1. The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Pan Macmillan ($34.99)
Beloved cult classic
I first encountered this “trilogy in five parts” on audiocassette and accidentally played the tapes in the wrong order. It still made sense – a testament to Douglas Adams’ absurdist brilliance.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide is less a cult classic than a cult (imagine PG Wodehouse in space), but the enduring pop-cultural appeal of this series stems from something deeper than its intergalactic wit. Life on our “mostly harmless” planet is very silly, Adams reminds us. And also wondrous. – Beejay Silcox
2. The Three-Body Problem Trilogy by Liu Cixin
Bloomsbury ($59.99)
Epic sci-fi saga
In a trilogy Liu charmingly dubs a “remembrance of Earth’s past”, the author takes up one of sci-fi’s perennial tropes: contact with alien intelligence. The story that results is as large and all-encompassing as time itself. Set variously during the Cultural Revolution, the mid-2000s and in a solar system orbiting three suns, the trilogy explores ecological disaster, the meeting of different civilisations and the question of our ability to coexist.
With fascinating forays into quantum mechanics and the outer limits of science, this is a masterful trilogy filled with big ideas. – Declan Fry
3. The Circle by Dave Eggers
Penguin ($22.99)
The future is here
Dave Eggers’ prescient, propulsive spec-fic novel begins when a young woman gets a job at tech conglomerate The Circle – imagine Google, Facebook and Amazon combined, run by the worst tech bros you know and tracking your every move.
The place is a cult on a quest for global “transparency” and as Mae’s screens pile up around her, so too do her sinister gadgets – like TruYou (which follows a user’s online activity); SeeChange (tiny cameras that livestream from anywhere); and a wearable that stores all her health data. It’s scary how many of Eggers’ inventions now exist – but the book is very funny too. – Steph Harmon
4. The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
Hachette ($22.99)
Romcom with zombies
You’ve Got Mail meets a light zombie problem in this top-notch romcom and gentle fantasy story. Stoic Hart (hunter of the undead) and sunny Mercy (an undertaker) can’t stand each other; their spirited arguments are legendary. But there’s a twist: these two lonely souls have been trading confidences in long letters to an anonymous “friend” – and on paper, sparks are flying.
A joyful read: it’s a pleasure to witness the pair wrestle their loneliness, pride (and zombies) in the name of new, affirming love. – Cassie Tongue
5. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Pan Macmillan ($24.99)
Queer found family
Filled with magic and a profound sense of hopefulness, The House in the Cerulean Sea is written for adults but feels like a cosy junior fiction story – the kind you find tucked away on an old bookshelf, tattered and dusty, but filled with nostalgia. It follows 40-year-old Linus Baker, whose mundane life is upended by six magical orphans and their charming ward, Arthur Parnassus.
This is the ultimate found-family story, providing a joyful antidote for those times when you need to escape into another world. – Emily Wind
6. Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman
Hachette ($22.99)
Unsettlingly familiar colonial sci-fi
Both an addictive page-turner and profoundly thought-provoking, Noongar writer Claire G Coleman’s first novel is a contemporary classic of speculative fiction. We’re transported to an Australia in crisis. It’s a world at once strange and alien, but equally, startlingly familiar.
Native refugees flee from settler Troopers. At first this dynamic seems to re-examine Australian colonial history. But as the novel progresses, you won’t see this twist coming. No wonder Coleman is regarded as one of our most engaging fiction writers. – Joseph Cummins
7. Magician by Raymond E Feist
HarperCollins ($22.99)
Comfortable epic fantasy
When I want to get back to fantasy basics, Magician is my book of choice (aside from Papa Tolkien). Want to see a peasant farmhand become a powerful wizard, hang out with elves and princes, and wrap up an epic war with an honourable but misguided foe? Feist has you covered.
The Asian-inspired Tsurani enemies help it feel a bit more like Shogun meets The War of the Roses, but ultimately it’s just immensely readable epic fantasy, done well. – Patrick Lum
8. The Nevernight Chronicle by Jay Kristoff
HarperCollins ($22.99)
Bloody Roman necromancy
A gloriously gory amalgam of sword and sorcery tropes, plus some innovations to keep things fresh, this trilogy by Australian author Jay Kristoff hits the fantasy trifecta of blood, sex and magic. It’s set in a world that’s a lot post-republic Rome and a little Machiavelli-era Florence, written with a joshy tone, including footnotes, that borders on Pratchett-esque (if Pratchett was an acerbic chainsmoker).
But if the idea of a bisexual teen assassin with the power to control shadows and a supernatural cat sidekick doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, then I don’t know what to tell you. – Alyx Gorman
9. Exhalation by Ted Chiang
Pan Macmillan ($21.99)
Sublime, mind-bending parables
Some of the most revelatory speculative fiction arrives in miniature. Short stories are literary laboratories – thought experiments – and few writers use that confined space as well as Ted Chiang. The American author shot to fame as the brains behind the 2016 film Arrival, but it’s his second collection, Exhalation, that’s the marvel.
It’s hard to pin down exactly what Chiang does, which seems fitting. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” Arthur C Clarke once said. Chiang is his successor. – BS
10. The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
Pan Macmillan ($26.99 each)
Funny space operetta
A robot-human hybrid security guard hacks the neural controller that keeps it from leaving its crushingly boring job and going on a killing spree, and decides to watch soap operas. For 35,000 hours. Eventually (we’re still on page one – it’s a zippy read) it meets some decent humans and discovers that keeping them alive will test even a terrifying murderbot. But as long as no one needs it to make eye contact, it can probably save the day. Almost certainly. – Merran Hitchick
11. The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
Penguin ($59.99 per book)
Galaxy-brain trash-myth
Morpheus, lord of Dream, emerges from decades of imprisonment to sort out 10 volumes’ worth of terrifying, gruesome and grisly situations and quite a lot of sibling drama (he has six: Death, Desire, Destruction, Despair, Destiny and Delirium).
Read if you like pulp horror, B-thrillers, Shakespeare, the vast, endless underbelly of the human psyche, graphic novels. And while you do have to read them in order (it gets particularly good at No 3) don’t bother with the Netflix series. – Imogen Dewey
12. The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin
Hachette ($22.99 per book)
Epic world building
If you’re looking to get lost this summer – to immerse yourself – then pick up a copy of The Fifth Season, the first book in NK Jemisin’s extraordinary Broken Earth Trilogy.
Everything about this series is mighty: scope, ambition, mythos. It’s a tale of the elemental power of the planet and those who wield it. A novel of rock, bone and fire. Jemisin is the first author to win three Hugo awards in a row. She is a master world builder and this is her masterwork. – BS
13. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
Allen & Unwin ($27.99)
Quirky little gem
A time machine repair man has accidentally shot a future version of himself: a rookie mistake. Now he is stuck in a temporal loop, with nothing much to do but contemplate life, the universe and everything.
This antic, playful novel is a love letter to sci-fi, from Philip K Dick to Bill and Ted. In other hands, it could be a twee, self-referential mess, but Charles Yu has a deft wit and an infectious love of his genre. This book is popping candy for your cortex. – BS
14. The Truth by Terry Pratchett
Penguin ($22.99)
Names sell newspapers
The best way to read Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is to pick a thread and follow it. If you like the idea of Shakespearean witches, start with Wyrd Sisters. If you like detective novels and political intrigue, start with Guards! Guards! But if you’re feeling overwhelmed, start with The Truth.
It’s a standalone novel in which William de Worde accidentally invents the concept of a newspaper, uncovers a political conspiracy and discovers there’s nothing readers like more than a funny-looking vegetable. – Calla Wahlquist
15. Every Version of You by Grace Chan
Affirm Press ($32.99)
Dystopian VR meditation
Sci-fi doesn’t have to be escapist – it can be unexpectedly satisfying fiction that throws up questions that are more immediately on your plate. Like: what happens if Melbourne keeps getting hotter? What is it with New Year’s Eve beach parties and waves of hardcore existential doubt? And would you want to tune out the real world, if you could?
This thoughtful futuristic romance is torn between the virtual and the real – glittering, intimate and very readable. – ID
