Sci-Fi You Really Ought To Have Read

I'd like to share some of my absolute favorite books with you. I have a lot of non-SFF favorites (East of Eden and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, for example), but I'll only be talking about SF today. I had the idea to share recent reads with you guys and make recommendations, but I realized my definition of a "recent read" is a bit variable, and I wanted to lay some groundwork first. So I'm going to cover a lot of ground with one post here, by pointing out the big milestones in my sci-fi reading experiences. In the future, I'll talk more about books as I come across them.

This is not at all a comprehensive list. Rather, it's a collection of important books that influenced me, which I can talk about intelligently since I've read them. There are plenty more great sci-fi books still on my to-read list. Vet school interfered quite a bit with my reading, so I'm still playing catch-up trying to read the great literary classics as well as SF classics.


War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

War of the Worlds is the first science fiction novel I ever read. Before that, it was fantasy all the way. I grew up on Redwall and Song of the Lioness, and hadn't ever considered SF very much. But my parents have tons of old books, and I grabbed this one out of a pile as part of my "literary classics" binge one summer. Thus it holds a special place in my heart for opening the gateway to science fiction. Somehow a switch got thrown in my brain, and after this book, it was all SF, all the way.

(Caveat - I always loved SF tv and movies. I'd been watching Star Trek since grade school. For some reason, I didn't think of it as a novel sort of thing until reading War of the Worlds.)

This book has a lot of charm. I thought it was slow, and the ending is abrupt and underwhelming by today's standards. However, the older setting makes for a very interesting combination. It's the embodiment of "old sci-fi" and how people back then imagined the solar system, alien technology, and the future. Imagery of the red Mars plants really sticks with me. No one had been to Mars, so a surface covered with red plants seemed as good a guess as any!


Dune by Frank Herbert

This was another early read for me. I enjoy re-reading it every few years to refresh myself on all the nuances and deep history within this book. Like many others, and the SF genre itself, I've been massively influenced by this book. The feel, setting, intricate politics, and characters have really stayed with me.

The desert planet of Arrakis makes for a very memorable setting, with giant sandworms, spice mining, desert nomads, water-retention suits, and class divides. The tensions between House Atreides and House Harkonnen combined with the struggle of man against environment make for a strongly compelling read, deepened further by the intellectual exploration of messiahs and holy wars.

I can't recommend Dune highly enough if you haven't already read it. Interestingly, it's written in omniscient POV, which is no longer in fashion. I hear the sequels include some good and some bad, but the first book is an excellent, genre-defining stand-alone.


Foundation Series and I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

My husband not only recommended these to me, he shoved his physical copies into my hands. He'd written reports on Asimov in high school and sang praises to me about how clever and creative Asimov was. I couldn't agree more. (You can see why we're married)

Anything I say will fall short of the sheer brilliance that are his books. I've never been so impressed by creativity, worldbuilding, foreshadowing, and reveals than in Asimov's books. The ending of Foundation and Empire is one of my all-time "mind blowing endings," that had me shaking my husband awake so I could shout about how mind-blown I was. His short stories, as well, (as in I, Robot) tickle me with how clever they are. (Plus a strong female lead!)

Asimov was a genius. As far as I can tell, he knew everything about everything. And then he takes all this knowledge--history, physics, chemistry, sociology, political science, psychology, biology--and turns it into a fantastic "what-if" scenario. As a founding father of science fiction, if you haven't read anything by him, go be impressed.


Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Creeping forward chronologically in my reading experiences, I read this one about 3-4 years ago. Orson Scott Card irritates me on principle because he's so homophobic, but there's no denying he's a master of sci-fi (he literally wrote the book on it).

Ender's Game is a quick, easy read. It has some strange subplots to it, but the overall story is powerful. The best part, of course, is the battle room. You'd think scene after scene of these training exercises would get tiresome, but he comes up with so many inventive ways to explore strategy and character development with each battle. Plus, zero G! Can't get much more fun than that.



Neuromancer by William Gibson

I read Neuromancer last year, and it's really stuck with me, making it one of the most influential books I've ever read. But it took me months and months to drag myself through it.

A book has never made me feel so stupid. I constantly had to re-read passages, flip back and forth, and try to decipher what on earth was going on. Often, I gave up completely, going with "I got the gist of it" and moving on. It's not just A Clockwork Orange with world-specific lingo--it's an endless stream of world-specific concepts, too. It was slow and painful, but I loved it.

This book is cyberpunk. It's gritty, with deep, intricate worldbuilding and unique characters. I've talked about setting a lot before--this one pretty much takes the cake. (Well, maybe tied with Dune). There's a lot of near-future speculation and some haunting "what ifs."


Fantasy Honorable Mention: Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

If I'm talking about my favorite and most influential books, I can't not mention Mistborn, even if it is fantasy rather than sci-fi. The first book in particular embodies everything I've been talking about that's important to me: atmospheric setting, deep worldbuilding, insanely creative magic systems, fantastic reveals and twists, and loveable characters. It's a heist story set in an epic fantasy world, and you've never read a fantasy like it.

If you're unfamiliar with Brandon Sanderson's work, this one is a great starting point. He's basically my patron saint of writing (tied with Asimov, I suppose).



Those aren't the only sci-fi books I've read, but they're the closest to my heart. I'm sure the more I read, the more my opinions will shift, and new books will enter the spotlight, too. On my shelf, I have copies of Starship Troopers and A Scanner Darkly up to be read soon. I tend to bounce around between sci-fi classics, literary classics, and contemporary SFF. I'll keep you updated on any books that really stand out to me as I read them.