15 Contemplative Space Novels to Float Away With

By Carrie McBride, Communications
January 10, 2025

Samantha Harvey's Orbital won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2024—the first book set in space to do so. Taking place over the course of one day on an International Space Station, the novel is very much about Earth as the astronauts' vantage point inspires reflection on the wonders and fragility of the planet and the people who inhabit it. If you're in the mood for a contemplative space read, here are 15 thought-provoking titles from a mix of genres— literary fiction, speculative fiction, science fiction, mystery, thriller, and romance—that use the unknowns of the expansive cosmos to explore deep questions about humanity.

  • Orbital

    by Samantha Harvey

    In an elegy to our humanity, environment and planet, six astronauts, selected for one of the last space station missions, leave their lives behind to travel at a speed of over 17,000 miles an hour to orbit Earth, witnessing the marks of civilization below.

  • book cover

    We Have Always Been Here

    by Lena Nguyen

    The behavioral psychologist onboard a survey ship headed to a planet ripe for colonization, Dr. Grace Park must determine the origin of a strange phenomenon that is causing the crew to suffer mental breaks without losing her own mind in the process.

  • book cover

    In the Quick

    by Kate Hope Day

    A young and ambitious woman astronaut’s life is upended by a fiery love affair that threatens the rescue of a 12-years-lost spacecraft and its crew of survivors.

  • book cover

    The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

    by Olga Ravn

    The Employees chronicles the fate of the Six-Thousand Ship on which the human and humanoid crew members complain about their daily tasks in a series of staff reports and memos. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew becomes strangely and deeply attached to them, even as tensions boil toward mutiny, especially among the humanoids. 

  • book cover

    The Deep Sky

    by Yume Kitasei

    When a lethal bomb knocks the The Phoenix—a ship carrying humanity’s last hope—off course, Asuka, the only surviving witness, is an immediate suspect and with the crew turning on each other, she is determined to find the culprit before the bomber strikes again.

  • book cover

    Hold Back the Stars

    by Katie Khan

    After a freak accident, Carys and Max are left adrift in space with nothing to hold onto but each other. As they fall, they can’t help but look back at the world they left behind: a world whose rules they couldn’t submit to, a place where they never really belonged; a home they’re determined to get back to because they’ve come too far to lose each other now. While their air ticks dangerously low, one is offered the chance of salvation—but who will take it?

  • book cover

    The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

    by Becky Chambers

    Joining the crew of the aging Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that has seen better days, loner Rosemary Harper must unexpectedly risk her life when they are offered the job of a lifetime, which teaches her valuable lessons about love and trust, and that having a family isn't the worst thing in the universe.

  • book cover

    Six Wakes

    by Lafferty Mur

    Awakening in a cloning vat, streaked with blood and possessing no memory of how she died, new clone Maria Arena discovers the clones of six former starship crew members and must identify their murderers before the killer strikes again.

  • book cover

    The Sparrow

    by Mary Doria Russell

    The sole survivor of a crew sent to explore a new planet, Jesuit priest Emilio Sandoz discovers an alien civilization that raises questions about the very essence of humanity, an encounter that leads Sandoz to a public inquisition and the destruction of his faith.

  • book cover

    In Ascension

    by Martin MacInnes

    Leah is a young microbiologist investigating an unfathomable deep vent in the ocean floor, hoping to find evidence of the earth's first life forms. What she instead finds calls into question everything we know about our own beginnings and she is faced with an impossible choice: to remain with her family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos.

  • book cover

    Good Morning, Midnight

    by Lily Brooks-Dalton

    After a catastrophic event silences Mission Control communications, an astronaut returning from a mission to Jupiter and an aging scientist trapped at a remote Arctic outpost are haunted by love, memory, and regret as the world confronts an uncertain future.

  • book cover

    Last Day

    by Domenica Ruta

    The fates of a cast of seemingly unconnected people, including a diverse crew of astronauts in space, converge during the celebration of an ancient holiday, an annual gathering of humanity to anticipate the planet’s demise—and to celebrate as if the day is truly its last.

  • book cover

    Light From Other Stars

    by Erika Swyler

    Decades after her grieving father, a laid-off NASA scientist, triggers chaotic changes in his pursuit of life-extending technology, an astronaut confronts dangerous family secrets to stop a world-threatening crisis.

  • book cover

    The Wanderers

    by Meg Howrey

    Training for the first-ever mission to Mars, three astronauts share experiences that push the boundary between the real and surreal while irrevocably changing their relationships and familial bonds.

  • book cover

    Solaris

    by Stanislaw Lem

    When psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds himself confronting a painful memory embodied in the physical likeness of a past lover. Kelvin learns that he is not alone in this and that other crews examining the planet are plagued with their own repressed and newly real memories. Could it be, as Solaris scientists speculate, that the ocean may be a massive neural center creating these memories, for a reason no one can identify?

Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.