Free Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books to Read in November 2025

A dirty slip of parchment falls from the pages of an ancient manuscript. Deciphered by the indefatigable Otto Liedenbrock, professor of geology, and his reluctant nephew, Axel, the parchment’s coded message is a wild assertion made by a medieval alchemist: Inside a volcano in Iceland is a passageway to the center of the earth. Impossible, says Axel—the temperature of the earth’s core is far too high for any human being to go near it. That is one theory, the professor replies. Two days later, they embark on a journey so fantastic it will alter the very meaning of history.

First published in 1864, Journey to the Center of the Earth is a cornerstone of science fiction and one of the greatest stories ever told.

Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) may be best known as a fantasy writer, but he published widely and successfully in the horror and science fiction fields. One of his major SF creations is the Change War, a series of stories and short novels about rival time-traveling forces locked in a bitter, ages-long struggle for control of the human universe where battles alter history and then change it again until there is no certainty about what might once have happened. The most notable work of the series is the Hugo Award–winning novel The Big Time, in which doctors, entertainers, and wounded soldiers find themselves treacherously trapped with an activated atomic bomb inside the Place, a room existing outside of space-time. Leiber creates a tense, claustrophobic SF mystery, and a brilliant, unique locked-room whodunit.

Set at the end of the twenty-first century, The Last Man is a moving and fantastical account of the apocalypse. Faced with a populace clamoring for more democratic rule, the last king of England relinquishes his throne. Suddenly a mysterious plague sweeps the globe, drawing ever nearer to England. As war, disease, and death ravage humanity, ideals of fairness and love are quickly supplanted by the imperative of survival.

With semibiographical characters drawn from Shelley’s own inner circle of friends and colleagues, this book is at once a look at the end of mankind and a critique of Romanticism. 

Irish author Lord Dunsany majorly influenced generations of writers, including J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, and many more, and his Fifty-One Tales, a collection of short stories first published in 1915, has delighted readers for more than a century. These vignettes—some no more than a few paragraphs long—offer brief glimpses into worlds of sparkling wit and imagination. By turns whimsical, satirical, and melancholic, this collection (also published under the title The Food of Death) touches on timeless themes and remains a wellspring of inspiration and pleasure.