The Amazing Colossal Science Fiction Ketchup!
Compared to many of my colleagues, friends and hamsters I’ve read a pathetic amount of science fiction in my lifetime. It’s not that I never liked sci-fi, in fact much of what I’ve read I like very much, I just never really got around to it. Therefore, in an effort to “catch-up” I’m taking it upon myself to start at the beginning of sci-fi and read until I’ve exhausted most of the list below (in no particular order).
If it’s not on the list then I’ve either read it already, have no intention of reading it or I just didn’t know it existed. I’m happy for recommendations in the comments. Please do not comment about how some title listed is not sci-fi — I don’t care.
I’m crossing off entries as I go. Follow along if you wish — we’ll meet back again in ten years.
1800s and before
Abbott: FlatlandButler: ErewhonEllis: Steam Man of the PrairiesLytton: VrilPoe: Some Words with a MummyPoe: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of NantucketRaspe: The Surprising Adventures of Baron MunchausenServiss: Edison’s Conquest of MarsShelley: Frankenstein(re-read needed)Shelley: The Last ManSwift: Gulliver’s TravelsTwain: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s CourtVerne: Around the World in 80 DaysVerne: From the Earth to the MoonVerne: Journey to the Center of the Earth(needs re-read)Verne: Round the Moon- Voltaire: Micromégas
Wells: The Invisible ManWells: War of the Worlds
1900 – 1920
Baum: The Master KeyBurroughs: The Lost ContinentDoyle: The Lost WorldEmerson, Willis: The Smoky GodGernsback: Ralph 124C 41+Hossain: Sultana’s DreamLondon: The Scarlet PlagueLondon: Star RoverMerritt: Moon PoolShiel: The Purple Cloud(great!)Zamyatin: We
Barsoom
all by Burroughs
A Princess of MarsThe Gods of MarsWarlord of MarsThuvia, Maid of Mars- … the rest were skipped
1920 – 1940
Chadwick: The Death GuardCoblentz: After 12,000 Yearsde Camp: Lest Darkness FallHubbard: Slaves of SleepLindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus(very good)Moore, CL: Shambleau and OthersNowlan: Airlords of Han (Buck Rogers)Nowlan: Armageddon 2419 AD (Buck Rogers)Rand: AnthemStapledon: Darkness and the LightStapledon: SiriusStapledon: Star Makervan Vogt: Slan
1940s
Ashton-Smith: Out of Space and Time v1(not really scifi)- Barjavel: Ashes, ashes
Boucher: Rocket to the MorgueCasares: The Invention of Morel(great!)- Lewis’ Space Trilogy
Out of the Silent PlanetPerelandra(abandoned)That Hideous Strength(skipped)
Orwell: 1984(needs re-re-re-read)Stapledon: Odd JohnStewart: Earth AbidesWilliamson: The Humanoidsvan Vogt: Weapon Makersvan Vogt: World of Null-A
Heinlein juveniles
Between PlanetsCitizen of the GalaxyHave Spacesuit, Will TravelPodkayne of MarsRed PlanetTunnel in the Sky
1950s
- Aldiss: Non-Stop
Anderson, Poul: BrainwaveAsimov: Foundation(re-read)Asimov: Pebble in the SkyAsimov: The End of Eternity- Bester: The Stars My Destination
- Brackett: The Long Tomorrow
- Bradbury: The October Country
Budrys: The Falling Torch- Budrys: Who?
- Clarke: The City and the Stars
Clement: Iceworld- Clement: Mission of Gravity
- Clifton: They’d Rather be Right
- de Camp: The Continent Makers
- Dick: Eye in the Sky
Dick: Solar Lottery- Dick: The Man Who Japed
- Dick: The World Jones Made
- Frank: Alas, Babylon
- Godwin: The Gulf Between
Godwin: The SurvivorsHerbert: Under PressureHoyle: The Black Cloud- Judd: Outpost Mars
- Keyes: Flowers for Algernon
- Kornbluth: Flight to Forever
- Leiber: Gather Darkness
- Leiber: The Big Time
- Leiber: The Green Millennium
Miller: A Canticle for Leibowitz- Moore: Bring the Jubilee
- Pangborn: A Mirror for Observers
Pohl: Slave Ship- Pohl: The Space Merchants
- Pohl: The Tunnel Under the World
- Pohl: Wolfbane
Russell: Wasp- Sheckly: Untouched by Human Hands
- Shute: On the Beach
Simak: The City- Simak: The World that Couldn’t Be
Sturgeon: More than Human- Vance: Big Planet
- Wolfe: Limbo
Wyndham: The Kraken Awakes- van Vogt: Players of Null-A
1960s
- Aldiss: Barefoot in the Head
- Aldiss: Greybeard
- Anthony: Macroscope
- Ballard: The Crystal World
- Bunch: Moderan
- Brunner: Stand on Zanzibar
- Brunner: The Squares of the City
- Brunner: The Whole Man
- Burroughs, William S: Nova Express
- Clarke: A Fall of Moondust
- Crichton: The Andromeda Strain
- Compton: Synthajoy
- Davidson: Rogue Dragon
- Delany: The Jewels of Aptor
- Delany: Nova
Dick: Dr. Bloodmoney- Duke: This Business of Bomfog
Ellison: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream(re-read)- Ellison: Dangerous Visions
- Farmer: To Your Scattered Bodies Go
- Godwin: The Space Barbarians
- Harrison: Deathworld
- Harrison: Make Room! Make Room!
- Hoyle: A for Andromeda
Hubbard: Battlefield Earth- Lafferty: Past Master
- LeGuin: The Left Hand of Darkness
- Leiber: The Wanderer
- Leinster: The Greks Bring Gifts
- Lem: Cyberiad
- Lem: Solaris
- Nolan: Logan’s Run
- Panshin: Rite of Passage
- Russ: The Adventures of Alyx
- Sheckley: Mindswap
- Silverberg: The Man in the Maze
- Silverberg: Up the Line
- Smith, Cordwainer: The Planet Buyer
- Spinrad: Agent Of Chaos
- Tenn: Of Men And Monsters
- Vance: Emphyrio
- Vance: The Blue World
- Wilson, Colin: The Philosopher’s Stone
- Zelazny: This Immortal
1970s
- Aldiss: Frankenstein Unbound
- Anderson, Poul: A Midsummer’s Tempest
- Anderson, Poul: Tau Zero
Asimov: The Gods Themselves- Ballard: Vermillion Sands
- Benchley: The Deep
- Benford: In the Ocean of Night
- Bova: Notes for a Science Fiction Writer
- Brunner: The Sheep Look Up
Chalker: Midnight at the Well of Souls- Clarke: The Wind from the Sun
- Crowley: Engine Summer
- Delany: Dhalgren
- Delany: Triton
- Dick: A Maze of Death
- Dick: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
- Dick: The Simulacra
- Ellison: Deathbird Stories
- Foster, AD: Midworld
- Gerrold: The Man Who Folded Himself
- Harrison: The Centari Device
- Heinlein: Time Enough for Love
- King: Time-snake and Superclown
- Le Guin: The Dispossessed
Le Guin: The Lathe of Heaven- Le Guin: The Wind’s 12 Quarters
- Lem: Futurological Congress
- Lem: The Invincible
- Levin: The Stepford Wives
- Long, Belknap: The Early Long
- Martin, GRR: Dying of the Light
- McIntyre: Dreamsnake
- Neale: The Quatermass and the Pit
- Neale: The Quatermass Experiment
- Niven: All the Myriad Ways
- Niven: Flight of the Horse
- Niven: Inconstant Moon
Niven: Protector- Piserchia: Star Rider
- Pohl: Man Plus
Pynchon: Gravity’s Rainbow- Russ: And Chaos Died
- Russ: The Female Man
- Russ: We who are about to…
- Silverberg: A Time of Changes
- Silverberg: Dying Inside
- Simak: Cemetary World
- Sleator: House of Stairs
- Smith, Cordwainer: Nostrilia
- Spinrad: The Iron Dream
- Strugatsky: Hard to be a God
- Strugatsky: Roadside Picnic
- Strugatsky: Tale of the Troika
- Tiptree: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
- Tucker: The Year of the Quiet Sun
- Vance: The Best of…
- Varley: Persistence of Vision
- Varley: The Ophiuchi Hotline
- Wolfe: The Fifth Head of Cerberus
- Zelazny: Doorways in the Sand
- Zelazny: My Name is Legion
1980s
Banks: Consider PhlebasBanks: The Player of Games- Bear: Blood Music
- Bujold: Shards of Honor
- Cherryh: Downbelow Station
- Dick: Radio Free Albemuth
- Dick: The Divine Invasion
- Dick: The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
- Disch: The Man Who Had No Idea
- Elgin: Native Tongue
- Gibson: Burning Chrome
- Gibson: Neuromancer
- Hoban: Riddley Walker
Murakami: Hardboiled Wonderland…- Niven: Integral Trees
Niven: Ringworld Engineers- Rucker: Software
- Rucker: White Light
- Simak: The Goblin Reservation
- Simmons: Hyperion
- Sterling: Schismatrix Plus
- Vinge, Joan: The Snow Queen
- Wolfe: The Island of Doctor Death
Wolfe: Shadow of the Torturer- Wolfe: Castle of the Otter
- van Vogt: Null-A Three
- Varley: Wizard
- Vinge: True Names
1990s
Adams: Life, the Universe and Everything- Anthony, Patricia: Brother Termite
- Banks: Against a Dark Background
- Banks: Use of Weapons
- Baxter: The Time Ships
Brin: Earth(re-read)- Brin: Otherness
- Bujold: Falling Free
- Cadigan: Patterns
- Denton: Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede
- Donaldson: The Real Story
- Egan: Axiomatic
- Egan: Permutation City
- Gaimain: Neverwhere
- Grimwood: Replay
- Heinlein: The Number of the Beast
- Knight: Humpty Dumpty: An Oval
- Lethem: Gun, with Occasional Music
Looney: The Empty City- Murakami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- Nagata: The Bohr Maker
- Noon: Vurt
- Panshin: The World Beyond the Hill
- Park: Coelestis
- Robinson, Spider: Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon
- Russell: The Sparrow
- Simmons: Endymion
- Simmons: The Fall of Hyperion
- Simmons: The Rise of Endymion
- Stephenson: Snow Crash
- Vance: Night Lamp
- Vinge: A Deepness in the Sky
- Vinge: A Fire Upon the Deep
- Weis: The Lost King
2000 – 2010
- Atwood: Oryx and Crake
- Bacigalupi: The Windup Girl
- Bova: Powersat
Card: Children of the Mind- Collins: The Hunger Games
- Doctorow: Down And Out In the Magic Kingdom
- Emshwiller: The Mount
- Gibson: Pattern Recognition
- Harrison: Light
- McDevitt: Infinity Beach
- McDevitt: Seeker
- McDonald: River of Gods
- Mieville: Iron Council
- Mieville: The Scar
- Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
- Morgan: Altered Carbon
- Murakami: After the Quake
Niffenegger: Time Traveler’s Wife- Reynolds: Chasm City
- Reynolds: House of Suns
- Reynolds: Revelation Space
- Rosenbaum: The Ant King
- Scalzi: Old Man’s War
- Scalzi: The Ghost Brigades
- Scalzi: The Last Colony
- Scalzi: Zoe’s Tale
- Schroeder: Ventus
- Sterling: The Caryatids
- Stross: Glasshouse
- Stross: Saturn’s Children
- Stross: Toast
- Vance: The Moon Moth and Other Stories
- Watts: Blindsight
- Williams: The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
2010+
- Beukes: Moxyland
- Chiang: The Lifecycle of Software Objects
- Corey: Leviathan Wakes
- Corey: Caliban’s War
- Eggers: The Circle
Gibson: The Peripheral- Grant: Feed
- Harrison: Light
- Howey: Wool
- Mieville: Embassytown
- Rajaniemi: The Quantum Thief
- Scalzi: Redshirts
- Walton: Among Others
Weir: The Martian
Need More of…
- Leiber
- Jack Vance
- CM Kornbluth
- Lem
Useful links
When I’m done with these, I’ll move on to the The Amazing Colossal Fantasy Ketchup!1
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My phone corrected “catch-up” to ketchup, so I thought I’d defer to its wisdom in the spirit of hokey sci-fi AI. ↩
107 Comments, Comment or Ping
Peter
I recommend you REMOVE “Scalzi: Zoe’s Tale”. It’s a retelling of the events of “Scalzi: The Last Colony”, but from the perspective of Zoe. It didn’t add anything important, IMHO. I will admit to getting bored and stopping halfway through, so maybe there is something interesting in the second half?
Jan 6th, 2016
Hans _Dorn
More Lem:
Eden.
Jan 2nd, 2020
alunelu
Great list! Try including Ann Leckie’s Ancillary trilogy.
Jan 3rd, 2020
Matt
Hey, I’m just getting into scifi myself. This list is really great. How did you find, and decide on, the titles?
Aug 27th, 2020
fogus
@Matt
I mostly chose them because these are the books that I didn’t read “back in the day.”
Aug 27th, 2020
Derrick
Excellent list! I think it needs the Three Body Problem Trilogy. I also second the Ancillary trilogy. Both took me two tries to get past the first hundred pages but then its a ride.
Jan 1st, 2021
Henrik Mohr
I second the Three Body Problem trilogy – best sci-fi I’ve read.
Jan 4th, 2021
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