A friend recently asked me to compile a list of important scifi books for them to read. I thought this would be a fun exercise, so my question is: Which ten books should be on this list?
I'll write down my choices. I'm probably biased into the direction of cyberpunk. Choices are in no particular order 1. Dune, Herbert 2. Foundation, or anything of Asimov's 3. The moon is a harsh mistress, Heinlein 4. Neuromancer, Gibson 5. Snow Crash, Stephenson 6. Ender's Game, Card 7. Culture novel (Player of games or Consider Phlebas?), Banks 8. Red Mars, Robinson 9. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Dick 10. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Adams
I agree with all of those, emphatically with numbers 1,2,3,6,7,9 and 10. I'd also add Stranger in a Strange Land, purely because of it's departure from more 'mainstream' (Using that word very lightly here) sci-fi. There will never be a Stranger in a Strange Land adaptation. Also Jurassic Park needs to be on any list of sci-fi essentials.
You know, The Jurassic Park movie was so good, I always forget about the book, which was the original reason I became interested. I never think of this when thinking about sci-fi and it is a perfect pick.
The thing that I like about it is that it perfectly captures this wild-wild west feeling in biotech during the 80's and 90's. I think our expectations of genetic engineering and different kinds of 'consumer biologicals' are far more realistic now, and we've lost a lot of the wonder associated with this kind of science.
Neuromancer was Windup Girl 30 years ago. The cultural aspects of it, with a heapin' helpin' of Cold War Paranoia, are the basis of Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling (also 30 years old). That's why I recommended Windup Girl - it's one of the few books out there that isn't older than everybody reading this.
The Mars Trilogy (I just consider them as one super long book) are my favorite books of all time. I honestly felt like a change man after finishing them.
Sax pondering Mars' future atmospheric hue is one of my favourite literary passages.
"The Diamond Age" - Neal Stephenson "The Left Hand of Darkness" - Ursula Le Guin "Queen of Angels" - Greg Bear The "V.A.L.I.S." trilogy - Philip K. Dick The "Illuminatus" trilogy - Robert Anton Wilson / Robert Shea "The Mote in God's Eye" - Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle "The Martian Chronicles" - Ray Bradbury [edit] I'm adding Harlan Ellison's "Deathbird Stories"; it's a short-story collection, not a novel, but there's some great writing in there.
The Martian Chronicles is the last book I remember that utterly terrified me. I don't remember it being especially scary though, and even when I read it, I couldn't point to a specific part that disturbed me, but the sheer eeriness of most of the sections gave me a sense of terror I couldn't escape.
We actually read it in (English) class, and nobody except me liked it. Maybe it was its melancholy? Sadly, we didn't talk about the reasons for their dislike all that much (or I just do not remember)
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I thought that Radio Free Albemuth was much better than VALIS.
According to this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VALIS_trilogy there's more than one version of "VALIS trilogy". The version I read included 'Timothy Archer"; I don't think I've read "The Owl in Daylight". Apparently some say "Radio Free Albemuth" belongs in the set.
That explains why Timothy Archer is so much different than the other two books. Hmm.
Have not read that, thanks for the suggestion. I like PKD in general, but VALIS has some really mind-bending sections in it that put it in the realm of genius, for me. Must re-read (so little time!)
1. Dune—Herbert 2. Foundation—Asimov 3. The Moon is A Harsh Mistress-Heinlein 4. Rendezvous With Rama—Clarke 5. 2001: A Space Odyssey—Clarke 6. Ender's Game-Card 7. Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America—Wilson 8. The Illuminatus! Trilogy—Wilson and Shea 9. Time Enough for Love—Heinlein 10. I, Robot—Asimov These aren't really ordered, though Dune is definitely the first on my opinion. Julian Comstock is more of a fun read than essential sci-fi, but I found the style and subject to be similar to Dune. The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a conspiracy thriller, but as very strong sci-fi elements, quite obviously referencing Verne constantly.
Ringworld - Larry Niven Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke Neuromancer - William Gibson Earth Abides - George R Stewart Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein I, Robot - Isaac Asimov Roadside Picnic - the Strugatsky Brothers Solaris - Stanislaw Lem Blood Music - Greg Bear Clockwork Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi In my opinion, people could go their entire lifetimes without reading any Frank Herbert, 99% of Asimov, 99% of Heinlein, 95% of Clarke, any Ian Banks, any Neal Stephenson or any Philip K Dick. These are the books that make people who don't like sci fi hate sci fi.
These are also the most famous names in science fiction, so I think what you're saying isn't fair. Tautology -- people who don't really like scifi also don't like the most famous scifi authors. Unsurprising, but not what you should use to guide a list of recommendations to someone who's going in blind.In my opinion, people could go their entire lifetimes without reading any Frank Herbert, 99% of Asimov, 99% of Heinlein, 95% of Clarke, any Ian Banks, any Neal Stephenson or any Philip K Dick. These are the books that make people who don't like sci fi hate sci fi.
I've got a Heinlein, a Clarke and an Asimov in my list. Dune? Dune is the least shit book of a shit series. Stephenson? Yeah, Snow Crash is Neuromancer with puns. Stick to William Gibson. Sorry about your cat, but "essential" sci fi doesn't have to include stuff that only nerds like.
I think non-nerds would enjoy Dune more than Ringworld, for instance. Yeah, it's a shit series, and by far not the best written sci-fi book ever, but it is a purely enjoyable and epic story. I think a large part of it's value is that the sci-fi components tend to act more as an accompaniment to the plot rather than as major devices themselves.
I finished Dune a while back, but I just started reading Dune Messiah. I'm about 2 or 3 chapters in... should I stop now?
I loved Cryptonomicon. It's really fun as an affectionate parody of the tinfoil hatty corners of computer culture, if you've spent a lot of time around them. I can't imagine enjoying it without being part of the community it was parodying, and I've never gotten more than a hundred pages into anything else he wrote, but Cryptonomicon is still the only scifi novel I know not written by Charles Stross that involves computing without being cringeworthy. Not enough to make it "essential", but I'm glad it exists.
I just read the wikipedia page. I'd give it a shot on your recommendation, but it sounds like one of those cyberpunk things that really suffer from William Gibson's example, because William Gibson is awesome enough that he can get away with cowboys jacking in to their decks, and not everyone is William Gibson.
Before you devote 30 seconds to Daemon, know that it is the most cringe-worthy treatment of technology or plotting in the history of the English language. It is truly "make a gui in visual basic to track the killers" grade dreck. If Stephanie Meyer and Dan Brown set out to co-author a novelization of Threat Level Midnight, the results would be eerily similar to Daemon. But only if both Stephanie Meyer and Dan Brown were repressed tech support nerds.“This had all the earmarks of an SQL-injection attack, and he had a favorite one. In the logon and password boxes he entered: ‘or 1=1--”
I think Neal Stephenson had just two really good sci-fi books in him, "Snow Crash", and "The Diamond Age". After that he seemed to produce mostly straight fiction. He's a good writer, but not so good at winding up to a satisfying ending.
Thanks for nominating another Lem book! Solaris is a hell of a thing. I've only ever read the older English edition, which was translated from Polish to French, and then to English. Apparently there's a new ebook edition that's translated directly from Polish to English. I haven't read it yet, but I'm dead keen to see what they've done with it. A second-hand translation has to be better than a third-hand translation.
hyperflare mentioned "Hitchhiker's Guide", which is a fantastic choice. I think it's the only one in these comments that I think is an unambiguous shoo-in, although OftenBen's suggestion of "Stranger in a Strange Land" is also a good one. I love Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke to death — I grew up on them — but nowadays I don't really know that I'd classify them as good sci-fi. Important, maybe, for historical reasons, but if you want to show off the best of what sci-fi can do then I think there are better choices. Can I get any love for these? - Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (I'd also accept Sirens of Titan here, but personally I like Cradle better) - The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem - We by Yevgeny Zamyatin - The Anything Box by Zenna Henderson - The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (though The Demolished Man is a good choice too) - Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes Most of these probably speak for themselves, but I do want to say that Lem is probably a lot better than you expect him to be. He's best known for Solaris, which is a dense, difficult book. The Cyberiad, by contrast, is a complete delight, and one of the funniest books I've ever read. I also want to put in a plug for Zenna Henderson, whose short story collection The Anything Box I included in my list. She's the best sci-fi author no-one's ever heard of. In a male-dominated genre in a male-dominated time (the 1950s), when most people were writing about spaceships and lasers and robots, Henderson wrote these amazing, beautiful, touching, domestic sci-fi stories, often featuring children and families. Her work is amazing, and I really hope that one day the world will rediscover what a gem she was.
Eeeeee, someone else who's read the short story! I'm on your side. The short story was my first exposure to Algernon so I'll always love it more, but it's a great read either way. If you're anything like me you have a reading list a mile long, but if you get the chance to read some of Henderson's stuff I'd love to hear what you think.
1. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood 2. The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson 3. The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury 4. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood 5. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson 6. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley 7. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury 8. Dune, Frank Herbert 9. The Time Machine, HG Wells 10. Neuromancer, William Gibson I haven't read some very important books in this genre (Snow Crash, We, and potentially The Three Body Problem, for example), so the only ones I'd insist on are 1-5.
Those "barsoom" stories were some of the first novels I ever read. I'll have to re-read, and see how they hold up. Also from that time-frame, and also superhero prototypes, were his "Tarzan" stories, and the "Doc Savage" pulp novels (not sure who wrote those).
When I first got an ereader, I downloaded them from Project Guttenberg and gave them a good, honest read. They didn't seem all that aged to me and I thoroughly enjoyed them for being simple and straightforward. The swashbuckling scenes especially were a lot of fun. Since we are talking pulp sci-fi and easy reads, if you never have, see if you can find any Tom Swift novels. You can usually pick one up at an atique shop for about $10-$20. They're not what I would call good, but they definitely carry a feel for the time they were written in. Edit: I haven't read any Tarzan or Doc Savage, but I might seek them.out if you think they're worthwhile.
I remember reading one or two of the "Tom Swift" books, vaguely. It's been a long time! These (along with several Jules Verne tomes, my grandmother had a collection) were the first "grown-up" books I read.
Yeah, the Tom Swift books don't actually hold up all that well, so don't go into them expecting something great. They're fun to read though cause they're a part of pop culture much like Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys. Speaking of, I see that a lot of the old Gold Key comics such as Turok, Solar, and Magnus were recently republished and I'm a bit tempted to get a few just to check them out. Sadly, they seem to be a bit on the expensive side so I wouldn't be able to justify getting them all. I haven't read any Jules Verne, but I think Arthur Conan Doyle was a contemporary of his and I did read The Lost World which was a lot of fun, though I don't remember much of it.
Verne is not an easy read (as I recall) - the language is a little bit dated, and Dickens-ish, sorta? But I remember enjoying "The Mysterious Island" very much, as a boy (back in the 1970's).
1. Red Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson 2. Hyperion, Dan Simmons 3. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams 4. Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds 5. Dune, Frank Herbert 6. Randezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke 7. The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson 8.. A Scanner Darkly, Phillip K. Dick 9. Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keys 10. Can't believe I almost forgot this one, TITAN by John Varley
1) Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro 2) Foundation - Asimov 3) The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson 4) Hyperion - Dan Simmons 5) The Andromeda Strain - Michael Crichton 6) The Giver - Lois Lowry 7) A Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood 8 ) Eon - Greg Bear 9) Contact - Carl Sagan 10) The City & the City - China Miéville Important can mean different things depending on the context. I picked books that I think are valuable for people to read, that I think they will gain something important from. A list of books that represent the genre or that are important to how scifi has developed would look very different.