5 classic science fiction novels written by scientists

A standard piece of writing advice is to “write what you know.” The proverb probably explains why so many movies are about writers. It definitely covers the endless parade of TV shows focused on mid-life crises.

But occasionally, the person who takes up the advice knows something most others don’t. They have spent years learning and developing advanced knowledge in one or more scientific fields. While such research can be rewarding, the pull of creative writing can draw these brilliant minds out of the lab. Luckily for readers, the resulting stories can be as enriching as they are fun to read.

Here are five science fiction novels written by scientists. If an author is included on this list, they either held an academic position at a university, published extensively in a scientific field, or have been otherwise recognized by the scientific community.

Nightfall by Isaac Asimov (1941)

The first law of science fiction may well be, “Any discussion of science fiction will eventually lead to somebody bringing up Asimov.” So we decided to start there.

Asimov was an extremely prolific writer. He wrote and edited more than 500 books, 1,600 essays, and 380 short stories. He is justly considered one of the greatest writers in the genre. His most famous work, the Foundation series, won a special Hugo Award — one of the most prestigious awards in science fiction — for “Best All-Time Series.”

Despite being well-known for his laws of robotics, Asimov earned his PhD in chemistry and held a tenured associate professor position at the Boston University School of Medicine from 1949 to 1958. However, the university initially revoked the post due to his lack of research after his writing career took off. He eventually reached a deal with the school, which allowed him to keep his title. They recognized his contributions by making him a full professor in 1979.

Carl Sagan famously admitted that Asimov was one of two people smarter than he was. (The other was Marvin Minsky.)

While whole articles can be dedicated to Asimov’s stories, we’ll focus on his breakout work, “Nightfall.” Originally a short story by Asimov, it was later expanded into a novel by Robert Silverberg (with Asimov’s blessing). Both are well worth any reader’s time, with the short story being declared the greatest sci-fi short story published before 1965 in a Science Fiction Writers of America poll.

The story centers around the inhabitants of a planet orbiting a star in a multi-star system. There is always at least one sun visible in the sky at any given time. Because of this, the planet never experiences nightfall. Darkness only exists in isolated places such as caves. The people living there have evolved an understandably intense fear of darkness, which can lead to madness and death when some individuals are without light for too long. Some scientists dread the possibility of widespread darkness, which a series of ancient writings suggest occurs with suspicious regularity.

The story, which features Asimov at his most Lovecraftian, touches on several themes often seen in the golden age of science fiction. The scale of the universe and the awe (or horror) that can inspire are central points. Being a “hard” sci-fi story, it explores the implications of scientific findings on broader society. It also lacks dynamic female characters (another typical, and unfortunate, feature of the golden age).

It’s only twenty pages in its original incarnation, and more than a few universities have made it available online.

Timescape by Gregory Benford (1980)

Gregory Benford is an emeritus professor at the University of California, Irvine. He has over 200 research publications and is a noteworthy figure in plasma physics. No stranger to controversy, he famously suggested dimming the sun to fight climate change and claims to have written the first science fiction story about a computer virus. Amusingly, he has a twin brother, James Benford, who is also a scientist and writer of science fiction.

Author of two dozen novels (including an authorized sequel to Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy), Benford tends to write about things he has researched or engaged with. In addition to various other awards, his novel Timescape won the Nebula for Best Novel. Co-written with an uncredited Hilary Benford (his sister-in-law), Timescape is a mind-bending novel. Attempts to explain it without spoilers are difficult, but we’ll try.

The novel takes place in both 1998 and 1962. The world of 1998 is in the middle of an ecological collapse, so its scientists send a message back in time to the 1960s in hopes of preventing it — while also not triggering a grandfather paradox that would prevent the sending of the message. The problem of trying to interpret a message relayed through faster-than-light tachyons, let alone act on it, is explored in the 1962 half of the story. The difficulties of surviving in a world on the brink are examined in the book’s 1998 half.

Beyond the problems of ecological disaster and time travel in general, the novel offers a realistic picture of the struggles of trying to solve a true mystery within the bureaucracy of academia. The main character in 1962, Gordon Bernstein, is an early-career scientist trying to both make sense of the bizarre message from the future and garner enough interest to do something about it. He and his student assistant endure misunderstanding, indignation, and professional setbacks for their efforts.

The novel is also the source of Benford’s law of controversy: “Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.” Words to live by in any timeline.

Blindsight by Peter Watts (2006)

Peter Watts is a Canadian scientist, author, and “convicted felon/tewwowist.” He holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia and briefly worked there as a researcher focusing on marine biology.

His best-known, though somehow not most awarded, novel is undoubtedly Blindsight. Much like Timescape, the book is a trip, and explaining it without spoilers or several dozen pages is difficult, so please consider this a brief overview.

In 2082, a vibrant demonstration of alien intelligence briefly shocks Earth, and a crewed ship is sent to investigate the Oort cloud. Because humanity has begun to outmode itself by this point in history, the crew is largely transhuman. It includes a cybernetic biologist, a linguist with surgically induced split personalities, and a vampire. (We promise it makes sense in context.) The story is told from the perspective of crew member Sisi, who also uniquely experiences the world due to brain surgery.

First contact seems to go well until one crew member realizes that the hyper-intelligence they’re speaking with may not understand anything it hears or says. What follows is a horrific exploration of consciousness, the pros and cons of sociopathy, and the possibility of eldritch horrors that understand us less than we can understand them.

Blindsight is a philosophical sci-fi novel that directly references John Searle’s Chinese room problem. In the vein of other cosmic horror stories, attempts to communicate with alien life (or their computers) are depicted as a crapshoot at best. In this case, it is complicated by whether the life they are interacting with is even sentient or self-aware. The ship they take to make first contact is named Theseus, as in the philosophical Ship of Theseus. It is no accident that most of its crew isn’t entirely human. Additionally, the novel breaks from our anthropocentric view of intelligence and consciousness and asks if our current model of self-awareness is the best one. By the end, readers are left without comfortable answers.

If you enjoy the story, it has a spin-off, “Echopraxia,” which depicts events on Earth during the mission. Watts also tends to release his books for free with a Creative Commons license, you can read Blindsight here if you can’t make the trip to your local library.

A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski (1986)

Joan Slonczewski is a biology professor at Kenyon College who focuses on microbiology. Their 89 academic publications have thousands of citations, with their work on E. Coli and how it interacts with the environment being of particular note. Biology, genetic engineering, and microbes feature prominently in their stories.

A Door into Ocean is their Campbell Award-winning novel and the first book in the Elysium series. In the far future, the moon Shora is populated by the Sharers, an entirely female group of semi-post humans. They can breathe underwater for a time with the aid of microbes, use genetic engineering to live harmoniously with their environment, and have a non-violent, egalitarian philosophy that bears more than a passing resemblance to Quakerism.

The novel’s crux is what happens when the Sharers encounter a civilization from another world. This interaction seriously threatens these peaceful people physically and philosophically.

The story dives into the eternal question of nonviolence. It examines it by using the lens of the Sharers, who cannot even express violence as one-directional in their language. Attempts to capture the planet by force appear to them as nonsensical. Like the best fiction of this kind, it also refuses to paint the Sharers as having everything figured out. For instance, the discovery of stone seriously challenges their view that everything is alive. (Though some thinkers argue that rocks can be conscious, so…)

Contact by Carl Sagan (1985)

Carl Sagan requires little introduction. He held a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics but contributed to genetics and physical chemistry research as an undergrad. Sagan also held professorships at Harvard and Cornell Universities, published hundreds of papers, and wrote two dozen books. He proposed the theory that Venus’ temperature results from of a runaway greenhouse effect, demonstrated how organic material might arise on a lifeless planet, and created the Voyager Golden Record.

Despite all this, he was still not as smart as Asimov (or Marvin Minsky).

Sagan is best known for his non-fiction and popular science work, particularly Cosmos and its companion television show. His extensive bibliography includes one full-length fictional novel, Contact. The story began as a screenplay by Sagan and his future wife, Ann Druyan. When nobody wanted the script, he reworked it into a novel.

Contact centers on scientist Eleanor Arroway, a Harvard and Caltech graduate working in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). In the face of opposition from scientists who think there are better ways to spend the money than listening for extraterrestrial radio signals, she detects evidence of alien life in the form of prime number sequences and a playback of the first human radio signal to escape Earth. Having found evidence of life beyond Earth, several characters, nations, and corporations work through the question of what to do next.

In addition to exploring ideas of first contact and how we might interact with alien life, the book explores themes familiar to many sci-fi readers. The problems women in STEM fields face are front and center in Eleanor’s experiences; the question of how to make things work that we currently understand to be impossible (like faster-than-light travel) is given serious consideration, and it also explores reason and faith as tools for both living and the acquisition of knowledge.

Sagan, who was already rather famous, was given the largest advance on an unwritten novel ever offered at that time. Simon & Schuster paid $2 million (almost $7.5 million today) for the rights. It sold 1.7 million copies within two years and enjoyed repeated runs on the bestseller list. One might say that it sold “millions and millions” of copies.

In 1997, things came full circle for Contact, and it was adapted into a movie starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey.