Best Science Fiction Books of 2025

The Science Fiction Novels of 2025 That Won Awards and Readers' Votes

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Which science fiction novels defined 2025? 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

Death of the Author (cover not available)

Death of the Author

by Nnedi Okorafor

Zelu, a paraplegic Nigerian American writer, has just lost her teaching job and her novel is going nowhere, until she starts a book about robots in a post-human Nigeria. Rusted Robots becomes a bestseller and makes her f...

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2

The Everlasting (cover not available)

The Everlasting

by Alix E. Harrow

Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters—but her life a...

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3

The Dream Hotel (cover not available)

The Dream Hotel

by Laila Lalami

Sara Hussein is detained at Los Angeles airport when an algorithm reading her dream data decides she might harm her husband. She is held for observation in a converted school, and each rule broken extends her stay. This...

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4

Luminous (cover not available)

Luminous

In a reunified Korea, robots serve as servants, surrogates, children and lovers, but they are second-class citizens. Two estranged siblings, a detective in the Robot Crimes Unit and a gifted robot programmer, are pulled...

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5

Shroud (cover not available)

Shroud

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

They looked into the darkness and the darkness looked back . . . New planets are fair game to asset strippers and interplanetary opportunists – and a commercial mission to a distant star system discovers a moon that is p...

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6

When We Were Real (cover not available)

When We Were Real

by Daryl Gregory

Seven years after an announcement revealed that the world is a simulation, impossible places have started to appear across North America: a frozen tornado, a tunnel outside time, a canyon where gravity turns sideways. JP...

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7

When There Are Wolves Again (cover not available)

When There Are Wolves Again

Across about fifty years, two women dream of a Britain with wolves again. Lucy becomes an activist fighting to restore the country's lost habitats, while Hester, a filmmaker, studies the wild dogs of Chornobyl. A climate...

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8

There Is No Antimemetics Division (cover not available)

There Is No Antimemetics Division

(from back cover)An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which...

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9

The Salt Oracle (cover not available)

The Salt Oracle

by Lorraine Wilson

Auli studies the Oracle, a strange girl who channels dangerous ghosts, aboard the Bellwether, a floating college sheltered from the war on the mainland. When her mentor dies and she finds he was not the kind leader he se...

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10

The Compound (cover not available)

The Compound

by Aisling Rawle

Lily—a bored, beautiful twenty-something—wakes up on a remote desert compound, alongside nineteen other contestants competing on a massively popular reality show. To win, she must outlast her housemates to stay in the Co...

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11

The Poppy Fields (cover not available)

The Poppy Fields

by Nikki Erlick

Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal.Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suff...

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12

Of Monsters and Mainframes (cover not available)

Of Monsters and Mainframes

by Barbara Truelove

Spaceships aren't programmed to seek revenge--but for Dracula, Demeter will make an exception.Demeter just wants to do her job: shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying-...

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13

When the Moon Hits Your Eye (cover not available)

When the Moon Hits Your Eye

One day the Moon turns into a ball of cheese, and every piece of moon rock on Earth with it. John Scalzi follows an ensemble through a single lunar cycle, from astronauts and a tech billionaire to the staff of two rival...

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14

Automatic Noodle (cover not available)

Automatic Noodle

by Annalee Newitz

"From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella about a crew of abandoned food service bots opening their very own restaurant.While San Francisco rebuilds fro...

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15

I Think We've Been Here Before (cover not available)

I Think We've Been Here Before

The Jorgensens, a Saskatchewan farm family, learn that Marlen is terminally ill and that a cosmic blast will end life on Earth within months. Their daughter Nora is far away in Berlin and has to get home while each of th...

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16

These Memories Do Not Belong to Us (cover not available)

These Memories Do Not Belong to Us

"For fans of Cloud Atlas and The Power, a hauntingly beautiful and profoundly prescient debut set in a future where China is the sole global superpower and citizens can record and transfer memories between minds.When I w...

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17

The Shattering Peace (cover not available)

The Shattering Peace

A decade after the treaty that ended the wars between the Colonial Union, Earth and the alien Conclave, an asteroid holding the 50,000-person Unity Colony disappears from space. Gretchen Trujillo, a Colonial Union diplom...

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18

Hammajang Luck (cover not available)

Hammajang Luck

by Makana Yamamoto

Edie is done with crime. Eight years behind bars changes a person—costs them too much time with too many of the people who need them most.And it’s all Angel’s fault. Her former partner—and the woman she can’t forget—sold...

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19

Saltcrop (cover not available)

Saltcrop

by Yume Kitasei

In a climate-damaged future of drowned coasts and pirate-held seas, sisters Skipper and Carmen cross the water to find Nora, the eldest, who left home a decade earlier to look for a cure for failing crops. The corporatio...

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20

Dissolution (cover not available)

Dissolution

by Nicholas Binge

Maggie Webb has spent years caring for her husband Stanley as his memory fades. Then a stranger, Hassan, tells her that Stanley is not simply losing his memories: a force linked to his past is dissolving them, and parts...

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Trending Books in Best Science Fiction Books of 2025

Death of the Author (cover not available)

Death of the Author

Buy on Amazon

Dissolution (cover not available)

Dissolution

Buy on Amazon

I Think We've Been Here Before (cover not available)

I Think We've Been Here Before

Buy on Amazon

When the Moon Hits Your Eye (cover not available)

When the Moon Hits Your Eye

Buy on Amazon

Shroud (cover not available)

Shroud

Adrian Tchaikovsky

Buy on Amazon

When We Were Real (cover not available)

When We Were Real

Buy on Amazon

When There Are Wolves Again (cover not available)

When There Are Wolves Again

Buy on Amazon

There Is No Antimemetics Division (cover not available)

There Is No Antimemetics Division

Buy on Amazon

The Salt Oracle (cover not available)

The Salt Oracle

Lorraine Wilson

Buy on Amazon

These Memories Do Not Belong to Us (cover not available)

These Memories Do Not Belong to Us

Buy on Amazon

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