Inspired by a conversation we had with a friend (mostly trying to steer them away from Dune as a first foray into Sci-fi), we've composed a list of some of our favourite Science Fiction novels that is a great place to start if you're looking to dabble.
1. Patternist Series by Octavia Butler
. 
Octavia is where we recommend most people to start. The Patternist series are short, fast-paced, and filled to the brim with ideas and concepts. She's one of our favourites and perfectly straddles the line between literary and science fiction. There's two ways to read the Patternist series, we recommend in the canonical order: Wild Seed - Mind of My Mind - Clay's Ark - Patternmaster.
2. Black No More
This is a biting science fiction satire of American racism, and one of the first works of Afrofuturism. Plus, it's extra small for the quickest of dips into this genre.
3. Hit Parade of Tears
Izumi Suzuki had ideas of how things might be done differently, ideas that paid little the laws of physics, or the laws of the courts. In this new collection, her skewed imagination is applied to some classic science fiction and fantasy tropes.
Wryly anarchic and deeply imaginative, Suzuki was a writer like no other, and these 11 stories offer readers the opportunity to explore this singular writer's work further.
4. Scattered All Over the Earth
A mind-expanding, cheerfully dystopian novel about friendship, difference and what it means to belong, by a National Book Award-winning novelist. Episodic, vividly imagined and mesmerising, Scattered All Over the Earth is another sui generis masterwork by Yoko Tawada.
