This is my basic sci-fi list for anyone who wants to get into sci-fi.

Basic sci-fi starter kit:
• Asimov's I, Robot 
• Wells' The Time Machine 
• Clarke's Childhood's End 
• The Martian Chronicles 
• Fahrenheit 451
• Lesser known classic Simak's Way Station 

Free e-books for download or read online
• Anything by H.G. Wells or Jules Verne
• Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

SF by non-SF authors, so they are sci-fi-ish
• P.D. James' Children of Men 
• The Time Traveler's Wife 
• E.M. Forester's The Machine Stops 
• 1984 
• Brave New World 

PrintSF's Top 100 SF Novels

Survey date: April 11, 2013 

Position	Author	Title
1	Frank Herbert	Dune
5	Isaac Asimov	Foundation
2	Orson Scott Card	Ender's Game
3	Dan Simmons	Hyperion
4	William Gibson	Neuromancer
6	Gene Wolfe	The Book Of The New Sun
7	Neal Stephenson	Snow Crash
9	Robert Heinlein	The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
10	Neal Stephenson	Anathem
11	Douglas Adams	The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
12	George R. R. Martin	A Song Of Ice And Fire
13	Joe Haldeman	The Forever War
14	Vernor Vinge	A Fire Upon The Deep
15	Arthur C. Clarke	Rendezvous With Rama
16	Arthur C. Clarke	Childhood's End
17	Alfred Bester	The Stars My Destination
18	J. R. R. Tolkien	The Lord Of The Rings
19	Robert Heinlein	Stranger In A Strange Land
20	Robert Heinlein	Starship Troopers
23	Alastair Reynolds	Revelation Space
21	Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson	The Wheel Of Time
22	Kim Stanley Robinson	Mars Trilogy
24	Ursula K. Le Guin	The Dispossessed
25	Orson Scott Card	Speaker For The Dead
26	Neal Stephenson	Cryptonomicon
27	Iain M. Banks	Use Of Weapons
28	Dan Simmons	Hyperion Cantos
29	George Orwell	1984
30	Peter F. Hamilton	Commonwealth Saga
31	Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle	The Mote In God's Eye
32	Isaac Asimov	I, Robot
33	Vernor Vinge	A Deepness In The Sky
34	Roger Zelazny	Lord Of Light
35	Philip K. Dick	Ubik
36	Peter Watts	Blindsight
37	China Mieville	Perdido Street Station
38	Richard Morgan	Altered Carbon
39	Philip K. Dick	Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?
40	Neal Stephenson	The Diamond Age
41	Lois Mcmaster Bujold	Vorkosigan Saga
42	Larry Niven	Ringworld
43	Kurt Vonnegut	The Sirens Of Titan
44	Arthur C. Clarke	2001, A Space Odyssey
45	Walter M. Miller Jr.	A Canticle For Leibowitz
46	Ursula K. Le Guin	The Left Hand Of Darkness
47	Roger Zelazny	Chronicles Of Amber
48	Brandon Sanderson	Mistborn
49	Steven Erikson	Malazan Book Of The Fallen
50	Stephen King	The Dark Tower
51	Philip K. Dick	The Man In The High Castle
52	John Scalzi	Old Man's War
53	Iain M. Banks	Excession
54	Frederik Pohl	Gateway
55	Aldous Huxley	Brave New World
56	Alastair Reynolds	House Of Suns
57	Ray Bradbury	The Martian Chronicles
58	Philip K. Dick	Valis
59	Patrick Rothfuss	The Kingkiller Chronicles
60	Neil Gaiman	American Gods
61	Neal Stephenson	The Baroque Cycle
62	Margaret Atwood	The Handmaid's Tale
63	Kurt Vonnegut	Slaughterhouse-Five
64	Kim Stanley Robinson	Red Mars
65	Jim Butcher	The Dresden Files
66	Iain M. Banks	The Player Of Games
67	Greg Egan	Permutation City
68	China Mieville	The Scar
69	Arkady & Boris Strugatsky	Roadside Picnic
83	Susanna Clarke	Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
88	Philip K. Dick	The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch
70	Timothy Zahn	Heir To The Empire Trilogy
71	Robert Charles Wilson	Spin
72	Patrick Rothfuss	The Name Of The Wind
73	Margaret Atwood	Oryx And Crake
74	Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle	Footfall
75	J. R. R. Tolkien	The Silmarillion
76	David Weber	Honor Harrington
77	China Mieville	Embassytown
78	Alastair Reynolds	Chasm City
79	William Gibson	Sprawl Trilogy
80	Ursula K. Le Guin	Earthsea Cycle
81	Tim Powers	Declare
82	Terry Pratchett	Discworld
84	Stephen King	The Stand
85	Stanislaw Lem	Solaris
86	Ray Bradbury	Something Wicked This Way Comes
87	Philip Pullman	His Dark Materials
89	Philip K. Dick	Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
90	Philip K. Dick	Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep
91	Philip K. Dick	A Scanner Darkly
92	Peter F. Hamilton	Night's Dawn Trilogy
93	Paolo Bacigalupi	The Windup Girl
94	Orson Scott Card	Ender's Saga
95	Michael Crichton	Jurassic Park
96	Kurt Vonnegut	Cat's Cradle
97	John Steakley	Armor
98	John Crowley	Little, Big
99	Jeff Noon	Vurt
100	James S.A. Corey	Leviathan Wakes

Here is the full result in spreadsheet format for you to sort, categorize etc. to your heart's content!

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What is PrintSF?
PrintSF is an online community to discuss published Speculative Fiction — novels, short stories, comics, images, and more. Not sure if a book is SF? Then post it! Science Fiction, Fantasy, Alt. History, Postmodern Lit., and more are all welcome here. The key is that it be speculative, not that it fit some arbitrary genre guidelines. Any sort of link or text post is welcome as long as it is about printed/text/ static SF material.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A few months ago I posted a question on Reddit's Print SF forum about three free e-books that I was interested in reading. Accelerando by Charles Stross, Blindsight by Peter Watts and this one, Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. I received quite a few replies which are generally very helpful. Since then I have read Blindsight which I found difficult but very clever, attempted to read (but failed to finish) Accelerando which I could not get along with, and now Little Brother which I like best of the three. However, there were some suggestions that I should avoid Little Brother like the plague (there were some positive comments also). This I duly did until I saw Neil Gaiman’s rave review of this book. I like Gaiman’s books a lot so I want to read this, especially at this price tag.



This book seems to be more of a YA techno thriller than sf, the technology seems to be already in existence, although for all I know some aspects may have been imagined by Doctorow. Any way, apart from the fascinating tech the book also has a lot of heart and a plenty to say about liberty and freedom. I would not hesitate to recommend this book.



View all my reviews

Nightwings by Robert Silverberg

Nightwings by Robert Silverberg

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This review is for the novel version of Nightwings, which is comprised of three tightly linked novellas.

Robert Silverberg is possibly the most underrated sf writers of all time considering how long he has been at it and the numerous awards he has won and been nominated for. For some reason he just does not seem to be "in vogue" these days. It is a pity that most of the younger generation of sf readers today have never read anything by him.

What Silverberg does better than almost any sf authors writing today is to write short stand alone novels with very strange plots and excellent characterization. His special talent us to drop the reader right in the middle of a strange place and time of his imagining and gradually acclimatize you through his story telling skills rather than just making an infodump.

Nightwings is set on Earth but in a future so far flung and strange that it may as well be an alien planet. There are many guilds and mutants and genetically modified humans populating the earth which is about to be invaded by rather reasonable aliens! This novel is both post-apocalyptic and dystopian. It all ends rather optimistically with redemption for the flawed but lovable protagonist. It is astonishing how much plot, grandeur, ideas, subtext and characterization Silverberg managed to squeeze into one short novel. This book easily goes to my all time best list!



View all my reviews

Startide Rising

Startide Rising by David Brin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I like this book well enough but I feel like I should like it more than I do, it has everything a good sf novel should have. Vastly imaginative, epic, some humor and good characters. Unfortunately I have a problem with the structure of this book, the cast of characters is too big and the author switches character POV too frequently. This type of structure reminds me of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books, except that the GRRM books are longer and the characters are better developed. Also most of the chapters are short and some are super-short (like a single paragraph). The way it is done here is quite disorienting for me, every time he does it I become a little detached from the story because I have to keep a tally of who is who and doing what.



While reading the first few chapters I thought that characterization was going to be a problem with this book because I didn't get the feel of any of them. As I read on however I began to realize that the characterization is actually quite good, the problem is that there are just so many important characters and it takes time to attune to any of them. The large number of plot stands and the short chapters make the novel seem fragmented.



With all that said I love the concept of the Uplift universe and can not help but plan to read more. Hopefully the structure of other volumes is not so fragmented.



View all my reviews

Cordelia's Honor (Vorkosigan Saga Omnibus: Shards of Honor / Barrayar)

Lois McMaster Bujold is an author I have been meaning to read for the longest time, she has won so many major sf awards it is clear that she must be some kind of major talent in the field. However it took me years and years to get around to picking up one off her books simply because the synopsis of her Vorkosigan series never seem all that interesting to me. Fortunately for me Lois has graciously decided to make most of her Vorkosigan books available for free in digital formats on her publisher web site. So I took advantage off her generosity, downloaded the whole package and got on with the first book Cordelia's Honor. This is an omnibus volume consisting of Shards of Honor and Barrayar.

Shards of Honor introduces the characters and the settings and Barrayar is the more intense plot driven conclusion.

Character driven sci-fi is something of a rarity, most sci-fi novels are more concerned with plot and technology, characterization is more often than not of secondary importance. Sci-fi greats such as Asimov and Clarke are not known for characterization, they get away with less emphasis on characterization because of they brilliance of their plots and tech. Lois McMaster Bujold is a different kettle of fish, she puts technology in the background and concentrates on her characters and what they do. This works greatly in her favor as her characters are mostly complex and believable.

Obviously characterization alone is not enough a decent novel needs a decent plot to give the characters something to do. Bar bar has a reasonably complex and driving plot and becomes quite fast paced in the second half of the book. The only drawback for me is that it gets bogged down with romantic scenes from time to time. They are not badly written but the occasional lapses into sentimentality does make me cringe. They don't detract much from the over all quality of the book though and the whole thing concludes beautifully. Fortunately I still have many vote vote books to get through before I have to start passing fort them. Certainly I will be more than happy to start buying Lois non vote vote fantasy novels of which there are many. I feel like I really owe her something for all the freebies she has given to me.

Reddit SF/F surveys

Reddit SF Survey result

Survey done by Yeahiknow3 (not by me)

Please refer to this Reddit thread for more info.

Survey results:

(click to see original size, further zooming recommended!)

(related Reddit thread)

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Reddit Fantasy Survey result

Survey done by Yeahiknow3

Link to the Original Reddit thread