Speculative Fiction > Near Future
Artemis
by Andy Weir
Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich. Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity's first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she's owed for a long time.
Year: 2017
Genre: Action & Adventure SF, Conspiracy, Near Future
Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in twenty-first-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending, philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction. In this groundbreaking novel, Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.
Year: 2004
Genre: Action, Historical, Near Future, Post Apocalypse, Speculative Fiction
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
by Philip K. Dick
Jason Taverner--world-famous talk show host and man-about-town--wakes up one day to find that no one knows who he is--including the vast databases of the totalitarian government. And in a society where lack of identification is a crime, Taverner has no choice but to go on the run with a host of shady characters, including crooked cops and dealers of alien drugs. But do they know more than they are letting on? And just how can a person's identity be erased overnight?
Year: 1974
Genre: Chase Story, Near Future, Science Fiction
Gnomon
by Nick Harkaway
In the world of Gnomon, citizens are constantly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of 'transparency.' Every action is seen, every word is recorded, and the System has access to its citizens' thoughts and memories--all in the name of providing the safest society in history. When suspected dissident Diana Hunter dies in government custody, it marks the first time a citizen has been killed during an interrogation. The System doesn't make mistakes...
Year: 2017
Genre: Detective, Dystopian, Near Future, Speculative Fiction
Gun, with Occasional Music
by Jonathan Lethem
Gumshoe Conrad Metcalf has problems--there's a rabbit in his waiting room and a trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. Near-future Oakland is a brave new world where evolved animals are members of society, the police monitor citizens by their karma levels, and mind-numbing drugs such as Forgettol and Acceptol are all the rage. Mixing elements of sci-fi, noir, and mystery, this clever first novel from the author of Motherless Brooklyn is a wry, funny, and satiric look at all that the future may hold.
Year: 1994
Genre: Hardboiled, Near Future, Satire, Speculative Fiction
Sixty Days and Counting
by Kim Stanley Robinson
By the time Phil Chase is elected president, the world's climate is far on its way to irreversible change. Food scarcity, housing shortages, diminishing medical care, and vanishing species are just some of the consequences. The erratic winter the Washington, D.C., area is experiencing is another grim reminder of a global weather pattern gone haywire: bone-chilling cold one day, balmy weather the next.
Year: 2007
Genre: Eco-Disaster, Hard SF, Near Future, Political Thriller
walkaway
by Cory Doctorow
Fascinating, moving, and darkly humorous, Walkaway is a multi-generation science fiction thriller about the wrenching changes of the next hundred years...and the very human people who will live their consequences.
Year: 2017
Genre: Near Future, Post Apocalypse, Utopian