Adrian Tchaikovsky writes science fiction and fantasy that takes big ideas, evolutionary biology, alien cognition, the deep strangeness of non-human minds, and makes them feel urgent and intimate. His audiobooks reward the format especially well because his prose has a measured, exploratory quality that benefits from being heard rather than rushed through on a page. Children of time, published in 2015, is a good place to start.

If you’re the kind of listener who wants hard science wrapped in genuine emotional stakes, Tchaikovsky is your writer. His Shadows of the apt series satisfies readers who want sprawling world-building, while his standalone novels tend to hit harder and faster. He never lets the ideas crowd out the characters.