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Best Science Fiction Books of 2008

Posted July 7, 2009

Science Fiction does not rejoice in the present or in the past and it is usually always forward looking, discussing the future, attempting to outguess the advance of science and human progress. Although there are a few writers who attempt to wrestle with the immediate future or parallel present-day universes.

The best science fiction books of 2008 are a diverse mix of intense science fiction and energetic adventures set in distant lands, contemplating the unknown, or yet to be.

Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhouser

Steven Millhouser is a master storyteller that invents believable parallel universes in which the deepest human emotions are molded into their cruel opposites.

Dangerous Laughter is a collection of stories with a mixture of dark suspense and pleasant humor as the title implies. Everything one has come to expect and want in Millhauser's work is here - creepy attics, fantastically crafted contraptions, obsessed artists driven mad, and aspiring enterprises that become undermined and impossible to maintain.

One of the joys that make Steven Millhauser so much fun to read is that he has not forgotten what it was like to be an adolescence, fueled by curiosity, trying to make the world around him fit into his image of how things ought to be.

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Before Roberto Bolaño died at the age of 50, from a long-standing liver ailment, he had already established himself as a prominent writer in the Spanish speaking literary atmosphere, and is popularly held as the most influential Latin-American writer of his time.

2666 is a huge novel by the late Roberto Bolaño at 898 pages in length. He was determined to finish it just before his early death in 2003. Like his previous novel, The Savage Detectives, 2666 was written in a mock-documentary style with an aversion that is both appalling and genuinely humane.

It is divided into five inter-connected stories that could be considered novels in their own right. Focusing on the unsolved murders of women in the desert borderlands of northern Mexico, that delves relentlessly towards a dark centralized essence.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Anathem is the latest concoction by New York Times best-selling author Neal Stephenson. A work of imagination and intelligence that guides readers into a recognizable, yet remarkably altered world.

In Anathem, Neal Stephenson devises a far-future Earth-like planet, Arbre, where philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians have been constrained in secluded convents. (Much like religious monasteries without the religious implications.) Their role is to sustain and nurture all knowledge while protecting it from the impulses of the outside world, known as the Sæcular Power.

Erasmas, the main character, finds himself as the primary player in a drama that will ascertain the future of his world - as he sets out on an unprecedented adventure that will take him through the hostile, adverse corners of his planet.

Immortality by Kevin Bohacz

Hugo Award winning author Kevin Bohacz contrives a techno-thriller that explores evolution, technology, and the threat of global extinction.

Bohacz keeps his readers intrigued with a tale of how evolution can create new and auspicious species when being challenged by environmental collapse. But the novel's some what esoteric assumptions make it more scientifically capricious than hardcore science fiction.

Bohacz takes notable concern in creating each character with personal details that help the narrative greatly. There is plenty of potential in the assertations of the plot to leave readers shocked, and it's a novel that will surprise fans of both science fiction and doomsday scenarios.

The Ship Who Searched by Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey

Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey, two distinguished science fiction authors, collaborate once again in a refreshing tale of a little girl's quest for a long extinct race of starfarers - set in McCaffrey's universe where star ships are commanded by the living personalities of human beings.

When seven-year-old Tia is afflicted by a strange illness while on an archaeological dig with her parents, she associates it to the EsKays, a race of extinct beings whose artifacts are strewn throughout the galaxy, but whose outcome remains a mystery.

Dark Matter by S.W. Ahmed

What if we could travel travel faster than the speed of light? Ahmed explores this question in his first novel, combined with, alien abductions, the theory of dark matter, and galactic warfare.

Marc Zemin is an exceptional astrophysics student whose experiments cause aliens to come to Earth and sweep him away into outerspace. To his astonishment, the aliens want his aid in a galactic conflict that is quickly spreading out of control. As he begins to bring to light the bleak conspiracy that is in motion, he is challenged with the notion of whether or not he has the conviction to defeat his own personal demons and confront the surprising truth of who he really is. Dark Matter is a science fiction debut that shows great potential.

The Prometheus Project: Trapped by Douglas E. Richards

The Prometheus Project: Trapped is the first book of The Prometheus Project series. A science fiction adventure novel geared towards teenagers that has made it's way into classrooms, but young and old alike will be able to fully enjoy the book.

Ryan and Regan Resnick are forced to move to Brewster, Pennsylvania by their parents. After weeks of boredom the kids are itching for some adventure, and sure enough they get more than what they are expecting. The kids get into, and cleverly out of, some amazing adventures while learning that their parents are part of The Prometheus Project, a top-secret team of scientists investigating an alien civilization.

Nature of the Beast by Richard Fawkes

Richard Fawkes grew up with a fascination for military history, and it is evident in his Novels. In Nature of the Beast, Fawkes focuses in great detail on the art and tactics of space battle.

The Remor are a nearly indestructible alien race, who outnumber and surpass Humans in just about every aspect militarily, and they have set their sights on the total extermination of the Human race.

Captain Christoph Stone embarks on a mission that is clearly suicidal as he attempts to retake a captive world. The fate of Humankind is to be decided on a distant planet deep in the Remor controlled territory of space.

Cross the Stars by David Drake

David Drake is today's dominant writer of military science fiction. His Hammer's Slammers series of novels has set the standard for how future mercenaries should be, and he has an uncanny skill at bringing combat action to life, full of adrenaline pumped excitement.

Don Slade is on his way home to the planet Tethys, but the expedition is risky and threatening with planets that harbor unknown dangers. If Don Slade should ever get to Tethys, than that is when the substantial conflict will commence.

The Exile Kiss by George Alec Effinger

The Exile Kiss is the third book in George Alec Effinger's far-future series of novels, set in the fictional Arabian city of Budayeen.

Marîd Audran has risen to be the right-hand man of one of the Maghreb’s most atrocious individuals, the influential Friedlander Bey, from hustling on the streets of the depraved Budayeen ghetto. Marîd is just starting to appreciate his newly established prosperity and authority, when he and Bey are betrayed by an adversary and implicated of murder.

Sentenced to exile and abandoned to die in the immense Arabian desert, Marîd and Bey must somehow endure the scorched sands and find their way back to Budayeen to enact their vengeance.

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