These are John Carr's science fiction recommendations. All of these books can be found in the MIT Science Fiction Society library, though not all of them can be checked out.
I could argue literary merit vs. fun vs. scientific accuracy vs. broad appeal, but when I ask myself "which books would I most recommend" these come out at the top.
The books marked with "*" are especially recommended.
| Author | Book | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Douglas Adams | Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Silly SF. Read the first three in the series then stop. |
| Poul Anderson | The Boat of a Million Years | Immortals journey through history and beyond. |
| The High Crusade | Aliens vs. primitive medieval earthlings. Great fun. | |
| Neal Asher | The Skinner | "Welcome to Spatterjay ... where sudden death is the normal way of life." |
| Isaac Asimov | The Foundation Trilogy | After the fall of the Galactic Empire, is history being driven by the hand of a dead man? An SF classic. Avoid the modern sequels. |
| Iain M. Banks | Use of Weapons* | A great space adventure novel with a psychological component. Read this book. Pay attention. |
| Alfred Bester | The Demolished Man | In a world with telepaths, how can you get away with murder? |
| Robert S. Blum | The Girl from the Emeraline Island | The author's little-known first and last novel |
| Ray Bradbury | R is for Rocket or S is for Space | Story collections |
| David Brin | Startide Rising and The Uplift War | A contrast of large scale silly space opera with individual struggle for survival. In a single volume as Earthclan. |
| Frederic Brown | From These Ashes | A collection of old-fashioned, humorous science fiction |
| John Brunner | Stand on Zanzibar | The overpopulated world of 2010 seen from the 1960s |
| Arthur C. Clarke | Childhood's End | Inspiration for the Genesis song "Watcher of the Skies" |
| Rendezvous With Rama | A classic "big dumb object" story. | |
| Hal Clement | Mission of Gravity | The classic hard science fiction novel. |
| Greg Egan | Axiomatic | A collection of the short stories by "the best idea man in science fiction". |
| M. J. Engh | Wheel of the Winds | A pleasant novel of exploration. |
| Jasper Fforde | The Eyre Affair | Much more entertaining than any synopsis could make you believe. |
| Dave Freer and Eric Flint | Rats, Bats, and Vats | Mildly humorous military SF. Dumb humans vs. smart aliens. |
| Alexander Jablokov | Nimbus | Artificially enhanced people in decaying future America |
| James Alan Gardner | Expendable | In the future, misfits and unattractive people get assigned to dangerous missions. |
| Donald Kingsbury | Courtship Rite | A harsh world evolves a harsh culture. |
| Keith Laumer | any Retief collection | Read any of the Retief short stories (not novels) written before 1972. |
| George R. R. Martin | Tuf Voyaging | A man finds an abandoned ecological engineering starship and gets the chance to play god. Includes cats. |
| Jack McDevitt | A Talent for War | Despite the title it's not military SF. |
| The Engines of God | Robert Frost was right. | |
| Larry Niven | Tales of Known Space | A collection of short stories by the man who rejuvenated hard SF in the 1960s. |
| Ringworld | The classic "big dumb object" story. Read after Tales of Known Space. | |
| Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle | The Mote in God's Eye* | A first contact story, and more. One of the great science fiction novels. |
| Alan Nourse | The Universe Between | Dated and arguably a juvenile, but a lot of people have good memories of this novel. |
| Frederik Pohl | Gateway | Brave adventurers with nothing left to lose fly in alien spaceships that they don't know how to steer. |
| Adam Roberts | Salt | Anarcho-communists and religious capitalists settle on the same world. What could go wrong? |
| Melissa Scott | Dreamships | Includes one of the most disturbing lines ever spoken by a fictional computer. |
| Charles Sheffield | The McAndrew Chronicles | A collection of hard science fiction short stories. |
| Robert Silverberg | The Man in the Maze | A member of the "alien death traps" micro-genre |
| Dan Simmons | Hyperion | Travelers on a quest share their powerful stories. |
| William Browning Spencer | Résumé With Monsters | Cthulhu gets involved in office politics. |
| Neal Stephenson | Snow Crash | A manic opening leads to a manic description of a balkanized, high tech future. Includes portable nuclear weapons and futuristic pizza delivery. |
| Arkady and Boris Strugatsky | Roadside Picnic and Tale of the Troika | The English translations are in a single volume. |
| William Tenn | Immodest Proposals | A collection of largely humorous science fiction |
| Timothy Zahn | Time Bomb | A collection of stories from when Zahn was good, in the 1980s. |
| Sarah Zettel | Kingdom of Cages | Researchers fight to understand the cause of ecological collapse before refugees force the issue. |
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