Books that meet high moral standards and contain limited foul language, sexual content, and descriptions of violence.
- Before using this list, please read my disclaimer.
- Every book on this list meets “My Clean Reading Criteria” and is one that I finished, liked, and felt was worth my time to read. To learn more about the purpose of this list please see “About Novaun Novels.”
- For information on how I classify religious fiction, please see “Is Fiction Marketed to Latter-day Saints ‘Christian Fiction’?” For how I evaluate religious content in the books I read, please see “What About Doctrinal Differences?“
- All descriptions in quotation marks come from the book jackets or other descriptions from the publishers. Follow the author links to the corresponding Project Gutenberg pages. Follow the title links to the page, post, or Goodreads review that contains my commentary on the book.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (English classic)
“Narrated by A. Square, Flatland is Edwin A. Abbott’s delightful mathematical fantasy about life in a two-dimensional world. . . .But when a strange visitor mysteriously appears and transports the incredulous Flatlander to the Land of Three Dimensions, his worldview is forever shattered.”
Adams, Linda Paulson
Prodigal Journey (Christian apocalyptic fiction, Latter-day Saint)
“. . . the prejudice and hate of a culture ripened in iniquity tear Peter and Alyssa apart, forcing Alyssa on a prodigal’s journey that prepares her in powerful but unexpected ways for the establishment of Zion, the New Jerusalem.”
Asimov, Isaac
Pebble in the Sky (science fiction)
“One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in Chicago, 1949. The next he’s a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, as he soon learns, is a backwater, just a ‘pebble in the sky’, despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it’s the original home of man.”
Foundation series (science fiction)
1. Prelude to Foundation
“Hari Seldon has come to Trantor to deliver his paper on psychohistory, his remarkable theory of prediction. Little does the young Outworld mathematician know that he has already sealed his fate and the fate of humanity. For Hari possesses the prophetic power that makes him the most wanted man in the Empire… the man who holds the key to the future—an apocalyptic power to be known forever after as the Foundation.”
3. Foundation
“FOUNDATION begins a new chapter in the story of man’s future. As the Old Empire crumbles into barbarism throughout the million worlds of the galaxy, Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists must create a new entity, the Foundation—dedicated to art, science, and technology—as the beginning of a new empire.”
4. Foundation and Empire
“FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE describes the mighty struggle for power amid the chaos of the stars in which man stands at the threshold of a new enlightened life which could easily be destroyed by the old forces of barbarism.”
5. Second Foundation
“SECOND FOUNDATION follows the Seldon Plan after the First Empire’s defeat and describes its greatest threat—a dangerous mutant strain gone wild, which produces a mind capable of bending men’s wills, directing their thoughts, reshaping their desires, and destroying the universe.” Foundation’s Edge (science fiction) “Now the two exiled citizens of the Foundation—a renegade Councilman and the doddering historian—set out in search of the mythical planet Earth. . .and proof that the Second Foundation still exists. Meanwhile someone—or something—outside of both Foundations seems to be orchestrating events to suit its own ominous purpose.”
6. Foundation’s Edge
“Now the two exiled citizens of the Foundation—a renegade Councilman and the doddering historian—set out in search of the mythical planet Earth. . .and proof that the Second Foundation still exists. Meanwhile someone—or something—outside of both Foundations sees to be orchestrating events to suit its own ominous purpose.”
I, Robot (stories, science fiction)
“Dr. Susan Calvin has seen it all when it came to robots. As a girl she had seen the early models—mute and totally faithful. She joined U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. when they began adapting Earth robots for work in space—and Earth men for work with the strictly logical robots! She had driven the first—and only—mind-reading robot out of its mind, and coaxed the childlike Brain to invent the interstellar engine. Finally, at the end of her career, she faced the final question: who was really in charge; and who should be?”
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man (science fiction stories)
“The tattooed man moves, and in the arcane designs scrawled upon his skin swirl tales beyond imagining—tales of love and laughter, darkness and death, of mankind’s glowing, golden past and dim, haunted future.”
Henderson, Zenna
Ingathering: The Complete People Stories (science fiction)
“Zenna Henderson is best remembered for her stories of the People which appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from the early 50s to the middle 70s. The People escaped the destruction of their home planet and crashed on Earth in the Southwest just before the turn of the century. Fully human in appearance, they possessed many extraordinary powers. Henderson’s People stories tell of their struggles to fit in and to live their lives as ordinary people, unmolested by fearful and ignorant neighbors. The People are ‘us at our best, as we hope to be, and where (with work and with luck) we may be in some future.’”
Lewis, C.S.
The Space Trilogy (science fiction)
“In the first novel of C.S. Lewis’s classic science fiction trilogy, Dr Ransom, a Cambridge academic, is abducted and taken on a spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra, which he knows as Mars. His captors are plotting to plunder the planet’s treasures and plan to offer Ransom as a sacrifice to the creatures who live there. Ransom discovers he has come from the ‘silent planet’–Earth–whose tragic story is known throughout the universe…”
2. Perelandra
“The second novel in Lewis’s science fiction trilogy tells of Dr Ransom’s voyage to the planet of Perelandra (Venus). Dr Ransom is sent by the Elida to Perelandra (Venus) to battle against evil incarnate and preserve a second Eden from the evil forces present in the possessed body of his enemy, Weston.”
“The third novel in the science-fiction trilogy by C.S. Lewis. This final story is set on Earth, and tells of a terrifying conspiracy against humanity. The story surrounds Mark and Jane Studdock, a newly married couple. Mark is a Sociologist who is enticed to join an organisation called N.I.C.E. which aims to control all human life. His wife, meanwhile, has bizarre prophetic dreams about a decapitated scientist, Alcasan.”
Miller, Walter M., Jr.
A Canticle for Leibowitz (science fiction)
“In the Utah desert, Brother Frances of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz has made a miraculous discovery: the relics of the martyr Isaac Leibowitz himself, including the blessed blueprint and the sacred shopping list. They may provide a bright ray of hope in a terrifying age of darkness, a time of ignorance and genetic monsters that are the unholy aftermath of the Flame Deluge. But as the spellbinding mystery at the core of this extraordinary novel unfolds, it is the search itself—for meaning, for truth, for love—that offers hope to a humanity teetering on the edge of an abyss.”
Newman, Marsha
1. The Lightning and the Storm (Christian historical fiction, Latter-day Saint)
“Charlotte O’Neill meets Joseph smith and dances with him and challenges even him in her head-strong, rebellious way. But Joseph sees into her heart and perceives her character. . . . From start to finish [The Lightning And The Storm] dramatically portrays the struggles of Charlotte’s passionate soul and her lifelong conflict with a man, stronger-willed than even she and determined to possess her. But Charlotte has a vision of love, a sweeter love, a tender love. Will she ever find it in this life?”
2. A Love Beyond Time (Christian contemporary fiction, Latter-day Saint)
“Shielah Sorensen had loved Stephen since they were children together. Stephen with his teasing ways, twinkling blue eyes, and tall, blonde good looks. He returned from a mission in Scotland and a year later was sent to Vietnam with the U.S. Army. Where did Paulo D’Agosta fit into her life? Why had he seen a vision of her ten years before?”
3. The Fire and The Glory:The Millennial Story, Parts 1 & 2 (Christian apocalyptic fiction, Latter-day Saint)
“Paulo D’Agosta’s life has been haunted by the vision of a woman—his eternal soul-mate. Is it Shielah? He has never stopped loving the guileless, tender young girl who blossomed into womanhood because of his love. But what of the portrait he glimpsed of Charlotte O’Neill. Shielah’s beautiful, mysterious ancestor from another century. In this book, both women return to tantalize him with that which he has never known—love and fulfillment.”
Nietz, Kerry
The Dark Trench Saga (Christian science fiction, evangelical)
1. A Star Curiously Singing
“As a debugger, Sandfly has an implant in his head that connects him to the world’s technology—and doles out mental shocks to keep him obedient. All he wants is to fix bots and avoid shocks. Now he’s been called into Earth orbit. The masters have a new spacecraft—one capable of interstellar flight. On its maiden voyage, the only robot on board went mad and tore itself apart. . . . When Sandfly reviews the bot’s final moments, he perceives something unexpected. Something impossible.
2. The Superlative Stream
3. Freeheads
Pax/Astra series (science fiction)
1. The Stars are Ours
“Earth in 2500 AD is no place for a young man with a dream of freedom. And Dard Nordis is worse off than most. His brother was killed for covert activities as a Free Scientist in a world where science is outlawed and blamed for all evils. Now Dard and his niece are hunted and trying to find his brother’s friends before their enemies find them and execute them as well. The stakes are high—he can be shot down and killed like his brother or escape to the stars in a spaceship that the Free Scientists have built in secret!”
2. Star Born
“Generations after landing on the planet Astra, humankind is still working alongside the friendly aquatic native merpeople to survive and thrive. But young Dalgard Nordis is yearning to see more. Taking his man-journey, he sets out to find and explore the ruins of a city rumored to have belonged to the Others—the mysterious beings whom the merpeople despise and fear. With this feat of bravery he hopes to prove his worth to the Council of Free Men. But instead his courage will prove costly, as the long-unknown Others are on their way back to the city.”
Padilla, Katherine
Dominion Over the Earth series (Christian science fiction, Latter-day Saint)
1. Fall to Eden
“Sara Alexander joins organizational psychologist Dr. Benjamin Carroll in his quest to create Zion on the planet Eden. When Eden’s planet-spirit begins reacting violently to what it perceives as the colonists’ sins, Sara discovers that she is both the focal point of the disorder and the key to saving the colony from destruction.”
2. Alien Roads
“When Saintess Myri Zarr-Vahro rejects Prince Jahnzel Zarr to seduce David Pierce into marriage, she alters the destiny of her nation. When the Eden colonists violate Prince Jahnzel’s command to maintain communication silence, they set in motion a chain of events that will change their prospects forever.”
“Prince Jahnzel Zarr is out of control, and Divine Empress Jesalya Zarr can’t tolerate it. She probes for weakness and discovers his interest in the lowborn technician Varia Day. When Jesalya learns that together, Jahnzel and his ‘wench’ are far more powerful and unpredictable than she believed, she initiates a vendetta to destroy them.”
Peretti, Frank
Illusion (Christian science fiction romance)
“Dane and Mandy, a popular magic act for forty years, are tragically separated by a car wreck that claims Mandy’s life — or so everyone thinks. Even as Dane mourns and tries to rebuild his life without her, Mandy, supposedly dead, awakes in the present as the nineteen-year-old she was in 1970. Distraught and disoriented in what to her is the future, she is confined to a mental ward until she discovers a magical ability to pass invisibly through time and space to escape.”
Tyers, Kathy
Note: Since Kathy Tyers has published both traditional and Christian science fiction with several different publishers, I’ve listed the editions I’ve read.
Crystal Witness Bantam Spectra, 1989 (science fiction)
Firebird series (Christian science fiction, Evangelical)
1. Firebird Bethany House, 1999 and Marcher Lord Press, 2011
“Lady Firebird Angelo departs her home world expecting death in space combat. Captured instead, she finds a startling destiny among an ancient telepathic family—and a new kind of battle against implacable enemies.”
2. Fusion Fire Bethany House, 2000 and Marcher Lord Press, 2011
“Firebird discovers both evil and uncontrollable power at the depths of her own spirit, and when her sister commits unspeakable treachery, she must draw on that power to save the man she loves from certain death.”
3. Crown of Fire Bethany House, 2000 and Marcher Lord Press, 2011
“Firebird returns to her home world, where some consider her a hero—but those in power have labeled her a traitor. Facing death once again, she discovers the cost of pride and the true meaning of sacrifice.”
4. Wind and Shadow Marcher Lord Press, 2011
“The desolate world Mikuhr is home to a once-proud people now on the verge of extinction. Conflict explodes when apprentice priest Kiel Caldwell arrives to investigate rumors of new spiritual revelation, but he is kidnapped by a demon possessed telepath who thinks he might be a predicted messiah. And when Kiel’s loose-cannon military brother Kinnor arrives to investigate, a local leader with revenge on her mind threatens to bring down ruin on them all.”
5. Daystar Marcher Lord Press, 2012
After fleeing to their sanctuary world for safety with other telepathic Sentinels, members of the Caldwell family must decide whether to accept or reject the claim of a previously unknown family member that he is Boh-Dabar, the prophesied Messiah.
One Mind’s Eye Bantam Spectra, 1996 (science fiction)
“Llyn Torfinn is a virtual orphan, once found hooked to an artificial reality machine, drugged by sensation and wasting away, with no memories and no past. Physically, she has made a long and painful recovery, but in a system at war, with a dreaded alien threat lurking in the wings, Llyn’s greatest challenge may be to discover her own identity. For if she cannot come into her own—and quickly—all of humanity may pay the price.”
Shivering World Bethany House, 2004 (Christian science fiction, Evangelical)
“Dr. Graysha Brady-Phillips is suffering from a genetic disease that causes weakness and early death. When she is offered a position on planet Goddard, where the average life span exceeds 150 years, she leaps at the chance. The colonists’ radical-and illegal-science just might be her only hope for a cure. Graysha must convince a group of paranoid rebel scientists to trust the daughter of their worst enemy, her mother.”
The First Men in the Moon (English classic)
“When penniless businessman Mr Bedford retreats to the Kent coast to write a play, he meets by chance the brilliant Dr Cavor, an absent-minded scientist on the brink of developing a material that blocks gravity. Cavor soon succeeds in his experiments, only to tell a stunned Bedford the invention makes possible one of the oldest dreams of humanity: a journey to the moon. With Bedford motivated by money, and Cavor by the desire for knowledge, the two embark on the expedition. But neither are prepared for what they find—a world of freezing nights, boiling days and sinister alien life, on which they may be trapped forever.”
The Invisible Man (English classic)
“With his face swaddled in bandages, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses and his hands covered even indoors, Griffin—the new guest at the Coach and Horses—is at first assumed to be a shy accident victim. But the true reason for his disguise is far more chilling: he has developed a process that has made him invisible, and is locked in a struggle to discover the antidote. Forced from the village and driven to murder, he seeks the aid of his old friend Kemp. The horror of his fate has affected his mind, however—and when Kemp refuses to help, he resolves to wreak his revenge.”
The Time Machine (English classic)
“When a Victorian scientist propels himself in the year 802,701 AD, he is initially delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment and peace. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he soon realises that this beautiful people are simply remnants of a once-great culture—now weak and childishly afraid of the dark. They have every reason to be afraid: in deep tunnels beneath their paradise lurks another race descended from humanity—the sinister Morlocks. And when the scientist’s time machine vanishes, it becomes clear he must search these tunnels if he is ever to return to his own era.”
The War of the Worlds (English classic)
“The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common near London. At first, naive locals approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag—only to be quickly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray as terrifying tentacled invaders emerge. Soon the whole of human civilization is under threat, as powerful Martians build gigantic killing machines, destroy all in their path with black gas and burning rays, and feast on the warm blood of trapped, still-living human prey. The forces of the Earth, however, may prove harder to beat than they at first appear.”
The featured image “Sunset Illusion” is Copyright © 2022 by Katherine Padilla. All rights reserved.
