Good day, dear reader!
Lately, I’ve noticed a trend in almost every ‘news’ feed of one ‘click bait’ list after another touting itself as the definitive collection the ‘all-time greatest’ of something. All of them are very subjective and the authors rarely explain or defend why they believe those items belong on their list. In one day alone, there were lists of 15, 25, and 50 ‘must-read’ or ‘all-time greatest’ science fiction novels in one feed. These three lists were varied and different, with a few exceptions appearing on each list, and the three authors couldn’t even agree on what constituted ‘science fiction’.
So, I’ve decided to throw my hat into the ring. I’ve been an avid, even voracious reader since I was very young. I’ve read and enjoyed stories of pretty much every genre, but my favorites are Fantasy and Science Fiction, with Sci-Fi barely edging out the former. Therefore, that’s where I’ll start.
The standard definition for Science Fiction holds that it is a literary or cinematic fiction genre based on speculative or fantastical technologies or discoveries, locations and situations alien to normal Human experience (such as in Space or on extraterrestrial planets), and interaction with sentient beings other than Homo Sapiens. Within Science Fiction itself there are several sub-genres:
Ø “Hard” Science Fiction - Usually takes place in the era contemporary with the story’s release or in the immediate future, often involving “worst case scenarios” of then-current technologies, and often including detailed technical descriptions;
Ø Speculative Fiction – Could be set in any time period, but takes current technology, scientific knowledge, and even social patterns, and extends them out through the “next most likely logical step(s)” to the stage at which they are presented in the story. May be a parable for major events during the author’s lifetime. May occasionally contain a fantastical element;
Ø Science Fantasy – Usually involves technologies, places, and events created out of whole cloth. One of the best examples of this sub-genre in my lifetime begins, “A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away…”;
Ø Post-Apocalyptic or Dystopian Fiction – As the name indicates, this genre tends to have a very dark, almost hopeless view of how Humanity would come out of a world-changing cataclysm…often nuclear war, major natural disaster (such as an asteroid striking Earth), or even an alien invasion. Usually hallmarked by Humanity being thrown to a technological level decades, even centuries earlier than that of the cataclysm and forced to deal with the ‘new normal’. Humanity is often depicted as automatically reverting to its baser instincts: tribal barbarism, highway robbery, and even cannibalism. Often used as a parable to oppose a political ideology;
Ø Sci-Fi Horror – While Horror is its own genre of Fiction, this is usually one of the other Science Fiction genres with one or more Horror elements integral to the main plot. The best example of this sub-genre in my lifetime is the movie Alien (1979);
Ø Cyberpunk – Often considered a sub-genre of the Post-Apocalyptic or Dystopian Fiction sub-genre, Cyberpunk is often set in a world following some sort of societal collapse and usually includes a significant amount of cybernetic technology, the blurring of the line between Humanity and machines, and main characters that are criminals, revolutionaries, or both.
Ø Steampunk – This sub-genre usually features advanced machinery and technology based on Nineteenth Century steam power and gear-and-pulley technology. They often take place in later historical periods in a world or universe where these technologies were improved and advanced, but never replaced by new discoveries.
Two of the three lists I previously mentioned included Japanese Manga and American Comic Books. While I agree that nothing could be more Science Fantasy than a humanoid orphan from another planet who develops amazingly extraordinary powers and abilities just because he now lives on Earth, I tend to separate those two media from classically defined literature. I must admit, though, that since the 1960s, there have been some very astute, deep, insightful, and intricate story arcs in both Comic Books and Manga.
So I now share with you the Science Fiction stories that I feel exemplify the best of Science Fiction literature (in alphabetical order by author):
Ø The inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams – Even though this series eventually ended with six books, Adams insisted it continue to be referred to as a Trilogy (when the fifth book was released, the blurb on the cover stated that it was “the book that gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘trilogy’”. Originally a radio play written by Douglas, this series teaches us that Humans are only the third most intelligent species on Earth, that bureaucrats suck on every planet, that one should always have a towel, and that the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is simple but no one knows the question. A black, absurdist comedy married a Science Fantasy trope and gave birth to this marvelous tome.
Ø The original Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov, PhD – You can’t go wrong with any of the stories written by any of the original three Grand Masters of Science Fiction. In addition to being one of the “Big Three”, Asimov was a professor of Biochemistry at Boston University, an Astronomer, and a Historian. Though there ended up being seven Foundation novels…the original trilogy, prequels, and sequels…the first published novel is the place to start. Foundation is the story of a mathematical genius named Hari Seldon who develops a new calculus of sociology that uses the statistical laws of Mass Action to predict the future actions of large populations, and the foundation of encyclopedists he creates to save and steward all the knowledge of Humanity and to guide the galactic civilization through a series of major crises in order to minimize their effects. Asimov himself once said that the premise was based on History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon and Asimov’s own musings on what might have minimized the aftermath that led to the Dark Ages. The stories are brilliant and engrossing, and the characters are very richly developed. The idea of applying statistical analysis to large populations proposed in these stories would eventually see the light of day in the real world in the form of the Strauss-Howe Generational Theory and the book The Fourth Turning by researchers William Strauss, JD, and Economist and Historian Neil Howe.
Ø The Complete Robot by Isaac Asimov, PhD – This is an omnibus anthology of Asimov’s robot short stories originally published in I, Robot and The Rest of the Robots, plus stories that were included in five other anthologies, as well as four robot stories that had not been previously included in any collections. Asimov is the brilliant thinker who gave us the Three Laws of Robotics, introduced in the 1942 short story Runaround which is included in this anthology. The stories deal with subjects such as how Human society would evolve if robots were an ever-present part of everyday life, how Humans would react if robots became fully self-aware and sentient, how self-aware robots would react to the integrated Three Laws, sentient robot Rights, how sentient robots would integrate into Human society, and the emotional bonds between Humans and sentient robots and how loss affects both.
Ø The Ice People by Rene` Barjavel – The English translation of a novel originally published in France as la Nuit des temps (The Night of Time). It is the story of a French expedition to Antarctica that discovers the ruins of a 900,000 year old Human civilization. Scientists from all over the world head to the site and help the French expedition discover a protected bunker in which a man and a woman are in suspended animation. The woman is awakened first and, using a technological translator located in the bunker, proceeds to tell the story of the war and the doomsday weapons that destroyed Humanity’s first great technological civilization, and actually tilted the Earth over twenty degrees and shifted the magnetic poles. Published at the height of the Cold War between the USA and USSR, the novel is a cautionary tale that displays the struggle between intellectually honest scientists and political ideologues, and how far an ideologue will go to bury a truth that disputes his or her ideology. There is also romance and a twist at the end.
Ø A successful writer in the genres of Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Realistic Fiction, and Science Fiction, Ray Bradbury was often referred to as a ‘Midwestern Surrealist’. He himself actually resisted being labeled as a Science Fiction writer, preferring instead to be associated with the Fantasy genre. While his titles that I’ve included here have strong Fantasy overtones, they are also replete with Science Fiction imagery and themes:
Ø The Illustrated Man – This is a collection of short stories with the recurring theme of the conflict of the unfeeling mechanics of technology with the psychology of Human Beings. The seemingly unrelated stories are tied together by the titular story about a vagrant tattooed, from head to toe, who used to work as a carnival side-show freak. He meets our intrepid narrator along his wanderings and tells him that the tattoos were created by a time-traveling woman, that each is individually animated, and that they each tell a different story which are then related in the other tales in the anthology. The stories deal with many different aspects of the Human social condition: isolation, facing imminent death, provincialism, ethnic bigotry, spirituality, indoctrination, exile, disaffection, vengeance, and radical acceptance.
Ø The Martian Chronicles – This is another short story analogy with a common theme threading through the stories. These wonderful tales deal with a post WWII America and the constant concern of nuclear war, four different expeditions to explore and settle Mars, ethnic and religious bigotry, historical revisionism, censorship, conformity, and cautionary tales about the hazards of militarism as science, technology, and prosperity advances.
Ø Fahrenheit 451 – A dystopian cautionary tale about a future tyrannical American society where books have been outlawed and where professional “Firemen” are used to burn books wherever they’re found. One such Fireman becomes disillusioned with his role in censoring literature and destroying knowledge and eventually becomes part of an underground movement to preserve what he previously destroyed. Originally published in 1953, Fahrenheit 451 is one of the best of the post WWII novels warning of the dangers of collectivism and ‘benevolent’ oligarchies.
Ø A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess – This is a Dystopian novel set in the near future in a Britain that has a USSR-style Marxist society and which focuses on a sub-culture of extremely violent youth gangs. The protagonist and narrator, Alex, is the leader of one such teenage gang. He relates some of his adventures with his gang, his arrest by the authorities, their attempt to use an experimental scientific treatment to completely cure him, and the experiment’s failure and unintended consequences. His narration is liberally sprinkled with ‘Nadsat’, the street slang patois of English blended with Russian that the author made up for the book. Burgess created a wonderfully complicated character in Alex, a violent, narcissistic sociopath with whom the reader starts to empathize and even root for. For example, while his peers like and follow the latest pop music, Alex prefers classical music, most notably the works of Ludwig von Beethoven. Burgess has given us an insightful look into the lower strata almost always created by any Marxist regime.
Ø The inclusion of this author in my list is rather complicated for me. On one hand, Edgar Rice Burroughs was an ardent proponent of eugenics and a vocal supporter of the concept that the hereditary nobility of Western Europe, just because of an accident of birth, were superior to all other ethnicities on Earth…beliefs that have earned him a place on the ash heap of history along with all the other bigoted garbage. On the other hand, however, he was a brilliant author of fiction, having a special talent for adroitly and seamlessly blending Sci-Fi and Fantasy. This is best exemplified in the following series that he wrote:
Ø The Barsoom Series – a.k.a. The Mars Series. “Barsoom” is the name that the native races of Mars call their planet and the majority of the books in this series are about, or involve in some way or another, American Earthman John Carter, Barsoomian Princess Dejah Thoris, and Barsoomian warrior Tars Tarkas and their families. Fantastical ancient technology that almost appears to be magic transports Carter to Mars where swashbuckling action and adventure proceed to occur. Burroughs one of the first authors to incorporate the scientific fact that Mars’ gravity is only about 38% that of Earth, so in the books, John Carter’s heavier skeleton and musculature give him extraordinary strength and speed, making him something of a ‘super warrior’. With a fast pace, each of the books deal with themes such as duty, honor, love, snobbery, and racism.
Ø The Caspak Series – This is one of Burroughs’ ‘lost world’ series and is also a ‘found tale’ sort of story. Written toward the end of WWI, Caspak takes place towards the end of the ‘Great War’ and starts off with the discovery of a manuscript sealed inside a thermos floating off the coast of Greenland. The manuscript, written by Bowen J. Tyler, tells the tale of an intrepid crew of a British tugboat that is sunk in the English Channel by German U-boat, U-33, who then turn the tables and take over the U-boat after it surfaces. A series of adventures that include avoiding British and American warships, control of the U-boat changing between the Brits and Germans several times, as well as a saboteur keeping the U-boat from going where anyone wants it to go, end up with the U-33 making its way South in the Atlantic to the Antarctic Sea where they find the fabled island of Caprona. Low on supplies and fuel, they search for a way to make landfall on the island ringed by sheer high cliffs, ultimately discovering a subterranean outlet for a freshwater stream large enough for the U-boat to navigate. What they find is a land in the caldera of an ancient volcano that is populated by prehistoric creatures (yes, including dinosaurs) and primitive Humans. Duty, greed, honor, persistence, treachery, and the Human Spirit are all explored in these stories.
Ø The Pellucidar Series – Burroughs’ other ‘lost world’ series is also a ‘hollow earth’ tale. While testing an experimental mining machine that is dubbed, ‘the iron mole’, David Innes and Abner Perry break through the inner crust of the Earth to discover the land of Pellucidar. It is a primitive land populated by primitive Hominids, a mix of fantastical and prehistoric creatures (again including dinosaurs), and is ruled by a race of intelligent reptiles that appear to have evolved from pterosaurs who have psychic powers. The first three books are definitely the best of the series, but they’re all ‘ripping yarns’ full of action and adventure and deal with themes such as duty, honor, loyalty, racism, slavery, and the Human Spirit.
Ø Midnight at the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chaulker – This engaging work of Science Fantasy is the first book of the Well World series and posits the question, “what if you discovered that God is really a supercomputer?” The principal cast of characters includes an interplanetary drug lord, a psychotic archaeologist, a mathematical wunderkind, and an interplanetary freighter captain who just may be more than he appears. The entire Well World series is a wonderful romp in the tradition of the old style space operas with this introduction being the best of the bunch.
Ø The Morgaine Cycle by C. J. Cherryh – While this quadrology is primarily of the Fantasy genre, the core plot includes Science Fantasy elements, principally the ‘Gates’ (which are technological portals through time and space built by an ancient race), so I include it in Sci-Fi. The principal characters are Morgaine, one of the agents sent to destroy the civilization-destroying Gates, and her companion Vanye, an exiled warrior who released Morgaine from being trapped in a century-long stasis in one of the lesser Gates. As the two strive to close the remaining Master Gates on various worlds, they have to contend with political intrigue, mad rulers, religious cults, narcissistic warlords, and the mores and taboos of various cultures. Ms. Cherryh has done a great job weaving a number of Earth’s cultures from different ages into an epic quest.
Ø Another of the three Grand Masters of Science Fiction, Sir Arthur C. Clarke was a Mathematician, a Physicist, Futurist, and Inventor who used his knowledge and mastery of science and technology to not just write Hard Science and Speculative Fiction, but also textbooks and non-Fiction analyses of various subjects. Out of all his works, here are his Science/Speculative Fiction works that I consider ‘must read’:
Ø 2001: A Space Odyssey – This book is actually the novelization of the script for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey that Sir Arthur wrote with Stanley Kubrick, which was in turn a movie adaptation and expansion of Clarke’s short story The Sentinel. Being from one of the Big Three Original Grand Masters, both this novel and the original short story are sublime works of art. In this tale, Clarke brilliantly weaves astronomy, metaphysics, philosophy, physics, the conflict between cold technology and Human emotion, and many of the questions Humans have been asking since the dawn of time into an engaging, exciting, and thought provoking story.
Ø Rendezvous with Rama – This is Sir Arthur’s opus about Humanity’s first contact with the technology of an alien civilization. After a catastrophic asteroid strike, Earth establishes the Spaceguard system to detect and monitor both Near Earth and Deep Space Objects and to provide early warning about any potential impacts. When Spaceguard detects a massive object approaching but still outside the orbit of Jupiter that is heading toward the inner solar system at over 62,000 miles per hour, the Earth launches an unmanned probe that discovers the object is a completely smooth, almost perfect cylinder 31 miles long and 12 miles wide, rotating at 4 RPMs. The ensuing story is a wonderful tale of exploration and Human ingenuity, with a little spirituality and political intrigue mixed in.
Ø Childhood’s End – This is another novel that evolved out of a short story Clarke wrote…Guardian Angel. Childhood’s End is the story of a peaceful ‘invasion’ of Earth by an alien race known only as the Overlords. Their arrival ushers in decades of an apparent worldwide utopia under indirect Overlord rule, but at what cost to the Human Race? Another brilliant story by Sir Arthur that addresses evolution, xenophobia, ancestral memory, the cost of surrendering Freedom for security, and the struggles of free will verses blind servitude in a gilded cage.
Ø The Pip and Flinx tales by Alan Dean Foster – Taking place in Foster’s “Humanx Commonwealth” universe, these 15 novels are about the planet-hopping adventures of Human empath Philip Lynx (a.k.a. Flinx) and his ‘minidrag’ Pip. The stories are all adventurous, engaging, and just plain fun. If you can, read them in chronological order and not in the order in which they were released.
Ø The Eden Trilogy by Harry Harrison – This is a wonderful parallel universe Science Fantasy story about a version of Earth that never experienced the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period. As a result, the dominant species that evolved over the intervening 65 Million years evolved from the mosasaur, a Late Cretaceous amphibious lizard most closely related to today’s monitor lizard. Due to an evolutionary glitch, North America and the Caribbean Islands became unviable for this dominant species, so a human-like species descended from Central American Ceboidea primates instead of African primates filled the apex predator niche in North America. The story primarily revolves around the dominant, technologically advanced Yilane` discovering the humanoid, late Stone Age level Tanu during an expedition seeking new resources and territories to colonize. The trilogy smoothly and eloquently deals with matriarchy, xenophobia, slavery, and the cultural conflict between an advanced colonial power and a primitive society.
Ø Now, if you’ve read more than a couple of my previous blog posts, then you probably know that my all-time favorite author is LT Robert A. Heinlein (ret.). Heinlein was the first Grand Master of Science Fiction, the Father of Speculative Fiction, a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, an Aeronautical Engineer, a Scientist, an Inventor, a Futurist, one of the founders of the Libertarian Party, a Historian, a World Traveler, and a devout student of the Human Condition. A number of words and phrases he originally coined in his works have become ingrained in the American Societal psyche…words and phrases such as “Grok”, “TANSTAAFL! (There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!)”, and “Pay it Forward.” Many of his works took place in a contiguous universe spanning hundreds of years that his publisher, John W. Campbell, Jr., dubbed, “Heinlein’s Future History”. Campbell’s title for this group of works proved to be prophetic as a number of the things that Heinlein wrote about between 1939 and 1950 actually came to pass in the last quarter of the Twentieth Century and into the first quarter of the Twenty-first. Therefore, now that I’m finished gushing, it should be no surprise that the next several books are all by the inimitable Grand Master.
Ø The first is The Past Through Tomorrow. This is an anthology of most of the Future History short stories and novellas written prior to 1967. The stories deal with the collapse of the American Constitutional Republic, the theocratic dictatorship that took its place, “The Crazy Years”, the persecution and flight of a special minority known as the Howard Families, political intrigue, the Human drive to learn and explore, and interplanetary colonization.
Ø Red Planet – Though it is one of Heinlein’s ‘juveniles’ that were published as a series by Scribner’s, it is a very sophisticated work. It’s the story of two friends attending a boarding school on Mars who get caught up in political intrigue and the nefarious plans of their headmaster and the Corporate Administrator appointed by the company that owns the colony on Mars. The story maturely deals with xenophobia, friendship, colonization, corporatocracy, revolution, and diplomacy.
Ø The Puppet Masters – Written and originally published in 1951, this is a Dystopian story of a surreptitious invasion by a parasitic race of aliens that also happens to be an allegory for the ‘Red Scares’ of the Cold War. It deftly deals with infiltration at the highest levels, mass paranoia hysteria, intrigue, and espionage.
Ø Methuselah’s Children – While the original serial version of this story is included in The Past Through Tomorrow, the expanded version that was published by itself is also wonderful. This tale deals in depth with the long-lived Howard Families, their persecution by those with ‘normal length’ lives, and their attempt to escape and form their own colony on another planet. This story also introduces one of Heinlein’s most popular and most enduring (in more ways than one) characters, Lazarus Long, née Woodrow Wilson Smith. The themes Heinlein deals with are bigotry, free will, selective breeding, freedom, and self-determination.
Ø Starship Troopers – This is a coming-of-age novel that follows a young upper middle class man from high school into a military academy and then on into an interstellar war. Even though Heinlein’s critics claimed that the military oligarchy known as the Terran Federation in the novel proved that Heinlein was some sort of raving fascist, the story is much deeper than that. The aliens with which Humanity is at war started it by firing large meteorites at some of the solar system’s largest cities, resulting in the more military stance of the Terran Federation. In the classroom scenes, the protagonist and others, both students and teachers, discuss philosophical and moral issues such as suffrage, civic virtue, duty, juvenile delinquency, pragmatism, and war as a response to violent attack. The novel also deals with friendship, teamwork, loyalty, and earned respect. While the Paul Verhoeven movie Starship Troopers is a fun Military Sci-Fi romp, it is a lousy adaptation of the novel, and Verhoeven said he did that intentionally because he loathed Heinlein and everything in which he believed. Stick with the novel.
Ø Stranger in a Strange Land (the 1991 uncut ‘original’ version) – Robert Heinlein’s magnum opus about Valentine Michael Smith, a human born onboard the first manned mission to Mars, raised entirely by the ancient race of Martians, and brought to Earth by the second manned mission. Expanding on aspects of Martian culture Heinlein first introduced in Red Planet, the story centers around Michael giving his ‘official guardians’ the slip and exploring Human culture and society incognito with his new friends and “Water Brothers”, and ultimately becoming an almost messianic martyr. This novel deals with it all: action, adventure, intrigue, spirituality, organized religion, morality, philosophy, property rights, freedom, free will, kindness, loyalty, love, duty, devotion, and much more. Read it over and over until you truly grok.
Ø Glory Road – Part Science Fantasy, part Sword and Sorcery Fantasy, this novel is a treat. Published in 1963, it is about a recently discharged military veteran of an unnamed war in Southeast Asia who, while wondering what to do next with his life, out of curiosity answers an add that simply asks, “Are you a coward?” This results in a multidimensional quest to retrieve the Egg of the Phoenix. This tale is more than a traditional Hero’s Journey as it doesn’t stop with the ‘happily ever after’. Rather, it continues and explores what happens to the hero when the journey is over. Action, adventure, inter-dimensional travel, sword fights, narrow escapes, duty, honor, loyalty, love, earned respect, bravery, and gadgets that would make Q envious are all found in Glory Road.
Ø Farnham’s Freehold – A wonderful tale that turns many of the narratives of the Twenty-first Century on their ears, even though it was written and published in 1964. The story is about a family, their daughter’s friend from college, and the family valet take refuge in the family bomb shelter during a nuclear attack. Somehow, a direct hit doesn’t destroy them, rather it sends them either into an alternate reality or into a future time where things are far different. Dealing with Human and Civil Rights, loyalty, alcoholism, devotion, ethnic bigotry, Cold War paranoia, and even cannibalism, this novel will make you think and make the heads of certain idealogues explode.
Ø Time Enough for Love – This and The Past Through Tomorrow are tied for my absolute favorite books. Time Enough for Love is part anthology, part novel. As with Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, this tome introduces the primary narrator in the first story who then goes on to tell the other stories in a sort of ‘reverse Scheherazade’. Even though it deals with many of Heinlein’s favorite themes such as duty, honor, loyalty, Human Rights, industry, polyamory, ingenuity, quality of life, and persistence, the Grand Master also chose to examine the morality of incest in a variety of possible situations, which has made this possibly his most controversial book. In spite of a couple of ‘critics’ stating that all the main characters were basically the same, I found them richly developed, warm, likeable, and unique.
Ø Friday – This is the story of Friday Jones, a.k.a. Marjorie Baldwin, a combat courier for a quasi-military organization. What makes Friday special is that she’s an ‘Artificial Person’ (or just AP)…a genetically engineered Human designed to be mentally and physically superior to normal Humans. In this future, North America has become ‘Balkanized’…the nations we know have fractured and split into numerous smaller countries and even city-states. Friday is one of Heinlein’s first person action-adventure stories that skillfully and beautifully deal with some serious subjects such as international and interplanetary espionage, bigotry and discrimination, and cataclysmic terrorism, in addition to love, family, duty, and honor. She may be ‘artificial’, but Friday is a wonderfully warm, lovable, exciting person and her story is a work of art.
Ø Job: A Comedy of Justice – As one might infer from the title, this novel examines religion, often satirically. The story revolves around Alex, a fundamentalist Christian political activist, and Magrethe (a.k.a. Marga), a Danish cruise ship hostess who believes in the ancient Norse pantheon, corrupts Alex, and loves every minute of it. Alex and Marga go through more than their share crises and challenges, many caused by the Norse God of Mischief, Loki, but with the permission of Jehovah as a somewhat Jobian series of tests. Many consider this book to be tedious and blasphemous, but I thought it was an intriguing study of the Many Faiths Theory of Religious Diversity. Dealing with spirituality, cultural and religious intolerance, love, devotion, duty, and persistence, I think any Christian with an open mind will love this thought-provoking story.
Ø The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey, later books with and by her son, Todd “McCaffrey” Johnson – This is a series of stories that, as of 2022, is comprised of 24 novels, 2 collections of short stories, and an ancillary guide and atlas. The stories take place on the Human colony world of Pern in the Rukbat start system. Unfortunately, the original explorers and colonists were unaware that, approximately every 250 Pernese years, or ‘Turns’, a roque planet known colloquially as The Red Star that is in an eccentric elliptical orbit comes close enough to Pern for a mycorrhizoid spore known as ‘Thread’ that voraciously consumes all organic matter to transfer continuously from the Red Star to Pern for approximately 50 Turns. Because of the devastation this causes every 250 years, the descendants of the colonists have been reduced to an almost pre-industrial feudal civilization, and have even lost most of their history, including their origin on Earth. After the first onslaught of Thread, the remaining colonial scientists took an indigenous species of small lizard that had a limited ability to breathe fire and, through a combination of selective breeding and genetic manipulation, created a bus-sized, intelligent, quasi-telepathic species they call Dragons in an attempt to fight the periodic threat of Thread. The complete series encompasses approximately 2,500 Turns of the Human experience on Pern, with some of the later books even looking back at the original orbital survey of the planet and the first fall of Thread and the tales are engrossing, charming, imaginative, and almost magical. McCaffrey creates well-crafted, deep characters, some of whom are loveable and some of whom the reader loves to hate. The author deftly deals with issues and themes such as natural disaster, the Human Spirit, duty, devotion, feudal politics, hereditary privilege, family, love, and cultural acceptance. If investing the time to read the entire series is too much, at the very least read the original trilogy.
Ø The Ringworld quadrology by Larry Niven – Set in Niven’s “Known Space” universe and integral to other stories in that universe, these are his original stories about a massive rotating ring, approximately one million miles wide and 186 million miles in diameter, at the center of which is a Sun-like star, and on the inner surface of which is a lush, inhabited world with a breathable atmosphere. The Ring spins so that the inertia creates a centrifugal force that creates a gravity approximately 99% of Earth’s. Basically, this is a unique take on the scientific concept of a Dyson Sphere. There is lots of action and adventure, and Niven masterfully navigates themes such as cultural conflict, greed, political intrigue, duty, honor, persistence, and survival.
Ø Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley – Often dismissed as merely a Gothic Horror story, it is considered by many to be the very first true Science Fiction novel, originally published anonymously in 1818. While it does include elements of Gothic Horror and Romance, it is a story of scientific hubris, alienation, self-discovery, loss, and tragedy. Though she was only 18 when she started writing the novel, and actually did so as part of a competition with friends, Shelley does a magnificent job of addressing and examining scientific ethics, social mores, intellectual awakening, and the unintended consequences of unbridled experimentation.
Ø In addition to the Big Three, there were two authors who predated them who were Masters in their own rights. All three of the Grand Masters, as well as many, many other authors (and not just in Science Fiction), have cited both of these writers as having been either an inspiration, an influence, or both. The first of these two Early Masters that I’m including on this list is the French author, Jules Verne. Here are his works that I consider to be ‘must reads’. They are the principle works in his Voyages Extraordinaires sequence:
Ø Journey to the Center of the Earth - Originally published in French as Voyage au centre de la Terre, this is the story of a Victorian-era German scientist who finds a coded note within the pages of an old manuscript of an Icelandic saga that appears to have been written by a Sixteenth Century alchemist. When decoded, it is the instructions on how to find the entrance to another world hidden underground, so the scientist sets out with his nephew and a guide to explore the passage. Verne based his tale on Old Norse legends of another world under the crust of the Earth, but moved it from the realm of myth and legend to Science Fiction by incorporating very accurate depictions of Victorian science and technology. This novel inspired both Sci-Fi and Fiction stories and series from the likes of Doyle, Burroughs, and Tolkien, and even several story arcs in Doctor Who. Come see where it all began.
Ø Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Originally published in French as Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers, is the story of a French marine biologist who is invited by the U. S. government to join a Naval expedition being sent to find and kill a mysterious sea monster that has been sighted by numerous ships. The story introduces readers to Captain Nemo, a bitter, disillusioned, self-exiled genius marine engineer and biologist, physicist, and inventor. While in the Victorian era this novel was Science Fantasy, many of the scientific and technological devices Verne describes have become commonplace in our modern world, almost making it a work of Hard Science Fiction. This is an action-adventure that deftly addresses hubris, revenge, thirst for knowledge, and duty.
Ø Around the World in Eighty Days – Originally published in French as Le Tour de monde en quatre-vingts jours, this is the tale of a wealthy English bachelor who accepts a wager for half of his fortune with his peers at an exclusive club to embark on what seems to be to them an impossible task: to travel completely around the world in eighty days or less at a time when a fast ship would take 20 days just to cross the Atlantic and the average train traveled no more than 20 miles per hour. Verne does an insightful job of examining and incorporating the new technologies that had just been introduced to the Victorian world in this novel that also examines themes such as cultural differences, the effects of new technologies on different cultures, personal growth, mercy, persistence, and ingenuity.
Ø The Martian by Andy Weir – The son of a Physicist, Weir was a Computer Science student when he began a thread on the social media platform, Reddit, inviting everyone to weigh in on the discussion, “Other than the spaceship, what would a real manned mission to Mars need to survive?” The resulting discussion and debate would expand to include, “what unexpected cataclysms and events might possibly happen and how would the Astronauts survive with just what was on hand?” This inspired Weir to start writing this story, which he originally serialized on his blog before it was published as a novel. Dealing with themes such as the hazards of exploration, the Human Spirit, persistence, politics, loyalty, and survival, The Martian is a brilliantly entertaining Hard Science/Speculative Fiction novel.
Ø The second of the two Early Masters I mentioned is H. G. Wells, the writer considered to be the Father of Science Fiction. In addition to his brilliant, insightful works in Science Fiction, he also wrote Social Commentary, Political Commentary, History, Popular Science, Satire, and Biographies, as well as his own Autobiography. He was a social critic and Futurist who believed in the possibility of a scientific Utopia and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, and something resembling the World Wide Web. His stories included here are the ones I consider to be his seminal works:
Ø The Time Machine – The story of a Victorian Scientist and Inventor who builds the titular contraption and travels to a post-apocalyptic Earth. This story is often credited with the popularization of time travel stories. In this novel, Wells examines themes such as cultural snobbery, class division, unbridled warfare, weapons of mass destruction, survival, and desire.
Ø The War of the Worlds – While it is just one of a number of ‘invasion fiction’ stories from the Victorian Era, this novel is the pinnacle of that sub-genre. The War of the Worlds is a first-person narrative of an invasion of England from Mars. In this novel, Wells masterfully addresses themes such as Victorian fears, superstitions, and prejudices, the theory of evolution, scientific ignorance, Human Spirit, devotion, love, loss, grief, and imperialism.
Ø First Men in the Moon – Inspired by From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne, this is a Science Fantasy tale about an eccentric Scientist & Inventor and a businessman who travel to the Moon in one of the former’s inventions and discover an intelligent, advanced insect-like race living there. In it, Wells deftly deals with themes such as xenophobia, unbridled experimentation, persistence, and the Human Spirit.
Ø The Shape of Things to Come – In this almost prophetic tale, a long economic Depression results in a major war that leaves Europe devastated, threatened by plague, and thrown back into a Medieval existence. However, a network of pilots and engineers from the various air forces of the various warring nations create and maintain a network of airfields from which they work to restore the world, eventually establishing a ‘benevolent dictatorship’ in the form of a Technological Oligarchy. Addressing themes such as nationalism, war, weapons of mass destruction, education, monoglotist policies, eugenics, and utopian ideas.
There you have it, Dear Reader, my personal all-time Top 40 Sci-Fi books and series. In my humble yet educated experience, every one of these novels, anthologies, and series should be in every private collection, especially if you consider yourself to be a Sci-Fi Aficionado.
Until next time, be well…
© 2009, 2024 James P. Rice
