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- The Andromeda Strain
series2 books1969
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Michael Crichton's 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain follows a team of scientists racing to contain a lethal extraterrestrial microorganism that crash-lands in Arizona, told in the clinical, document-driven style that helped establish the techno-thriller genre. Daniel H. Wilson's authorized 2019 sequel The Andromeda Evolution revisits the same threat five decades later. Together the two books form a two-part outbreak story separated by a fifty-year gap in publication.
- The Dreaming Jewels
Theodore Sturgeonstandalone novel1950
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The Dreaming Jewels (1950), also known as The Synthetic Man, is a science fiction novel by American writer Theodore Sturgeon. It was his first published novel.
- Footfall
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournellestandalone novel1985
similar byaliensscience fictionour worldcontemporary
When aliens travel to Earth from Alpha Centauri, differences between alien and human psychology result in an unprovoked invasion, and the resulting resistance results in the aliens' use of a devastating weapon.
- The Wanderer
Fritz Leiberstandalone novel1964
similar byaliensscience fictioncontemporaryour world
The Wanderer is a science fiction novel by American writer Fritz Leiber, published as a paperback original by Ballantine Books in 1964. It won the 1965 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
- Chocky
series2 books1968
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Chocky (1968) is John Wyndham's science fiction novel about an eleven-year-old boy, Matthew, whose parents grow alarmed by his conversations with an unseen presence that feeds him unsettling insights into mathematics and human progress, building toward the reveal of what, or who, Chocky really is. Mark Daniel's Chocky's Challenge (1986), published after Wyndham's death, is an authorized continuation that carries the story forward.
- Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarkestandalone novel1953
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Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows a peaceful alien invasion of Earth by mysterious Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture.
- Contact
Carl Saganstandalone novel1985
similar byaliensscience fictioncontemporaryour world
From the front flap of the Simon and Schuster first edition: For centuries humanity has dreamed of life and intelligence beyond the Earth; for decades scientists have searched for it in every corner of the sky; for years Project Argus, a vast, sophisticated complex of radio telescopes, has listened for a signal indicating the existence, somewhere in the universe, of extraterrestrial intelligence. Then, one afternoon, the course of human history is changed, abruptly and forever. The Message, awaited for so long, its very possibility doubted by so many, arrives. Contact has been made. Life, intelligence, someone, something beyond Earth, 26 light-years away, in the vicinity of the star Vega, is calling, beaming across space a wholly unexpected message to say that we are not - have never been - alone. In Contact, Carl Sagan, whose Cosmos enthralled millions of readers and television viewers, has brilliantly employed the freedom of fiction to imagine the greatest adventure of all - humanity's first encounter with other intelligent beings. But the novel is not only about contact between humans and extraterrestrials; it is also about contact, down here on Earth, with each other and ourselves. At its center is a brilliant scientist, Eleanor Arroway, director of Project Argos, who is the first to realize that chapter one of human history is over. It is she who is instrumental in decoding the Message - and in persuading world leaders not to treat it as a threat - she who finds her own life changed by the immense challenge of responding to the Message; she who finally journeys out to experience, in circumstances at once profoundly religious and scientific, the most fateful encounter in human history.
- The Visitors
Clifford D. Simakstandalone novel1980
similar byaliensscience fictionour worldcontemporary
WorldCat: Intelligent, alien creatures arrive on Earth from outer space, threatening world stability and presaging the destruction of civilization.
- Calculating God
Robert J. Sawyerstandalone novel2000
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Calculating God is a 2000 science fiction novel by Canadian writer Robert J. Sawyer. It takes place in the present day and describes the arrival of sentient aliens on Earth. The bulk of the novel covers the many discussions and arguments on this topic, as well as the nature of belief, religion, and science. Several planetary civilizations illustrate the logical conclusion of the Fermi paradox.
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
series16 books1979
part of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Universe
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio sitcom broadcast over two series on BBC Radio 4 between 1978 and 1980, it was soon adapted to other formats, including both novels and comic books, a 1981 BBC television series, a 1984 text adventure game, stage shows and a 2005 feature film.
- The Humans
Matt Haigstandalone novel2013
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When an extraterrestrial arrives on Earth, his first impressions of humans are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete his task and hurry back to his own utopian planet. Disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, their capacity for murder and war, he is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to reconsider.
- Patternist
series6 books1976
completed
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The Patternist series is a group of science fiction novels by Octavia E. Butler that detail a secret history continuing from the Ancient Egyptian period to the far future that involves telepathic mind control and an extraterrestrial plague. A profile of Butler in Black Women in America notes that the themes of the series include "racial and gender-based animosity, the ethical implications of biological engineering, the question of what it means to be human, ethical and unethical uses of power, and how the assumption of power changes people."
- The Alien Years
Robert Silverbergstandalone novel1998
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Les Entités ont envahi la Terre et réduit l'humanité à l'esclavage ... Tel est le thème de ce roman inédit d'un des maîtres de la science-fiction.
- Our Children's Children
Clifford D. Simakstandalone novel1974
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From the back cover of the first DAW printing: "They were our children's children, and they came one day from nowhere - walking through holes in the air into our world. By means of one-way time tunnels, they fled the ravening beasts with teeth, claws and tentacles, that reproduced like bacteria and were intelligent. They fled to escape the uncontrolled horror of their own far future, and we, their distant ancestors, housed and fed and comforted them, content in their assurance that the tunnel was securely guarded from the beasts, whatever or whoever they were. But then somebody up there slipped and the beasts were abroad..."
- Sinister Barrier
Eric Frank Russellstandalone novel1939
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Sinister Barrier is an English-language science fiction novel by British writer Eric Frank Russell. The novel originally appeared in the magazine Unknown in 1939, the first novel to appear in its pages. It was first published in book form in 1943 by The World's Work, Ltd. Russell revised and expanded the book for its first US publication by Fantasy Press in 1948. Most subsequent editions were based on the Fantasy Press version.
- Martians, Go Home
Fredric Brownstandalone novel1955
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Martians, Go Home is a science fiction comic novel by American writer Fredric Brown, published in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction in September 1954 and later by E. P. Dutton in 1955. The novel concerns a writer who witnesses an alien invasion of Earth by boorish little green men from Mars.
- Camouflage
Joe Haldemanstandalone novel2004
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Camouflage is a 2004 science fiction novel by American writer Joe Haldeman. It won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2004 and the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2005.
- Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert A. Heinleinstandalone novel1961
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Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by the American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians, and explores his interaction with and eventual transformation of Terran culture.
- Bridge of Ashes
Roger Zelaznystandalone novel1976
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Bridge of Ashes is an experimental science fiction novel by American writer Roger Zelazny. The paperback edition was published in 1976 and the hardcover in 1979. Zelazny describes the book as one of five books from which he learned things "that have borne me through thirty or so others". He states that he "felt that if I could pull it off I could achieve some powerful effects. What I learned from this book is something of the limits of puzzlement in that no man’s land between suspense and the weakening of communication".
- The Themis Files
series3 books2015
similar byaliensscience fictioncontemporaryour world
Sylvain Neuvel's Themis Files opens when a girl falls into a hole in South Dakota and lands on the palm of a giant metal hand buried underground; the trilogy picks up years later as she leads the team trying to determine what the hand is part of and why it's there. Sleeping Giants and its sequels are told almost entirely through interview transcripts conducted by an unnamed, evasive interrogator, giving the series a documentary, oral-history feel unusual for first-contact SF. The mystery escalates from an archaeological puzzle into a question of who else is looking for the same answer.
- Invasion
Robin Cookstandalone novel1997
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Earth is bombarded from space by small disks which, in addition to having powerful physical armaments, when handled activate latent viral DNA which causes humans to mutate into alien beings; a small group recognize the danger and attempt to develop a biological counterweapon.
- Foundation Universe
universe123 books1940
Start hereFoundation · Start here
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There is a science that reads the future of quadrillions the way an astronomer reads the orbits of stars. It is called psychohistory, and its equations foresee something the ruling Galactic Empire cannot admit: the throne is rotting, and thirty thousand years of barbarism are coming. One man, Hari Seldon, cannot stop the fall. He can only shorten it — by seeding a Foundation of scholars at the rim of the galaxy, a fragile institution built to carry knowledge across the dark and cut the interregnum to a single millennium. This is a universe told in the register of history itself: the long view, the calm of deep time, empires measured in centuries and men measured against them. The spine is Asimov's original trilogy — Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation — followed decades later by the sequels Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth and the prequels Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation. Late in life Asimov braided this in with his other future histories: the Robot novels of detective Elijah Baley and his humaniform partner R. Daneel Olivaw (The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn, Robots and Empire) and the early Galactic Empire novels (Pebble in the Sky and its kin), until one continuous chronicle ran from the first thinking robots to the Second Empire. Other hands extend it — the Second Foundation Trilogy by Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, and David Brin, and shared-world spinoffs such as Robot City — so the corpus sprawls beyond a single author's tidy shelf. What distinguishes it is that the drama is intellectual: crises resolved by insight, nerve, and dialogue rather than fleets and blades, each turn hinging on the hidden logic of the Seldon Plan. Begin where readers have always begun — with Foundation, and the original trilogy in publication order. The rest opens outward from there.
- H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds
universe65 books1898
Start hereThe War of the Worlds · Start here
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No one would have believed, in the closing years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely from the timeless worlds of space. And then the cylinders fell. H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds opens in the quiet of the Surrey commons, where a falling star proves to be the first Martian craft — and from the pit rise the towering tripods, the Heat-Ray, the choking Black Smoke and the creeping red weed, wielded by minds that regard mankind much as we regard the creatures we boil for supper. This is invasion rendered as natural disaster: cold, methodical, and vast beyond argument. Wells' 1898 novel is the seed; everything else grows from that Martian soil. The catalogue gathers direct sequels and continuations alongside a wide field of other hands. In War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches the invasion is retold across the whole planet through the eyes of Twain, Verne, Tolstoy, Lowell and Kipling; in the Manly Wade and Wade Wellman crossover, Sherlock Holmes, Watson and Professor Challenger take the field against the machines; and Scott Washburn's Great Martian War stretches the fighting into a decades-long alternate history of steam, artillery and grinding attrition. It is a loose shared world — no single decreed sequence, many voices answering one calamity. What sets this world apart is its refusal of heroics: the invaders fall not to generals but to the smallest things of Earth, humbling and indifferent. Begin, always, with Wells' original novel — it is short, and it is the ground every later book stands upon. From there follow your appetite: Global Dispatches for the panorama, the Holmes campaign for adventure, Washburn for the long war.
- The Fresco
Sheri S. Tepperstandalone novel2000
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The Fresco is a science fiction novel by American writer Sheri S. Tepper, published in 2000. It describes Earth's contact with a confederation of intelligent alien races. The Fresco was on the shortlist for 2001 James Tiptree, Jr. Award
