10 Best Science Fantasy Books where Fantasy and Science Collide
Welcome, folks! Take a moment and consider this - what happens when you bring together the boundless galaxies of science fiction and the mystical worlds of fantasy? You get something more than the sum of its parts; you get, science fantasy. This genre is for the wild dreamers who refuse to pick a side between spaceships or dragons, because why not both?
In the fascinating realm of science fantasy, the once rigid boundaries of time, space, reality, and magic blur. Here, space knights carry swords, sparkling with cascading nebula light, and witches weave hexes through the ethernet.
Our carefully curated list of the top 10 science fantasy books is perfect for those you who hunger for a captivating narrative that doesn’t adhere strictly to the laws of nature but prefers multiple leaps of daring imagination. These stories flaunt the rules of traditional genres, merging science and sorcery to fabricate tales that trigger wild wonderment. The protagonists of these novels are as diverse as their universe, they are astronauts, sorcerers, cyber-punks, and mythical beasts, all cohabiting worlds created on the anvil of path-breaking narrative genius.
So, ready to buckle up and journey through the cosmos without letting go off your magic wand? Yes? Then right this way!
『Dune』
• DUNE: PART TWO • THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE Directed by Denis Villeneuve, screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert • Starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Léa Seydoux, with Stellan Skarsgård, with Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem A deluxe hardcover edition of the best-selling science-fiction book of all time—part of Penguin Galaxy, a collectible series of six sci-fi/fantasy classics, featuring a series introduction by Neil Gaiman Winner of the AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books | 50 Covers competition Science fiction’s supreme masterpiece, Dune will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, it is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who will become the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib. Paul’s noble family is named stewards of Arrakis, whose sands are the only source of a powerful drug called “the spice.” After his family is brought down in a traitorous plot, Paul must go undercover to seek revenge, and to bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. Penguin Galaxy Six of our greatest masterworks of science fiction and fantasy, in dazzling collector-worthy hardcover editions, and featuring a series introduction by #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman, Penguin Galaxy represents a constellation of achievement in visionary fiction, lighting the way toward our knowledge of the universe, and of ourselves. From historical legends to mythic futures, monuments of world-building to mind-bending dystopias, these touchstones of human invention and storytelling ingenuity have transported millions of readers to distant realms, and will continue for generations to chart the frontiers of the imagination. The Once and Future King by T. H. White Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein Dune by Frank Herbert 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin Neuromancer by William Gibson For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Author | Frank Herbert |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Penguin |
Release Date | Oct 25, 2016 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Left Hand of Darkness』
A deluxe hardcover edition of the queen of science fiction’s trailblazing novel about a planet full of genderless beings—part of Penguin Galaxy, a collectible series of six sci-fi/fantasy classics, featuring a series introduction by Neil Gaiman Winner of the AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books | 50 Covers competition A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary’s mission to Winter, an unknown alien world whose inhabitants can choose—and change—their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Exploring questions of psychology, society, and human emotion in an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of science fiction. Penguin Galaxy Six of our greatest masterworks of science fiction and fantasy, in dazzling collector-worthy hardcover editions, and featuring a series introduction by #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman, Penguin Galaxy represents a constellation of achievement in visionary fiction, lighting the way toward our knowledge of the universe, and of ourselves. From historical legends to mythic futures, monuments of world-building to mind-bending dystopias, these touchstones of human invention and storytelling ingenuity have transported millions of readers to distant realms, and will continue for generations to chart the frontiers of the imagination. The Once and Future King by T. H. White Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein Dune by Frank Herbert 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin Neuromancer by William Gibson For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Author | Ursula K. Le Guin |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Penguin |
Release Date | Oct 25, 2016 |
Source | Google Books |
『Perdido Street Station』
WINNER OF THE AUGUST DERLETH AND ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARDS • A masterpiece brimming with scientific splendor, magical intrigue, and fierce characters, from the author who “has reshaped modern fantasy” (The Washington Post) “[China Miéville’s] fantasy novels, including a trilogy set in and around the magical city-state of New Crobuzon, have the refreshing effect of making Middle-earth seem plodding and flat.”—The New York Times The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the center of the world. Humans and mutants and arcane races brood in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the river is sluggish with unnatural effluent and foundries pound into the night. For a thousand years, the Parliament and its brutal militias have ruled over a vast economy of workers and artists, spies and soldiers, magicians, crooks, and junkies. Now a stranger has arrived, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand. And something unthinkable is released. The city is gripped by an alien terror. The fate of millions lies with a clutch of renegades. A reckoning is due at the city’s heart, in the vast edifice of brick and wood and steel under the vaults of Perdido Street Station. It is too late to escape.
Author | China Miéville |
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Price | $9.99 |
Publisher | Del Rey |
Release Date | Jul 29, 2003 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Quantum Thief』
A crazy joyride through the solar system several centuries hence—and the most exciting SF-adventure debut in years
Author | Hannu Rajaniemi |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | St. Martin's Press |
Release Date | Jan 31, 2012 |
Source | Google Books |
『Altered Carbon』
In a twenty-fifth-century world in which death is nearly obsolete, thanks to a technology that allows a person's consciousness to be downloaded into a new body, former U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs, re-sleeved into a new body after a brutal death, finds himself caught in the middle of a deadly far-reaching conspiracy that could have horrifying repercussions. Reprint.
Author | Richard K. Morgan |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Random House Digital, Inc. |
Release Date | Jan 01, 2006 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Three-Body Problem』
Experience Cixin Liu's award-winning and bestselling masterpiece, The Three Body Problem. A secret military group sends signals into space in hopes of establishing contact with aliens--and succeeds. Picking up their signal is an alien civilization on the brink of destruction who now readies to invade Earth. News of the coming invasion divides humanity like never before. Some want to help the superior beings take over a world they see as corrupt. Others prepare to fight the invasion at all cost. The Three Body Problem begins a ground-breaking saga of enormous scope and vision. "The War of the Worlds for the twenty-first century . . . Packed with a sense of wonder." --The Wall Street Journal The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning (forthcoming)
Author | Cixin Liu |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Macmillan |
Release Date | Nov 11, 2014 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Windup Girl』
What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits? And what happens when this forces humanity to the cusp of post-human evolution? This is a tale of Bangkok struggling for survival in a post-oil era of rising sea levels and out-of-control mutation.
Author | Paolo Bacigalupi |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. |
Release Date | Jan 01, 2010 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel』
Fifteen year old twins, Sophie and Josh, join forces with Nicholas Flamel against John Dee and the apocalyptic plans of the Elder race.
Author | Michael Scott |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Doubleday Children's |
Release Date | Jan 01, 2007 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Diamond Age』
Vividly imagined, stunningly prophetic, and epic in scope, The Diamond Age is a major novel from one of the most visionary writers of our time Decades into our future, a stone’s throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neo-Victorians. He's made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called A Young Ladys Illustrated Primer Commissioned by an eccentric duke for his grandchild, stolen for Hackworth's own daughter, the Primer’s purpose is to educate and raise a girl capable of thinking for herself. It performs its function superbly. Unfortunately for Hackworth, his smuggled copy has fallen into the wrong hands. Young Nell and her brother Harv are thetes—members of the poor, tribeless class. Neglected by their mother, Harv looks after Nell. When he and his gang waylay a certain neo-Victorian—John Percival Hackworth—in the seamy streets of their neighborhood, Harv brings Nell something special: the Primer. Following the discovery of his crime, Hackworth begins an odyssey of his own. Expelled from the neo-Victorian paradise, squeezed by agents of Protocol Enforcement on one side and a Mandarin underworld crime lord on the other, he searches for an elusive figure known as the Alchemist. His quest and Nell’s will ultimately lead them to another seeker whose fate is bound up with the Primer—a woman who holds the key to a vast, subversive information network that is destined to decode and reprogram the future of humanity.
Author | Neal Stephenson |
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Price | $8.99 |
Publisher | Spectra |
Release Date | Aug 26, 2003 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Stars My Destination』
#5 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written. “Science fiction has only produced a few works of actual genius, and this is one of them.” —Joe Haldeman #5 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written. “Science fiction has only produced a few works of actual genius, and this is one of them.” —Joe Haldeman "Bester at the peak of his powers is, quite simply, unbeatable” —James Lovegrove Marooned in outer space after an attack on his ship, Nomad, Gulliver Foyle lives to obsessively pursue the crew of a rescue vessel that had intended to leave him to die. When it comes to pop culture, Alfred Bester (1913-1987) is something of an unsung hero. He wrote radio scripts, screenplays, and comic books (in which capacity he created the original Green Lantern Oath). But Bester is best known for his science-fiction novels, and The Stars My Destination may be his finest creation. With its sly potshotting at corporate skullduggery, The Stars My Destination seems utterly contemporary, and has maintained its status as an underground classic for fifty years. (Bester fans should also note that iBooks has reprinted ReDemolished, which won the very first Hugo Award in 1953.)
Author | Alfred Bester |
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Price | $6.95 |
Publisher | ibooks |
Release Date | Jun 06, 2011 |
Source | Google Books |
Well amigos, there you have it! A not-so-short list of exquisite science fantasy books, where wizards wield not only wands but supercomputers, and dragons roar over spaceships. These novels are masterfully blending concepts of high tech and art of sorcery to create incredible tales featuring unique characters and fantastic environments. Each one offers something different, some spice of science and a dash of fantasy that shakes up the reader's imagination like a mad scientist's potion. So whether you've got a thing for techno-mages, spell-casting astronauts, or interstellar elves, this genre-bending brew of science and fantasy will surely keep you turning the pages. Cheers to the extraordinary voyages that await you between these covers! Now, get going and lose yourself in these beautiful, chaotic intersections of laser-beams and summoning spells. Your next fantastical science adventure awaits!
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