The Fantasy Review’s list of 12 Short Classic Science Fiction Books That are Quick to Read.
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
From the blurb:
Marooned in outer space after an attack on his ship, Nomad, Gulliver Foyle lives to obsessively pursue the crew of a rescue vessel that had intended to leave him to die.…
The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper
From the blurb:
The Gate to Women’s Country tells of a society that exists three hundred years after our own has nearly destroyed itself. Now, male warriors are separated from women at an early age and live in garrisons plotting futilely for the battles which must never be fought again. Inside the women’s towns, education, arts and science flourish. But for some like Stavia, there is more to see. Her sojourn with the man she is forbidden to love brings into sharp focus the contradictions that define their lives.…
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
From the blurb:
Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper, and the gentle butt of everyone’s jokes, until an experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns him into a genius. But then Algernon, the mouse whose triumphal experimental tranformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary.…
The Female Man by Joanna Russ
From the blurb:
Four women living in parallel worlds, each with a different gender landscape. When they begin to travel to each other’s worlds each woman’s preconceptions on gender and what it means to be a woman are challenged.
Acclaimed as one of the essential works of science fiction and an influence on William Gibson, THE FEMALE MAN takes a look at gender roles in society and remains a work of great power….
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
From the blurb:
When a freak cosmic event renders most of the Earth’s population blind, Bill Masen is one of the lucky few to retain his sight. The London he walks is crammed with groups of men and women needing help, some ready to prey on those who can still see. But another menace stalks blind and sighted alike. With nobody to stop their spread the Triffids, mobile plants with lethal stingers and carnivorous appetites, seem set to take control.
Ringworld (Ringworld, #1) by Larry Niven
From the blurb:
Louis Wu, accompanied by a young woman with genes for luck, and a captured kzin – a warlike species resembling 8-foot-tall cats — are taken on a space ship run by a brilliant 2-headed alien called Nessus. Their destination is the Ringworld, an artificially constructed ring with high walls that hold 3 million times the area of Earth. Its origins are shrouded in mystery.…
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
From the blurb:
George Orr is a mild and unremarkable man who finds the world a less than pleasant place to live: seven billion people jostle for living space and food. But George dreams dreams which do in fact change reality – and he has no means of controlling this extraordinary power.…
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
From the blurb:
In the overcrowded world and cramped space colonies of the late 21st century, tedium can be endured through the use of the drug Can-D, which enables the users to inhabit a shared illusory world. When industrialist Palmer Eldritch returns from an intersteller trip, he brings with him a new alien drug Chew-Z, which is far more potent than Can-D, but threatens to plunge the world into a permanent state of drugged illusion controlled by the mysterious Eldritch.…
Gateway (Heechee Saga, #1) by Frederik Pohl
From the blurb:
Seeded among the stars are troves of valuable artifactsleft behind by the enigmatic, long-vanished alien racecalled the Heechee. For the right price, anyone can climb aboard one of the abandoned Heechee spaceships, castoff on an autopilot voyage to parts unknown, and takea chance on finding wealth . . . or facing death.…
Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
From the blurb:
In the far future, after human civilization has spread through the galaxy, communications begin to arrive in an apparently alien language. They appear to threaten invasion, but in order to counter the threat, the messages must first be understood.…
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis
From the blurb:
In the future, the human race has ceased to progress. Granted endless leisure by widespread automation, the masses devote themselves solely to the pleasures of the here and now, to drugs that dull their senses and electronic bliss that disconnects them from reality. Theirs is a world that is without meaning or purpose, without art, children, or reading, and overseeing the bleak persistence of humanity is an intelligent machine whose only wish is to extinguish its own existence.…
Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore
From the blurb:
Trapped in 1877, a historian writes an account of an alternate history of America in which the South won the Civil War. Living in this alternate timeline, he was determined to change events at Gettysburg. When he’s offered the chance to return to that fateful turning point his actions change history as he knows it, leaving him in an all too familiar past.
