50 of the Best Sci-Fi Book Series You Won't Want to Miss

David Weber is renowned for writing immersive, intricate military sci-fi, such as his epic Honor Harrington series, which follows the exploits of a female member of the space navy. 

Weber's Safehold series is another beloved sci-fi military saga. The majority of the series takes place in the 31st century, on a planet called Safehold, where humans have created a pre-industrial society to avoid being detected by the Gbaba, a mysterious enemy responsible for destroying human civilization elsewhere. The series explores themes of industrialization and religion, and is a sweeping portrait of how an isolated society might adapt and react to technology. 

The tenth book, Through Fiery Trials, takes place after the Jihad between the island nation of Charis and the Luddite religious group, the Church of God Awaiting. Victorious, Charis continues to rapidly industrialize, further shifting the political balance of Safehold — even as the prophesied return of the Archangels draws ever-closer.

Spanning over a decade on Safehold, Through Fiery Trials is a staggeringly impressive addition to the series Dave Duncan called "the biggest thing in science fiction since Isaac Asimov's Foundation." 

The four-novel series was published in reverse chronological order, so the books can be read in the order they were published, or chronologically. One of Butler’s most popular series, the books span generations and tell the secret history involving mind control and an extraterrestrial plague. 

Chronologically, the series begins in the 17th and 18th centuries (Wild Seed) and focuses on Doro—an immortal man who survives by killing victims and taking over their bodies, and Anyanwu—a shape-shifter who heals instead of kills. Though Doro attempts to create a new race through a selective breeding program, he struggles to control them in Mind of My Mind, the second book in the series. 

Clay’s Ark switches gears and is centered on a colony of diseased people who try to keep themselves isolated, while Patternmaster—the first book published, but the last chronologically, depicts a future in which humans are divided into three groups: the elite Patternists, the inferior and diseased Clayarks, and the enslaved mutes. The novel touches on race and gender issues through Teray, a Patternist who fights for his place in the organization.

Greg Bear tells the story of an alternate universe where time and space are nonexistent. Those who travel between universes and planets fly their Flawships through “The Way,” a space and time tunnel that is integral in all three novels and can be accessed via the asteroid Thistledown. 

In Legacy, the prequel, Olmy Ap Sennon uses “The Way” to head to Lamarcka—a planet with an ecosystem far different from Earth. Ap Sennon is sent to determine if humans can interact with the organisms there that are the size of continents; but along the way, he realizes that the planet is engaged in warfare and other problems send his mission awry.

Eon was published in 1985 and takes place 30 years in the future. The US and Russia (then the USSR) are on the brink of nuclear warfare in 2005 when an asteroid, “The Stone,” moves close to Earth’s orbit. “The Stone” was created by people across “The Way,” but these people live over one thousand years in the future. 

When a team of American scientists and theorists are close to figuring this information out on their own, Olmy Ap Sennon kidnaps a member of the team and learns about the impending fate of Earth. In Eternity, the impact of nuclear warfare leaves Earth desolate. “The Way” must be reopened in order to save those who remain and the future descendants who reside on a starship orbiting Earth.

Joe Haldeman won a Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award for The Forever War—the first novel in the series. In the first book, Private William Mandella fights light years away against the alien enemy. When he returns back to Earth, he thinks only two years have passed, but because of the space-time continuum it has actually been decades. He and the other soldiers find it difficult to adapt to all of the changes that have occurred since they left. They all go back to space combat, and each time they return, centuries have passed on Earth. 

Included in the series is “A Separate War,” a short story that explores the love between Mandella and Marygay Potter—who try to reunite even though they are separated by space and centuries. In the concluding novel in the series, Forever Free, Mandella finds himself choosing to spend time in Middle Finger, which is a partially frozen planet, so he can be with Marygay and his family. 

When outside forces request his genes in order to further evolution, Mandella and his family must escape…but the repercussions change their lives permanently. Fans of sci-fi and romances featuring star-crossed lovers will become enthralled with this series. 

In the first book in the series, the Cold War-era conflict between Russia and the US escalates through time travel. The US is behind Russia with their technology, so they send along someone that they can afford to spare if everything goes wrong—Ross Murdock. 

Throughout the book, Murdock is sent back in history—from Britain in 2000 B.C.E. to the Baltic Sea. The series chronicles multiple time travelers and the conflicts that arise when they change the past in an effort to better the future.

Timothy Zahn’s Hugo-winning space opera follows human Frank Compton, a former government agent, upon his capture by the Spiders, operators of an interstellar train called the Quadrail. Compton agrees to help the Spiders in exchange for a train pass. He uncovers an ancient power that runs the Quadrail while keeping his galaxy on the brink of war. 

This six-novel series was the runner-up for the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series in 1966, losing out to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, which also made our list. 

The plot of the series originates from the battle between the Arisians and the Eddidorians billions of years ago, which is detailed in the prologue book, Triplanetary. The Arisians created a powerful new breed of people through a eugenics project, which brings the action to modern-day Nevia. A planet far away from Earth, Nevia is quickly running out of iron–which is needed to sustain the amphibious race. The Nevians set their sights on Earth with technology powerful enough to retrieve iron from anywhere–even from the blood of humans. After destroying Pittsburg, the Nevians take three humans captive, but what they don’t know is that one of them is an undercover agent for Triplanetary Control named Conway Costigan. The fate of humanity rests on his shoulders. 

In the other books in the series, the Lensman are the heroes—men who maintain order in Arisia by fighting outside attacks. They are noble, well-trained, and are willing to die for the Arisian people. From intergalactic drug trafficking to space pirates, there is no shortage of sci-fi conflict in this series that spans the course of time and the universe. The introduction of new characters still feels familiar since they are the offspring of your favorites from the previous novels. 

Be it a Hugo or Nebula, every novel in this three-book series is an award winner. In the first book, The Fifth Season, Essun comes home one day and discovers that her husband has murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. The same day, their empire, Saze, falls, and the majority of its citizens are killed. And to top it off, a physical tear in the continent leads to the downfall of ash with no end in sight.

Essun determines that she has only one thing left to live for, and that is the safe retrieval of her daughter, whom she will get back at any cost.

The remarkable Dr. Ransom has been abducted and taken to the planet Malacandra, with his captors none other than his former college friends, scientists who plan to sacrifice him to Malacandra’s alien inhabitants. 

Upon landing, Ransom escapes and meets Malacandra’s aliens, experiences that fill him with both wonder and fear, as he attempts to figure out why his colleagues made the voyage to this world in the first place. 

Written as a friendly bet with J.R.R Tolkien, Lewis’ book takes inspiration from H.G. Wells and David Lindsay to merge theology with science fiction.

The trilogy follows generations of characters over two hundred years living on Mars. Robinson explores the idea of Mars being a utopia when compared to Earth. The first book, Red Mars, details the colonization process on Mars in 2026, and the relationships between the settlers and the science of terraforming the area are major focuses throughout. 

In Green Mars, terraforming takes root fifty years later and the colony begins to become self-sufficient. Warfare breaks out when natural disasters wreak havoc on Earth, leading to the culmination of conflict in the final book in the series, Blue Mars. The intricacies of modern societies, like education and healthcare systems are established on Mars and the issue of inter-planet immigration is explored. 

Hari Seldon is a mathematician who spends his time researching psychohistory (the combination of history, statistics, and sociology), which can be used to make predictions about future human behavior patterns. When he is called to a trial to testify on the legitimacy of his studies, he reveals that he believes that his society will soon fall and there will be 30,000 years of unrest before another empire is created. 

He convinces the board to let him study the best minds in the empire and create a collection of human intelligence. By doing this the empire will still fall, the fallout will only last 1,000 years. Seldon is sent to another planet with these minds in order to complete his work—a place called Foundation. But soon the group finds themselves in danger, and in order for the best minds to remain safe they must pit the other planets against each other.

The Foundation series was initially a trilogy, until Asimov’s publishers convinced him to write the fourth book in the series, Foundation’s Edge. But Asimov didn’t stop there: In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, he added three more books (another sequel and two prequels), bringing the hard sci-fi Foundation series to seven books in total.

The first book of the trilogy takes place in 2650 on Earth. 75 years earlier, aliens attacked Earth—leading to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. The aliens left following the attack, and those who survived rebuilt. But then the aliens returned. 

One fleet escaped, carrying all who could survive. The other books in the trilogy (Warrior and Victory) focus on the captain of the ship, Timothy Granger, and his crusade to kill the aliens who continue to decimate Earth. 

In Blackcollar, a reptile named Ryquril conquers Earth and the Terran Democratic Empire (TDE), and it is up to Allen Caine, a member of the Resistance movement, to save them. When his mission goes awry, he ends up on the planet Plinry, where he must reform the Blackcollar force, which consists of genetically mutated beings trained for guerilla war. 

In the second novel, The Backlash Mission, Caine returns with the Blackcollar forces to fight Ryquril’s army. But Caine cannot be sure that the Blackcollars will even fight with him, or if they’ll turn against him. The series explores the possibility of other universe-dominating life forms, while also tackling the very human themes of loyalty, strength, and fortitude. 

All of the books in the series take place in Reynolds’ invented universe, even if the books’ plots do not necessarily build off of one another. In the first book, three separate storylines ultimately converge into one, which is a technique that Reynolds uses throughout the series and in his other works. 

One strand focuses on an archaeologist studying a civilization wiped out by the sun. Another centers on a woman traveling on a spaceship, who is looking for the archaeologist to help their captain who is suffering from some sort of plague. The final strand is about an assassin who is hired to kill the archaeologist. 

The series differs from traditional sci-fi because Reynolds wanted the science in his novels to be attainable and realistic. Instead of creating a universe that was either utopian or dystopian, Reynolds also focused on constructing one that was in between—much like our own universe.

Every year, as penance for their rebellion, the twelve districts of Panem, a dystopian America, must sacrifice two children to the Hunger Games.

These children will fight to survive in a gladiatorial arena for the amusement of the Capitol, and only one will emerge as the year’s Victor. When Katniss Everdeen’s younger sister Prim is called to fight in the games, Katniss volunteers to take Prim’s place. Her quick-thinking and refusal to fight on the Capitol’s terms leads her to become the new face of a rebellion.

Bujold’s series is incredibly inclusive—featuring POVs of women, a gay man, and a physically disabled man. In Shards of Honor, Cordelia Naismith is attacked while her spaceship is exploring a new planet. She is ultimately taken prisoner by Aral Vorkosigan, and the two end up falling love. Vorkosigan must decide if he should keep Naismith as a captive, or if should listen to his heart and gives her back her freedom. 

Sci-fi fans will love the inclusion of wormholes, cloning, anti-gravity space stations, and three-dimensional videos in the novels. 

In the Expanse series, humans have made the solar system home. When a young girl goes missing, a detective and ship captain become entwined in finding out what happened to her. 

The discoveries made regarding the young girl’s disappearance are powerful enough to lead the solar system into war. The next book in the series takes place almost two years after the events of the first book, with the future of the solar system civilization still hanging in the balance.

Even though the TV series failed after two seasons, the book trilogy from Blake Crouch is gripping, and sure to capture your attention. Pines appeals to mystery and thriller fans, as well as sci-fi aficionados. 

Ethan Burke is a secret service agent who is sent to Wayward Pines, Idaho to find two agents who disappeared in the area the month before. A few minutes after arriving, Burke gets into a car accident. When he wakes up at the hospital, his ID, briefcase, and phone are gone. As Burke discovers more about the town and the weird happenings in it, he realizes that once you are in Wayward Pines, it is very hard to leave alive. 

In the second novel in the series, Wayward, other residents begin to question how they ended up in the town, leading them to find out exactly what happens when they try to leave. The third and final book, The Last Town, ends with Burke finding out exactly why Wayward Pines is the way that it is. 

There are ten books in this series, focusing on the utopian space society called The Culture. The socialist society is a conglomerate of humanoids and machines, so everyone is self-sufficient. War breaks out between The Culture and the Idrians—located across the galaxy—in the first book. The Culture is far more advanced than any other civilization in the galaxy, yet war ensues because the other groups do not share the same socialist ideals

The other books in the series detail numerous struggles between The Culture and the more “simple-minded” civilizations. As other societies develop, The Culture becomes entangled in frequent conflicts that could jeopardize the safety of its civilization. 

Originally serialized in Analog magazine, Dune won the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966. The plot of the first book centers around Paul Atreides, a young boy living on the planet of Caladen. The Atreides are one of a few families in control of the planetary systems in the universe. This power comes with great consequences when Paul’s father is targeted and Paul is soon put in charge of a distant planet with one very important resource.

The series combines traditional sci-fi with themes of politics, emotion, and responsibility. The subsequent novels in the series focus on Paul, also known as Muad’Dib, as he ages, becomes the emperor, and tries to rule justly. 

The original series contains six novels written by Herbert, but there is also a prequel trilogy, and a Legends of Dune series, featuring collaborations with Kevin J. Anderson and Frank Herbert’s son, Brian.  

This science-fantasy novel tells the story of a woman who wakes up in middle of a dormant volcano. She remembers nothing about her past, or how she ended up there. The world she awoke in is ancient and rampant with genocide and war. She sets out on a mission to figure out who she is, and the people she encounters believe her to be a goddess. 

The subsequent novels in the series center on the woman’s son—and he knows very little about the identities of his parents. All he knows is that his mother dishonored his father—and he wants to kill her. With spaceships, suspense, mystery, dragon fights, and sorcery, the series is sure to pique the interest of sci-fi and fantasy fans alike. 

This trilogy starts with The Broken God, set 10 years after the events of Zindell’s standalone novel Neverness, the story of a far-future world where interstellar travel is controlled by mathematicians called pilots. 

Mallory Ringess, one of these pilots, tells the story of his son Danlo. Danlo is genetically altered, like others in his tribe, but when his people are destroyed by a plague, Danlo journeys to the fabled city of Neverness to become a pilot like his father and learns a religion has formed around his father’s mythos. The trilogy follows Danlo’s life as he adapts to life’s changes and trials.

Lilith Iyapo, a Black woman, wakes up alone in a prison cell. An enigmatic voice asks her strange questions, but she doesn’t know what to answer. Memories of a nuclear war bloom to mind, along with a traffic accident that killed her husband and child. 

After strange humanoids visit her, Lilith finds she’s been rescued (or captured) by a tentacled race of alien beings, the Oankali, who recruit Lilith for a mission that they claim will save the human race. The series is Octavia Butler at her best, exploring relationships between consent and coercion all while the US’s involvement in the slave trade and the Cold War haunts the background.

To kick off this tetralogy, Baronessa Mira Fedor falls prey to the intrigues of her planet’s elite. Her home planet, Araldis, is an arid mining planet suffering under a brutal invasion. 

While on the run, Mira realizes a guiding intelligence seems to be directing her life and the interplanetary conflicts that hound her. Mira must uncover its identity if she wants to save not only her life, but also the lives of Araldis. 

An interstellar polity governs the cosmos with one law—no killing of other sentient beings. Space is open for peaceful exploration, but the work is arduous and left to those on the bottom of the caste system: explorers, individuals who are afflicted with a physical disadvantage that renders them unappealing to society while still fit for the job. 

Festina Ramos is an Explorer tasked to escort a Fleet admiral to the planet Melaquin, where for the past forty years Explorers have disappeared without a trace. Festina and her partner Yarrun plot to escape this apparent death sentence, with dire results that leave Festina trapped on this ghost planet.

In this series from Arthur C. Clarke, after an asteroid crashes to earth in 2077, the Earth pools its forces to create a Spaceguard system protecting humans from deep space arrivals. They discover an alien spaceship, named Rama, outside the orbit of Jupiter. 

Commander Bill Norton leads the crew of the Endeavor to rendezvous with Rama and discover if the aliens offer peace or threat, relaying bizarre findings to an increasingly paranoid humanity.

Time-traveler Noel Kedran is a historian who just wants to gather data about history’s greatest events to restore faith in humanity. 

However, when an anarchist saboteur infiltrates his institute, Noel is mistakenly sent from the 26th century to Medieval Greece. In his small pocket of history, Noel meets his doppelganger, who is determined to destroy the very future Noel attempts to preserve. He must rescue his timeline without creating any alterations that damage it beyond repair.

In this alternate history series, Benjamin Franklin is the young apprentice of Sir Isaac Newton, an alchemist on the verge of a discovery that could save or destroy all human life on Earth. 

One little mistakes releases demons and black magic, and the duo must team up with historical figures to prevent Armageddon at the hands of King Louis XIV. 

Jake and his friends take a shortcut through an abandoned construction site, only to be thrust into the middle of an alien war. Earth has already been silently invaded by yeerks, slug-like parasites who crawl into humans’ ears and take over their bodies. 

For decades, centaur-like Andalites have kept the yeerks at bay, but they’re losing. A dying Andalite gives Jake and friends technology to save their planet—the ability to morph into any animal they touch, for two hours at a time. When Jake discovers his older brother Tom has been taken by the yeerks, he must assume the mantle of responsibility to lead the Animorphs, five teenaged humans and a young Andalite who are Earth’s only hope against complete enslavement. 

In a parallel universe, one where people’s souls take the shape of animals, an orphaned Lyra Belacqua and her daemon Pantalaimon grow up as wards of her Uncle Asriel, whose scientific investigations into a mysterious particle called Dust put him at odds with a menacing religious institution. 

Dark forces kidnap children in this world, including Lyra’s best friend Roger. Lyra sets off to rescue her friend, protected only by her alethiometer, a golden compass which reveals the truth to those who know how to read it.

A future dystopian Chicago is divided into five factions based on people’s strongest virtues. Those who can’t be sorted are deemed Factionless and lose all status and privilege. 

Upon her 16th birthday, Beatrice Prior undergoes a serum-based test to determine her best-suited faction, only to find out she is Divergent. Divergents threaten the social order as they can detect the presence of mind-altering serums. 

At first, Beatrice must hide her Divergent status to avoid becoming factionless. But when civil war breaks out among the factions, her Divergence becomes her best asset to protect herself and her family.

Tally Youngblood’s looking forward to her 16th birthday, when her city will allow her to undergo surgery to transform from Ugly to Pretty. Pretties live in high-tech paradise, partying around the clock with no responsibilities. 

When Tally’s friend Shay runs away to join a resistance band called the Smoke, city authorities force Tally to track her down. Tally infiltrates the Smoke and discovers a menacing truth behind the Pretty operation. Over the course of the series, she struggles to maintain her sense of self in a society that physically alters how people think. 

In Butler’s imagined 2020s, Lauren Olamina lives in a defended enclave on the outskirts of Los Angeles. In a culture destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and water shortages, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, an extraordinary sensitivity to other people’s pain. 

The daughter of a preacher, Lauren privately develops her own religion, “Earthseed,” based on the belief that “God is change.” After outsiders loot and destroy Lauren’s community, Lauren leads a few survivors to safety, spreading Earthseed as she goes.

On a distant planet, scientists conduct tests shadowed by a company-supplied droid. This droid has hacked its own governor modules and has started referring to itself secretly as Murderbot. 

All Murderbot desires is to be left alone to discover who it is. Inconveniently, a neighboring mission has just gone dark. The scientists and Murderbot must put existential discoveries on the backburner while they figure out the truth.

Rosemary Harper, a martian-born human, escapes her old life by becoming a file clerk for the spaceship Wayfarer. In Becky Chambers’ debut novel, the story follows the multi-species crew’s adventures as they encounter alien environments on the ship’s slow path to their final destination. 

A series within itself, The Ship Who Sang is a fix-up of five stories Anne McCaffrey published from 1961-1969. 

The protagonist of the 1969 novel and early stories is a cyborg named Helva, who is a human being with her consciousness implanted into a spaceship, also known as a brainship. In this series, McCaffrey’s story explores how capitalist societies disregard disabled children until they can be made productive.

This military science fiction series starts with the novel Ender’s Game, set at an unspecified date in Earth’s future. Humans are imperiled by an alien species dubbed “buggers.” Earth’s new international military teaches children war games to train them into elite officers. 

Andrew “Ender” Wiggin is one such child forced into service, and through supposed simulations, he discovers he is actually a tactical genius. 

The first book in the Hyperion Cantos, Hyperion, follows a structure similar to The Canterbury Tales, using a frame story to weave interlocking tales of pilgrimages to the Time Tombs of Hyperion. 

In a civilization comprising of hundreds of planets connected by portals, travelers go to make a request of the Shrike, a legendary creature guarding the tombs. Each traveler shares stories of how they were chosen for the pilgrimage.

The series originates with A Wrinkle in Time, in which the Murray family has been rocked by the disappearance of their father. Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin encounter three mystical beings who teach them how to travel to other worlds through tesseracts. 

After visiting various strange worlds, the trio find themselves on a dark planet named Camazotz, where Mr. Murray has been imprisoned for refusing to give into the menacing dark cloud controlling the world. Meg must figure out how to rescue her father without losing her brother or Calvin to the darkness.

In the 27th century, humans have colonized nearly 900 worlds. They have living, sentient starships and living space stations. 

In the series’ first novel, The Reality Dysfunction, a war is raging between the worlds Omuta and Garissa over mineral-rich asteroids. An energy-based alien lifeform crops up and jams open the interface between this universe and the world of the dead.

In this space opera, humans have colonized planets throughout the galaxy thanks to an ancient alien race, the Ildirans. However, when humans accidentally anger a hidden alien empire called the Hydrorogues, their budding space adventures are thrown into war. 

Meanwhile, other elemental aliens reappear to renew their own grudges against the Hydrogues.

These alternate history novels focus on the island of Nantucket, off Massachusetts, which was transported from 1998 back to 1250 BC after “The Event.” 

The inhabitants struggle to create a new civilization divorced from the world they once knew, learning to feed themselves and establish trade with nearby people using the aid of a couple of historians and astronomers in their midst.

Thomas wakes up in a metal elevator with no memories other than his name, and is deposited into the Glade, a concrete square surrounded by a labyrinthine maze full of monsters called Grievers. 

The Glade is populated by a band of boys who send runners into the maze to try to find a way out, but no one has ever returned. Thomas trains to become a runner, and as he explores the maze, he learns more about an apocalyptic solar event that led to the maze’s creation.

14-year-old Bobby Pendragon believes he is a normal human kid, until one day, his whole family, his house, and even his dog Marley disappear. Life in the cosmos is not what Bobby thought, as he finds himself travelling with his Uncle Press through flumes to new worlds. 

Starting on the snowy world of Denduron, Bobby learns that there are ten worlds with tipping points, and a corrupt traveler named Saint Dane plans to use each tipping point to send the worlds into chaos. It’s up to Bobby and the travelers from each world to save their worlds and protect the balance of the universe.

In the near future, humanity has eradicated all disease thanks to genetically-engineered tapeworms. These tapeworms protect humans from illness, boost immune systems, and even secrete designer drugs, all under the design of SymboGen Corporation. 

However, these tapeworms are getting restless. They want more to life than keeping humans healthy, and who knows what they will do to achieve freedom.

In Malka Older’s debut novel, a powerful search engine monopoly called Information has pioneered a switch from warring nation-states to global microdemocracies. The next election is approaching rapidly, and the powerful  contenders all have different goals on the line. 

Ken campaigns for his idealistic Policy1st party, Domaine struggles against pax democratica, and Mishima treats the whole system like a puzzle, trying to keep the wheels running. This fast-paced cyberpunk thriller is like West Wing meets Metaverse.

An emissary from planet Canopus researches planet Shikasta, a main battleground in a galactic imperial struggle. Through research documents, reports, letters, speeches, journal entries, and other archival materials, readers learn Shikasta is Earth, with its inhabitants falling prey to evil impulses.

In a future history envisioned by Ursula K. Le Guin, human civilizations from different planets are contacting each other for the first time. They establish a confederacy under the guidance of Hain, the oldest, most peaceful world. 

Through interplanetary dispatches, the series explores an alternate evolution of human history to form anthropological and sociological explorations of biology and sex.  

In a steampunk world where alchemy is as widely practiced as science, two alchemist brothers, Edward and Alphone Elric, search for a Philosopher’s Stone. 

After their mother died from illness, the Elric brothers attempted to bring her back to life using alchemy. The transmutation backfired, leaving Alphonse without a body. Edward binds Alphonse’s soul to a suit of armor, and the two search for the Philosopher’s Stone to undo their mistakes, evading and escaping villains who seek the same stone for murderous ends. 

This series is set in Darkover, which is a fictional planet founded at the end of the twenty-first century after a spaceship from Earth crashed there. The people on board were primarily of Celtic and Spanish descent, and in the years that follow, they breed with each other to keep the colony going. 

Certain novels in the series focus on the foundation and colonization of the planet, while others are about the creation of culture and lifestyle. The Heritage of Hastur is the 18th novel in the series. It provides the origin story for one of the central characters, and was nominated for a Nebula Award for Best Novel.