Recs if you like Embassytown...

books that fracture, remake, and defy the rules of time, space, memory, and idea.

a list of sci-fi books containing aliens

Stories that follow the New Weird genre. Adventures that mix reality with fantasy, horror, science fiction, and literary fiction. Each a distinct and unique story to envelope your mind.

Pieces of fiction with language, linguistics, and communication as themes. I saw some non-fiction lists on this topic, so wanted to add a fiction one as well, as they're really interesting ideas to explore

Speculative fiction about linguistics, translation, and communication with other species. Please share recs, I love this niche and want to read more.

In honour of the 2026 nominations, this list compiles all the nominees for the Hugo Award for Best Novel from 2010 - 2026.

fantasy works that focus on language and translation. (Thank you to @strawberrymilk for the LoD rec!)

trying to keep modern classic science fiction alive! giants and significant works from late 20th century to present across the world. all sub-genres included to the best I can.

hard, soft, steampunk, silkpunk, spicepunk, aliens, robots, time travel, space opera, dystopian, clifi, apocalyptic, afrofuturism, slipstream, cyberpunk, and more

recommendations welcome!

fantasy/scifi/whatever that does something I find exciting and at least a bit unfamiliar (in various age categories). Doesn’t need to be a perfect story, just one that takes a stab in an interesting direction.

This is for the classics, the old and new, the lesser known books, the short stories and the translated speculative fiction. Sci-fi could be argued to be one of the best and most expansive genres out there - it’s just a matter of finding the right book for you.

If there is a series, I will only be putting the first book unless they are unrelated.

Science fiction and fantasy with truly unique concepts, you’d be hard pressed to find another quite like it. Recommendations welcome!

answer: they know their IPAs—————————————————— fiction books where the field of linguistics is mentioned or part of the plot (suggestions always welcome)

The most comprehensive list of award winning sci-fi and fantasy novels. The books on this list have won either 1 or multiple awards out of the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus Sci-Fi, Locus Fantasy, goodreads Choice Fantasy, or goodreads Science Fiction Awards.

As a translation student I live for books that use translation as a plot point or magic system. Give them all to me.

A set of books all in the genre of ‘Weird’ fiction, specifically sci-fi/fantasy.

Sci-fi books that are thoughtful, exciting, and transformative.

Books set in space or on a spaceship. Most or all of the time.

You understand and respect science, you really do. You appreciate good tech and revile the crap. And you cringe when politicians, news readers, pundits, journalists, even friends, get it wrong.

But damn, you wish you could go faster than light! What can you do?

You can read well-written, cool as hell, hard sci-fi with unbelievable but unforgettable characters.

Here you go. This is a work in progress. Check back for updates as I grow the list.

Blast off with these thrilling space fiction books! Distant galaxies, alien encounters, and futuristic lives among the stars.

Standalones and First-in-series for anyone interested in exploring what non-human biological intelligences could potentially look like

Also for anyone tired of the overabundance of the "human-with-a-horn-or-two = Alien" trope and wanting aliens that look and think the part haha

Most of these are sci fi but there are a few fantasy as well, and a few don't have the non-human intelligences as the main focus but the parts we get are great