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Before the publication of James Blish's A Case of Conscience, winner
of the Hugo Award for best novel in 1959, religious themes played a
relatively minor role in science fiction literature. But over the next decade,
many of the most provocative—and popular, judging by sales—works in
this genre gravitated to issues of spirituality, redemption and, above all,
the concept of the sci-fi messiah.
At first glance, this was a strange turn of affairs.
During this same period, American public life
was taking a decidedly secular turn. A few
months after Blish won his Hugo, candidate
John F. Kennedy allayed the concerns of voters
who were about to elect the first Roman Catholic
president by asserting, in a famous speech to
a religious group in Houston, that "I do not speak
for my church on public matters—and the church
does not speak for me." Two years later, the
U.S. Supreme Court moved to prohibit prayer in
public schools, and soon after also banned Bible-
reading and other school-sponsored religious
activities.
Meanwhile, the religious doctrines no longer
promulgated in the classroom were now
permeating the sci-fi books favored by high
school and college students. We see them writ large in Walter M. Miller's
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960), Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange
Land (1961), Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle (1963), Frank Herbert's Dune
(1965), Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light (1967), Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left
Hand of Darkness (1969), among others. Each of those novels, with the
exception of Cat's Cradle, was also awarded the Hugo for best science
fiction novel, and they all remain fan favorites today.
Yet if these other fictions explored the sociological dimensions of religion
with fervid imagination, Blish's novel remains unsurpassed for its theological
richness. If Dune or Cat's Cradle forced readers to mull over the essence
of belief systems and their impact on society, A Case of Conscience
demanded, as its title might imply, a perhaps more troubling reexamination
of right and wrong, and the essence of evil. Blish himself was an agnostic
and a scientist by training—his entry into the literary field came when he
was hired as science editor by the Pfizer pharmaceutical company—but
he left us one of the great novels of religion of modern times.
Some believers were less than pleased with the end result. One Roman
Catholic reader responded to A Case of Conscience by sending Blish
a copy of the the Vatican's teachings on extraterrestrials. Sci-fi author Jo
Walton, for her part, went so far as to enlist a response from a Jesuit
friend, Brother Guy Consolmagno, who is also an astronomer (and owner
of, in Walton's words, the "world’s coolest rosary"). Consolmagno found
Blish's theology wanting, but optimistically added to his assessment the
Jesuit maxim "Find God in all things"—which apparently includes aliens
from another galaxy.
A Case of Conscience begins with a familiar sci-fi scenario. A group of
four space explorers have settled on a new planet where they encounter
an intelligent life form. They need to assess the environment of Lithia,
make a preliminary investigation of the dominant species, a large reptile
akin to a talking dinosaur, and make recommendations on the potential
for further settlement or study of the planet, located some 50 light years
away from Earth.
At this stage, however, Blish breaks one of the time-tested rules of sci-fi.
Instead of inserting a dramatic conflict or, at a minimum, a disagreement
between the earthlings and the extraterrestrials, he presents a calm,
peaceful, rational relationship between the two camps. This is no War of
the Worlds; indeed the exact opposite. It’s hardly even a war of the words.
The uncanny fact of the Lithians is how perfect they seem to be—almost
to a boring degree.
"The Lithians had no crime," Blish writes, "no newspapers, no arts that
could be differentiated clearly from their crafts, no political parties, no
public amusements, no nations, no games, no religions, no sports, no
cults, no celebrations." For the visitors from earth this presented a
puzzling enigma. "Surely they didn't spend every waking minute of their
lives exchanging knowledge, making things go, discussing philosophy
or history, or planning for tomorrow! Or did they?"
Any other author would struggle to find a plot in this simple perfection.
But if the Lithians are a model of concord and agreement, the four visitors
from Earth are rife with discontent, and bitter disagreement over the nature
of the planet and the recommendations they should send back to home base.
The chemist Michelis admires the peacefulness of Lithian society, and
believes that it should studied as a role model for better human institutions.
The physicist Cleaver, in contrast, wants to exploit the natural resources of
Lithia, turn the planet into a production site of lithium-based weapons, forcing
the peaceful residents to serve as workers, or perhaps slave laborers, in
the factories.
But the biologist on the mission, Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez, has a
strange, surprising interpretation of the planet. A Jesuit as well as a
scientist, Ruiz-Sanchez is disturbed by the resemblance between Lithia
and the Garden of Eden before the fall of Adam. He wonders whether
he has encountered a new world without original sin. And if were so,
"could men bear to live among them?"
The more he learns about the Lithians, the more Ruiz-Sanchez fears that
their apparent perfection is a snare for the human race, a temptation to
embrace a worldview that morals can exist without law, without restriction,
without conscience and without God. "What we have here on Lithia is very
clear indeed," the Jesuit biologist tells his colleagues. "We have—and
now I am prepared to be blunt—a planet and a people propped up by the
Ultimate Enemy. It is a gigantic trap prepared for all of us—for every man
on Earth and off it. We can do nothing with it but reject it, nothing but say
to it, Retro me, Sathanas. If we compromise with it in any way, we are
damned."
The sharp disagreement between the space explorers, however, is the
least of Ruiz-Sanchez's worries. As he gradually realizes, his interpretation
of the new planet places him in a position of heresy within his own Church
and religious order. By claiming that Satan has creative powers—indeed
has created a whole planet and its inhabitants—the priest has embraced
Manichaeism, a philosophical system strictly forbidden by Catholicism
since the early Middle Ages. The approved theology of Rome insists that
only God has the power to create, and that evil merely represents the
negation of the good.
Ruiz-Sanchez is summoned to Rome, where he expects a literal Inquisition,
a defrocking and excommunication. But on his journey back home, he
also carries a sealed urn, a gift from a Lithian, which contains a hatched
egg of one of his sons, who will serve as a kind of a stranger in a strange
land when the travelers return to earth. But unlike the interplanetary
messiahs of Heinlein and Herbert, Blish's talking dinosaur, Egtverchi,
proves to be a kind of antichrist. Soon after he comes to Earth, he gets his
own TV show, and builds a cult following made up half of children and half
of disaffected, violent and occasionally mentally ill adults.
At this point, Blish’s book takes an intriguing turn, leaving Aquinas behind
and picking up with Marshall McLuhan. Nowadays we are quite familiar
with the notion that revolutions can start by staring into the moving pixels
of a screen, but A Case of Conscience presented, back in the 1950s, a
prescient sense of how not only our political systems and social intercourse,
but even our inner life, is shaped by our passive reception of screen-
based narratives. When H.G. Wells wanted to present the conquest of
earth back in 1898, he gave the invaders weapons and space ships.
Sixty years later, James Blish realized that you only needed one alien to
do the job, provided you gave him his own TV show.
This plot twist is all the more ironic when one considers the final stage
of author James Blish's career. The novelist who pushed science fiction
ahead with A Case of Conscience devoted most of the final decade,
before his death from lung cancer in 1975, churning out pulp fiction
adaptations of Star Trek screenplays. Certainly Blish's connection
with this popular TV franchise gave him a financial security and
crossover audience that works such as A Case of Conscience could
never match. Yet his masterwork remains this early novel, which even
today stands out as a landmark work and a role model for those who
believe science fiction can rise above the formulas of escapist
entertainment. Even Blish's own close association with the great
escapist science fiction franchise of his day—recall that Star Wars
was still two years in the future at the time of his death, and Trekkies
still reigned supreme at sci-fi gatherings—doesn't detract from that
achievement. Perhaps, oddly enough, it merely reinforces it.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. His next book, a history of
love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Publication date: August 11, 2014
of the Hugo Award for best novel in 1959, religious themes played a
relatively minor role in science fiction literature. But over the next decade,
many of the most provocative—and popular, judging by sales—works in
this genre gravitated to issues of spirituality, redemption and, above all,
the concept of the sci-fi messiah.
At first glance, this was a strange turn of affairs.
During this same period, American public life
was taking a decidedly secular turn. A few
months after Blish won his Hugo, candidate
John F. Kennedy allayed the concerns of voters
who were about to elect the first Roman Catholic
president by asserting, in a famous speech to
a religious group in Houston, that "I do not speak
for my church on public matters—and the church
does not speak for me." Two years later, the
U.S. Supreme Court moved to prohibit prayer in
public schools, and soon after also banned Bible-
reading and other school-sponsored religious
activities.
Meanwhile, the religious doctrines no longer
promulgated in the classroom were now
permeating the sci-fi books favored by high
school and college students. We see them writ large in Walter M. Miller's
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960), Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange
Land (1961), Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle (1963), Frank Herbert's Dune
(1965), Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light (1967), Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left
Hand of Darkness (1969), among others. Each of those novels, with the
exception of Cat's Cradle, was also awarded the Hugo for best science
fiction novel, and they all remain fan favorites today.
Yet if these other fictions explored the sociological dimensions of religion
with fervid imagination, Blish's novel remains unsurpassed for its theological
richness. If Dune or Cat's Cradle forced readers to mull over the essence
of belief systems and their impact on society, A Case of Conscience
demanded, as its title might imply, a perhaps more troubling reexamination
of right and wrong, and the essence of evil. Blish himself was an agnostic
and a scientist by training—his entry into the literary field came when he
was hired as science editor by the Pfizer pharmaceutical company—but
he left us one of the great novels of religion of modern times.
Some believers were less than pleased with the end result. One Roman
Catholic reader responded to A Case of Conscience by sending Blish
a copy of the the Vatican's teachings on extraterrestrials. Sci-fi author Jo
Walton, for her part, went so far as to enlist a response from a Jesuit
friend, Brother Guy Consolmagno, who is also an astronomer (and owner
of, in Walton's words, the "world’s coolest rosary"). Consolmagno found
Blish's theology wanting, but optimistically added to his assessment the
Jesuit maxim "Find God in all things"—which apparently includes aliens
from another galaxy.
A Case of Conscience begins with a familiar sci-fi scenario. A group of
four space explorers have settled on a new planet where they encounter
an intelligent life form. They need to assess the environment of Lithia,
make a preliminary investigation of the dominant species, a large reptile
akin to a talking dinosaur, and make recommendations on the potential
for further settlement or study of the planet, located some 50 light years
away from Earth.
At this stage, however, Blish breaks one of the time-tested rules of sci-fi.
Instead of inserting a dramatic conflict or, at a minimum, a disagreement
between the earthlings and the extraterrestrials, he presents a calm,
peaceful, rational relationship between the two camps. This is no War of
the Worlds; indeed the exact opposite. It’s hardly even a war of the words.
The uncanny fact of the Lithians is how perfect they seem to be—almost
to a boring degree.
"The Lithians had no crime," Blish writes, "no newspapers, no arts that
could be differentiated clearly from their crafts, no political parties, no
public amusements, no nations, no games, no religions, no sports, no
cults, no celebrations." For the visitors from earth this presented a
puzzling enigma. "Surely they didn't spend every waking minute of their
lives exchanging knowledge, making things go, discussing philosophy
or history, or planning for tomorrow! Or did they?"
Any other author would struggle to find a plot in this simple perfection.
But if the Lithians are a model of concord and agreement, the four visitors
from Earth are rife with discontent, and bitter disagreement over the nature
of the planet and the recommendations they should send back to home base.
The chemist Michelis admires the peacefulness of Lithian society, and
believes that it should studied as a role model for better human institutions.
The physicist Cleaver, in contrast, wants to exploit the natural resources of
Lithia, turn the planet into a production site of lithium-based weapons, forcing
the peaceful residents to serve as workers, or perhaps slave laborers, in
the factories.
But the biologist on the mission, Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez, has a
strange, surprising interpretation of the planet. A Jesuit as well as a
scientist, Ruiz-Sanchez is disturbed by the resemblance between Lithia
and the Garden of Eden before the fall of Adam. He wonders whether
he has encountered a new world without original sin. And if were so,
"could men bear to live among them?"
The more he learns about the Lithians, the more Ruiz-Sanchez fears that
their apparent perfection is a snare for the human race, a temptation to
embrace a worldview that morals can exist without law, without restriction,
without conscience and without God. "What we have here on Lithia is very
clear indeed," the Jesuit biologist tells his colleagues. "We have—and
now I am prepared to be blunt—a planet and a people propped up by the
Ultimate Enemy. It is a gigantic trap prepared for all of us—for every man
on Earth and off it. We can do nothing with it but reject it, nothing but say
to it, Retro me, Sathanas. If we compromise with it in any way, we are
damned."
The sharp disagreement between the space explorers, however, is the
least of Ruiz-Sanchez's worries. As he gradually realizes, his interpretation
of the new planet places him in a position of heresy within his own Church
and religious order. By claiming that Satan has creative powers—indeed
has created a whole planet and its inhabitants—the priest has embraced
Manichaeism, a philosophical system strictly forbidden by Catholicism
since the early Middle Ages. The approved theology of Rome insists that
only God has the power to create, and that evil merely represents the
negation of the good.
Ruiz-Sanchez is summoned to Rome, where he expects a literal Inquisition,
a defrocking and excommunication. But on his journey back home, he
also carries a sealed urn, a gift from a Lithian, which contains a hatched
egg of one of his sons, who will serve as a kind of a stranger in a strange
land when the travelers return to earth. But unlike the interplanetary
messiahs of Heinlein and Herbert, Blish's talking dinosaur, Egtverchi,
proves to be a kind of antichrist. Soon after he comes to Earth, he gets his
own TV show, and builds a cult following made up half of children and half
of disaffected, violent and occasionally mentally ill adults.
At this point, Blish’s book takes an intriguing turn, leaving Aquinas behind
and picking up with Marshall McLuhan. Nowadays we are quite familiar
with the notion that revolutions can start by staring into the moving pixels
of a screen, but A Case of Conscience presented, back in the 1950s, a
prescient sense of how not only our political systems and social intercourse,
but even our inner life, is shaped by our passive reception of screen-
based narratives. When H.G. Wells wanted to present the conquest of
earth back in 1898, he gave the invaders weapons and space ships.
Sixty years later, James Blish realized that you only needed one alien to
do the job, provided you gave him his own TV show.
This plot twist is all the more ironic when one considers the final stage
of author James Blish's career. The novelist who pushed science fiction
ahead with A Case of Conscience devoted most of the final decade,
before his death from lung cancer in 1975, churning out pulp fiction
adaptations of Star Trek screenplays. Certainly Blish's connection
with this popular TV franchise gave him a financial security and
crossover audience that works such as A Case of Conscience could
never match. Yet his masterwork remains this early novel, which even
today stands out as a landmark work and a role model for those who
believe science fiction can rise above the formulas of escapist
entertainment. Even Blish's own close association with the great
escapist science fiction franchise of his day—recall that Star Wars
was still two years in the future at the time of his death, and Trekkies
still reigned supreme at sci-fi gatherings—doesn't detract from that
achievement. Perhaps, oddly enough, it merely reinforces it.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. His next book, a history of
love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Publication date: August 11, 2014
| A Case of Conscience by James Blish Essay by Ted Gioia |
| To purchase, click on image |
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
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www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
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When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
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Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
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