Best science fiction novels by year
Here’s my list of best SF novels, updated for ones I read in 2014.
| Winner | Runner Ups | |||||
| Year | Author | Title | Author | Title | ||
| 2012 | Kim Stanley Robinson | 2312 | hN | Orson Scott Card | Shadows in Flight | |
| Robert J. Sawyer | Triggers | |||||
| John Scalzi | Redshirts | H | ||||
| 2011 | Will McIntosh | Soft Apocalpyse | Robert J. Sawyer | Wonder | ||
| Joan Slonczewski | The Highest Frontier | |||||
| 2010 | Robert J. Sawyer | Watch | ||||
| 2009 | Robert Charles Wilson | Julian Comstock | h | Robert J. Sawyer | Wake | h |
| 2008 | Alastair Reynolds | House of Suns | Orson Scott Card | Ender in Exile | ||
| Douglas Preston | Blasphemy | |||||
| 2007 | Joe Haldeman | The Accidental Time Machine | n | Stephen Baxter | Conqueror | |
| Robert J. Sawyer | Rollback | h | ||||
| 2006 | Peter Watts | Blindsight | h | Stephen Baxter | Emperor | |
| Julie E. Czerneda | Regeneration | |||||
| John Scalzi | The Android’s Dream | |||||
| 2005 | Robert Charles Wilson | Spin | H | Julie E. Czerneda | Migration | |
| Karin Lowachee | Cagebird | |||||
| Robert J. Sawyer | Mindscan | |||||
| John Scalzi | Old Man’s War | h | ||||
| John Varley | Mammoth | |||||
| Edward Willett | Lost in Translation | |||||
| 2004 | Julie E. Czerneda | Survival | ||||
| James Alan Gardner | Radiant | |||||
| 2003 | Robert Charles Wilson | Blind Lake | h | Julie E. Czerneda | Hidden in Sight | |
| William Gibson | Pattern Recognition | |||||
| Karin Lowachee | Burndive | |||||
| Robert J. Sawyer | Humans | h | ||||
| Robert J. Sawyer | Hybrids | |||||
| 2002 | Stephen Baxter | Evolution | David Brin | Kiln People | ||
| Robert J. Sawyer | Hominids | H | Julie E. Czerneda | To Trade the Stars | ||
| Karin Lowachee | Warchild | |||||
| Scott Mackay | Orbis | |||||
| Jim Munroe | Everyone in Silico | |||||
| Karl Schroeder | Permanence | |||||
| Michael Swanwick | Bones of the Earth | hn | ||||
| 2001 | Connie Willis | Passage | hn | Julie E. Czerneda | In the Company of Others | |
| Robert Charles Wilson | The Chronoliths | h | Candas Jane Dorsey | A Paradigm of Earth | ||
| James Alan Gardner | Ascending | |||||
| Scott Mackay | The Meek | |||||
| Adam Roberts | On | |||||
| 2000 | Ursula K. Le Guin | The Telling | Julie E. Czerneda | Changing Vision | ||
| Robert J. Sawyer | Calculating God | h | James Alan Gardner | Hunted | ||
| Jim Munroe | Angry Young Spaceman | |||||
| Alastair Reynolds | Revelation Space | |||||
| Karl Schroeder | Ventus | |||||
| Joan Slonczewski | Brain Plague | |||||
| 1999 | Neal Stephenson | Cryptonomicon | h | Orson Scott Card | Ender’s Shadow | |
| Vernor Vinge | A Deepness in the Sky | Hn | Julie E. Czerneda | Ties of Power | ||
| James Alan Gardner | Vigilant | |||||
| Robert J. Sawyer | Flashforward | |||||
| Peter Watts | Starfish | |||||
| 1998 | Robert J. Sawyer | Factoring Humanity | h | Julie E. Czerneda | Beholder’s Eye | |
| Robert Charles Wilson | Darwinia | h | James Alan Gardner | Commitment Hour | ||
| Nalo Hopkinson | Brown Girl in the Ring | |||||
| Scott Mackay | Outpost | |||||
| Jack McDevitt | Eternity Road | |||||
| Connie Willis | To Say Nothing of the Dog | Hn | ||||
| 1997 | Dan Simmons | The Rise of Endymion | h | Julie E. Czerneda | A Thousand Words for Stranger | |
| James Alan Gardner | Expendable | |||||
| Robert J. Sawyer | Illegal Alien | |||||
| Robert Wright | A Scientific Romance | |||||
| 1996 | Robert J. Sawyer | Starplex | hn | Orson Scott Card | Children of the Mind | |
| Orson Scott Card | Pastwatch | Peter F. Hamilton | The Reality Dysfunction | |||
| Jack McDevitt | Ancient Shores | n | ||||
| Dan Simmons | Endymion | |||||
| Alison Sinclair | Blueheart | |||||
| 1995 | Neal Stephenson | The Diamond Age | Hn | Julia Ecklar | ReGenesis | |
| Robert J. Sawyer | The Terminal Experiment | hN | ||||
| 1994 | Vonda N. McIntyre | Nautilus | Robert J. Sawyer | End of an Era | ||
| Robert Charles Wilson | Mysterium | |||||
| 1993 | Joan Slonczewski | Daughter of Elysium | ||||
| 1992 | Neal Stephenson | Snow Crash | Greg Egan | Quarantine | ||
| Vernor Vinge | A Fire Upon the Deep | Hn | Maureen F. McHugh | China Mountain Zhang | hn | |
| Vonda N. McIntyre | Metaphase | |||||
| Kim Stanley Robinson | Red Mars | hN | ||||
| Connie Willis | Doomsday Book | HN | ||||
| Robert Charles Wilson | The Harvest | |||||
| 1991 | Isaac Asimov | Forward the Foundation | Orson Scott Card | Xenocide | h | |
| Vonda N. McIntyre | Transition | |||||
| 1990 | Robert J. Sawyer | Golden Fleece | Iain M. Banks | Use of Weapons | ||
| Michael Crichton | Jurassic Park | |||||
| Dan Simmons | The Fall of Hyperion | hn | ||||
| 1989 | Dan Simmons | Hyperion | H | Vonda N. McIntyre | Starfarers | |
| Joan Slonczewski | The Wall Around Eden | |||||
| 1988 | Iain M. Banks | The Player of Games | Isaac Asimov | Prelude to Foundation | ||
| Jack L. Chalker | Masks of the Martyrs | |||||
| Kim Stanley Robinson | The Gold Coast | |||||
| Kim Stanley Robinson | Pacific Edge | |||||
| Sheri S. Tepper | The Gate to Women’s Country | |||||
| 1987 | Iain M. Banks | Consider Phlebas | Jack L. Chalker | Warriors of the Storm | ||
| Jack L. Chalker | Pirates of the Thunder | |||||
| Michael Crichton | Sphere | |||||
| 1986 | Orson Scott Card | Speaker for the Dead | HN | Isaac Asimov | Foundation and Earth | |
| Joan Slonczewski | A Door Into Ocean | Jack L. Chalker | Lords of the Middle Dark | |||
| Arthur C. Clarke | The Songs of Distant Earth | |||||
| Wayland Drew | The Master of Norriya | |||||
| Clifford D. Simak | Highway of Eternity | |||||
| Vernor Vinge | Marooned in Realtime | h | ||||
| 1985 | Orson Scott Card | Ender’s Game | HN | Greg Bear | Blood Music | hn |
| Greg Bear | Eon | |||||
| David Brin | The Postman | hn | ||||
| Wayland Drew | The Gaian Expedient | |||||
| Carl Sagan | Contact | |||||
| 1984 | Kim Stanley Robinson | The Wild Shore | n | Douglas Adams | So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish | |
| Wayland Drew | The Memoirs of Alcheringia | |||||
| Suzette Haden Elgin | Native Tongue | |||||
| William Gibson | Neuromancer | HN | ||||
| Vernor Vinge | The Peace War | h | ||||
| 1983 | ||||||
| 1982 | Isaac Asimov | Foundation’s Edge | Hn | Douglas Adams | Life, the Universe and Everything | |
| 1981 | Clifford D. Simak | Project Pope | h | Julian May | The Many-Colored Land | hn |
| 1980 | Douglas Adams | The Restaurant at the End of the Universe | Joan Slonczewski | Still Forms on Foxfield | ||
| Gene Wolfe | The Shadow of the Torturer | nW | ||||
| 1979 | Douglas Adams | The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | Arthur C. Clarke | The Fountains of Paradise | HN | |
| 1978 | ||||||
| 1977 | Frederik Pohl | Gateway | HN | |||
| 1976 | ||||||
| 1975 | ||||||
| 1974 | Ursula K. Le Guin | The Dispossessed | HN | Joe Haldeman | The Forever War | HN |
| Niven & Pournelle | The Mote in God’s Eye | hn | ||||
| 1973 | David Gerrold | The Man Who Folded Himself | hn | Arthur C. Clarke | Rendezvous With Rama | HN |
| 1972 | Isaac Asimov | The Gods Themselves | HN | John Brunner | The Sheep Look Up | n |
| Robert Silverberg | Dying Inside | hn | ||||
| Arkady & Boris Strugatsky | Roadside Picnic | |||||
| 1971 | Ursula K. Le Guin | The Lathe of Heaven | hn | |||
| 1970 | Larry Niven | Ringworld | HN | |||
| 1969 | Ursula K. Le Guin | The Left Hand of Darkness | HN | Michael Crichton | The Andromeda Strain | |
| Philip K. Dick | UBIK | |||||
| Frank Herbert | Dune Messiah | hn | ||||
| Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. | Slaughterhouse-Five | hn | ||||
| 1968 | Arthur C. Clarke | 2001: A Space Odyssey | Philip K. Dick | Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | n | |
| Anne McCaffrey | Dragonflight | |||||
| 1967 | Ursula K. Le Guin | City of Illusions | ||||
| 1966 | Ursula K. Le Guin | Rocannon’s World | Robert A Heinlein | The Moon is a Harsh Mistress | Hn | |
| Ursula K. Le Guin | Planet of Exile | |||||
| 1965 | Frank Herbert | Dune | HN | |||
| 1964 | ||||||
| 1963 | Clifford D. Simak | Way Station | H | Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. | Cat’s Cradle | h |
| 1962 | Philip K. Dick | The Man in the High Castle | H | Madeline L’Engle | A Wrinkle in Time | |
| 1961 | Harry Harrison | The Stainless Steel Rat | Robert A Heinlein | Stranger in a Strange Land | H | |
| Stanislaw Lem | Solaris | |||||
| 1960 | Walter M. Miller, Jr. | A Canticle for Leibowitz | H | |||
| 1959 | Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. | The Sirens of Titan | h | |||
| 1958 | James Blish | A Case of Conscience | H | |||
| 1957 | ||||||
| 1956 | Alfred Bester | The Stars My Destination | ||||
| Arthur C. Clarke | The City and the Stars | |||||
| 1955 | Isaac Asimov | The End Of Eternity | ||||
| 1954 | Arthur C. Clarke | Childhood’s End | Isaac Asimov | The Caves of Steel | ||
| Ray Bradbury | Fahrenheit 451 | |||||
| 1953 | Alfred Bester | The Demolished Man | H | Isaac Asimov | Second Foundation | |
| Theodore Sturgeon | More Than Human | |||||
| 1952 | Clifford D. Simak | City | Isaac Asimov | Foundation and Empire | ||
| 1951 | Isaac Asimov | Foundation | John Wyndham | The Day of the Triffids | ||
| 1950 | Ray Bradbury | The Martian Chronicles | ||||
| 1949 | George Orwell | Nineteen Eighty-Four | ||||