Five science-fiction reader favorites from 2025

How we chose these books

Selected in the order of the final 2025 Goodreads Science Fiction vote, with publication dates checked against 2025 editions. Several titles overlap with literary, historical or magical-realist fiction. Category placement is a discovery signal, not a claim of technical hard science fiction.

Choose by reading mood

If science fiction makes you think first of spaceships, this list offers another route in. These novels use speculative premises to ask about ordinary pressures: being watched, remembering, grieving and losing control of a public story. Choose the question you want to sit with rather than assuming a single genre label describes a single experience.

1. The Compound

Aisling Rawle

Rawle is the choice for social pressure and the uneasy pleasure of watching a competition. The reality-show framework makes incentives and the audience useful subjects for discussion.

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2. The Book of Lost Hours

Hayley Gelfuso

Choose Gelfuso for an impossible library and a struggle over whose memories survive. It crosses time-travel fiction with historical and romantic elements, rather than promising a technical model of time.

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3. The Poppy Fields

Nikki Erlick

Erlick offers an emotional thought experiment about sleeping through grief. Choose sensitively for yourself or as a gift; a hopeful premise is not a guarantee that a subject will feel comforting.

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4. Death of the Author

Nnedi Okorafor

Okorafor connects a writer’s success with the science fiction she creates. Consider it if stories about authorship, identity and reception appeal alongside the speculative material.

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5. The Dream Hotel

Laila Lalami

Lalami is the near-future surveillance choice. A prediction about dreams becomes a reason for detention, inviting questions about evidence, privacy and the ability to challenge an institution.

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Before choosing your edition

The language of this list is not the language of every edition available to buy. Our linked editions are in English. Check the ISBN, format and seller information before ordering, especially when a title belongs to a series or has a limited first printing.