science fiction story opening examples

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10 sci-fi novel opening lines that’ll take your breath away

The opening sentence of a science fiction novel, perhaps more than any other genre, has a lot of work to do. Like all good fiction, it needs to hook you, jolt you into the story and establish the tone. Yet it also needs to get you interested in a whole new alternative world, a place where you’ll live for the duration of the book. It’s a big ask. Nonetheless, there are some masterly examples of opening lines that do that and more. Here are ten that, quite literally, take our breath away.

“I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one.”   Ender’s Game,  Orson Scott Card.

Most of the time starting a novel with dialogue is a big no, no. We don’t know who the character is, so we have no idea of the context or whether we should care what they say. Scott Card gets away with it, though, because the line is simply so intriguing and raises so many questions we need answered.

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” – Neuromancer,  William Gibson.

Another often cited rule of writing is that you should never start a story with a description of the weather. With this stunningly atmospheric opener, Gibson shows why rules are made to be broken. It’s such a vivid image and hints at a very ominous world in a way that prickles the readers’ curiosity.

“A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard.” – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick

It’s all about the “mood organ” in Dick’s classic opener. The concept is strangely fascinating and conjures up images of an old fashioned instrument with the power to understand a human’s feelings. This opening very much sets the scene for a world we want to know more about.

“Monday morning when I answered the door there were twenty-one new real estate agents there, all in horrible polyester gold jackets.” – The Hacker And The Ants, Version 2.0,  Rudy Rucker.

Surreal in the Hunter S. Thompson road trip mold, this opening freaks you out in so many different ways. Real estate agents are horrific at the best of times, but so many of them dressed so hideously shouts bizarre, bizarre, bizarre. Immediately, you empathise with the narrator but more importantly you want to know what he has done to deserve such a nightmarish visit.

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13.”   1984 , George Orwell.

Arguably, one of the most famous sci-fi opening lines, what makes this such a classic is the way it lulls you into thinking nothing is amiss until the very final word. Clocks don’t strike 13, we tell ourselves. Then the full implications of the sentence become apparent. Here is a world where the very nature of time keeping itself has been redefined. Who wouldn’t want to know how and, more importantly, why?

“The morning after he killed Eugene Shapiro, Andre Deschenes woke early.” –  Undertow,  Elizabeth Bear.

It’s the juxtaposition between the everyday and the horrific, which makes this such a fantastic opening sentence. Its added kick comes from the fact the mundane comes after the horrific. It makes you wonder what sort of person could sleep at all and what Eugene Shapiro did to deserve his fate.

“At the end, the bottom, the very worst of it, with the world afire and hell’s flamewinged angels calling him by name, Lee Crane blamed himself.” –   Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea , Theodore Sturgeon.

We love the drama and amazing energy of this opening. Add to that the Blakeian imagery, and you absolutely have to know why Lee Crane blames himself.

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” – A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , Douglas Adams

While breathtaking might not be the first adjective that comes to mind when you think of Adams’s classic, this opening ticks all the right boxes. Firstly, the way it underlines the vastness of the universe and, secondly, how it shows how utterly insignificant humans and everything we hold dear are. Brilliant stuff.

“The manhunt extended across more than one hundred light years and eight centuries.”  –  A Deepness In The Sky , Vernor Vinge.

A manhunt is always dramatic, but a manhunt across one hundred light years and eight centuries is obsessive and incredible, both in terms of human endeavour and technology. We want to meet the chaser and the chased and the world that enables them to do such a fantastical thing.

“It was a pleasure to burn.”   Fahrenheit 451 , Ray Bradbury.

Along with Orwell’s magnificent 1984 , Bradbury’s opening line is one of the most famous in science fiction. Succinct yet vivid, it prompts a ton of questions. What was a pleasure to burn? Why was it a pleasure? Who found it pleasurable? Fire is such a sensationally powerful phenomenon, it’s no surprise this line appeals to both our head and our heart.

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Very nice post! Not to be a nitpick, but you forgot to attribute Hitchhiker’s Guide.

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

The Gunslinger, Stephen King

Nailed it! I was disappointed this was not included.

Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Classic! Love it!!!

Great line, but I’d argue that’s it not strictly sci-fi.

Oh yes. I’ll never forget this line. Still gives me goosebumps. Pity that the books got steadily worse (except the one with the flashback).

Yes this would have been my first choice!

I was going to comment with the same quote. 🙂

Awesome background and post’s not bad either 🙂

“The Building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.”

Blood Rites, Jim Butcher ( a Dresden Files novel)

If you did an article about 10 most breathtaking closing lines, at least 8 of them would be Arthur C. Clarke short stories…

“Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.”

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13.”

I think that you have misunderstood this line. Clocks do strike thirteen, especially as is revealed later in the book that the entire country of Oceania runs on military time. In civy time it would be 1:00 PM.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Lucideus.

I didn’t misunderstand it. For the vast majority of people who read that line clocks don’t strike thirteen and that’s all that matters. Of course, once you’ve read the book it’s significance becomes obvious. However, I’m working on the premise that readers who are starting a book don’t already know the ending.

My favorite opening line, even if the book it’s attached to is less than stellar, is the opening sentence of Philip Reeve’s book, Mortal Engines:

“It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.”

Good list, but man, language doesn’t mean anything anymore with the use of hyperbole as heavy as “..take your breath away.”

“The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory”–Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

‘The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He’s got esprit up to here.’

Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson

I love this opening line, but really the opening three or four paragraphs are spectacular. Among the best in scifi.

I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you’re crude, go technical; if they think you’re technical, go crude. I’m a very technical boy.

Sorry, didn’t get the attribution in before posting the above. “Johnny Mnemonic” William Gibson

“On my 75th birthday I did 2 things. First I visited my wife’s grave… Then i signed up for the army”

Old man’s War

“When I was quite small I would sometimes dream of a city — which was strange because it began before I even knew what a city was.”

John Wyndham, “The Chrysalids” (1955)

The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great, green, saurian things surged and bellowed in the swamps below. A thunderstorm was brewing to the north. Bruise-black clouds silhouetted a forest of giant gymnosperms while stratocumulus towered nine kilometers high in a violent sky. Lightning rippled along the horizon. Closer to the ship, occasional vague, reptilian shapes would blunder into the interdiction field, cry out, and then crash away through indigo mists. The Consul concentrated on a difficult section of the Prelude and ignored the approach of storm and nightfall.

The fatline receiver chimed.

“His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god.” How could you not have this one, from Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny??

“It was time to whip the god” from “The god engines” by John Scalzi

“Call me Jonah”.

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Cheeky enough to steal one of the most recognized opening lines in literature. And the use of Jonah, who brought bad luck with him wherever he ran, tells you what you’re about to be in for.

Beowulf was bad.

Of which Sci-Fi novel is this the first line?

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10 sci-fi novel opening lines that’ll take your breath away

The opening sentence of a science fiction novel, perhaps more than any other genre, has a lot of work to do. Like all good fiction, it needs to hook you, jolt you into the story and establish the tone. Yet it also needs to get you interested in a whole new alternative world, a place where you’ll live for the duration of the book. It’s a big ask. Nonetheless, there are some masterly examples of opening lines that do that and more. Here are ten that, quite literally, take our breath away.

“I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one.”   Ender’s Game,  Orson Scott Card.

Most of the time starting a novel with dialogue is a big no, no. We don’t know who the character is, so we have no idea of the context or whether we should care what they say. Scott Card gets away with it, though, because the line is simply so intriguing and raises so many questions we need answered.

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” – Neuromancer,  William Gibson.

Another often cited rule of writing is that you should never start a story with a description of the weather. With this stunningly atmospheric opener, Gibson shows why rules are made to be broken. It’s such a vivid image and hints at a very ominous world in a way that prickles the readers’ curiosity.

A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard.” – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick

It’s all about the “mood organ” in Dick’s classic opener. The concept is strangely fascinating and conjures up images of an old fashioned instrument with the power to understand a human’s feelings. This opening very much sets the scene for a world we want to know more about.

“Monday morning when I answered the door there were twenty-one new real estate agents there, all in horrible polyester gold jackets.” – The Hacker And The Ants, Version 2.0,  Rudy Rucker.

Surreal in the Hunter S. Thompson road trip mold, this opening freaks you out in so many different ways. Real estate agents are horrific at the best of times, but so many of them dressed so hideously shouts bizarre, bizarre, bizarre. Immediately, you empathise with the narrator but more importantly you want to know what he has done to deserve such a nightmarish visit.

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13.”   1984 , George Orwell.

Arguably, one of the most famous sci-fi opening lines, what makes this such a classic is the way it lulls you into thinking nothing is amiss until the very final word. Clocks don’t strike 13, we tell ourselves. Then the full implications of the sentence become apparent. Here is a world where the very nature of time keeping itself has been redefined. Who wouldn’t want to know how and, more importantly, why?

“The morning after he killed Eugene Shapiro, Andre Deschenes woke early.” –  Undertow,  Elizabeth Bear.

It’s the juxtaposition between the everyday and the horrific, which makes this such a fantastic opening sentence. Its added kick comes from the fact the mundane comes after the horrific. It makes you wonder what sort of person could sleep at all and what Eugene Shapiro did to deserve his fate.

“At the end, the bottom, the very worst of it, with the world afire and hell’s flamewinged angels calling him by name, Lee Crane blamed himself.” –   Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea , Theodore Sturgeon.

We love the drama and amazing energy of this opening. Add to that the Blakeian imagery, and you absolutely have to know why Lee Crane blames himself.

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” – A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , Douglas Adams

While breathtaking might not be the first adjective that comes to mind when you think of Adams’s classic, this opening ticks all the right boxes. Firstly, the way it underlines the vastness of the universe and, secondly, how it shows how utterly insignificant humans and everything we hold dear are. Brilliant stuff.

“The manhunt extended across more than one hundred light years and eight centuries.”  –  A Deepness In The Sky , Vernor Vinge.

A manhunt is always dramatic, but a manhunt across one hundred light years and eight centuries is obsessive and incredible, both in terms of human endeavour and technology. We want to meet the chaser and the chased and the world that enables them to do such a fantastical thing.

“It was a pleasure to burn.”   Fahrenheit 451 , Ray Bradbury.

Along with Orwell’s magnificent 1984 , Bradbury’s opening line is one of the most famous in science fiction. Succinct yet vivid, it prompts a ton of questions. What was a pleasure to burn? Why was it a pleasure? Who found it pleasurable? Fire is such a sensationally powerful phenomenon, it’s no surprise this line appeals to both our head and our heart.

Source: inktank

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7 Ways to Start Your Science Fiction Short Story

Oh, those choosy readers! So pressed for time, so easily distracted. If you don’t begin your SF short story in an imaginative, attention-grabbing way, they won’t read further. Let’s find out how to hook them.

Author Charlie Jane Anders wrote a great post citing seven killer openings for SF short stories, with classic examples for each one. I highly recommend her post.

Here, in brief, is my take on her list, with examples from my stories:

1. Set the Scene . Put us ‘there’ right away. Immerse us in the strangeness of your setting. Most SF stories begin this way. Use when setting is important, but get to the plot’s action soon after.

Personal Example, from “ The Sea-Wagon of Yantai :”

Lingbi, China, 205 B.C. Death carpeted the battlefield. Slain soldiers—both dead and gravely wounded—lay on the ground where they had fallen, or floated with the river’s current, their corpses already drawing flies.

2 . Introduce Conflict . Hit us with the problem first. What is your character dealing with? Fill in other details later. Good way to hook readers, but a bit chancy if your bomb’s a dud, or if the rest of the story doesn’t live up to its start.

Personal Example, from “ A Tale More True :”

No one on Earth could detest Baron Münchhausen more than he did. Count Eusebius Horst Siegwart von Federmann felt certain of that.

3 . Mystify . Intrigue and confuse us. Cast us in without knowing our bearings yet. A risky way to start, but when it works, it works well.

Personal Example, from “ The Cats of Nerio-3 :”

No way to explain it—Lani Koamalu felt that prickling, foreboding sense of dread all humans share.

4 . Gather ‘Round, Children . Have a talkative narrator speak to the reader in third person, often addressing the reader as ‘you.’ Often used in humor stories, but you need to keep that narration intriguing, and sustain it.

Personal (though approximate) Example, from “ Reconnaissance Mission :”

While renovating the Jefferson Hall Library at West Point, a staff member found several loose pages tucked into a volume of poems by Ovid. While historians are still authenticating those handwritten pages, what follows is the full text of the manuscript.

5 . There I was . Have the talkative narrator, the main character, self-identifying as “I,” speak to the reader in first person. Often these stories start in a reflective, essay-like tone. Helps readers identify with the main character right away, but you need to get to the plot action and the scene-setting soon after.

No Personal Examples

6 . Start With a Quote . This can be a quote from another document, or (more often) a character speaking. Good way to introduce a character’s personality right away, but if done wrong, this beginning can come off as juvenile.

Personal Example, from “ The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall :”

By a knight of ghostes and shadowes / I summon’d am to tourney / Ten leagues beyond the wild world’s end. / Methinks it is no journey. – Tom O’Bedlam’s Song

7 . Open With a Puzzle . Combine 2. and 3. above to introduce a conflict while also mystifying. This is the most difficult of the seven methods. Great when it works, but awful when it doesn’t.

Personal Example, from “ Moonset :”

“I will kill,” the monster said, “everyone in this room.”

You should work hard on the opening lines of your short stories. Try several, or all, of the examples above until you hit on one you feel is right. Attempt, in a sentence or two, to (1) grab the reader, (2) introduce the main character, (3) present or suggest the conflict, (4) set the mood or tone of the story, and (5) perhaps give a hint of the ending for circular closure.

Now go out and grab your readers, using the methods of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

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And the Winner Is… Reader’s Choice for Top 10 Fantasy and Science-fiction Literary Opening Lines

Our readers nominated 23 opening lines from science fiction and fantasy novels. They voted 1,100 times (and these votes represented 27 countries). Now, the results are in for the Top 10 Fantasy and Science-fiction literary opening lines of all time.

In the Number One spot, the winner… as selected by the readers of GeekDad… is… (drum roll…)

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. — The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Possibly the simplest line in the list, but certainly one that preludes one of the best fantasy novels of all time (2 nd best, according to our readers).

The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. — €”The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams

It was a pleasure to burn. — Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it. — The Princess Bride, William Goldman

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced he that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. — The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. — 1984, George Orwell

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. — €” Neuromancer, William Gibson

Call me Ishmael. — €”Moby Dick, Herman Melville

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression “As pretty as an airport.” —€” The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, Douglas Adams

All this happened, more or less. —€” Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

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How to Start a Sci Fi Short Story

Often, starting a sci fi short story can be daunting.  Are you diving into an expansive, cosmic world?  Tackling concepts that bend the mind?  Like any story, there are techniques that bring your ideas down to earth and catch your reader/viewer.

Start a sci fi short story with these elements in mind:

• Make a strong intro sentence.

Place setting with sensory perception.

Use the mice method to open conflict, start somewhere interesting in the story., make a strong intro sentence.

Make a strong intro sentence to hook your reader as quickly as possible.  People make quick judgements when deciding what to do with their time.  If you want them to spend that time on your story, the first sentence needs to pop.  Sometimes, this looks like the protagonist in action.  Other times, it’s simply an eye-catching statement that relates to the story overall.

In science fiction, this is a good time to hook your reader with weird traits your about to present in your story.

A few famous sci fi introductory sentences include:

• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
• The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. —William Gibson,  Neuromancer (1984)
• Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun. —Douglass Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1978)
• All of this happened, more or less. –Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

Readers need a picture placed in their minds as soon as possible.  Otherwise, they may drift away until anchored into your world.  Plus, this will help show the story as opposed to telling it.  As the old writing adage goes: Show, don’t tell.

Now that we have a setting in mind, we can bring it to life through sensory perception.  However, we DON’T want to state: “Protagonist sees and hears things”.   We want the reader to experience these sensations without a filter.

Consider this exercise.  Place a scene using all five senses, one at a time.

• The night sky was painted in cosmic purples and blues.
• Thunder boomed outside the port window of the small ship.
• A sweet perfume filled the room as the mysterious client entered.
• Vibrations rippled across the earth as the massive locomotive entered town.
• Pizza at the space port was as cold and bitter as space itself.

The MICE method stands for Milieu, Idea, Character and Event.  Each of these story types can take place in a given work as characters grow and stories evolve.

Consider these common plot threads to open conflict—also known as the MICE method.

Milieu:  The protagonist must move through or exit a setting.  This type of story is about exploration and worldbuilding:  Wizard of Oz , Alice in Wonderland , Gulliver’s Travels , Lord of the Rings are strong examples of this story type.

Idea :  Otherwise known as investigation, this story conflict revolves around solving a mystery.  Intriguing mystery can be a powerful tool for launching readers into your story.  However, this doesn’t mean the protagonist as to be a detective.  Maybe a spaceship captain is getting strange readings on his or her ship, only to find a stowaway alien monster.

Character :  A character story is about internal growth or change within the protagonist.  Consider how the story affects your protagonist and what insight (or delusion) they gain from the actions they make.  Therefore, the reader can watch the character go from one internal state to another.  Maybe the tragic hero becomes heartbroken and seeks revenge, only to fall prey to his own rage.  Or maybe a petty thief is pushed to act heroically in the face of something catastrophic.

Event :  Event stories happen when the status quo is upset.  An alien invasion, unleashed monster or cataclysmic disaster are all examples of event stories.  The protagonist must adapt to the new conditions and is motivated to return to normal.

Related Posts:

Sometimes, we get into our story and have a realization—it feels slow and loaded with information.  The first part is boring, like we’re explaining extra detail without getting to the point.  Sure, events happen in chronological order.  However, we don’t have to start at the beginning of this chronology.  We can always bring in background details later in the story.

Active drama pulls the reader into the story.  It’s exciting and entices curiosity.  However, we need to remember that peeks also have valleys—where the drama calms down for worldbuilding or information gathering.  Therefore, we can plant backstory in as the active drama calms down, setting us up for the next piece of active conflict with a clearer picture in mind.

For example: start at the point where Johnny is running from the gangsters, not the point where he makes the bad decision to do business with them.

To Sum it Up

Sci fi is a genre full of deep thought, extraordinary worlds and strange possibilities.  However, we should always remember the basics of good storytelling.  The craft of gaining and keeping the reader engaged in the active story is just as important as the setting and ideas presented.

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70 Opening Paragraph Examples to Kickstart Your Story

Starting a fiction story is no small task. It's often said that the beginning is the most important part of any tale. Yet crafting that perfect opening paragraph or sentence can sometimes feel elusive, even to the most seasoned writers. It's a delicate balance, introducing a new world and its inhabitants in a way that is both engaging for readers and true to the narrative that follows.

To assist with this, we have created 70 opening paragraph examples. Here, you'll find starting paragraphs for fiction genres including fantasy, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction, thriller and suspense, and western. Each example offers a potential pathway into a narrative, providing a foundation that you can build upon to craft your own unique tale.

Please note that this material is copyrighted by ServiceScape and is designed to be used for writing inspiration. We encourage you to use our ideas as fertile ground to grow your own unique stories. Should you find one of our example opening paragraphs to be the perfect launchpad for your next tale, there's no need to credit us — although we'd certainly appreciate it. A simple link to ServiceScape is enough.

One caveat: Please do not publish our example opening paragraphs as-is, in their entirety without attribution. This is not the intended use.

As you explore the various ways to start a story, we hope you find the inspiration you're seeking. Happy writing!

• The sky tore open with a roar, signaling the arrival of beings of light in the medieval world of Elarion. These warriors, with their electrifying presence, brought with them the promise of change, merging realms and forging unexpected alliances in a world that had known only traditional bounds until now.
• Thalia stood amidst figures draped in twilight hues, ready for the celestial conference — a gathering rooted in ancient magic, where dreams and fears intermingled. She was a young delegate with old eyes, prepared to share and receive wisdom in dialects forgotten by time. It was a meeting of minds, of secrets whispered in the canvas of the night, inviting the brave to witness and listen.
• "Curiosity, they often told me, is a dangerous thing, Cray," the wind seemed to whisper as young Cray ventured deeper into the realms of his dreams, far beyond the reality known to the villagers. Guided by whispers and the glow of moon-soaked stones, he found himself approaching the ancient door that stood at the world's end — the gateway to mysteries untold.
• Lord Draven sat alone in his study, poring over ancient texts. The castle that housed generations stood tall, but as he thought about his impulsive heir, Callum, the walls seemed to close in on him. The long lineage of wisdom seemed threatened, and as twilight descended, Draven wondered if his legacy would find a respectful steward in the young man or face ruin.
• Young Onar lay in bed, lost in dreams fueled by the elders' tales of golden trees and wandering islands in an endless sea. His deep blue eyes saw more in the dream realm than in the waking world — mermaids singing in distant waters, seashells whispering secrets. He awoke with a determination to unravel the mysteries that danced on the edges of his dreams.
• With a heavy heart, Ser Delan meandered through the courtyard littered with memories of a happier time. It had only been hours since the dreadful news reached him — the northern lands had fallen. Anger, sorrow, and a whisper of hope fought within him as he grappled with the shocking turn of events, trying to formulate a pledge of vengeance amidst the ruins of his homeland.
• In the heart of the untouched forest, the Stoneborn were awakening — elemental beings birthed from the earth itself. Somewhere nearby, a deer raised its head, sensing the shift in the world's equilibrium. It was a quiet yet profound change, a rebirth dictated by an ancient pact forged to preserve the balance between man and nature.
• Beatrice walked with determination, her senses alive to the magical pulses of the city that breathed around her. Lanterns glowing softly guided her through streets rich with secrets and untold stories, whispering to her of alliances to be forged in the heart of the night. It was a path laden with promises, each step bringing her closer to the unseen spirits eager to connect.
• In the silent streets of the sleeping town, a celestial creature roamed — a rare sight, with feathers that bore the depth of night skies and eyes that held galaxies. To a watching cat, this being was an enigma, a creature of starlight and cosmic dreams, and to those who would witness its path, a promise of stories spun from the grand tapestries of the cosmos.
• Meriel felt a hand on her shoulder, breaking her trance. She found herself amidst the villagers under the glow of twin moons, watching figures in maroon cloaks emerge from the forest. An initiation — the Breaking — was underway, and the deep voice that spoke next hinted that her life was about to take a turn: "Fate, untethered, seeks the brave."
• Sam Berringer hurried down Harrowville's main street, an unsettling energy urging him forward. The children, the elderly — everyone felt it, a prelude to catastrophe. As the sun arched toward the west, he couldn't shake off the fear gnawing at him, a fear of the irreversible change that would come with the sunset.
• Alma stood frozen in front of her peculiar house — the one that leaned to one side just a little too much. It had whispered secrets to her in the still of the night for as long as she could remember. But today, as she approached it, it seemed almost like it was trying to scream something terrible, something dark.
• Young Thomas Kale found himself tracing back to the early moments of his morning, before the sky had clouded over with a foreboding atmosphere that seeped into Lakeshire's streets. His mind raced through recent memories, trying to pinpoint when exactly the world had tilted from comforting familiarity into chaotic, swirling danger.
• Lestra moved briskly through the rooms, the heavy history of New Orleans surrounding her in whispers of past and present mingling uncomfortably. The old home was more alive today, more demanding. She paused, realizing the house wasn't just a repository of long-buried family secrets; it had become a character in the unfolding drama, urging her to unearth truths tied to the land's very soil.
• Ashton Creed stared at the grotesque shapes taking over his once beautiful garden. The weird, twisted faces emerging from the petals were unlike anything he had ever seen. With a sudden chill, he realized this wasn't just an anomaly; it was a horrifying invitation to a reality he had never anticipated, where the natural order of things was breaking down.
• Eleanora wandered the forbidden areas of Eldridge, a place cloaked in tales and whispered fears. As she ventured deeper, the unspoken rules that kept others at bay seemed insignificant, a foolish barrier between her and the truth. The quiet bravery blossoming within her spurred her on, ready to pull back the curtain and expose whatever darkness lurked there, waiting.
• Gregory found himself in a world where rain carried the smell of decay, a stark departure from the town he knew just yesterday. The change was grotesque, impossible, and yet it was happening right before his eyes. A sense of duty overcame him, a resolve to trace this terror to its source, though every step forward felt like a step into the unknown.
• The world blurred at the edges as Martha Cray found herself unable to discern reality from illusion. Every step forward felt like a journey into the unknown, questions multiplying with each heartbeat. Yet deep within her, a fire burned, a desire to untangle the knot of confusion and fear that wound tighter with every passing moment.
• Ember Hollow was engulfed in an all-consuming obsession that masked itself as love. As the residents succumbed to overpowering desires, it was as if a dark spell had been cast over the town. The air crackled with passion and danger, a looming darkness turned love grotesque, threatening to transform affection into a force voracious and uncontrollable.
• Reverend David Amery stood silent in the chapel, holding a child that seemed to be both a beacon of hope and a harbinger of doom. He felt a chilling premonition, an unraveling future where heavenly battles between good and evil threatened to spill into their world, centered around this innocent being cradled in his arms. The burden of what to do next weighed heavily on him, every choice carrying a shadow of peril.
• The gunshot echoed, a stark interruption in the early morning quiet. Inspector Devereux turned sharply, heart pounding in his chest, knowing that a life might have just been irrevocably altered. In the square, faces emerged from windows, all drawn to the sudden burst of violence that intruded upon their morning routines.
• Inspector Ainsley stood rooted to the spot, the whispers of a secret echoing in the halls of the great London institution that had stood for centuries. A whispered rumor about a lost artifact that was believed to be a mere myth. The inspector's mind raced, filled with questions — who had taken it, why now, and what dark secrets would it unveil?
• Dublin seemed like a different city in Kilroy's childhood memories. As a child, the streets had been wider, the sky bluer, and dreams bigger. Now as Detective Kilroy stood there, a surreal feeling engulfed her, as if she was meeting an old friend after many years. The city whispered old secrets in her ears, luring her into a maze of past and present.
• Oxford was a place of academic rigour and tradition, unchanged in many ways since its foundation. Yet, for Professor Thurgood, the landscape had altered subtly overnight. The walls seemed to speak of something sinister, a dark underbelly that was gradually coming to the surface, promising to change the university and its inhabitants forever.
• Los Angeles lay sprawled under a sun that seared unkindly, a city of extremes where dreams either blossomed wildly or withered mercilessly. Detective Hale breathed in the acrid air, feeling it resonate with the city's pulse of desperation and unspoken desires. It was a place of contrasts, and something in the atmosphere that day spoke of changes on the horizon, of simmering tensions reaching a boiling point.
• "You know, I used to be someone else," Vanessa murmured to herself as she navigated through a world of wealth and detached smiles. Her voice carried a weight of sadness, a longing for simpler times before deceit and hidden agendas became her daily currency. As she uttered those words, it was as if she was preparing herself, steeling herself for the path that lay before her, a path paved with secrets, betrayals, and perhaps, a chance for redemption.
• The siren wailed urgently, breaking the deep silence of the night as Detective Rawlins sped through the city streets, the grim reflection of neon lights flashing across his stern face. His heartbeat echoed in his ears, a frantic drum heralding a plunge into the chaotic underbelly of a city burdened with secrets and sins that were about to spill into the harsh light of day.
• A scream reverberated through the cold streets of Boston, where history met modernity at every corner. Detective O'Sullivan raced toward the source, his mind filled with dreadful possibilities. The city seemed to hold its breath, awaiting the revelation of a mystery that promised to expose the sins of the present intertwined deeply with echoes of the past.
• Jack Tracer could still hear the optimistic words of his younger self as he looked out over the roads stretching into the horizon, a beacon of endless possibilities. But the roads were different now, marked with signs of conflict and betrayal. Tracer knew that the vibrant pulse of America he had once felt had transformed into something more sinister, pulling him into a vortex of dark secrets that lay hidden in the depths of human souls.
• In Mississippi, a courtroom buzzed with tense energy, a microcosm of a world teetering between justice and corruption. Elias Harper stood there, a young lawyer on the cusp of unraveling a tangled web woven from power and greed, grounded by a steadfast belief in justice. As he looked around, he knew that the path that awaited him was fraught with moral dilemmas and truths that could shake the foundations of the society he was a part of.
• Maeve Delaney sprinted between the rows of grapevines, her heart pounding in time with her swift footsteps. The phone call had come at the worst possible moment, a harbinger of change right as she had begun to find peace amidst the ancestral vines.
• It was amidst the laughter and swirling aromas of the bustling room that Jamison's gaze locked with that of a stranger—a stranger who somehow seemed familiar. Every fiber of his being urged him to find out who she was, to unearth the secret stories that lived within her alluring gaze.
• Lady Daphne found herself lost in the echoing halls of grandeur, a relic from a past age thrust into the modern whirlwind of the London season. As she maneuvered gracefully through the lively corridors, whispers of her hidden, youthful liaisons with a past love reverberated in her heart, a secret key to understanding her present self.
• The morning embraced Loretta with a kiss of warm sun as she stepped out into the post-reconstruction Georgia. She bore in her veins the dreams and aspirations of generations, and today was a testament to the unfettered spirit of resilience and change that echoed through the mighty oaks dotting the landscape.
• Elara wandered the quaint streets of the seaside town, a place where the cobblestone paths narrated stories of countless lives intertwined in a rich tapestry of human experiences. Each step she took was guided by an unwavering empathy, an open heart ready to receive the myriad currents of romance that flowed through the town's veins.
• "I've always felt somewhat apart from all this," Miss Elspeth Harrington mused aloud, her sharp eyes dissecting the kaleidoscope of romantic entanglements that painted her village in vibrant hues of emotion. Despite her rationality, a quiet hope whispered within her, suggesting the possibility of a connection that was truly her own.
• John found himself on the North Carolina shore with no memory of how he arrived. The waves gently lapped at his feet, as if trying to soothe the raw, unyielding pain that enveloped him, reminding him of the love lost and the void it left behind—a gaping wound that yearned for healing and redemption.
• "Why am I here?" Olive asked herself as she ventured into the realm of love, a landscape fraught with uncertainty and juxtaposed realities. Her cynicism danced with hopeful romanticism, promising adventures that defied the logic she held so dear, yet irresistibly pulling her into a whirlpool of the extraordinary and the mundane.
• As Miss Amelia Cavendish sat in the meticulously arranged parlor of the Fairbrook estate, memories of secret meetings in the dawn's early light flooded back, shaking the foundations of her meticulously built world. Hidden desires, once locked away, surged forward, compelling her to question the stringent rules of society that confined her.
• In a bustling café bathed in golden afternoon hues, Elara found herself at a pivotal crossroads in her life—a divergence between the predictable and the unknown. Each patron carried stories untold, lives unfolding in synchronous harmony, setting the stage for encounters both ephemeral and potentially life-altering as she navigated the modern world of digitalized romances and fleeting connections.

Science fiction

• "What did it say?" Elira rushed towards the eldest, her heart beating in harmony with the grand hall's pulsating rhythm. Each person here was a walking library, with minds rich in lifetime-cultivated knowledge, and it was in this cacophony of wisdom and curiosity that young apprentice Elira was about to dive deeper than ever before.
• Dr. Kael's breath caught as he lifted the prism, galaxies swirling within it, whispering the secrets of the universe. In the solitude of the Intergalactic Archive, surrounded by ancient relics of knowledge, Kael faced a mystery that beckoned him into a complex dance with the celestial unknown.
• Xan couldn't shake the vision from last night, the luminescent plants weaving tales of distant worlds through their ethereal glow. In the comet's subterranean tunnels, where Xan tended to his garden, he was beginning to unlock the secret language of the cosmos, and today, the plants seemed to be urging him on a journey unlike any before.
• Aria Sandoval felt the pulse of a thousand worlds bearing down on her as she orchestrated the symphony of diplomacy that held the United Interstellar Communities together. With every gesture and word chosen with meticulous care, she was a conductor for peace, wielding strategy and empathy in equal measures.
• The lost era summoned him, acting as a beacon from a time when harmony and light graced the world. As Professor Mallick gazed through his newly invented tool, glimpses of the distant past unveiled themselves, pulling him into an obsession with understanding the beauty that once was.
• Taelia felt the ancient song resonate in her bones, a harmony forged from the whispers of the trees and the gentle murmurs of the river. As she ventured deeper into the forest towards the old world-tree Yorlin, the young seeker grasped at the tendrils of knowledge flowing through the interconnected dance of life unfolding before her.
• Dr. Lin stood at the threshold of the physical and the abstract, lost in the fluid dance of geometric patterns and swirling equations. This was the underlying narrative of the universe, a mathematical tapestry waiting to unravel its greatest secrets under Lin's eager gaze.
• "This isn't real," Detective Calder muttered, stepping through the shattered boundaries between the real and the surreal. In a world fractured into countless realities, each case became a mind-bending journey into human consciousness, a labyrinth where dreams held more weight than reality.
• The city whispered stories to Ansel as he wandered its living streets, where buildings breathed and paths pulsed with life. Every element shared secrets, weaving tales of wonder from sunlight and leaf whispers, kindling the young boy's sense of fascination and urging him to look deeper, to see the magic in the everyday.
• "Ready?" The virtual landscape stretched infinitely before Alias, a realm forged from codes and streams of data. With each digital spell cast, she unraveled the virtual world's closely guarded secrets, a hacker embarking on quests filled with hidden knowledge, and mysteries waiting to be unearthed.

Thriller and suspense

• Mitch Rapp's heart pounded in his chest as he stepped into the desolate place that barely clung to hope. Every step was both a discovery and a threat, guided only by skills forged in unseen battlefields. The small town stretched before him, its troubles hiding behind forlorn structures. Mitch was ready to unearth every one of them.
• Lily paused, the too-bright day casting deep shadows that clashed with the smiles of the overly joyous people around her. The uneasy feeling grew with each step, fueled by a deep-seated intuition that recognized the deceit permeating the air, masked by pristine houses and manicured lawns. The apparent perfection held a secret, and she was determined to unravel it.
• The only sound disturbing the silent, fog-swathed morning was Thomas Elster's footsteps. As he ventured deeper into the obscured streets, memories from past mornings crowded in, each one revealing a hidden cruelty, a secret kept in daylight's shadow. Each step forward was a step back in time, preparing him to reveal yet another tale hidden in the cracks of daily life.
• Below the rush of Cyan's breath and pounding heart lay a city struggling under the weight of corruption. Each leap across the rooftops became a statement, a rebellion against the darkness festering below. Every painful inhalation was a testament to her determination to cleanse the place, regardless of the personal cost.
• Eli Doyle was a shadow in a crowd of substance, moving with a purpose only he understood, with every heartbeat echoing concealed danger and impending action. The vibrant city beat rhythmically around him, unaware of the perilous dance about to unfold as Eli maneuvered closer to the epicenter of chaos.
• "You wouldn't believe the stories these trees could tell," David Hunter whispered to himself, moving deliberately through the whispering forest. Each step forward was accompanied by the soft chorus of leaves sharing tales of a nation in distress, a world on the verge of chaos. David was a solitary figure in a living, breathing repository of secrets, ready to stand against the shadows threatening to engulf everything.
• In the heart of the operations room, Admiral Sarah Jennings surveyed the geopolitical landscape displayed on digital maps. The world resembled a chessboard of shifting alliances and burgeoning rivalries. Sarah stood firm, a beacon of resolve, prepared to steer her nation through the tumultuous waters that lay ahead.
• In a room heavy with the weight of history, Professor Adrian Kane felt a pull towards the ancient texts that promised hidden truths. The boundary between science and mysticism blurred as he delved deeper, ready to uncover knowledge that might alter the very fabric of human understanding.
• Darkness fell, casting the city into a world of shadow and mystery where Jaden found himself an unwilling hero. A silent battle raged in the hidden corners of the night, a conflict of good against evil that beckoned him, drawing him deeper into its ancient, cosmic pulse.
• The message pierced the tranquility of Alex's Sunday morning with cold, sharp words slicing through the screen and shattering the illusion that held his life together. Suddenly, he found himself on the brink, facing shadows from his past that threatened to engulf the life he had so carefully built, revealing dark secrets eager to flood into the light.
• As Jedediah trod upon the undisturbed soil, the grandeur of the landscape lay before him, a tapestry woven from golden grasses and deep crimson canyons. Yet, a deeper purpose fueled his steps: a secret nestled in the heart of the untamed land, ancient and waiting to be unraveled.
• In the heart of the Texas plains, whispers of change caught on the wind traveled from person to person, stitching a thread of fragile hope across weary hearts. As evening descended, stretching shadows across the land, it became a visual echo of the hopes and dreams nestled in the souls of the toiling populace, each one harboring a tender wish nourished by the day's end.
• Amid the wild frontier, a group of unlikely companions formed — a lawman hardened by time, a naïve young cowhand, a native steeped in wisdom, and a madam with eyes that bore untold stories. Though their paths were distinct, they began to entwine, pulled together by the strings of a fate yet unrevealed.
• Under an unyielding sky, a determined band pushed forth, each step echoing with hopes and dreams yet unfulfilled. Driven by a shared vision of what lay beyond the horizon, the beating of hooves against the earth marked their united rhythm, a heartbeat of collective ambition and raw, unyielding determination.
• From above, a lone vulture surveyed the ever-changing narratives below, a dance of tiny figures drawn on the vast canvas of the earth. A sense of mounting tension permeated the air, hinting at unfolding dramas, with lives on the verge of collision in the ruthless theater of survival.
• As darkness embraced the world, a group of weary souls gathered around a flickering campfire, the moon casting a silent witness to their shared solitude. Among them, a figure stood poised, embodying a resolve forged from the day's labor, eyes fixed on the dark expanse, ready to guide them through the uncertainties that awaited with the dawn.
• In a land that demanded sacrifice, dreams forged from resilience blossomed stubbornly. Individuals from different walks of life united, driven by a shared longing for warmth and community, building bonds stronger than the harsh conditions of the frontier, their collective will inscribing a narrative of hope upon the unforgiving canvas.
• The wild lands bore silent testimony to the lives that ventured through its expanses, a vibrant backdrop awaiting new stories to grace its surface. It held both potential and peril, a vast stage ready to play host to tales of courage, loss, and unexpected bonds forged in adversity.
• Pastor Grey stood contemplating the essence of the frontier, a realm that sculpted both brutality and kindness from those who dared to call it home. Guided by deep-seated conviction, he embraced his mission to foster a community that thrived in harmony with the untamed spirit breathing life into the west.
• Ember Creek vibrated with the tenuous dance between hope and despair, a pulsating rhythm guiding the lives of its denizens. At its helm, Sheriff Hannah Callahan bore witness to the simmering pot of dreams and secrets, her vigilant presence a grounding force in a place teetering on the precipice of change, nurturing the spark of potential residing in every heart.

Header image by michaklootwijk .

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Great Opening Sentences From Science Fiction Novels

You can tell a lot about a science fiction book from its first sentence. A truly great first sentence establishes a tone, sticks in your mind, and serves as a little otherworldly koan , confounding your expectations. And maybe freaking your shit a little. Here are our favorite science fiction opening sentences of all time.

Top image: A Deepness in the Sky, artwork by Frank Lewecke

Having looked through a few thousand opening sentences at the bookstore and online - no exaggeration - I can generalize a bit. There are a lot of opening sentences that announce the start of a rollicking yarn, with an action sentence.

Like this, from Dan Brown's Angels & Demons : "Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own." Boom! A guy's flesh is burning. It's exciting! A slight variation is the juxtaposition of the mundane activity with the exciting thing that interrupts it, sort of like, "I was hanging some kitchen shelves when the cyber-rhinoceros burst through my floor, tusks exploding with brilliant fire."

And then there are tons of opening sentences that are just quirky, or rambling, letting you know the author is settling in to tell a long, rumbly bulldozer of a story. And honestly, most of the opening sentences I looked at were either very business-like, or not very interesting. Or both.

Here are the ones which actually stuck with me and lodged in my brain a bit:

"'I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.'" - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Starting a story, let alone a novel, with a piece of dialog is a bold choice, and most of the time it's super cheesy. I really like this line, though, because it's so intriguing and it drops in a lot of info. How have they been watching through his eyes? Listening through his ears, and what's "the one"?

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." - William Gibson, Neuromancer . People always cite this as a great opening line, and it's easy to see why. It's such a vivid image.

"They set a slamhound on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair." - Count Zero by William Gibson. Okay, come on. This is just so fun. It's got the wacky jargon: "slamhound," "slotted," and the idea that it can be tied to random things like hair color and pheromones. And it's crackling with energy!

"The morning after he killed Eugene Shapiro, Andre Deschenes woke early." - Undertow by Elizabeth Bear. This is almost the mundane/exciting juxtaposition, but it's more than that, because the mundane comes after the exciting. And it makes you curious about Andre Deschenes and how he can sleep after killing a guy. And who Eugene Shapiro is. I was reading Undertow a while back, and this sentence sucked me in.

"Monday morning when I answered the door there were twenty-one new real estate agents there, all in horrible polyester gold jackets." - Rudy Rucker, The Hacker And The Ants, Version 2.0 . Surreal - transreal, even - and garish and weird. And the fact that there are 21 real estate agents just makes it that much better.

"I lived long enough to see the cure for death; to see the rise of the Bitchun Society, to learn ten languages; to compose three symphonies; to realize my boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World; to see the death of the workplace and of work." - Cory Doctorow, Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom . I like a nice brisk opening. Again, the wacky jargon (the "Bitchun Society") and the weird longevity, and then the personal suddenly gives way to the larger picture, with the death of the workplace.

"He woke, and remembered dying." - Ken MacLeod, The Stone Canal . I don't really think I need to explain why this is a great opening. It's spare and intriguing. And no adjectives or adverbs. Yay!

"The manhunt extended across more than one hundred light years and eight centuries." - Vernor Vinge, A Deepness In The Sky . This is pretty close to being your standard brisk, action-packed opening. Except for the huge scope of it, coupled with the precision.

"Two glass panes with dirt between and little tunnels from cell to cell: when I was a kid I had an ant colony." - Samuel R. Delany, The Star Pit . It's almost a poem, and it zooms outwards in a lovely way, from the dirt tunnels to the ant colony. For a moment, you think it could be an alien zoo or something.

"The five small craft passed from shadow, emerging with the suddenness of coins thrown into sunlight." - Scott Westerfeld, The Risen Empire . This one, I was on the fence about. It's a little adjective-heavy, and it has the passive construction at the end. But I really liked the coins thrown into sunlight, it's a lovely image and it's about the last thing that comes to mind when you think about spaceships emerging from somewhere.

"At the end, the bottom, the very worst of it, with the world afire and hell's flamewinged angels calling him by name, Lee Crane blamed himself." - Theodore Sturgeon, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea . Again, it's got great energy, and even though it has my pet peeve - the random "it" occupying the space where a real world should be - it's got the Blakeian imagery, and then you absolutely have to know why Lee Crane blames himself.

"In the summer of his twelfth year - the summer the stars began to fall from the sky - the boy Isaac discovered that he could tell East from West with his eyes closed." - Axis , Robert Charles Wilson. It's got so much going on, what with the coming-of-age thing and the stars falling. But then you get that human-compass thing, which is intriguing and fascinating. And this is a nice, spare sentence, with no excess clutter. It's snappy!

"Today is the two-hundredth anniversary of the final extinction of my One True Love, as close as I can date it." - Saturn's Children , Charles Stross. It's like the start of a romance novel, except for the mention of 200 years and the word "extinction." They stick out like jagged little spurs, amidst the shmoopy "One True Love" jargon.

Oh, and I came across one opening sentence that stuck in my mind afterwards, but then I couldn't find it again. It was something like, "He did not often think about kidnapping his daughter and stealing the spaceship." But there was more to it than that. What am I thinking of?

This io9 flashback originally appeared in 2008. What great opening sentences have appeared in science fiction novels published since then?

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Compelling Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Blurbs That Draw You in Immediately

You can't judge a book by its cover, but sometimes you can judge it by the blurb.

• Photo Credit: Us Wah / Unsplash

We all know the old adage: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” But what about judging a book by its blurb (the brief pitch we see on either a book jacket or an online marketplace)? 

Many authors have resented book blurbs for decades–especially the brief endorsements made by critics and fellow authors. In 1936, George Orwell wrote scornfully about book blurbs , saying: “Question any thinking person as to why he ‘never reads novels’, and you will usually find that, at bottom, it is because of the disgusting tripe that is written by the blurb-reviewers.”

Yet an examination of book blurbs by NPR traces the origin of the blurb to two of America’s great writers: Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. After reading the first edition of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass , Emerson wrote to Whitman and said, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career.” Those words were then printed on the spine of the second edition.

These endorsements can be time-consuming, hyperbolic, and impersonal. Slate cites the tale of Frank McCourt, who wrote in his blurbs that three different books would make readers “claw yourself with pleasure.”  

Even the blurbs written by a book’s author or publisher can be rife with challenges. How can you capture the essence of a 400-page book in two or three paragraphs?

That challenge is amplified in science fiction and fantasy. These genres don’t just accept longer books, they encourage them. Science fiction stories often span the length of the universe. Fantasy authors build planets from scratch.

Brevity is often … not their strength.

When you read a good blurb for a science fiction or fantasy book, then, it jumps off the page. It’s no wonder that some of our favorite blurbs come from bestselling books. Whether you’re a writer making your own blurb or an avid reader looking for a compelling new story, these book blurbs can sell you on a novel in just a few sentences.

The Best Opening Lines in Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

7 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Blurbs That Tell You Everything You Need to Know

The Name of the Wind

By Patrick Rothfuss

“My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as ‘quothe.’ Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I’ve had more names than anyone has a right to…. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. 

“You may have heard of me.”

Why we love this blurb: Like The Name of the Wind itself, the bestselling novel’s blurb takes its time in developing. The blurb spans both the front and back flaps, but the shortened version of it here captures the essence of what makes it special.

Rather than trying to summarize its plot, The Name of the Wind chooses to use an excerpt from the book as its blurb. It’s a ready-made quote, as the character’s main character Kvothe introduces himself to a biographer called “The Chronicler.”

The best aspect of the blurb, however, is the way it mixes hints at the sort of epic adventure fantasy-lovers adore while providing strong characterization. The reader gets grand promises about what is to come (promises the series is still working to fulfill) and a strong sense of who Kvothe is.

Kvothe is talented and he knows it. He basically calls himself a legend even before he (and The Name of the Wind ) became one. It’s a sensational, daring way for then-debut novelist Patrick Rothfuss to introduce himself to the fantasy world, and boy does he deliver.

20 Epic Books Like The Name of the Wind

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Altered Carbon

By Richard K. Morgan

“It's the twenty-fifth century, and advances in technology have redefined life itself. A person's consciousness can now be stored in the brain and downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve"), making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen. Onetime U.N. Envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Resleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats existence as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning.”

Why we love this blurb: From the jump, this world feels lived (and died) in. This isn’t some abstract, future version of Earth, and the science fiction aspect of “sleeving” is more than just a concept. You can feel how it affects every aspect of the world, from international relationships to interpersonal society and down to a single man, Takeshi Kovacs.

The blurb doesn’t just position our characters in a world–it positions its book within the genre. While the blurb avoids making overt references to other sci-fi classics, it does evoke the noir mystery of Blade Runner and the potential for revenge like in Frank Herbert’s Dune.  

Put that together, and the blurb sets up exactly what readers should expect from Altered Carbon .

By Naomi Novik

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Why we love this blurb: Here’s another excerpt from the book itself. Think about everything you learn in the first paragraph of Naomi Novik’s Uprooted blurb: We learn about the Dragon and the threat of the encroaching Wood. We learn that our characters live in an insulated village and a patriarchal culture, where rumors linger and fathers must defend their daughters.

We learn about the Dragon’s practice of demanding one young woman to serve him every ten years. We learn about the tension between the Dragon and the villagers he protects. 

None of this is said explicitly, but it’s easy enough to infer. It lets readers feel like they are already part of the world, letting a local clear up some common misconceptions. It reads like a folklore, which is essential to Novik’s style in Uprooted .

Our Favorite Magical Forests in Fantasy Books

The Martian

By Andy Weir

“Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

“Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.

“After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

“Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.”

Why we love this blurb: Andy Weir’s The Martian follows a fairly simple conceit. How would you survive being abandoned on Mars? 

Readers have seen countless versions of this question for centuries. From The Odyssey on, survival stories are timeless. Yet, over generations, we see how technology affects their arcs. Daniel Defoe’s 1719 classic Robinson Crusoe details the struggle of surviving a shipwreck on a foreign island. The 20th century saw the publication of Gary Paulson’s Hatchet , which followed 13-year-old Brian Robeson’s survival efforts after a plane crash. 

While Mark Watney’s spaceship did not crash, there’s no question that his story reflects his era. The Martian was published in 2014, as the idea of interplanetary travel began to feel finally within reach. 

Given the long history of survival stories, The Martian blurb doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, and it chooses not to overcomplicate things. Sometimes, as Mark Watney learns on his improvisational quest for survival, the simplest solution is the best one.

Old Man's War

By John Scalzi

“John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.”

Why we love this blurb: The blurb for John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War is longer than this, but really, do you need much more?

From the title alone, it’s clear that Scalzi’s beloved story will take on the old maxim about young men dying for old men’s wars. Three sentences into the blurb, the reader knows how he means to do it. 

The opening of Old Man’s War blurb smartly makes use of a classic sci-fi and fantasy theme. Heroes are often talented teens of destiny. Here, however, we meet John Perry–a man past retirement age, not chosen by destiny but choosing his own path. 

It’s a unique introduction to a unique series. 

The Fifth Season

By N.K. Jemisin

“This is the way the world ends for the last time.

“It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.

“It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.

“It starts with betrayal and long-dormant wounds rising up to fester.

“This is the Stillness, a land familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.”

Why we love this blurb: There’s a reason MasterClass chose award-winning N.K. Jemisin to teach its course on writing science fiction and fantasy. She’s not just an author, she’s a student of the genre, and The Fifth Season ’s blurb reflects that. The twists on traditional fantasy elements are subtle but powerful.

Take a look at that first line. If it simply read, “This is how the world ends,” it would be tempting to group The Fifth Season in with popular apocalyptic novels. But that last part–“for the last time”–changes everything. 

It begs questions like “How can the world end again?” and “How did it end before?”

We see a theme of cycles in this blurb, of starts and ends, which are staples of the fantasy genre and perfect for a book titled after the seasons. We see conflict, not only in the plot but in the very nature of the world. In a land called “the Stillness,” great works and powerful characters are on the move.

Mistborn: The Final Empire

By Brandon Sanderson

“The mists rule the night … the Lord Ruler owns the world.

“For a thousand years the ash fell. For a thousand years, the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years, the Lord Ruler reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Every attempted revolt has failed miserably.

Yet somehow hope survives. A new kind of uprising is being planned, one that depends on the cunning of a brilliant criminal mastermind and the courage of an unlikely heroine, a Skaa street urchin, who must learn to master Allomancy, the power of a mistborn.

What if the prophesied hero had failed to defeat the Dark Lord? The answer will be found in the Mistborn trilogy, a saga of surprises that begins here.”

Why we love this blurb: The Mistborn blurb evokes two iconic genre classics. The first is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe , where the characters of Narnia have been forced to endure a hundred years of winter under the tyranny of the White Witch. 

The other reference is almost spelled out word for word. There’s “hope” from “a new kind of uprising.”

A New Hope, you might say. 

The first book in the Mistborn trilogy follows the classic master-apprentice story between an orphaned teen and an exiled man of mystic forces, who team up to defeat the Final Empire. Just like Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Mistborn takes the sprawling aspects of Star Wars , the epic history of Narnia , and condenses it into something like an urban thriller. Danger lurks around every corner, hidden within the mist, and heroes swing from building to building like Spider-man. 

With so many references to classic stories, this blurb reads almost like a series of cliches until you get to the last paragraph. “What if the prophesied hero had failed to defeat the Dark Lord?”

This, more than anything, hints at the true nature of Mistborn . The truth is almost always more difficult than it appears, for characters and readers alike.

Read Free Online: Prologue of Brandon Sanderson's Knights of Wind and Truth (Stormlight Archive, Book 5)

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Writer, Reader, English Teacher

How to Write a Sci Fi Short Story: Lesson Plan, Story Prompts, & A Sample Story

Laurel Osterkamp · October 7, 2022

When it comes to fiction genres, people love science fiction. But how do you write a sci fi short story?

This post will take you through the steps, so you can write your own sci fi short story, or teach your students (even if you’re not that familiar with science fiction writing.) There’s a lesson plan, a sample story, and prompts.

Step 1: Warmup. Ask yourself or your students these questions, just to get your creative juices flowing.

Would you rather…

• Meet a friendly alien or your future self?
• Time travel to the future or to the past? 
• Explore a parallel universe or discover a hidden truth about the universe in which we live?  

Science fiction is  based on an imagined future scientific, technological advances, and/or major social or environmental changes. Often, it portrays space or time travel and life on other planets.

Step #2: Read and Discuss the sample story below.

Sample Story: “A Cracked Heart”  by Laurel Osterkamp

  Now that it’s all over, it seems like a bad dream. But when I look at Marty’s picture on my phone, I remember the reality of him. We grew up together; I always felt so lucky to live next door to the only boy on the block. My mother explained how special Marty was. “Before the plague of 2071, males were everywhere. But they were far more susceptible to the virus, and that’s why so many of them died.”                           

“Like Dad?” I asked.

“Yes. Dad and 88% of all human males in the world. They all died.”

But females were mostly fine. Good thing there were sperm banks, because otherwise the human race might have ceased to exist. As it was, most of the males now living were toddlers, since the plague was only eradicated a few years ago.

That wasn’t the only reason I wanted to keep Marty to myself. We shared inside jokes and a love for comic books. We could spend all day riding our bikes along the lakeshore, or lounging in my hammock, eating smores made over the stove.  I said to him, “I love you, Marty. My heart belongs to you.” 

“And my heart belongs to you, Beth.”

Then the change came: I would do anything for him, but  he was just “fond” of me. During our early college days I sort of let things ride, but once we went on to graduate school, I began to crowd him.

“I need some space,” Marty told me. “I’ve booked a ticket and I’m going to travel through Eastern Europe.”

Marty said he’d give me an answer to my proposal after he returned. I had to be content with that, but couldn’t help worrying. Marty was hard to read—introverted and thoughtful. Knowing the part of Europe he was going to, I was nervous, since it was where the plague first originated. It was also the birthplace of many strange medical practices and top-secret labs. Rumor was, the plague had come from such a lab.

When he didn’t return my texts, I let it go. But after six weeks of being ghosted, I was freaking out. The next thing I knew I was on a plane bound for the Continent. Within two hours after landing, I found him at a little inn in Poland, a quaint little place that looked as if it were made of gingerbread, and was surrounded by the Tatra Mountain range. I also found Dr. Edna Kelly.

Edna was beautiful in a translucent sort of way. Her skin was alabaster, her eyes an icy blue, and her hair pure silver, even though she didn’t seem older than 25. She also didn’t seem like she could have ever been young.

I ignored her.

“What’s wrong, Marty? Why didn’t you text me?” I asked.

His usually shining brown eyes flashed angrily. “Why couldn’t you leave me alone? I told you not to come after me. I came here so I could think this out. For God’s sake, Beth, can’t you see I wanted to think? To be by myself?”

“But you promised to text,” I persisted, wondering at this change in him, this impatience. Wondered, too, at how thin he was. He’d always been pretty buff.

“Marty has been overdoing it,” Edna said slowly. “He’s always tired lately. He hasn’t been feeling well. He has a sore throat.”

I wanted to pull out Edna’s hair. I really did not like her. Not because I sensed her rivalry; I was above that. Rather, it was her confidence, her faith that Marty would choose her over me, no matter what I did or said.

I don’t know what to do with that. And suddenly, I didn’t care about Edna Kelly.

“Marty, babe. She’s no good for you, can’t you see that? What do you know about her?”

He looked at me, his eyes surprised and a little hurt. Then he looked at her and seemed to be looking through her and into himself, if you know what I mean. A slow flush spread across his face. 

“All I have to know,” he said softly. “I love her. And she’s helping me get well.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked out the window. “I’ve been struggling with plague symptoms. Edna’s been giving me injections, but it’s not enough. I’m going to the clinic that Edna runs for treatment. And Edna and I are getting married.”

“I won’t let you!” I warned. “Wait a while, please! If for nothing else, then for old times’ sake.”

“How about me, Beth?” Edna interrupted. “You haven’t asked me my feelings on the subject. I happen to love Marty. You don’t own him, just because you’re a childhood friend of his!”

“Childhood friend! I was everything to him for years before he ever heard of you! I’ll see you in hell before I let him marry you!” I shouted. Looking back, I’m sure that had she said anything else, I would have killed her, if Marty hadn’t come between us.

“That’s enough, Beth! If I choose to marry Edna, there’s nothing you can do about it. Now, please go.”

“Okay, Marty,” I said, “if that’s the way you want it. But I’m not through. If you won’t protect yourself, I’ll do it for you. People just don’t marry strangers; not if they’re smart. For God’s sake, ask Edna about her self!”

“All right, Beth,” h e replied, smiling patiently. “I’ll ask her. Now, stop being such a baby.”

He didn’t ask Edna anything. I texted Marty incessantly, but there was no reply. Several nights later, my phone rang. 

“Marty?” I answered breathlessly, after seeing his name on my cell phone’s screen.

“It’s Edna. Marty wants to see you.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s alive, which is lucky, since the plague was about to kill him.”

“I don’t understand. I thought the plague had been eradicated.”

“No, but I have created a cure.” Edna sighed on the other end of the line. “Write down the address I’m about to give you. Then come visit Marty.”

When I got to the clinic, Marty sat in a lounge chair by a huge bay window, overlooking snow-capped mountains. Like the snow, Marty’s hair was a pure white.

“Marty!” He turned toward me, and I was struck by his pale complexion. His skin was nearly blue. “Marty, what happened to you?”

“I’ve been cured,” he said. “I had the plague, but now I’m okay.”

“But you look…you look like a ghost, Marty.”

“That’s the price I had to pay.”

“What do you mean? What price?”

A voice spoke from behind me. “Marty underwent the cyroniac process.” It was Edna.

“Edna froze me to death,” Marty explained, “and then she thawed me and brought me back to life.”

“It’s the cure we’ve all been waiting for,” Edna said. “I know, because years ago, I was one of the few females to catch the plague. I volunteered to be frozen myself, and I was cured.”

“When I met Edna, she offered to do the same for me,” Marty said. “But only if I married her.” He smiled up at her. “Good thing I fell in love.”

I ignored the stab of pain that Marty’s words caused me. “I thought cryonics wasn’t possible, that the heart would crack open as it thawed.” 

Edna shrugged. “We can survive a cracked heart,” she told me. “In fact, some people say having one makes life easier.” She widened her eyes, and leaned in to whisper. “We can reprogram the heart, you know. Through the injections, and then the procedure, Marty never stood a chance. His heart was always going to belong to me.”

Now, when I look at Marty’s picture, it’s hard not to be bitter. He was everything I ever wanted.

Did Edna infect Marty with the plague, just so she could “cure” him, and claim his cracked heart for herself? I will never know, but I do know this: Marty’s heart wasn’t the only one that Edna managed to break.

Discussion Questions:

• What about the plot is grounded in reality? Which events rely on a fictional world to make them plausible?
• In what ways do the characters seem like real, present-day people? How does the science fiction element to the story affect their motivations or interactions?
•  How is the setting similar to the world we presently live in? How is it different?

Step 3: Develop an Idea for a Story, or Choose a Prompt Below. Prompts:

• Jackson has it all. He’s at seventeen, he’s on the Olympic snowboarding team, and he’s likely to win Gold. He’s so good looking, he’s begun a lucrative modeling career. He got a perfect score on his SATs and is fluent in four different languages. Jackson never questioned his superiority, until the day his father confessed that he’s an alien. That means that Jackson is half-alien. How does he deal with this revelation?
• One hundred years from now, society has become very advanced and humanity has evolved. The smartest, most capable kids grow a third eye on the back of their heads when they turn thirteen. Those with a third eye are whisked off to a special, isolated paradise where they are prepared to become world leaders. Ava develops a third eye, but doesn’t want to leave her friends and family. What does she do?
• A spaceship accidentally crashes onto Earth. The aliens on this ship are far superior to humans in every way. Write a story from an alien’s POV.
• A young scientist who loves animals develops a serum that will increase their intelligence, even giving them the ability to talk. What happens when the animals become smarter than humans, and are able to take over the world?
• Thirty years ago, a bus containing a fourth grade class traveling on a school trip to Mount Rushmore disappeared into thin air. Now, they’re back. The kids haven’t aged, but their friends and family are all thirty years older. They have no memory of how they disappeared or how they got back. What happens next?

Step 4: Brainstorm

Before you start writing, consider the following and make notes if you wish.

Character: Even though your main character lives in a world different from your own, he/she still needs to be realistic. A good place to start is to compare your main character to yourself.

What Qualities Do You Share With Your   Main Character?

Just like with your main character, your setting needs to be both different from our world, but also realistic.

What Are the Similarities Between Our World and Your Fictional World?

Based on the prompt you chose or the story you’re writing, pick one of these to Google: Aliens, Third Eyes, UFO Landings, Animal Intelligence, Time Travel .  Find three facts/theories about your topic.

Establish Rules.  Make sure the world you create doesn’t contradict itself. Come up with some clear rules .

And with that, it’s time to start writing. Good luck! I’m sure you’ll come up with something brilliant!

If you want to continue learning the ins and outs of science fiction writing, I recommend this book I found on Amazon: Get Started Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy by Adam Roberts

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The Best New Science Fiction Short Stories

Science fiction. The term often conjures up images of epic space battles, time travel hijinks, and daring rescues in rocket ships. And while there certainly are plenty of science fiction short stories like that, the genre offers a level of variety that is, well, out of this world!

Whether they're about a young man who suddenly doubles his IQ or a linguist who encounters an alien species, science fiction stories use extraordinary scenarios to peel back the masks humanity tries to hide behind. They extrapolate the many terrifying and wondrous ways the future could go, all while answering essential questions about humanity. And... they’re thrilling adventures with space lasers and rocketships. 

In short, no subject is too serious or too escapist for this far-reaching genre. From Ray Bradbury to N.K. Jemison and more, science fiction short stories have been an essential part of the literary landscape for decades.

Looking for fresh new science fiction short stories?

Whether you want rip-roaring escapism or a contemplative exploration of humanity, you’ll find a science fiction short story to suit your tastes here. On this page, we’ve gathered the best science fiction short stories from our weekly writing contest . The featured stories, at the top of this page, have either won our contest or been shortlisted, rising above the hundreds of other submissions we receive every week.

Full of promising new writers, this is truly the place to stay up to date on the latest that science fiction short stories have to offer. Who knows, you may just discover an author destined to change the genre landscape forever!

(And if you’re a sci-fi writer, consider heading over and entering the short story contest yourself! You may just walk away with the weekly cash prize — and a shot at publication in Prompted , our new literary magazine!

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50 Science Fiction Plot Ideas and Writing Prompts

One of my most popular blog posts is my 50 Fantasy Plot Ideas and Writing Prompts , so I thought I’d share a companion post of sci fi story ideas and writing prompts. Some of these may be more along the lines of “speculative fiction” than science fiction. They include prompts about the environment, artificial intelligence, genetics, medicine, time travel, space exploration, alien races, and alternative histories.

The real value of sci fi ideas, of course, is the way the author uses them to explore questions about society, humanity, and relationships. I created these as interesting writing prompts for adults, but many of them might be appropriate for teen writers, too. I think in order to really learn how to write a science fiction story, you need to read a lot in the genre, but this can still be a fun place to start.

If you’re interested in writing science fiction and you don’t have an agent, you might want to take a look at my roundup of fantasy and science fiction publishers who accept unsolicited (or unagented) manuscripts. And if you’re not writing scifi right now, but you might be in the future, you might want to pin or bookmark the post for future reference!

• All citizens are temporarily neutered at birth. Would-be parents must prove to the government that they’ll be suitable caretakers and providers before they are allowed to procreate.
• All marriages must be approved by a department of the government, which analyzes massive amounts of data to predict the success of the union, its economic and social impact on society, the health and welfare of any children, and so on. It’s such a hassle that many people opt for government-arranged marriages instead.
• Global warming prompts rapid mutations in the human species.
• The world’s leaders broker a deal with the alien invaders that many see as unfair.
• Humans have discovered a way to communicate directly with animals, and all the meat they consume is lab-created.
• Extreme elective surgery is the societal norm, and humans undergo creative modifications that include extra limbs, cartoon-like features, and so on.
• Breeding modern humans with large amounts of Neanderthal DNA leads to interesting results.
• In this world, Napoleon’s army took over Australia, he never lost at Waterloo, France took control of most of Europe, and World War I and World War II never happened.
• An alien from a planet where no one else experiences empathy comes to live on Earth, believing they will fit in better there.
• A drug that makes people non-confrontational has been added to the public water supply and to all beverages sold by major corporations.
• The huge, thin sheets of material covering some trees and yards turn out to be discarded placentas.
• A low-level employee in a bureaucratic government office realizes the paperwork he files every day contains codes that determine others’ fates.
• A human and alien fall in love, causing an interplanetary crisis.

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• An alien doesn’t know how to tell the humans s/he’s become intimately involved with that s/he’s an alien, even though they will find out soon.
• High-speed robotic horses become a trendy alternative to cars and weave through heavy traffic with ease.
• Birds and butterflies are able to navigate on long migrations due to proteins in their bodies that align with the earth’s magnetic fields. Scientists put these proteins to a new use.
• An entertainment company synthesizes huge amounts of data they collected about viewer’s responses to movies and shows, and they use it to create a TV show that’s dangerously addictive.
• Mars has been terraformed by dropping nuclear bombs on its poles, and the first human colonists have been assured that almost all of the radiation has escaped the atmosphere.
• An attempt to save the honeybees had surprising consequences.
• Online bullying is made a felony, which leads to unforeseen complications.
• At a new underwater amusement park and resort, built at a greater depth than any other construction before, the guests face an unforeseen threat.
• Spies use tiny implants in the retina that record and transmit everything to the commanders in another country. The implants dissolve after a certain amount of time.
• The first time travellers seem to have no ability to improve the course of human events. If they kill Hitler, for instance, some other person does exactly what he did. They search for the way to really alter the timeline.
• Astronauts develop strange and unexpected symptoms in response to traveling at light speed.
• It’s easy to look up exactly where any person is at any given time.
• New fitness devices track your movements and everything you eat automatically.
• A new device automatically tracks your mood levels and emotions. This leads people to avoid more of what makes them unhappy and do more of what makes them feel good.
• People become human mood rings: they get implants that make them change color along with their mood.
• Criminals and dissidents undergo illegal genetic therapy to change their DNA so the government has no record of them.
• Euthanasia is legal and painless means are widely available. A detective specializes in suspicious cases of euthanasia that may have been murder.
• Books and videogames have both been replaced by interactive virtual worlds filled with fascinating characters.
• Colonists on another planet want to be an independent country and lead a rebellion.
• People from a civilization that mysteriously disappeared centuries ago, such as ancestral Puebloans in the U.S. Southwest, return.
• An alien planet outsources city planning by creating a complex, engrossing city-building videogame popular with humans.
• A time traveler from centuries in the future fails in their attempt to impersonate a person of the twenty-first century. They enlist someone’s help to carry out a mission.
• A virus can be transmitted from computers or other machines to humans with bionic upgrades.
• Advertisements appear randomly in thin air in front of a person. Getting media without this advertising is prohibitively expensive.
• A team of scientists attempt to genetically alter a human to adapt to another planet’s terrain or outer space travel. They accidentally make him or her immortal.
• Implants make telepathy possible between the humans who get them.
• The Air Force uses invisibility technology for the first time, but the pilot realizes her mission is morally reprehensible.
• People are nostalgic for snow, so they create artificial snowstorms.
• In a world where pain and suffering have been eliminated, people pay to experience a variety of negative sensations under safe and controlled circumstances.
• A secret society of scientists labors to make medical discoveries and to save the planet, even though a religious fundamentalist government has outlawed their activities.
• Medical researchers are attempting to bring people back to life after they’ve been dead for thirty minutes or even an hour and give them a full recovery. Their experimentation is unethical and/or leads to strange alterations to people’s brains.
• Someone is shrunk to a tiny size to perform a life-saving or planet-saving procedure impossible for a machine or an average-sized human.
• His loved one died, but is alive in a parallel universe, and he is somehow getting messages or clues about her life there.
• On Ceres, a large asteroid, there’s a fueling station for spaceships. Terrorists take over the station and disrupt space travel and trade.
• Because it’s too hard to screen for performance-enhancing drugs, they are made legal and are an important component of sports.
• The ability to make visual recordings of dreams has exhilarating and terrifying consequences.
• Because android “kids” have become so lifelike, amusing, and hassle-free, no one wants to have real ones.
• (bonus) Patients are woken up from hibernation when the cures to their diseases have been discovered.

I hope you liked these! And if one of them sparks your imagination, don’t feel guilty about using it–you’ll wind up putting your personal spin on it, anyway. Or maybe something on the list will inspire a completely different idea of your own!

Would you like some more? My book 5,000 Writing Prompts has 100 more science fiction writing prompts in addition to the ones on this list, plus hundreds of other master plots by genre, dialogue and character prompts, and much more.

Thanks for stopping by, and happy writing!

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21 thoughts on “ 50 science fiction plot ideas and writing prompts ”.

As much as I love reading and writing books, I’d definitely be interested in interacting with a virtual fantasy world. I’d also like the automatic fitness and mood trackers. I don’t write science fiction, but I’d love some of these to be real someday. Great prompts!

Hi Renea! Yeah, a few of these were wishful thinking. 🙂 Thanks for the kind words!

Hi, what a wonderful list! Thank you. I noticed that there are two #25’s listed so the list is actually 51. 🙂

Hahaha! Hey, I’m a writer, not a numbers gal. 😉 I re-numbered it so #51 is a bonus. Thanks, Laurie!

I like you list as well. “Bryn laughed as she posted her answer for miscounting her plots. Then the total number of characters in her post quickly appeared in her mind. “That’s never happened to me before.” as she smiled to herself. She started to get up to get a bottle of water. As she looked down pressed the keys to lock her computer screen, she quickly counted the pores on the back of her hand. “Wait a minute. What the heck is going on?”

Thanks for all the great sci-fi prompts, Bryn. 🙂 — Suzanne

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34. Is interesting. Outsourcing anything to other civilizations by means of games is a great idea.

Well written and interesting! You should check out my article on the physics of Black Holes: https://therealsciblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/20/black-holes/

Also I will follow anyone who follows me, so please please please follow me!

“In a world where pain and suffering have been eliminated, people pay to experience a variety of negative sensations under safe and controlled circumstances.”

That was actually the plot of a Star Trek: Voyager episode (Random Thoughts) in the 1990s. The only exception is that the trade of negative sensations was illegal, and sanctioned by the government.

Hello! I love your ideas. But what if someone uses one of your story plots and publishes the book? Would you want credit?

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I think you meant to say that Napoleon invades Austria, not Australia?

I have a good plot. the idea itself has been forming and ripening in my mind for 15 years. can i share with you? if so, please contact me by this mail. [email protected]

Science fiction is not just about aliens, mermaids, time travel, and more. Here, you can also write about deep and philosophical stuff, and even tackle societal issues. For example, issues on technological advancement such as the possible takeover of robots and the impending destruction of the planet are commonly emphasized in numerous science fiction novels. These and all the other issues in the society today are tackled in length in science fiction because there is no better place to explore them than in this genre.

Fantastic Plot Ideas! Thanks for sharing. Science fiction stories often illustrate the social reality of the current times. These stories give us a clear picture of how the technologies of today are affecting our daily lives, particularly our interaction and connection with one another. These stories help us understand the things that make up our current reality.

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Thankyou very much! I often write dilemma stories for my ethics class pupils to start or to complement a teaching unit. Fantasy and Science Fiction help us to talk to children even about explosive subjects. But I have less imagination as everyone thinks: Four or five ideas, and that´s it. So I just visited your collection to find more Ideas for my pupils. This was very helpful. Thanx in the name of the children.

Hi Cora! Ow wow, that is so cool! Your class sounds like so much fun. I’m so glad this was useful!

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50 Sci Fi Writing Prompts to Help You Get in the Zone

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on September 26, 2022

Categories Writing , Inspiration

Science fiction is one of the most popular genres in the world, and for good reason! It allows us to explore new worlds, imagine different futures, and experience adventures. If you’re looking to get into the sci-fi writing zone, these 50 prompts are perfect! They will help you develop new story ideas and keep your creative juices flowing. So what are you waiting for? Get started today!

50 Sci-Fi Writing Prompts

1. What if aliens invaded the Earth? How would humanity react, and how would we fight back?

2. What if we discovered a new, habitable planet? What would be the implications for our species?

3. What if time travel was possible? What kind of havoc could be wreaked, and what would be the consequences?

4. What if we made contact with intelligent life forms from another world? How would they view us, and vice versa?

5. What if our world was plunged into a new ice age? How would we survive, and what would happen to civilization as we know it?

6. What if global warming became an irreversible reality? What kind of effect would it have on the planet and human society?

7. What if artificial intelligence became self-aware and decided to take over the world? How would we stop them?

8. What if animals started evolving into sentient beings and demanded equal rights? How would humanity react, and how would society change as a result?

9. What if death could be cured and people stopped dying? How would that affect our views on life, and what would be the consequences of overpopulation?

10.  What if we started colonizing other planets? Could we survive in outer space?

11. What if the government allowed corporations to control the planet’s resources? What would happen if the corporations took over?

12. What if we discovered a new form of energy that could fuel technology for thousands of years? What would be the implications for our planet and our existence?

13. What if we discovered a new, potent form of medicine? What would be the implications for our health, and how would it affect our views on aging or illness?

14. What if there was a new ice age? What would be the implications for the planet and humanity?

15. What if our entire solar system was destroyed? How would this affect our planet, and how would we survive?

16. What if humans became immortal? What would be the implications for society and our civilization?

17. What if an alien race built a new space station near our planet? How would we react, and what would be the consequences?

18. What if aliens discovered a new planet with potentially habitable conditions? How would the two species establish contact, and what would the consequences be?

19. What if we invented a powerful new technology that could change our world? What would we use it for, and how would it impact our society?

20. What if we developed technology that could read our thoughts? What would be the implications for society and our civil liberties?

21. What if a new disease was discovered? How would we respond, and how would it change our world?

22. What if a human discovered a new, highly potent energy source? What would be the implications for society and the environment?

23. What if a scientific discovery threatened to destroy our planet? What lengths would we go to stop it?

24. What if our DNA became mutilated beyond repair, and we could not breed? How would humankind react, and what would be the consequences?

25. What if a new virus was discovered? What would be the implications for humanity, and how would we stop it?

26. What if a human discovered a new planet we could colonize? What would be the implications for our species, and how would we establish colonies there?

27. What if humanity found a way to travel beyond the galaxy? What kinds of adventures could we have in deep space, and what would we discover?

28. What if a new meteor struck Earth and devastated our planet? How would humanity respond, and what would be the aftermath?

29. What if a new kind of energy was discovered? How would humanity use it, and what would be the consequences for our world?

30. What if a new kind of weaponry was discovered? What would be the implications for humanity and for war?

31. What if humans stopped having children? How would this affect our species, and what would be the consequences?

32. What if we discovered a new planet with a breathable atmosphere? What would be the implications for humankind, and how would we colonize it?

33. What if a new dinosaur species was discovered? What would be the implications for our world, and how would we react to their existence?

34. What if a new plague could not be cured? How would humanity respond, and how would we stop the epidemic?

35. What if we discovered a new planet with plant, animal, and human life? What would be the implications for our world, and how would we colonize it?

36. What if a group of people from our planet were stranded on an alien planet? What would be the implications for them and humankind?

37. What if we started colonizing space? What would be the implications for our species?

38. What if a powerful alien species came to our planet? What would be the consequences for humankind?

39. What if humans began traveling the stars and colonizing other planets? What would be the implications for our species, and how would we arm ourselves?

40. What if a new virus spread around the world? How would we stop it, and what would be the repercussions?

41. What if we discovered a new planet that had highly advanced technology? How would we respond, and what would be the consequences?

42. What if an alien race who disliked humans discovered a new planet? How would they treat the planet’s inhabitants, and what would the implications be for humankind?

43. What if a new kind of energy was discovered but had negative impacts on the environment? What would be the implications for our planet and the future of humanity?

44. What if we discovered a powerful new technology that could positively alter our planet? What would be the implications for humankind, and how would we utilize it?

45. What if a new kind of animal was discovered? How would it affect our world, and how would we react?

46. What if we discovered a new form of life? What would be the implications for our world, and how would we respond?

47. What if we discovered a new planet with highly advanced technology? What would be the implications for our world and humanity?

48. What if we discovered a new planet with a suitable environment for human life? What would be the implications for humanity, and how would we colonize it?

49. What if we discovered a new planet inhabited by a new alien life form? What would be the implications for our world, and how would we respond?

50. What if humans landed on a new planet, and our astronauts were stranded there? What would the implications be for our species, and how would we respond?

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some sci-fi topics.

Fancy more than the above? Here goes!…

1. In a future world where artificial intelligence has surpassed human intelligence, humans are now relegated to second-class citizens. Write a story from the perspective of an AI as it observes the humans it once knew struggling to adapt to their new way of life. 2. In a post-apocalyptic world, humanity has been forced to move underground to escape the surface world’s toxic air and endless radiation. Write a story about a group of people who venture back up to the surface, only to find that some things are better left buried. 3. Time travel has been perfected, but there’s a catch: every time you travel back in time, your mind is wiped of all memories of your previous timeline. Write a story about a woman who travels back in time, again and again, desperately trying to hold on to her memories long enough to change her future. 4. In a future where cloning has become commonplace, people can now choose to have copies of themselves made. But what happens when one woman discovers that her clones are inexplicably going missing? 5. On a newly colonized planet, the settlers encountered difficulty growing crops due to the planet’s unusual atmosphere. When they finally manage to grow some crops, they realize too late that the plants are carnivorous… 6. After an alien invasion, humanity has been divided into two groups: those taken by the aliens and those left behind. Write a story about the resistance movement fighting against the invaders and the collaborators who have sided with them. 7. A woman wakes up one day with no memory of who she is or how she got there. The only clues she has are the tattoos on her body which seem to be coordinated in space… 8. In a future society where emotions have been eradicated, two people fall in love and must keep their relationship a secret or face severe consequences. 9. After an experiment gone wrong, a scientist finds herself stuck in an alternate dimension where she discovers that her deceased loved ones are still alive… but they don’t remember her. 10. A woman discovers that she is an android after experiencing glitches in her system… and that she was created for a specific purpose…

How Do You Start a Sci-Fi Narrative?

Great stories need a strong opening that will pull readers in and make them want to keep reading. This is doubly true for science fiction, which often has a lot of world-building and exposition right from the start. So how do you write a strong opening for your sci-fi narrative?

1. Establish the Setting The first step is to establish the setting for your story. Where does it take place? What kind of world is it? Is it future earth or a different planet? Whatever the case may be, you need to give your readers enough information so they can visualize the scene in their minds.

2. Introduce the Characters Once you’ve established the setting, it’s time to introduce the characters. Who are the main players in your story? What motivates them? Again, you don’t want to bog down your opening with too much detail, but you should give readers enough to understand who these people are and what they want.

3. Hook Your Readers Last but not least, you need to hook your readers with some element of suspense or mystery. Why should they care about these characters and this story? What’s at stake? If you can answer those questions in your opening, you’ll have succeeded in pulling readers in and getting them invested in your story.

What’s the Difference Between Sci-Fi and Fantasy?

To understand the genesis of both sci-fi and fantasy, it’s important to know that they both stem from the same source: folklore. Folklore, by definition, is a genre of traditional tales or legends associated with a particular people, culture, or geographical region.

Sci-Fi and fantasy are two genres that are often lumped together, but they have very different conventions. Sci-Fi is focused on science in its stories— usually presenting what-if scenarios exploring science and technology’s consequences. On the other hand, fantasy stories are set in imaginary worlds and often feature magical elements.

Technology vs. Magic One of the key differences between sci-fi and fantasy is their treatment of technology and magic. In SciFi stories, technology is often used as a way to solve problems or achieve objectives that would otherwise be impossible. On the other hand, magic is a central component of most fantasy stories. Magic is often used as a stand-in for technology—for example, flying carpets might take the place of spaceships in a fantasy story set on another planet.

Rational vs. Supernatural explanations Another difference between sci-fi and fantasy is how rational or supernatural explanations are used to explain events in the story. In SciFi, everything typically has a rational explanation— even if that explanation isn’t fully fleshed out or understood by the characters in the story. In contrast, magic often provides a supernatural explanation for events in fantasy stories.

Humans vs. Non-humans A final difference between these two genres is their treatment of human versus non-human characters. In SciFi stories, humans are typically the main focus— even if non-human characters are present (think aliens). On the other hand, non-human characters often take center stage in fantasy stories— with humans playing more of a supporting role (think hobbits).

What Are Three Major Themes in Science Fiction?

As a writer, it’s important to know the major themes that run through your genre. This way, you can stay true to the spirit of the genre while still putting your spin on things. In this post, we’ll look at the three major themes in science fiction.

Exploration. This is the idea of venturing out into the unknown, whether traveling to different worlds or discovering new technologies. It’s about pushing the boundaries of what is possible and expanding our horizons. This theme often leads to stories about first contact and tales of adventure and discovery.

Identity . This is the idea of questioning who we are and what makes us human. It’s about exploring what it means to be an individual in a constantly changing and evolving society. This theme often leads to stories about artificial intelligence, cybernetics, and other forms of transhumanism.

Social commentary. This is the idea of using speculative fiction to comment on contemporary issues. It’s about asking “what if?” and using fictional scenarios to explore the potential consequences of real-world problems. This theme often leads to stories about dystopian societies, climate change, and other forms of social commentary.

How to Come Up With Original Ideas for a Science Fiction Story

by Brandon Cornett | October 7, 2023

Most popular articles for January 2024:

• Post-apocalyptic scenarios and story ideas
• Zombie apocalypse story ideas
• How to write a good science fiction novel

Science fiction explores big ideas in a though-provoking manner, more so than any other genre.

• What if advanced AI became self-aware and demanded equal rights?
• What if we harnessed the power of black holes for interstellar travel?
• What if an alien species made first contact with Earth?

But how do science fiction writers come up with their ideas? And how can you, as an up-and-coming writer, generate ideas for an original science fiction short story or novel?

5 Ways to Generate Science Fiction Ideas

When I was younger, I was captivated by a TV series called The Ray Bradbury Theater . This anthology series featured dramatizations of the science fiction legend’s most beloved stories.

Each episode would begin with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over the many mementos, curios and trinkets he’d collected during his life. In the introductory voiceover, Bradbury would describe this precious clutter as a rich source of story ideas:

People ask, where do you get your ideas? From right here. All of this is my Martian landscape. Somewhere in this room is an African veldt. Just beyond, perhaps, is a small Illinois town where I grew up. And I’m surrounded on every side by my magician’s toy shop. I’ll never starve here. I just look around, find what I need, and begin.

And he was right. Ideas are all around us. We can find them each time we turn on the news, or drive to work, or walk the aisles of a supermarket.

It’s all about perspective—the way we look at life and ponder its possibilities. If you tilt your head just right, and look at the world from a certain angle, you can find science fiction story ideas in just about anything.

Here are some rich sources and methods to get you started:

1. Read widely in the genre.

You’ve probably heard this one before, but it bears repeating.

Reading science fiction exposes you to a steady stream of intriguing ideas and concepts. More importantly, you get to see how the authors develop those ideas into fully formed stories—and how they make them exciting for the reader.

Every once in a while, I’ll be reading a science fiction book or watching a movie, and I’ll have one of those forehead-slapping moments. Wow, what a great idea for a story. I wish I’d thought of that myself! You’ve probably experienced this as well. But did you know that it’s brain food?

Reading science fiction on a regular basis trains your brain to think beyond our current reality. It teaches you to extrapolate, project, speculate and envision. Think of it like a workout for the creative “muscles” of the brain. The more you exercise them, the stronger they become.

Read the sub-genres you like most, as well as the ones you typically avoid. You’ll get value from all of it. None of it will be a waste of time.

Even when you read a story you don’t particularly care for, you’ll gain something from the experience. At the very least, you’ll figure out what kinds of stories and themes you like the most. Chances are, those are the types of stories you were born to write.

But the only way to figure all of this out is by reading widely.

2. Explore interesting ‘what-if’ scenarios.

I like to play the what-if game when exploring story possibilities. It’s deceptively simple. All you do is take an ordinary situation, topic or subject and transform it into an imaginative scenario by posing “what if” questions.

• What if dreams were gateways to alternate dimensions?
• What if humans discovered a way to teleport?
• What if we could reverse aging?
• What if we found a wormhole to another universe?
• What if we could clone humans?
• What if AI developed sentience—and resentment?

Explorative questions like these can help prime your imagination and, with a bit of fleshing out, lead to a fully developed sci-fi story concept.

The key is to build on them. By themselves, these what-if questions represent a premise or central idea for a story. But they need to be nurtured and expanded.

Once you find a what-if scenario you like, think about how it would affect people. Think about the complications, consequences and conflict that might arise from the scenario. You’ll find your story in there somewhere.

3. Study actual science and technology.

You don’t have to be a scientist to write good science fiction. Most well-known and highly successful sci-writers are not scientists. They’re idea makers. They examine the science and technology of today and look for interesting angles, future uses, potential problems, etc. These become the bones for a story.

But it all starts in the here and now. Before you can envision some otherworldly or far-future science fiction scenario, you have to study current capabilities.

Here’s an example to illustrate the point:

I’ve spent a lot of time researching AI for the book series I’m currently developing. I’m not a computer scientist or programmer—far from it. But I need to know enough about this technology and its future potential in order to find the story buried within it.

One day, while conducting such research, I stumbled across the concept of alignment as it relates to artificial intelligence (and its uglier cousin, misalignment ).

“Alignment” is when an artificial intelligence system behaves in a way that is consistent with human values and goals. Misalignment occurs when the AI marches to its own drum, pursuing goals or objectives that are not in keeping with human desires.

This got me thinking: What if, in the not too distant future, a powerful and superintelligent AI developed its own values and goals. What if, for instance, it decided that protecting Planet Earth was priority #1, and that humans were the biggest threat to the planet. The story emerges!

Also, notice how this method overlaps with idea generation strategy #2, asking “what-if” questions. It’s a three-part process:

• Research a scientific or technological topic that fascinates you.
• Use what-if questions to speculate on problems or complications.
• Develop a scenario to show how these complications affect humanity.

Sci-fi is all about exploring the possibilities and consequences of science and technology. The more you know about these subjects, the more ideas you will have for your stories.

Dig into the science journals, the reports, the publicly available academic papers. Scour them for interesting concepts (like the misaligned AI that so intrigued me) and build a story around it.

4. Pay attention to current events.

Did you know that scientists recently discovered what’s inside the moon ?

Or that they’re thinking about resurrecting the extinct Tasmanian tiger ?

Or that they’re discovering ancient viruses in melting permafrost ?

How do I know all of these interesting things? Because I headed over to Google News and entered the phrase “scientific breakthroughs.”

The Internet gives you access to all of the latest scientific breakthroughs and discoveries, along with academic debates and discussions as to their meaning. A science fiction writer from the 1970s would be incredibly jealous over the ease with which we can access such information. Yet many sci-fi writers take this for granted.

Some of the best stories in the history of science fiction were created by writers who paid attention to scientific developments and speculated about their meaning. Today, this kind of observation is easier than ever. It’s a feast for the writer’s soul.

Try it out for yourself:

• Choose an aspect of science or technology that interests you.
• Do a news search for “recent breakthrough” for that topic.
• Scan the headlines and summaries; read those that interest you.

In less than an hour, you’ll have more science fiction story ideas than you know that to do with. You’ll also be ahead of the pack in terms of fictionalizing them.

5. Consider ethical and philosophical questions.

There’s a great line in the movie Jurassic Park , when Dr. Malcolm is arguing against the park’s existence. At one point he tells the park’s creator: “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

This scene (and the novel it’s based on) raises serious ethical and philosophical questions. It questions the meaning of right versus wrong and warns of the consequences for playing god.

This is another way to come up with original science fiction ideas. Choose a scientific or technological concept that interests you—artificial intelligence, climate change, alien life, terraforming planets—and think about the ethical questions it opens up.

What Else Does This Article Need?

I’m transforming this website into a library of useful information and advice for science fiction writers. But to do that, I’ll need help from folks like you.

Is there something missing from this article? Some unexplored topic or angle that would make it more useful for up-and-coming science fiction writers?

Feel free to leave a comment or suggestion below!

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The best new science fiction books of April 2024

There’s an abundance of exciting new science fiction out in April, by writers including The Three-Body Problem author Cixin Liu, Douglas Preston and Lionel Shriver

By Alison Flood

1 April 2024

The last remaining free city of the Forever Desert has been besieged for centuries in The Truth of the Aleke

Shutterstock / Liu zishan

There are some huge names with new works out this month: Cixin Liu and Ann Leckie both have collections of shorter writing to peruse, plus there’s a dystopic future from the award-winning Téa Obreht and a world where woolly mammoths have been brought back from the bestselling Douglas Preston. I also love the sound of Scott Alexander Howard’s debut The Other Valley , set in a town where its past and future versions exist in the next valleys over, and of Sofia Samatar’s space adventure The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain . So much to read, so little time…

A View from the Stars by Cixin Liu

This is a collection of short works from Liu, the sci-fi author of the moment thanks to Netflix’s new adaptation of The Three-Body Problem , ranging from essays and interviews to short fiction. I love this snippet from an essay about sci-fi fans, in which he calls us “mysterious aliens in the crowd”, who “jump like fleas from future to past and back again, and float like clouds of gas between nebulae; in a flash, we can reach the edge of the universe, or tunnel into a quark, or swim within a star-core”. Aren’t we lucky to have such worlds available to us on our shelves?

3 Body Problem review: Cixin Liu's masterpiece arrives on Netflix

Cixin Liu's novel The Three-Body Problem has been turned into an eight-part series for Netflix by the Game of Thrones team. There is much to admire so far, but will the adaptation stay on track, wonders Bethan Ackerley

Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie

Leckie is a must-read writer for me, and this is the first complete collection of her short fiction, ranging across science fiction and fantasy. On the sci-fi side, we will be able to dip back into the Imperial Radch universe, and we are also promised that we’ll “learn the secrets of the mysterious Lake of Souls” in a brand-new novelette.

The Morningside by Téa Obreht

In a catastrophic version of the future, an 11-year-old girl arrives with her mother at The Morningside, once a luxury high-rise, now another crumbling part of Island City, which is half-underwater. Obreht won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011 for her debut, The Tiger’s Wife .

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Samatar won all sorts of prizes for her first novel, A Stranger in Olondria . Her latest sounds really intriguing, following the story of a boy who has grown up condemned to work in the bowels of a mining ship among the stars, whose life changes when he is given the chance to be educated at the ship’s university.

A boy grows up working in a mining ship among the stars in The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain

D-Keine/Getty Images

Extinction by Douglas Preston

This is set in a valley in the Rockies, where guests at a luxury resort can see woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths and Irish elk brought back from extinction by genetic manipulation. But then a string of killings kicks off, and a pair of investigators must find out what’s really going on. This looks Jurassic Park -esque and seems like lots of fun. And if you want more mammoth-related reading, try my colleague Michael Le Page’s excellent explainer about why they won’t be back any time soon.

Mania by Lionel Shriver

The award-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin brings her thoughts about so-called “culture wars” to bear on her fiction, imagining a world where a “Mental Parity Movement” is in the ascendent, and “the worst thing you can call someone is ‘stupid’”.

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard

This speculative novel is set in a town where, to the east, lies the same town but 20 years ahead in time and, to the west, the same town but 20 years behind, repeating endlessly across the wilderness. The only border crossings allowed are for “mourning tours”, in which the dead can be seen in towns where they are still alive. Odile, who is 16, is set for a seat on the Conseil, where she will be able to decree who gets to travel across borders. I love the sound of this.

The best new science fiction books of March 2024

With a new Adrian Tchaikovsky, Mars-set romance from Natasha Pulley and a high-concept thriller from Stuart Turton due to hit shelves, there is plenty of great new science fiction to be reading in March

What If… Loki was Worthy? by Madeleine Roux

Many will question whether the Marvel superhero stories are really science fiction, but I’m leaning into the multiversal aspect here to include this, as it sounds like it could be a bit of fun. It’s the first in a new series that reimagines the origins of some of the biggest heroes: here, Thor died protecting Earth from one of Loki’s pranks and, exiled on our planet, the Norse trickster god is now dealing with the consequences.

The Truth of the Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi

The second book in the Forever Desert series is set 500 years after The Lies of the Ajungo , following a junior peacekeeper in the last remaining free city of the Forever Desert, which has been besieged for centuries. It was actually out in March, but I missed it then, so I’m bringing it to you now as it was tipped as a title to watch this year by our science fiction contributor Sally Adee.

Anomaly by Andrej Nikolaidis, translated by Will Firth

It is New Year’s Eve on the last day of the last year of human existence and various stories are unfolding, from a high-ranking minister with blood on his hands to a nurse keeping a secret. Later, in a cabin in the Alps, a musicologist and her daughter – the last people left on Earth – are trying to understand the catastrophe. According to The Independent , Nikolaidis “makes Samuel Beckett look positively cheery”, but I’m definitely in the mood for that kind of story now and then.

Martin MacInnes: 'Science fiction can be many different things'

The author of In Ascension, the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club, on why he wrote his novel, cultivating a sense of wonder and the role of fiction in the world today

Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton

In this techno-thriller, Mal is a free AI who is uninterested in the conflict going on between the humans, until he finds himself trapped in the body of a cyborg mercenary and becomes responsible for the safety of the girl she died protecting.

• science fiction /

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