It’s been a wild year for science fiction enthusiasts, as real life continues looking more like something out of an Arthur C. Clarke novel. Case in point: we just sent a robot to Mars and received a photo from it 8 minutes later. Here are our 10 favorite sci-fi books of 2018, from small-press debuts to Big Five bestsellers.

When “Mystery Science Theater 3000” returned for what was technically Season 12 on Thanksgiving Day, it did so under the weight of a huge cliffhanger: At the end of Season 11, Jonah (Jonah Ray) had been devoured by a robot snake — his ultimate fate left in the balance…a fact that gets totally brushed aside at the beginning of the first episode, so that Jonah and his faithful robot friends Crow (Hampton Yount) and Tom Servo (Baron Vaughn) can get back to what matters: making fun of bad movies on the Satellite of Love.

John Carpenter’s horror classic is not about what you think it’s about. By Tracy Moore.

Harvard researchers raise the possibility that it may be "a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization."

W. Scott Poole on the abyss opened up by the Great War.

Ezra Glinter surveys the work of Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem.

Once again, technology is extending what the human body can do. There's plenty of engineering involved, optimized for business uses of physical augmentation: power boosts, kinetic energy storage, and "augmented joints" that can lock on demand and distribute static loads while the worker is in an awkward position. It’s business transformation with real transformers. @Enterprisenxt

The “Star Trek” universe continues to grow at CBS All Access. The streamer has given out an order for two seasons of a half-hour animated comedy series called “Star Trek: Lower De…

In this febrile cultural moment filled with fear of the Other, horror has achieved the status of true art. By M M Owen.

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Mars P.D. will have to deal with new blood-spatter patterns, different body decay rates, and space-suit sabotage—and they won’t be able to fire guns indoors. By Geoff Manaugh.

Last Turkey Day, Netflix gave fans of bad movies and wisecracking robots something to be thankful for, renewing Mystery Science Theater 3000 for a 12th season. It was a fitting choice, extending the show’s Kickstarted revival on a date that’s long been synonymous with MST3K marathons and premieres.

Newfound exoplanet orbits a star identified with the famed science officer from "Star Trek."

At more than 60 years into the Space Age, fictional spaceships appear on our screens at a far greater frequency than the real things launch in real life. But that doesn't mean they'll actually fly. When it comes to imagining interstellar travel, the history of spaceflight up until now hasn't given science-fiction designers a whole lot to work with. All we've seen are basic rockets (useful for escaping Earth's gravity well), plane-like space shuttles (useful for re-entering it), Moon modules (the lunar lander), and modular orbital tubes (the International Space Station).

Foundation, from Skydance Television, David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman, chronicles the thousand year saga of The Foundation, a band of exiles who discover that the only way to save the Galactic Empire from destruction is to defy it.

What might make life hard to recognize as life? By Caleb A. Scharf.

John Frankenheimer

As corporations take control of nerd culture, science fiction’s most esoteric epic remains gloriously untamed. By Sean T. Collins.

'The Nevers,' which landed at the premium network amid competition from Netflix, will be written, directed, exec produced and showrun by the 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' grad.

"I carried an axe and Wallace Jr. brought his .22, not because he wanted to kill a bear but because a boy likes to carry some kind of a gun." By Terry Bisson.