The best science fiction novels that make us meditate on our humanity

What I love most about this book is how it haunts me with questions about being human. I’m captivated by how the novel blurs the line between machines and humans. What does it even mean to be a construct of programming when even organic humans are subjected to it?

The deepest idea that makes me return to it is the parallel with robotic animals; as someone who deeply loves animals, imagining a world without them is gut-wrenching. My cat, Inari, has been with me all my adult life. Would I love her less if she were robotic? Could I love her more if she were ostensibly immortal? To me, the questions are chilling and fundamental.

I love the fast-paced thriller feel of this book and the way the reveals cascade through the pages. I cannot get enough of the characters' use of dark humor to survive, even as everything is going wrong around them. Their intensity, balanced with humility in the face of unspeakable odds, makes me root for them until the very last pages.

Sometimes, when I’m having a misanthropic day (week, month, year…), I’ll grab this book and find my way back to caring for humans again. The stakes and ticking clock couldn’t be more compelling, and yet there’s still time to question what makes up the human experience. Namely, what is worth fighting—and dying—for.

I’m fairly certain that in this book, Vonnegut incites an apocalypse on humanity in order to prove that human beings are worth saving—and I’m so here for it. He didn’t hold back on who would live and who would die, on what would happen to humanity. And yet, I was enthralled with the interiority and struggles of each and every character—even those that were doomed.

I particularly love non-linear storytelling because it gives us glimpses into the future, only to make us ask questions about ourselves in the present. Getting to the end only made me want to start back at the beginning so I could linger a bit longer with humanity on the brink.

This story and its questions of eugenics and our place in society really horrified me, not because it was unbelievable, but precisely because it was far too real. The genetic superiority/inferiority, coupled with social indoctrination into our “advanced” society, made me meditate a great deal on what it means to be human.

What are humans without societal pressures? The way Huxley looked at the costs of freedom was really compelling. And in so many ways, he accurately predicted the destructive side of the social microscope that we all live in today under social media.

As a librarian, I loved how books were deemed a threat in this work. Through fear-mongering and keeping people distracted by technology, people are imprisoned by ignorance without access to books. I particularly enjoyed the symbolism in the robotic murder dog—it can hunt down anyone and can find you anywhere.

Living under that level of technological threat searches for what it means to be human that much harder—but vital. But my favorite idea is that the knowledge we carry collectively has the power to save our humanity.