6 Totally Unique Sci-Fi Novels Like Nothing Else You've Read

Sci-fi literature is having a moment. The huge cinematic success of Project Hail Mary drove legions of people to seek out its source material, the 2021 Andy Weir novel. An A+ audiobook narrated by the incomparable Ray Porter helped make the book even more accessible to new readers. Let's say you're one of those readers, and now you're looking for your next sci-fi book recommendation.

The science fiction genre is like the universe itself. It has no exact start or end point. It expands in all possible directions. That can make exploring the genre and its endless frontiers intimidating. No matter which book it is, though, it only starts with one. Let's say that book was Project Hail Mary. Whether you're fifteen or fifty, if Weir's novel got you excited about sci-fi, that's great. Welcome aboard. Now, what's next?

Below is a curated selection of must-read modern sci-fi classics, published between the 1990s and now. The goal in curating these picks was to do two things: scratch the itch left behind by Project Hail Mary, while also introducing new readers to a batch of remarkable books that will be unlike anything else they've ever read.

Anvil Of Stars

Written By Greg Bear; Published In 1992

Anvil of Stars is a sequel to Greg Bear's The Forge of God, which should be at or near the top of every hardcore sci-fi reader's "To Read" list. That said, Anvil of Stars is a solid standalone, should readers come across it at a yard sale or used bookshop before they get a chance to pick up Forge of God. Don't wait. Grab it.

In Anvil of Stars, Bear sends the last remnants of humanity on a revenge mission. Like any good revenge thriller, though, the question at the heart of Anvil is whether the moral cost is worth it. Especially when it might mean doing to other intelligent civilizations what was done to Earth.

Like all great science fiction, Anvil of Stars mixes a mesmerizing portrait of a possible future with perennial philosophical questions that have plagued humanity since we first became self-aware. ​​​​​​​

Excession

Written By Iain M. Banks; Published in 1996

Excession is the fifth of Iain M. Banks' nine "Culture" novels, named for the singular interstellar civilization he created and explored throughout the Saga. The Culture series is interconnected by its setting and a set of recurring themes and ideas, but plot-wise they are sufficiently standalone that readers can jump in anywhere.

For anyone ready not just to jump, but to dive in head first, Excession is a perfect place to start. The middle of the series, and perhaps its peak. The book's inciting incident is the appearance of the eponymous Excession, a timeless and flawless sphere that appears out of nowhere and throws the AI-dominated Culture into upheaval.

Excession is brilliantly weird, in the manner of elite science fiction. It effortlessly makes mindbending ideas engaging in the same way author Liu Cixin later would with The Three-Body Problem, and especially its sequels The Dark Forest and Death's End.

A Deepness In The Sky

Written By Vernor Vinge; Published In 1999

Vernor Vinge's second novel in his "Zones of Thought" trilogy, A Deepness in the Sky, is one of the all-time masterpieces of hard sci-fi. That can be said about its predecessor, A Fire Upon the Deep, as well, but that was a galaxy-spanning epic with space operatic elements. With Deepness, Vinge went all in on the hard side of science fiction.

A Deepness in the Sky is a prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, featuring one crucial crossover character. Deepness is a first contact story unlike any other, but it is also a tense tale of two radically divergent human civilizations at war. When those two elements come together, it happens in a fist-pumping dramatic climax; that said, most of the page count is devoted to the patient path there, and Vernor Vinge relishes getting granular with the technical details of the setting.

A Deepness in the Sky won the Hugo Award and was nominated for the Nebula. For anyone looking for immersive science fiction, and to immerse themselves in the sci-fi genre, Vinge's novels cannot be ignored.

Blindsight

Written By Peter Watts; Published In 2006

Blindsight is another first contact classic. It also serves up an unexpected and unique curveball by casually inserting a fantasy element into an otherwise thoroughly hard sci-fi story. In the novel, a crew of augmented humans are sent on the spaceship Theseus to investigate a comet passing through the solar system that might contain extraterrestrial intelligence.

Mostly human, that is. Because the expedition's leader? He's a vampire. So, add Blindsight to the list of unique vampire novels too. As far as the book's aliens go, "intelligence" is a tricky prospect, and that question is at the center of Peter Watts' story.

Blindsight is ultimately about what it means to be human, by way of exploring what it means to be transhuman, or nonhuman. The guiding obsession of the novel is the idea of alternate forms of intelligence, different types of existence in the universe, perennial sci-fi themes that Watts handles in a particularly deft way.

Saturn's Children

Written By Charles Stross; Published In 2008

Saturn's Children is a throwback to formative, early-to-mid 20th-century science fiction. Author Charles Stross wrote it in the vein of literary precedents like Isaac Asimov. It is a big, sweeping, intergalactic look at a potential future. A post-human future, in fact, in which the android descendents of humanity are the ones who have spread across the galaxy.

Saturn's Children is more on the space operatic side of the sci-fi spectrum, reveling the the drama derived from its setting and character set-ups rather than sweating the precise mechanical details of their world and existence.

It is a compelling read, brimming with urgent concerns about the present day, and the future of humankind, while reaching back to tap into an earlier vein of futurism from the genre's distant past.

Dead Astronauts

Written By Jeff VanderMeer; Published In 2019

Jeff VanderMeer is one of the big names in 21st-century literary sci-fi, and he's done strong work in the fantasy genre too. Dead Astronauts incorporates some elements of the latter into its sci-fi world, which also includes shapeshifters, multiple timelines, interstellar conflict, and more.

Like most of VanderMeer's work, Dead Astronauts is stylistically and structurally experimental, while always managing to keep readers invested in its characters. And its central conflict, a fight against the hegemonic "Company," a familiar trope in sci-fi that the author puts his own idiosyncratic spin on.

Dead Astronauts is a great example of the transportative effect of reading sci-fi. It is the prose equivalent of going through a wormhole, coming out the other side in an unrecognizable universe, as a slightly different version of oneself.

Final Thoughts:

If you found yourself saying "huh, that sounds cool," or "hm, I don't know if I'd like that," at any point while reading the entries above, congratulations. You've already started to refine your taste in science fiction.

Hard sci-fi isn't for everybody, for example, but some readers will choose it any day of the week over the alternative. Which camp do you fall into? Maybe what really thrilled you about Project Hail Mary was the first contact element, and that aspect of Blindsight and A Deepness in the Sky piqued your interest. Or, maybe you want less sci-fi ideas and more sci-fi action. Perhaps you want to focus sci-fi bestsellers, or alternatively, you're drawn to the genre's deep cuts.

Whichever direction you let your newfound sci-fi fandom take you in, there will be enough books to keep you occupied until the heat death of the universe. But you have to start now.

Share your sci-fi novel recommendations with us and each other, readers! We want to hear from you in the comments.