Four of the Best Recent Science Fiction Novels to Read

SPACE - Image (modified) by Alexander Andrews

In the past years I've become interested in Science Fiction Novels. Maybe because sometimes I feel like living in Science Fiction already. Lately I've often thought that some images from Sci-Fi-Movies of the last century have become real. If you care to check some books out, here are four good examples - all of them have been made into Movies or TV-Series.

1. Andy Weir - The Martian (2011)

Known through the movie (2015) with Matt Damon in which protagonist Mark Watney finds himself stranded on Mars, the book was first selfpublished as a serial on Weirs blog, before it became an international bestseller. Weir researched extensively to make the book's content scientifically plausible (later confirmed by an employee of NASA). The book tells the story of an engineer who is left behind alone on Mars. He has to use all his wits and optimism to "work all the problems" he faces. The movie is quite funny. The book, told in log entries, much more so. Andy Weir followd with the novels "Artemis" (2017) and "Project Hail Mary" (2021), this one to be released as a movie starring Ryan Gosling as middle school teacher becoming world-saving astronaut. Both books are worth reading too, especially the latter.

2. Liu Cixin - The Three-Body Problem (2008)

The Three-Body Problem became internationally famous when it was chosen by David Benioff und D.B. Weiss as their next project after creating the TV-Series "A Game of Thrones". Before that the novel had already been one of the most successfull ones in China. Here we stay on Earth but are faced with an alien species that has somehow arrived in the minds of some people. The aliens have left their own instable world in a nearby solar system, trying to reach Earth in the next 400 years. They aim to stop Earth-science from developing so that humankind won't destroy their fleet of spaceships before arrival. During the cultural revolution a Chinese scientist discovers them, but keeps silent despite being warned, because she believes that humans have no future. This book is not funny at all, but very intense and provokes challenging political and philosophical thoughts.

3. Martha Wells - All Systems Red (2017)

This novella is shorter than novel-length, but I'm adding it anyway. It was particularly successfull in the audiobook version read by Kevin R. Free. The first installment of the "Murderbot Diaries" tells the story of a security cyborg, a "SecUnit" that has hacked its own intelligence and is hence able to think (and sort of feel) free of human control. The specialty of this cyborg is killing, its passion is watching mediastreams, basically soap operas and it wants nothing more than to be left in peace to do this for days on end. The cyborg seems at times like an emotionally handicapped human, trying to decipher the signals of people and other computers without really knowing how to do this. In the first installment the murderbot has to save a group of scientists it is bodyguarding and grows attached to them. This book is very funny and had me laughing out loud on a regular basis. A TV Series starring Alexander Skarsgård was released on Apple TV+ in 2025.

4. John Sandford with Ctein - Saturn Run (2015)

Pulitzer Price winner John Sandford has written more than 50 novels, most of them crime thrilllers, since the late 80's. For "Saturn Run" he teamed up the Ctein, who was responsible to make the science in this novel as bulletproof as possible. The world in 2066: A rich surferboy and secrect special forces soldier discovers an Alien spaceship close to Saturn. Just the size of the ship tells a story of extraordinary (and dangerous) power. The United States build a spacecraft with VASIMIR electrothermal thrusters to go take a look and get as much alien technology as possible, trying to beat the Chinese who have a spaceship ready, but are using a different form of engine propulsion. A  fastpaced and interesting take on live in space and the covering of great distances using the knowledge of physics we have today. Sandfords solution for the meeting between humans and aliens is very clever.