Best science fiction novels by year
Here are what I think are the best science fiction novels of the year plus runner ups, going all the way back to 1949. Prior to that, notable books include Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, The Time Machine and War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I’ve given out a fair number of ties for winner, but it’s my list so there.
The Hugo awards for best novel started in 1953. I’ll put a capital H beside titles that won the Hugo and a small h beside titles that were nominated. The Nebula awards for best novel started in 1965, marked with N and n. The World Fantasy awards for best novel started in 1975, marked with W and w.
One thing this list shows you is that there are lots of great books that weren’t nominated for awards. The best year for science fiction novels, in terms of the highest number of brilliant books, is 1992.
Here are the big winners:
- Ursula K. Le Guin and Robert J. Sawyer are winners 6 times
- Isaac Asimov and Robert Charles Wilson are winners 5 times
- Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke, Clifford D. Simak, and Neal Stephenson are winners 3 times
| Winner | Runner Ups | |||||
| Year | Author | Title | Author | Title | ||
| 2012 | John Scalzi | Redshirts | H | Robert J. Sawyer | Triggers | |
| 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 | ||
| 2007 | Joe Haldeman | The Accidental Time Machine | n | Robert J. Sawyer | Rollback | h |
| 2006 | Peter Watts | Blindsight | h | 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 | ||||
| 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 | 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 | |||||
| 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 | |||||
| 1985 | Orson Scott Card | Ender’s Game | HN | Greg Bear | Blood Music | hn |
| Greg Bear | Eon | |||||
| 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 | ||||
| 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 Sheeep 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 | |||||
| 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 | ||||