.
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Dune
by Frank Herbert
⢠DUNE: PART TWO ⢠THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE Directed by Denis Villeneuve, screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert ⢠Starring TimothĂŠe Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, LĂŠa Seydoux, with Stellan SkarsgĂĽrd, with Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem Frank Herbertâs classic masterpieceâa triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of Paul Atreidesâwho would become known as Muad'Dibâand of a great family's ambition to bring to fruition mankind's most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.
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Hyperion
by Dan Simmons
A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man. On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hopeâand a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion âDan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.ââThe Washington Post Book World âAn unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.ââThe New York Times Book Review âSimmonsâs own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.ââThe Denver Post âAn essential part of any science fiction collection.ââBooklist
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Chung Kuo: the Middle Kingdom
by David Wingrove
The stunning debut of a new storyteller takes place with a vast epic tale of passions and conflicts, of tyranny and the struggle for freedom in a startling and fascinating alternative world--a future when the Chinese rule the Earth.
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Neuromancer
by William Gibson
Case, a nerve-damaged data thief, is recruited by a new employer for a last-chance run against a powerful artificial intelligence.
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Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
The âbrilliantly realizedâ (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens donât dare leave their mansions. Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30 U-Stor-It. He spends most of his time goggled in to the Metaverse, where his avatar is legendary. But in the club known as The Black Sun, his fellow hackers are being felled by a weird new drug called Snow Crash that reduces them to nothing more than a jittering cloud of bad digital karma (and IRL, a vegetative state). Investigating the Infocalypse leads Hiro all the way back to the beginning of language itself, with roots in an ancient Sumerian priesthood. Heâll be joined by Y.T., a fearless teenaged skateboard courier. Together, they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.
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Lucifer's Hammer
by Larry Niven
âThe first satisfying end-of-the-world novel in years . . . an ultimate one . . . massively entertaining.ââCleveland Plain-Dealer The gigantic comet had slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam. It was the beginning of a new Ice Age and the end of civilization. But for the terrified men and women chance had saved, it was also the dawn of a new struggle for survivalâa struggle more dangerous and challenging than any they had ever known. . . . âTake your earthquakes, waterlogged condominiums, swarms of bugs, colliding airplanes and flaming what-nots, wrap them up and they wouldnât match one page of Luciferâs Hammer for sweaty-palmed suspense.ââChicago Daily News
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Noble House
by James Clavell
Under the eyes of the KGB, the CIA, and the People's Republic of China, British and American businessmen maneuver for control of Hong Kong's oldest trading house in a torrid atmosphere of easy money, smuggled guns, and natural disaster
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The Power of One
by Bryce Courtenay
âThe Power of One has everything: suspense, the exotic, violence; mysticism, psychology and magic; schoolboy adventures, drama.â âThe New York Times âUnabashedly uplifting . . . asserts forcefully what all of us would like to believe: that the individual, armed with the spirit of independenceââthe power of oneââcan prevail.â âCleveland Plain Dealer In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreamsâwhich are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him. He embarks on an epic journey through a land of tribal superstition and modern prejudice where he will learn the power of words, the power to transform lives, and the power of one. âTotally engrossing . . . [presents] the metamorphosis of a most remarkable young man and the almost spiritual influence he has on others . . . Peekay has both humor and a refreshingly earthy touch, and his adventures, at times, are hair-raising in their suspense.â âLos Angeles Times Book Review âMarvelous . . . It is the people of the sun-baked plains of Africa who tug at the heartstrings in this book. . . . [Bryce] Courtenay draws them all with a fierce and violent love.â âThe Washington Post Book World âImpressive.â âNewsday âA compelling tale.â âThe Christian Science Monitor
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Johnny Got His Gun
by Dalton Trumbo
For use in schools and libraries only. The powerful story of a young boy and his tragic fate in World War I makes a terrifying statement on the horrors of war and a compelling plea for peace.
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All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
The masterpiece of the German experience during World War I, considered by many the greatest war novel of all timeâwith an Oscarâwinning film adaptation now streaming on Netflix. â[Erich Maria Remarque] is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank.ââThe New York Times Book Review I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. . . . This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive.
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠âExtremely funny . . . inspired lunacy . . . [and] over much too soon.ââThe Washington Post Book World SOON TO BE A HULU SERIES ⢠Now celebrating the pivotal 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhikerâs Guide to the Galaxy! Nominated as one of Americaâs best-loved novels by PBSâs The Great American Read Itâs an ordinary Thursday morning for Arthur Dent . . . until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly after to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and Arthurâs best friend has just announced that heâs an alien. After that, things get much, much worse. With just a towel, a small yellow fish, and a book, Arthur has to navigate through a very hostile universe in the company of a gang of unreliable aliens. Luckily the fish is quite good at languages. And the book is The Hitchhikerâs Guide to the Galaxy . . . which helpfully has the words DONâT PANIC inscribed in large, friendly letters on its cover. Douglas Adamsâs mega-selling pop-culture classic sends logic into orbit, plays havoc with both time and physics, offers up pithy commentary on such things as ballpoint pens, potted plants, and digital watches . . . and, most important, reveals the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything. Now, if you could only figure out the question. . . .
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The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand
The revolutionary literary vision that sowed the seeds of Objectivism, Ayn Rand's groundbreaking philosophy, and brought her immediate worldwide acclaim. This modern classic is the story of intransigent young architect Howard Roark, whose integrity was as unyielding as granite...of Dominique Francon, the exquisitely beautiful woman who loved Roark passionately, but married his worst enemy...and of the fanatic denunciation unleashed by an enraged society against a great creator. As fresh today as it was then, Randâs provocative novel presents one of the most challenging ideas in all of fictionâthat manâs ego is the fountainhead of human progress... âA writer of great power. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly...This is the only novel of ideas written by an American woman that I can recall.ââThe New York Times
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Altered Carbon
by Richard K. Morgan
In the 25th century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself - a person's consciousness can be easily downloaded into a new body, making death nearly obsolete. Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly brutal. Resleeved into a new body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco), Kovacs is thrown into a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that buys and sells human existence. As a warrior-for-hire, he is called to help a far-flung planet's government put down a bloody revolution. But when a rogue pilot and a sleazy corporate fat cat offer him a lucrative role in a treacherous treasure hunt, he's only too happy to go AWOL with a band of resurrected soldiers of fortune. All that stands between them and the ancient alien spacecraft they mean to salvage are a massacred city bathed in deadly radiation, unleashed nanotechnology with a million ways to kill, and whatever surprises the highly advanced Martian race may have in store.