10 Sci-Fi Horror Books That Will Keep You Up All Night (And Make You Afraid of the Dark)

With sci-fi stories, you expect to be mesmerized and bewildered by technological advancements, glorious space explorations, and a world of wonders full of great possibilities for the future. On the other hand, horror tales bring you face-to-face with monsters, aliens, forces of unknown origins, and all sorts of fantastical oddities of nature. If you desire a seamless blend of all these elements, any of the following 10 sci-fi horror books should do the job just fine.

Salvation Day by Kali Wallace

An exploration ship called “House of Wisdom” has long been abandoned by Earth following a virus attack that killed nearly everyone on board, except a single survivor. It’s now dark and almost completely devoid of life—or so it seems. Zahra thinks she has a good plan to kidnap the lone survivor and claim the ship as her own. Little does she know that lurking in the dark corners of the “House of Wisdom” is much more than the remnants of a virus; something much worse is about to be awakened by her disturbance.

“A Planet Named Shayol” by Cordwainer Smith

This is actually a short story published in The Rediscovery of Man (1993). Our protagonist here is Mercer, who has been condemned to the planet Shayol for committing an unnamed crime. As if being banished to a distant planet isn’t terrible enough, the inhabitants inevitably suffer from gruesome physical mutations. Once they’ve grown extra limbs and other organs, the authorities harvest those extra body parts for medical purposes. Some children are sent to Shayol without their brains, yet they’re somehow alive.

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

As many as 2,000 cryogenically frozen people are on a journey to a distant Earth-like planet because Earth itself is no longer conducive to humanity. For some reason, the spaceship is crewed by six criminals who have volunteered to be cloned—repeatedly—to ensure the safety of their precious cargo. But everything turns to chaos when bodies are found dead, with evidence indicating brutal murders. The spaceship’s artificial intelligence has gone awry, and the gravity is turned off.

Blindsight by Peter Watts

Set in the not-so-distant future, the story kicks off when humanity realizes the presence of a massive alien spaceship hovering at the edge of the solar system. Not knowing what to make of it, Earth sends a small crew aboard the ship Theseus to investigate. It’s a rather peculiar crew consisting of a linguist, a member of the “Gang of Four” (a person who has been surgically altered to have multiple personalities), and a sociopathic vampire. The alien ship appears sentient at first, but our extraordinary crew soon discovers that it’s nothing but a cheap trick played by the ship’s resident creatures, which are brainless, though not exactly mindless.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

On an impoverished mining planet, Gyre is desperate to find her mother. When an opportunity presents itself, promising a paycheck big enough to fund her investigative expedition, she does what she can to take the risky job. She fakes her credentials and leaves the rest to Em, her handler. Later, Gyre discovers that Em has known all along about her fake identity. In fact, Em uses it as a tool to force Gyre to embark on a journey into the dark underground, riddled with horrors.

Nightflyers by George R. R. Martin

The spaceship Nightflyer is almost fully autonomous, to the point where it only takes a single crewmember to run and maintain its entire operation. But when nine academics are about to be sent to space to study an alien race, the Nightflyer is the only spaceship available, so the team has no choice but to use it. Royd Eris, the captain of the Nightflyer, turns out to be eccentric and keeps to himself while secretly spying on the scientists aboard his ship. Chaos ensues when someone, or something, embarks on a killing spree. The mission quickly turns into a battle for survival in the darkness.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Robert Neville is likely the last living human being on Earth, but his world isn’t entirely quiet, especially at night. The world has been ravaged by a virus so potent that it turns people into mindless cannibals. As far as Neville is concerned, he’s the very last of the human species on the planet, and everyone else has transformed into a powerful, barbaric monster. But they’re far from unintelligent, which makes them even more dangerous than he expects. His only consolation is that these creatures are nocturnal. Neville’s daytime is lonely but safe; when night comes, however, all hell breaks loose.

Nightfall by Jake Halpern and Peter Kujawinski

The island of Bliss is a peculiar place. Daylight lasts for 14 years, followed by an equally long night. Marin, Line, and Kana have never experienced nighttime—until now. After sunset, their journey through much of their adolescence will happen in the dark. When the sun rises again in the future, they will have grown into adults—that is, if they survive at all. Bliss is strange not only for its unusually long day and night periods but also because the island completely changes in the dark. At night, the island belongs to mysterious creatures that prey on humans.

Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell

Having been exposed to more than a fair share of cosmic horror, you should know by now that space is a scary place. In fact, it’s so frightening that when a creature from space visits Earth, the terror comes with it. The story is about a group of scientists stationed in Antarctica who discover an alien spaceship buried in the ice. In an attempt to recover the ship and the alien inside, they release a murderous shapeshifting monster, simply referred to as “The Thing.” And yes, this is the book on which the 1982 sci-fi horror film The Thing was based.

Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes

When the crew of a repair vessel picks up a distress signal from an unknown ship, they decide to take a closer look and investigate. It turns out that the signal originates from the Aurora, a luxury liner thought to have vanished during its maiden voyage across the solar system over two decades ago. Since the crew members are about to lose their jobs, they know that the Aurora is a promising salvage opportunity worth enough money to set them up for life. But the luxury liner is a lot spookier than they expect.

We think the scary elements of sci-fi horror in a novel have to be written with immersive and vivid detail to be effective. Unlike in films or TV series, where the audience can see visual depictions of monsters and hear spine-chilling sound effects, a sci-fi horror novel has to replace these with words and let readers use their own imaginations. In other words, the story has to be interesting enough to keep readers engaged, while the horror elements should be frightening enough without being off-putting, especially when body horror is involved.

Some people find that reading a sci-fi horror book is more immersive and enjoyable than watching a film. Which are you? Do you think John Carpenter’s The Thing did the book justice? We’d love to hear from you.

Other Things You Might Want to Know

If you want your horror sprinkled with comedy, here are some books to read:

Bunny by Mona Awad
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones
John Dies at the End by David Wong
Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend by Linda Addison

Good sci-fi horror anthologies for short story fans:

Strange Ports of Call (1948) by August Derleth
Science Fiction Terror Tales, edited by Groff Conklin (1955)
Terror in a Modern Vein, edited by Donald A. Wollheim (1955)
The Dark Side, edited by Damon Knight (1965)
The Berserkers, edited by Roger Elwood (1974)
In Space No One Can Hear You Scream, edited by Hank Davis (2013)
The Baen Big Book of Monsters, edited by Hank Davis (2014)

**What makes Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend a great sci-fi horror book?**

Taken at face value, I Am Legend seems like a typical zombie/vampire story where a hero has to go through a series of struggles for survival in a dark, post-apocalyptic landscape. Upon closer inspection, the novel is more a tale about human loneliness than a monster-killing fest. It’s violent, horrific, exciting, and at the same time somber and majestic.