Science-Fiction Books Scientific American’s Staff Love
Scientific American’s staff share their favorite sci-fi books, from beloved classics to overlooked gems and our modern favorites
There are few things as memorable to a young reader as the first spaceship they wanted to be onboard or the first fantastical world they wished to inhabit. If you’ve ever discussed the mechanics of warp speed, the anatomy of a shai-hulud or the ethics of a Vulcan mind meld, you know one thing for certain: science fiction is a way of life. Giants of the genre such as Mary Shelley and Isaac Asimov showed readers the horror, the excitement and the gargantuan consequences that arise from combining our scientific knowledge with the expanse of our imagination. What does it feel like to live forever, to breathe something other than air or to love someone from another planet? How will science inspire fiction next? What fiction will inspire new science?
The staff at Scientific American ask questions such as these across lunch tables and whisper book recommendations in hallways. We examine new science every day and read exceptional books each night. Below is a collection of beloved science-fiction titles from the bookshelves of Scientific American staff, showing our go-to recommendations, our personal classic tomes and the books we’re still rereading year after year.
