Let Us Help You Find Your Next Book Science Fiction

The editors of The New York Times Book Review bring you immersive climate fiction, our latest reviews, gripping dystopian reads, novels with great world-building, books with “The Last of Us” vibes, the essential Octavia E. Butler and more! Updated July 8, 2025.

The editors of The New York Times Book Review bring you immersive climate fiction, our latest reviews, gripping dystopian reads, novels with great world-building, books with “The Last of Us” vibes, the essential Octavia E. Butler and more! Updated July 8, 2025.

Our Favorite Sci-Fi Reads

Take me on a wild ride with two souls bonded across time

Give me a far-future fable set on a spaceship

I want a gently devastating reflection on the multiverse

How about a dystopian romance with plenty of heat?

A warmongering snake alien in Central Park? Sign me up!

How about a propulsive new chapter in a dystopian series?

I like campus novels and sci-fi thrillers with a high body count

I want a funny-sad story about an awkward alien

Give me apocalyptic stakes and nemeses turned allies

Jeff VanderMeer’s Favorite Climate Fiction

The author of the Southern Reach novels recommends immersive books that grapple with environmental crisis.

Private Ritesby Julia Armfield

Oryx and Crakeby Margaret Atwood

Parable of the Sowerby Octavia E. Butler

The Dosadi Experimentby Frank Herbert

The Left Hand of Darknessby Ursula K. Le Guin

American Warby Omar El Akkad

Theory of Bastardsby Audrey Schulman

Black Waveby Michelle Tea

Read more about Jeff VanderMeer’s favorite climate fiction novels.

New and Noteworthy

Our latest science fiction reviews.

Immaculate Conception

by Ling Ling Huang

This dystopian novel explores the fraught bond between a poor art student and her critically acclaimed rich friend who goes missing.

Eternal Summer

by Franziska Gänsler

A mysterious woman and a toddler check into the last hotel standing in a German resort region devastated by abnormal wildfires.

Chaos

by Constance Fay

The heroine of this sci-fi romance adventure is Caro, a renegade engineer with a secret past and an unexpected connection with a murderous super soldier.

Exit Zero

by Marie-Helene Bertino

In 12 darkly comic, surrealist stories, the “Beautyland” author mines life’s real losses — grief, breakups, loneliness — through decidedly unreal plots.

Vanishing World

by Sayaka Murata

Murata imagines a disquieting dystopia where the human race reproduces only via artificial insemination and erotic love is shamed.

The Bones Beneath My Skin

by TJ Klune

A journalist finds himself caught up in a web of government conspiracies and alien encounters, wrapped around a heartwarming story of found family.

Death of the Author

by Nnedi Okorafor

Okorafor’s latest follows a struggling author named Zelu whose stalling career is changed when she writes a blockbuster science fiction novel.

Darkmotherland

by Samrat Upadhyay

As refugees try to salvage what remains of their lives after an earthquake hits the Himalayas, an authoritarian leader rises to rule over the region with an iron fist.

Absolution

by Jeff VanderMeer

The surprise fourth volume in VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series returns to Area X, a coastal region that has been blocked off from human contact for decades.

The Tusks of Extinction

by Ray Nayler

One hundred years after a scientist is murdered, her consciousness is uploaded into a genetically resurrected woolly mammoth.

The Book of Elsewhere

by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville

What if the star of “The Matrix” worked with a sci-fi novelist to tell the story of an 80,000-year-old warrior who can rip people’s arms off but struggles with loneliness?

Lady Eve’s Last Con

by Rebecca Fraimow

The neon gleam of pulp fiction illuminates Fraimow’s vivacious heist romance about a con artist on a far-future satellite.

3 Dystopian Novels to Read This Summer

Never Let Me Goby Kazuo Ishiguro

Sunrise on the Reapingby Suzanne Collins

Parable of the Sowerby Octavia E. Butler

Martha Wells’s Favorite Novels With Great World Building

The author of the Murderbot Diaries recommends novels that will transport you to other worlds.

Long Live Evilby Sarah Rees Brennan

Don’t Sleep With the Deadby Nghi Vo

A Palace Near the Windby Ai Jiang

The Lies of the Ajungoby Moses Ose Utomi

Black Water Sisterby Zen Cho

Furious Heavenby Kate Elliott

Master of Poisonsby Andrea Hairston

Archangelby Sharon Shinn

The Mimicking of Known Successesby Malka Older

The Nightwardby R.S.A. Garcia

Read more about Martha Wells’s favorite immersive speculative novels.

Love ‘The Last of Us’? Read These Books Next

Killer fungi, survival stories, revenge tales and postapocalyptic thrills can help tide you over until Season 3.

Severanceby Ling Ma

Manhuntby Gretchen Felker-Martin

What Moves the Deadby T. Kingfisher

How High We Go in the Darkby Sequoia Nagamatsu

The Roadby Cormac McCarthy

Station Elevenby Emily St. John Mandel

Parable of the Sowerby Octavia E. Butler

Californiaby Edan Lepucki

World War Zby Max Brooks

The Girl With All the Giftsby M.R. Carey

Read more about these books that channel the spirit of the show.

The Essential Octavia E. Butler

I don’t read much speculative fiction and don’t plan to start

I want a sampler of her immaculate prose

Let’s go on an epic adventure

I want psychic duels and fratricide

I feel right at home in dystopias

I want nuclear annihilation and alien sex

Alien sex? No thanks. Vampire sex? Sign me up!

I want a deep cut

Give me some trivia, B-sides and scholarship

Read more about Octavia Butler’s essential works.

New in Paperback

Tinier, but just as mighty.

The Ministry of Timeby Kaliane Bradley

A Short Walk Through a Wide Worldby Douglas Westerbeke

Fluxby Jinwoo Chong

Beautylandby Marie-Helene Bertino

Dead in Long Beach, Californiaby Venita Blackburn

The Book of Loveby Kelly Link

Girlfriend on Marsby Deborah Willis

The Saint of Bright Doorsby Vajra Chandrasekera

The Blue, Beautiful Worldby Karen Lord

The Archive Undyingby Emma Mieko Candon

What’s on Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Nightstand?

The author of “Chain-Gang All-Stars” talked about the books and writers that have stuck with him. Read his By the Book interview.

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate

Greenwood by Michael Christie

House Gone Quiet by Kelsey Norris

Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale

House of Cotton by Monica Brashears

Grace Engine by Joshua Burton

Still Haven’t Found What You’re Looking For?

Tell us what kind of science fiction books you want to read. We may feature them on this page or in an upcoming story.

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