The best science fiction books of 2024 so far, from Adrian Tchaikovsky to Peng Shepherd

Since I became science fiction columnist for New Scientist, I have had to think a lot about what qualifies as sci-fi. Very often, a book could actually be classified as fantasy, which is outside my remit. More and more, I find myself agreeing with the writer Damon Knight when he said: “Science fiction is what I point to [when I say] ‘That’s science fiction’.”

Anyway, for this holiday reading special, I present my list of some of the year’s best sci-fi so far. All that binds these incredibly diverse books…