10 Best-Selling Sci-Fi Books Of The Last 10 Years

The best-selling sci-fi novels of the past decade speak volumes about the state of the genre. It also provides a solid place to start for readers who are looking to get into science fiction books. There are always Best Of lists, and Best New lists, but bestseller status is also a good entrypoint. It seems like everybody loves science fiction, but sci-fi fiction still struggles to sell a lot of books, barring some notable examples that have been strapped to a rocket and shot to juggernaut sales status in the last ten years. Keep that in mind while reading this list. Also bear in mind that publishers don't make tracking sales data for books easy, especially when the numbers aren't astronomical. As such, the entries and their order here is extrapolated from available figures. It isn't hard science, it's more of a sweeping, space operatic view of the genre. Even so, it offers a good sense of what has historically sold over the past decade. (Hint: It is the Multiverse. And it is action.) And from what doesn't doesn't pop up on the list, it is possible to get a sense of what still isn't connecting with modern audiences, even if they're more sci-fi literate, and sci-fi hungry, than ever. Last note before beginning: this list is divided into a section for individual titles, and a section exploring the top science fiction book series since 2016. The reason why is made clear in the entries for that section. The short answer is that it allowed for the broadest possible scope of the landscape of modern sci-fi literature. 10 The Kaiju Preservation Society Written By John Scalzi; Published In 2022 Like all the titles on this list, The Kaiju Preservation Society will be fighting for a spot on the Top 10 Best Sci-Fi Novels of the 2020s list in just a few years. John Scalzi's novel might also be the definitive Big Monster book. In terms of sales, it was a Kaiju-sized hit, breaking out of the sci-fi niche to do commercial fiction numbers. The Kaiju Preservation Society blends alternate history, speculative sc-fi, and Kaiju action to create a compelling read, the kind of book that even at about 275 pages readers will find themselves committing to reading in a single day. The one thing Kaiju Preservation Society is missing right now to boost its sales numbers is a sequel, or a movie adaptation. Still, the novel remains popular, both in print and on audiobook. 9 Sea Of Tranquility Written By Emily St. John Mandel; Published In 2022 Station Eleven author Emily St. John Mandel is one of the biggest names in fiction right now. Her books are guaranteed commercial and critical successes, a tightrope act that only a handful of authors in every era are able to pull off. Sea of Tranquility is her sixth novel, and most recent up until this week's publication of Exit Party. (Which, spoilers for that book, features alternate realities.) Tranquility includes time travel, as well as space travel, and also makes the simulation theory or reality a recurring question in the book. Sea of Tranquility, and its success, show how familiar sci-fi ideas and conventions have come in popular fiction, but Mandel's handling of them is anything but. She brilliantly blurs the line between speculative and sci-fi in a way that widens her appeal and has given her work a huge leg up. 8 Ready Player Two Written By Ernest Cline; Published In 2020 Ready Player Two was not well-received at the time of its release. It is widely considered to be a huge drop in quality from its predecessor, Ready Player One. Nevertheless, Ernest Cline's sequel to his 2011 debut rode a huge wave of hype to a solid sales total. Ready Player One sold several million copies, even before its 2018 movie adaptation, directed by no less than Steve Spielberg himself. That turned the nascent dystopian sci-fi franchise from a hit to a phenomenon. Add into that mix audiobook versions of both novels narrated by Whil Wheton, and it's easy to see why Ready Player Two did almost as well as its predecessor. The big "what if" question is what kind of drop off the series would have seen if Cline had produced a third installment quickly, after the dismal reaction to Ready Player Two. As of now, there seems to be no active plan for another Ready Player sequel, though a prequel book has been teased. 7 Dark Matter Written By Blake Crouch; Published In 2016 Blake Crouch's sci-fi thriller Dark Matter was a bestseller at the time of its release, and a 2024 Apple TV+ adaptation led to a resurgence in sales for the book nearly a decade after its release. That has pushed the novel over the one million sales threshold, which is a major milestone for a standalone sci-fi novel. Like Kaiju Preservation Society, Dark Matter is about contact with alternate timelines, rather than extraterrestrials. It is a testament to how ubiquitous the idea of a Multiverse has become in pop culture, compared to 30-40 years ago. In 2016, Dark Matter was still just ahead of the curve. That made it wildly popular at the time of its release. And with the Dark Matter show airing its second season, another swell of book sales should be expected. If the series continues, and becomes a hit itself, that will drive Crouch's novel even further up the all-time bestseller list. 6 This Is How You Lose The Time War Written By Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone; Published In 2019 This Is How You Lose the Time War is one of the best time travel stories of the past decade. It is also a great example of modern epistolary fiction, written as correspondence between members of competing factions in the titular temporal conflict. (It is also another Multiverse story.) Most importantly, though, Time War is an enemies-to-lovers tale. A modern classic in that genre as well. Its presence on this list is, in part, due to the book's 2023 viral resurgence on social media, which drove it to the top of the charts again four years after its release. That said, it is a testament to something deeper than social media's capacity to signal boost good books. It highlights the increasing importance of character-driven science fiction, a genre that has always had great characters, but which is often dominated by bigger ideas and more epic forces of nature and the cosmos. 5 Project Hail Mary Written By Andy Weir; Published In 2021 Project Hail Mary has taken that "hit" to "phenomenon" trajectory we brought up earlier, but it has gone to another level past that: literary juggernaut. The novel's 2026 movie adaptation has been a stellar success in its own right, and it has pushed the book into all-time sci-fi bestseller territory. Sales of the audiobook, narrated by the incomparable Ray Porter, are said to be in the multi-million range. All of this has solidified Andy Weir as one of the most profitable sci-fi authors out there right now, with one significant asterisk next to his name. That is, at least so far, Weir hasn't developed a series, instead working on standalone novels. A sequel to Project Hail Mary would do huge numbers, and the author has hinted at the possibility at some point in the future. 4 The Murderbot Diaries Series Written By Martha Wells; Published 2017-Present Martha Wells launched The Murderbot Diaries in 2017 and has put out eight installments of the series since, including 2026's Platform Decay. Wells' Murderbot books are exhilarating action thrillers set in an immersive sci-fi universe. And that order of operations is key to their success. Murderbot was quickly snatched up for adaptation by Apple TV+, starring Alexander Skarsgård as the eponymous bot. The well-received first season earned the show a season two renewal, and helped to boost sales of the books across the board. The Murderbot Diaries has collectively sold over a million copies. It is a modern day serial fiction masterpiece; while sci-fi often operates in trilogies and sprawling sagas, Murderbot is about getting in, getting the job done, and getting out. More than any other sci-fi series, it has to been taken as the sum total of all its parts. 3 The Expanse Series (Books 6-9) Written By James S.A. Corey; Published 2016-2021 The Expanse is without question one of the defining sci-fi book series of the 21st century so far. Between 2011 and 2021, writing partners Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, writing under the name James S.A. Corey, kicked off a leviathan of a franchise, to borrow their terminology. A Syfy Network TV adaptation went into production almost immediately after the first Expanse novel won the Hugo Award for the Best Sci-Fi Novel. (The Expanse later won for Best Series in 2020.) After three seasons at Syfy, The Expanse continued for three more years on Amazon, and ended in 2022, not long after the book series finished with 2021's Leviathan Falls. That was the ninth book in the series. The four volumes published in the past decade have each moved enough units individually to occupy nearly half this list. 2 Red Rising Series (Books 4-6) Written By Pierce Brown; Published 2016-Present Red Rising is another modern science fiction saga that would dominate this list if each individual book was given its due. The Red Rising novels, split into two trilogies, have reportedly sold over six million copies total. Divided evenly, that's a million copies and counting each. The actual breakdown surely isn't that simple, but it still puts the novels, singularly and together as a series, in rarefied air. Red Rising is essentially the action-oriented spiritual successor to Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars Trilogy," widely ranked among the best sci-fi trilogies ever. That's a high bar to reach for, and Red Rising has lived up to the challenge, while also wildly surpassing its predecessor in terms of commercial success. 1 Dungeon Crawler Carl Series Written By Matt Dinniman; Published 2020-Present There's no avoiding Dungeon Crawler Carl. Matt Dinniman's LitRPG novel and its sequels were originally self-published, before the franchise was acquired and given a traditional release by Penguin Random House. What got Penguin's attention, naturally, was the series' explosive popularity. In just the last few years, the books have gone from selling thousands of copies to millions. Dungeon Crawler Carl is a madcap sci-fi rollercoaster, and it has rapidly become a contender for the Franchise of the Decade. And if each individual book were listed here, the Carl franchise would hold down six of the ten spots easily, with each of the books approaching multiple millions of copies sold. That's with Dungeon Crawler Carl really just warming up. Final Thoughts: Science fiction proliferates pop culture in 2026. As some sci-fi ideas from decades past are becoming technological realities, others have become deeply woven into the fabric of modern storytelling. It is ubiquitous in movies and television, and audiences devour it. Yet many readers are still hesitant to embrace sci-fi literature. Except, it seems, in most cases, when a franchise hooks them. Whether it is Dungeon Crawler Carl or The Expanse, readers still gravitate toward long-running series to start with. Not nearly enough of them stick around to explore the deep cuts of sci-fi literary history. And what about an exception like Project Hail Mary? The success of Andy Weir's novel is the exception to the general rule that highlights what sci-fi lit struggles with: exposure. Publishers struggle to effectively market sci-fi, especially hard sci-fi, to a wide audience. Whoever cracks that code will have a formula for major success on their hands with a future string of breakout sci-fi hits. Dungeon Crawler Carl Publisher(s) Penguin Random House Publication Date September 21, 2020 Number of Pages 444 ISBN# 979-8688591507 Author(s) Matt Dinniman