Isaac Asimov. Ursula K. Le Guin. Arthur C. Clarke. What do these titans of the sci-fi have in common besides being three of the genre’s greatest authors? None of them are on this list! This article is dedicated to the underdogs. The also-rans. The brilliant minds that never quite got their moment to shine. These are the unsung heroes of sci-fi, genius writers that you’ve probably never heard of – and what a shame that is! When it comes to genre greats, there are plenty more options than the genre’s “greats.” Here are 10 of the most underrated sci-fi books, that each deserve their moment in the sun.
Trouble And Her Friends
Trouble And Her Friends by Melissa Scott is the greatest cyberpunk novel you’ve never heard of. The plot revolves around India Carless, a hacker who carved out a name for herself in the pixelated annals of digital history. Once a feared scourge of cyberspace, she’s since settled down and now operates a small network in her artist co-op, far away from the prying eyes of the federal government. A holographic wrench is thrown into her her plan to lay low when she discovers that an imposter has stolen her old hacker alias, and is causing chaos in the dataverse – forcing her to hunt down her doppelgänger with the help of a queer cadre of comrades. A cyberpunk story up there with greats like Neuromancer and Snow Crash, Trouble And Her Friends is a rare instance of the genre viewed through a sapphic lens.
Beggars in Spain
Beggars In Spain by Nancy Kress takes place in a not so distant future where sleep has become an optional occurrence, as opposed to a human need. Leisha Camden is one of the few Sleepless, genetically engineered humans who were born and bred to not need any shut-eye whatsoever. Now that there’s a group of humans running around who have 33% more time to get things done than the rest of us, sleeping humanity begins to feel some resentment. As the hyper-productive Sleepless are continually ostracized by the tired-eyed masses, they spend their extra time working to build their own community in space. Leisha is one of the few Sleepless that stays behind in order to serve as a liaison to the sleeping world, but as antipathy rises, and dangerous conspiracy to eliminate the Sleepless soon follows. It’s a stunning work of sci-fi based around a simple idea, played out to its complicated and explosive end.
Noor
Noor is a lesser known work of genre leading light Nnedi Okorafor, who is best known for her Binti series and her novella Who Fears Death. Noor is an Afrofuturist novel centered around Anwuli Okwudili – A.O. for short. After being disabled in a horrific car accident, most of her organic body was replaced with cybernetic implants. After an everyday trip to the marketplace, A.O. is attacked by assassins, and uses her augmented body to fight back. Now wanted for murder, A.O. flees into the storm-battered desert with a Fulani herdsman who is also being hunted down for a crime. It’s a survival story about two social outcasts, refugees of a cyberpunk dystopia reimagined through a West African lens.
Engine Summer
Engine Summer by John Crowley takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity built a loose theocracy on the ruins of a technological future. Though the circumstances that ended the world are left deliberately vague, humanity has been irrevocably changed due to genetic tampering and contact with extraterrestrial life. Humans are now divided up into little cult-societies, one of which, The Truthful Seekers, serves as the home for a young man named Rush that Speaks. Rush travels the post-technological world in search of the woman he loves, a woman named Once a Day who left their small society in order to join a mysterious group called Dr. Boots’s List. A soft-hearted, strange, and poetic novel, Engine Summer is part soft sci-fi epic and part spiritual text – a quest for enlightenment in a world ignorant of its own past.
Hellspark
Hellspark by Janet Kagan takes place on the distant planet of Lassti, where an interstellar survey team has just made contact with a bird-like alien species called the Sprookjes. Accompanying them is Tocohl, who belongs to a federation of diplomat/translators called Hellsparks. Hellsparks are masters of communication, and pride themselves on their ability to quickly understand alien cultures – from language to gesture to personal space preferences. As Tocohl attempts to bridge the gap between her group and the Sprookjes, she’ll come to understand whether or not they are truly sentient – and potentially dangerous. Fans of “first contact” sci-fi stories like Arrival and Children of Time will love this one.
There Is No Antimemetics Division
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm is a book about a government agency that doesn’t exist, so there’s no point talking about it. At least, that’s what I would say if I had fallen victim the central idea of this book: the antimeme. Antimemes are the exact opposite of memes – where one is meant to spread, the other is meant to self-censor. How do you study an idea that you can’t remember? How do you fight a battle against an enemy you’re doomed to forget? Enter the Antimemetics Division, a top-secret task force designed to combat these information hazards, before they delete themselves and us with them. This novel was penned by a top writer for the SCP Foundation – a wiki centered around a fictional organization that protects humanity from supernatural horrors (like antimemes). As such, he’s well qualified for the job.
Grass
Grass by Sheri S Tepper is the story of humanity’s struggle to survive space-Covid – sort of. An interstellar epidemic has intelligent life on the run, and nearly every habitable planet has fallen victim to it save for one. A distant planet known as Grass, named for the lush prairie that covers it, appears to be the only place in the galaxy the plague hasn’t touched. Why? That’s something that Marjorie Westriding Yrarier is working to figure out. In order to blend in with the aristocratic alien society of the verdant world, Marjorie will need employ all the equestrian skills that her hoity-toity upbringing bestowed upon her. But this stiff upper lipped world hides maddening truth, its immunity comes with a horrifying secret – one that could end all life in the universe. Reading Grass feels like looking at old paintings of fox hunts from yesteryear, if the hunters were space plagues and fox was humanity itself.
Do You Dream of Terra-Two?
Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh is the story of a multi-generational group of ten astronauts embarking on a quest to settle a distant Earth-like planet. Four of them are veteran space travelers from the 20th century, and the other six are teenagers who have spent their lives training for this mission. The journey will take twenty three years, and each of the teens will eventually need to learn to take the reins from their aging tutors. While two decades and change seems like a long time to prepare, they’ll never truly be ready for what awaits them at the end of their journey. On this Earth-like world, “like” is the operative word. This planet may be similar to our own, but it is far more dangerous.
Slow River
Slow River is a novel by an unsung hero of the sci-fi genre Nicola Griffith. The plot revolves around Lore Van Oesterling, who is essentially a cyberpunk version of the titular “Rich Girl” from the Hall and Oates song. Formerly the daughter of a powerful family, Lore awakens in a back alley with her identity stolen and her memory in shambles. She’s taken in by a street thief named Spanner, who teaches her how the other half lives in this near future dystopia. Slow River is the story of a woman at war with herself, part of her wants nothing more to return to the stifling but comfortable life of glitz and glamour she’s accustomed to, while her other half wants to live free alongside the lower class reprobate she’s slowly falling in love with. Is this sapphic sci-fi? Hell yes it is.
The Color of Distance
The Color of Distance by Amy Thompson is first contact novel from alternate perspectives: human and alien. Dr. Juna Saari is a xenobiologist who was left stranded on a distant jungle world, whose fate now lies in the webbed hands of Anito – a member of the intelligent amphibian species that call the planet home. After receiving body modifications that help her survive in the planet’s toxic environment, Juna learns to fit in with the alien Tendu, who communicate by changing the colors and patterns of their skin. After three years with Tendu, Juna comes into contact with the survey team that left her behind – but will she be able to readjust human society after adapting to Tendu culture? Or is sure more at home now than she ever was with her own species? Tough call.
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