Science fiction can be more than vast galaxies, interstellar battles, and alien invasions. Some of the genre's most imaginative and thought-provoking works unfold right here on Earth, or a version of it. From mind-bending explorations of technology to unsettling visions of the near future, these books prove that sci-fi can be just as thrilling without a spaceship in sight.
Here are 15 brilliant sci-fi books that push boundaries and expand imaginations without ever leaving the ground.
1. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
My favorite on this list, and overall one of my favorites ever, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War could be one of your best reads ever if you can sink your teeth, no pun intended, into the book's format. Divided into eight chapters, the book is a collection of individual accounts recorded by a United Nations Postwar Commission agent aiming to document the entire zombie outbreak saga.
It touches upon the biological origin of the disease, the large-scale impact on society, culture, geopolitics as we know it, the individual and collective tragedies, and more. If you have seen the Brad Pitt starrer movie, go into the book expecting almost zero similarities. It is one of a kind, and if you ever have to not judge a book by its cover, this would be the one.
A tip from one reader to another: Give the fanfiction The Way Is Shut by The Dark Scribbler a shot after you finish Brooks’ book. You wouldn’t be disappointed.
2. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
It is one of my more begrudging picks on this list, but it belongs here nonetheless. Don’t get me wrong; it’s an incredibly layered book that deals with subjects like climate change, corporate greed, and income disparity. Set in 2024 (written in 1993), it revolves around Lauren, who has “hyperempathy” because of her mother’s drug abuse during pregnancy and can feel everyone’s pain.
After spending years in the safety of a gated community near Los Angeles, Lauren is forced to face the crime, poverty, and modern slavery-ridden world on the outside. Proceed with caution if cult-like organizations or age-inappropriate relationships aren’t your thing. The book has a sequel, Parable of the Talents, that many believe is a better read, but the series is unfinished. Both can still be read as standalones.
3. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Technically, there is an element of space here, but the main characters live in San Francisco. A nuclear war makes Earth radioactive and nearly unlivable, and most animals are endangered or extinct. Owning real animals becomes the new status symbol, equivalent to flaunting a Rolex or a Birkin. Those who aren’t well off can only afford electric robot animals. There are also androids, but so realistic that only an empathy test can differentiate them from human beings.
Rick Deckard, the protagonist, is tasked with exterminating six evil androids from Mars, with the dangling carrot of affording a real animal after completing the mission. A digital dystopia at its core, this book is believed to have influenced a new wave of cyberpunk sci-fi fiction. If you’re still not convinced, here’s a final tidbit: 1982’s Blade Runner movie by Ridley Scott was loosely based on this book, featuring several of its characters.
4. Neuromancer by William Gibson
An early cyberpunk standout, Neuromancer will keep you hooked and on the edge of your seat. The story follows Case, an underworld hustler from Chiba, Japan, whose body is damaged by his employer after being caught embezzling. A questionable ex-military personnel offers him a cure in return for his hacker services.
Ideal for fans of Blade Runner, The Matrix, and similar works, Gibson’s vivid, gritty prose coined several visions and scenarios that often became the blueprint for AI-fueled power corruption narratives in sci-fi later on. The novel’s strengths lie in its atmospheric worldbuilding, noir-inspired style, and ever-present sense of tension. However, the technical jargon and fragmented narrative can be somewhat alienating, so don’t pick it up as a light read.
5. The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson creates a future where enclaves called phyles or tribes supplant the nation-states of our current world, but the inherent socio-economic disparities remain. The protagonist, Nell, who doesn’t belong to any of the communities, receives a stolen copy of an interactive book, Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, from her brother. The book’s possession shows Nell the contrast in her trajectory with girls from more privileged backgrounds who also receive versions of the Primer.
The premise is eerily similar to today’s AI-powered education system, where the blank slates of children’s minds are often exposed to generic and non-imaginative content under the guise of personalized learning. The Primer is intended to raise its readers intellectually and guide them toward a more “interesting” life, but as long as it is in line with the status quo. Stephenson uses this framework to examine how technology can both entrench inequality and offer tools for liberation, depending on access and intent.
6. A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
In a post-apocalyptic world, having advanced knowledge and education that led to the global nuclear wipe out is a crime. Anyone who isn't a “Simpleton” and even shows the slightest interest in books is purged. Books, needless to say, are burned. Isaac Edward Leibowitz, a survivor of the war, is an electrical engineer who takes refuge in a monastery and later dedicates his life to preserving books. But much like the author’s real-life experience of fighting in World War II, the events of the book do not stop on a "The war is over, all will be well" note.
Pre-war consciences and awareness return, making their way through secret discoveries and corrupted politics, but only to fall into the same cycle of ignorance and violence. Spanning over centuries, the story holds up a mirror for humanity’s doomed fate of being stuck in a loop of grave mistakes and noble deeds, many of which would possibly outlast the human race itself. The book is refreshingly satirical for being quite tragic, as Miller channels the horrors of the war into a masterpiece. As a reader, you’re never quite subjected to the melancholy, but you row through it with amusement and curiosity.
7. Tunnel Through the Deeps by Harry Harrison
A love story intertwined with an alternate universe, A Tunnel Through the Deeps (or, A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!) is set in a different version of history. In this world, America lost the Revolutionary War, and Christopher Columbus never sailed to the land, leaving the culture and people of South America and the Caribbean unscathed.
Captain Augustine Washington, a descendant of George Washington, is haunted by his ancestor’s ‘traitorous’ label in a British-ruled America. But he is tasked with building a transatlantic tunnel to connect the colony with England. Humorous yet surprisingly detailed about the nitty-gritty of a subterranean railroad, the book still manages to portray some of the more complex political conflicts in a lighthearted and easy-to-read manner.
8. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Alternate universe? Check. Twists and turns? Check. Deep ethical dilemmas about our existence? Check. A gripping and quick read? Also check. Dark Matter is everything you want science fiction to be without it crossing the precipice of pretentiousness. Jason, a happily married Chicago man with a son, is abducted and drugged, and wakes up in a world where he has a very different life. He is no ordinary physics professor, but an inventor of something groundbreaking.
But how did he end up here? Would this really have been his real life had he made different choices? With a mind-bending plot that is still strangely humane, Crouch answers these questions, driving a wedge between the concepts of choice and fate. You may or may not see the twist coming, but it hits hard nonetheless. It is the kind of read that makes you want to postpone your chores for the day.
9. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
This book gives the idea of ‘I love you in every universe’ a whole new meaning. Love transcending time and space is not a new concept, but the way Amal El Mohtar and Max Gladstone do it is steeped in affection and longing. Red and Blue are agents of their rival empires in a Time War, and start writing to each other secretly while traveling through time for their missions. It begins with quips and banter, but inevitably leads to an endearing sapphic romance.
Human lives are otherwise insignificant and fleeting in the larger scope of things, but the books make it a point to say how love can outlast rising and crumbling regimes. While reading the book, if you feel Red and Blue’s letters are too much like real correspondence, that would be because they are. Gladstone wrote Red’s letters, while El-Mohtar wrote Blue’s, and they have revealed that their writing included a “genuine element of surprise on receiving each letter” from the other.
10. The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
The list wouldn’t be complete without some stories born out of the COVID era, the great plague of our times. The horrors of the global coronavirus pandemic of 2020-21 influenced several sci-fi novels; The Kaiju Preservation Society is one of the best among them. Surprisingly, it isn’t quite about the outbreak and takes a rather interesting route of punching up at corporate greed with quips and banter.
Looking for a new job during the employment scarcity of COVID-ravaged New York City, Jamie Gray takes up an offer by an old acquaintance, Tom Stevens, to work at The Kaiju Preservation Society. A secret animal rights NGO, the organization does exactly what it sounds like. As Jamie helps care for gigantic animals in a parallel Earth, his old boss, who fired him earlier, returns to haunt his life and the safety of both worlds. Scalzi himself describes it as a “pop song” meant to entertain after many months of tragedy, and the book completely lives up to the fun quotient.
11. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Yes, yes, we all know what Jurassic Park is about, probably a dozen times over. However, a list of the best sci-fi books is still incomplete without what I believe is Michael Crichton’s best work. The Steven Spielberg movie, while brilliant in itself, doesn’t entirely capture the complete and utter horror the book inspires. In his trademark style of deep-diving into hard science and detailed explanations, Crichton almost makes you believe that it is really possible to bring the long-extinct apex predators back from the dead.
If you are a mathematics enthusiast, you are 100% in for a lovely treat. If you’d rather avoid the subject at all costs, like me, you wouldn’t miss out on the core cautionary tale of man playing God either. Despite being scary, visceral, and a reminder of humanity’s foolish arrogance, which inevitably leads to our doom, Jurassic Park is equal parts funny. Ian Malcolm is probably one of Crichton’s best protagonists, whose dry humor and nonplussed reaction to the book’s unfortunate events add absolute joy amid the intense tension.
12. The Anomaly by Michael Rutger
Thoroughly enjoyable for those who like their sci-fi sprinkled with scary bits, Michael Rutger mixes exploration with survival horror in The Anomaly to create a spectacularly hair-raising thriller. The official synopsis compares the protagonist Nolan Moore, a rogue archaeologist loved by conspiracy theorists, to ‘Indiana Jones living in the X-Files era’.
Often ignored by peers for his outrageous takes, Nolan sets out to find proof of an ancient civilization up in the Grand Canyon. Following breadcrumbs left behind by an explorer in 1909, Nolan’s team finds a hidden cave containing what seems to be the remnants of a settlement. But Nolan’s joy of being proved right is short-lived, as they soon find themselves trapped inside the cave, possibly with something or someone else. There is a sequel to The Anomaly, where Nolan and his team investigate witchcraft in a remote village.
13. The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
On the surface, it looks like just another zombie apocalypse. There’s the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, the two-decade-old catastrophe, the guarded settlements, and packs of scavengers—everything you’d expect from a book about the “infected”. Soon, however, the novel takes a more intriguing turn, raising the stakes by pitting practicality against morality. Melanie, the 10-year-old protagonist, is one of the children who retain their mental powers despite being infected. She is also one of the kids getting experimented on in search of a cure or vaccine for the fungus, something her teacher, Helen Justineau, does not like.
Things naturally go wrong. The action sequences are intense. You spend a lot of time worried about Melanie walking the tightrope between humans and the “hungries”, which is what the zombies are called here. But nothing prepares you for the climax, which sets it apart from most zombie stories. While tragic in many ways, it also has a ray of hope at the end. If you have seen the 2016 movie based on the book, you can still give the book a shot, especially for the backstory of Justineau, which explains her dedication toward protecting Melanie.
14. Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Cage of Souls is by no means a light and easy read. It takes a while for even a fast reader to dig their heels into Adrian Tchaikovsky’s book. But it makes up for the density of the narrative with the gorgeously doomed worldbuilding, a lucid flow of the prose, and dry humor when you least expect it. You should give the novel a chance to pull you in before DNF-ing it after a few chapters.
Written like a literary memoir, the book revolves around Stefan Advani and his survival in a jungle prison surrounding Shadrapar, one of the last inhabited cities in a world that has ended due to an ever-expanding sun. We follow Stefan as he loses friends, quite a bit of his sanity, and the rebellious mindset he set out with. Amid the story's slow burn, we explore this old yet new, familiar yet mysterious earth through Stefan’s eyes as its future hangs by a thread.
15. Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
In a world taken over by AI usage, Annie Bot is powerful, provocative, and often uncomfortable. Annie, a highly advanced, AI-powered female robot built to cater to every need and whim of his human owner, Doug. She cooks, cleans, cares, and is even programmed for physical intimacy. When Doug enables her “autodidactic” mode, Annie begins to learn human emotions. Curiosity, shame, longing—these feelings and more plague her mind as she begins to question her existence, and her connection with Doug, which by now has started to reflect signs of a life of monotony in an abusive relationship. Doug gets technicians to change her body or settings now and then, and continues treating her like the object he thought he had bought.
The more human she becomes, the more she yearns to be free of her “owner”, but cannot because of her programming—a classic trauma bond response. Greer uses sci-fi to mirror many modern relationships, where Annie’s story becomes a lens on control, misogyny, and consent. The novel’s strength lies in Annie’s inner thoughts, desires, and confusions. Some have called the story’s ending anticlimactic, but it is rooted in complex reality. While set in a near future, the book is made scarier by the recent trend of people getting into relationships and forging personal bonds with AI chatbots.
Who needs hyperdrives and wormholes when the strangest, most extraordinary stories are happening right under our noses? These books prove that sci-fi can blow your mind without blasting into space. So grab one, settle in, and let your imagination do the traveling.