Scifi Orthogonal

The complete novel index

Choose the impossible question that follows you home.

Browse every mapped universe, or enter through a collection built around the ideas, pressures, and scientific obsessions the novels share.

11 novel companions6 curated collectionsSpoiler-aware
Enter the collections

Curated coordinates

Some universes belong beside one another

Open a collection to reveal its complete shelf. Editorial themes can overlap; official series remain in publication order.

01 · First contact · four incompatible repliesThe Universe Answers BackFour encounters cross the silence between worlds and discover that contact can look like invasion, friendship, a machine invitation, or an intelligence so alien that conversation may be the wrong model entirely.Explore 5-book collection02 · Survival by systems, iteration, and nerveHope Is an Engineering DisciplineThese stories treat optimism as practical work: close the loop, test the failure, improvise with what remains, and trust that knowledge shared across a habitat or a species can become a lifeline.Explore 3-book collection03 · Chronology becomes terrainTime Has TeethTime is not a neutral backdrop here. It bends around motion, carries decisions across generations, and turns knowledge of the future into a force that can rescue free choice or quietly consume it.Explore 3-book collection04 · Closed worlds · costly resources · survival economicsNothing Wasted, Nothing FreeOn Mars, Arrakis, and a sealed generation ship, survival begins by tracing every flow of water, air, food, fuel, and power—and asking who controls what cannot be replaced.Explore 3-book collection05 · Official trilogy · Remembrance of Earth’s PastEarth Against the DarkA complete civilization-scale trajectory from one forbidden signal to the strategic, moral, and cosmic consequences that follow humanity through centuries of increasingly dangerous knowledge.Explore 3-book collection06 · Official trilogy · OrthogonalPhysics Turned SidewaysGreg Egan rebuilds light, matter, reproduction, and time from unfamiliar laws, then follows a generation ship whose inhabitants must make those laws livable without surrendering autonomy.Explore 3-book collection

Complete directory

All novels

Every published novel currently mapped by Scifi Orthogonal, arranged alphabetically.

MysteryDanger

Blindsight

Peter Watts

After alien probes map Earth and vanish, a man who reads people without feeling close to them joins a radically altered crew sent to meet an intelligence that may not need awareness at all.

10hDemandingSeries
MysteryAwe

Contact

Carl Sagan

When radio astronomer Ellie Arroway finds a prime-number signal from Vega, decoding it gives humanity instructions for a Machine no one can prove is invitation rather than trap.

10hLayeredStandalone
ExistentialAwe

Death’s End

Cixin Liu

Across centuries of borrowed time, one aerospace engineer inherits decisions that ask whether compassion can protect a civilization—or expose it.

17hDemandingSeries
DangerMystery

Dune

Frank Herbert

Paul Atreides arrives on a desert world knowing his family has entered a trap—and discovers that surviving it may turn him into the future he fears.

17hDemandingSeries
MysteryDanger

Project Hail Mary

Andy Weir

A scientist wakes alone on a starship with two dead crewmates, no memory, and one impossible assignment: learn why a distant star is surviving the same disaster killing the Sun.

13hLayeredStandalone
AweMystery

The Arrows of Time

Greg Egan

As the Peerless finally turns for home, Agata and Ramiro must decide whether news from their own future can protect free choice—or quietly abolish it.

12hDemandingSeries
AweDanger

The Clockwork Rocket

Greg Egan

When lethal meteors cross her world's history, physicist Yalda must turn a mountain into a rocket—and entrust salvation to generations she will never meet.

11hDemandingSeries
DangerExistential

The Dark Forest

Cixin Liu

Humanity can prepare for an invasion everyone can see, but its only secure hiding place may be a single private mind.

14hDemandingSeries
DangerHope

The Eternal Flame

Greg Egan

Three generations into the Peerless voyage, Tamara, Carlo, Carla, and Patrizia must solve fuel and population crises without letting survival make anyone's body expendable.

10hDemandingSeries
DangerHope

The Martian

Andy Weir

Left for dead on Mars, Mark Watney must turn a short-stay habitat into a system that can keep him alive long enough for distant humans to reach him.

10hAccessibleStandalone
MysteryDanger

The Three-Body Problem

Cixin Liu

The universe starts counting down inside a scientist’s eyes. To learn why, he must enter a world with three suns—and follow a signal humanity may regret sending.

11hDemandingSeries
Reading progress18%

The catalog grows one fully mapped universe at a time.

Each addition includes an attributed edition, spoiler-aware companion, reusable Atlas concepts, and its place among the surrounding collections.