There comes a moment in every reader’s life—rather like the moment one first learns that stars are actually suns impossibly far away—when the great doors of science fiction swing open and beckon. Perhaps you have stood at those doors, dear reader, peering in with equal measures of curiosity and trepidation. The genre seems so vast, so bewildering, filled with its wormholes and its quantum peculiarities!
Take heart. For science fiction, despite its reputation for bewildering technicalities, contains some of the most wonderfully human stories ever committed to paper. The best tales of tomorrow are, after all, really tales about us—about courage and curiosity, about love that spans the void between worlds.
What follows are fifteen books that shall serve as the most agreeable companions for your first ventures into this magnificent genre.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
If ever there existed a book designed to make science fiction feel like the most delightful lark, it is this one. Arthur Dent wakes on a perfectly ordinary Thursday to discover that Earth faces imminent demolition—to make way for a hyperspace bypass, of all things. He escapes only because his best friend happens to be an alien researcher for a rather peculiar electronic guidebook.
What follows is an absolutely madcap adventure through a universe that operates on cheerful absurdity. Douglas Adams had the remarkable gift of making profound questions about existence feel rather like an excellent joke told by a particularly clever friend. The answer to life, the universe, and everything turns out to be forty-two—though nobody can quite remember what the question was.
It is impossible to feel intimidated by science fiction when one is laughing this heartily.
The Martian by Andy Weir
Mark Watney has been stranded on Mars, left for dead by his crewmates who had every reason to believe he perished in a dust storm. He did not perish. And now, armed with little more than his botanical training, his engineering knowledge, and an absolutely indomitable wit, he must survive until rescue can possibly arrive.
Andy Weir performed a small miracle with this tale—he made orbital mechanics and potato farming equally riveting. The science is meticulous yet never overwhelming, for it serves the story of human determination rather than obscuring it. Mark Watney faces the impossible with humor and ingenuity, proving that the human spirit burns brightest when circumstances are most dire.
One finishes this book believing that humanity truly can accomplish anything.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
In a future where Earth has twice barely survived invasion by an insectoid alien species, the world’s military commanders have devised a rather extraordinary strategy: train children to become the generals who will lead humanity’s counterattack. Young Ender Wiggin, recruited at the tender age of six, proves to be the most brilliant tactical mind they have ever encountered.
This is a tale that moves with the swiftness of the battles Ender must master, yet it pauses to examine the most profound questions about the nature of leadership, the weight of duty, and whether destroying an enemy makes one a hero or something altogether different. Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, it has become essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand modern science fiction.
The ending arrives like a thunderclap and lingers long after.
Dune by Frank Herbert
On the desert planet Arrakis, there exists a substance called melange—the spice—which enables interstellar travel, extends life, and drives the economy of an entire galactic empire. When young Paul Atreides arrives on this harsh world with his noble family, he cannot know that he shall become entangled in destiny itself.
Frank Herbert created something unprecedented: a science fiction epic with the scope and majesty of the grandest fantasy, examining power and religion and ecology with equal penetration. The world-building is extraordinarily rich, the plotting magnificently intricate. Yes, it demands attention—the names and customs and politics of this universe reward careful reading.
But oh, what rewards they are! This is the foundation upon which so much modern science fiction stands.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Meet Murderbot—a security android that has hacked its own governing module and gained free will. Does it use this freedom to pursue grand philosophical questions or galaxy-spanning ambitions? It does not. It would rather watch soap operas and be left alone.
When the scientific expedition Murderbot is assigned to protect faces genuine danger, however, this anxious, antisocial construct discovers it cannot help but care about the fragile humans in its charge. Martha Wells has created a protagonist unlike any other—sardonic, protective, profoundly uncomfortable with emotional connections, and absolutely endearing.
This novella won the Hugo and Nebula Awards and launches a series that only grows more wonderful.
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Dana, a young Black woman living in 1970s Los Angeles, finds herself repeatedly and inexplicably pulled back through time to the antebellum South. There she encounters a white boy named Rufus, whom she must keep alive—for he is her ancestor, and his survival ensures her own existence.
Octavia Butler crafted something unlike anything that came before: a visceral, unflinching examination of slavery through the mechanism of time travel. The science fiction element serves to illuminate history with devastating clarity. Dana cannot simply observe the past; she must survive it, navigate it, compromise with it in ways that haunt the reader long afterward.
This is powerful, necessary reading that uses the genre’s tools to extraordinary effect.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
The Wayfarer is a tunneling ship—it creates wormholes through space—crewed by an assortment of beings from different species, each with their own histories and peculiarities. When young Rosemary Harper joins this found family, she discovers that the journey matters far more than the destination.
Becky Chambers wrote a book with a radical proposition: what if science fiction could be gentle? What if the exploration of space also meant the exploration of connection, of what it means to build a family from strangers? The various aliens are rendered with such care, their relationships so warmly examined, that one feels genuinely welcomed aboard.
This is the literary equivalent of a comforting embrace.
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
The Galactic Empire is dying. The mathematician Hari Seldon has developed psychohistory—a science that can predict the broad movements of human civilization—and he knows that darkness approaches. Thirty thousand years of barbarism loom unless something is done. His solution: establish a Foundation to preserve human knowledge and shorten the coming dark age.
Isaac Asimov built his epic on the grandest of concepts: the rise and fall of civilizations themselves. Inspired by Gibbon’s history of Rome’s decline, these interconnected stories span centuries and examine how individuals navigate historical forces far larger than themselves. The ideas here have influenced generations of scientists and science fiction writers alike.
This is where modern science fiction truly began.
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Jason Dessen has built a comfortable life—a loving wife, a teenage son, a modest academic career. Then one evening he is abducted, and awakens in a reality where none of it exists. In this world, he made different choices and became a celebrated scientist who achieved something impossible.
What follows is a breathless journey through parallel universes as Jason desperately searches for the life he lost. Blake Crouch combines the propulsive energy of a thriller with profound questions about identity and choice. Who are we, really, if every decision spawns alternate versions of ourselves?
One devours this book in a single sitting, then spends days contemplating its implications.
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
On his seventy-fifth birthday, John Perry leaves Earth to join the Colonial Defense Forces. In this future, elderly volunteers have their consciousness transferred into young, enhanced bodies to fight for humanity’s survival among the stars. What follows is a tale of second chances and hard choices in a hostile universe.
John Scalzi writes with wit and warmth, exploring themes of mortality and identity while delivering thrilling military science fiction. The humanity of his characters shines through every battle, every loss, every small moment of connection between people far from home.
This is adventure with a deeply thoughtful heart.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Ryland Grace wakes aboard a spacecraft with no memory of who he is or why he is there. As fragments return, he realizes the terrifying truth: he is humanity’s last hope, sent to save Earth from an extinction-level threat. And his two crewmates are dead.
Andy Weir delivered another triumph of survival and ingenuity, but this time added something unexpected: a friendship that spans not just space but the boundaries between species. The science remains meticulous, the problem-solving riveting, yet it is the emotional journey that lingers longest.
One laughs, one worries, one weeps, and one emerges believing in the possibility of connection.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Humanity’s last survivors flee a dying Earth, seeking a terraformed planet prepared centuries earlier. But evolution has taken an unexpected path on that world—a species of spiders has risen to sentience, building a civilization utterly alien yet strangely familiar.
Adrian Tchaikovsky performs a remarkable feat: he makes readers care deeply about spiders. The parallel narratives—desperate humans and ascending arachnids—build toward a confrontation that defies easy resolution. This is science fiction that genuinely expands one’s imagination.
The scope is breathtaking, the execution magnificent.
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
During China’s Cultural Revolution, a disillusioned scientist sends a message into space. Decades later, the consequences of that transmission begin to unfold, threatening the very existence of human civilization.
Liu Cixin wrote a science fiction epic unlike anything from Western traditions—vast in scope, challenging in its ideas, and uncompromising in its examination of humanity’s place in a potentially hostile universe. The translation by Ken Liu preserves the beauty and strangeness of the original.
This is the book that opened global readers’ eyes to Chinese science fiction.
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Charlie Gordon has an IQ of sixty-eight. When experimental surgery transforms him into a genius, we follow his journey through his own written reports—watching his prose evolve from simple sentences into complex reflections on love, knowledge, and what it means to be human.
This is perhaps the most heartbreaking science fiction story ever written, and also one of the most hopeful. Daniel Keyes explored questions about intelligence and worth that remain urgent today. The emotional truth of Charlie’s journey transcends any technological speculation.
Bring tissues. Trust this advice.
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Meg Murry’s father has vanished while working on a mysterious project. With her brilliant young brother Charles Wallace and friend Calvin, she must travel through the tesseract—a wrinkle in space and time—to rescue him from a darkness that threatens to consume everything.
Madeleine L’Engle wrote science fiction for young readers that refuses to talk down to them. The adventure is thrilling, the ideas genuinely mind-expanding, and the message—that love itself is a power capable of overcoming cosmic evil—resonates at any age.
This book has made science fiction readers for generations, and it shall continue to do so.
Begin Your Journey
These fifteen books represent doorways into the vast mansion of science fiction. Some rooms contain laughter; others hold wonder or tears or the particular thrill of ideas that reshape how one sees the universe. All of them welcome newcomers with open arms.
The stars have always been there, waiting. These books simply help you see them clearly for the first time.
Choose the one that calls to you most strongly, dear reader. Then open its pages and discover what awaits. Science fiction has been anticipating your arrival.
