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For fans of science fiction, Apple TV has become a go-to television destination. Whether it’s the corporate dystopia of Severance, the far-future space opera of Foundation, the speculative post-apocalypse of Pluribus, or the towering kaiju of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, every beloved niche genre is represented. There’s something for everyone, but it can often take years to get the next installment and, even then, it’s a long seven days between episodes. Silo, one of the best sci-fi offerings on the platform – and one of the best shows on TV right now, period – returned for a third season on July 3, and it’s already clear the signature cliffhangers will leave us wanting more all summer.
Instead of speculating about what might happen next week, the time between summer Fridays presents the perfect opportunity to explore the worlds of other science fiction book series that, much like Silo’s source material, Hugh Howey’s New York Times bestselling Wool trilogy, are worth getting lost in for a while. From rogue AI hijacking robots and starting a war with humanity to interspecies space colonization to an alternate present in which a country has completely fallen off the map, in the same way Apple TV’s wide-ranging offerings entice every type of viewer, literary sci-fi continually pushes the boundaries of imagination to create new extensions of our reality that appeal to every type of reader. Pulled from across the genre, these are some of the very best book series sci-fi has to offer, and the worlds that unfold within their pages are guaranteed to keep you entertained all season long.
1
‘Children of Time’
By Adrian Tchaikovsky
There are two parallel narratives at the heart of Children of Time that unfold over generations, both born out of one brilliant, narcissistic scientist’s plan to terraform a distant exoplanet and accelerate the evolution of non-human life. One tracks the human survivors who attempt to resettle on the exoplanet after the fallout of an ideological war over the ethics of the scientist’s actions renders the Earth uninhabitable, the other focuses on a species of jumping spider that was unintentionally infected by the scientist’s genetic virus, and how the species evolves over thousands of years into a highly intelligent race that populates the exoplanet with an entire civilization of its own.
The post-apocalyptic humans naturally didn’t expect to find a super-spider society on the planet they intended to call home, and when the narratives collide, chaos ensues. But once the dust settles, it becomes clear that the scientist – who was forced to merge with her ship’s AI to survive – wasn’t the only one responsible for the terraforming, and that humanity’s schadenfreude extends further into space than anyone could’ve imagined. The resulting four-book hard sci-fi journey showcases the importance of unity for survival, and how the power of communication, empathy, and understanding can bring together even the most radically different individuals when given enough time.
2
‘Scattered All Over the Earth’
By Yoko Tawada
Books are very rarely described as “cheerfully dystopian” by their publisher, but there’s truly no better phrase to use when talking about the Scattered All Over the Earth trilogy. Set in a near-future in which the climate crisis has caused Japan to disappear, a refugee in Denmark searching for others from her missing country creates a new language, Panska, to communicate with the pan-Scandinavian people she encounters. Drawn to her by language and bonded through friendship, she creates an ever-widening multinational band of companions who join her on her hunt as it expands throughout Europe and beyond.
The three books are built on a first-person narrative structure, with each chapter featuring the perspective of a different member of the group or a person adjacent to them. By rotating through unique characters and giving each a rich backstory, the underlying quest ultimately becomes less about finding other refugees from “the land of sushi” – as it’s exclusively called – and restoring the past, and more about building a new, resilient community around the belonging they’ve built on their shared love of language. Few people could take two of the most harrowing topics, the climate and refugee crises, and build a story around them that feels optimistic in the way that Yoko Tawada does; Scattered All Over the Earth is so utterly original, lovable, and unforgettable you’ll be thinking about it for months to come.
3
‘Wanderers’
By Chuck Wendig
Though Wanderers is only two books, Chuck Wendig‘s masterpiece duology is well over 1,600 pages – and it’s one of the most vivid sociopolitical renderings of an apocalyptic America ever written. It starts with a group of people who become gripped by a sleepwalking epidemic; they won’t wake up, they won’t respond, and as more and more people amass into a flock and their loved ones join as shepherds, it becomes clear they’re intent on reaching an unknown destination. As the narrative expands, it becomes clear just how many things have simultaneously fractured across the country: a different pandemic threatens to extinguish human life, an extremist group is rapidly expanding, and a predictive AI may be the most powerful figure of all.
The first book tracks the apocalypse, and without giving too much away, the second tells the story of what happens after. Much like Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, the collapse is narrated from the third-person shifting perspective of people experiencing the events in real time, often as pilgrims, and their stories tackle survival, trauma, and loss. It’s a journey through every worst-case scenario in our modern lives where survival is predicated on the strength of the human spirit, and it leaves you breathless by the time you reach the final page.
4
‘Noumena’
By Lindsay Ellis
First contact is a foundational pillar of science fiction, and alternate histories are a core subgenre – but combining the two is very rarely done, as it’s incredibly difficult to merge the imaginary nature of alien life we haven’t encountered yet with plausible real-world geopolitical stakes. That’s what makes the Noumena series so extraordinary; Axiom’s End takes the lofty ideal of first contact and drops it into ordinary 2007 American life by presenting it as a cover-up by the sitting presidential administration, which pans out exactly the way it would have in that year, down to the last cultural detail. By covering all the bases of plausibility in the first book, Lindsay Ellis sets the stage to examine all the larger implications of extraterrestrial life on Earth with stunning authority.
The latter books explore the definitions of citizenship, the very real possibility of backlash, threats posed by a common enemy, and the role of media and celebrity in influencing our everyday lives. But while the events of each book feel plausible – probable, even – communication between human and non-human species is conducted through a transfer of emotions, which layers in a deeply relatable sentimentality as the bond between the two grows closer and the series progresses. It’s an exploration of what humanity really means in the context of life beyond what we know, yet it’s grounded in a strikingly similar world to the one we live in.
5
‘Remembrance of Earth’s Past’
By Cixin Liu
Before 3 Body Problem became a big-budget hit on Netflix, Remembrance of Earth’s Past was a global phenomenon in print. The trilogy begins during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when a disillusioned astrophysicist discovers a way to broadcast a message into space using the sun as an amplifier. Eight years later, she receives a response from the planet Trisolaris saying not to contact them again or Earth will be invaded, as their system will soon be destroyed by its three chaotic suns – the classical three-body problem of physics – and her response is, more or less, bring it.
A half century later, a string of high-profile scientists commit suicide, which causes shocking facts to be uncovered. The Trisolarians are 50 years into their 450-year journey to Earth; Trisolarian microcomputers have been spying on humanity and stunting the planet’s scientific development to ensure dominance; and the organization the astrophysicist founded to help them has been split into factions that either want them destroyed or have been recruiting sympathizers for decades. Humanity is forced to reckon with itself and try every solution to stop the Trisolarians before it’s too late – and over an 18-million-year timeline spanning three books, the conflict unfolds in ways you would never imagine.
6
‘The Water City Trilogy’
By Chris McKinney
Noir is one of the greatest subgenres ever, but it’s exceptionally great when it’s sci-fi noir. The Water City Trilogy is a perfect three-book noir-tinged plunge into a future climate dystopia where megacities are built underwater, the planet is recovering from a near-miss with an asteroid, and the woman who eliminated the threat is being hailed as the second coming. When she’s brutally murdered, her former head of security – a nameless synesthetic who’s now a detective on the police force – begins an investigation that pulls him into a set of events that spans decades, takes him from the bottom of the ocean to the moon, and puts everything he loves in jeopardy.
It starts with a comforting detective procedural vibe, which remains a steady but less-present force as the stakes grow higher over the course of the series. As things tilt towards full-on post-apocalypse, it’s hard not to be drawn to the nameless noir shadow who’s constantly fighting for justice in a world where nothing is clear, and everything has consequences. And there’s absolutely nothing that can prepare you for the thrilling twist that leads to the page-turner insanity that is the final book, Sunset, Water City.
7
‘Robopocalypse’
By Daniel H. Wilson
I’ve read more than my fair share of robot-based science fiction, and absolutely nothing compares to the brilliance of Robopocalypse and its sequel, Robogenesis, which have held a spot in my top five for well over a decade. Much like its contemporary, World War Z by Max Brooks, the first book is an oral history of the war between humans and robots from zero hour onward, cobbled together from transcripts, interviews, testimonies, and logs by a human soldier who survived. What starts as a pretty clear-cut case of man versus machine is soon revealed to be AI using a virus to hijack machines, and as the story unfolds, the “Freeborn” robots who manage to break away from their hivemind begin to join the humans in their fight.
The second book features just as many characters and still serves as a record of war, but uses third-person chapters to pick up right after the war has ended – or so they thought, as the human, robot, and hybrid alliance quickly find themselves up against a much more dangerous threat. Former robotics engineer Daniel H. Wilson masterfully delivers a two-part crash course on what could actually happen if AI tries to take control in the most realistic way possible, and delivers a tale of human resiliency at its finest. And one day, it’ll eventually find its way to the big screen where it belongs.
8
‘Southern Reach Series’
By Jeff VanderMeer
It is incredibly difficult to describe the groundbreaking, awe-inspiring, utterly bizarre cosmic horror world of the Southern Reach Series. Loosely, the original trilogy focuses on Area X, a coastal region being consumed by an alien presence and plagued by inexplicable phenomena, and Southern Reach, the secret agency that manages expedition teams – consisting of a biologist, anthropologist, psychologist, and surveyor – to the rapidly expanding area. The first book – Annihilation, which was adapted into a movie starring Natalie Portman that has recently found a second life with fans – depicts an expedition, the second book documents the collapse of Southern Reach, and the third book ties all the narratives together and tracks a final mission to the area.
From the start, everything about this series has been different. Jeff VanderMeer‘s editor rewrote the rules of publishing in 2014 by rapidly releasing the original trilogy in eight months; then, a decade later, the trilogy became a series with the publication of a surprise fourth book, a prequel that fills in some of the missing backstory, and a fifth release was announced for 2027. The lack of a real plot summary here isn’t because the books aren’t amazing – they unquestionably are – but because the series is best experienced with an open mind to start and a willingness to spend hours on Reddit once you’re done.
- Release Date
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May 5, 2023
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
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Graham Yost
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Chelsea Adelaine Hassler
Almontather Rassoul
