Scifi Orthogonal

48 complete novel companions

Find your next science-fiction novel.

Search a title, author, or idea, or choose one reading intent.

Where to begin

A good place to start

One editor-weighted standalone or first volume, followed by every mapped novel.

Editor’s starting pointThe Mountain in the SeaRay NaylerA marine biologist reaches a corporate-emptied island to learn whether an octopus community has language—then discovers that recognition may make them more valuable and less safe.A featured layered journey through mystery and existential.About 12 hoursLayeredStandaloneOpen complete guide
Mystery · DangerLeviathan WakesJames S. A. CoreyAn ice-hauler officer and a Belt detective follow one missing woman into a conspiracy capable of turning political tension into system-wide war.A featured accessible journey through mystery and danger.About 15 hoursAccessibleThe Expanse · Volume 1
Existential · MysteryThe DispossessedUrsula K. Le GuinA physicist leaves an austere anarchist moon for its wealthy rival world, hoping to free a theory that both societies have learned to contain.A featured demanding journey through existential and mystery.About 10 hoursDemandingStandalone
Mystery · DangerDawnOctavia E. ButlerLilith wakes alone on a living alien ship and learns that her rescuers will return humanity to Earth only by changing what future humans can be.A featured layered journey through mystery and danger.About 8 hoursLayeredLilith’s Brood · Volume 1
Mystery · DangerAncillary JusticeAnn LeckieA starship intelligence reduced to one vulnerable human body crosses an icy planet with a single purpose: reach the ruler who destroyed the rest of her.A featured demanding journey through mystery and danger.About 11 hoursDemandingImperial Radch · Volume 1
Mystery · DangerBlindsightPeter WattsAfter alien probes map Earth and vanish, a man who reads people without feeling close to them joins a radically altered crew sent to meet an intelligence that may not need awareness at all.A featured demanding journey through mystery and danger.About 10 hoursDemandingFirefall · Volume 1
Danger · HopeParable of the SowerOctavia E. ButlerLauren Olamina knows the walls around her neighborhood cannot hold forever, so she prepares to survive a collapse the adults around her refuse to imagine.A featured layered journey through danger and hope.About 9 hoursLayeredParable · Volume 1
Awe · DangerChildren of TimeAdrian TchaikovskyThe last human ark reaches a terraformed refuge and discovers that another civilization has inherited it across thousands of years.A featured layered journey through awe and danger.About 15 hoursLayeredChildren of Time · Volume 1
Mystery · DangerA Memory Called EmpireArkady MartineAmbassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the imperial capital carrying an outdated memory of her predecessor—and learns that he has died under suspicious circumstances.A featured layered journey through mystery and danger.About 12 hoursLayeredTeixcalaan · Volume 1
Mystery · AweContactCarl SaganWhen radio astronomer Ellie Arroway finds a prime-number signal from Vega, decoding it gives humanity instructions for a Machine no one can prove is invitation rather than trap.A featured layered journey through mystery and awe.About 10 hoursLayeredStandalone
Mystery · DangerThe Three-Body ProblemCixin LiuThe universe starts counting down inside a scientist’s eyes. To learn why, he must enter a world with three suns—and follow a signal humanity may regret sending.A featured demanding journey through mystery and danger.About 11 hoursDemandingRemembrance of Earth’s Past · Volume 1
Danger · MysteryDuneFrank HerbertPaul Atreides arrives on a desert world knowing his family has entered a trap—and discovers that surviving it may turn him into the future he fears.A featured demanding journey through danger and mystery.About 17 hoursDemandingDune Chronicles · Volume 1
Awe · DangerThe Clockwork RocketGreg EganWhen lethal meteors cross her world's history, physicist Yalda must turn a mountain into a rocket—and entrust salvation to generations she will never meet.A featured demanding journey through awe and danger.About 11 hoursDemandingOrthogonal · Volume 1
Mystery · DangerProject Hail MaryAndy WeirA scientist wakes alone on a starship with two dead crewmates, no memory, and one impossible assignment: learn why a distant star is surviving the same disaster killing the Sun.A featured layered journey through mystery and danger.About 13 hoursLayeredStandalone
Danger · HopeThe MartianAndy WeirLeft for dead on Mars, Mark Watney must turn a short-stay habitat into a system that can keep him alive long enough for distant humans to reach him.A featured accessible journey through danger and hope.About 10 hoursAccessibleStandalone
Danger · Existential1984George OrwellA records clerk who rewrites the past begins a private rebellion and learns that the Party wants more than obedience: it wants control over what reality can mean.A featured accessible journey through danger and existential.About 9 hoursAccessibleStandalone
Existential · MysteryA Canticle for LeibowitzWalter M. Miller Jr.An order of monks preserves blueprints and shopping lists through a post-nuclear dark age, only to watch recovered knowledge rebuild the power to destroy civilization again.A featured demanding journey through existential and mystery.About 9 hoursDemandingSaint Leibowitz · Volume 1
Danger · MysteryAltered CarbonRichard K. MorganA stored soldier is transmitted into a stranger's body to investigate a rich man's death in a society where immortality is real only for people who can afford its infrastructure.A featured demanding journey through danger and mystery.About 10 hoursDemandingTakeshi Kovacs · Volume 1
Mystery · AweAnathemNeal StephensonA young scholar raised behind monastery walls follows his exiled teacher into a planetary crisis where rival intellectual traditions must decide whether an alien ship is a visitor, a mirror, or a weapon.A featured demanding journey through mystery and awe.About 26 hoursDemandingStandalone
Awe · ExistentialDiasporaGreg EganA digital person born without a human original joins a civilization-wide flight from astrophysical disaster and follows a trail beyond familiar space, bodies, and universes.A featured demanding journey through awe and existential.About 11 hoursDemandingStandalone
Awe · SurpriseFoundationIsaac AsimovA mathematician predicts imperial collapse, exiles a knowledge project to the galaxy's edge, and leaves later leaders to discover how science can become political leverage.A featured layered journey through awe and surprise.About 7 hoursLayeredFoundation Trilogy · Volume 1
Mystery · AweHyperionDan SimmonsSeven pilgrims travel toward a time-reversing valley and the Shrike, telling the stories that made each of them part of the same approaching catastrophe.A featured demanding journey through mystery and awe.About 13 hoursDemandingHyperion Cantos · Volume 1
Danger · MysteryNeuromancerWilliam GibsonA burned-out data thief gets his nervous system repaired for one final run, only to discover that the employer directing the heist is an artificial mind seeking merger.A featured demanding journey through danger and mystery.About 8 hoursDemandingSprawl Trilogy · Volume 1
Danger · AweThe War of the WorldsH. G. WellsAn unnamed observer crosses a collapsing Victorian England after Martian machines make imperial confidence, military power, and human ownership of Earth suddenly irrelevant.A featured accessible journey through danger and awe.About 6 hoursAccessibleStandalone
Mystery · ExistentialThere Is No Antimemetics DivisionqntmResearchers fight ideas that erase their own traces from memory, leaving marriages, institutions, and an entire war dependent on evidence nobody can remember creating.A featured demanding journey through mystery and existential.About 7 hoursDemandingStandalone
Danger · ExistentialThe Dark ForestCixin LiuHumanity can prepare for an invasion everyone can see, but its only secure hiding place may be a single private mind.A featured demanding journey through danger and existential.About 14 hoursDemandingRemembrance of Earth’s Past · Volume 2
Existential · AweDeath’s EndCixin LiuAcross centuries of borrowed time, one aerospace engineer inherits decisions that ask whether compassion can protect a civilization—or expose it.A featured demanding journey through existential and awe.About 17 hoursDemandingRemembrance of Earth’s Past · Volume 3
Danger · ExistentialNemesis GamesJames S. A. CoreyWith the Rocinante crew scattered across the solar system, four private journeys expose a coordinated attack designed to break the old political order.A featured layered journey through danger and existential.About 14 hoursLayeredThe Expanse · Volume 5
Danger · HopeCaliban's WarJames S. A. CoreyA vanished child, a Martian marine's impossible battlefield report, and a political struggle on Earth pull the Rocinante toward another protomolecule crisis.A featured layered journey through danger and hope.About 16 hoursLayeredThe Expanse · Volume 2
Danger · HopeThe Eternal FlameGreg EganThree generations into the Peerless voyage, Tamara, Carlo, Carla, and Patrizia must solve fuel and population crises without letting survival make anyone's body expendable.A featured demanding journey through danger and hope.About 10 hoursDemandingOrthogonal · Volume 2
Awe · DangerAbaddon's GateJames S. A. CoreyWhen an alien Ring opens beyond Uranus, a human flotilla carries its old rivalries into a place whose physical rules no one understands.A featured layered journey through awe and danger.About 14 hoursLayeredThe Expanse · Volume 3
Awe · MysteryThe Arrows of TimeGreg EganAs the Peerless finally turns for home, Agata and Ramiro must decide whether news from their own future can protect free choice—or quietly abolish it.A featured demanding journey through awe and mystery.About 12 hoursDemandingOrthogonal · Volume 3
Danger · MysteryCibola BurnJames S. A. CoreyOn the first contested colony beyond the Rings, refugees and a corporate expedition fight over one world while its alien systems begin waking beneath them.A featured layered journey through danger and mystery.About 16 hoursLayeredThe Expanse · Volume 4
Danger · HopeBabylon's AshesJames S. A. CoreyAfter the attacks on Earth, the Free Navy controls the Belt and the routes to new worlds, forcing old enemies to build an alliance that can survive its own history.A featured layered journey through danger and hope.About 14 hoursLayeredThe Expanse · Volume 6
Danger · ExistentialPersepolis RisingJames S. A. CoreyDecades after the Free Navy war, an empire returns from isolation with alien-enhanced warships and a plan to place every human world under one command.A featured layered journey through danger and existential.About 15 hoursLayeredThe Expanse · Volume 7
Danger · ExistentialTiamat's WrathJames S. A. CoreyWith Holden imprisoned and the Rocinante crew dispersed, a hidden resistance confronts Laconia while experiments awaken the force that destroyed the gate builders.A featured demanding journey through danger and existential.About 14 hoursDemandingThe Expanse · Volume 8
Existential · DangerLeviathan FallsJames S. A. CoreyAs the gate network begins turning human minds against one another, the scattered survivors of Laconia must decide whether unity is salvation or extinction by another name.A featured demanding journey through existential and danger.About 14 hoursDemandingThe Expanse · Volume 9
Danger · MysteryBroken AngelsRichard K. MorganTakeshi Kovacs deserts a planetary war for a corporate salvage mission whose prize is a functioning gateway to an ancient Martian starship.A featured demanding journey through danger and mystery.About 10 hoursDemandingTakeshi Kovacs · Volume 2
Mystery · ExistentialChildren of MemoryAdrian TchaikovskyA child remembers incompatible histories of a failing colony while hidden visitors discover that the settlement may be a mind rehearsing lives that never happened.A featured demanding journey through mystery and existential.About 13 hoursDemandingChildren of Time · Volume 3
Awe · DangerChildren of RuinAdrian TchaikovskyA human-spider expedition follows an old signal to two engineered worlds where uplifted octopuses and an alien organism make contact inseparable from infection.A featured demanding journey through awe and danger.About 14 hoursDemandingChildren of Time · Volume 2
Danger · ExistentialChildren of StrifeAdrian TchaikovskyA traumatized researcher and a mantis-shrimp captain descend to a living world where uploaded terraformers have spent millennia fighting through evolution itself.A featured demanding journey through danger and existential.About 18 hoursDemandingChildren of Time · Volume 4
Existential · DangerEchopraxiaPeter WattsAn unmodified biologist is forced aboard a mission with hive minds, soldiers who switch off awareness, and a vampire whose plans intersect an alien intelligence.A featured demanding journey through existential and danger.About 10 hoursDemandingFirefall · Volume 2
Danger · MysteryEndymionDan SimmonsCenturies after the WorldWeb falls, Raul Endymion rescues a girl from the Time Tombs and flees a resurrection empire through the dead paths of its former portals.A featured layered journey through danger and mystery.About 15 hoursLayeredHyperion Cantos · Volume 3
Danger · MysteryFoundation and EmpireIsaac AsimovThe Seldon Plan survives the Empire's greatest general, then fails in front of a conqueror who can change the emotions that mass prediction assumes will average out.A featured layered journey through danger and mystery.About 7 hoursLayeredFoundation Trilogy · Volume 2
Mystery · SurpriseSecond FoundationIsaac AsimovTwo searches hunt the hidden guardians of the Seldon Plan, only to discover that every apparent victory may be the belief those guardians needed their pursuers to hold.A featured demanding journey through mystery and surprise.About 7 hoursDemandingFoundation Trilogy · Volume 3
Danger · ExistentialThe Fall of HyperionDan SimmonsAs war reaches Hyperion, a new Keats cybrid dreams the pilgrims' fates and helps expose that humanity's instant-travel network is also the TechnoCore's hidden body.A featured demanding journey through danger and existential.About 15 hoursDemandingHyperion Cantos · Volume 2
Hope · DangerThe Rise of EndymionDan SimmonsAenea begins teaching a direct, embodied alternative to Pax resurrection while Raul crosses years of time debt to rejoin her before the Core closes its trap.A featured demanding journey through hope and danger.About 20 hoursDemandingHyperion Cantos · Volume 4
Danger · ExistentialWoken FuriesRichard K. MorganBack on Harlan's World, Kovacs protects a deCom leader who may contain a dead revolutionary while a younger copy of himself is sent to hunt them both.A featured demanding journey through danger and existential.About 12 hoursDemandingTakeshi Kovacs · Volume 3

Curated shelves

Follow an idea across several worlds.

Editorial themes can overlap. Official series remain in publication order.

01 · First contact · incompatible repliesThe Universe Answers Back11 novels02 · Survival by systems, iteration, and nerveHope Is an Engineering Discipline3 novels03 · Chronology becomes terrainTime Has Teeth7 novels04 · Closed worlds · costly resources · survival economicsNothing Wasted, Nothing Free6 novels05 · Minds · bodies · recognitionWho Counts as a Person?8 novels06 · Property · access · political imaginationThe Future Has Owners11 novels07 · Embodiment · translation · shared meaningOther Minds, Other Languages5 novels08 · Climate · habitat · shared survivalA Planet Is a Relationship5 novels09 · Intelligence takes unfamiliar shapesMany Minds, Many Bodies9 novels10 · Records · models · networks · authorityReality Is an Infrastructure8 novels11 · Official trilogy · Remembrance of Earth’s PastEarth Against the Dark3 novels12 · Official trilogy · OrthogonalPhysics Turned Sideways3 novels13 · Official series · The ExpanseHumanity Beyond the Rings9 novels14 · Official series · Children of TimeEvolution Beyond Humanity4 novels15 · Official series · FirefallFirefall at the Edge2 novels16 · Official series · Hyperion CantosPilgrims Through Time4 novels17 · Official trilogy · FoundationHistory by Equation3 novels18 · Official trilogy · Takeshi KovacsOne Mind, Many Bodies3 novels