Scientist Fiction

Last update: 01 Jul 2026 22:31
First version: 13 October 2001

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By which I mean novels by non-scientists about the research life and the creative travails of scientists. There are some good ones, though I daresay not enough...

(On re-consideration, decades later, I'm not sure the restriction to "by non-scientists" was wise.)

Recommended (examples):
• Andrea Barrett, Ship Fever
• A. S. Byatt, Angels and Insects [More exactly, the first story, Morpho Eugenia.]
• Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide [Brief remarks]
• Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
• Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams [This violates my "by non-scientists" criterion, but...]
• Richard Powers, The Gold-Bug Variations [Prose almost as dense and slow-reading as pure math; it took me months to read a few hundred pages, and I enjoyed every word.]
• Kim Stanley Robinson, Forty Signs of Rain
• Joanna Scott, Various Antidotes
• Francis Spufford, Red Plenty [Historical scientist fiction about the history of optimization in the USSR. Not-exactly-a-review: In Soviet Union, Optimization Problem Solves You]

To read:
• John Banville, The Revolutions Trilogy:
  1. Doctor Copernicus
  2. Kepler
  3. The Newton Letter
• Andrea Barrett
  • Voyage of the Narwahl
  • Servants of the Map
• James Blish, Doctor Mirabilis
• Rebecca Goldstein
  • The Mind-Body Problem
  • The Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal, and Quantum Physics
• Alan Lightman, Good Benito
• Richard Powers
  • Galatea 2.2
  • Operation Wandering Soul
  • Plowing the Dark
  • Prisoner's Dilemma
  • Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance
• Philibert Schogt, The Wild Numbers [Review by Danny Yee]