The 27 Best Science Fiction Novels Published by Tor

Hugo-winning space operas share shelf space with quieter debuts and a few genre-bending oddities, all launched in the US under the same mountain-peak logo.

1. 1
   Ender's Game

   Orson Scott Card's 1985 novel about child prodigy Andrew Wiggin training at Battle School, winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Ender's Shadow

   A 1999 parallel novel by Card that retells the Battle School story through the eyes of Bean.
   728pts
3. 3
   Lock In

   John Scalzi's 2014 near-future thriller about an FBI agent with Haden's syndrome who works through a robotic body.
   648pts
4. 4
   Boneshaker

   Cherie Priest's 2009 steampunk novel set in an alternate Seattle walled off after a drilling machine releases a toxic gas.
   595pts
5. 5
   Redshirts

   Scalzi's 2012 comic novel about junior crew members who notice that low-ranking officers keep dying on away missions; it won the 2013 Hugo.
   595pts
6. 6
   Hominids

   Robert J. Sawyer's 2002 novel about a Neanderthal physicist who crosses into our world from a parallel Earth, winner of the 2003 Hugo.
   595pts
7. 7
   The Kaiju Preservation Society

   A 2022 Scalzi adventure in which a laid-off delivery driver joins a team caring for giant monsters on a parallel Earth.
   534pts
8. 8
   The Three-Body Problem

   Liu Cixin's novel about first contact with the Trisolarans, published in Ken Liu's English translation by Tor in 2014 and winner of the 2015 Hugo.
   463pts
9. 9
   The Dark Forest

   The second book of Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, translated by Joel Martinsen and issued by Tor in 2015.
   463pts
10. 10
    Blindsight

    Peter Watts's 2006 first-contact novel about a crew of altered humans and a vampire investigating an alien presence beyond Neptune.
    463pts
11. 11
    Speaker for the Dead

    Card's 1986 sequel to Ender's Game, set three thousand years later on the planet Lusitania, which also won the Hugo and Nebula.
    463pts
12. 12
    Rainbows End

    Vinge's 2006 near-future novel about a poet recovering from Alzheimer's in a world of wearable computing, winner of the 2007 Hugo.
    463pts
13. 13
    Spin

    Robert Charles Wilson's 2005 novel in which Earth is wrapped in a membrane that slows its time relative to the universe; it won the 2006 Hugo.
    463pts
14. 14
    Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

    Doctorow's 2003 debut novel set in a post-scarcity future where reputation, called Whuffie, replaces money.
    463pts
15. 15
    Old Man's War

    John Scalzi's 2005 debut novel, in which 75-year-olds enlist in the Colonial Defense Forces and get new bodies.
    379pts
16. 16
    A Desolation Called Peace

    Arkady Martine's 2021 sequel to A Memory Called Empire, about first contact with an alien fleet, which won the 2022 Hugo.
    379pts
17. 17
    A Fire Upon the Deep

    Vernor Vinge's 1992 space opera built around the Zones of Thought, co-winner of the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
    379pts
18. 18
    Autonomous

    Annalee Newitz's 2017 novel about a drug pirate and the military robot hunting her, which won the Lambda Literary Award.
    379pts
19. 19
    The Calculating Stars

    Mary Robinette Kowal's 2018 alternate-history novel about a woman pilot pushing into a space program sped up by a 1952 meteorite strike.
    379pts
20. 20
    A Memory Called Empire

    Arkady Martine's 2019 debut about an ambassador sent to the Teixcalaanli Empire, winner of the 2020 Hugo for Best Novel.
    278pts
21. 21
    The Collapsing Empire

    The 2017 opener of Scalzi's Interdependency trilogy, about an empire held together by a faster-than-light current called the Flow.
    278pts
22. 22
    Too Like the Lightning

    Ada Palmer's 2016 debut, the first book of the Terra Ignota series, set in a 25th-century world without nations.
    278pts
23. 23
    Semiosis

    Sue Burke's 2018 debut about human colonists negotiating with intelligent plant life on the planet Pax.
    278pts
24. 24
    A Deepness in the Sky

    Vinge's 1999 prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, in which Qeng Ho traders and the tyrannical Emergents clash at the star On/Off; it won the 2000 Hugo.
    0pts
25. 25
    Death's End

    The 2016 English edition of the trilogy's closing volume, translated by Ken Liu, which follows engineer Cheng Xin across centuries.
    0pts
26. 26
    Little Brother

    Cory Doctorow's 2008 young-adult novel about a San Francisco teenager fighting surveillance after a terrorist attack.
    0pts
27. 27
    Network Effect

    Martha Wells's 2020 first full-length Murderbot novel, which won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards.
    0pts

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