1 A Case of Conscience (1958) James Blish
One Catholic reader responded to Blish's theologically-infused outer space story by sending him a copy of Church doctrine relating to extraterrestrials.
2 The Sirens of Titan (1959) Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut's formative experiences were marked by tragic death, rampant destruction and thwarted ambitions. Later he decided to treat his characters as he was treated.
3 A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960) Walter M. Miller
Can epistemology serve as a unifying theme of a sci-fi novel? Walter Miller thought so, and proved that genre fiction can also delve into the deepest philosophical issues.
4 Solaris (1961) Stanislaw Lem
Stanislaw Lem claimed that science fiction is poorly written, ill conceived and too focused on clichés. That didn't stop him from writing one of the finest sci-fi books of the 20th century.
5 Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) Robert Heinlein
Two years after his Starship Troopers incurred charges that he was a militarist, Heinlein served up Stranger in a Strange Land , with its paean to free love and 1960s-era self-actualization.
6 The Soft Machine (1961) William Burroughs
Few sci-fi concepts are more used, and abused, than the time travel meme. But William Burroughs delivered, without question, the oddest time travel novel of them all in this 1961 work.
7 A Clockwork Orange (1962) Anthony Burgess
Long before the rise of the punk ethos, Burgess anticipated its themes of violent disenchantment and transformed them into a magnificent sci-fi-flavored literary symphony.
8 The Drowned World (1962) J.G. Ballard
This book is still the gold standard for global warming fiction. But be forewarned: the really bizarre stuff in a J.G. Ballard story always takes place inside the characters' heads.
9 Hothouse (1962) Brian Aldiss
Is Brian Aldiss's global warming novel really science fiction? It unfolds more like a Homeric epic, or a cataclysmic Old Testament story about the wandering exploits of a chosen people.
10 The Man in the High Castle (1962) Philip K. Dick
In this cryptic alternative history, Philip K. Dick explores the unexpected ramifications of a world in which the United States lost World War II.
11 Cat's Cradle (1963) Kurt Vonnegut
Over the course of 127 miniature chapters, Kurt Vonnegut constructs a madcap adventure mixing New Age philosophy and end-of-the-world hijinks.
12 Cosmicomics (1965) Italo Calvino
Cosmicomics is my favorite Italo Calvino work, a heady mixture of postmodern posturing and science fiction concepts. Think of it as human interest stories, but without the humans.
13 The Genocides (1965) Thomas Disch
Mix together The Grapes of Wrath , The Book of Job and The War of the Worlds . Stir it up violently, and wait for it to explode. Such is Disch's The Genocides .
14 Dune (1965) Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert's Dune represents the purest example in science fiction of what anthropologist Clifford Geertz described as "thick description" ethnography.
15 Mindswap (1965) Robert Sheckley
Is Robert Sheckley's 1965 novel Mindswap a rambling and disjointed disaster or a virtuosos postmodern pastiche? Or perhaps a bit of both?
16 This Immortal (1965) Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny found inexhaustible inspiration for science fiction adventure stories in the oldest myths, legends and religious belief systems.
17 Babel-17 (1966) Samuel R. Delany
Rydra Wong, the protagonist of Samuel Delany's Babel-17 is a poet, skilled linguist and intergalactic literary celebrity …and, yes, a starship captain in her spare time.
18 Giles Goat-Boy (1966) John Barth
Think of John Barth's oddball novel as a cross between Tarzan of the Apes and the Holy Bible . It's almost as long as the King James Version, and roughly follows the same plot.
19 The Crystal World (1966) J.G. Ballard
Few authors found more ways of destroying planet Earth than J.G. Ballard. In The Crystal World , he turned to the killing properties of ice, and found that it, too, will suffice.
20 The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) Robert Heinlein
Heinlein never wrote with more panache or intensity than in this 1966 story of rebellious lunar settlers demanding their independence from Mother Earth.
21 Flowers for Algernon (1966) Daniel Keyes
In a strange twist, Daniel Keyes' career followed the arc of his most famous protagonist, marked by a rise to the heights that neither was capable of sustaining.
22 Report on Probability A (1967) Brian Aldiss
Others write meta-narratives. But Brian Aldiss goes several steps further with this story within a story within a story within a story within a story.
23 The Ticket That Exploded (1967) William S. Burroughs
"Anyone with a tape recorder controlling the sound track," William Burroughs insists in these pages, "can influence and create events ...This produces a strong erotic reaction."
24 The Einstein Intersection (1967) Samuel R. Delany
"If the Holy Bible were an Ace Double, it would be cut to two 20,000-word halves with the Old Testament retitled as 'Master of Chaos' and the New Testament as 'The Thing With Three Souls'."
25 Dangerous Visions (1967) Harlan Ellison, editor
Harlan Ellison really wanted dangerous visions for his anthology, stories that confronted taboos and themes too hot for the science fiction magazines of the day.
26 Lord of Light (1967) Roger Zelazny
Others look to Eastern spirituality for transcendence and enlightenment, but Zelazny sized up the ancient deities and saw that they had potential as sci-fi superheroes.
27 I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1967) Harlan Ellison
"A special word about the stories in this book," Ellison explains, "they come from someplace special in me. Someplace I don't care to visit too frequently."
28 Stand on Zanzibar (1968) John Brunner
John Brunner drew on the techniques of John Dos Passos's USA Trilogy in constructing in the prescient work. In fact, o sci-fi work of its era predicted the future more accurately.
29 Nova (1968) Samuel R. Delany
Delany is up to his usual tricks. Sci-fi plot lines get turbocharged with archetypes. Astronauts are fetishized beyond recognition. They invariably ally announce they would rather be writers.
30 Camp Concentration (1968) Thomas M. Disch
"I have a class theory of literature," Disch explained. "I come from the wrong neighborhood to sell to The New Yorker . No matter how good I am as an artist, they always can smell where I come from."
31 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ? (1968) Philip K. Dick
Dick asserted his squatter's rights at the intersection where the unreal crosses the more unreal. He owned this type of story, and for the worst possible reason: he had to live it.
32 His Master's Voice (1968) Stanislaw Lem
Stanislaw Lem once summed up the worldview underpinning his science fiction in a few choice words: "People are terrible and the future is bleak."
33 The Final Programme (1968) Michael Moorcock
If Nietzsche had collaborated with Eugène Ionesco and Ian Fleming, he might have come up with a character as odd as Moorcock's Jerry Corrnelius.
34 Dimension of Miracles (1968) Robert Sheckley
Dimension of Miracles has no structure, no narrative arc, but Sheckley compensates with his deft prose, wild sense of humor, and acute eye for the foibles of his fellow earthlings.
35 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Arthur C. Clarke
“If you understand 2001 on the first viewing, we will have failed,” Arthur C. Clarke said in regard to the famous Kubrick film. By all means, see it again; even better, read the book.
36 The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin set the standard for the sociological sci-fi of the 1960s, in which gender roles, economics and political institutions outrank spaceships and warp drives.
37 Slaughterhouse Five (1969) Kurt Vonnegut
What could be a more fitting symbol of the plight of a prisoner-of-war than a person who no longer has control over his time or space? Thus was born Vonnegut's sci-fi World War II novel.
38 Ada or Ardor (1969) Vladimir Nabokov
"I loathe science fiction," Vladimir Nabokov declared to a BBC interviewer in 1968. A few months later Nabokov published an elaborate sci-fi novel.
39 Ubik (1969) Philip K. Dick
"Pop tasty Ubik into your toaster, made only from fresh fruit and healthful all-vegetable shortening. Ubik makes breakfast a feast, puts zing into your thing."
40 Barefoot in the Head (1969) Brian Aldiss
Aldiss convinces us, in these pages, that if you give people a sufficient amount of mind-altering narcotics, they might start talking like characters in Finnegans Wake .
41 Behold the Man (1969) Michael Moorcock
Members of a gentle religious community flock around our visitor from the future, excited by this mysterious man who has appeared in their midst. Let’s even call them apostles…..
42 Emphyrio (1969) Jack Vance
Jack Vance may have been too much of a perfectionist for genre fiction, yet limited by the divided literary culture of his day that scorned writers who set stories in outer space.
43 The Atrocity Exhibition (1970) J.G. Ballard
When Ballard's lawyer asked the author how he would explain to the court that his book was not obscene, he responded: "of course it was obscene, and intended to be so."
44 The World Inside (1971) Robert Silverberg
In this dark comic novel about claustrophobia, Robert Silverberg serves up a variant of Winesburg, Ohio set in a 1,000 story skyscraper with one million residents.
45 The Lathe of Heaven (1971) Ursula K. Le Guin
In this Hugo-winning novel, the "effective dreams" of Le Guin's hero George Orr not only change the future . . . they also alter the past.
46 Bug Jack Barron (1969) Norman Spinrad
Norman Spinrad managed to bug just about everybody with Bug Jack Barron (1969). The book got attacked in Parliament. The Daily Express branded it as filth. The printers refused to print it.
47 Nine Hundred Grandmothers (1970) R.A. Lafferty
In Nine Hundred Grandmothers , R.A. Lafferty violates the most basic rule of science fiction. Instead of leaping into the future, he descends into the past.
48 Ringworld (1970) Larry Niven
Imagine a very, very large hula hoop in the cosmos. Add floating buildings, hostile sunflowers and various fascinating gadgets. Such is Larry Niven's Ringworld.
49 Moderan (1971) David R. Bunch
David R. Bunch, who passed away in 2000 at age 74, may be the best kept secret in New Wave sci-fi. Sad to say, almost everything he wrote is now out of print.
50 To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971) Philip José Farmer
You may be surprised when the hero of this novel dies in the opening paragraph. But you better get used to it, because he will die hundreds of times before you get to the final page.
51 Love in the Ruins (1971) Walker Percy
And why shouldn't Walker Percy, winner of the National Book Award, write a Roman Catholic science-fiction comic existential romance novel?
52 Dying Inside (1972) Robert Silverberg
In his early career, Silverberg wrote a million words per year. But at the very moment he found he could no longer maintain this pace, he wrote a sci-fi novel about a man whose talents were eroding.
53 Gravity's Rainbow (1973) Thomas Pynchon
Is Gravity’s Rainbow a work of science fiction? For my part, I have no problem acknowledging Pynchon's sci-fi credentials. Then again, almost every other kind of ingredient shows up eventually in this book.
54 Herovit's World (1973) Barry N. Malzberg
Malzberg bites the hand that feeds him, delivering a caustic science fiction novel that savagely critique of sci-fi, heaping scorn on editors, writers, agents and fans.
55 Crash (1973) J.G. Ballard
No author has ever lavished more sensually-charged adjectives on the various parts that make up a typical car. Even better if they are smashed to smithereens.
56 The Dispossessed (1974) Ursula K. Le Guin
While others turn to sci-fi to present dystopian nightmares, Le Guin prefers to explore what might happen if a utopian political structure were realized in an isolated lunar environment.
57 Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974) Philip K. Dick
Here are all the classic Dicksian ingredients: sudden alterations in reality, a harassed protagonist, an authoritarian society, high tech gadgets and, of course, mind-altering substances.
58 The Forever War (1974) Joe Haldeman
This novel is often viewed as a considered response to Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers . But The Forever War is more than a polemic; Haldeman is also an impressive storyteller.
59 Dhalgren (1975) Samuel R. Delany
Delany's 800-page novel aimed to do for science fiction what Joyce had done for literary fiction. A million copies were sold, but how many actually were read to the end?
60 Norstrilia (1975) Cordwainer Smith
Did author Cordwainer Smith really believe he was "Lord of a planet in an interplanetary empire in a distant universe"? Was Norstrilia a work of fiction, or just an extended hallucination?
61 The Illuminatus Trilogy (1975) Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea
"It is not the intent of this book to confuse fact with fancy," the authors proclaim on page 760 of this 800-page work. But it's already too late. They should have put that on page one.
62 The Female Man (1975) Joanna Russ
Joanna Russ's The Female Man, from 1975, stands out as a defining work of feminist science fiction, and a milestone in mixing polemic and genre literature.
63 The Centauri Device (1975) M. John Harrison
"I once made the mistake of telling Mr. Harrison how much I was inspired by The Centauri Device. 'Well you shouldn't be,' he said truculently. 'It's a very bad book .'"
64 Warm Worlds and Otherwise (1975) James Tiptree, Jr.
"It has been suggested that Tiptree is female," Robert Silverberg wrote, "a theory that I find absurd." Nice try! Tiptree turned out be one of the leading female sci-fi writers of her era.
A Reading List of 64 Works (with links to individual essays by Ted Gioia)
This reading list is intended to accompany Ted Gioia's essay "When Science Fiction Grew Up . " Each title on the list below links to an essay on the book.