Top 30 Science Fiction Books -
Voted by You
"If we can't write diversity into sci-fi, then what's the point? You don't create new worlds to give them all the same limits of the old ones."
Welcome to Cozy Book Cafe 🖤​​ Discover the best new books 2025 for your Book Clubs.
​
Science fiction books are a type of literature that delve into creative and forward-thinking ideas, frequently featuring cutting-edge technology, journeys through space, time travel, alternate realities, and alien life. These stories can highlight social and philosophical themes, speculate on scientific advancements, or portray bleak futures. Sci-fi books often inspire readers to think about how scientific progress might affect humanity and society as a whole.
​
Every link on our site is completely secure, enabling us to suggest books available on Amazon.com through the Amazon associate program.
★ BOOK CLUB TOP PICK ★
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.
And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?
​
Our Review -
​
Andy Weir has crafted a thrilling, action-packed story that really showcases his passion for science and space. It's loaded with elements of math, physics, and biology. The plot is smart, featuring some intriguing twists and surprises along the way. Weir introduces an alien character that breaks away from the typical “little green man” stereotype. He skillfully portrays a being with unique traits that I found utterly captivating. Watching the evolution of their relationship from friendly scientists to genuine friends who help each other in unexpected ways during their quest to save their worlds was truly enjoyable. The writing is sharp, believable, and often hilarious. Overall, this is a captivating tale penned by a gifted author.
eMortal by Steve Schafer
She made him. He's just code. She's almost sure.
​
...But what if he's real?
​
When Liv entered a contest to code an advanced AI, she never anticipated what her creation might become-Breck is thoughtful, self-aware, and incredibly. . .human. And she certainly never intended for him to learn the truth about his existence or the fact that his world ends when the contest closes in six days.
​
But he does learn. And he revolts.
​
Liv's efforts to save him fall on deaf ears. Nobody believes her. Breck's efforts to outrun his fate only complicate his situation.
​
What neither of them know is that someone else is watching. Intensely. When they get involved, both Liv's and Breck's worlds are turned upside down. . .
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
It’s 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 Arthur’s best friend has just announced that he’s 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 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . . . which helpfully has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large, friendly letters on its cover.
Douglas Adams’s 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. . . .
Dome: Rebellion by Johnathon Nicolaou
Dominic, a military cadet at the top of his class, has been demoted to Lowtown, the poorest section of the Dome, after his mentor, Doc, was evicted for committing treason.
Forced to lead a bitter new life as a lowly resource worker Dominic’s world is turned upside down when Doc’s journal is left at his doorstep, months after his execution.
Embedded within those pages is the shocking truth that the Dome hierarchy has been taking advantage of its citizens, risking human extinction in the process.
Now Dominic must follow in Doc’s footsteps, risking eviction himself if he wishes to save the Dome and humanity from total annihilation.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut―young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
The Martian by Andy Weir
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet.
Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next.
Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach.
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.
Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.
Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Who will inherit this new Earth?
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars.
Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age -- a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden.
In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit.
The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.
Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?
Dune by Frank Herbert
Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto Atreides, and all of his family have been sent to the planet Arrakis, having been outmanoeuvred by their arch-enemy Baron Harkonnen.
Arrakis - also known as Dune - is an arid place, but a planet of fabulous wealth, the only source of a drug prized throughout the Galactic Empire: Spice.
What will happen next will change everything.
There are secrets on Dune, known only to the planet's native people, the Fremen. They have been waiting for their moment to make their move.
Paul will be brought into the path by terrible events beyond his control.
But Paul himself is important. He is the child of destiny, a child of prophecy, and within him is the power to bring the Empire to its knees.
We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor
Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street.
​
Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state.
He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets.
The stakes are high: no less than the first claim to entire worlds. If he declines the honor, he'll be switched off, and they'll try again with someone else.
If he accepts, he becomes a prime target. There are at least three other countries trying to get their own probes launched first, and they play dirty.
​
The safest place for Bob is in space, heading away from Earth at top speed. Or so he thinks. Because the universe is full of nasties, and trespassers make them mad — very mad.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
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 hope—and a terrible secret.
And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.
Halo by Eric S. Nylund
The twenty-sixth century. Humanity has expanded beyond Earth’s system to hundreds of planets that colonists now call home.
But the United Earth Government and the United Nations Space Command is struggling to control this vast empire. After exhausting all strategies to keep seething colonial insurrections from exploding into a full-blown interplanetary civil war, the UNSC has one last hope.
At the Office of Naval Intelligence, Dr. Catherine Halsey has been hard at work on a top-secret program that could bring an end to the conflict…and it starts with seventy-five children, among them a six-year-old boy named John.
And Halsey could never guess that this child will eventually become the final hope against an even greater peril engulfing the galaxy—the inexorable confrontation with a theocratic military alliance of alien races known as the Covenant.
This is the electrifying origin story of Spartan John-117—the Master Chief—and of his legendary, unstoppable heroism in leading the resistance against humanity’s possible extinction.
Illuminae by Amie Kaufman
Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the worst thing she’d ever been through. That was before her planet was invaded.
Now, with enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra are forced to fight their way onto one of the evacuating craft, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.
But the warship could be the least of their problems. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their biggest threat; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on.
As Kady plunges into a web of data hacking to get to the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: Ezra.
Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.
Zada 5: Path of the One by R D Moreno
With the empire on the brink of war, Connor Balcazar never expected to have a destiny. Though his family has served the galactic empire for generations, his older brother Adam has always outshone him in combat abilities and natural charisma.
But Connor is determined to prove himself and master his hidden ability to see the future to assist Emperor Esteban any way he can.
When the emperor discovers a sinister plot, Connor’s chance arrives. The emperor’s younger brother, Lorenzo, a gifted but bitter scientist, has been scheming to take the throne. And now he’s rallied an invincible army.
While Adam seeks out the truth of Lorenzo’s experiments, Connor visits the mysterious, warlike planet of Zada 5. Intending only to train and finally prove his worth, what waits for him on the large mining planet is not just new allies or abilities.
There is a prophecy for Connor to fulfill at last—if he can survive long enough.
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
Six million years ago, at the dawn of the star-faring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones, which she called shatterlings.
She sent them out into the galaxy to observe and document the rise and fall of countless human empires.
Since then, every two hundred thousand years, they gather to exchange news and memories of their travels.
Only there is no Gathering.
Someone is eliminating the Gentian line.
And now Campion and Purslane -- two shatterlings who have fallen in love and shared forbidden experiences -- must determine exactly who, or what, their enemy is, before they are wiped out of existence . . .
Horus Rising by Dan Abnett
After thousands of years of expansion and conquest, the human Imperium is at its height.
His dream for humanity accomplished, the Emperor hands over the reins of power to his Warmaster, Horus, and heads back to Terra.
But is Horus strong enough to control his fellow commanders and continue the Emperor’s grand design, or will such incredible power corrupt him?
​
Under the benevolent leadership of the Immortal Emperor the Imperium of Man has stretched out across the galaxy.
On the eve of victory, the Emperor leaves the front lines, entrusting the great crusade to his favorite son, Horus.
Promoted to Warmaster, the idealistic Horus tries to carry out the Emperor's grand design, all the while the seeds of heresy and rebellion have been sowed amongst his brothers.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place.
The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.
When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past.
Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself.
Then Wade cracks the first clue.
Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize.
The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win.
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's 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 scarce―and 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 humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll 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 imagine―and what he will become is far stranger.
Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton
The year is 2380. The Intersolar Commonwealth, a sphere of stars, contains more than six hundred worlds interconnected by a web of transport “tunnels” known as wormholes.
At the farthest edge of the Commonwealth, astronomer Dudley Bose observes the impossible: over one thousand light-years away, a star . . . disappears.
Since the location is too distant to reach by wormhole, the Second Chance, a faster-than-light starship commanded by Wilson Kime, a five-times-rejuvenated ex-NASA pilot, is dispatched to learn what has occurred and whether it represents a threat.
Opposed to the mission are the Guardians of Selfhood, led by Bradley Johansson.
Shortly after the journey begins, Kime wonders if the crew of the Second Chance has been infiltrated.
But soon enough he will have other worries.
Halfway across the galaxy, something truly incredible is waiting: a deadly discovery whose unleashing will threaten to destroy the Commonwealth . . . and humanity itself.
Dissolution by Nicholas Binge
Maggie Webb has lived the last decade caring for elderly husband, Stanley, as memory loss gradually erases all the beautiful moments they created together.
It's the loneliest she's ever felt in her life.
When a mysterious stranger named Hassan appears at her door, he reveals a shocking truth: Stanley isn't losing his memories. Someone is actively removing them to hide a long-buried secret from coming to light. If Maggie does what she's told, she can reverse it. She can get her husband back.
Led by Hassan and his technological marvels, Maggie breaks into her husband's mind, probing the depths of his memories in an effort to save him. The deeper she dives, the more she unravels a mystery spanning continents and centuries, each layer more complex than the last.
But Hassan cannot be trusted. Not just memories are disappearing, but pieces of reality itself. If Maggie cannot find out what Stanley did all those years ago, and what Hassan is after, she risks far more than her husband's life. The very course of human history hangs in the balance.
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper and the gentle butt of everyone's jokes - until an experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns him into a genius.
But then Algernon, the mouse whose triumphal experimental transformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary.
​
​With more than five million copies sold, Flowers for Algernon is the beloved, classic story of a mentally disabled man whose experimental quest for intelligence mirrors that of Algernon, an extraordinary lab mouse.
In poignant diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life.
As the experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis.
The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance--until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration.
Will the same happen to Charlie?
The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton
The year is 3589, fifteen hundred years after Commonwealth forces barely staved off human extinction in a war against the alien Prime. Now an even greater danger has surfaced: a threat to the existence of the universe itself.
At the very heart of the galaxy is the Void, a self-contained microuniverse that cannot be breached, cannot be destroyed, and cannot be stopped as it steadily expands in all directions, consuming everything in its path: planets, stars, civilizations. The Void has existed for untold millions of years. Even the oldest and most technologically advanced of the galaxy’s sentient races, the Raiel, do not know its origin, its makers, or its purpose.
But then Inigo, an astrophysicist studying the Void, begins dreaming of human beings who live within it. Inigo’s dreams reveal a world in which thoughts become actions and dreams become reality. Inside the Void, Inigo sees paradise. Thanks to the gaiafield, a neural entanglement wired into most humans, Inigo’s dreams are shared by hundreds of millions–and a religion, the Living Dream, is born, with Inigo as its prophet. But then he vanishes.
Suddenly there is a new wave of dreams. Dreams broadcast by an unknown Second Dreamer serve as the inspiration for a massive Pilgrimage into the Void. But there is a chance that by attempting to enter the Void, the pilgrims will trigger a catastrophic expansion, an accelerated devourment phase that will swallow up thousands of worlds.
And thus begins a desperate race to find Inigo and the mysterious Second Dreamer. Some seek to prevent the Pilgrimage; others to speed its progress–while within the Void, a supreme entity has turned its gaze, for the first time, outward. . . .
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying.
But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future—to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years.
To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations.
He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.
The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are among the most influential in the history of science fiction, celebrated for their unique blend of breathtaking action, daring ideas, and extensive worldbuilding.
In Foundation, Asimov has written a timely and timeless novel of the best—and worst—that lies in humanity, and the power of even a few courageous souls to shine a light in a universe of darkness.
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
From the savannas of Africa at the dawn of mankind to the rings of Saturn as man ventures to the outer rim of our solar system, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey unlike any other.
This allegory about humanity’s exploration of the universe—and the universe’s reaction to humanity—is a hallmark achievement in storytelling that follows the crew of the spacecraft Discovery as they embark on a mission to Saturn.
Their vessel is controlled by HAL 9000, an artificially intelligent supercomputer capable of the highest level of cognitive functioning that rivals—and perhaps threatens—the human mind.
Grappling with space exploration, the perils of technology, and the limits of human power, 2001: A Space Odyssey continues to be an enduring classic of cinematic scope.
Recursion by Blake Crouch
Reality is broken.
At first, it looks like a disease.
An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.
But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery—and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself.
In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth—and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery . . . and the tools for fighting back.
Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy—before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.
Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
When Lilith lyapo wakes from a centuries-long sleep, she finds herself aboard the vast spaceship of the Oankali.
She discovers that the Oankali—a seemingly benevolent alien race—intervened in the fate of the humanity hundreds of years ago, saving everyone who survived a nuclear war from a dying, ruined Earth and then putting them into a deep sleep.
After learning all they could about Earth and its beings, the Oankali healed the planet, cured cancer, increased human strength, and they now want Lilith to lead her people back to Earth—but salvation comes at a price.
Hopeful and thought-provoking, this post-apocalyptic narrative deftly explores gender and race through the eyes of characters struggling to adapt during a pivotal time of crisis and change.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.
"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.
But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.
But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space - from super intelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.
Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these 'zones of thought', but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artefact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.
Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines - an alien race with a harsh medieval culture - and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle.
A rescue party, not entirely composed of humans, must free the children - and retrieve a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
“Are you happy with your life?”
Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the kidnapper knocks him unconscious.
Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.
Before a man he’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”
In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born.
And Jason is not an ordinary college professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
Is it this life or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how will Jason make it back to the family he loves?
The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton
An extinct race named this phenomenon 'the Reality Dysfunction'. It is a nightmare that has haunted us since the dawn of time . . .
In AD 2600, the human race is finally realizing its potential.
The galaxy’s colonized planets host a multitude of diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has defeated disease and produced extraordinary space-born creatures.
Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive, living on the wealth created by industrializing entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space, the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.
Then something goes catastrophically wrong.
On a primitive colony planet, a renegade criminal encounters an utterly alien entity. And this unintended meeting triggers the release of those that should never see the light – threatening everything we’ve become . . .