Top 15 Best Ever Science Fiction Books
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Top List of Best Ever Science Fiction Books
This is the top 15 list of the best ever science fiction books, all epics within their own rights and created by the recognised masters of science fiction.
Welcome To The Best Ever Science Fiction Books
Science Fiction stories combine elements of fiction and fantasy with scientific facts and are generally futuristic.Science Fiction books provide us with an escape from our own reality for a while.
Well here is your chance to choose from the Top 15 Best Ever Science Fiction Books and to spend some time in a different world than the one in which you currently live.
Enjoy your reading.
#15 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Gateway
Frederik Pohl
Gateway (Heechee Saga)
Amazon Price: $5.00 (as of 05/28/2012)
Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe...and on reaches of unimaginable horror. When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!
#14 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Philip K. Dick
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? Vol 1
Amazon Price: $11.62 (as of 05/28/2012)
Deckard has a simple task ahead of him: retire six escaped androids. But if you're looking for androids that look human, any human can be your target. This makes Deckard some enemies. To some he's a cop, to others he's a criminal. He just thinks he was a schlub trying to make a buck. From the bestselling novel that inspired the movie Blade Runner.
#13 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Neuromancer
William Gibson
Neuromancer
Amazon Price: $12.60 (as of 05/28/2012)
Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway--jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way--and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance--and a cure--for a price....
#12 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Lensman Series
E E Doc Smith
Second Stage Lensman Vol 5
Amazon Price: $29.99 (as of 05/28/2012)
In the Lensman series, we find the benevolent super beings of Arisia ready to bestow the first "lens" on a human being (which, among other things, will give humans telepathic powers). The honor goes to Virgil Samms, who will ever after be known as the "First Lensman." But it's a title that he'll have to earn by establishing the Galactic Patrol, a group that is at once powerful and incorruptible, and will protect the universe from the evil and almost-unstoppable Eddorians.
#11 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Time Machine
H G Wells
The Time Machine
Amazon Price: $2.93 (as of 05/28/2012)
George arrives late to his own dinner party. He tells his guests of his travels in his time machine, the work about which his friends knew. They were unbelieving, and skeptical of any practical use of his work. George knew that his machine was stationary in position, but he did not account for changes in what happens over time to that location. He also learns he is not immune to those who do not understand him or the machine's purpose. George tells his friends that he did not find the Utopian society he so wished had developed. He mentions a civilization several thousand years into the future which consists of the subterranean morlocks and the surface dwelling eloi.
#10 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
The Forever War
Joe Haldeman
The Forever War
Amazon Price: $8.06 (as of 05/28/2012)
Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can't adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass.
#9 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
The War of the Worlds
H G Wells
The War of the Worlds
Amazon Price: $5.99 (as of 05/28/2012)
The novel begins ominously, as the lone voice of a narrator tells readers that "No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's..." But soon the Martians reveal their true nature as death machines 100-feet tall rise up from the pit and begin laying waste to the surrounding land. The evacuation of London itself and the loss of all hope as England's military suffers defeat after defeat. The Martians suck the blood from living humans for sustenance, it's clear that man is not being conquered so much as corralled.
#8 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Ringworld
Larry Niven
Ringworld
Amazon Price: $3.64 (as of 05/28/2012)
A new place is being built, a world of huge dimensions, encompassing millions of miles, stronger than any planet before it. There is gravity, and with high walls and its proximity to the sun, a livable new planet that is three million times the area of the Earth can be formed. We can start again! A team of two humans and two aliens crash-land on a gigantic ring in a distant star system. The ring is millions of times larger than the Earth, and was clearly built by an advanced society.
#7 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
2001: A Space Odyssey
Arthur C Clarke
2001: A Space Odyssey: 25th Anniversary Edition
Amazon Price: $5.99 (as of 05/28/2012)
When an enigmatic monolith is found buried on the moon, scientists are amazed to discover that it's at least 3 million years old. Even more amazing, after it's unearthed the artifact releases a powerful signal aimed at Saturn. What sort of alarm has been triggered? To find out, a manned spacecraft, the Discovery, is sent to investigate. Its crew is highly trained--the best--and they are assisted by a self-aware computer, the ultra-capable HAL 9000.
#6 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation
Amazon Price: $5.70 (as of 05/28/2012)
"Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn 'em to ashes, then burn the ashes." For Guy Montag, a career fireman for whom kerosene is perfume, this is not just an official slogan. It is a mantra, a duty, a way of life in a tightly monitored world where thinking is dangerous and books are forbidden.
#5 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert A Heinlein
Stranger in a Strange Land
Amazon Price: $4.15 (as of 05/28/2012)
Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman and has no knowledge of Earth's cultures or religions. But he brings turmoil with him, as he is the legal heir to an enormous financial empire, not to mention de facto owner of the planet Mars.
#4 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: the Trilogy of Four (The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
Amazon Price: $13.75 (as of 05/28/2012)
One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. For Arthur, who has just had his house demolished, this is too much. Sadly, the weekends just begun.The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: When all issues of space, time, matter and the nature of being are resolved, only one question remains: Where shall we have dinner?
#3 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Foundation
Isaac Asimov
Foundation (Foundation Novels)
Amazon Price: $6.44 (as of 05/28/2012)
Mathematician Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory, using the law of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale. Seldon foresees the fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting thirty thousand years before a second great empire arises. The focus of the trilogy is on the Foundation of the planet Terminus. The people living there are working on an all-encompassing Encyclopedia, and are unaware of Seldon's real intentions. The Encyclopedia serves to preserve knowledge of the physical sciences after the collapse. The Foundation's location is chosen so that it acts as the focal point for the next empire in another thousand years.
#2 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1)
Amazon Price: $3.58 (as of 05/28/2012)
Intense is the word for Ender's Game. Aliens have attacked Earth twice and almost destroyed the human species. To make sure humans win the next encounter, the world government has taken to breeding military geniuses -- and then training them in the arts of war... The early training, not surprisingly, takes the form of 'games'... Ender Wiggin is a genius among geniuses; he wins all the games... He is smart enough to know that time is running out. But is he smart enough to save the planet?
#1 Best Ever Science Fiction Book
Dune
Frank Herbert
Dune, 40th Anniversary Edition (Dune Chronicles, Book 1)
Amazon Price: $8.25 (as of 05/28/2012)
The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.
Recommended Reading
Living on the Lost Edge of Time
By James Chapman
Living on the Lost Edge of Time
Amazon Price: (as of 05/28/2012)
Jennifer is a romantic at heart and adores reading in the tranquil calm of the old house that is her home. But everything changes when her sleep is suddenly disturbed in the middle of the night. Rising to investigate Jennifer soon finds herself immersed in a dark and mysterious adventure. She has lived alone in the old house for the last three and a half years since her mother died and never before had felt there was any need to think she should be afraid. But Jennifer does experience real fear and in the depths of the darkness she discovers a love that is destined to change her life forever.
Related Sites
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Tell Me What You Think About The Best Ever Science Fiction Books
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desa999
May 9, 2012 @ 5:57 am | delete
- Amazing lens and great content.
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Lemming13 May 5, 2012 @ 8:54 am | delete
- Some super choices, but you left off some of my favourites - Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld novels, John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos, and C S Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet. You get a blessing, though, for introducing me to some new pleasures in reading.
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Gala98
May 4, 2012 @ 2:45 pm | delete
- great to see Ender's Game at #2 - never met anyone who's even heard of it, let alone read it! It kept me gripped the whole way thru & I missed an appointment because I couldn't put t down!
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BlueTrane
May 4, 2012 @ 12:20 pm | delete
- Ray Bradbury is my fav! Great lens! These are some fantastic reads!
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Michey May 4, 2012 @ 9:58 am | delete
- Hi! I bypass the age of science fiction, but I have to admit that you have a great collection here. Angel Blessing
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PaulRyan
Apr 23, 2012 @ 11:02 pm | delete
- Nice, it has given me some good ideas for SF books to check out.
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Ashly_Rain
Apr 14, 2012 @ 8:27 am | delete
- Great lens and great picks! I added your lens to one I put together about science fiction books (actually series) that I've enjoyed over the years - http://www.squidoo.com/my-favorite-science-fiction-series. I need to revisit the Foundation series, I think I'd enjoy it more than when I first tried it as a kid.
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nevets_sdoow
Apr 8, 2012 @ 3:12 pm | delete
- Contact by the great Carl Sagan. C'monnnn!
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Karen1960
Apr 6, 2012 @ 3:49 am | delete
- Excellent choices, just a couple here I've not read, so adding them to my ever-expanding list of Books To Read.
If you've not read it, try "The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets" by Lloyd Biggle jr. Culture, politics, intrigue and mystery, with a 'fish out of water' lead character - all beautifully described and succinctly told.
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cmadden
Apr 5, 2012 @ 12:19 pm | delete
- I've read all but one - pretty decent list.
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Vortrek_Grafix Apr 3, 2012 @ 1:50 pm | delete
- Excellent stuff. Always loved science fiction, especially when it builds on established science and dares to speculate beyond its known parameters. All the great inventors throughout history had to be able to think speculatively before they actually created a novel idea.
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GrammaLinda
Mar 22, 2012 @ 1:46 pm | delete
- Pretty good selection, though I personally don't care much for the Dune books. Almost all Robert Heinlein and Orson Scott Card's Ender series are some of the best I have read.
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kiwinana71
Mar 21, 2012 @ 12:06 am | delete
- Great selection of science fiction books. Have not read any of them,so some great reading for me. Thanks for sharing.
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Cumberland
Mar 20, 2012 @ 4:51 pm | delete
- I have read all but one of the books on your excellent list. I read the Lensman Series in the 1950s and had forgotten about them until the reference above. Thanks for the reminder.
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SynchronicityHouse
Mar 20, 2012 @ 4:48 pm | delete
- Great Lens - I hadn't heard of some of these authors so will have to get reading!
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by My-O-My
My name is James Chapman, I have been a freelance writer for over twenty years and just love sci-fi novels.
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