The central question of science fiction and fantasy is “what if?” What if the gods were real, but you could kill them? what if humans finally made it to the stars, only to discover that we’re the spoiled newcomers in a grand galactic alliance? What if an asteroid destroyed the East Coast in 1952 and kick-started the space race years earlier?
This year’s summer reader poll was also based on a series of “what ifs”; More importantly, what if, instead of looking at the entire history of the field as we did in our 2011 survey, we focused only on what has happened in the decade since then? these past 10 years have brought a seismic shift to sci-fi and fantasy (sometimes literally, in the case of n.k. jemisin’s broken earth series), and we wanted to celebrate the onslaught of new voices, new perspectives, new styles. and new stories that shook the world. . And while we’re limiting ourselves to 50 books this time, the result is a truly stellar list, as poll judge Tochi Onyebuchi put it, “Hurrah.”
You are reading: Science fiction books for adults
As always, a fairly lengthy decision-making process, involving our fabulous panel of expert judges, went into the list, but we know eager readers want to get straight to the books. so if you feel like it, follow these links to find out how we built the list (and what, sadly, didn’t make it this year). otherwise, scroll through the list!
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We’ve broken it down into categories to help you find the reading experience you’re looking for, and you can click these links to go directly to each category:
worlds to get lost in · words to get lost in · will take you on a journey · Your head will play · Your heart will play · it will make you feel good
how do we build this
wow, they are dedicated readers! Thank you for coming here to find out more. As I said earlier, we decided to limit ourselves to 50 books this year instead of the usual 100, which made selecting the list a particular challenge. As you may know, this poll is not a direct popularity contest, although, if it were, Broken Earth Books would have crushed all comers – they have good taste! instead, we take your votes (more than 16,000 this year) and narrow them down to about 250 semi-finalists, and then, during a truly epic conference call, our panel of expert judges go through those titles, cut some, add some, and come up with a decision. final. selected list.
what didn’t make it and why
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As always, there were works readers loved and voted for that didn’t make our final 50 list; It’s not a favorites list if you can’t argue about it, right? sometimes we left things out because we felt the authors were well known enough that they didn’t need our help (goodbye ocean at the end of the road, neil gaiman, we hope you’ll forgive us!), but most of the time it happened because the books either came out before our deadline or were already on the original 2011 list. (sorry brandon sanderson! the first book born from the mist was actually on this year’s list, until i took a closer look and realized realized it was a repeat of 2011).
some books didn’t arrive this year because we’re pretty sure they’ll appear next year. next year is the 10th anniversary of our original 2012 survey, when (spoiler alert!) we’re planning a similar redo. so we say “not goodbye, but forward, travellers” to people like raybearer, children of blood and bone, and the grishaverse books; If they don’t make the list next year, I don’t know, I’ll eat my kefta.
and this year, because we only had 50 titles to play, we didn’t apply the famous nora roberts rule, which allows especially loved and prolific authors to appear twice on the list. As much as it pains me, there’s only one entry here from seanan mcguire, and max gladstone appears alongside poll judge amal el-mohtar because that’s how you lose the time war, but not just because of the excellent craft sequence. which, as we said above, you absolutely should read.
one final note
Usually, readers vote at least a few works by members of our judging panel on the list, and we usually leave it up to the judges themselves to decide whether or not to include them. but this year, I put my editorial footing down: all four judges made it to the semi-finals, and if we hadn’t included them, the final product would have been less important. so you will find all four in the list. And we hope you enjoy reviewing it as much as we enjoyed putting it together!
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