Must Read Science Fiction Published Before 1985

And so it came to pass that a younger relative (of whom there are nearly boundless quantities) asked for suggestions for "older" science fiction. Since he's about thirty, I made the assumption that anything older than he is qualifies as older, so I used 1985 as the dividing line. Here is the list that I sent him, with my notes:

The Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov

The original trilogy was a series of novellas published in pulp magazines. They're a great read, but a bit uneven at times. Skip the other books in the series and read I, Robot and the R. Daneel Olivaw novels. You can go back to the later novels and see how they tie together with the Robot series.

A Canticle for Liebowitz - Walter Miller

He only wrote one book, but it will blow your socks off. Post-apocalyptic, but about as far away from The Road Warrior as you can get.

 

The Past Through Tomorrow - Robert Heinlein

Twenty-one novellas creating his "Future History" series. I met Heinlein when I was in Antarctica. He was on a cruise ship with his wife. I spent an entire afternoon with the two of them. His novels are a mixed bag. The early ones are often written for teens (of the fifties) and the later ones are an attempt to be hip, sexy, and happening. The middle ones, from Stranger in a Strange Land to Time Enough for Love, are really good.

 

Childhood's End- Arthur Clarke

Genuinely creepy. Some people claim that Clarke was a 'technology' writer — that he didn't have big ideas or good characters. This novel proves them wrong.

 

Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur Clarke

Just brilliant science fiction. The later books in the series, written with (by) Gentry Lee, are not unworthy, but they fall past 1985 and are unfortunately not in the same class as the original.

 

The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury

A collection of short stories. If you haven't read them, shame on you. If you have, go and read Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, The October People, and I Sing the Body Electric. Go ahead. I'll wait until you catch up. The first two are novels (although Dandelion Wine is more a series of vignettes). The other two are collections of short stories. You will not do yourself a better favor than to have these around to go back to when you're having a really crappy week. If Clarke is technology, Bradbury is all people and ideas.

 

Stand on Zanzibar and The Shockwave Rider - John Brunner

The first is a dystopian novel that makes all the books like The Hunger Games read like children's stories. It's a hard read, but it will shake up your idea of what a novel can be. The second was the first cyberpunk novel. It's amazing how Brunner wrote a book in 1975 that could easily be written today, with only slight changes. I prefer it to Zanzibar, but I know that I'm hugely outnumbered on this.

 

The Stainless Steel Rat Series - Harry Harrison

Sci-Fi version of it takes a thief to catch a thief. Tongue very much in cheek. The books are like potato chips. Once you read one, you'll need to read the rest. Bill, the Galactic Hero is also fun. It's Harrison making fun of Heinlein. Read Starship Troopers first or you won't get the jokes.

 

The Riverworld Series - Phillip Jose Farmer

What if everyone who ever lived came back to life on a strange planet with an eternal river? I seem to recall that the series ground down near the end, but the first three were good.

 

Dune - Frank Herbert

It should go without saying. Whether or not to read the rest of the books is a good question. I'd read the other books listed here before I read any of the other Dune novels.

 

Roadmarks - Roger Zelazny

Imagine a road that runs through time, where, if you know how to use it, you can go forward and back as you wish. Now think about who would use it.

 

Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny

A personal favorite, but you need to know a bit about Hindu mythology to really follow the plot. Zelazny wrote without real regard to genre. His books use mythology extensively, particularly as a framework upon which the plot can hang. His characters, especially his protagonists, remind me of Brunner's, in that they are quietly, but preternaturally competent.

 

Ringworld - Larry Niven

So this gets tricky. Niven's stories are almost all set in "Known Space", which is sort of like Heinlein's "Future History". Read Ringworld, Protector, and the Tales of Known Space (short stories) in that order. After that, finish up the Ringworld books. I haven't read the ones written after Ringworld's Children, so I can't recommend them.

 

The Word for World is Forest - Ursula Le Guin

Le Guin is challenging reading, since she intentionally writes from a feminist perspective. Avatar owes a lot to Le Guin and this novel in particular.

 

Anything by Robert Scheckley

He wrote a ton of short stories. They're often funny, always cutting, and just a good read.

 

The Well World Series - Jack Chalker

A very complicated series of books filled with an amazing array of alien life and one interesting human. The Four Lords of the Diamond is an series involving the idea of planting the mind of agents into brain-dead bodies and sending them to kill the galaxy's worst crime lords. Not as interesting as the Well World, but still worth reading.

 

Empire Star - Samuel Delaney

Read it. Put it on your shelf. Read it again in five years. Repeat. Each time you'll get a little more out of it. It's really short, just an evening's read.

 

The Mote in God's Eye - Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven

I didn't much like this the first time I read it, but it was much better when I re-read it. I'll put it down to my mood at the time. I've met Pournelle as well. He's an insufferable twit. It's ironic that the two writers I have met are both right-wingnuts. Some of his other stuff with Niven is worth reading. I don't care for his own work.

 

Harlan Ellison

As a writer, Ellison is infuriating, offensive, annoying, and eight other negative adjectives. As a human being, he's all that, plus an asshole and a sociopath. He also wrote the "City on the Edge of Forever" episode of the original Star Trek series, the story that was stolen for The Terminator, many episodes of Babylon 5, as well as a whole bunch of other television. Read his short stories , especially "Deathbird", "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream", "and "Repent, Harlequin, Said the Tick-Tock Man". Just don't read Ellison when you're in a good mood.

 

Mockingbird - Walter Tevis

Another dystopian novel. If you suffer from depression, you probably should talk to your shrink before hitting this list of books too hard.

 

Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

Gripping. It's both a novel and a short story. Try to find the novel version.

 

Terran Empire Series - Poul Anderson

Anderson wrote several series of good, old-fashioned space opera. The Dominic Flandry books, describing the career of an officer of the Terran Empire are a great example of the art form. If you're looking for new ideas and milieus, you've come to the wrong place. If, on the other hand, you thought that the original Star Wars trilogy was great, but it got bogged down with too much plot and not enough action, you've just found Nirvana. 

 

Gateway - Frederik Pohl

The first novel of the Heechee Saga. So what happens when we find an abandoned space station filled with spaceships? The remaining novels in the saga are worth reading, too, but were written after 1985.

 

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon - Spider Robinson

A collection of short stories about... well you can figure it out. He wrote several other collections as well. Light reading. 

I'm sure that I've forgotten a huge number of others that are absolutely critical reading, but I was working from my library, so what you are seeing are the books that I think are significant.

 

I specifically excluded Phillip K. Dick and Norman Spinrad, because frankly it's impossible to recommend them to anyone that you don't know really well. Actually, it's probably impossible to recommend them to anyone. If they're your thing, you'll eventually find one and read it. If not, you'll eventually find one and put it back onto the shelf.

Finally, I didn't recommend Kurt Vonnegut, because I'm not certain whether or not he wrote science fiction. It's probably easiest to say that what he wrote touched upon topics that are commonly thought of as SF, but that he did so in a rather unusual way. Here is a link to one of the great stories of the twentieth century: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html