15 Best TV Shows Based On Sci-Fi Books

Science fiction is a complicated genre. It’s filled with large ideas that require pinpoint execution, all done for an audience that will most certainly call a creator out for inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and anything that could be considered a ripoff. That’s why a lot of the best stories in the genre are found in the dense pages of novels where big ideas with big worlds have room to breathe.

For the most successful books in the science fiction space, Hollywood can’t help but come calling. While many book adaptations do well in a film setting, one could argue the vast ideas of the science fiction genre can only be properly told through the serialized medium of television. Whether it’s traveling through space, dealing with new technology, or simply battling aliens right here on Earth, there’s no shortage of stories to tell plucked right from the pages of science fiction books. These 15 are among the best adaptations of sci-fi novels ever put on the small screen.

The Expanse

This Syfy (later Prime Video) original series is not just based on one book, but nine novels and numerous additional works that make up the Hugo Award-winning “Expanse” series.

The story takes place in a future where most of the solar system has been colonized. The show follows a United Nations Security Council member, a detective, and a ship captain as they find themselves thrust into the heart of a conspiracy that threatens to expose the cost of civilization’s peace. The show ran on Syfy before the network pulled the plug after three seasons. However, Prime Video bet big on the show’s cult following and picked it up to complete its total six-season run.

3 Body Problem

After they finally wrapped up “Game of Thrones” at HBO, series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss joined Alexander Woo in adapting the first book in the “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy by Chinese author Liu Cixin.

The Netflix series follows scientists on Earth as they deal with the fallout of a fateful decision made by a Chinese astrophysicist when she encounters an extraterrestrial threat discovered during the Cold War. Weiss and Benioff looped in some of the cast of “Game of Thrones,” like Liam Cunningham, John Bradley, and Jonathan Pryce.

The eight episodes of “3 Body Problem” earned six Emmy nominations, including outstanding drama series award, and it’s been renewed for two more seasons.

Brave New World

Peacock took a big swing in 2020 with its adaptation of author Aldous Huxley’s very famous “Brave New World.” It was a splashy title that was perfect for the then-brand-new streaming service to get attention and precious subscribers.

The show’s adaptation of the 1932 novel can best be described as “loosely based.” Still, the book and the show both revolve around a seemingly utopian society where people are conditioned to fall in line with certain rules and strongly discouraged from thinking too hard. All it takes is one outsider’s perspective to rock the world in ways that threaten the very fabric of life that so many enjoy.

While Peackcock’s “Brave New World” only lasted one season and got mixed reviews, it has terrific performances from its principal cast.

Altered Carbon

In 2018, Netflix turned the book “Altered Carbon” into a 10-episode season of television. Like the book, the show is set in a world where humanity has achieved virtual immortality. Essentially, people’s consciousnesses can be stored digitally and physically implanted into a new body. Naturally, this process is commodified, and only the wealthy are able to swap themselves into fresh bodies, thus allowing them to virtually live forever.

When one of those wealthy people dies — a very impermanent condition in this world — he taps an imprisoned former rebel to get to the bottom of the crime.

After Season 1, Netflix renewed the show for a second and final season and made a prequel anime film to go along with it.

Under the Dome

In 2013, CBS premiered this adaptation of a lesser-known Stephen King novel of the same name to rave reviews and powerful ratings. At the time, Variety reported that the premiere episode of “Under the Dome” garnered 20 million viewers across multiple platforms, making it the most-watched summer drama opener in more than 20 years.

The show follows the residents of a fictional town after, seemingly out of nowhere, the entire community finds itself stuck within the confines of a transparent and indestructible dome. Crowds gather on the outside of the town’s new prison, but they’re unable to rescue the residents within.

As a result, the people of the community have to figure out how to survive with only the reruggle for power as our main characters try to figure out why the heck they’re under a massive, impossible dome structure

Season 1 received largely positive reviews from critics. However, its second and third seasons saw a drop in both viewership and quality, with ratings shifting to more mixed than positive.

The hit Apple TV series “Silo” is based on a trilogy of novels by author Hugh Howey.

Like the books, the show takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where what remains of humanity lives in a 144-level silo. The society, which only consists of about 10,000 people, is bound by many strict rules that keep life within the titular silo functioning smoothly… or so it seems.

In the three seasons since it’s been on the air, “Silo” has tackled some pretty heady storylines involving split timelines and nanobots and continues to slowly drip out revelations about the nature of the apocalypse. With the final season coming next year, “Silo” is a rare series that continues to get better with age.

Dune: Prophecy

For those who couldn’t get enough of Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” films, HBO answered their prayers with the release of the prequel series “Dune: Prophecy,” largely based on the novel “Sisterhood of Dune” by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

The show is set 10,000 years before the events of the first “Dune” movie in Villeneuve’s series and focuses on the Sisterhood and their rise to power within the “Dune” universe. Also known as Bene Gesserit, they are an influential religious, social, and political force within the story who possess superhuman abilities born of years of conditioning.

For those looking for connective tissue to the films, they’ll find some brief insights into the history of the Harkonnen and Atreides families, but the show is really its own story rather than a setup for what’s already been on the big screen.

Season 2 is expected to drop sometime in 2026.

The 100

Premiering in 2014, “The 100” lasted a full seven seasons on the CW. It’s based on four novels by author Kass Morgan.

The show takes place nearly 100 years after a nuclear apocalypse forces humanity to flee to space on a massive colony known as the Ark. After generations of life on the Ark, its resources are growing scarce and its ability to sustain the population starts to diminish. To help with that growing problem, a group of juvenile delinquents who the society considers expendable are sent to the surface of Earth to see if it’s at all habitable… or, at the very least, if there are any resources worth risking their expendable lives for.

It quickly becomes apparent that they’re not alone on the planet, and tribal warfare and post-apocalyptic nuclear fallout become the chief obstacles for this otherwise privileged group of teens born in outer space.

Dark Matter

In 2016, author Blake Crouch published a novel called “Dark Matter” that dealt heavily with the concept of the multiverse. The show follows a physicist in Chicago who finds himself living in an alternate version of his own life with the sole but significant difference being a decision he made several years prior. Now, he finds himself in a fight with reality itself as he tries to get back to his own timeline and prevent this different version of him from taking over his life and stealing his family.

Apple TV debuted the first season of this gripping science fiction thriller in 2024, and it was renewed for a second season.

The Handmaid’s Tale

Based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood, the story takes place in a near-future where the United States has been overthrown by a patriarchal, religious society that subjugates women in astoundingly shocking ways. Women whom this society deems undesirable (divorcees, lesbians, non-Christians) are forced to become Handmaids whose role in this United States called Gilead, is to be forced to carry children for powerful men. Like the book, the show follows Offred (Elisabeth Moss) as she rebels against the society from the desperate position of a Handmaid. Its many characters are complex and interesting, including the ones who are way too bought into this horrifyingly misogynistic society.

The Hulu original series went on for six seasons and won multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards before it ended in 2025 after 66 episodes. However, it spawned a spin-off, “The Testaments,” which premiered in 2026. So, it’s a good time to get into the fictional, horrible world of Gilead.

Man in the High Castle

This Amazon Prime original series is based on a novel by acclaimed science fiction author Philip K. Dick, the mind behind what became “Blade Runner” and other massive stories that have been adapted to film. Both the show and the book are set in the 1960s in an alternate timeline in which America lost World War II after the real-life assassination attempt by Giuseppe Zangara against President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 was successful.

The story takes place after the Axis Powers launched a successful ground invasion of the United States and the territory that Americans know and love was divided up between Germany and Japan. Decades later, where we meet our protagonists, the West Coast is under Japanese control, and New York City has become the capital of a Nazi-controlled “American Reich.”

Naturally, there’s a resistance that is emboldened by the appearance of mysterious film reels that seem to show alternate realities, including our own, where the Nazis didn’t win the war. The series is an old-fashioned espionage caper that’s a lot of fun if you’re able to stomach the blatant racism and Nazi iconography that gives the show its villainous texture.

Foundation

Apple TV strikes again with another incredible science fiction adaptation. This time, of Isaac Asimov’s Hugo Award-winning series of the same name. The show is based on the initial “Foundation” trilogy of books, which later went on to spawn two sequels and two prequels.

The book series takes place in a galactic empire ruled by a small collective of leaders. When a brilliant mathematician discovers a way to predict the future, he realizes that the empire is destined to fall and there’s no way to stop it. There is, however, a way to mitigate the disaster to humanity by creating a Foundation to preserve the Empire’s collective knowledge. The Apple TV series stars “Game of Thrones” alumnus Jared Harris, as well as Lee Pace and Lou Llobell. 

Station Eleven

Unlike a lot of the other installments on this list, “Station Eleven” was always meant to be a 10-episode-and-done miniseries. The HBO Max show follows a group of traveling performers in a post-apocalyptic landscape decades after the world is completely devastated by a pandemic. One day, the performers find themselves crossing paths with a cult and quickly realize one of their members may have closer ties to its leader than anyone realized. The show won multiple awards and even earned some Emmy nominations.

The Power

This series is all about girl power… literally.

Like the book it’s based on, Prime Video’s “The Power” tells the story of a world in which teenage girls suddenly develop the ability to electrocute people by emitting energy from their fingertips. They soon learn that they can activate this power in older women. As a result, the entirety of human civilization must grapple with the complete change in gender dynamics that occurs when women can suddenly defend themselves, or go on the offensive, against anyone they want.

When producers agreed to adapt the series for Prime Video, they decided to fill the writers’ room entirely with women. As a result, “The Power” plays out from a decidedly feminine point of view as, for nine episodes, it explores how everything on the planet would be different if women had a power that men simply did not.

The Peripheral

This Amazon Prime original series “The Peripheral” is very loosely based on the 2014 novel of the same name by William Gibson.

The show, which was adapted for TV in 2022, takes place in a future world that has seen technology blossom in many helpful and frightening ways. One such way sees a young woman with a knack for virtual reality gaming enter a prototype VR world where she pulls off a kidnapping. However, when she exits the game, she can’t help but feel like it felt different from her other VR experiences.

Soon, she’s contacted by someone on the outside and learns it wasn’t a video game at all, but an alternate version of Earth and that her actions within the game set off a chain of events that not only puts her in danger but may spell catastrophe for everyone involved in both realities.

With just a tight eight episodes that make up the series, “Peripheral” is the perfect binge-watch for a science fiction fan.