Penguin Science Fiction

'Unquestionably one of the brightest-burning talents in the constellation of science fiction' The New York TimesWritten under the pseudonym James Tiptree Jr., the pioneering and outlandish tales of Alice B. Sheldon are some of the greatest science...

'One of Japan's most venerated writers' David MitchellIn this unnerving fable from one of Japan's greatest novelists, a recluse known as 'Mole' retreats to a vast underground bunker, only to find that strange guests, booby traps and a giant toilet may...

'The best single work of science fiction yet written' Ursula K. Le GuinThe dystopian masterwork that inspired George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, We depicts a futuristic totalitarian society, 'OneState', where humans have become numbers. Suppressed in...

'Hilarious SF satire. Douglas Adams said it was the only thing like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, although written ten years earlier. It's wonderful' Neil GaimanThis madcap cosmic farce relates the adventures of the hapless human Carmody, as he...

'Hilarious SF satire. Douglas Adams said it was the only thing like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, although written ten years earlier. It's wonderful' Neil GaimanThis madcap cosmic farce relates the adventures of the hapless human Carmody, as he...

'There is nothing else quite like Ice' Doris LessingSet in a frozen world that is gradually being devastated by ever-encroaching ice, Anna Kavan's masterwork follows one man's pursuit of a mysterious silver-haired girl to the ends of the earth; to the...

'A beautiful book' Ursula K. Le GuinThis mordantly funny and provocative tale from Soviet Russia's leading science fiction writers is the story of astrophysicist Dmitri Malianov. As he reaches a major breakthrough, he finds himself plagued by...

'Revelatory. Harry Harrison's novel about Earth on the edge of disaster is both bracing and cathartic ... impressively prescient' GuardianThe planet's population has exploded and resources are stretched to breaking point. And, in a sweltering,...

'A giant of twentieth-century science fiction' GuardianOne of the world's most beloved science fiction writers, Stanislaw Lem was famed for his wryly comic, outlandish imaginings of the relationship between humans and technology. In this playful cosmic...

The first English-language publication of one of the greatest Polish science fiction novels of all time'We have given you life ... so that you could discover a fraction of the great secret.'Is BER-66 a human or a robot? His controllers, known as 'the...

In a distant universe, since the beginning of time, workers have spent their lives weaving intricate carpets from the hair of women and girls. But why? Andreas Eschbach's mysterious, poignant space opera explores the absurdity of work and of life itself...

The master of weird fiction, H. P. Lovecraft combines cosmic fantasy with creeping horror in these three tales of malevolent alien forces, body-switching and travel across the space-time continuum.'Evil, in Lovecraft, is universal, pervasive' Michael...

The book that influenced writers from Carl Sagan to Stephen Hawking, Flatland is set in a two-dimensional world where life exists only in lines and shapes - until one of its inhabitants, 'A. Square', has his perspective transformed forever. This...

'Delany's works have become essential to the history of science fiction' New YorkerSamuel Delany is one of the most radical and influential science fiction writers of our age, who reinvented the genre with his fearless explorations of race, class and...

'Extraordinary' Philip PullmanFollowing one man's journey from earth to an alien landscape of ethereal beauty and existential terror, A Voyage to Arcturus is a profound questioning of the nature of evil. Dreamlike and philosophical, this landmark cult...

'Vonnegut looked the world straight in the eye and never flinched' J. G. BallardThis bitterly funny Cold War satire on the end of the world expresses our deepest fears of Armageddon, and has become a counter-culture classic.'A satirist with a heart, a...

'Tiptree's narratives of alien worlds and alienation make up one of science fiction's most vivid and influential bodies of work' The New York TimesThis landmark collection of short stories shows the feminist pioneer James Tiptree Jr. at her most...

'A kind of magical realism for science fiction ... Quite, quite brilliant' TorPart pulp adventure, part otherworldly meditation, this is the story of Trafalgar Medrano: intergalactic trader and lover of bitter coffee and black cigarettes. In the bars and...