The Best Science Fiction Books

[J-Sun]

This list isn't new (2011) so apologies if it's been posted before. A search didn't turn anything up, though.

The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit) (blamcast.net)

Or, if you'd rather, here's the plain list of 43 titles (43?) right here:

Dune (1965) - Frank Herbert
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) - Douglas Adams
Ender's Game (1985) - Orson Scott Card
Foundation Trilogy (1942) - Isaac Asimov
Hyperion (1989) - Dan Simmons
Neuromancer (1984) - William Gibson
Snow Crash (1992) - Neal Stephenson
Childhood's End (1953) - Arthur C. Clarke
The Forever War (1974) - Joe Haldeman
Ringworld (1970) - Larry Niven
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) - Philip K. Dick
Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) - Robert A. Heinlein
Starship Troopers (1987) - Robert A. Heinlein
The Culture Series (1987) - Iain M. Banks
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960) - Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Rendezvous with Rama (1973) - Arthur C. Clarke
Pandora's Star (2004) - Peter F. Hamilton
The Mote in God's Eye (1974) - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
The Stars My Destination (1956) - Alfred Bester
Altered Carbon (2002) - Richard K. Morgan
Kim Stanley Robinson (1993) - Red Mars
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Arthur C. Clarke
Contact (1985) - Carl Sagan
The Sirens of Titan (1959) - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
I, Robot (1950) - Isaac Asimov
The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) - Ursula K. Le Guin
Revelation Space (2000) - Alastair Reynolds
Old Man's War (2005) - John Scalzi
Anathem (2008) - Neal Stephenson
Armor (1984) - John Steakley
Oryx and Crake (2003) - Margaret Atwood
Fahrenheit 451 (1953) - Ray Bradbury
A Fire Upon The Deep (1992) - Vernor Vinge
Quarantine (1992) - Greg Egan
The Chronicles of Amber (1970) - Roger Zelazny
Heir to the Empire (1991) - Timothy Zahn
The Book of the New Sun (1980) - Gene Wolfe

I've read 33 of the 43 and still own 28 of them and, on the other hand, have 5 in the Pile, leaving just 5 I haven't read and don't have (and I've read other books by the authors of 3 of those (4 if I count non-fiction) and the other couple are fairly famous, so I guess it's a pretty good list. I would put Diaspora (1997) in for Egan (not that there's anything wrong with Quarantine) and different titles for some of Clarke and Dick (Dick Clarke?). And there's no Anderson, Bear, or Cherryh, not to mention D-Z. Still, pretty neat. Might help folks looking for great reads and/or start some discussion.

 

[biodroid]

I don't think Old Man's War should be on that list.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I don't think any Star Wars spin-offs should be in the list. LOL

psik

 

[Rodders]

Heir to the Empire shouldn't be on that list. Don't get me wrong, I loved this trilogy but Best Sci Fi ever?

 

[Ogma]

How is the Chronicles of Amber classed as SF? That surely is a fantasy.

 

[biodroid]

Rodders - Surely Star Wars is also not classed as Sci Fi?

 

[Vince W]

Contact? Really? I enjoyed it, but I've never considered it one of the best ever.

 

[Rodders]

I love Star wars and enjoyed the Heir to the Empire Trilogy. Definitely Sci Fi genre, however I don't think that it's the "Best" sci fi.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I love Star wars and enjoyed the Heir to the Empire Trilogy. Definitely Sci Fi genre, however I don't think that it's the "Best" sci fi.

What people think of as "the genre" has changed since 1977.

The producers of Star Wars said it was not science fiction back then. But did 10 years olds give a damn? So now they are in their 40s and think it is science fiction. And watching it with their kids.

All of the Star Wars fans are making me dislike Star Wars. LOL

psik

 

[paranoid marvin]

No War of the Worlds or 1984?

I guess we all have favourites that are missing, but those omissions are unforgivable.

 

[ratsy]

I love Star wars and enjoyed the Heir to the Empire Trilogy. Definitely Sci Fi genre, however I don't think that it's the "Best" sci fi.

When did you read it? I got a copy from my brother recently and tried reading it...it was not up to par for me any more. I read them around 17 years ago and loved them. Now, not so much.

 

[Bick]

It's not an awful list, but there are bound to be things we all see as omissions or strange inclusions. No Wells or Verne is clearly a bit batty. From personal opinion I'd have "Boat of a Million Years", "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", "Dying Inside", "Hothouse" or something by Cherryh, ahead of the Scalzi and Zahn for instance. I enjoyed the Scalzi a good deal, but its popcorn really. In fact I see Banks gets to have the entire Culture series in the list as one book, in which case I'd like to make a case for the Riverworld series by Farmer.

 

[Extollager]

Lists of "the greatest" often unduly favor the recent....

 

[Abernovo]

A lot of that list is not 'the recent', Extollager.

There's a lot of good stuff on it, but some of them I wouldn't call the 'greatest'. Ringworld, as a concept is brilliant, for instance, but as a story, isn't magnificent. Of course, that's only my opinion. And, it's all opinion, at the end of the day.

Goodness knows how Starship Troopers got in, even compared to some of Heinlein's other work. I did find it amusing that it's listed as '1987'. A typo, J-Sun, or carried over in copy-and-paste?

 

[Extollager]

A lot of that list is not 'the recent', Extollager.

Well, "recent" is relative. I'd start with Wells, if not with Verne. Suppose one starts from about 1895, which I think is about when The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds appeared. Then go basically decade by decade -- 1895-1904, 1905-1914, etc.

I'm not calling for an equal distribution, as if each decade is entitled to x number of entries. Let's do go for factors that make for quality, and if (hypothetical example) 1985-1994 saw a big spurt of truly high-quality sf published, then fine, let it be represented accordingly, and at the expense of other periods.

But my sense, at a glance, was that a disproportionate number of relatively recent books appeared in the list.

And that is typical of lists in general, in my experience. Ask people for the great movies, or the most important historical events, etc. and you will probably get that kind of response.

If we start from 1895, then, surely anything published since 1985 or so is pretty recent. Consider the paucity of entries from before, say, 1975.

Thought experiment: remove the ten or so published in the past 25 years and fill in the spaces with older works that did not appear on this list. I suspect that the result would be to raise the average level of quality attained by the list. But I don't know -- I haven't read all the books on the list, whether recent or not. I'm just saying that I'm inclined to be a bit doubtful of a list weighted towards the relatively recent. The nearer telephone pole looks taller than the ones farther away.

 

[Sourdust]

Many of these titles are standard best-of inclusions, but I'm not sure why Reddit posters should be seen as any particular literary authority.

 

[J-Sun]

How is the Chronicles of Amber classed as SF? That surely is a fantasy.

I meant to comment on that but forgot. I agree that that one is a strange inclusion just in terms of sheer eligibility. On the other hand, regarding the Star Wars biodroid, psikeyhackr, and Rodders mentioned, I have no idea of the quality of the book but I like that it's on there as at least an example of a large market segment that indicates that, while this list has some critically esteemed works and isn't a bunch of pop crap, it's not an ivory tower list either. If there'd been several Star Wars-type books, it might have bothered me, but there's really just the one. And, while Star Wars isn't at all SF in a strict sense, it is in a marketing sense, so doesn't seem out of place to me like the Amber does.

Goodness knows how Starship Troopers got in, even compared to some of Heinlein's other work. I did find it amusing that it's listed as '1987'. A typo, J-Sun, or carried over in copy-and-paste?

Copy and paste - I reformatted the list by script but the only thing I corrected was one author/title inversion. I noticed the Foundation date (in book terms) but didn't change it but didn't even notice the Heinlein. Bizarre.

Many of these titles are standard best-of inclusions, but I'm not sure why Reddit posters should be seen as any particular literary authority.

They're not. They're just the multi-party generators of this particular list.

 

[IKaneWrites]

No War of the Worlds or 1984?

I guess we all have favourites that are missing, but those omissions are unforgivable.

I agree...and add Brave New World as well.

 

[wam]

Iain Banks always said his best SF novel was The Bridge. I should get around to that some time.

 

[wam]

Kim Stanley Robinson (1993) - Red Mars
Surely some mistake? If not, who is Red Mars?