(Please note that LabLit.com is an Amazon Associate, so we earn from qualifying purchases when you click on any of the Amazon book links below and go on to purchase. These funds go to support LabLit.com.)
Science fiction or other genres with particularly realistic scientists
Blood Music
by Greg Bear
Thriller: Genetically engineered cells take over (admittedly in an over-the-top way, but the lab scenes are extremely realistic, hence the book’s inclusion here).
Links: Amazon (UK)
Jurassic Park
by Michael Crichton
Thriller: Ancient dinosaur DNA wreaks more havoc (also surprisingly plausibly; one could argue that dinosaurs could be cloned as Crichton describes, and the scientists are believable too).
Links: Amazon (UK)
Timescape
by Gregory Benford
Drama: A Californian scientist in the 60’s find signatures of tachyons in a spin resonance experiment which turn out to comprise an urgent subatomic message.
Links: the author chats on LabLit’s forums • Amazon (UK)
Cosm
by Gregory Benford
Drama: Amidst academic intrigue, a high-energy physicist creates an unusual object which she suspects could be a pocket universe.
Links: the author chats on LabLit’s forums • Amazon (UK)
Twistor
by John Cramer
Drama: A physics postdoc and graduate student access a portal to the dark-matter universe.
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Secret
by Eva Hoffman
Drama: A futuristic account of a cloned young woman which contains a substantial amount of credible detail by a non-scientist who has done her homework.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Survival
by Julie E. Czerneda
Drama: A biologist studying salmon gets captured by alien archeologists for her unique perspectives on migration, featuring startling accurate field biology culture (first part of a series, ‘Species Imperative’).
Links: Amazon (UK)
His Master’s Voice
by Stanislaw Lem
Drama: A large team of scientists try to decode a message from space, featuring a great depiction of how scientific collaborations work.
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Swarm
by Frank Schatzing
Drama: Deep-sea intelligent life seeks revenge on man’s careless environmental ways, with realistic scientist characters (and a cameo by a real one).
Links: Our piece by its translator • Amazon (UK)
Red Mars
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Drama: People arrive on Mars and debate the ethics of terraforming, featuring realistically drawn science and scientists (Part 1 of a trilogy).
Links: our author interview • Amazon (UK)
Green Mars
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Drama: The scientist settlers, now technically traitors, rebel against Earth (Part 2 of a trilogy).
Links: our author interview • Amazon (UK)
Blue Mars
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Drama: Mars looks beyond Earth to the future (Part 3 of a trilogy).
Links: our author interview • Amazon (UK)
The Gold Coast
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Drama: A near-future California becomes obsessed with technology and divided by a battle between weapons manufacturers and terrorists.
Links: our author interview • Amazon (UK)
Trouble with Lichen
by John Wyndham
Drama: Two scientists investigating a rare lichen make a remarkable discovery.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Master and Commander
by Patrick O’Brian (and others in the series)
Naval adventure: Chronicles the voyage of a ship with a science-friendly captain and his very scientific ship’s naturalist.
Links: our related essay • Amazon (UK)
A For Andromeda
by Fred Hoyle
Drama: Scientists at a radio telescope study to decode a message from space.
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Andromeda Strain
by Michael Crichton
Drama: A bacteriologist helps the government contain deadly microorganisms from space.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Darwin’s Radio
by Greg Bear
Drama: A virologist grapples with a strange and ancient virus that appears to be the next phase of human evolution. (Also its sequel, Darwin’s Children
Links: Amazon (UK)
Galileo’s Dream
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Drama: Galileo’s historic world is brought to life – but he’s also transported to colonies of Jupiter to troubleshoot.
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Highest Frontier
by Joan Slonczewski
Drama: A young girl goes to college to learn more about the interesting world of biology but learns that not everything is what it seems – or is it?
Links: Amazon (UK)
A Door Into the Ocean
by Joan Slonczewski
Drama: Two completely different worlds collide: a world inhabited by pacifists and the new violent rulers.
Links: Amazon (UK)
In His Genes
by Robin Stratton
Drama: A lab researcher struggles to find a cure for his son’s disease.
Links: our review • Amazon (UK)
Ratner’s Star
by Don DeLillo
Drama: In the near future a brilliant mathematician is living with Nobel prize winners to decipher transmissions from outer space.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Fluke: I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
by Christopher Moore
Drama: A marine biologist studies humpback whales, which shouldn’t be able to spell – should they?
Links: Amazon (UK)
FlashForward
by Robert J. Sawyer
Thriller:
What would you do if you saw your future in a flash? And what would the world do?
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Infinities
by John Banville
Magic realism: The family of a mathematician who contributed to the foundations of quantum physics has to deal with his terminal illness.
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Jericho Deception
by Jeffrey Small
Thriller:
A Yale neuroscientist is on the verge of a groundbreaking discovery unlocking the secrets of God before a war breaks out.
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Colony
by A.J. Colucci
Thriller: A super-colony of ants is sweeping in to attack New York City – can the world’s greatest ant expert save the day?
Links: Amazon (UK)
Annihilation
by Jeff VanderMeer
Drama/Thriller: A biologist and her team explore dangerous and unknown territory. The first of a trilogy.
Links: Amazon (UK)
In The Garden of Iden
by Kage Baker
Drama/Thriller: A botanist travels back in time to collect samples from an Elizabethan garden. Series.
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Discovery of Heaven
by Harry Mulisch
Magic realism: An astronomer who loves fast cars, nice clothes and women meets a cerebral chaotic philologist who cannot bear the banalities of everyday life (translated from the Dutch).
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Black Cloud
by Fred Hoyle
Drama: Scientists struggle to understand a black cloud threatening Earth’s existence.
Links: Amazon (UK)
A Box of Birds
by Charles Fernyhough
Drama: A neuroscientist conducting experimental brain research gets drawn into more than she bargained for.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Sixth Winter
by John Gribbin & Douglas Orgill
Thriller: Will the next ice age start next winter?
Links: Amazon (UK)
Boneland
by Alan Garner
Drama: A tortured scientist savant searches for sister and sanity (part of the Weirdstone Trilogy)
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Edge of the Sky
by Roberto Trottam
Experimental fiction: Exploring the most important ideas about the universe in language simple enough for anyone to understand
Links: Amazon (UK)
Galileo’s Daughter
by Dava Sobel
Historical Fiction: On the cusp between non-fiction and fiction, this work is a narrative treatment of great Italian scientist Galileo and his daughter Virginia
Links: Amazon (UK)
Flowers for Algernon
by Daniel Keyes
Drama: An experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns a simple man into a genius
Links: our review • Amazon (UK)
Infinite Ground
by Martin MacInnes
Thriller: A forensic scientist finds curious abnormalities in bacteria after a man disappears
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Calculus Affair (The Adventures of Tintin)
by Hergé
Comic: A slightly distracted professor invents a novel weapon that could change the world
Links: Amazon (UK)
Odds Against Tomorrow
by Nathaniel Rich
Thriller: A gifted mathematician spends his days in a near-future Manhattan, calculating worst-case scenarios for a consulting firm that indemnifies corporations against potential disasters.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Spaceman of Bohemia
by Jaroslav Kalfar
Sci-fi: A Czech astronaut launches into space to investigate a mysterious dust cloud covering Venus.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Good Morning, Midnight
By Lily Brooks Dalton
Drama: A scientist in the Artic and an astronaut returning from Jupiter find themselves on the same journey.
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Echo Wife
by Sarah Gailey
Thriller: A married scientist who works with her husband on human cloning is disturbed when he leaves her for a younger version of herself.
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Need
by Helen Phillips
Drama: A palaeobotanist and mother coping with two young children working at a dig where a number of fossil plants are found starts to hear strange things.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Haw (2015)
by Sean Jackson
Drama A bioengineer struggles to save his son from a corrupt society in a bleak, futuristic America.
Links: Amazon (UK)
A Philosophical Investigation
by Philip Kerr
Thriller In near-future Britain, men who are at risk of being violent sociopaths are given special treatment.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Extinction
by Bradley Somers
Drama: While rockets are leaving earth with refugees, a mountain ranger protects the last grizzly bear from a group of poachers.
Links: Amazon (UK)
The Offset
by Calder Szewczak
Drama: The anti-natalist daughter of a professor working on replanting radioactive Greenland is forced to choose which of her mothers must die.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Clade
by James Bradley
Drama: A scientist and his wife undergo IVF in a collapsing world.
Links: Amazon (UK)>
The Frequency of Souls
by Mary K. Zuravleff
Drama/Lablit lite: A designer’s beliefs are shaken when his new work colleague reveals she is on a quest to find electrical evidence for life after death.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Venomous Lumpsucker
by Ned Beauman
Drama: In the 2030s, biobanks of lost organisms are cyber-attacked, wiping out the last traces of the perished species.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Ascension
by Nicholas Binge
Drama: When a mountain appears in the Pacific Ocean and a group of scientists is sent to investigate, explorer Harry Tunmore agrees to join the secret mission, for reasons beyond scientific curiosity.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Feed Them Silence
by Lee Mandelo
Drama: Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject’s perception through her own mind, Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon realises a lifelong dream of being a wolf.
Links: Amazon (UK)