The Fantasy Review’s list of 7 Classic Science Fiction Books More People Need to Read.
The Forever War (The Forever War, #1) by Joe Haldeman
Check out our review of The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, and our Beginner’s Guide to The Forever War before you read this classic!
From the Blurb:
Private William Mandella is a reluctant hero in an interstellar war against an unknowable and unconquerable alien enemy. But his greatest test will be when he returns home. Relativity means that for every few months’ tour of duty centuries have passed on Earth, isolating the combatants ever more from the world for whose future they are fighting.…
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
From the Blurb:
What if a meteor shower left most of the world blind—and humanity at the mercy of mysterious carnivorous plants?
Bill Masen undergoes eye surgery and awakes the next morning in his hospital bed to find civilization collapsing. Wandering the city, he quickly realizes that surviving in this strange new world requires evading strangers and the seven-foot-tall plants known as triffids—plants that can walk and can kill a man with one quick lash of their poisonous stingers.
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
From the Blurb:
In the year 2301, guns are only museum pieces and benign telepaths sweep the minds of the populace to detect crimes before they happen. In 2301 murder is virtually impossible, but one man is about to change that…
Ben Reich, a psychopathic business magnate, has devised the ultimate scheme to eliminate the competition and destroy the order of his society. The Demolished Man is a masterpiece of imaginative suspense, set in a superbly imagined world in which everything has changed except the ancient instinct for murder.
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
From the Blurb:
During a time racked by war and environmental catastrophe, George Orr discovers his dreams alter reality. George is compelled to receive treatment from Dr. William Haber, an ambitious sleep psychiatrist who quickly grasps the immense power George holds. After becoming adept at manipulating George’s dreams to reshape the world, Haber seeks the same power for himself. George—with some surprising help—must resist Haber’s attempts, which threaten to destroy reality itself.…
The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
From the Blurb:
Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar; for millennia its protective dome shutout the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rules the stars. But then, as legend had it, The invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, A Unique to break through Diaspar’s stifling inertia, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
From the Blurb:
Jason Taverner—world-famous talk show host and man-about-town—wakes up one day to find that no one knows who he is—including the vast databases of the totalitarian government. And in a society where lack of identification is a crime, Taverner has no choice but to go on the run with a host of shady characters, including crooked cops and dealers of alien drugs. But do they know more than they are letting on? And just how can a person’s identity be erased overnight?
The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith
From the Blurb:
Welcome to the strangest, most distinctive future ever imagined by a science fiction writer. An interstellar empire ruled by the mysterious Lords of the Instrumentality, whose access to the drug stroon from the planet Norstrilia confers on them virtual immortality. A world in which wealthy and leisured humanity is served by the underpeople, genetically engineered animals turned into the semblance of people. A world in which the great ships which sail between the stars are eventually supplanted by the mysterious, instantaneous technique of planoforming. A world of wonder and myth, and extraordinary imagination.
