Would cyberpunk count as sci-fi? Raven, the main baddie in Snow Crash, is Aleut. That book is pretty much multiethnic all the way around

The Red Rising Series (my personal favorite sci-fi series)

The Furies are all black
Atlantia (>! Likely one of the BBEG of the second series!<)

Moira (the least important one by far)

Aja (arguably the single most badass fighter in the entire series)

Ajax (Aja's son) is also black

Also, their father, The Ash Lord is also black.

All the characters (except Moira, RIP) are extremely important characters.

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Binti (A Hugo & Nebula award winner)

Main character is African

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Murderbot Diaries (2 Hugo/Nebula winners, a single Hugo, 3 rejected hugo nominations, and a Hugo for best Series)

While racial terms aren't used at all, skin color descriptions vary significantly to encompass what is likely a wide range of lineages.

Can't give you a popular one but one of my favourite books is by David Gemmell : Winter Warriors

In the fantasy genre you have Nalini Singh. All her books have POC as main characters and/or strong supporting characters. I can recall a couple of others but want to recommend only the ones written by POC. If you have TikTok follow books.with.lee . She is a black woman who recommends only books with black authors and black main characters. I’ve liked a lot of her recommendations.

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