Editor’s Note
This curated guide highlights 50 essential science fiction works published since 2000, offering a diverse entry point into the genre’s most compelling contemporary visions of the future.
Here is the ultimate guide to the best novels and collections of contemporary science fiction. A curated selection of the best recent SF books, published after the year 2000, catering to a plurality of tastes and interests.
Science fiction literature is vast. Its narrative richness will never cease to show us attractive or worrying futures, push us to our limits, or open new doors for us. This guide of 50 must-read science fiction books from the 21st century will allow you to both discover the genre and broaden your horizons. This guide also aims to overcome the pitfall of the same classic works constantly being recommended, which is why the focus is placed exclusively on the 21st century and this new era of SF, with its very diverse voices.
This selection is not a ranking, nor a top list, so there is no order to consider. Like any guide, it is based on arbitrary choices: there are, of course, other excellent and equally successful works than those mentioned; not to mention the wonderful surprises that still await us after the publication of this article.
It is clear that Becky Chambers has made a more than remarkable entry into contemporary literature. She is an undisputed new prodigy of SF. Her “Wayfarers” series begins with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, one of the best SF books of our time, a formidable narrative dedicated to living together… aboard a spaceship, where different species coexist alongside humans. You won’t find great space battles, but a beautiful social, political, human story that still fills your eyes with stars. And optimistic SF remains all too rare.
Let’s not beat around the bush: Exhalation is one of the best books in the entire history of science fiction. This collection of short stories takes us on a journey between intelligent machines, spatiotemporal portals, technological innovations, all as explorations of human nature. With rare philosophical depth and remarkable inventiveness, each story hits the mark. It is the existential essence of science fiction that is contained in this essential collection.
A literary masterpiece, Station Eleven is the cream of the crop of contemporary literature and the post-apocalyptic genre. After a pandemic apocalypse, we follow a traveling symphony, which notably performs Shakespeare’s plays in a collapsed America. Emily St. John Mandel also makes many shifts between the pre-apocalyptic past and the post-apocalyptic future, eventually revealing a powerful fresco of our time. While being a post-apocalyptic work that absorbs all the best of the genre, Station Eleven is filled with hope. It is an ode to art, to the powerful mantra: survival is insufficient. It should be noted that the TV series adaptation is very successful, but also that Emily St John Mandel’s new novel was released in France at the end of August 2023, Sea of Tranquility, also a marvel to read absolutely.
Semiosis is formidably effective.
