Genre
Best Science Fiction Backlist Worth Going Back For
Six science-fiction novels that earned their reputations and have aged well into 2026. Late Heinlein at his most autobiographical, late Clarke at his most ambitious, a near-future ISS thriller a decade before The Martian, and one Orson Scott Card anthology that nobody talks about anymore.
6 books on this list.
The Cat Who Walks Through Wallsby Robert A. Heinlein
4.0“The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein 1985 review. A late-Heinlein World-As-Myth novel in which the writer Richard Ames is recruited into a multiverse-spanning conspiracy on Luna.”
To Sail Beyond the Sunsetby Robert A. Heinlein
4.0“To Sail Beyond the Sunset by Robert A. Heinlein 1987 review. The final Heinlein novel, narrated by Maureen Johnson Long, mother of Lazarus Long, across a hundred and fifty years of Howard Families history.”
The Light Of Other Daysby Arthur C. Clarke
4.0“The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter 2000 review. Wormhole technology lets anyone look anywhere, anytime. The end of privacy and the end of secret history arrive in the same decade.”
The Triggerby Arthur C. Clarke
3.0“The Trigger by Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Kube-McDowell 1999 review. A field that detonates all chemical explosives within range arrives in a near-future America. The Second Amendment debate gets a hardware upgrade.”
Tango Midnightby Michael Cassutt
3.0“Tango Midnight by Michael Cassutt 2003 review. A near-future ISS-set thriller in which a crew member is exposed to an airborne pathogen and the rescue mission is forty-eight hours of orbital choreography away.”
Wizards, Inc.by Orson Scott Card
3.0“Wizards, Inc. edited by Orson Scott Card 2007 review. A 13-story anthology of urban-fantasy and corporate-wizardry stories featuring Esther Friesner, Karen Joy Fowler, Lawrence Watt-Evans, and Mark Wandrey.”