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.