Quick Guide to (Mostly) Recent Science Fiction

It's been an age since I posted anything on this platform, but maybe the pandemic is the time to bring blogs back along with things like baking bread at home. 

I made this graphic for a recent genre discussion hosted by the Massachusetts Library Association's Readers' Advisory section. If you're new to the genre of Science Fiction but want to get started on some recent titles, this might provide a starting point. As I said in my talk, many of the books below could be placed in a variety of the subgenres I've arbitrarily listed, this is not a comprehensive list, it's purely subjective, etc. Link to the graphic here.

Titles and authors:

Space Opera

Behind the Throne, K.B. Wagers

Unconquerable Sun, Kate Elliott

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

Chilling Effect, Valerie Valdes

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine

Military

Vorkosigan series, Lois McMaster Bujold

Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee

Fortune's Pawn, Rachel Bach

Dystopia/Post-Apocalyptic

Moon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice

The Record Keeper, Agnes Gomillion

American War, Omar El Akkad

Afro/Africanfuturism

Broken Earth series, N.K. Jemisin

Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor

An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon

Artificial Intelligence

All Systems Red, Martha Wells

Robopocalypse, Daniel H. Wilson

Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie

Aliens

The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu

Rosewater, Tade Thompson

Lilith's Brood, Octavia Butler

Annihilation, Jeff Vandermeer

Time Travel/Alt-History

Here and Now and Then, Mike Chen

To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Romance

The Agent Gambit, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Ice Planet Barbarians,  Ruby Dixon

Rulebreaker, Cathy Pegau

Polaris Rising, Jessie Mihalik

Climate Fiction

New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson

Gold Fame Citrus, Claire Vaye Watkins

Humorous

Redshirts, John Scalzi

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Space Western

Serenity: Those Left Behind, Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad

Dark Tower series, Stephen King

Superhero

The Mighty Thor v. 5, Jason Aaron, Walt Simonson, Russell Dauterman, James Harren

Heroine Complex, Sarah Kuhn

Graphic/Manga

Saga series, Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples

Pluto series, Naoki Urasawa

Steampunk/Cyberpunk

Parasol Protectorate series, Gail Carriger

The Black God's Drums, P. Djèlí Clark

Young Adult Science Fiction with Adult Appeal

Illuminae series, Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Not Your Sidekick, C.B. Lee

The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline

Warcross, Marie Lu

Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi

Proxy, Alex London