Books like The Best Of
30 science fiction books to read after The Best Of, by Moore, C. L., the closest match first.
-
Witch World book 1 Start here
1. Witch World
by Lackey, Andre Norton And Mercedes
- On the same lists
Simon Tregarth is a man on the run from various shadowy ruffians, people he associated with because he was wrongly convicted of working the black market while in the military....
-
2. The Robot Stories
by Asimov, Isaac
- On the same lists
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings,...
-
3. The Cold Equations
by Tom Godwin
- On the same lists
These were the great years of the sf short story; magazines like Astounding, F&SF, Galaxy and If were in their pomp and most of the brilliant novels of the period...
-
4. Who?
by Algis Budrys
- On the same lists
At the height of Cold War paranoia, Algis Budrys wrote a novel that perfectly captured the doubts and distrusts of the time. There is an explosion at an allied research...
-
After Such Knowledge book 1 Start here
5. A Case Of Conscience
by James Blish
- On the same lists
A Jesuit investigates an alien race. The aliens have no religion, but have an innate sense of morality.
From Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star" to Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, there was something of a trend in the 1950s for bringing Catholicism into a science fiction...
-
6. The Sirens Of Titan
by Kurt Vonnegut
- On the same lists
This is the novel in which we first encounter some of the themes and ideas that would later emerge in Slaughterhouse-Five. There are Tralfamadorians, there's the familiar resignation in the...
-
7. The Body Snatchers
by Jack Finney
- On the same lists
Aliens replace the people of a California town with emotionless copies, the paranoid novel behind Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
If you had to name one science fiction movie that encapsulated America's national paranoia in the mid-50s it would have to be Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and this is...
-
8. Childhood S End
by Clarke, Arthur C.
- On the same lists
An alien race invades Earth, but they are benevolent and a golden age begins on Earth.
You're going to hate me for this. Really. See, Clarke is one of the three giants of science fiction, old-school science fiction. He was writing this novel in 1953 at...
-
Mesklin book 1 Start here
9. Mission Of Gravity
by Hal Clement
- On the same lists
This story is a discovery of the oceans on planet Mesklin--a planet with an iron core, a rapid rotation, and a sentient species that resemble yard-long centipedes.
Hard science fiction in its purest form didn't have villains; the implacable laws of the universe were enemy enough for anyone. After all, who needs enemies when you're faced with...
-
10. Northwest of Earth
by Moore, C. L.
- Same author
Nominated for several awards including Nebula and Hugo awards. An interesting take on the Arabian Nights format from a narrator who is two thousand years old. Frontier in its exploration of ideas rather than blazing guns.
Nominated for several awards including Nebula and Hugo awards. An interesting take on the Arabian Nights format from a narrator who is two thousand years old. Frontier in its exploration...
-
11. Fahrenheit 451
by Bradbury, Ray
- On the same lists
A classic "What if?" story about book banning, happiness, and knowledge.
Everyone loves the idea of the thinking man's fireman (particularly middle aged women who read Fifty Shades of Grey), but that's not why Fahrenheit 451 made it to second on...
-
12. We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- On the same lists
We was written in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution, and though Zamyatin was himself a Bolshevik, the novel expressed his disquiet at the structuring of society that the...
-
13. More Than Human
by Theodore Sturgeon
- On the same lists
There was a period when science fiction tended to refer to the next stage in human evolution as homo superior, and one of the ways of achieving this state was...
-
14. Swastika Night
by Katharine Burdekin
- On the same lists
If there is one overused cliché in science fiction, it is the alternate history novel in which Hitler won the Second World War. But this is a novel about the...
-
15. Among Others (2012)
by Walton, Jo
- On the same lists
An award-winning and break-out novel, that is about good versus evil magic, about books, about self-discovery, about imagination. It is an example of an unfolding and nonlinear plot.
Morwenna Phelps grew up in the Welsh valleys talking to fairies among the ruins of old factories. After a disaster involving her mother, a witch, she is left with a...
-
16. The Aleutian Trilogy
by Sue Harrison
- On the same lists
Right from her debut as an adult novelist with Divine Endurance (she has an equally long and successful career as a children's writer), Gwyneth Jones has been a writer to...
-
17. The Story Until Now
by Kit Reed
- On the same lists
Science fiction is filled with writers who have a devoted coterie of admirers, yet who seem to have missed out on the awards and honours that normally come with such...
-
18. Queen Of The States
by Josephine Saxton
- On the same lists
Josephine Saxton was one of the stars of the British new wave during the 1960s, writing a string of intriguing off-beat short stories and complex, challenging novels. But she has...
-
19. Maul
by Tricia Sullivan
- On the same lists
What is the most characteristic thing in our contemporary urban lives. It is not the computer or the mobile phone or any of the other digital devices that surround us,...
-
The Space Merchants book 1 Start here
20. The Space Merchants
by Pohl, Frederik
- On the same lists
In his pioneering study of science fiction, New Maps of Hell, Kingsley Amis argued that The Space Merchants was possibly the best science fiction novel ever written. In the fifty-odd...
-
21. The Stars My Destination
by Alfred Bester
- On the same lists
A mechanic is the sole survivor on a ship that is just a wreck.
He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead. Gully Foyle is a shipwrecked sailor abandoned out in space, and when ships pass him by without stopping...
-
Barsoom book 1 Start here
22. A Princess Of Mars
by Burroughs, Edgar Rice
- On the same lists
In the latter years of the 19th century, astronomers detected lines on the surface of Mars, and before long these were being identified as irrigation canals, suggesting notm only that...
-
Dune Chronicles book 1 Start here
23. Dune
by Herbert, Frank
- On the same lists
The whole series over time shows the colonization and taming of the wild planet Dune over thousands of years.
A blend of sci-fi and fantasy, Frank Herbert's Dune created a foundation for many of the themes in modern genre fiction. Its exploration of ecology, pacifism, and mysticism pairs with...
-
24. To The Moon
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- On the same lists
An award winning novel about a colony that rebels against the Lunar Authority that controls it.
Science fiction-roman.
-
25. The Rediscovery Of Man
by Cordwainer Smith
- On the same lists
Practically all of Cordwainer Smithâs fiction belongs within a future history that starts just a few years from now and extends for tens of thousands of years into the future....
-
26. The Man In The High Castle
by Dick, Philip K.
- On the same lists
A novel where Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan win WWII.
Philip K. Dick was one of the most idiosyncratic and successful writers in science fiction. Okay, he's probably better known these days for all the films that have been based...
-
27. The Skylark Series
by E. E. Smith
- On the same lists
The great innovation in American science fiction during the 1920s was the invention of the space opera, and that was largely down to E.E. "Doc" Smith. Sometime around 1916 he...
-
The Herland book 1 Start here
28. Herland
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- On the same lists
Towards the end of the 19th century a big movement for women's suffrage started up on both sides of the Atlantic. Accompanying the political campaign, there were many stories that...
-
29. A Voyage To Arcturus
by David Lindsay
- On the same lists
Science fiction has produced some pretty weird novels in its time, but there aren't many that can match A Voyage to Arcturus. It has had a major influence on writers...
-
30. Metropolis
by Thea Von Harbou
- On the same lists
This is the novelisation of the film that Thea von Harbou wrote with her husband, Fritz Lang. It was the first feature-length science fiction film, the most expensive film made...
Matches come from series and authors, from the lists the books share, and from the books readers open together. They are rebuilt every night. Back to The Best Of.
The shortlist
Liked The Best Of? New releases and the lists readers are opening most, by email.