Top Five Science Fiction Novels of 2024

Lake of Darkness is the new hard science fiction novel by Adam Roberts that asks whether an intelligent being could evolve inside the infinite darkness of a black hole. As the novel opens, two starships are in orbit around a black hole known as QV Tel. Although the crews have been sent to gather data near the event horizon of the black hole, they are suffering from severe physical and psychological trauma after traveling near the speed of light.

The journey takes an especially large toll on one of the starship captains, Alpha Raine, who suffers a complete psychological breakdown, murdering his crew. While others question his sanity, Raine believes he is receiving communication from a being that resides within the black hole itself. Raine undergoes evaluation by Saccade, the other lead character of Lake of Darkness, a historian of twentieth century Earth culture specializing in the psychology of serial killers.

The title of the novel is an allusion to King Lear by William Shakespeare: “Frateretto calls me and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.” Frateretto is the name of a devil, and the Nero reference points back to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, where the Roman Emperor is found fishing in hell. This quote accurately captures the pitch-black vibes and demonic overtones of Lake of Darkness. Although this is a hard sci-fi novel saturated with astrophysics, Roberts delves just as deeply into both the philosophical and theological implications of a black hole developing sentient life.

The true genius of Lake of Darkness is how Roberts constructs a story from the so-called black hole information paradox, which arises when applying a combination of general relativity and quantum mechanics to black hole physics. The paradox concerns the ultimate fate of information sucked into black holes: when a black hole decays due to Hawking radiation, is the information truly lost or could it be re-emitted? More specifically, could the information serve as fuel for evolving an intelligent entity within the black hole itself?

Lake of Darkness is not a casual read by any means, but it is highly rewarding for readers willing to devote the necessary effort. It is rare to find a book that delves so deeply into science, philosophy, religion, and psychology, while also delivering a compelling story with complex, morally gray characters. Personally, I found myself unable to resist the gravitational pull of this dense yet darkly alluring opus.

Read my complete review here.

Absolution is the surprise fourth volume of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series, which began with Annihilation and continued with Authority and Acceptance.

For the uninitiated, the Southern Reach series is a sci-fi horror centered on a mysterious coastal region known as Area X, where biological evolution has been accelerated in unexpected and terrifying ways, presumably due to extraterrestrial interference. Annihilation introduces us to an all-female team of scientists investigating Area X known only by their occupation: a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor. These four women comprise the twelfth expedition into Area X after the successive failures of all the previous missions. The second novel, Authority, turns its attention away from Area X to focus on the Southern Reach, the shady entity responsible for organizing these expeditions into the horrific unknown. The third book, Acceptance, has a broader scope, shifting among several different perspectives and timelines to provide deeper character studies, including that of the mercurial Lowry, sole survivor of the original expedition into Area X.

Jeff VanderMeer makes a welcome return to Area X with Absolution. This fourth volume of the series is divided into three parts, each leaning heavily into the cosmic horror aspects of the story. The first part of Absolution, called “Dead Town,” can be read as a standalone novella and takes place about twenty years before the formation of Area X. A team of biologists are reintroducing alligators to a region known as the Forgotten Coast. As in Annihilation, the scientists are unnamed, defined only by their professional roles within the team. The biologists take residence at an abandoned village known as Dead Town, their fate becoming inexorably linked to that of the town itself.

The second part of Absolution, titled “The False Daughter,” takes place about eighteen months before the formation of Area X and concerns the aftermath of the alligator experiment from “Dead Town.” The horrors from the first story come back to haunt characters in unexpected ways. “The False Daughter” features excellent use of the doppelgänger motif, as in Annihilation, and there is also an event known as the House Centipede Incident, which I will not soon forget.

The third and final part of Absolution, “The First and the Last,” recounts the first formal expedition into Area X eighteen months after its formation. The original expedition team has twenty-four members and is told from the perspective of Lowry, the self-described “hero” of the group who is already well-known to readers of Acceptance. The group is woefully unprepared for the journey into Area X, with a lack of professionalism that belies the gravity of the situation.

Altogether, Absolution is the best entry in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series since he first introduced the world to Area X in Annihilation. I especially love seeing the many connections between Absolution and the other three books of the series.

Read my complete review here.

Miles Cameron ratchets up the space opera adventure in Deep Black, the sequel to his highly acclaimed sci-fi debut, Artifact Space, and the second volume in his Arcana Imperii series.

The Arcana Imperii Universe teems with trade, and the most precious commodity is xenoglas, a seemingly supernatural material that originates from an alien race known as the Starfish. Of course, the desire for xenoglas brings out the worst among some people. Technology advances but human nature remains the same, even after colonizing the greater cosmos.

Miles Cameron again shines with his expertly drawn characters, who spring to life led by the spirited Marca Nbaro, an orphan who forges paperwork to become a midshipman on the Greatship Athens. I love Marca’s character growth over the course of both novels, and I especially enjoyed how the relationships with her friends develop and mature in Deep Black.

Deep Black delves deeper into the alien races of the Arcana Imperii Universe and the behind-the-scenes politics driving their conflicts and alliances. With its focus on both interpersonal relationships and deepening knowledge of alien races, Deep Black has strong Star Trek: The Next Generation vibes, except faster paced and a lot more fun.

Overall, Deep Black delivers a highly satisfying conclusion to the current story arc while also leaving the door open for new adventures.

Read my complete review here.

Lost Souls, the debut novel from indie author Ryan Skeffington, is a dark science fiction thrill ride that leaves plenty of emotional devastation in its wake. The novel opens in the year 2070 with passengers on a spaceship awakening from a three-year cryogenic freeze after fleeing global destruction on Earth. But the cryogenic freezing process takes its toll: many passengers wake up to find themselves missing limbs, and some never wake up at all.

The spaceship’s destination is an asteroid composed entirely of xantium, a “bio-metallic rare-non-earth metal” that can absorb incredible amounts of energy to be released at a later point in time. Xantium has seemingly miraculous properties when interacting with organic matter such as biological tissue and is considered an essential building block for humanity’s long-term survival in space and may provide a pathway toward the so-called Infinite Existence.

The first few chapters in Lost Souls jump quickly through time, advancing from year 2070 to 2123 and then 2133. Although Lost Souls bounces among various perspectives, the main point-of-view character is Maximus, a brilliant xantium engineer who is trying to meet (or exceed) the impossibly high expectations set by the work of his father and grandfather while also determining his own unique path. His personal struggles are set against the backdrop of an epic battle between freedom and tyranny. With the fate of humanity in his hands, the stakes could not be any higher.

It’s hard to believe that Lost Souls is a debut novel. Ryan Skeffington writes with a strong command of both the hard science and emotional aspects of the novel, balancing the large-scale conflict with heart-wrenching personal struggles from Maximus and several side characters. Although the writing feels a bit dense at times, the author propels the story forward at a steady pace, building up to an astonishing climax that left my mouth agape in disbelief.

Altogether, Lost Souls is a stellar debut by an electrifying new voice in dark science fiction. Read my complete review here.

Seeds of Inheritance is Aimee Kuzenski’s heart-pounding science fantasy about elves in space. Think of it as Dune but where Kuzenksi asks the question: what if Lady Jessica had failed?

Filling the role of Lady Jessica is Berenike, the rebel leader who is held in captivity by the empire as part of a negotiated truce. Berenike’s son was killed during the failed rebellion, and now all hope rests with her daughter, Evrim.

But Evrim is a reluctant savior to say the least, and her romantic relationship with the imperial princess, Hypatia, endangers the entire rebel cause.

Despite the epic scope and fast-paced action of Seeds of Inheritance, this is fundamentally a character-driven story with the fraught mother-daughter relationship of Berenike and Evrim at its core. Kuzenski’s characters feel so real that they practically spring off the page.

Overall, it’s easy to see why Seeds of Inheritance was selected as a semi-finalist in SPFBOX.

Read my complete review here.