Some great science fiction reads
Explore the best science fiction reads with our curated list of top books. Discover thrilling, imaginative, and thought-provoking sci-fi novels that will transport you to other worlds.
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Space Sirens
by Carol Hightshoe
Space Sirens is the second anthology of the Full-Throttle Space Tales series. Edited by Carol Hightshoe, editor of The Lorelei Signal and Sorcerous Signals, Space Sirens contains 19 seductive tales of women in space, by established and rising-star authors. The tales woven by our sirens include tales of adventure, intrigue and vengeance: ÂżReal HeroÂż by W.A Hoffman ÂżBite the HandÂż by Sarah A. Hoyt ÂżJustice is Not Taken by the StormÂż by David Boop ÂżJust Another DayÂż by Terri Pray ÂżField WorkÂż by Anna Paradox ÂżJust Another Saturday on Outpost NineÂż by Bobby Nash ÂżFire MiningÂż by M.H. Bonham ÂżHigh Heeled DistractionÂż by Alan Lickiss ÂżSlow BurnÂż by Barbara Johnson-Haddad ÂżInterstellar BitchesÂż by Selina Rosen ÂżSteel ScornedÂż by Calie Voorhis ÂżRoyal DutiesÂż by Rebecca Lickiss ÂżRebel MoonÂż by Carol Hightshoe ÂżHijacking the LegacyÂż by David Lee Summers ÂżThe Silver SnakeÂż by Laura K Deal ÂżOutpost 6Âż by Julia Phillips ÂżRulerÂż by David B. Riley ÂżPrecious CargoÂż by Lindsey Duncan ÂżMistralÂżs RevengeÂż by Laura Kjosen
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She Murdered Me with Science
by David Boop
It's 1953 and disgraced scientist Noel Glass works as a P.I. to redeem himself for a deadly experiment that cost the lives of six people. As Glass struggles to clear his name, he uncovers an evil organization bent on using his own invention for world domination.
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Dragon Ring
by Lettie Prell
Nadine, the daughter of the man who transformed Guatemala into the world's largest and most powerful corporation, is an expert at virtual-reality applications. When she goes undercover to find her father's killers, she discovers a power that can transform civilization or destroy entire cities.
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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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The Fall of Hyperion
by Dan Simmons
âState of the art science fiction . . . a landmark novel.ââIsaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine Now, in the stunning continuation of the epic adventure begun in Hyperion, Simmons returns us to a far future resplendent with drama and invention. On the world of Hyperion, the mysterious Time Tombs are opening. And the secrets they contain mean that nothingânothing anywhere in the universeâwill ever be the same. Praise for The Fall of Hyperion âOne of the finest SF novels published in the past few years.ââScience Fiction Eye âA magnificently original blend of themes and styles.ââThe Denver Post
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Dune
by Frank Herbert
âą DUNE: PART TWO âą THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE Directed by Denis Villeneuve, screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert âą Starring TimothĂ©e Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, LĂ©a Seydoux, with Stellan SkarsgĂ„rd, 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 humankind'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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Ender's Game
by Orson Scott Card
Child-hero Ender Wiggin must fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race if mankind is to survive.
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Childhood's End
by Arthur C. Clarke
The inspiration for the Syfy miniseries. Childhoodâs End is one of the defining legacies of Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and many other groundbreaking works. Since its publication in 1953, this prescient novel about first contact gone wrong has come to be regarded not only as a science fiction classic but as a literary thriller of the highest order. Spaceships have suddenly appeared in the skies above every city on the planet. Inside is an intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior alien race known as the Overlords. At first, their demands seem benevolent: unify Earth, eliminate poverty, end war. But at what cost? To those who resist, itâs clear that the Overlords have an agenda of their own. Has their arrival marked the end of humankind . . . or the beginning? Praise for Childhoodâs End âA first-rate tour de force.ââThe New York Times âFrighteningly logical, believable, and grimly prophetic . . . Clarke is a master.ââLos Angeles Times âThere has been nothing like it for years; partly for the actual invention, but partly because here we meet a modern author who understands that there may be things that have a higher claim on humanity than its own âsurvival.â ââC. S. Lewis âAs a science fiction writer, Clarke has all the essentials.ââJeremy Bernstein, The New Yorker
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Ringworld
by Larry Niven
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel Four travelers come to the ringworld. . . Louis Wu: human and old; bored with having lived too fully for far too many years. Seeking a challenge, and all too capable of handling it. Nessus: a trembling coward, a puppeteer with a built-in survival pattern of nonviolence. Except that this particular puppeteer is insane. Teela Brown: human; a wide-eyed youngster with no allegiances, no experience, no abilities. And all the luck in the world. Speaker-To-Animals: kzin; large, orange-furred, and carnivorous. And one of the most savage life-forms known in the galaxy. Why did these disparate individuals come together? How could they possibly function together? And where, in the name of anything sane, were they headed?
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I, Robot
by Isaac Asimov
This classic science fiction masterwork by Isaac Asimov weaves stories about robots, humanity, and the deep questions of existence into a novel of shocking intelligence and heart. âA must-read for science-fiction buffs and literature enjoyers alike.ââThe Guardian I, Robot, the first and most widely read book in Asimovâs Robot series, forever changed the worldâs perception of artificial intelligence. Here are stories of robots gone mad, of mind-reading robots, and robots with a sense of humor. Of robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the worldâall told with the dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction that has become Asimovâs trademark. The Three Laws of Robotics: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. With these three, simple directives, Isaac Asimov formulated the laws governing robotsâ behavior. In I, Robot, Asimov chronicles the development of the robot from its primitive origins in the present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant futureâa future in which humanity itself may be rendered obsolete. âTremendously exciting and entertaining . . . Asimov dramatizes an interesting question: How can we live with machines that, generation by generation, grow more intelligent than their creators and not eventually clash with our own invention?ââThe Chicago Tribune
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Old Man's War
by John Scalzi
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wifeâs grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarceâand alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanityâs resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They donât want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. Youâll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. Youâll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, youâll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets. John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagineâand what he will become is far stranger. "Solid . . . [Scalzi] sidesteps most of the clichĂ©s of military science fiction, delivers fast-paced scenes of combat and pays attention to the science underpinning his premise." âSan Francisco Chronicle "Scalzi's imagined interstellar arena is coherently and compellingly delineated . . . His speculative elements are top-notch. His combat scenes are blood-roiling. His dialogue is suitably snappy and profane. And the moral and philosophical issues he raises . . . insert useful ethical burrs under the military saddle of the story." âPaul Di Filippo, The Washington Post "Thought-provoking!" âEntertainment Weekly "Smartly conceived and thoroughly entertaining, Old Manâs War is a splendid novel." âCleveland Plain Dealer "When humanity reaches the stars, it discovers that it must defend its claim to new planets against alien races with similar expansionist tendencies. To ensure the expertise of its soldiers, Earth creates the Colonial Defense Force, an army of men and women otherwise classified as senior citizens, who give up their lives on Earth for an uncertain and perilous future among the stars. Scalzi's first novel presents a new approach to military sf, boasting an unusual cast of senior citizens as heroes. A good choice for most libraries." âLibrary Journal "Though a lot of SF writers are more or less efficiently continuing the tradition of Robert A. Heinlein, Scalziâs astonishingly proficient first novel reads like an original work by the late grand master . . . This virtuoso debut pays tribute to SFâs past while showing that well-worn tropes still can have real zip when theyâre approached with ingenuity." âPublishers Weekly (starred review) "Gripping and surpassingly original. It's Starship Troopers without the lectures. It's The Forever War with better sex. It's funny, it's sad, and it's true." âCory Doctorow "John Scalzi is a fresh and appealing new voice, and Old Man's War is classic SF seen from a modern perspectiveâa fast-paced tour of a daunting, hostile universe." âRobert Charles Wilson "I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already." âKen MacLeod
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Wondrous Web Worlds
by Tyree Campbell
A collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories and poetry from The Fifth Di and The Martian Wave. The very best offered by ProMart and Sam's Dot in 2002. A collection running the gamut of what can be called speculative fiction.
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A Nice Girl Like You
by Tyree Campbell
Meet seven nice girls of science fiction--a corporate detective, a couple from a long forgotten colony, the last woman on Earth, an outcast teenager, a reclusive archaeologist, and a soft-hearted assassin. Now see them cope with murder, prohibitions, survival, loneliness, relationships, and revenge. Tyree Campbell deftly blurs the lines of what it is to be a nice girl in an out-of-this-world collection of stories.
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Heirs of the New Earth
by David Lee Summers
The Earth has gone silent. John Mark Ellis and the crew of the Sanson are sent to investigate. When they arrive, they find vast alien machines known as Clusters in orbit. Fearing the worst, they land and discover that the once overcrowded, polluted Earth has become a paradise of sorts. The problem is over half the population is dead or missing and the planet's leaders don't seem to care. As Ellis works to unravel the mystery, sudden gravitational shifts from the galaxy's center indicate something even worse is in the offing. Can Ellis save the galaxy from the heirs of the new Earth?
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The Poet
by James B. Baker
The Poet is a bum dressed as a priest in a world that he has been absent from for years. Now that he's returned, he finds the American men impotent, and for some reason, they think he's the only one that can save them.
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Stranger in a Strange Land
by Robert A. Heinlein
The complete, uncut version of Robert A. Heinleinâs all-time masterpiece, the brilliant novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a science fiction classic. Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith is a human who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man. But his own beliefs and his powers far exceed the limits of humankind, and as he teaches them about grokking and water-sharing, he also inspires a transformation that will alter Earthâs inhabitants forever...
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Starship Troopers
by Robert Anson Heinlein
In a futuristic military adventure a recruit goes through the roughest boot camp in the universe and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry in what historians would come to call the First Interstellar War
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The Stars My Destination
by Alfred Bester
In this pulse-quickening novel, Alfred Bester imagines a future in which people "jaunte" a thousand miles with a single thought, where the rich barricade themselves in labyrinths and protect themselves with radioactive hit men--and where an inarticulate outcast is the most valuable and dangerous man alive.
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The Demolished Man
by Alfred Bester
In 2301, a psychopathic business magnate comes up with the ultimate plan to eliminate his competition and destroy the order of society.
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Beggars in Spain
by Nancy Kress
In a world where the slightest edge can mean the difference between success and failure, Leisha Camden is beautiful, extraordinarily intelligent ... and one of an ever-growing number of human beings who have been genetically modified to never require sleep. Once considered interesting anomalies, now Leisha and the other "Sleepless" are outcasts -- victims of blind hatred, political repression, and shocking mob violence meant to drive them from human society ... and, ultimately, from Earth itself. But Leisha Camden has chosen to remain behind in a world that envies and fears her "gift" -- a world marked for destruction in a devastating conspiracy of freedom ... and revenge.
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Startide Rising
by David Brin
David Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War--a New York Times bestseller--together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being "uplifted" by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved: who uplifted humankind? The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed in the uncharted water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic history. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret--the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars.
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Towing Jehovah
by James Morrow
A satirical novel on the death of God. For inexplicable reasons he dies and falls into the sea, and the Vatican hires a supertanker to secretly tow his two-mile-long body to the Arctic for preservation. But the secret leaks out and everyone gets in on the act, exploiting God's death to their own end.
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The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman
"Private William Mandella hadn't wanted to go to war against the Taurans ...."--p. [4] of cover.
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Edenborn
by Nick Sagan
The six survivors of a microbial apocalypse that has wiped out the human race find themselves divided by two different views of how a new society should be established, in a tale told from the viewpoints of a child from each side of the conflict. Reprint.
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The Peace War
by Vernor Vinge
The novel that garnered Vinge his first "Best Novel" Hugo Finalist nomination, back in print after thirteen years. With a combination of hard-SF concepts, tight plotting, and appealing characters, Vinge tells a now-classic story of the Few triumphing over the Many. The Peace Authority, wielding a new state-of-the-art weapon, takes over the world, and claims to be "maintaining the peace" while really controlling the scattered survivors of the new world. The inventor of their weapon, which was never meant to be a weapon at all, leads a resistance of high-tech "tinkers" who fight to defeat the "Peace."
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Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories, Volume 1
by Isaac Asimov
An enthralling collection of short stories from the award-winning science fiction writer of I, Robot and The Foundation, Isaac Asimov. Originally published in various magazines, this volume includes some of Asimovâs self-described personal favorite short stories, including âFranchiseâ and âThe Last Question.â It also includes âNightfall,â a story about a planet that only experiences night once every 2,049 years, which the Science Fiction Writers of America has voted as the best science fiction story ever written. The many fans of Isaac Asimovâs work wonât want to miss this wonderful collection of short fiction from the sci fi master.
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The Caves of Steel
by Isaac Asimov
A millennium into the future two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimovâs Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together. Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer. The relationship between Life and his Spacer superiors, who distrusted all Earthmen, was strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel Olivaw. Worst of all was that the âRâ stood for robotâand his positronic partner was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!