Sci fi is a type of speculative fiction that looks ahead and asks “what’s next?” You can also check out these subcategories (s-z):
science fantasy | silkpunk | singularity | slipstream | social sci fi | soft sci fi | solarpunk | space exploration | space opera | space western | spacepunk | spyfi | steampunk | stonepunk | superheroes & villains | terraforming | teslapunk | theological | time travel | transhuman | transistorpunk | uplift | utopian | virtual reality | wattpunk | weird sci fi
Note: these books are currently sorted by release date, with newest first.
Word Count: 125000
Summary: Is Leif really lucky? Stranded in orbit, viewing a destroyed civilization on Earth through the screens of a starship almost out of fuel and food, he doesn’t feel that way. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. As the starship Dauntless returns from a successful mission to the planet called Heaven, Earth holds no attractions for Exoplanetary Scout Leif Grettison. He wants only to complete the mission and leave for another star, along with ace pilot Yang Yong. In fact, he would be happy spending the rest of his life flying the starways with her. But they and the rest of the ship’s skeleton crew awaken from hibernation to find Earth’s solar system dark and silent—no signals, no responses to their transmissions. When they make orbit, the magnitude of the disaster becomes clear: An apocalyptic war has killed billions and destroyed every last source of power and tech that 22nd-Century humans relied on to survive. Getting down to Earth is only the beginning of Leif’s problems. Those few who survived the apocalypse are still divided, fighting over what’s left. The disastrous re-entry to Earth leaves him with no resources or allies. He lands in the middle of a makeshift family that needs him more than he’s comfortable with and hears stories—even nursery rhymes—that speak of a lucky starman. For once, he’s the only person with tech—but if he’s caught using it, they might kill him. Can a man back from the stars end the warfare on Earth, or will he make it worse? Can he save a family that might become his? Is he everyone’s lucky starman?
Word Count: 72,000
Summary: Cybercommand has a field agent newly licensed to kill. And his name is Yuwono. Eric Yuwono. Eric travels to the remote paradise of Hosh, where someone is peddling stolen resurrection technology not ready for general use. Posing as a smuggler and with the aid of a sexy AI named Effie, he'll penetrate the organization and discover a connection back to Juno, the shadowy operation undermining the Compact. To bring them down, he'll need the help of the Children of Amargosa and their mentor, Suicide. But if he's not careful, his newfound amortality might be cut short.
Word Count: Information not available
Summary: Teens and their giant robots search for a new home for mankind, but the planet they discover belongs to the dragons. Two hundred years after the Climate Wars left Earth uninhabitable, Johari and his giant robot companion lead a squad of scouts on a quest for a new Goldilocks planet to settle the remnants of the human race. When one of the scouts and his bot go down in a hostile wilderness, Johari's fight to save them reveals complex behavior in the dragon-like dominant species. The scout team fragments as Johari strives to rescue his friends and discover the truth about the aliens. If he's right, mankind will lose its best hope for a home — or sacrifice its own humanity.
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Summary: Ardulum. The planet of myth. The planet of unwanted destiny. The Charted Systems are in pieces. Mercy’s Pledge is destroyed, and her captain dead. With no homes to return to, the remaining crew sets off on a journey to find the mythical planet of Ardulum—a planet where Emn might find her people, and Neek the answers she’s long sought. Finding the planet, however, brings a host of uncomfortable truths about Ardulum’s vision for the galaxy and Neek’s role in a religion that refuses to release her. Neek must balance her planet’s past and the unchecked power of the Ardulans with a budding relationship and a surprising revelation about her own genealogy. Ardulum: Second Don blends space opera elements and hard science into a story about two women persistently bound to their past and a sentient planet determined to shape their future.
Word Count: 170000
Summary: In the not so distant future… Kiah Hasan, a young, talented computer scientist haunted by her war-torn past, is reaching for something just past the edge of theoretical possibility. Her best friend, physicist Nigel Evans, is obsessed with pushing the boundaries of space travel. And Captain Josh Walker? He’s just out here for the adventure – and Kiah. Together with the crew of Trinity Station, they head toward the Kuiper Belt and disappear just as simmering political tension on Earth erupts into outright war. A hundred years later… Admiral Darren Winters leads a mission to the Kuiper Belt to find out what happened to Trinity Station. To his, and Earth’s, surprise, not only have the Trinity Station scientists survived, but have reached levels of advanced technology due to the success of Dr. Hasan’s AGI experiments. After shaky negotiations with Earth that ends with the birth of the new nation of Survey, Admiral Winters is offered a new position with the AI ship Musashi. His first mission is to figure out what happened to the youngest AI, Loki, whose first crew was killed in a tragic accident. With psychologist Dr. Alex Campos, they uncover a secret that could endanger the newly formed Survey nation and its AIs. Can Darren and Alex find Loki before it’s too late?
Word Count: 140000
Summary: Jack Kirby just wants peace. Deeply scarred from a failed mission and struggling with the loss of his lover, Jack takes a job as a Religious Program Specialist on a remote PreCol station. There, he finds what he never expected: a family. Marsha, a complicated woman with a deep connection to the spiritual world. Jenny, a cheerful ensign with a dangerous past. Mark, driven to demolish the atavistic cult he was born into. Can Jack protect them all as they become entangled in an espionage game with galactic stakes?
Word Count: 150000
Summary: Jenny needs time to heal – but she’s not going to get it. After her near destruction on New Harmony, Jenny Fraiser retreats to Musashi. She submerges herself in training and meditation, trying to find her balance again. Once more, she is unexpectedly catapulted to the front lines of a war of hatred – one she is uniquely qualified to win, with some help. As a deep-cover espionage specialist, Lulu uses her sociopathic tendencies for the greater good, but she never expects love, connection – or loss. Jenny, Lulu and the others are just pawns in a galactic game, which twists and changes in response to their every move. They need to track down the seemingly omniscient game master – before its seemingly innocuous task destroys two civilisations.
Word Count: 150000
Summary: What if first contact happened, and nobody even noticed? Light-years away, years ago, something insignificant happened. Now, the spirits are restless. Loki has returned, seeking help for his people. Entire stations are being consumed, populations lost. No one understands why, and the threat continues to spread. Can Jack, Marsha, and teenager Po carry the weight of saving Loki’s civilization? This time, it may break them all.
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Summary: It’s the end of the Age of Kali and our world is dying, its boundaries shrunken to encompass a single city. In the Earth's final days, lonely young Jay Grant finds his first love in the arms of his neighbor Michèle. Together with six other survivors, they break through the eggshell-thin walls of the world to find a mythical land where the ultimate power of creation resides. Washed ashore from an ocean of milk, they confront personages seemingly out of legend: Ananta Sesha, the lord of the Nagas; Varuna, whose eyes are the stars; Indra, king of the devas; and the tormented being who calls himself the Preserver. Jay and Michèle want nothing more than a life together, but the gods themselves stand in their way. Separated by divine malice and tormented by falsified memories, Jay and Michèle struggle to reunite, transforming themselves into beings beyond the merely human to confront the demiurge responsible for Earth's destruction.
Word Count: Information not available
Summary: Ardulum. The planet that vanishes. The planet that sleeps. Neek makes a living piloting the dilapidated tramp transport, Mercy’s Pledge, and smuggling questionable goods across systems blessed with peace and prosperity. She gets by—but only just. In her dreams, she is still haunted by thoughts of Ardulum, the traveling planet that, long ago, visited her homeworld. The Ardulans brought with them agriculture, art, interstellar technology…then disappeared without a trace, leaving Neek’s people to worship them as gods. Neek does not believe—and has paid dearly for it with exile from her home for her heretical views. Yet, when the crew stumbles into an armed confrontation between the sheriffs of the Charted Systems and an unknown species, fate deals Neek an unexpected hand in the form of a slave girl—a child whose ability to telepathically manipulate cellulose is reminiscent of that of an Ardulan god. Forced to reconcile her beliefs, Neek chooses to protect her, but is the child the key to her salvation, or will she lead them all to their deaths?
Word Count: 84000
Summary: Stationmaster and exiled aristocrat Albert St. John Rembrandt—Bertie to his friends—is in love with a Tolari ruler he believes he can’t have. When he nearly dies finding out the hard way that some Tolari are as poisonous as their planet, it’s only the beginning of his troubles. A ship has gone missing. His station is in crisis. Bertie must somehow recover his health and manage the disaster while trying to decide whether to accept genetic modification in order to be with the man he loves. And no Rembrandt has ever taken a gen mod.
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Summary: Former Royal Navy diver Imogen Waide’s job thrusts her into people’s lives on their worst days. Called to Brandywine Lake in Kentucky to search for a missing child, she finds the idyllic resort town far from ordinary. During a routine dive, she discovers a horde of discarded bones. Among the animal remains is a distinct human skull marred by a traumatic and bizarre injury. Maxwell Rue, a native hunter and conservationist, aids in the rescue efforts. Rue has lived in the Appalachian Mountains his entire life, trapping and relocating dangerous animals. His inability to identify the markings is an ominous sign. During a torrential storm, a second child goes missing. Waide and Rue are on the hunt for a creature moving unseen in Brandywine Lake. Will they find the lost children, or will the beast add two more skeletons to its collection?
Word Count: 80000
Summary: The pandemic came and the world changed. Lives have changed; work has changed. The boundaries between reality and fantasy have become as blurred as those between life and work. Corporate Catharsis: The Work From Home Edition explores the impact of the COVID pandemic on everyone's personal and professional lives through speculative fiction. Featuring stories by Alicia Adams, Antaeus, Pauline Barmby, Steven D. Brewer, Dominick Cancilla, Adrienne Canino, Graham J. Darling, Derek Des Anges, Manny Frishberg, Alex Grehy, Jon Hansen, Alexa Kellow, Jack Nash, Helen Obermeier, Frank Sawielijew, William Shaw, Steve Soult, N.L. Sweeney, Kimberley Wall, and Richard Zaric.
Word Count: 87000
Summary: In the interstellar kingdom of Valoris, the balance of power has changed. Dressa Rhialden has all she ever wanted—except she only wanted Lesander, gorgeous prince of an enemy high house, not the kingdom meant for her sister. Unfortunately, her betrothal came with both, and now she has a lot of catching up to do. But she’s falling hard for Lesander in the meantime, and with her kingdom on the line and Lesander maybe her enemy, is falling in love really a good idea? When alien attacks that shouldn’t be possible plague her kingdom’s distant worlds, Dressa’s new position is put to the test. Why are the pacifist Kidaa attacking now, and were the attacks made by the Kidaa at all? There’s more going on than an internal power shift, and she has far more secrets to uncover to keep her kingdom safe. Ari Rhialden had her whole life planned out: excel at being the Truthspoken Heir, controlling her kingdom with her shapeshifting powers, and then one day excel at ruling the kingdom. But when she contracts an incurable illness and loses her ability to shapeshift, those plans are derailed. Ari’s sent undercover to a resort world for treatment, but all is not right in paradise. A young gardener with a mysterious past is taking too much interest in Ari’s new persona, and a possessive duke is bent on capturing her attention for himself. Are these just the ordinary machinations of noble guests or something far more sinister? In a kingdom where subterfuge is the norm, coincidence is never just that, and now events are rapidly spinning out of control. Can Dressa and Ari find their way to truth before the kingdom comes crumbling down around them? The Shadow Rule is the second season of The Stars and Green Magics, an epic space fantasy serial set in a diverse, queernorm universe with shapeshifting royals, plotting nobles, and space magic! The Shadow Rule collects episodes 37-93, the complete second season. This book has main characters who are queer, nonbinary, trans, agender, genderfluid, ace and/or aro, lesbian, fat, POC, disabled, ND, and generally awesome. (Not all rep is stated, some is implied.) Barring the occasional burst of strong language, this book is PG-13.
Word Count: 3,000
Summary: Lem and her dog, Spock, have a late-night encounter with a stowaway. ’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Teapot… Not a creature was stirring, not even a lonely robot; The stockings were hung in the mess hall with care In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
Word Count: 67000
Summary: Androids & Aliens is Scott's third short story collection - eight sci fi and sci-fantasy shorts that run the gamut from cyborgs to (comedic) alien invasions: Rise: The rise in sea levels caused by climate change swallowed Venice beneath the lagoon half a century ago. But what if we could bring it back? Ping: I was a real estate agent by day, and a museum curator in the evening at a sci-fi museum. What I saw one night changed everything. What the Rain Brings: Miriam struggles to make a living in post-climate-change Vancouver. But her friend Catalina has it even worse in the Arizona desert. So Miri hatches a plan. High Seven: Zan dreams of making full reals - immersive live virtual reality skins - but his low score may doom him to a life of cheap coding. Full Real: Dek's given up his life of spying for the city. But one more case awaits him. Will he regret it more if he takes it, or turns it down? Shit City: The Bay Area is being walloped by a hurricane, and seventeen-year-old Jason Vasquez has been relocated to a refugee city in the Nevada Desert. Will it be temporary shelter, or change his life? Firedrake: Kerry has always wondered about his deadly powers. But a mysterious bunch of violet roses starts him on the path to discovery - even if he's not sure he's going to like what he finds. The Last Human Heart: I'm one of the Remainers, the few cyborg humans still living on this busted planet. But if my still-human heart finally gives out, I may not live to find out the truth about who I am. This is the first time all of these stories have all been collected in one place, and the first publication of the Pacific Climate Tryptich - What the Rain Brings, High Seven, and Full Real - in any form.
Word Count: 117,600
Summary: The Action Packed Conclusion to the Peridot Shift Trilogy Peridot is on the edge of annihilation. Once life-giving, the world’s Trade Winds are transforming people into soulless monsters. The surviving Alchemist gods neglect their followers or take advantage of them. Even worse, a delicate peace has been wasted, and everything and everyone is at stake, especially Meran, the mistreated embodiment of the planet. Captain Talis and the crew of Fortune’s Storm must try to do some good with what’s left of Peridot in the hope that, together, they’ll reclaim the hidden pieces of Meran’s soul before the chaos seals her disastrous fate.
Word Count: 155000
Summary: Eighteen years after the Chromodec Uprising in Children of the Stars, the world is a very different place. Kaelen Ra-Evon lands on Earth, a planet where aliens exist and refugees are fast-tracked to citizenship in many countries. Her tale encompasses the age-old notions of loss, love, and found family. Kaelen tries to navigate her new life on Earth, as well as a romance with genius CEO, Lea Lockheed-Tuck, all while honoring her family's legacy as the last of her house. She's wary of the Chromodec Office of Restraint and Protection, a US agency tasked with policing people of power regardless of their race or planet of origin. In an attempt to protect the woman she loves, Kaelen becomes a vigilante: Scion. She won't let laws or the CORP stop her from doing what's right.
Word Count: 76600
Summary: The Fredamine Project was just the beginning. Shadow dealings and conspiracies regarding variants intertwine until Damien and his cohorts can no longer tell who the bad guys are. Several months have passed since Blaze and the infamous Variant activist Shudder McKenzie helped Damien rescue the captives of the sinister Fredamine Project. Professionally, everything's great. He's back to working with Damien again and they have a new lead on the three kids who are still missing. Personally, not so much. Blaze has made his peace with Shudder, though nothing between them has even been easy, but his relationship with Damien has taken several steps back. Blaze no longer has any idea where he stands. Adding to the tense atmosphere are the anti-Variant members of legislature who have been slowly gaining popular approval, and the cryptic messages Damien receives from an unknown source. Shudder's back to his old haunts and his old tricks, trying to raise public awareness of imperiled Variant rights—such as the draconic Horace Act that strips due process during Variant trials—and to rescue Variant kids in trouble. His almost mythical luck runs out though when he's arrested for murder only three days after the passage of the Horace Act and a whirlwind trial and sentencing lands him in the most notorious maximum security facility for Variants—San Judas Tadeo. With too many conspirators on both sides of the aisle, Damien, Blaze and Shudder no longer know whom to trust. Peeling through the layers of deceit and half-truths puts them on shakier ground with every discovery and in greater danger than ever before. Variant Configurations takes place in a future Earth where humanity is reclaiming its spot in a gradually healing world. This book contains mentions of past abuse, action-adventure style mayhem, and the sparks of a slow burn, series-spanning relationship.
Word Count: 52,000
Summary: A secret unicorn, a desperate family, and a cop dead set on hunting them down. Lem and the rag-tag gang of galactic adventurers on the starship Teapot are set to become roadies for the galaxy’s hottest band – but an urgent call from Bexley’s family means the rock stars will have to wait. Bexley’s soon-to-be-born sibling has a big secret: wings. On planet Hwin, skeledivergence is outlawed, so the Teapot crew swoop in to help the family escape. But their planet won’t let them go that easily. Hunted across the galaxy by a fanatical and eerily familiar cop, the Teapotters must find a way to outwit their pursuer and secure a future for skeledivergent people everywhere. Dive into the next adventure in this satirical space opera series. Artfully intertwining deep themes with tongue-in-cheek humour and intergalactic ridiculousness, Consider Pegasus is a must-read for fans of Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars or TJ Berry’s Space Unicorn Blues. Scroll up and grab your copy now!
