We’ve all heard of “Roman-tasy,” but what about… Roman-SciFi?
Like Gretchen Weiners, we’re totally trying to make this happen.
We know what you’re thinking. “Isn’t sci-fi romance already a thing?,” and you’d be right. But that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?
No matter what you choose to call it, this subgenre is one you don’t want to hyper-sleep on. Much like how romantasy combines romance and fantasy, romanscifi combines romance and science fiction to create out-of-this-world love stories. Imagine your swoon-worthy romance getting an interstellar upgrade. Think heated glances across starship bridges, tension-filled moments while repairing broken warp drives, and first kisses beneath alien moons.
Is it just us, or did the universe just get a whole lot steamier?
This isn’t a new subgenre either. Quite the contrary! Chances are, you’ve already watched movies and television shows, or read a sci-fi romance title in the past without even realizing it.
One excellent example of a mainstream sci-fi romance is Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning film, The Shape of Water. Also featuring a historic element to it, this story is set in the 1960s and follows Elisa, a mute janitor at a top-secret government testing facility. One evening, she discovers the lab’s classified secret—a mysterious, amphibious creature from South America that lives in a water tank. Over several shifts, she bonds with the creature and decides to risk it all to help her newfound love.
The foundation of the film’s plot is the romance between Elisa and her Sexy Swamp Man™️, however, there is also a clear science fiction through-line. The film uses the setting of a military testing facility to explore isolation and dehumanization. Just like Elisa, this mysterious creature was seen as an “other” and treated like a baser species than others without disabilities or who are more, well, humanoid.
Sci-fi romance (or romanscifi, if you’re cool) often pairs up humans, aliens, mutations, and other non-humanoid characters to explore many types of “otherness” often experienced in the real world. Differences in class, race, gender identities, and even sexuality have been represented a thousand times over within this thrilling subgenre.
However, you don’t necessarily need a sexy alien to hit on a human space commander for the science fiction and romance elements to work.
(Even though that sounds like an EXCELLENT way to do it.)
Another great sci-fi romance example is The Time Traveler’s Wife. Following a timey-wimey plotline similar to that of About Time and the television show Outlander, this film adaptation of an original novel by Audrey Niffenegger doesn’t introduce interplanetary characters. Instead, the sci-fi element lies within the strange time-traveling condition the male main character, Henry, suffers from. Each time Henry is launched into a new timeline without warning, he gets a little bit better at finding his footing (and some proper clothes) until he meets his soulmate, Clare.
After meeting her, Henry is no longer an untethered time-traveler but a man in love who’s only goal is to find his love again in every timeline.
Much like how The Shape of Water uses science fiction to repackage “otherness,” The Time Traveler’s Wife uses Henry’s illness to explore the concept of enduring love. No matter how often Henry is pulled away from Clare, he always finds his way back to her. This is a great metaphor for how love must endure life’s many hurtles, regardless of how random or devastating they seem to be. The point of loving someone is to keep trying to “find them” again and again and again.
Here are a few other interplanetary tropes you may discover in this fun and flirty subgenre:
- Love stories set in space, distant futures, or on alien worlds
- Hearts racing alongside high-tech adventures and scientific discoveries
- Characters falling in love while navigating interplanetary politics, near-future ethics, or surviving hostile environments
- Thrilling will-they-won’t-they tension paired with will-they-won’t-they-survive danger
Below, we’ve curated a collection of audiobooks that perfectly capture this stellar fusion of heartbeats and hyperdrives. Whether you’re a romance reader curious about exploring new galaxies or a sci-fi enthusiast looking to add some heart to your tech, these titles promise to take your imagination to distant times and spaces your heart has never gone before.
Read on for science fiction romance recommendations from our collection of audiobooks!
Full Speed to a Crash Landing
Book 1 in the Chaotic Orbits series
Written by Blah, narrated by Dara Rosenberg and David Bendena
A high octane sexy space heist from New York Times-bestselling author Beth Revis, the first in a novella trilogy.
Ada Lamarr may have gotten to the spaceship wreck first, but looter’s rights won’t get her far when she’s got a hole in the side of her ship and her spacesuit is almost out of air. Fortunately for her, help arrives in the form of a government salvage crew—and while they reluctantly rescue her from certain death, they are not pleased to have an unexpected passenger along on their classified mission.
But Ada doesn’t care—all that matters to her is enjoying their fine food and sweet, sweet oxygen—until Rian White, the government agent in charge, starts to suspect that there’s more to Ada than meets the eye. He’s not wrong—but he’s so pretty that Ada is perfectly happy to keep him paying attention to her—at least until she can complete the job she was sent to pull off. But as quick as Ada is, Rian might be quicker—and she may not be entirely sure who’s manipulating who until it’s too late…
A phenomenally fun novella that kicks off a trilogy of sexy space heists and romantic tension, Full Speed to a Crash Landing is packed with great characters and full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the end.
Check out the whole Chaotic Orbits trilogy >
Sunastara & the Venusian
Book 1 in the Space Cruise Romance series
Written by Jess K Hardy, narrated by Sarah Kempton
On this deep space pleasure cruise, love is in the recycled air…
I’m Sunastara Nex, hospitality specialist aboard the Ignisar, the most luxurious (and completely debauched) pleasure cruise in the entire Known Universe. It’s my job to keep my guests happy. It is not my job to fall for my coworkers.
Until he shows up.
Freddie. Sigh. He’s gorgeous, charming, and entirely too sincere. He’s also the man who gave me the most unforgettable night of my life three months ago. The man I thought I’d never see again. And now he’s not just back, he’s on my crew!
I don’t do relationships. I certainly don’t do forbidden workplace romances with emotionally available Perfect Venusian Gentlemen. But Freddie has a plan, and apparently it involves roleplay, secret rendezvous, and pretending we’re just acting. Until we’re not…
Because while we’re busy playing make-believe, a very real threat is closing in. One that could destroy not only the fragile second chance we never thought we’d get, but life as we know it.
And now I have a feeling that if I want a future with Freddie, I’ll have to risk everything…even my heart.
Perfect for fans of Ruby Dixon and steamy sci-fi romance, second chances, forced proximity, slow burn heat, found family goodness, and a happily ever after worth fighting for.
Other audiobooks by Jess K Hardy >
Taken to Voraxia
Book 1 in the Xiveri Mates series
Written by Jess K Hardy, narrated by Sarah Kempton
Dark, diverse and scorching hot, Taken to Voraxia is an unforgettable experience spanning quadrants and cosmos. Perfect for fans of dark fantasy, sci-fi, and monster romance, don’t wait another solar–start your next series addiction today.
The Voraxian king has come again—and this time, he’s come for me. I’ve got no desire to be claimed by the alien king. Blue skin, seven feet, and strapped with muscle, I’ve seen what his kind does to humans. And I don’t care that he watches me with hunger.
I’m a hybrid and an inventor, and I know that I can engineer my way out of this one. Even though our human colony is a scary, desperate place, I’m willing to meet it head on if it means escape.
So I run…
…I don’t expect him to give chase.
Taken to Voraxia is Book 1 in the Amazon Sci-Fi romance bestselling Xiveri Mates series! Each book features a new couple that always gets their HEA. Expect inhuman heroes with horns, fangs, claws, ridges, and otherworldly forms paired with strong human or hybrid heroines. A darker story, sensitive listeners should be aware that this book contains violent battles, epic spice, and early themes of subjugation of women (that end spectacularly).
Check out the whole Xiveri Mates series – BOOK 10 OUT NOW! >
Countess
Standalone space opera
Written by Suzan Palumbo, narrated by Chanté McCormick
“Furiously compelling. Palumbo paints her star-spanning universe and its cast with fluid, natural strokes, then jams a meteor between imperial teeth and dares them to bite. A harrowing space opera journey of injustice and revenge worth every tensed nerve and desperate hope.” — Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth
A queer Caribbean anti-colonial Count of Monte Cristo set in space in which a betrayed captain seeks revenge on the interplanetary empire that subjugated her people for generations.
Virika Sameroo lives in colonized space under the Æerbot Empire, much like her ancestors before her in the British West Indies. After years of working hard to rise through the ranks of the empire’s merchant marine, she’s finally become first lieutenant on an interstellar cargo vessel.
When her captain dies under suspicious circumstances, Virika is arrested for murder and charged with treason despite her lifelong loyalty to the empire. Her conviction and subsequent imprisonment set her on a path of revenge, determined to take down the evil empire that wronged her, all while the fate of her people hangs in the balance.
Get more LGBTQIA+ sci-fi & fantasy audiobook recs >
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