Top 20 Must-Read Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy for 2024!

As I’ve learned from past book and Kindle giveaways, my VIP Readers’ Club Members have absolutely the best book recommendations. Last month, I asked for their top picks in both Sci-fi and Fantasy for 2024. Here’s the list!

Top 10 in Sci-Fi

Dune
by Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert’s classic masterpiece—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time, a currently a major motion picture.

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of Paul Atreides—who would become known as Muad’Dib—and of a great family’s ambition 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.

The Atlantis Gene: A Thriller
by A.G. Riddle

The greatest mystery of all time–the history of human origins–will be revealed.

In Antarctica, researchers discover a mysterious structure, buried in ice.

In a lab in Jakarta, an autism researcher identifies a revolutionary treatment that could change everything.

But these two incredible discoveries aren’t what they seem. They will set off a race to unravel the deepest secrets of human existence—and an event that could change humanity forever.

Experience the novel that started it all: The Atlantis Gene is the first book in A.G. Riddle’s bestselling Origin Mystery trilogy—a series that has sold over THREE MILLION copies worldwide (in twenty languages), received 40,000+ reviews on Amazon, been rated 20,000+ times on Audible, and garnered 135,000+ ratings on GoodReads. The trilogy is now in development to be a major motion picture.

The product of years of research, The Atlantis Gene is filled with real science and history that will change how look at human origins—and humanity’s future. Like millions of other readers, you’ll be up late turning the pages, promising yourself, just one more chapter.

Project Hail Mary: A Novel
by Andy Weir

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—in development as a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

Hyperion
by Dan Simmons

A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.

On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

Norstrilia
by Cordwainer Smith

Welcome to Old North Australia, or Norstrilia, the only planet that has “stroon,” a substance that indefinitely delays aging in humans. Stroon is cultivated from huge, deformed sheep farmed by the wealthiest estate owners to ever exist in all of humanity’s existence.

Rod McBan is the last of one of the oldest and most honorable families on Norstrilia. But he himself has shortcomings that would normally have led to his death under the strict laws governing population control on a planet where immortality is cheap and imperfect citizens are ruthlessly “culled” to make way for more productive members of society.

But even McBan’s vaunted stature in the society is not enough to save him from the basest of human emotions-jealousy- as the enmity of a former friend forces him to escape to Earth, where McBan’s unprecedented fortune quickly makes him a magnet for all manner of crooks and revolutionaries.

Avenger (Sovereign Stars Book 1)
by Blair C Howard

Five years after physicist Mark Holder discovered the Slipstream Drive in 2058, humanity reached for the stars and began to colonize the galaxy. For centuries, humans continued to populate system after system without encountering intelligent alien life.

Some twelve hundred years later, after many generations of relative peace, in the year 3278, human space is invaded by a powerful and mysterious enemy. To these invaders the very concept of free will is heresy. Their crusade—to eradicate humanity.

The war begins, and the fight for the survival of the human race is on.
Book 1 of Sovereign Stars, Avenger, is the first novel in a gripping, action-filled military space opera in which Avenger, under the command of Knight Captain Richard Morian, is sent to one of the outer star systems on a rescue mission. What he discovers there suggests the entire Orso Carrier Group is destined for annihilation.

The Resistance Trilogy: A Dystopian Series (The Conspiracy Chronicles Book 1)
by K. A. Riley

Book One, RECRUITMENT: In 2042, Kress and her friends are all that’s left of their bombed-out and isolated mountain town. When Kress and all the other seventeen-year-olds are taken away by the Recruiters to aid in the fight against the invading Eastern Order, they find themselves in a secret military training camp that’s turning more mysterious and deadlier by the day.

Enhanced (Volume 1) (The Hybrid Series)
by Candace Kade

Lee Urban is living a lie.
In a society where everyone’s DNA determines their destiny, being a Natural means automatic relegation to the gritty and dangerous Outskirts. With the harnessed power of gene-editing, the ability to create a super-human race has transformed the world and offered the opportunity of a genetically enhanced life. But only to those who can afford it.

Born a Natural, Lee Urban was adopted into the Enhanced high society of the Asian Federation and forced to conceal her genetic roots. When her dream of attending Peking University becomes a reality, she is determined to go despite a warning from a mysterious source.

Targeted by a hacker bent on exposing her true DNA, Urban faces off with an Artificial Intelligence Game that puts her—and her lies—to the test. What was supposed to be a dream come true turns into a lethal gamble of hide-and-seek with her genetics. Can Urban continue the act, or will the cracks in her story expose her and endanger her family?

Time Patrol
by Poul Anderson

Forget minor hazards like nuclear bombs. The discovery of time travel means that everything we know, anyone we know, might not only vanish, but never even have existed. Against that possibility stand the men and women of the Time Patrol, dedicated to preserving the history they know and protecting the future from fanatics, terrorists, and would-be dictators who would remold the shape of reality to suit their own purposes. But Manse Everard, the Patrol’s finest temporal trouble-shooter, bears a heavy burden. The fabric of history is stained with human blood and suffering which he cannot, must not do anything to alleviate, lest his tampering bring disastrous alterations in future time. Everard must leave the horrors of the past in place, lest his tampering-or that of the Patrol’s opponents, the Exaltationists-erase all hope of a better future, and instead bring about a future filled with greater horrors than any recorded by past history at its darkest and most foul.

All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries (The Murderbot Diaries, 1)
by Martha Wells

Winner: 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella, Winner: 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novella, Winner: 2018 Alex Award, Winner: 2018 Locus Award, A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller

A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.

“As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure.”

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid ― a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

Top 10 in Fantasy

The Witches of Karres
by James H. Schmitz

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED . . .

Captain Pausert thought his luck had finally turned—but he did not yet realize it was a turn for the worse. On second thought, make that a turn for the disastrous*.

Unlucky in love, unsuccessful in business, he thought he had finally made good with his battered starship Venture, cruising around the fringes of the Empire and successfully selling off odd-ball cargoes which no one else had been able to sell. He was all set to return home, where his true love was faithfully waiting for him … he hoped.

But then he made the fatal mistake of freeing three slave children from their masters (who were suspiciously eager to part with them). They were just trying to be helpful, but those three adorable little girls quickly made Pausert the mortal enemy of his fiancee, his home planet, the Empire, warlike Sirians, psychopathic Uldanians, the dread pirate chieftain Laes Yango—and even the Worm World, the darkest threat to mankind in all of space.

And all because those harmless-looking little girls were in fact three of the notorious and universally feared Witches of Karres. A rollicking novel from the master of space adventure.

Pawn of Prophecy (The Belgariad Book 1)
by David Eddings

A fierce dispute among the Gods and the theft of a powerful Orb leaves the World divided into five kingdoms. Young Garion, with his “Aunt Pol” and an elderly man calling himself Wolf –a father and daughter granted near-immortality by one of the Gods — set out on a complex mission. In the process, as Garion grows into his early teens, he learns to defend himself, grapples with a wild boar, uncovers spies at a king’s palace, learns about sorceryand starts to gain a sense of what his own destiny may be.

Glory Road
by Robert A. Heinlein

Recovering from combat duty, E.C. “Scar” Gordon encounters a beautiful, sensual woman who sweeps him from this universe into another that seems far more dangerous… Dragons, hostile guards and strange customs are just some of the challenges confronting Gordon, who must respond with courage, skill and grace.

Heinlein’s wit, wisdom, social commentary and humor are on full display in this brilliant fantasy novel that presents other worlds to illuminate and evaluate our own.

Called “a triumph” by the Chicago Tribune, The Reader’s Guide to Fantasy wrote “GLORY ROAD is a tour de force performance that delights lovers of both fantasy and science fiction.”

About the author:
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), often called the Science Fiction Grand Master, was the author of such ground-breaking novels as STARSHIP TROOPERS, RED PLANET, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND and THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS.

Magic’s Pawn (Last Herald-Mage Book 1)
by Mercedes Lackey (Author)

Groundbreaking epic fantasy series in Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar universe • Lambda-Award winning novels with heartfelt high adventure and magic

Though Vanyel has been born with near-legendary abilities to work both Herald and Mage magic, he wanted no part in such things. Nor does he seek a warrior’s path, wishing instead to become a Bard.

Yet such talent as his, if left untrained, may prove a menace not only to Vanyel but to others as well. So he is sent to be fostered with his aunt, Savil, one of the fame Herald-Mages of Valdemar.

But, strong-willed and self-centered, Vanyel is a challenge which even Savil cannot master alone. For soon he will become the focus of frightening forces, lending his raw magic to a spell that unleashes terrifying wyr-hunters on the land.

The Hobbit: 75th Anniversary Edition
by J.R.R. Tolkien

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum.

The Traitor’s Game (The Traitor’s Game, Book One)
by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Hearts and loyalties collide in this electrifying new YA series from New York Times bestselling author Jennifer A. Nielsen.

Jennifer A. Nielsen’s New York Times bestseller The Traitor’s Game, which Entertainment Weekly called “the next big YA fantasy,” is perfect for fans of the Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard and the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. Kestra Dallisor has spent three years in exile in the Lava Fields, but that won’t stop her from being drawn back into her father’s palace politics. He’s second-in-command to the cruel king, Lord Endrick, which makes Kestra a valuable bargaining chip. A group of rebels knows this — and they snatch Kestra from her carriage as she reluctantly travels home. The kidnappers want her to retrieve the lost Olden Blade, the only object that can destroy the king, but Kestra is not the obedient captive they expected. One of the rebels, Simon, has his hands full as Kestra tries to foil their plot, by any means necessary. As motives shift and secrets emerge, both have to decide what — and who — it is they’re fighting for.

By the Sword (Kerowyn’s Tale Book 1)
by Mercedes Lackey

Granddaughter of the sorceress Kethry, daughter of a noble house, Kerowyn had been forced to run the family keep since her mother’s untimely death. Yet now at last her brother was preparing to wed, and when his bride became the lady of the keep, Kerowyn could return to her true enjoyments – training horses and hunting.

But all Kerowyn’s hopes and plans were shattered when her anscestral home was attacked, her father slain, her brother wounded, and his fiancee kidnapped. Drive by desperation and the knowledge that a scorcerer had led the journey which would prove but he first step on the road to the fulfillment of her destiny.

The City We Became: A Novel (The Great Cities Book 1)
by N. K. Jemisin

Three-time Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N.K. Jemisin crafts her most incredible novel yet, a “glorious” story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City.

In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn’t remember who he is, where he’s from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power.

In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it’s as if the paint is literally calling to her.

In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels.

Mistborn: The Final Empire (Book No. 1)
by Brandon Sanderson

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, the Mistborn series is a heist story of political intrigue and magical, martial-arts action.

For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the “Sliver of Infinity,” reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler’s most hellish prison. Kelsier “snapped” and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.

Kelsier recruited the underworld’s elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Only then does he reveal his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.

But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel’s plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she’s a half-Skaa orphan, but she’s lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

This saga dares to ask a simple question: What if the hero of prophecy fails?

The Way of Kings Mass Market Paperback
by Brandon Sanderson

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, Book One of the Stormlight Archive begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar’s niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan’s motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Honorable Mentions

My second Liquid Cool novel made the sci-fi list, but this post is about uplifting other authors. Though, here are my honorable mentions for both sci-fi and fantasy.

Blade Gunner: The Cyberpunk Detective Series (Liquid Cool Book 2)
by Austin Dragon

The Futuristic Thriller Blade Gunner Keeps You on the Edge of Your Seat!
Liquid Cool is the action-packed (and funny), sci fi detective series.

Who is Blade Gunner?

In the next installment of the sci-fi series, author Austin Dragon shows you when two forces of evil want to kill each other—get the hell out of the way! The Liquid Cool Series is the sci-fi classic, Blade Runner meets the Old Hollywood crime fiction, The Maltese Falcon. There’s plenty of gritty action, suspense, thrills, and even a few laughs.

Sinister secret megacorporations. Savage cyborg cults. And the Blade Gunner. How does Cruz, our private detective (and unlikely hero), solve this case—let alone survive? Off-worlders will do anything to stop the unknown fugitive called Blade Gunner—even if it means blowing up a supercity from space! Seedy spousal surveillance cases don’t look so bad after all, but it’s too late to go back. You haven’t read cyberpunk science fiction like this.

Welcome to the high-tech, low-life world of Liquid Cool.

In the Shadow of the Kings: Fabled Quest Chronicles (Book 2)
by Austin Dragon

With shadowy monsters and dark magic, the Kings’ Caravan almost killed them all before the quest had even begun! But why?

They escaped the treachery and dark magic of the Four Kings of Xenhelm, but not without losses. However, the Fates have smiled upon them all with the stranger—and now their leader—known as Traveler. He is a human who has not only traveled to the fabled kingdom of Atlantea before but lived there. They are now the new Titan’s Caravan.

They cross beyond the Lands of Man into the Lands Between, and into Faë-Land—or, more precisely, Faë-Land Minor—the lands of fairies, sprites, and giants. Here they must travel and survive to find fae members to add to their caravan. “We cannot make it to Atlantea as a caravan of humans alone,” Traveler tells them. But which fae–fairies, sprites, giants, elves, or any one of the many fae races unknown to humans?

They still travel In the Shadow of the Kings. Every step, every encounter they make could be a new trap. And there are new creatures and hostile fae races as diverse and dangerous as anything the humans could imagine.