Worlds of science fiction

Orson Scott Card

A gifted boy is trained through brutal war games to save humanity — but the games are not what they seem.

Isaac Asimov

A mathematician foresees the fall of a galactic empire and builds a secret plan to shorten the dark age to come.

William Gibson

A burned-out hacker gets one last job jacking into cyberspace — a word this book invented.

Ursula K. Le Guin

An envoy arrives on a frozen world whose people have no fixed sex, and must unlearn everything he knows.

Emily St. John Mandel

A flu wipes out most of humanity, and a troupe of actors keeps Shakespeare alive in the ruins.

Frank Herbert

The most influential sci-fi world ever built.

Andy Weir

A lone astronaut must save humanity.

Douglas Adams

The funniest book in the galaxy.

Kazuo Ishiguro

A boarding school with a terrible secret.

N.K. Jemisin

On a world wracked by apocalyptic earthquakes, a woman searches for her stolen daughter as civilization ends, again.

Neal Stephenson

A pizza-delivering hacker named Hiro Protagonist races a drug-slash-virus through a corporate future and its virtual twin, the Metaverse.

Liu Cixin

During China's Cultural Revolution, a secret signal is sent to the stars — and something out there answers.

R.F. Kuang

A war orphan aces the empire's hardest exam, discovers a lethal shamanic power, and is swept into a genocidal war.