Spotted this list of 32 highly recommended sci-fi novels over at How to split an atom in my Google reader yesterday.
Surprisingly, I have read quite a few of those on the list:
- Foundation, by Isaac Asimov. (and the rest of the Foundation series)
- Time machine, by H. G. Wells.
- Animal farm, by George Orwell.
- War of the worlds, by H. G. Wells.
- I robot, by Isaac Asimov.
- Ring world, by Larry Niven.
- Dune, by Frank Herbert. (and all 3 books from the originally intended trilogy)
- The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, by Douglas Adams (all except for the final book in the expanded trilogy)
- 1984, by George Orwell.
- Ender’s game, by Orson Scott Card. (and the rest of the Ender, Shadow series)
Others that are already on my to-read list:
- Neuromancer, by William Gibson.
- Pattern recognition, by William Gibson.
- Down and out in the magic kingdom, by Cory Doctorow.
A couple of the ones which didn’t make it to that list but are nevertheless among my favourites are:
- The black cloud, by Fred Hoyle. I read this during my secondary school in the early days after my family migrated to Australia, when I was struggling with English, which kind of explains the fond memory of this novel!?
- Citizen of the galaxy, by Robert Heinlein. Can’t recall exactly when I read this, but I just remember being very touched by the ending.
- The Childe Cyle series, by Gordon R. Dickson. I read this during the last years during undergraduate. To me, the scale of the series is definitely on par with Asimov’s Foundation saga. In fact, I have been waiting eagerly for new books to the series. However, it was after reading about the list and a bit of Googling that I eventually discovered that the author had passed away in 2001. A pity really. I would have liked to read more of his works.
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