8 Funny Science Fiction Novels You Can't Miss

Whenever I'm feeling down or overwhelmed with life, it helps to remember how to laugh. Few things do the trick for me like funny science fiction novels.

This type of comedy is rarer than it should be. Science fiction as a genre tends toward the serious — epic wars, existential threats, civilizations hanging by a thread. All good stuff, but sometimes you want a book that makes you snort-laugh on the bus and not care who's watching.

As a sci-fi author myself — and someone who writes a bit of humor into his science fiction, especially with The Gunn Files — I've read a great many of these books. The ones below are the real deal: genuinely funny books that also happen to be great science fiction. They've got sharp writing, absurd premises, and characters so hapless you can't help but root for them.

Whether you like dry wit, slapstick chaos, or deadpan irreverence, there's something on this list for you.

The Martian — Andy Weir

Stranded alone on Mars after his crew evacuates without him, astronaut Mark Watney has two options: give up, or figure out how to grow enough potatoes in Martian soil to survive until a rescue mission can reach him.

He chooses life, documents everything in video logs, and somehow makes the whole thing seem funny in the way only a near-death experience can be.

What makes The Martian work as comedy is Watney's voice — relentlessly honest, self-deprecating, and sarcastic. Whether he's making repairs to his habitat or potato farming in a space suit, he's cracking jokes the whole time.

In writing the book, author Andy Weir actually programmed the orbital calculations himself, so the hard science is real, which makes the absurdity of Watney's situation land even harder. This is the rare funny book that also gets the science mostly right.

Perfect for readers who like their humor dry, their protagonists competent-but-doomed, and their science accurate.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy — Douglas Adams

The gold standard of comic science fiction, and the book that made an entire generation realize the genre didn't have to be solemn.

On an ordinary Thursday, Arthur Dent's house is demolished. Minutes later, so is Earth — to make way for a hyperspace bypass. His only hope is his friend Ford Prefect, who has just revealed he's an alien, and a battered electronic guidebook with the words DON'T PANIC on the cover.

Adams's humor is absurdist and philosophical at once — the jokes are about bureaucracy, the meaning of life, and the indifference of the universe, all delivered with the impeccable timing Douglas Adams is known for.

The series spans five novels, all worth reading, though the first two (Hitchhiker's and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe) are the best. If you've somehow never read this, stop what you're doing and get to your local bookstore!

Culture Shock — M.G. Herron

Aliens are among us, and Austin, Texas just got a whole lot weirder.

Anderson Gunn is a bounty hunter with a talent for tracking people down and a gift for getting into trouble. When the fugitive he's chasing turns out to be a tentacled alien straight out of Ridley Scott's worst nightmare, Gunn gets pulled into the alien underbelly of Austin — and that's only the beginning of the worst Friday night of his life.

The humor here is noir-deadpan: Gunn narrates his increasingly chaotic evening the way a private detective would, with dry commentary and mounting disbelief. Think Men in Black crossed with The X-Files, set in Austin and filtered through a hard-boiled mystery sensibility. Culture Shock is the first book in The Gunn Files, a complete four-book series — all books are out and ready to binge.

Save 50% on all 4 books in The Gunn Files series →

Red Dwarf — Grant Naylor

Three million years after a radiation leak kills the crew of the mining ship Red Dwarf, Dave Lister wakes up from suspended animation to find himself the last human alive. His only companions are a hologram of his dead bunkmate, a creature who evolved from his cat, and a neurotic ship's computer.

Their mission: get home.

Red Dwarf (the novel, adapted from the beloved British TV series) is broad physical comedy meets surprisingly sharp science fiction. Grant Naylor — the pen name of writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor — builds a genuinely interesting deep-space world and then populates it with the most gloriously incompetent crew imaginable.

Lister is lazy, self-pitying, and completely ill-equipped to be the savior of humanity, which is exactly what makes him so funny. If you loved the show, the novel adds depth. If you've never seen the show, the novel stands perfectly on its own.

The Kaiju Preservation Society — John Scalzi

After getting laid off from his tech job during a pandemic, Jamie Gray ends up delivering food for a living — until a chance encounter leads to a job offer he doesn't entirely understand, working for an organization that does something with giant monsters. That organization turns out to be the Kaiju Preservation Society, dedicated to protecting enormous creatures on a parallel Earth where they naturally exist.

Scalzi has a gift for comic science fiction that takes its premises completely seriously. The jokes in The Kaiju Preservation Society aren't winking at the camera — the world is absurd, but the characters treat it like a job, which is where most of the comedy comes from. It's warm, fast, and undemanding in the best possible way. Scalzi describes it as "a pop song" — a book he wrote for fun that reads like fun. He's not wrong.

Interstellar Caveman — Karl Beecher

What happens when a terminally ill technophobe is thawed out of cryogenic deep freeze three centuries in the future?

Complete disaster.

In a galaxy where toilets talk back and door handles are a forgotten relic, Colin Douglass is hopelessly out of his depth, saved only by the archaeologist who revived him — and she has her own reasons for keeping him around.

I spoke to the author, Karl Beecher, who told me where the story concept came from: "I love sci-fi comedy and very little like this book existed. Plus, I'm always drawn to a relatable lead character who is not at all special but gets thrown in at the deep end. In this era of superhero obsession, it's not something you can easily find. In Colin Douglass, I decided to make my own character who's clearly not up to the task, and then hurl everything I could at him."

The fish-out-of-water comedy is broad and physical, but there's genuine heart underneath — Colin's bewilderment at the future doubles as a quiet meditation on how fast the world changes.

Space Team — Barry J. Hutchison

Small-time conman Cal Carver has a bad day that escalates rapidly: jailed, forced to share a cell with a cannibalistic serial killer, and then — just when things seem like they can't get worse — accidentally abducted by aliens.

He's conscripted into a crew of the galaxy's most notorious scoundrels and sent on a mission no sane person would accept.

Hutchison's humor is pure chaos energy — fast, irreverent, and relentless. There's no moment where Cal gets his bearings before something new goes wrong.

The series has over a dozen entries now, which tells you everything you need to know about how much readers love it.

Start with the first one and good luck not tearing through the rest of them in a single rip. They're addictive!

Starship Grifters — Robert Kroese

Rex Nihilo is a space-faring con artist with more bravado than brains, plying the universe in search of his own personal gain. When he wins a worthless planet in a poker game and ends up owing a debt larger than the galaxy itself, his only way out is to play both sides of an intergalactic war — and not get caught doing it. His long-suffering robot sidekick does most of the actual thinking.

The comedy here is cynical and bitter — Rex is not a hero who stumbles into doing the right thing, he's a self-serving narcissist who occasionally succeeds by accident. Kroese plays it completely straight, which makes the absurdity hit harder.

If your taste runs toward antiheroes and schemes that almost work, Starship Grifters is your book.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the funniest science fiction novel ever written?
Most readers point to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy — it's been making people laugh since 1979 and holds up remarkably well. For more recent funny science fiction, The Martian and The Kaiju Preservation Society are my go-to recommendations.

Are there funny sci-fi series I can binge?
Several on this list are series starters. Space Team has over a dozen books. The Gunn Files is a four-book series with a consistent comedic vibe throughout. Red Dwarf has a sequel novel (Better Than Life) and of course the long-running TV series.

Is there sci-fi comedy like Hitchhiker's Guide?
If you want the same philosophical absurdism, Red Dwarf and Starship Grifters are the closest matches. If you want the same light touch and human warmth, The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi is probably your best bet.

Looking for more sci-fi recommendations? Check out the best sci-fi noir mystery novels.

What other hilarious science fiction novels do you recommend? Leave a comment below.

Featured image credit: Don't Panic Wallpaper.