An absurdist vision of America's future is a new monument of "slipstream" fiction.

From a busy year in reading, these works of imaginative daring stand out.

Future dystopias are the settings for a growing number of stories for teens.

The long-awaited sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep explores a post-Singularity universe.

A cyber thriller disguises a morality play of epic scope and scale.

The return of Quentin Coldwater, now High King of Fillory, but still a tormented kid from Brooklyn.

Science fiction authors aid the war effort during WWII with fruits of their imaginations made real.

The author of the celebrated Old Man's War gives a beloved science fiction series a fresh start.

The British author makes a tragicomic odyssey through an imaginary L.A.

Three new works of fantasy evoke a Golden Age of fictional invention.

A  celebration of Russian satirist Vladimir Sorokin, a Swiftian writer whose work is steeped in the tropes of science fiction.

A high-spirited tale of a gator-wrestling family and a young girl's quest, steeped in backwoods lore.

Brian Greene's audacious new book makes the case for the multiverse, in which everything that can happen, does.

A look at the stories from the beginning of the century this genre's been dreaming about.

Three new novels that find brave new worlds in surprising settings.

Jane Smiley's history of the computer's genesis, and why science fiction never saw the Internet coming.

A slyly potent thriller that cocks an eyebrow at our trend-maddened culture.

Is it time to resume our imaginative flights to other planets?

A new translation of a little-known classic helps remind us of Jules Verne's genius.

A young heroine navigates post-apocalyptic Africa in an ambitious hybrid of fantasy and science fiction. Read more...

Four new literary adventures suggest that the hybrid genre of steampunk is still on the boil.

The penultimate volume in a collection that traces the career of one of science fiction's most eclectic voices. Read more...

From the award-winning author of the Mars Trilogy, an intellectual adventure that shuttles between the 17th and 31st centuries. Read more...

The new book from the award-winning author of Little Brother attempts to bring new life into a foundational concern of science fiction: the social role of the technological innovator. Read more...

In Margaret Atwood's new novel, the nearest of futures continues to breed wild dreams and compelling nightmares. Read more...

Paul Di Filippo on ambitious new project attempts to compile the short pieces that emerged from Roger Zelazny's prolific imagination. Read more...

These trailblazers of the cyberpunk frontier haven't concluded their explorations. Read more...

Four new works of graphic narrative plumb the unconscious to unearth beauty and terror.

The titanic influence -- and critical neglect -- of the iconoclastic writer J.G. Ballard, who died on April 19. Read more...

Paul DiFilippo looks at four science-fiction sagas that look to revive the genre's epic pleasures. Read more...