Best Science Fiction Books of 2017

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

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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 (cover not available)

The Stone Sky

by N. K. Jemisin

Humanity will finally be saved or destroyed in the shattering conclusion to the post-apocalyptic and highly acclaimed NYT bestselling trilogy that won the Hugo Award three years in a row.The Moon will soon return. Whethe...

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2

Six Wakes (cover not available)

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 (cover not available)

The Collapsing Empire

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 (cover not available)

Provenance

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

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 (cover not available)

New York 2140

by Kim Stanley Robinson

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 (cover not available)

Borne

by Jeff Vandermeer

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 (cover not available)

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 (cover not available)

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 (cover not available)

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 (cover not available)

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 (cover not available)

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 (cover not available)

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 (cover not available)

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 (cover not available)

Waking Gods

by Sylvain Neuvel

"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 (cover not available)

Home

by Nnedi Okorafor

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 (cover not available)

Babylon's Ashes

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 (cover not available)

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 (cover not available)

All Systems Red

by Martha Wells

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. (cover not available)

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

by Neal Stephenson

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

The Stone Sky (cover not available)

The Stone Sky

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The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (cover not available)

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

Neal Stephenson

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Waking Gods (cover not available)

Waking Gods

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Gather the Daughters (cover not available)

Gather the Daughters

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Raven Stratagem

Raven Stratagem

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New York 2140 (cover not available)

New York 2140

Kim Stanley Robinson

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Borne (cover not available)

Borne

Jeff Vandermeer

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American War (cover not available)

American War

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Dreams Before the Start of Time (cover not available)

Dreams Before the Start of Time

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Home (cover not available)

Home

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