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Best Science Fiction Books of 2017

The Science Fiction Novels of 2017 That Won Awards and Readers' Votes

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Best Science Fiction Books of 2017

Which science fiction novels defined 2017? This list ranks the year's books by how many independent signals back them: the Hugo, Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke awards, and the Goodreads Choice Awards science fiction vote.

Books that won or were shortlisted for several awards come first, followed by the books readers voted for most.

The ranking

1

The Stone Sky

The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth)

by Jemisin, N. K.

Hugo winner 2018 Nebula winner 2017

Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel 2018Nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel 2018 The shattering conclusion to the post-apocalyptic and highly acclaimed New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with The...

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2

Six Wakes

Six Wakes

by Mur Lafferty

"A space adventure set on a lone ship where the clones of a murdered crew must find their murderer -- before they kill again. It was not common to awaken in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. At least, Maria Arena...

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3

The Collapsing Empire

The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency) Start here

Faster than light travel is impossible--until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars. Riding The Flow, humani...

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4

Provenance

Provenance (Imperial Radch)

A stand-alone adventure set in the world of Ancillary Justice. Ingray has just one chance to secure the status she craves and regain priceless lost artefacts prized by her people: she must free a thief from a prison plan...

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5

Raven Stratagem

Raven Stratagem (Machineries Of Empire)

The Hexarchate, an empire whose weapons depend on its calendar, is under attack from outside, and the undead tactician Shuos Jedao has taken command of its fleet. Whether he is saving the empire or about to betray it is...

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6

New York 2140

New York 2140

by Robinson, Kim Stanley

It is 2140.The waters rose, submerging New York City.But the residents adapted and it remained the bustling, vibrant metropolis it had always been. Though changed forever.Every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an...

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7

Borne

Borne

by Vandermeer, Jeff

In a ruined city, Rachel, a scavenger, finds a small creature named "Borne" tangled in the fur of Mord, a gigantic bear made by a biotech firm. She knows her lover, Wick, is keeping secrets about working there, so she se...

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8

American War

American War

by Omar El Akkad

"An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle--a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating polici...

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9

Dreams Before the Start of Time

Dreams Before the Start of Time

by Anne Charnock

Anne Charnock imagines the changes in how people have children across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in the story of a woman and her family across generations. The reproductive technologies of the future shape...

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10

Autonomous

Autonomous

by Annalee Newitz

When anything can be owned, how can we be freeEarth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people...

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11

Sea of Rust

Sea of Rust

by C. Robert Cargill

"A scavenger robot wanders in the wasteland created by a war that has destroyed humanity in this evocative post-apocalyptic "robot western" from the critically acclaimed author, screenwriter, and noted film critic. It's...

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12

Spaceman of Bohemia

Spaceman of Bohemia

by Jaroslav Kalfar

"When Jakub Procha is sent into space to examine a cosmic dust cloud covering Venus, it may be a solo suicide mission. Dreaming of becoming a national hero and desperate to atone for his father's sins as a Communist info...

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13

Gather the Daughters

Gather the Daughters

by Jennie Melamed

On an isolated island, the children of a small community live under strict rules set by their parents, who have told them that the world beyond is poisoned. Every year the girls undergo a ritual at the end of the summer....

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14

Artemis

Artemis

JASMINE BASHARA never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich.Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity's first and only lunar colony. Just rich eno...

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15

Waking Gods

Waking Gods (Themis Files)

by Neuvel, Sylvain

"26 years ago: A girl in South Dakota falls through the earth, then wakes up dozens of feet below ground on the palm of what seems to be a giant metal hand. 9 years ago: She is a top-level physicist leading a team of peo...

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16

Home

Home (Binti)

by Okorafor, Nnedi

Binti, a young woman of the Himba people, has left Earth for the university on another world and survived a war. In the second novella she returns home to her family on Earth, with her new friend, an alien Meduse. Her ho...

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17

Babylon's Ashes

Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse)

by James S.a. Corey

The Expanse Saga continues in the 6th installment. The Free Navy – a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships – has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets. T...

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18

All Our Wrong Todays

All Our Wrong Todays

Tom Barren lives in a utopian version of 2016 with flying cars and jetpacks, thanks to his father's invention of time travel. When he travels back to 1965 and a mistake changes history, he finds himself stranded in our o...

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19

All Systems Red

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) Start here

by Wells, Martha

The series is about an artificial construct designed as a Security Unit, which manages to override its governor unit, thus enabling it to develop independence. It calls itself Murderbot, and likes to watch unrealistic so...

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20

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

by Stephenson, Neal

Tristan Lyons hires Melisande Stokes, a Harvard linguist, to translate historic texts for a classified government agency, the Department of Diachronic Operations. Her translations point to a past in which magic was real,...

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Trending Books in Best Science Fiction Books of 2017

Six Wakes

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Autonomous

Autonomous

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Provenance

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New York 2140

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