Required Reading for the Sci-Fi Fan
Discover the ultimate list of required reading for every sci-fi fan! Explore must-read books that define the genre, from classic masterpieces to modern essentials.
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The City and the Stars
by Arthur Charles Clarke
An omnibus edition featuring two science fiction classics presents The City and the Stars, about a man born into a society of immortals who wants to find out what lies beyond his narrow existence, and The Sands of Mars, in which science fiction writer Martin Gibson get a chance to visit Mars and discovers more than he had ever dreamed. Reprint.
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The Gods Themselves
by Isaac Asimov
In the twenty-second century Earth obtains limitless, free energy from a source science little understands: an exchange between Earth and a parallel universe, using a process devised by the aliens. But even free energy has a price. The transference process itself will eventually lead to the destruction of the Earth's Sun—and of Earth itself. Only a few know the terrifying truth—an outcast Earth scientist, a rebellious alien inhabitant of a dying planet, a lunar-born human intuitionist who senses the imminent annihilation of the Sun. They know the truth—but who will listen? They have foreseen the cost of abundant energy—but who will believe? These few beings, human and alien, hold the key to Earth's survival.
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Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
The “brilliantly realized” (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions. Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30 U-Stor-It. He spends most of his time goggled in to the Metaverse, where his avatar is legendary. But in the club known as The Black Sun, his fellow hackers are being felled by a weird new drug called Snow Crash that reduces them to nothing more than a jittering cloud of bad digital karma (and IRL, a vegetative state). Investigating the Infocalypse leads Hiro all the way back to the beginning of language itself, with roots in an ancient Sumerian priesthood. He’ll be joined by Y.T., a fearless teenaged skateboard courier. Together, they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.
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A Fire Upon The Deep
by Vernor Vinge
A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization. A Fire Upon The Deep is the winner of the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
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Time Enough for Love
by Robert A. Heinlein
The capstone and crowning achievement of the Future History series, from the New York Times bestselling Grand Master of Science Fiction... Time Enough for Love follows Lazarus Long through a vast and magnificent timescape of centuries and worlds. Heinlein's longest and most ambitious work, it is the story of a man so in love with Life that he refused to stop living it; and so in love with Time that he became his own ancestor.
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Hyperion
by Dan Simmons
On the planet called Hyperion, beyond the law and the reach of 28th-century science, waits the creature called the Shrike. Some worship it, some fear it, and some have vowed to destroy it. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to the Valley of the Time Tombs, where the Shrike waits for them. They seek the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives and have resolved to die before discovering anything less than the secrets of the universe itself. En el mundo llamado Hyperion, más allá de la Red de la HegemonĂa del Hombre, aguarda el AlcaudĂłn, una singular y temible criatura a la que los miembros de la Iglesia de la ExpiaciĂłn Final veneran como Señor del Dolor. En vĂsperas del Armageddon y bajo la amenaza de una guerra entre la HegemonĂa, los enjambres Ă©xter, y las inteligencias artificiales del TecnoNĂşcleo, siete peregrinos acuden a Hyperion para recuperar un rito religioso. Todos son portadores de esperanzas imposibles y tambiĂ©n de terribles secretos.
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Ender's Game
by Orson Scott Card
Child hero Ender Wiggin must fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race if mankind is to survive.
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Armor
by John Steakley
The military sci-fi classic in a striking new package Felix is an Earth soldier, encased in special body armor designed to withstand Earth's most implacable enemy-a bioengineered, insectoid alien horde. But Felix is also equipped with internal mechanisms that enable him, and his fellow soldiers, to survive battle situations that would destroy a man's mind. This is a remarkable novel of the horror, the courage, and the aftermath of combat-and how the strength of the human spirit can be the greatest armor of all.
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