The best sci-fi novels…
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Remember the reason for this holiday. And please drive carefully.
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Most sci-fi readers have their own list of novels they remember with fondness. While yours might be different, I want to offer you mine. For younger readers, there are probably some oldies in my list you could enjoy. Maybe you’ve seen some of the writers acknowledged on classic Star Trek episodes. Maybe you’ve heard old geezers like me mention them fondly. In any case, many are classics now. Without further ado, here’s my list in alphabetical order according to author:
Isaac Asimov, Caves of Steel
Isaac Asimov, Foundation
Isaac Asimov, The End of Eternity (1956)
Isaac Asimov, The Naked Sun
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game (1985)
- J. Cherryh, Downbelow Station (1981)
Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama (1973)
William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)
Joe Haldeman, The Forever War (1975)
Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)
Fred Hoyle, The Black Cloud
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
C. M. Kornbluth, Not This August
Larry Niven, Ringworld (1970)
George Orwell, 1984
Frederik Pohl, Gateway (1977)
Clifford D. Simak, Way Station (1963)
H. G. Wells, The Time Machine
(The years in parentheses indicate the date the novel received the Hugo Award.)
Most of these novels are either hard sci-fi (i.e. they use reasonable extrapolations of current science and technology, no matter how tenous), dystopian, apocalyptic, or post-apocalyptic. There is no fantasy or horror, and military and space operatic sci-fi are generally absent. The only “punk” novel is Neuromancer (Gibson invented the cyberpunk subgenre); the only militaristic sci-fi novel is Haldeman’s The Forever War. Note that not all the books listed received the Hugo Award, either because the award didn’t exist at the time, or because they were overlooked and shouldn’t have been.
Also note that there are no books after 1985. Why is that? 1985, when Card’s book Ender’s Game won the Hugo, was a cutoff date for great sci-fi. It’s not that good sci-fi-like tales haven’t been told after that date, they just aren’t “great.” Modesty aside, I’d like to call some of mine “good,” but objectively I can’t call them “great” either. The list of authors listed here were trailblazers in the genre. Those who have followed them (myself included) have very big hurdles to leap over.
All of these books should be considered classics (assuming snooty critics can ever consider genre fiction novels as classics—they tend to limit themselves only to those books in the catch-all genre “literary fiction”). I’ll admit I might have missed some classic sci-fi (I neither included all Hugos nor only Hugos, and I depended on my memory for authors and titles). I can state without reservation that I read every one of these novels and enjoyed them all (and a lot more than these, of course). Any list like this is subjective. You can make your own, but I’d expect a lot of overlap. (Maybe you’ll have some after 1985 to include.)
I seriously doubt that more classics will be written. The sci-fi genre has been weakened by many new subgenres; it has been weakened by mixing genres, particularly with romance and erotica, but also with a whole new list of “punk” genres and fantasy-oriented tales with little or incorrect science in them. Streaming video, computer games, and movies have changed what the reading population means when the label “sci-fi” is used (the SyFy channel regularly programs Harry Potter movies—what’s with the name?); they have also reduced readership. What Hollywood calls sci-fi is usually questionable (for example, all shows in the Star Trek franchise after the first classic series are poorly written and shouldn’t be called sci-fi, while the Star Wars movies are pure fantasy if they’re not plagiarizing Edgar Rice Burroughs). In this kind of entertainment environment, classics cannot be written.
All the novels in my list are like dinosaurs. We might view them fondly like we view a brontosaurus or T-Rex, but they’re part of our distant past now. That’s sad. But like Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony or Beethoven’s Fifth, maybe they’ll live forever…as long as human beings walk the Earth and don’t themselves become extinct like the dinosaurs.
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Comments are always welcome!
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In libris libertas!
