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Sci-Fi Books with Realistic Science for Adults |
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Seveneves
by Neal Stephenson
When a catastrophic event dooms the planet, nations around the world band together to devise an ambitious survival plan in outer space 5,000 years before their progeny organize an audacious return. By the best-selling author of Cryptonomicon.
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Children of Time
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The inhabitants of a dying Earth set out to take refuge on a terraformed planet, but this planet's life progression has rendered it mankind's worst nightmare, and these two civilizations find themselves on a collision course.
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The Three-Body Problem
by Cixin Liu
Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project's signal is received by an alien civilization on the brink of destruction, which plans to invade Earth; meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.
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The Martian: A Novel
by Andy Weir
Stranded on Mars by a dust storm that compromised his space suit and forced his crew to leave him behind, astronaut Watney struggles to survive in spite of minimal supplies and harsh environmental challenges that test his ingenuity in unique ways. A first novel.
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Foundation
by Isaac Asimov
A band of psychologists, under the leadership of psychohistorian Hari Seldon, plant a colony to encourage art, science, and technology in the declining Galactic Empire and to preserve the accumulated knowledge of humankind.
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Revelation Space
by Alastair Reynolds
As human colonists settle on the planet of Amarantin, a world whose native inhabitants mysteriously vanished nearly a million years before, one man, Dan Silvester, becomes convinced that their disappearance could hold the key to human survival on the planet, but he soon discovers that someone will do anything to hide the truth.
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The Andromeda Strain
by Michael Crichton
A team of scientists struggles to define and contain a deadly bacteria brought back from outer space by a satellite.
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Anathem
by Neal Stephenson
Having lived in a monastery since childhood away from the violent upheavals of the outside world, Raz becomes one of a group of formerly cloistered scholars who are appointed by a fear-driven higher power to avert an impending catastrophe. By the author of Cryptonomicon.
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The Wandering Earth
by Cixin Liu
The Basis for the blockbuster international film, now streaming on Netflix, this collection of 11 stories, including five Chinese Galaxy Award-winners, show humanity's attempts to reason, navigate and survive in a desolate cosmos.
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The Mountain in the Sea
by Ray Nayler
On the remote island of Con Dao Archipelago, marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen studies a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species that could hold the key to extra-human intelligence and must protect them from powerful forces who want to use them for their own nefarious means.
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Alien Clay
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The planet of Kiln is where the tyrannical Mandate keeps its prison colony, and for inmates the journey there is always a one-way trip. One such prisoner is Professor Arton Daghdev, xeno-ecologist and political dissident. Soon after arrival he discovers that Kiln has a secret. Humanity is not the first intelligent life to set foot there. In the midst a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem are the ruins of a civilization, but who were the vanished builders and where did they go? If he can survive both the harsh rule of the camp commandant and the alien horrors of the world around him, then Arton has a chance at making a discovery that might just transform not only Kiln but distant Earth as well.
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Annihilation
by Jeff VanderMeer
Describes the 12th expedition to“Area X,” a region cut off from the continent for decades, by a group of intrepid women scientists who try to ignore the high mortality rates of those on the previous 11 missions.
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