Riot Headline The Best Books of 2024
Riot Recommendation

77+ of Your Favorite Science Fiction Books

Kelly Jensen

Editor

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She's the editor/author of (DON'T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen.

This week’s Riot Recommendation is sponsored by Ninth City Burning by J. Patrick Black.

Ninth City Burning Cover ArtEntire cities disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing but dust and rubble. When an alien race came to make Earth theirs, they brought with them a weapon we had no way to fight. It seemed nothing could stop it—until we discovered we could wield the power too.

Five hundred years later, the Earth is locked in a grinding war of attrition. Civilization revolves around supporting the Legion to take on the aliens. But the enemy’s tactics are shifting. As a terrible new onslaught threatens the end of our world, heroes will rise from unlikely quarters…and fight back.    


We asked and you answered the call.

For those who love science fiction, we hope you find a new thing or two on this round-up of reader’s favorite works. For those of you who are new or eager to try out the genre, you can do no better than begin here.

Enjoy more than 77 Riot reader favorite works of science fiction:

 

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

“Ancillary Justice” Series by Ann Leckie

Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller Jr.

Carnival by Elizabeth Bear

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov

China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh

City by Clifford Simak

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Contact by Carl Sagan

Dawn by Octavia Butler

“Declaration” Trilogy by Gemma Malley

The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

The Diamond Age; Or, a Young Ladies Illustrated Primer by Neal Stevenson

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Dune by Frank Herbert

Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

“Fairyland” series by Catherynne Valente

Feed by Mira Grant

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

Fortune’s Pawn by Rachel Bach

“His Dark Materials” trilogy by Phillip Pullman

Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rise Burroughs

Light by M. John Harrison

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

“Lunar Chronicles” series by Marissa Meyer

“Maddaddam” trilogy by Margaret Atwood

“Mars” Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Martian by Andy Weir

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold

My Real Children by Jo Walton

Neromancer by William Gibson

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Next by Michael Crichton

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Postman by David Brin

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

“Saga” series by Brian K. Vaughn

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

“Shadow Children” Sequence by Margaret Peterson Haddix

“Sirantha Jax” series from Ann Aguirre

Software by Rudy Rucker

The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Stealing Light by Gary Gibson

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

“Tao” series by Wesley Chu

These Broken Stars (Starbound Series) by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Tin Soldier by Joan D. Vinge

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Wills

The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

Warchild by Karin Lowachee

Watchers by Dean Koontz

The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

A Working Theory of Love by Scott Hutchins

“Xenogenesis” trilogy by Octavia Butler

Zazen by Vanessa Veselka

Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee