Sci-Fi Books Dominating BookTok Right Now: The Viral Reads Launching Readers Into Orbit

A dying planet. A desperate mission. A crew facing impossible odds. Time is running out for the people of New Pallas. Determined to secure humanity’s survival, Captain Alvera Renata leads a handpicked crew on a perilous journey across the stars in search of a new home. But first contact with a galactic civilization on the brink of war complicates their mission, and Alvera soon realizes that their only hope may lie in the mysterious alien waystations scattered across the galaxy. Their secrets could save humanity—or awaken a forgotten threat. As tensions rise and loyalties fracture, each crew member must make an impossible choice: what are they willing to sacrifice for those left behind? For fans of Mass Effect, The Expanse, and Star Wars, Those Left Behind is a gripping space opera of exploration, survival, and ancient mysteries.

It’s 2050, a decade after a heatwave that killed four hundred million across the Persian Gulf, including journalist Marcus Tully’s wife. Now he must uncover the truth: was the disaster natural? Or is the weather now a weapon of genocide? A whistleblower pulls Tully into a murder investigation at the centre of an election battle for a global dictator, with a mandate to prevent a climate apocalypse. A former US President campaigns against the first AI politician of the position, but someone is trying to sway the outcome. As the murder of a crucial witness derails the investigation, Tully must find the truth, convince the world to face it and make hard choices about the future of the species. But will humanity ultimately choose salvation over freedom, whatever the cost?

Stranded on a dead planet with her mortal enemy, a spy must survive and uncover a galaxy-shattering conspiracy. Naira Sharp is a revolutionary with a mission: expose the powerful Mercator family’s stranglehold on humanity’s expansion. As habitable planets vanish, she suspects the Mercators are behind it. Disguised as a bodyguard to Tarquin Mercator—the reluctant heir who’d rather study rocks than rule—Naira plans to sabotage their latest settlement mission. But when a crash leaves them stranded, Naira and Tarquin must set aside their differences to survive. As they navigate a desolate world, they uncover a sinister plot that threatens not just planets, but the future of humanity itself. In this gripping first book of an epic space opera trilogy, enemies must become allies to save a galaxy on the brink of collapse.

Multiverse travel has one rule: you can’t visit a world where your counterpart is alive. For Cara, that’s rarely a problem—on 372 worlds, her parallel selves are dead, victims of disease, violence, or vengeance. On this Earth, Cara has defied the odds. Plucked from the wastelands, she’s become a rare asset for Wiley City’s elite, traveling the multiverse to collect data. It’s a life of uneasy balance—secure yet fragile, tethered to both the city’s privileges and the harsh world she left behind. When one of her few remaining doppelgängers dies under suspicious circumstances, Cara uncovers a secret that shatters her tenuous stability. Her discovery ties her to a dangerous conspiracy, where survival means more than saving herself—it could determine the fate of every universe.

Dying isn’t any fun…but at least it’s a living. Mickey Barnes is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous—even suicidal—the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal…and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it. On a routine scouting mission, Mickey7 goes missing and is presumed dead. By the time he returns to the colony base, surprisingly helped back by native life, his fate has been sealed. There’s a new clone, Mickey8, reporting for Expendable duties, and there can only be one Expendable. If Mickey7 reports his survival to Command, one of them is going into the recycler. If he doesn’t and they’re caught, they both are. Meanwhile, life on Niflheim is getting worse. The atmosphere is unsuitable for humans, food is in short supply, and terraforming is going poorly. The native species are growing curious about their new neighbors, and that curiosity has Commander Marshall very afraid. Ultimately, the survival of both lifeforms will come down to Mickey7. That is, if he can just keep from dying for good.

Hadrian Marlowe will be remembered as both savior and executioner—the man who annihilated humanity’s greatest enemy, and the monster who destroyed a sun. But the truth is far stranger. Born to privilege yet unwilling to inherit his father’s cruel legacy, Hadrian flees the path laid before him. Instead of safety, he finds himself stranded on a distant world, forced into survival among gladiators, courtiers, and liars. His choices echo far beyond palace walls, dragging him into a war he never asked to fight. Now, every step draws him closer to the destiny history will twist into myth. Billions of lives hang on his defiance, but Hadrian’s greatest battle may be deciding what kind of man he truly is. And in the end, who will the galaxy remember?

When an Earth-like planet is discovered, a team of six teens, along with three veteran astronauts, embark on a twenty-year trip to set up a planet for human colonization—but find that space is more deadly than they ever could have imagined. Have you ever hoped you could leave everything behind? Have you ever dreamt of a better world? Can a dream sustain a lifetime? A century ago, an astronomer discovered an Earth-like planet orbiting a nearby star. She predicted that one day humans would travel there to build a utopia. Today, ten astronauts are leaving everything behind to find it. Four are veterans of the twentieth century’s space-race. And six are teenagers who’ve trained for this mission most of their lives. It will take the team twenty-three years to reach Terra-Two. Twenty-three years locked in close quarters. Twenty-three years with no one to rely on but each other. Twenty-three years with no rescue possible, should something go wrong. And something always goes wrong.

Two cities. One body. And a murder that defies borders—real or imagined. In Besźel, a decaying Eastern European city, Inspector Tyador Borlú investigates the death of a murdered woman. But when evidence suggests she was killed in Ul Qoma—a vibrant city that exists in the same physical space as Besźel—Borlú must cross not just political lines, but mental ones. To see Ul Qoma, you must unsee Besźel—and vice versa. Breaking this rule isn’t just taboo, it’s a crime. As Borlú partners with Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, the mystery deepens into a surreal exploration of identity, nationalism, and the blurred lines of reality. Winner of the Hugo, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards, The City & The City is a genre-defying masterpiece of noir, speculative fiction, and philosophical intrigue.

Maria Arena awakens in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. She has no memory of how she died. This is new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died. Maria’s vat is one of seven, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Dormire, each clone waiting for its previous incarnation to die so it can awaken. And Maria isn’t the only one to die recently. . .

Princess Altagracia has lost everything. After a bloody civil war, her twin sister has claimed both the crown of their planet, Szayet, and the Pearl of its prophecy: a computer that contains the immortal soul of Szayet’s god. So when the interstellar Empire of Ceiao turns its conquering eye toward Szayet, Gracia sees an opportunity. To regain her planet, Gracia places herself in the hands of the empire and its dangerous commander, Matheus Ceirran. But winning over Matheus, to say nothing of his mercurial and compelling captain Anita, is no easy feat. And in trying to secure her planet’s sovereignty and future, Gracia will find herself torn between Matheus’s ambitions, Anita’s unpredictable desires, and the demands of the Pearl that whispers in her ear. For Szayet’s sake and her own, she will need to become more than a princess with a silver tongue. She will have to become a queen as history has never seen before.