Top 25 Underrated Science Fiction Books

The Disappearance

by Philip Wylie

The apocalypse here is kind of personal. The world's just fine to start with, but... From one moment to the next all the women disappear from the world of men—and all the men from the world of women—which in some in...

Tales Of The Dying Earth (The Dying Earth)

by Vance, Jack

A series, and the reason there is a Dying Earth sub-genre.

Tale of the Dying Earth truly stands as one of the greatest works ever penned. Everything that's good and bad about the human condition is eloquently expressed within this tale. You get the full range of heroics, adventu...

Babel-17 (1967)

by Delany, Samuel R.

The literary side of this Sci Fi book is high in its experimentation with language and its exploration of language's role in meaning, action, identity, politics, and culture.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes won the 1967 Nebula Award for Best Novel along with Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. This is the only time since the start of the Nebula Awards two books tied for the the Best Novel awar...

The Men In The Jungle

by Norman Spinrad

On the planet Sangre (Spanish for 'blood') there exists a divided society so brutal that it makes your average Earth-bound slavery society look like a humanitarian enterprise. The sub-class is treated by their m...

Transit

by Edmund Cooper

First published published in 1964, this novel it hasn't lost anything of its appeal 40+ years later, mainly because its themes are timeless. Two men and two women are abducted from Earth by aliens and deposited on a conv...

Anthem

by Ayn Rand

When people hear 'Ayn Rand', they tend to think of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Anthem is a David to her other Goliaths. It may originally have been conceived as a play, which would explain much of its s...

The Magicians (The Magicians) Start here

by Grossman, Lev

A prequel novel about a high school senior who is admitted to a school for gifted children, for a magical education in upstate New York. A typical quest story that turns dark. Things are not black and white in this world and the characters are psychologically rich.

School fantasy is often aimed at children, and it's very successful at hitting that market. It's much harder to appeal exclusively to adults, and that's where The Magicians shines. Rather than the typical twelve-year-old...

Immortality Inc

by Robert Sheckley

Many of those in the Transhumanist camp believe that sooner or later, in a twisted take on the 'reincarnation' mythos, we'll be able to effectively separate minds from bodies and incarnate them into machines. This novel,...

Systemic Shock (Quantrill) Start here

by Dean Ing

Ted Quantrill is a freak: he fastest gun in the West (and probably the world). After the total collapse of Russia, India and China band together (unlikely, I know, but this is fiction) and try to nuke the US out of...

Mission To Universe

by Gordon R. Dickson

This is a classic 'first interstellar journey' story by the amazing Gordon Dickson. Impatient with the bureaucracy who is delaying the launch of the new-technology 'phase ship', (very cool technology!) Brigadier General...

Rewind

by Terry England

What would it be like if your mind, memories, feelings, identify suddenly ended up in the body of a prepubescent child (no sex change involved)? Well, for 17 people that's what happened. That's all the aliens did when th...

Neverness (A Requiem For Homo Sapiens) Start here

by David Zindell

Usually when you think of the 80s you think of bouffant hair, jeans tight enough to threaten a man-s ability to father, and high pitched singers wearing neon colors. Fortunately, the 80s gave us more than just bad taste,...

Isle Of The Dead (Francis Sandow) Start here

by Zelazny, Roger

The protagonist of this story studies to become a telepath and worldscaper--someone who can create and terraform worlds. In this novel, terraforming is an artform.

Zelazny wrote a few stories about immortals, and Francis Sandow is one of them. He was born in the 20th century and ended up in suspended animation on a spaceship. By the time he was discovered, star-flight technol...

The Hercules Text

by Mcdevitt, Jack

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been underway for over five decades now. (For real, that is!) Somewhere out there, we thinkhope? fear?there may be life forms, alien but intelligent, who are sendi...

The Anubis Gates

by Powers, Tim

An award winning novel that has time travel, historical figures, Egyptian mythology, and 19th century England.

In creating this world, Powers borrowed ideas from all over the place. Mythology, Ancient Egyptian theology, quantum theory, and classical literature“ they're all used in The Anubis Gates. It's a ridiculous combination o...

The Diamond Age

by Stephenson, Neal

A coming of age story for a young girl in a world where nanotech has become part of all aspects of life.

Unlike the typical steampunk,, Neal Stephenson’s masterpiece does not feature steam and clockwork technology, but futuristic nano-technology that’s pervaded society on every level. This novel is so much more than just “a...

Immune Response

by Steve Perry

Suppose someone financed a project to create a drug-and-virus cocktail that could make people essentially immortal. Pop a capsule of the mix and Bob's your uncle. No more illness, quick healing from most injuries, consta...

The Blue World

by Vance, Jack

A spaceship with a bunch of delinquents crashes on a water-covered planet. The survivors manage to adapt to the circumstances and rebuild a kind of civilization, living on the giant floating leaves of water plants. No me...

Nifft The Lean (Nifft The Lean) Start here

by Shea, Michael

Nifft was a thief and a rogue. Nifft is dead. This is kind of an epitaph in four short tales. You decide whether you'd ever let Nifft get close to you without sequestering everything valuable in a safe place first. Why...

Blind Waves

by Steven Gould

Nifft was a thief and a rogue. Nifft is dead. This is kind of an epitaph in four short tales. You decide whether you'd ever let Nifft get close to you without sequestering everything valuable in a safe place first. Why...

Footprints Of Thunder (Thunder)

by James F. David

This book was made into a movie, and a pretty good one at that, though by necessity not as complex and in-depth as the book. Crichton does have a habit of going maybe just a bit too far with his desire to ensure verisimi...