The 2020’s! Whoever thought that humanity would make it this far? With the way that speculative fiction and sci-fi writers have been writing about the future, I’m just as surprised as you! While we haven’t yet been killed off by climate change, malevolent AI, or a hyper-advanced alien civilization, it’s still possible that humankind could round out this decade with our own destruction. In the meantime, here are 10 of the best sci-fi books of the 2020’s, a little bit of reading material before the potentially immanent end of the world.
The Vanished Birds
In The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez, time dilation is a trip. No one knows this better than Nia Imani, a starship captain who makes her living schlepping goods across the gulf of space at the behest of an interstellar mega-corporation. While most of her friends, family, and lovers are reduced to dust at the end of her light speed jumps across the stars, Nia finds an unlikely friendship with a non-speaking boy who one day appeared in the wreckage of a spaceship. Little does Nia know, this boy possesses the power to “jaunt” – i.e. travel instantaneously across the heavens. The big businesses controlling space travel are covetous of the kid’s power, and this sci-fi surrogate mother/child duo will have to flee from the long arm of corporate influence. If you’re looking for a tender space opera about found family and sticking it to the man, this novel is a must read.
The Mountain In The Sea
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler is essentially the sci-fi version of My Octopus Teacher, except the cephalopods in this novel make that documentary’s star octopus look like the kid with the dunce cap. Scientists have discovered a hyper-intelligent species of octopus in the remote Con Dao Archipelago, one that is currently developing its own language and art. These cephalopods have more culture than a Petri dish, and now a powerful tech company is attempting to horn in on a potentially untapped octopus market. Hired by the corporation, Marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen finds her loyalties tested between her employers an emerging species of sentient ocean life that, like many shy octopi, just want to be left alone. After reading this novel, you’ll never want to eat octopus again – but you will want to befriend them.
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary is about a man who, like many 20 somethings waking up on a Sunday morning, can’t remember where he was the night before. The problem is, he can’t remember where he’s been for months. Astronaut Ryland Grace awakens on a spaceship floating in the void, with no one to keep him company except his crew mates’ cooling corpses. Lucky for Ryland, he’s about to make a desperately needed friend – a stranded extraterrestrial explorer named Rocky, who can help him solve the science problem he was shot into space to figure out. Long story short: biological life is being threatened by a space parasite, which can only be defeated by thew combined might of this budding interspecies bromance. This novel will have you populating Ao3 with Ryland x Rocky fanfics, you’ll fall in love with them that hard – even if one is a freaky five legged spider thing. Inner beauty is what matters.
The Space Between Worlds
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson is set in a world where you can travel anywhere in the multiverse, so long as you’re dead in the reality you intend to visit. While one would think this horrifying fact would dissuade humanity from vaulting between universes, corporations have come up with a way to capitalize on it, so vault they do. Cara maintains a cushy corporate job due to her alternate selves having extraordinary bad luck – most are dead from war and famine on other worlds. Paid to gather data from other realities, Cara begins to ask questions when she discovers one of her few remaining selves has died under mysterious circumstances – and if she’s next. A meditation on social exploitation and classism, The Space Between Worlds is a window into a corporate controlled world not too distant from our own.
Light From Uncommon Stars
Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki is the story of a trio of women contending with higher powers – infernal, extraterrestrial, and just plain existential. Trans violinist turned runaway Katrina Nguyen has just ran into the arms of Shizuka Satomi – a teacher who made Faustian bargain to deliver the souls of seven musical prodigies to Hell. Meanwhile, star ship captain Lan Tran is attempting to raise her robot children in a donut shop by the side of the highway – where she and Shizuka just so happen to meet and fall in love. It’s a delightfully weird, feather soft sci-fi story about finding belonging in a seemingly random universe – where fate seems keen on bringing certain people together as part of a hidden grand design.
A Psalm For The Wild Built
A pioneering voice of the solarpunk genre, Becky Chambers is back with A Psalm For The Wild Built – which is about as grimdark as a basket of kittens. An anathema to cynical sci-fi stories of yesteryear, this story is set in a world where technological collapse has caused the betterment of humanity. Now that all the robots have gone off to live in the woods, humans are forced to work the land in farming communities – and happier for it. Non-binary acolyte Dex is studying to become a tea monk, someone who pours out wisdom and Earl Grey in equal measure. After a disastrous meeting with a potential client, Dex journeys into the wilderness to find spiritual answers. Instead, they stumble into Splendid Speckled Mosscap, a wild-built robot looking for meaning of their own. And so begins a cozy sci-fi story about two tender souls who want to make the world a better place – a novel to soothe you like a warm cup of tea.
A Desolation Called Peace
The sweeping sequel to A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine’s A Desolation Called Peace picks up where the first novel left off – with an alien invasion. Ambassador Mahit Dzmare worked SO hard to establish peace between her small mining outpost and the star-spanning Teixcalaanli Empire, and now the interstellar status quo has been upset by an alien species beyond all comprehension. How do you negotiate with beings whose motives you can hardly comprehend? Rely on your slow burn sapphic relationship with a Teixcalaanli imperial official to hold you down while you work out the extraterrestrial communication kinks. On second thought, this alien invasion doesn’t sound half bad. Fans of political dramas, soft sci-fi, and queer romance while eat this novel up.
Remote Control
Written by Hugo Award winner Nnedi Okorafor, Remote Control is a sci-fi novella about a young woman who is given the power of The Angel of Death. Like Rogue from X-Men, everything she touches dies. Except it wasn’t a divine being that instilled this ability in her, but an advanced alien technology that mimics the power of gods. But how did she come into contact with this mysterious extraterrestrial tech? Why can’t she remember her own past? And what in the world is up with this fox that keeps following her around? Like a kindergartener in science class, all of your questions will be answered, but you’re going to have to be patient. With a novel as mythically engrossing as this, easier said than done.
The Ministry For The Future
The Ministry For The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson is a departure from standard speculative sci-fi cynicism, and tells a story of a future that can be better if humans work towards making it so. After a climate catastrophe claims countless lives, the governments of the world come together to form The Ministry For The Future – a climate coalition engineered to advocate for future generations. Told through a series of first hand accounts, this novel details exactly how humanity could save the world if it just learns to cooperate. As a work of hopeful hard sci-fi, The Ministry of the Future is a rare breed – necessary for these pessimistic times.
The Terraformers
If The Ministry For The Future is a science-based account of humanity’s betterment, The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz is the exact opposite. It’s a delightfully whacky space opera about how an interstellar corporation causes a planet to go to %^&*, and how an anti-corporate resistance cell stages a generations long uprising. Planet Sask-E is being terraformed by an interstellar real estate corporation over millennia, and their efforts towards total corporate control are continually thwarted by a hodgepodge of activists and their descendants. These activists come in all shapes, sizes, and species – including flying moose, cat journalists, naked mole rat armies, and a gaggle of post humans adapted to thrive in the most extreme environments. Terraformers throws “plausible” out the window in order tell an immensely pleasurable story of rebellion.
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