My Top Science Fiction and Fantasy Recommendations

Favorite books from my favorite genres

In the past, I’ve put together multiple reading and watching lists with my favorite science fiction and fantasy (SFF). This is an updated recommendation list for 2025 that has titles from my past lists, plus some new entrants. (Sidenote: I also take great pleasure in writing sidebars for my magazine, showcasing SFF recommendations when they’re relevant to the articles!)

My original plan for this post was to make a gigantic mega-list with all my recommendations. But there are far too many! So I’ll release a few posts over time, and this post will just be my “main favorites.”

… but honestly I have so many favorites… how to choose…!

Anyway! what I’m trying to say is, this is not an exhaustive list! I’ll have future lists! I love lots of SFF that is not included here.

Subscribers: Are you interested in maybe doing a book club? If yes, let me know! This seems like something that could be fun for paid subscribers. A specific idea I’ve had in the past is to host a book club just for SFF books with spiritual themes, but I’m open.

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Brief Intro: SFF as Contemporary Moral Guidance

(If all you want is recommendations, scroll down!)

I became a science fiction and fantasy reader when my dad pressed I, Robot into my hands in second grade. Or maybe it happened years before that, when my father read The Lord of the Rings aloud to tiny Lydia. By the time I escaped middle school, I’d read every fiction book Isaac Asimov ever wrote (but not all the nonfiction! wow that man wrote a lot of books).

In my early twenties, I wrote SFF professionally, mostly as a writer and game designer for White Wolf Game Studio. (Here’s some of my White Wolf work from 2006.) I also wrote stories, and I’ll probably republish some of them on Substack eventually, though I didn’t write much fiction before I began concentrating on nonfiction.

From an SFF perspective, our current historic moment is fascinating. High tech has never been more pervasive — and many of its builders are influenced by a lifetime reading these genres.¹ About a decade ago, I remember driving back to San Francisco from an event in Palo Alto with four other people, all of whose work touched artificial intelligence in different ways, and during that trip, we realized that every single one of us had read Isaac Asimov. In fact, all five of us knew Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics by heart, and we used them as a jumping-off point for discussion. This illustrates how much Asimov’s ideas influence people now building AI, although it’s unlikely that the Three Laws themselves will ever be implemented in real-life robots.

I believe one critical role SFF can play, both in the tech world and the broader culture of 2025, is a moral one. Although many SFF books are clumsy in their moral conceptions, these genres historically haven’t shied away from moral perspectives, and I love that. Modern SFF seems less moralistically clear-cut than older SFF — but it tends to have a more complex and high-level systemic perspective than the older stuff, and I also love that.

Plus, modern SFF still manages to be more morally focused than mainstream fiction, which often refuses to take anything resembling a ethical stance, and seems almost to specialize in depressing moral murk. In fact, over the past decade I’ve begun to wonder if the primary factor that distinguishes SFF from mainstream fiction is not the mechanisms (there are many mainstream fiction books that use SFF tropes and technical explorations) but rather the moral focus, as well as a clear preference for main characters with agency: What we might call heroes.

I will now show you a graphic that an acquaintance recently posted on social media. He commented that it’s the best graphic he’s seen of the Hero’s Journey² — notably, it shows the journey as an upward spiral. I agree! Check it out:

Anyway, I simply love these genres — but I’ve become rather picky. If you enjoy the same authors I do, then I’d love your recommendations, in turn!

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Now For The Recommendations!

Before we start: There are many authors out there who are so famous I won’t bother mentioning them. But here are a few “classic SFF” authors worth reading, if you haven’t already: Isaac Asimov; Philip K. Dick; Ray Bradbury; Jack Vance; and Frank Herbert. [Update: After the publication of this post, someone messaged me to ask how I feel about Ursula K. Le Guin, another classic author. For whatever reason, I don’t love everything she’s written, but The Dispossessed and The Lathe of Heaven are both great!]

Philip K. Dick is especially fun because you get to see how much the films based on his books had their plots and sensibilities changed during the adaptation process. “Blade Runner” versus Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is the canonical example, especially since both the movie and the book are great even though they’re totally different from each other, but there are many others.³

Now for my faves!

1. Biting The Sun and many other books, by Tanith Lee

Tanith Lee has been my favorite author since I was a teenager. I love many other authors too, but there’s something about Lee’s style — totally unique, deeply feminine, and remarkably different in each manifestation — that I feel so deeply. Generally Lee writes about emotions and psychology first, everything else second, and yet her work isn’t slow-moving. It’s usually action-packed, befitting her preferred genres.

Not all Lee’s books are amazing, so recommendations are your friend if you are just starting to explore Lee’s work. Also, her books are so different from each other that, if you don’t like the first one you read, you might like other ones.

Biting The Sun is my longtime fave. It’s one of those books I sometimes call “utopia/ dystopia:” It reflects on why humanity might not want everything we think we want… by showing what could happen if we get it. In our current moment with AI, I also feel obliged to mention The Silver Metal Lover, which is easily the best AI romance novel ever written.

Dreams of Dark and Light is a sprawling collection of Lee’s best short stories; it’s a good way to review the breadth of her style. The collection includes mythic fantasy and science fiction and everything in between. There’s also a more recent compilation, Tanith Lee A-Z, whose selection is very tasteful because the stories were chosen by Lee’s husband after she died.

I have a blog post here where I talk about Lee and her brilliant illuminations of femininity. That post also has many more recommendations.

2. Everything by Ted Chiang, especially “Story of Your Life” (a short story contained in the collection Stories of Your Life and Others, on which the film “Arrival” was based)

If you like SFF, then I recommend literally everything Ted Chiang ever wrote. There isn’t much, perhaps because he is said to be a perfectionist. In fact, Ted Chiang has such high standards for himself that he reportedly turned down one of the highest awards in science fiction because he was upset that the book in question was rushed to publication; apparently, he did not feel that that the book was good enough to earn the award, even though the award-giver felt that it had fairly won.

Perhaps as a direct result of this perfectionism, Chiang’s small output has won a ridiculous number of awards.⁴ While I’m sure this tendency has drawbacks, I honestly idolize this about Chiang, and I’m impressed by the boundaries he reputedly drew to protect his output. One rumor I heard is that Chiang could have supported himself entirely by writing full-time, years before he started to do so — but for a while, he chose not to do this, because he didn’t like what happened to his work when it was beholden to commercial incentives.

If you’ve seen “Arrival,” don’t assume you know the story it’s based on! “Arrival” is a great film, but I was disappointed by how its overall takeaway felt spiritually oppositional to “Story of Your Life.” (They’re both good art, though! It’s the “Blade Runner” thing all over again — they’re both good art, somehow!)

Also! Ted Chiang is probably the only science fiction author ever to debut a futurist column in the New York Times.⁵

I will now point out that I was into Ted Chiang before it was cool, and leave it at that.

3. Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing Of The Dog, by Connie Willis

Many of Connie Willis’s books are time-travel science fiction, and these two are my favorites. The first one is sad and moving, set mainly in the era of the Black Death. The second one is charming and lighthearted and cutely romantic, set mainly in Victorian England.

Willis believes in God and you can see it in her books, especially if you’re looking for it, but her work feels deep and meaningful for many atheists, too. In 2020, I reviewed Doomsday Book at the beginning of the covid pandemic, with a particular emphasis on her spiritual themes: “Classic Science Fiction About Pandemics Explores Faith in Both Science and Spirituality.”

It’s worth noting that Doomsday Book is one of only 26 total novels that have won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

4. The Farseer Series, which I think totals thirteen books starting with Assassin’s Apprentice, by Robin Hobb

This is one of those series where you are absolutely heartbroken when it is over. I did not know what to do with myself after I turned the final page of Fitz’s story. Fortunately, there were other books in the series, with side adventures by other characters, so I was able to console myself, but then those were over too :(

The reason these books are amazing is not that they defy tropes. Instead, it is Hobb’s deft use of tropes, and the astounding emotional depth that she brings to them: The isolated young boy who becomes an assassin, his loyal animal companion, the dragon hunts, the pirates… Honestly, I’m tearing up just thinking about these characters.

I read these books in my thirties and it’s amazing to me that I didn’t find them sooner. They’re perfect for all ages.

A little-known fact is that Robin Hobb also writes under the name Megan Lindholm. As Lindholm, she co-authored a very good urban fantasy book with Steven Brust, called The Gypsy.

5. The Lions of Al-Rassan; A Song For Arbonne; and the Children of Earth and Sky trilogy, by Guy Gavriel Kay

Kay writes sweeping, romantic, political-historical fantasy that’s usually based on real historical periods (Spain during the Reconquista for Lions, for example, and France during the whole courtly love thing, for Song). His books are elegant and elegiac, sorrowful and beautiful. The only Kay book I do not recommend is The Last Light of the Sun. Otherwise I recommend all his books, especially the five above.

I was inspired by A Song For Arbonne and quoted from it when I wrote my recent post “Sex and Power.”

6. Unquenchable Fire, by Rachel Pollack

This is an extremely original fantasy novel about the future after a "spiritual revolution" sweeps America. There are spirituality bureaus; spiritual symbolism is a major profession and political issue; et cetera. The book sort of includes a feminist take on a virgin birth. Pollack is an expert on the Tarot, which may partly explain aspects of the book’s heavy symbolism and modern-mythic feel.

For a long time I was not sure if I liked this book, but it stuck with me over the years and I reread it several times. Now I love it.

7. Altered Carbon and its sequels, by Richard K. Morgan

One could argue that these books are a synthesis of established cyberpunk ideas. But what an incredible synthesis! I like these books better than just about any other cyberpunk books I’ve ever read, including classics of the genre. They’re hard-hitting noir with a traumatized, nearly psychotic main character, who nevertheless manages to accomplish some good. These books pull no punches when it comes to privilege, portraying depressingly realistic scenarios of what happens once immortality becomes available to the wealthy.

The film miniseries “Altered Carbon” isn’t bad. It has some nice touches. But it’s really, really not as good as the books.

8. Donnerjack, by Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold

Roger Zelazny is best-known for his Chronicles of Amber series, the first five of which are great. But I think Donnerjack might be his best book overall. When you read as much SFF as I do, you often run across the trope “but what if the virtual reality becomes real?” and I’ve never seen that so well-handled as in Donnerjack. The book contains a lot of mythological references and creatures, which in the hands of other authors often become cringe, especially when commingled with science fiction — but Donnerjack maintains an incredible mythic feel throughout, fitting these beings into a setting that maintains the right sensibility.

While writing this post, I learned that Zelazny died before the book was done. So a person described as his “companion,” Jane Lindskold, finished it, but she is generally not credited as his co-author for some reason.

9. Celestial Matters, by Richard Garfinkle

This is a truly original alternate-history adventure story in which Greek philosophy (Pythagorean forms and such) is testable science. Also, the scientists in this alternate universe follow the Greek pantheon, which leads to interesting psychologies and a fascinating ending.

10. Cyteen, by C.J. Cherryh

This series (several books collected in a single tome titled Cyteen) is mostly about cloning and what happens once we can grow humans in vats, so it gets into the the nature-vs.-nurture debate. The main character is cloned from a powerful, geopolitically important woman, who died suddenly and inconveniently. For the people she left behind, it’s really important that the clone become a copy as close to her original as possible… even if that means traumatizing her.

Cherryh is reliably good. She’s also written many books with alien cultures, and I love that her aliens are actually different in meaningful ways that make it hard for the characters to communicate. Her descriptions of culture shock are some of the best I’ve seen — I thought about them a lot when I was in the Peace Corps.

Fun fact: Cherryh has an asteroid named for her! Apparently the asteroid’s discoverers wrote, “She has challenged us to be worthy of the stars by imagining how mankind might live among them.”

11. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

Terry Pratchett has become incredibly famous, and justly so. I like his middle-period Discworld books best, particularly Pyramids, about a student at the Assassin's Guild who is also a young Pharaoh, and Moving Pictures, about the invention of movies.

The earliest Pratchett stuff tends towards the picaresque-1970s-comic-fantasy, while the middle-period books are more serious while staying weird and full of ridiculous footnotes. His later stuff seems to have been what made him famous, but personally I think his later stuff, while maybe "better written,” lacks character.

Pro tip: If you are a mega Discworld fan, you might find it entertaining to read Pratchett’s very first book, Strata. It’s basically a science fiction Discworld, and it’s interesting for fans because it shows what he was thinking about at the beginning of his career, pre-fantasy Discworld. The conceit is that the main character works for a company that builds planets, and one day she finds herself accidentally transported to a flat world that makes no sense…

12. Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

This science fiction book might qualify as “space opera,” though it’s not quite as grandiose or optimistic as the other books I associate with that phrase. It has a lot of clever ideas, but it’s not just an “idea book.” Humanity has attempted to terraform other planets, and in the process, seeded one planet with fast-evolving spiders that become sentient. Meanwhile, while the spiders are evolving intelligence, humanity destroys the Earth, kills almost everyone, and launches a desperate hacked-together spaceflight mission to preserve the species. So the book traces generations of spider civilization and also generations of humans on the spaceship as they seek a new planet, reflecting on who and what is likely to survive through the ages. It’s a good corrective for anyone who thinks space colonization will be easy and fun.

13. Illusion, by Paula Volsky

This novel is set in a fantastical French Revolution. The main character is in the privileged class, and the book traces her arrival at court, subsequent downfall, survival, and love story with a revolutionary. In many ways it’s predictable, but I love it anyway.

14. The Fire Rose and Chrome Circle, by Mercedes Lackey

Mercedes Lackey is a prolific fantasy writer who’s mastered the art of page-turning fun reads, and these two are so great that I’ve reread them repeatedly through the years. The Fire Rose is a sweet version of Beauty and the Beast, set in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. Chrome Circle has mages in sunglasses and leather jackets, plus a heroine who is half-dragon and half-kitsune, which is so awesome that I wish I’d thought to make it my character race in D&D, even though I bet no one ever would have let me do it because it’s too awesome.

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All right, I’ll leave it there for now. I’ll publish some more original nonfiction for my next few posts, and then in a month or two maybe I’ll post more recommendations :)

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1. Here’s a funny and relevant example of high tech’s influence: AI writing is just starting to become prevalent, and humans are just starting to deal with that, and I feel self-conscious every time I use an em dash now, because em dashes are now widely associated with AI writing.

While em dashes are now widely associated with AI-assisted writing, I do not personally use AI to help with my writing (yet?). But recently, sometimes, I have deleted em dashes after typing them — even when they felt right! — because of the AI association.

This post is a determined attempt to use em dashes the way I used to naturally, before I became self-conscious about them!

2. If you aren’t following me on Twitter or Instagram, you might have missed the satirical posters encouraging people to skip their Hero’s Journey that someone made for this year’s Vibegala party. They’re so good. Check them out.

3. My absolute favorite PKD adaptation anecdote is “Total Recall,” because the adaptation followed this process:
• PKD wrote a story called “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,”
• which was adapted into a film, radically different from the story, called “Total Recall,”
• at which point someone (the movie studio?) hired Piers Anthony, a whole nother science fiction writer, to write a novelization of the movie, which was also titled Total Recall.

Personally, I think the only film adaptation of a PKD book that “feels” at all like a PKD book is the movie version of “A Scanner Darkly.” But it’s neat how many of his stories furnished premises for action films, even though the films aren’t very much like the books.

4. According to Wikipedia, Chiang has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and six Locus awards. I think all these awards have gone to a number of short stories so small that they fit in, like… two collections?

5. They literally created a new category, “Op-Eds From the Future,” and Ted Chiang debuted the category. The Times didn’t end up printing very many of these, but the feature was around for maybe a year or so.