Daily Archives: March 21, 2022

Since time immemorial, mankind has been looking up at the stars and dreaming, but it was only centuries ago that we started turning those dreams into fiction. And what remarkable dreams they aredreams of distant worlds, unearthly creatures, parallel universes, artificial intelligence, and so much more. Today, we call those dreams science fiction.

Science fictions earliest inklings began in the mid-1600s, when Johannes Kepler and Francis Godwin wrote pioneering stories about voyages to the moon. Some scholars argue that science fiction as we now understand it was truly born in 1818, when Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, the first novel of its kind whose events are explained by science, not mysticism or miracles. Now, two centuries later, sci-fi is a sprawling and lucrative multimedia genre with countless sub-genres, such as dystopian fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, and climate fiction, just to name a few. Its also remarkably porous, allowing for some overlap with genres like fantasy and horror.

Sci-fi brings out the best in our imaginations and evokes a sense of wonder, but it also inspires a spirit of questioning. Through the enduring themes of sci-fi, we can examine the zeitgeists cultural context and ethical questions. Our favorite works in the genre make good on this promise, meditating on everything from identity to oppression to morality. As the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing said, "Science fiction is some of the best social fiction of our time.

Choosing the fifty best science fiction books of all time wasnt easy, so to get the job done, we had to establish some guardrails. Though we assessed single installments as representatives of their series, we limited the list to one book per author. We also emphasized books that brought something new and innovative to the genre; to borrow a great sci-fi turn of phrase, books that boldly go where no one has gone before.

Now, in ranked order, here are the best science fiction books of all time.

50The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey

Westworld meets The Stepford Wives in this gripping revenge thriller about the unlikely alliance between a woman and her clone. When geneticist Evelyn Caldwell learns that her husband Nathan is cheating on her, she soon ferrets out the truthrather than work on their strained marriage, Nathan stole Evelyns proprietary cloning technology and replaced her with a more docile substitute. But when Evelyn finds her clone standing over Nathans dead body, crying, It was self-defense, these quasi-sisters will have to work together to conceal the crime and preserve Evelyns scientific reputation. The Echo Wifes juicy premise runs deep, raising eerie questions about love, justice, and individuality.

49Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

Long before Facebooks Metaverse, Stephenson coined the term in this cyberpunk acid trip of a novel. Snow Crashs Hiro Protagonist lives a double life: in reality, he delivers pizzas for the Mafia, but in the Metaverse, hes a hacker and a warrior prince. When he learns about a lethal virus picking off hackers one by one, his race to find its dastardly architect sends him pinballing through everything from technological conspiracy to ancient Sumerian mythology. Sexy, action-packed, and downright prophetic in its vision of our virtual future, you'll want to strap in tight for this dizzying techno-thriller.

48Contact, by Carl Sagan

The great Carl Sagan wrote dozens of works of nonfiction, but just one novel: Contact, a 1985 bestseller that later became a Jodie Foster flick. Sagans preoccupations with intelligent life come into view through Dr. Ellie Arroway, a principled astronomer who detects and decrypts a deep-space transmission from a planetary system far, far away. At the transmissions urging, the nations of the world race to build a mysterious machine, but faith leaders call the enterprise (and the rationality of science) into question. Through this thoughtful, layered story, Sagan plumbs the often antagonistic relationship between science and religion, asking if perhaps both are seeking contact in different forms. After all, disciples from each camp can agree on one thing: The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

47A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.

After World War III, Earth has fallen into a new Dark Age; most of the United States is a radioactive wasteland, and civilization is in tatters. While violent packs of survivors burn books and slaughter those who can read, the monks of St. Leibowitz preserve the heritage of the past by smuggling important volumes into their monastery. As the novel progresses throughout the centuries and a new Renaissance gives way to a second space age, so much about modern life changes, but at the monastery, much remains the same. Millers ambitious sci-fi classic captures the human tendency for self-destruction, as viewed through the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, but its not all doom, gloom, and nuclear warfareA Canticle for Leibowitz is a moving paean to the power of knowledge and hope.

46Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem

No one writes about intelligent life quite like Stanislaw Lem, who scoffed at little green men and instead put the alien in alien. In this dense and brainy novel, scientist Kris Kelvin lands on the planet Solaris to study the mysterious ocean enveloping its surface. Kelvin and his crew soon discover that this massive ocean is sentient: aloof, unknowable, and mysterious, it explores these explorers, reflecting their most painful memories back at them. What if aliens dont care to know us, and what if we cant possibly dream of understanding them anyway? Lem never tired of asking these questions, but of all his novels, Solaris makes our list for its perfect encapsulation of his singular vision.

45Neuromancer, by William Gibson

Cyberspace: a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation. This is the setting of William Gibsons Neuromancersounds awfully familiar, doesnt it? The winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer is often called the definitive novel of the cyberpunk genre (it went on to heavily influence the creators of The X-Files and The Matrix). Our hero is Case, an ex-cyber cowboy banished from cyberspace by his former employers. When a criminal syndicate comes knocking, promising to restore Cases uplink in exchange for his hacking services, the novel transforms into a kaleidoscopic espionage thriller. Trippy, surreal, and slick as hell, Neuromancer is a ride you wont soon forget.

44The Book of Phoenix, by Nnedi Okorafor

Science fiction and magical realism collide in this imaginative prequel to Okorafors World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death. Here we meet Phoenix, an accelerated woman grown in New Yorks Tower 7. Though shes only two years old, she has the mind and body of a middle-aged adult, along with superhuman abilities. Phoenix suffers a painful awakening when her lover takes his life under dubious circumstances, proving that Tower 7 is less of a home and more of a prison. Her daring escape leads her to Ghana, where she learns brutal truths about colonialism, and vows to fight back against her oppressors. Blistering with love and rage, Phoenixs fight for justice is downright electrifying.

43A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

In the many decades since its 1962 publication, A Clockwork Orange has become such a high school curriculum fixture that its easy to forget just how damn good it is. Burgess transgressive dystopia is the story of Alex, a teenage gangster who leads his fellow droogs in shocking acts of ultra-violenceuntil hes apprehended by the draconian police. In prison, Alex is subjected to a brutal reconditioning, leaving him a changed and diminished man. Told in high-flying, pyrotechnic patois thats since bled into the cultural lexicon, A Clockwork Orange is a postmodern triumph.

42The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

Few science fiction novels can claim to have inspired their own holiday, but The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy isnt your ordinary science fiction novel (the holiday is Towel Day, if you must know). Adamss signature work has cast a long shadow over popular culture, and for good reason. This absurdist comedy is the story of Arthur Dent, a hapless everyman who wanders the universe after Earth is destroyed to make way for the galactic highway. As he romps through space with alien travel writer Ford Prefect and a crew of android oddballs, Dents adventures illuminate how utterly insignificant our little blue green planet truly is. In the face of absurdity, Adams reminds us, what else can we do but laugh?

41This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Structured as a poetic correspondence between two time-traveling spies, this forbidden romance puts the distance in long-distance relationship. As Agents Red and Blue hopscotch through the multiverse, altering history on behalf of their respective military superpowers, they leave behind secret messages for one anotherfirst taunting, then flirtatious, then flowering with love and devotion. Theres a kind of time travel in letters, isnt there? Blue muses. Letters are structures, not events, Red replies. Yours give me a place to live inside. Amid the dangerous chaos of their circumstances, Red and Blue find constants in one another. Playful and imaginative, told with lyrical grace, this is a dazzling puzzle box of a novella.

40The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein

Though Heinlein is considered one of The Big Three science fiction writers (along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke), hes arguably the least well-known among casual sci-fi readers. If youre new here, start your Heinlein odyssey with his best novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. In the year 2076, a penal colony on the moon rises up against the tyranny of Earth, declaring themselves the Free State of Luna, and themselves "the loonies." Its a parable for the American Revolution, but instead of tea dumped in the Boston harbor, weve got electromagnetic catapults hurling moon rocks at Earth with the force of atomic bombs. Fun fact: the phrase, There aint no such thing as a free lunch originated in this novel.

39A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle

Who says science fiction is only for adults? LEngles enduring young adult classic is the story of tweenage siblings Meg and Charles Murray, who travel through the universe by way of a space-time-folding tesseract. In search of their missing father, Meg and Charles encounter galactic marvels of all kinds, from a utopian planet to the source of all evil in the universe. A Wrinkle in Time never makes the mistake of assuming that young readers cant handle all the brainy concepts and mature themes that science fiction has to offer. Though its an unforgettable read at any age, its perhaps best-loved by the generations of readers who remember it as their gateway to sci-fi.

38The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

Published way back in 1895, The Time Machine was one small step for H.G. Wells, but one giant leap for science fiction. The novel popularized the concept of time travel by vehicle, lighting the way for everything from Back to the Future to Doctor Who. The Time Machine is the story of the Travelers journey 800,000 years into the future, where he discovers that mankind has evolved into two races: the ethereal Eloi and the predatory Morlocks. Through the Travelers exciting, nail-biting adventure, we see an entire generations fin-de-sicle anxieties about industrialization and the future of humanity. This short, seminal book is a must-read for any sci-fi fan.

37Rosewater, by Tade Thompson

Tade Thompsons award-winning Wormwood Trilogy opens in Nigeria circa 2066, where the town of Rosewater has formed around a mysterious alien biodome rumored to have extraordinary healing powers. Enter Kaaro, a government security officer known as a sensitiveessentially, a bioengineered race of psychics with access to an alien informational network called the xenosphere. When sensitives start dying off mysteriously, Kaaro embarks on a hardboiled detective mission, bringing the true nature of sensitives existence into the cold, hard light of day. A work of dazzling cyberpunk imagination and visionary Afrofuturism, Rosewater masterfully fuses a story of postcolonial trauma with a first contact narrative.

36The Stand, by Stephen King

Horror, fantasy, and science fiction converge in The Stand, a master storytellers doorstopper about the eternal struggle between good and evil. After a bioengineered influenza virus escapes from a government laboratory, mankind succumbs to the deadly pandemic in just weeks, leaving survivors scattered across the barren United States. Two communities coalesce around very different leaders: Mother Abagail, a benevolent holy woman seeking utopia, and Randall Flagg, the human personification of violence and chaos. As the communities fight to wipe one another out, King weaves an epic tale about theology, morality, and human nature. In the wake of our own pandemic, The Stand has only grown in resonance and prescience.

35The Children of Men, by PD James

Before it was a grim Alfonso Cuarn film, The Children of Men was a grim, remarkable novel. The year is 2021: with all men inexplicably sterile, no child has been born for 25 years, and the human race faces extinction. England is ruled by the Warden, a despotic leader who prizes the youngest generation above all others. Theo Faren, the Wardens estranged cousin, sleepwalks through life as an Oxford historian until he receives a visit from a group of dissidents, whose company includes a pregnant woman. Packed with prescient insight about politics, power, and tyranny, The Children of Men will rattle you for years to come.

34Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente

When documentary filmmaker Severin Unck fails to return from her latest project on Venus, so begins a metafictional odyssey into her life, work, and disappearance. Constructed in patchwork fashion from scripts, depositions, and interviews with people who knew Unck, Radiance ushers us into Valentes pulpy alternate universe, where Hollywood is an interplanetary system with backlots on the moon, but cinema never progressed beyond silent black and white films, thanks to the Edison familys tight grip on the patent process. Hopscotching through this kaleidoscopic universe of beauty, adventure, and artistry, Valente tells a moving story about why we tell stories at all.

33Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson

Plenty of writers have contemplated the colonization of Mars, but few have done it with such extraordinary granularity as Robinson, who dug in with gusto through his Mars Trilogy. Arthur C. Clarke himself called Red Mars the best novel on the colonization of Mars thats ever been written. The novel takes place in 2026, when colonists fleeing an overpopulated Earth touch down on the red planet. Carefully selected and trained, they set about the task of terraforming hostile, sandswept Mars, but establishing a viable settlement will demand everything they have to give. Robinson looks at planetary colonization through every conceivable lens: politics, biology, ecology, medicine, psychology, and morality, just to name a few. The result is speculative fiction that feels astoundingly real.

32The City & The City, by China Miville

That this novel won a constellation of awards spanning science fiction, fantasy, and weird fiction is proof of Mivilles gift for straddling genres. The City & The City is set in two fictional Eastern European cities occupying the same physical space; from birth, residents are trained to unsee the opposing city, under the threat of criminal penalties. When a murdered woman is found lying in the wastelands, Inspector Tyador Borl of the Extreme Crime Squad is called to the scene, but the crime defies logic: this woman was murdered in one city, and her body was dumped in the other. Borls investigation exposes startling secrets about this strange way of life, taking us on a noirish metaphysical journey through the doors of perception.

31Hyperion, by Dan Simmons

Inspired by Chaucers Canterbury Tales, Simmons Hyperion Cantos begins with this story of seven pilgrims sent on a potentially fatal mission to the Time Tombs of Hyperion. There, they hope to confront the Shrike, a cosmic being with the power to bend space and time. Throughout the journey, they share their stories of suffering under the Hegemony of Man, the intergalactic government that sold humanity out to a civilization of AIs. From aging in reverse to encounters with immortality, each story is a cerebral fable, rich in Lovecraftian terror, mythological import, and breathtaking worldbuilding.

30Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany

Philip K. Dick once called Dhalgren the worst trash Ive ever read, while William Gibson described Delany as the most remarkable prose stylist to have emerged from the culture of American science fiction. Read it yourself, and you can be the judge. This cult classic opens when a man without a name wanders into Bellona, a midwestern city razed by a space-time continuum-altering disaster. Strange phenomena abound: two moons burn in the night sky, time moves in loopy circles, and electronic signals cant reach the city, cutting it off from the outside world. To borrow a phrase from our narrator, Dhalgren has more to say than vocabulary and syntax can bear; written in a circular structure, its a novel with multiple entry points, which will test your patience and bend your brain. Dense and psychedelic, packed with transgressive ideas about race, sex, and gender, its a work of singular vision, but not for the faint of heart.

29The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers

The first volume in Chamberss Wayfarers series is pure, rip-roaring funa space opera with a big, gooey heart. Running from her mysterious past on Mars, Rosemary Harper joins the multi-species crew of the Wayfarer, a spaceship that creates wormholes to connect distant trade routes. En route to their biggest job yet at the edge of the Galactic Commons, the eclectic crew has ample time to bond, and bond they do. Plot takes a back seat for the majority of this character-driven narrative as Rosemary learns deeply humane truths about what makes us human (or, rather, what makes us alien): identity, sexuality, race, tradition. Chambers proves that spacefaring neednt be all about the destination. Sometimes, its about the journey.

28The Body Scout, by Lincoln Michel

In Michels cyberpunk New York of the future, climate change and repeated pandemics have ravaged the city; meanwhile, cybernetic body modification is de rigeur, and Neanderthals roam the earth again. In this dystopian milieu, we meet Kobo, a down-on-his-luck baseball scout who recruits genetically engineered talent for Big Pharma-owned teams. JJ Zunz, Kobos adopted brother, is the souped-up superstar of the Monsanto Metsbut when Zunz drops dead on the field, Kobo smells foul play. Kobos transformation into an amateur sleuth sends him pin-balling through a web of corporate espionage, making for a breathlessly paced techno-thriller characterized by stunning, spiky world building.

27Zone One, by Colson Whitehead

After a zombie pandemic decimates American life, separating humanity into the living and the living dead, who cleans up the wreckage? In Zone One, we meet the janitors of the undead: sweepers like Mark Spitz, who are tasked with taking out zombie stragglers to prepare Manhattan for resettlement. Inspired by the horror fiction of Stephen King and the science fiction of Isaac Asimov, Whiteheads foray into zombieland delivers gallows humor and nightmarish gore in spades; at the same time, this post-apocalyptic elegy for the modern world elevates the genre to new heights.

261Q84, by Haruki Murakami

This epic descendent of George Orwells 1984 covers that fateful year in two storylinesone fictional, one real. Bridging that gap are two long-lost lovers: Aomame, an assassin targeting domestic abusers, and Tengo, an aspiring novelist ghostwriting a dyslexic teenagers bestseller. When Aomame discovers that the world is not what it seems and works to take down a dangerous cult leader, she and Tengo are drawn into a distorted reality, searching for one another across the chasm. Its often said that a novel should contain the world; in 1Q84, Murakami makes good on that promise, weaving everything from recipes to music into this mammoth tale of love and longing in a contemporary Tokyo lit by two moons.

25Future Home of the Living God, by Louise Erdich

In this chilling dystopian triumph, an American master warns against a world gone mad. When evolution runs in reverse, leading to babies born with primitive traits, government squads begin imprisoning pregnant women; meanwhile, religious extremists plot to take control of the nation. Enter twenty-something Cedar Hawk Songmaker, four months pregnant at exactly the wrong time, whose search for her Ojibwe birth parents leads her into the maw of danger. Like The Handmaids Tale before it, Future Home of the Living Gods nightmarish vision of theocracy and reproductive dystopia rings all too true.

24Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith

When anthropologist Marghe Taishan touches down on the mysterious planet Jeep, she soon finds that shes in over her head. Centuries ago, Earth colonized the planet; then, a fatal virus wiped out all the men, and contact with the remaining colonists was lost. Generations of radio silence later, Marghe arrives to test a promising vaccine while a greedy corporation waits in orbit, hoping to ransack the unspoiled planet. As Marghes stay progresses, she becomes fascinated by Jeeps powerful women, and ever more enmeshed in its tribal mythologies and conflicts. When Marghe endangers her life to unravel the biological mystery of how Jeeps inhabitants procreate, Ammonite asks: when does a human become an alien? Gripping and gutsy, rich in layers of feminist and queer thought, Ammonite gleefully throws a stick of dynamite into the sci-fi firmament.

23Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood

Last man on Earth narratives are rarely as taut and morally provocative as Oryx and Crake, the first volume in Atwoods dystopian MaddAddam trilogy. Our protagonist is Snowman, the lone survivor of a plague that destroyed mankind. Now living among the Crakers, a bioengineered race of childlike humanoids, Snowman mythologizes their origin story, with some creative embellishments. The tale takes him back to the Before Times, when life was a corporatocracy characterized by genetic engineering and consumer culture. Oryx and Crake isnt for the faint of heart (here there be child pornography, ritualized killings, and animal abuse) but if you can stomach it, reading this prescient novel is like looking in a funhouse mirror of our own failings.

22The Resisters, by Gish Jen

Welcome to AutoAmerica, where AIs have put many people out of work, the privileged Netted live on high ground, and the rest of the population, known as Surplus, live in swamplands wracked by consumerism. Teenage Gwen plays baseball with fellow members of the Surplus in an underground league, but when the government takes notice of her talents, shes shipped off to the Olympics in ChinRussia, playing in dangerous territory alongside the Netted. Like Brave New World before it, The Resisters explores our consent in our own subjugation. "No one would have chosen the extinction of frogs and of polar bears and yet it was something we humans did finally choose," Jen writes. In this funny and tender novel, she makes the impossible look easy, grafting a heartfelt story about family onto big questions about freedom and resistance.

21Shikasta, by Doris Lessing

Though it was likely Doris Lessings long and varied career that netted her the Nobel Prize for Literature, we like to think that her ambitious excursion into science fiction, via her Canopus in Argos: Archives series, also had something to do with it. The first installment, Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta, is a visionary work of imagination. Compiled from ephemera like documents, letters, and journal entries, the novel is structured as a history book for residents of the planet Canopus, who long ago colonized a little blue marble they call Shikasta. Shikasta is clearly the planet Earth, shaped from Genesis to World War III by the Canopians and their colonial rivals. Lessings perspective on history is downright cosmic in scope, but occasionally cheeky, too. (When Earthpeople complain that their heavenly leaders have abandoned them, the Canopians retort, "We've regularly sent people to guide and comfort them! Well, except for a brief period during the last fifteen hundred years.") Lessings ambitious vision of human lifeand human follyoffers alternate history on an eschatological scale.

20An Unkindness of Ghosts, by Rivers Solomon

Solomons intricate and imaginative debut novel takes place on the HSS Matilda, a generation ship carrying survivors of a destroyed Earth toward a new star system. Throughout the generations, life on the ship has become harshly segregated, with people of color confined to a grueling routine of hard labor on the lower decks. Here, we meet Aster, a brilliant and rebellious healer whose search for answers about her mothers suicide stands to galvanize a shipwide uprising. Peopled with a rich array of queer and neurodiverse characters, An Unkindness of Ghosts makes dazzling use of science fictions trappings to tell a gutting story about slavery and intergenerational trauma.

19Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer

In this spectacular blend of science fiction and climate fiction, VanderMeer sets his sights on Area X, a lush and remote landscape that has turned against humankind, producing brain-bending effects on scientists who venture into the territory to investigate. As the secrets of Area X reveal themselves not just to the scientists, but to the disorganized agency that monitors these expeditions, the bureaucratic and ecological consequences pile upward. Dreadful, Lovecraftian, and downright existential, Annihilation is a dizzying descent into a metaphysical wilderness leagues away from our lived reality.

18The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut

Perhaps you expected to see Slaughterhouse Five on this list instead, but bear with us. The Sirens of Titans takes Slaughterhouses science fiction slant and leans into it full throttle, making for something even more spectacular, strange, and side-splittingly funny. In The Sirens of Titan, Malachi Constant, the richest man on a future Earth, hopscotches across the solar system, suffering the slings and arrows of fortune at every turn. Constant has come into the crosshairs of Winston Niles Rumfoord, a malevolent space traveler whos become chrono-synclastic infundibulated by his voyage. Now, like a vindictive god, Rumfoord is determined to teach the entire human race a lesson by pitting them against the belligerent Martians. Pulpy and surprisingly poignant, The Sirens of Titan trafficks gracefully in some of sci-fis most enduring questions about fate, free will, and predestination.

17Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke

Sci-fi godfather Arthur C. Clarke wrote dozens of acclaimed novels, including 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous With Rama, but he considered Childhoods End to be one of his favorite works. Who are we to disagree with him? In this formidable novel, the space race grinds to a halt when vast alien spaceships appear over Earths major cities. The Overlords (or, as they prefer to be known, The Guardians) have arrived on what seems like a mission of peace, determined to end war, ignorance, disease, and poverty. A new golden age begins, but utopia has a price: creativity stagnates, science loses forward momentum, and the human race, by and large, is stifled. As the Overlords secret motives come into view, Clarke reflects on the messy striving that makes us human. (Nominated for a Hugo Award in 1954, Childhoods End ultimately lost to Fahrenheit 451, but the novel remains timeless.)

16The Complete Robot, by Isaac Asimov

Asimovs landmark Foundation series could easily have landed on this listawarded the one-time Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series in 1966, its certainly made a mark on science fiction. But Asimov was at his best, both as a fiction writer and a conceptual thinker, when he wrote about robots, those rascally bags of bolts. The Complete Robot contains 37 of those stories, including the famous I, Robot. Here, Asimov laid down the highly influential Three Laws of Robotics, which would go on to shape both a genre and a field of study. From hostile to heroic to everything in between, the robots in these stories evolved as Asimovs vision did. The world hasn't been the same since.

15How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu

National Book Award winner and Westworld writer Charles Yu is one of todays most exciting speculative fiction talents. His metafictional debut centers on Charles Yu, a lonesome time machine mechanic for Time Warner Time, which turns a profit by operating alternate universes. Charles oversees Minor Universe 31, a science fiction phantasmagoria where he encounters Linus Skywalker (who offed his famous father), but all the while, hes deep in mourning for his own father, a time travel pioneer who vanished. When Charles shoots his future self in a kneejerk moment of panic, he's soon stuck in a time loop that may see him colliding with his long-lost parent. Trippy and clever, playful and full of heart, this bittersweet novel speaks volumes about our all-too human desire to change the past.

14Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley wrote dozens of far-out books, but Brave New World rises above the pack for a reason. In this nightmarish vision of the future, Huxley imagines a world of mood-flattening pharmaceuticals, information overload, and on-demand sex. The masses are mollified by this endless cycle of consumption, allowing the totalitarian World State to rule unchallenged, but sleep scientist Bernard Marx is unsatisfied by life without passion or pain. When he dares to fight back against the World Controllers, Brave New World veers headlong into a thrilling story about nonconformity and individuality that still rattles us today. In 2002, the novelist JG Ballard said it best: 1984 has never really arrived, but Brave New World is around us everywhere.

13The Employees, by Olga Ravn

The Employees accomplishes more in 136 pages than some sci-fi novels do in 500. On a ship hurtling through deep space, humans and humanoids work together under a rigid corporate hierarchy. When they land on New Discovery, crew members retrieve mysterious objects that exert a strange power over man and machine alike, awakening dreams, memories, and longing. Humans mourn their lost connections on Earth, while their humanoid colleagues yearn for connections theyve never known. Constructed as a series of witness statements from the crew, gathered after tensions with their oppressive employer boil over, The Employees is an unforgettable novel about the psychic costs of labor under capitalism. Yet it also reaches deeper to explore science fiction's animating questions: What makes us human? Which of us is more human, person or robot? Is a synthetic life still a life? Dreamlike and sensual, The Employees shouldn't be missed.

121984, by George Orwell

In a world where concerns about privacy, government overreach, and freedom of information are more relevant than ever, 1984 continues to frighten and astound. Published in 1949, Orwells masterpiece is the chilling story of a rebellious Ministry of Truth bureaucrat; through his eyes, we glimpse a terrifying, tyrannical society, where independent thought is a crime and truth is a fiction. All these decades later, 1984 still looms large in our cultural imagination, from its perch in our curriculum to its pervasive influence on our language. Its difficult to imagine any science fiction novel with more influence.

11The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu

One of Chinas most acclaimed science fiction writers opens his Hugo Award-winning Remembrance of Earths Past trilogy with The Three-Body Problem, a gripping first contact thriller set against the backdrop of Chinas Cultural Revolution. When a young physicist comes to work at the governments secretive Red Coast Base, she soon learns that frontier scientists are communicating with extraterrestrialsand theyre planning to make a hostile visit. Enormous in scope, rich in both twisty-turny mysteries and big ideas about progress, The Three Body-Problem marks the ascension of a writer bound to become every bit as canonical as Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov. This series will soon become a Netflix series from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, so get in on the ground floor while you still can.

10Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? famously became the basis for Blade Runner, but if youre a movie fan who hasnt read the novel, youre in for something new, as its more of a complement than a faithful adaptation. Some of the familiar bones are here, like bounty hunter Rick Deckard and his mission to retire rogue androids, but you wont find the term blade runner anywhere. Set in an abandoned San Francisco after World War Terminus radioactive fallout has destroyed the earth, this short gut-punch of a novel finds its central theme in empathy. Can androids experience it? Are humans who lack it any better than machines? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? asks more questions than it answers, reveling in ambiguity about just what separates man from machine. Like all the best science fiction, its weighty foray into what makes us human will linger with you for a long time.

9Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

Set before, during, and after the lethal Georgian Flu snuffs out 99% of the worlds population, taking the familiar contours of human civilization along with it, Station Eleven is the incandescent tale of the Traveling Symphony, a nomadic troupe of actors and musicians who perform Shakespeare for the scattered settlements of the Great Lakes region. Along the road, they encounter a violent cult leader known only as the Prophet, who preaches that the virus was an act of Goda divine cleansing of the unworthy. Where so many post-apocalyptic novels traffic in the forces that divide us, Station Eleven celebrates that which allows us not just to survive, but to live: making art, belonging to something bigger than ourselves, searching tirelessly for what it means to be human. Haunting and lovely, Station Eleven is at once an elegy for a lost world and a paean to the human spirit.

8Exhalation, by Ted Chiang

In this stellar collection of short stories, one of the most award-winning science fiction writers of our time tees up nine brilliant tales of time travel, artificial intelligence, and alternate universes. The collection opens with a Hugo Award-winning parable set in ancient Baghdad, where a merchant traveling through an alchemists portal learns a familiar lesson about the impossibility of erasing the past. In another standout, a software tester spends an emotional two decades raising an artificial intelligence as if it were a digital pet (Tamagotchi users, take note). The remarkable title story, structured as a journal entry by a mechanical scientist dissecting his own brain, offers profound wisdom about consciousness: Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so. Through lean, thought-provoking prose, Chiang renders stories about man and machines deeply feltand deeply human.

7Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

One cant say too much about Never Let Me Go without spoiling the novels gut-wrenching twist. But heres what we can reveal: in Ishiguros chilling magnum opus, we meet three students of Hailsham, a quixotic English boarding school where sheltered children are educated in the arts and taught nothing of the outside world. Only when they become adults do they learn the shocking truth about Hailshams nefarious activities, and the reality of their terrible purpose. At once an arresting mystery, a Gothic romance, and a tear-jerking work of science fiction, Never Let Me Go is a masterpiece of tension and tone, as well as a powerful indictment of a future shaped by science without ethics.

6The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin

In 1969, Le Guin put feminist science fiction on the map with The Left Hand of Darkness. According to The Paris Review, "No single work did more to upend the genre's conventions. This barrier-breaking first contact narrative opens on the planet Gethen, where Earth-born emissary Genly Ai is dispatched to broker an interplanetary alliance. The ambisexual Gethenians live without gender binaries, meaning that theyve developed a world without war, where children are raised communally. Ais inability to think beyond his own misogyny and homophobia threatens his mission, imperils his life, and endangers his growing connection with Estraven, Gethens disgraced prime minister. In this visionary work of radical imagination, Le Guin explores a world beyond the constraints of gender and sex, and takes us to the heights of love without limitations.

5Kindred, by Octavia Butler

Octavia Butlers contributions to science fiction and Afrofuturism are legendary, meaning that selecting just one of her works for this list was a tall order. But Kindred, perhaps her best-known novel, stood out above the rest as a master class in the ability of science fiction to speak to the contemporary moment. This is the story of Dana, a Black woman in Los Angeles circa 1976, who finds herself violently transported back in time to the antebellum plantation where her ancestors were enslaved. Each time she pinballs through past and present, Danas stays at the plantation become longer and more dangerous, forcing her to confront the gruesome legacies of slavery, misogynoir, and white supremacy. As Harlan Ellison once said, Octavia Butler is a writer who will be with us for a long, long time, and Kindred is that rare magical artifact the novel one returns to, again and again. Almost like time travel, we keep coming back to it.

4The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin

Like many science fiction writers, its impossible to categorize Jemisin in just one genre. Many of her works belong to the hybrid genre of science fantasy, including this paradigm-shifting first installment in her Hugo Award-winning Broken Earth trilogy. The Fifth Season introduces a characteristically Jemisinian feat of astonishing worldbuilding: the Stillness, a dangerous continent wracked with volcanoes, earthquakes, and tectonic chaos. There live the orogenes, who have the power to manipulate the elements, but face persecution and lynching. Through the linked narratives of three extraordinary women, Jemisin depicts the tragedy of an orogenes life with brutal, unsparing detail. As these unforgettable characters seek safety and agency, Jemisin weaves a shattering story about systemic oppression, where gritty glimmers of hope shine through the bleak edges.

3The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

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The 50 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time - Esquire

In 1948-49, mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, and engineer John von Neumann introduced the world to his idea of Universal Assemblers, a species of self-replicating robots. Von Neumanns ideas and notes were later compiled in a book titled Theory of self-reproducing automata, published in 1966 (after his death). In time, this theory would have implications for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), with theorists stating that advanced intelligence must have deployed such probes already.

The reasons and technical challenges of taking the self-replicating probe route are explored in a recent paper by Gregory L. Matloff, an associate professor at the New York City College of Technology (NYCCT). In addition to exploring why an advanced species would opt to explore the galaxy using Von Neumann probes (which could include us someday), he explored possible methods for interstellar travel, strategies for exploration, and where these probes might be found.

His paper, Von Neumann probes: rational propulsion interstellar transfer timing, was recently published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, a Cambridge University publication. In addition to being an Adjunct and Emeritus professor of physics at NYCCT, Matloff is a Fellow of the British interplanetary Society (BIS), a Member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), and has been a consultant for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

His pioneering research in solar-sail technology has been utilized by NASA to develop concepts for interstellar probes and diverting potentially-hazardous objects (PHOs) in other words, asteroids. His writings have helped establish interstellar-propulsion studies as a sub-division of applied physics in academia. He also co-authored books with fellow luminaries like MIT science-writer Dr. Eugene Mallove, noted physicist, author, and NASA technologist Les Johnson, and Italian researcher Dr. Giovanni Vulpetti.

In April 2016, Matloff was appointed an advisor to Yuri Milners Breakthrough Starshot alongside fellow astrophysicists like Prof. Abraham Loeb (Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and Dr. Philip Lubin leader of the Experimental Cosmology Group at UC Santa Barbara. In January 2017, he presented a Frontiers Lecture on interstellar travel at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, where he is also a Hayden Associate.

It is essential to address questions about Von Neumann probes, considering their implications for SETI and the Fermi Paradox. For decades, theoretical physicists and researchers have used the possible existence of Von Neumann probes to constrain the search for intelligence beyond Earth. As Matloff told Universe Today via Zoom, the road that brought us to this point was long and winding and went beyond any single person.

As he explained, the connection between Von Neumanns idea of Universal Assemblers and space exploration emerged sometime in the 1970s. This was largely due to interstellar studies like Project Daedalus, a fusion rocket concept developed by the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) between 1973 and 1977. Amid the debate over whether or such missions should be crewed or robotic, the idea of the Von Neumann probe was revived and applied.

In no time at all, the old SETI saw came up, where humanitys ability to conceive an idea is seen as a possible indication that an older, more advanced species might have done it already! As Michael Hart and Frank Tipler noted in their respective studies, the fact that we see no evidence for extraterrestrial interstellar probes is the most compelling evidence that humanity is alone in the Universe. This is the basis of the Hart-Tipler Conjecture, the earliest-known proposed resolution to Fermis Paradox.

According to Tipler, if ETIs did exist, they would have developed the capacity for interstellar travel and explored the Milky Way within ~300 million years:

What one needs is a self-reproducing universal constructor, which is a machine capable of making any device, given the construction materials and a construction program In particular, it is capable of making a copy of itself. Von Neumann has shown that such a machine is theoretically possible As the copies of the space probe were made, they would be launched at the stars nearest the target star. When these probes reached these stars, the process would be repeated, and so on until the probes had covered all the stars of the Galaxy.

Famed astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan rebutted their conclusions a few years later in an essay titled The Solipsist Approach to Extraterrestrial Intelligence. In this famous paper (nicknamed Sagans Response), he and co-author William Newman declared that while there was an apparent absence of probes and other technological marvels, this was by no means conclusive. As they poetically summarized: the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

Matloff similarly takes the Hart-Tipler conjecture to task in his paper for its simplistic and presumptuous nature. As he explained to Universe Today via email:

The Solar System is huge and mostly unexplored, and the probes could be very small. There could be probes everywhere: in craters on the Moon, or lurkers in the Asteroid Belt and Kuiper Belt. There are 100 million objects in the Kuiper Belt alone and we have examined only two, one of which was very anomalous in its shape.

The object he refers to is MU69 (aka. Arrokoth), a contact binary that New Horizons studied during its historic flyby onJanuary 1st, 2019. As the images acquired showed, the object appeared to be two icy bodies that pancake-like in shape (rounded by flattened) and connected by a neck. This strange appearance led New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern to nickname the object Snowman.

In short, humanity has barely scratched the surface when it comes to cosmic exploration, including our backyard. For all we know, there could be countless probes lurking in our Solar System actively watching us, or which became inoperable long ago and have since settled into orbit around the Sun. The only way to resolve questions related to Von Neumann probes (and the Fermi Paradox) is to refine our search methods and keep searching!

As we addressed in a previous article, traveling through interstellar space is incredibly time-consuming! Using conventional technology, it would take anywhere from 19,000 to 81,000 years to reach even the nearest star system (Alpha Centauri). This includes chemical propellants, Hall-effect thrusters (ion engines), gravity assists, and solar sails. Hence, more advanced propulsion methods need to be considered when addressing interstellar travel.

Many concepts are currently being investigated by researchers here on Earth. These include nuclear-thermal and nuclear-electric propulsion (NTP/NEP), fusion propulsion, photon and electric sails, matter/antimatter annihilation, and even some truly exotic concepts (like the Alcubierre Warp Drive). In keeping with the idea that humanity is a recent arrival to the Universe, SETI researchers assume that more advanced civilizations are likely to have researched these concepts already.

First, Matloff considers unpowered gravity assists, where spacecraft use the gravitational force of giant planets to achieve higher velocities. To date, five space probes have been launched from Earth that used a gravity-assist maneuver to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System. These include the Pioneer 10/11, the Voyager 1/2, and the New Horizons mission. The fastest of these missions (Voyager 1) will reach the Alpha Centauri star system in about 70,000 years based on its current velocity.

Powered gravity assists, otherwise known as an Oberth Maneuver, consist of a spacecraft making a powered maneuver while deep within a massive planets gravity well. According to Matloff, such a maneuver could allow a spacecraft to achieve twice the velocity of the Voyager 1 mission (41 km/s; 25.5 mi/s) and make the journey to Alpha Centauri in roughly 30,570 years.

When adjusted for nuclear fission and fusions concepts (using NASA research as a template), Matloff concludes that a nuclear-electric spacecraft could traverse one light in 1500 years while a fusion spacecraft could do the same in 3000 years. That works out to a one-way transit time of 6,550 and 13,100 years to Alpha Centauri, respectively.

Based on several factors, like sail material and whether the probe is nano-miniaturized, Matloff estimates that photon and electric sails could achieve relativistic speeds (a fraction of the speed of light) and make the transit in 1000 years. This is considerably longer than the Breakthrough Starshot concept, which calls for velocities of 0.2 c and a transit time of just 20 years. However, this is based on an estimated velocity of 300 km/s (186 mi/s) and not Starshots ambitious goal of 60,000 km/s (37,280 mi/s).

Matloffs study provides no estimates for antimatter propulsion because the technology is simply not feasible yet. According to a report prepared by NASA scientist Robert Frisbee for the 39th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit (2003), a two-stage rocket could make it to Alpha Centauri in about 40 years. However, Frisbee indicated that the spacecraft would need over 815,000 metric tons (900,000 US tons) of fuel.

No FTL concepts are considered for precisely the same reason (i.e., the technology is not verifiable and may never be). Meanwhile, the estimate for photon probes is based on several factors, predominantly the types of materials used for the sail. Said Matloff:

Conservative values for sails were assumed. For instance, the industrial infrastructure necessary to produce a slower aluminum sail is a lot simpler than the infrastructure required to produce a faster graphene sail. A graphene sail could do this in ~1,000 years at an interstellar cruise velocity in excess of 1,000 km/s. My estimate of multi-millennia travel by solar photon sails at ~300 km/s is for the much more conservative aluminum sail. Less industrial infrastructure would be necessary for Al than for graphene.

In terms of rationale, Matloff explores many possibilities as to why a civilization would launch a fleet of Von Neumann probes. In this section, many of the arguments put forth by theorists who have explored questions related to alien probes. These include the Hart-Tipler Conjecture, the Berserker Hypothesis, and other research that attempted to place constraints on their reproduction and expansion rates.

Among the more popular rationales that have been explored include life after death, where an advanced civilization facing imminent demise would send out probes to broadcast messages. These could include stories of their accomplishments (look upon our works and be impressed!), instructions on how to avoid the same fate (its not too late!), or just advertisements of their existence (This is who we were. Remember us!).

There is also the possibility that probes would take the form of benign lurkers watching planet Earth from a distance. These probes could have been dispatched from a nearby star system as it made a close pass to our Solar System (Benford, 2021a, 2021b). A variant on this, malignant lurkers, suggests that extraterrestrials might dispatch armed probes (aka. berserker probes) to investigate Earth as a potential threat and destroy it.

It has also been ventured that some of these probes could still be here likely on the Moon, Earth Trojans, and Earth co-orbital objects and would make viable targets in the Search for Extraterrestrial Artifacts (SETA). Examples include recent studies by Jim Benford, Prof. Abraham Loeb, Konstantin Batygin, and the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) that show how interstellar objects (ISOs) like Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov regularly enter our Solar System and are periodically captured.

Related research has also shown that the study of the captured ISOs (and new arrivals) will be possible in the near future thanks to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and initiatives like Breakthrough Listen and the Galileo Project. Another rationale is directed panspermia, where an advanced civilization may choose to forgo sending crewed ships to distant stars (which could take thousands of years) and instead send spacecraft equipped with gene banks or fertilized ova.

Matloff cites Tiplers 1994 book, The Physics of Immortality, where he elaborated on how humans could achieve interstellar colonization with probes someday. As Matloff summarizes it, A Von Neumann probe could carry fertilized human ova to be raised robotically and populate in-space habitats circling nearby stars that would be constructed by the probe. A more advanced civilization might replace embryos with computer uploads of human essences.'

In recent years, a similar idea has been proposed by Claudius Gros, a researcher with Goethe Universitys Institute for Theoretical Physics and the founder of the Project Genesis. The purpose of Genesis is to send spacecraft with gene factories or cryogenic pods to transiently-habitable planets that orbit M-type (red dwarf) stars. This refers to rocky planets with atmospheres rich in abiotic oxygen (not produced biologically) that would be uninhabited but still capable of supporting life.

By seeding these worlds with basic life, entire biomes could develop in places where life would not otherwise arise. If life turns out to be a very rare phenomenon in the Universe, a space-faring civilization might deploy Von Neumann probes with a much happier purpose, writes Matloff. Simply lifeforms might be planted within oceans on sterile, water-bearing worlds to spread life through the Universe.

A final possibility Matloff considers has been explored extensively in science fiction: could advanced ETIs be sending out probes to direct galactic or universal evolution? A popular version of this scenario known as paleocontact argues that advanced life may have visited Earth in the past and deliberately directed humanitys cultural (or even physical) evolution (2001: A Space Odyssey, Prometheus, Stargate, etc.).

While some versions of this argument are pure pseudoarchaeology (i.e., aliens built the pyramids), Carl Sagan argued the paleocontact is something that scientists should not dismiss. As he and Iosif Shklovsky stated in their seminal book, Intelligent Life in the Universe, evidence of this contact may be preserved in the oral traditions of ancient cultures. As examples, they cite Romanian folklore and the Tlingit story of their encounter with the La Perouse expedition in 1786.

While these scenarios are all plausible in their own way, all of them have implications as far as SETI research is concerned which Matloff addresses in the final section of his study.

In the end, Matloff concludes that human astronomers may feel compelled to focus on Sun-like stars when looking for evidence of Von Neumann probes. This is perhaps the result of a Sol-centric bias, where we assume that G-type (yellow dwarf) stars are most likely to support habitable planets because thats what we are familiar with. The implications of this could be that advanced ETIs suffer from the same bias and prefer to send their probes to stars similar to their own.

However, recent exoplanets studies have demonstrated that M-type (red dwarf) stars are very good candidates for finding find Earth-like (aka. rocky) exoplanets that orbit within the Habitable Zone (HZ). In particular, Matloff stresses how recent research has shown that these planets could be potentially-habitable. If an advanced ETI is anything like us (evolved on a rocky planet), they are not likely to overlook these star systems.

If the spacing is less with M-type stars, you have [orbital] resonances, where a planet wouldnt be tidally-locked because other planets cause perturbations in its orbit. Even if they are tidally locked, that doesnt rule out the possibility of life. Von Neumann probes wouldnt rule them out. [Future surveys should] look for probes and life at all stable and mature F, G, K, M main-sequence stars. M stars in particular seem to have lots of planets in or near the habitable zone.

In addition to searching based on stellar classifications, Matloff also considers various proposals for where probes could be found in our Solar System. This once again raises the issue of proposed resolutions to the Fermi Paradox and their possible implications for SETI:

Unless humanity is the first space-faring civilization or we are under some form of quarantine [a la the Planetarium and Zoo Hypotheses], it is reasonable to wonder where such probes might be found in the Solar System. Due to dynamic geophysical and meteorological processes, space might be a better place to search than Earths surface.

Possible locations include the Moon, Earth Trojan asteroids, and Earth co-orbital asteroids. However, as Matloff himself previously suggested, searches for ET will have a better chance of success in the outer Solar System. One possible (rather large) location is the Kuiper Belt:

An advantage of the Kuiper Belt for the construction of a subsequent generation of Von Neumann probes is the availability of resources including volatile materials, he said, adding: if they wish to keep their activities hidden, an outer Solar System location for a probe or a probe base makes the most sense. I think the Kuiper Belt is the best place to start looking.

One of the hardest parts of SETI is the limited frame of reference we have. We know of only one planet that supports life (Earth) and one technologically-advanced civilization (ourselves). As such, all of our efforts fall under the heading of the low-hanging fruit approach, where we are confined to looking for signs of life (aka. biosignatures) as we know it and evidence of technological activity (aka. technosignatures) that we are familiar with.

So when it comes to getting inside the minds of ETIs, we are forced to stick to what we know (and what we might do in their place) and use the conclusions we come up with to help refine the search. While somewhat limiting, this approach does have many upsides. We have to assume that ETIs will be bound by the same physics we are since we know the laws dont change from one place and time to another.

We are also pretty confident that if intelligent life exists elsewhere in our Universe, evolution will favor certain similar characteristics like curiosity. While nothing definitive can be said about alien physiology, psychology, communications, or technology, its a safe assumption that they would be equally motivated to explore. Besides the allure of learning more about the cosmos and seeing whats out there, they would surely be interested in whether there are intelligent species other than themselves.

In that respect, theoretical studies like this one help us refine the search by subjecting Fermis famous questions (Where Is Everybody?) to serious scrutiny. By asking the questions, what would work best? and why would we do it? we select places and signals that we can look for. Beyond that, the only thing we can do is to keep looking until we see whats out there!

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Why Would an Alien Civilization Send Out Von Neumann Probes? Lots of Reasons, says a new Study - Universe Today