12 Best Philosophical Science Fiction Books

Some science fiction gives you lasers, starships and a suspiciously buff space captain. The best philosophical science fiction gives you all that, then quietly ruins your ability to feel certain about free will, personhood or whether your memories are even yours. Ideal, frankly.

These are books for readers who liked The Matrix, Inception or The Truman Show and came away more interested in the unsettling questions than the explosions. They are not all easy reads. A few are icy, a few are heartbreaking, and several will have you staring at the ceiling at 1am, mentally drafting a complaint to humanity. That is part of the deal.