hardcover
Hardcover

The Esquire 75 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time

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 are—dreams of distant worlds, unearthly creatures, parallel universes, artificial intelligence, and so much more. Today, we call those dreams science fiction.

Science fiction’s 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 subgenres, such as dystopian fiction, postapocalyptic fiction, and climate fiction, to name just a few. It’s 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 zeitgeist’s 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.”

Over two years ago, we published a version of this list featuring 50 books. But why stop at 50? Now, as part of our latest Summer Fiction Week, we’ve cast a wider net and expanded the list to 75 titles. Choosing the 75 best science fiction books of all time wasn’t 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.

#1

Frankenstein

2 Barron's Graphic Classics

-800 • 3,281 Readers • 353 pages 3.9

#2

Dune

#1 of 9 in Dune

1965 • 5,894 Readers • 704 pages 4.3

#3

The Martian Chronicles

1950 • 1,138 Readers • 182 pages 4

#4

The Fifth Season

#1 of 3 in The Broken Earth

2015 • 2,774 Readers • 421 pages 4.3

#5

Kindred

1979 • 1,202 Readers • 287 pages 4.4

#6

The Left Hand of Darkness

#4 of 18 in Hainish Cycle

1969 • 1,660 Readers • 267 pages 4.1

#7

Never Let Me Go

2000 • 2,234 Readers • 282 pages 3.8

#8

Exhalation

2019 • 1,183 Readers • 350 pages 4.3

#9

Station Eleven

2014 • 2,283 Readers • 333 pages 4.1

#10

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

1968 • 2,183 Readers • 223 pages 3.9

#11

The Three-Body Problem

#1 of 4 in Remembrance of Earth's Past

2006 • 3,874 Readers • 400 pages 3.9

#12

1984

1949 • 7,357 Readers • 328 pages 4.2

#14

Brave New World

1900 • 3,814 Readers • 332 pages 3.9

#15

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

2010 • 306 Readers • 257 pages 3.2

#16

The Complete Robot

#0.3 of 4 in Robot

1982 • 144 Readers • 611 pages 4.1

#17

Childhood's End

1953 • 886 Readers • 212 pages 4

#18

Roadside Picnic

1972 • 696 Readers • 226 pages 4

#19

The Sirens of Titan

1959 • 681 Readers • 322 pages 4

#20

Shikasta (Canopus in Argos: Archives Series, Book 1): Re-colonised Planet 5

#1 in Canopus in Argos: Archives Series,

1979 • 17 Readers • 364 pages 2.2

#21

Red Mars

#1 of 3 in Mars Trilogy

1992 • 716 Readers • 671 pages 3.7

#22

Hyperion

#1 of 4 in Hyperion Cantos

1989 • 2,246 Readers • 492 pages 4.3

#23

Oryx and Crake

#1 of 3 in MaddAddam

2002 • 948 Readers • 402 pages 3.9

#24

Annihilation

#1 of 4 in Southern Reach

2014 • 2,015 Readers • 208 pages 3.7

#25

Ammonite

1992 • 109 Readers • 416 pages 3.9

#26

Future Home of the Living God

2017 • 163 Readers • 288 pages 3.6

#27

1Q84

#1-3 of 3 in 1Q84

2009 • 1,189 Readers • 1,184 pages 3.7

#28

The Forever War

#1 of 2 in The Forever War

1974 • 1,014 Readers • 203 pages 4

#29

Dhalgren

#1 in Dhalgren

1975 • 256 Readers • 879 pages 3.5

#30

In Ascension

2023 • 243 Readers • 380 pages 3.6

#31

The Stand

1978 • 1,965 Readers • 1,553 pages 4.1

#32

Ancillary Justice

#1 of 5 in Imperial Radch

2013 • 1,222 Readers • 416 pages 4

#33

A Memory Called Empire

#1 of 2 in Teixcalaan

2019 • 1,329 Readers • 464 pages 4.2

#34

The City & The City

2009 • 710 Readers • 336 pages 4

#35

Radiance

2015 • 187 Readers • 432 pages 3.3

#36

The Children of Men

1992 • 246 Readers 3.3

#37

Engine Summer

1979 • 60 Readers • 254 pages 3.3

#38

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

#1 of 4 in Wayfarers

2014 • 1,834 Readers • 423 pages 4.1

#39

Zone One

2000 • 196 Readers 3.3

#40

Project Hail Mary

2021 • 4,897 Readers • 496 pages 4.5

#41

A Canticle for Leibowitz

#1 of 2 in St. Leibowitz

1959 • 802 Readers • 334 pages 3.9

#42

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

#1 of 6 in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

1979 • 4,584 Readers • 215 pages 4.2

#43

The Sparrow

#1 of 2 in The Sparrow

1996 • 656 Readers • 515 pages 4

#44

The Stars My Destination

1955 • 480 Readers • 278 pages 3.9

#45

Neuromancer

#1 of 3 in Sprawl

1984 • 2,344 Readers • 271 pages 3.8

#46

The Mountain in the Sea

2003 • 518 Readers • 464 pages 4.1

#47

An Unkindness of Ghosts

2017 • 335 Readers • 11h 54m 4

#48

The Body Scout

52 Readers 4.5

#49

The Time Machine

3 Saddleback Classics

1894 • 1,518 Readers • 144 pages 3.7

#50

A Wrinkle in Time

#1 of 6 in Time Quintet

1962 • 1,739 Readers • 20 pages 3.8

#51

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

1963 • 740 Readers • 288 pages 3.8

#52

A Clockwork Orange

1962 • 1,816 Readers • 72 pages 3.9

#53

Solaris

1961 • 893 Readers • 222 pages 3.8

#54

Children of Time

#1 of 3 in Children of Time

2015 • 2,097 Readers • 600 pages 4.3

#55

Rosewater

#1 of 4 in The Wormwood Trilogy

2017 • 353 Readers • 400 pages 3.8

#56

The Resisters

2020 • 53 Readers 3.4

#57

This Is How You Lose the Time War

2019 • 2,940 Readers • 223 pages 3.9

#58

Lord of Light

1967 • 316 Readers • 303 pages 3.8

#59

The Claw of the Conciliator

#2 of 5 in The Book of the New Sun

1981 • 142 Readers • 303 pages 4

#60

Excession

#5 of 10 in Culture

1996 • 276 Readers • 500 pages 4

#61

Semiosis

#1 of 3 in Semiosis

2018 • 264 Readers • 336 pages 3.8

#62

The Book of Phoenix

#0 of 1 in Who Fears Death

2015 • 67 Readers • 290 pages 3.8

#63

What Mad Universe

1949 • 17 Readers • 205 pages 3

#64

Sea of Rust

#1 of 1 in Sea of Rust

2017 • 212 Readers • 384 pages 3.8

#65

Way Station

1963 • 195 Readers • 236 pages 4.1

#66

Under the Skin

2000 • 222 Readers • 304 pages 3.6

#67

Contact

1985 • 742 Readers • 453 pages 4.1

#68

Star Maker

1937 • 167 Readers • 272 pages 3.9

#69

Snow Crash

1992 • 1,907 Readers • 448 pages 4

#70

Midnight Robber

2000 • 82 Readers • 356 pages 3.9

#71

The Ten Percent Thief

2020 • 40 Readers 4.2

#72

Beautyland

2024 • 195 Readers • 336 pages 4.2

#73

Redshirts

2012 • 878 Readers • 318 pages 3.8

#74

The Calculating Stars

#1 of 4 in Lady Astronaut Universe

2018 • 669 Readers • 384 pages 4

#75

The Echo Wife

2021 • 424 Readers • 256 pages 3.7