Are you looking for a love story that is out of this world? Then I’ve got just the thing for you. These books will take you through other worlds, multiple universes, raging battles and time-twisted stories full of queer love, heartbreak, politics, and drama. So, let’s get into it!
Trigger Warning: The mention of depression and suicidal thoughts in this article may be triggering to some readers.
Space Operas
1. Seven Devils by L.R. Lam and Elizabeth May
What happens when you’re the heir to an empire that is renowned for being the galaxy’s most savage? That’s right — you fake your own death. That is exactly what Eris did. But trouble seems to follow her wherever she goes. First, she gets assigned to work on a mission with an old nemesis, Cloelia. Working for the Resistance, their task is to stop the empire’s plans of expansion. Then, while infiltrating a spaceship, they come across fugitives who might just be exactly what they need to bring the empire down. Or, in Eris’s case, one of these fugitives might just bring her to her knees. Part one of a duology, book one, is sure to make you want to grab book two.
Lam and May’s Seven Devils is the definition of girl power. With an incredibly diverse main group of characters, Lam and May have created an action-packed book full of political intrigue but also full of love, friendship, and found family.
2. Black Sails to Sunward by Sheila Jenné
Did you say, “pirates in space?” Well, sign me up! Black Sails to Sunward is set during a war between Mars and Earth. Full of ambition, Lucy decides to join the Martian Imperial Navy. Her plans for climbing up the ranks are quickly stunted by class politics that eventually lead to a mutiny. Not sure which side to take, the oath she took forces Lucy to stick with the Navy in order to protect her family. There’s only one small problem: Lucy’s former friend and crush Moira is also on board. Unlike Lucy, Moira sides with the pirates during the mutiny, and Lucy ends up as her prisoner. Will Lucy listen to her head or her heart? Or might they both be pointing in the same direction?
This is the ultimate enemies-to-lovers slow-burn. Add some regency pirate aesthetics and class politics, and you have an amazing sci-fi novel. The second book is out as well, for those of us who can’t get enough of Lucy and Moira — I know I can’t!
3. A Fire Born of Exile by Aliette de Bodard
The Xuya universe is inspired by Vietnamese and Chinese culture and is full of strange technology, including sentient spaceships, elegance, and corruption. This story is set in the Scattered Pearls Belt, a place ruled by the military and full of corruption. This one is for those of us who love a good revenge story. A Fire Born of Exile follows three women whose lives become intertwined when one of them comes back to the Scattered Pearls Belt after fifteen years to seek revenge on the person who destroyed her family. But Quynh’s plan becomes a bit more complicated once she meets Minh and Hoà. Can she trust the rebellious Minh and smart Hoà, or will she keep lying to them and herself in order to go through with her plans of revenge?
A Fire Born of Exile is a standalone set in the Xuya universe and created by de Bodard herself. So if you like the world-building in this book, there is a ton more where that came from!
Climate Fiction
4. Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn
Brooklyn in 2050 is not the best place to be. Or is it? The future is female. This utopian vision is turned into a real-life experiment by Jacqueline Millender, who has the money and power to build all-female cities around the world, a design called The Inside Project. You better hope you are lucky enough to be accepted because the world is being ravaged by climate change — pollution and rising water levels, among the many symptoms. But Jacqueline’s utopian feminist vision might not be as perfect as it seems. As the facade begins to crumble, some of the women working for Jacqueline start to question everything and slowly realize that Jacqueline might not be the one who’ll save them after all.
5. A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys
The year is 2083, and Judy Wallach-Stevens is the first person to meet aliens who’ve arrived on Earth. Their mission is to warn humanity that the earth can no longer sustain them; the technological advances are destroying the planet; and they should join them in space to avoid extinction. But Judy’s community is doing everything it can to fight climate change, so is this really the time to abandon their homes? And who decides what happens next? This quiet, thoughtful book uses less action and focuses more on how to sustainably and symbiotically live and explores what it means to be a family.
6. Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller
Climate change has irreparably changed the world. With nowhere left to live, people have resorted to building a floating city in the Arctic Circle. The city, Quaanaaq, while extremely advanced with geothermal heating systems and other sustainable designs, is full of corruption, disease, and economic inequalities. Blackfish City illuminates all areas of this complex civilization through multiple characters who all find themselves drawn to a stranger arriving in the city. Is this mysterious woman to be trusted? Who would arrive somewhere riding an orca and walking beside a polar bear? Can this warrior woman help Quaanaaq overcome disease and corruption, or is she here for something else entirely?
7. The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
We’re not on Earth anymore, but this colonized planet seems to be as uninhabitable as the future Earth in the previous books mentioned here. The planet called January is separated into two extremes, with frozen wasteland on one side and blazing sunshine on the other. Humans can only survive in two cities: Xiosphant, the City of Timefulness, and Argelo, the City that Never Sleeps. Sophie is from Xiosphant but is exiled after taking part in an attempted revolution gone wrong. She is sent to the City in the Middle of the Night, a place feared by humans that’s located in the dark and frozen wasteland. There, Sophie meets other exiles — and unexpected love. But an important discovery has them questioning everything they know.
Temporal Twists
8. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Red and Blue are two rival time-traveling agents. Nothing connects them; they are on separate sides of an eternal time war. Red was created by Agency, a mechanical society, and Blue stems from an organic entity that functions as a collective consciousness by the name of Garden. Their existences suddenly don’t seem so isolated from one another when one of them finds a letter that says, “Burn before reading.” Corresponding through time and space gives Red and Blue the chance to figure out that they might both desire the same thing. This beautifully written book is filled with sections done entirely in the form of letters with poetic prose. Traversing time and space, both Red and Blue contemplate what it means to live both in the past, present, and future. And to love in it.
9. If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come by Jen St. Jude
What if you decide you don’t want to live anymore but then find out that an apocalypse will destroy the earth in a matter of days anyways? Well Avery decides to hold on for just nine more days because tomorrow might not come. But one thing that Avery didn’t plan on, was just how much the idea of an apocalypse will make people want to spill their secrets. Is speaking the truth really so painful now? And might joy be found even in the darkest of times? For Avery the apocalypse even helps her reconnect with her best friend and crush Cassie in ways she didn’t think was possible.
This book is as beautiful as it is painful to read. It deals extensively with mental health struggles but also how to be brave and bold and find the little things in life that spark joy.
10. A Second Chance for Yesterday by R. A. Sinn
It seems that in 2045 people are finally using technology for what it was really intended: stopping us from cringing every time we do something embarrassing. Nev Bourne is working on exactly that — a brain implant that lets you rewind time for a few seconds so that you can fix your embarrassing mistakes. As a complete workaholic, she has isolated herself from everyone in her life to make this invention the next big hit. The only problem is that the test run backfires dramatically, and Nev can’t control her time jumps. She keeps falling back in time. Can her former college and friend help her fix this, even though one is moving towards the future and the other is moving towards the past?
11. The Infinite Miles by Hannah Fergesen
If you’re a Doctor Who fan, boy do I have a book for you! The Infinite Miles is an homage of sorts to this iconic British show. But anyone who is a passionate participant in a fandom will be able to relate to Harper. Harper isn’t satisfied with how her life is going, so she does what any of us do: she binge-watches her favorite show, Infinite Odyssey, where the main character, the Argonaut, travels around in space in his spaceship (really, it looks more like a car) called the Odyssey.
When Harper’s best friend Peggy, who’s been missing for three years, comes is back, Peggy doesn’t seem like herself and is more focused on killing Harper. And that’s not the only crazy thing happening to Harper in one day. It turns out that the Argonaut is real, and he takes her back in time. Stuck in 1971, she must figure out how to save herself, her best friend, and her favorite TV show turned reality.
Future Tech
12. The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
Moving from time travel to multiverse travel, we follow Micaiah Johnson, who has created a world in which people can travel between universes. But as per usual, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. In order to travel to that world, your counterpart living there must be dead. Back on Earth, people are recruited for multiverse travel, and one of the select few is Cara. She is moved to a fancy apartment in a fancy city and gets treated like royalty. Her superpower seems to be that most of her doppelgängers in other worlds have died. Convenient, right? But secrets are piling up, and the mysterious death of one of her counterparts might just expose more secrets than Cara ever wanted to know.
13. Mindbreaker by Kate Dylan
Indra grew up in a religious anti-tech cult. So far so good. The only problem is, she has a debilitating condition that only the most advanced technology company in the city can seem to cure. Choosing to save herself, rather than die for a religious cause, Indra accepts the help. What she doesn’t realize is that the ‘help’ they offer isn’t exactly what Indra is looking for. Instead of curing her body, they get rid of it entirely. MindDrive is some form of an electronic chip onto which Indra’s mind gets uploaded and then implanted into the body of a robot. What parts of herself are left? And why does she have memories that are not her own?
Mindbreaker is another irresistible enemies-to-lovers sci-fi romance, featuring a grumpy FMC and a sunnier-than-sunshine love interest. This is technically a sequel to Dylan’s Mindwalker but can be read as a standalone. But if you enjoy Mindbreaker, then be sure to give Mindwalker a shot. I promise you won’t regret it!
14. The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz
Clara never stays in one place for longer than she has to. Moving around has been her only constant since childhood, having grown up in a migrant worker family. As an AI technician, she specializes in repairing and building AI companions. She has her own, a hummingbird called Joanie. So how could she ever get lonely? Visiting a tea shop, she meets Sal, one of the very few sentient robots left. Sal is a reminder of a different time and something most humans categorize as a dangerous mistake. For three hundred years, Sal has been running a tea shop, desperately wanting to fulfill her dead master’s dream. Both Sal and Clara grapple with grief, change, and feeling out of place.
The Cybernetic Tea Shop is a warm and cozy read. You’ll definitely want to get into this heartwarming novella focused on the growing trust and love between a person and a robot, who might have more in common than first meets the eye.
15. Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo
Did you ever wish you could hear what your pet was thinking? Or experience the world through their eyes for a day? Well, the future is now, and Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon is incredibly close to fulfilling that dream. But instead of using a dog or a cat as a test subject, she has chosen to bond with a wild and powerful animal: the wolf. While this is definitely a worthwhile and incredibly fascinating project, it does mean that Sean’s personal life has taken an indefinite backseat. And her wife is not too happy about that. Grappling with her workaholic nature to save her relationship is one thing. But now Sean’s supervisors have gotten wind of her project, and while this might be good news for her, it definitely isn’t good news for the wild wolf she has been working so closely with. They have bonded in more ways than she could have possibly imagined.
With this many books to choose from, I don’t envy your task of deciding what will make it onto the top of your TBR. I have my favorites figured out already, but have you?
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You can find all this and much more in our science fiction and our sapphic dark romance collection on Bookshop!
