Mr David Thompson is the lucky winner of our competition to win a set of the recovered SF Masterworks. In no particular order he has chosen the following as his Top Ten SF Titles ever.
1/ H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds - the gentle Victorian narrative brings the full horror of alien invasion to the fore.
2/ John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids - another alien invasion but the battle does not begin until humanity is rendered helpless. Again, the horror is brought to the fore by making humanity vulnerable.
3/ Robert Anson Heinlein, I Will Fear No Evil - Brain transplantation and soul assimilation. Perhaps the one novel that could properly introduce the reader to the wondrous Worlds of R.A.H.
4/ Robert Anson Heinlein, The Number of The Beast - travel through the three axes of time and discover the universe that exists out there. My favourite Science Fiction novel of all time and one to which I can return time after time. Each of the four main characters take turns as narrators and the reader is given something new with each reading.
5/ Isaac Asimov, I, Robot - Could any Science Fiction collection be complete without the book that gave us the Three Laws of Robotics. Whilst strictly a compendium of short stories this is the book that must be allowed the status of novel and entry to the selection.
6/ Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness - Probably the novel that said women too have a place in Science Fiction writing. Not comfortable for a robust male to accept the novel questions mainstream Science Fiction masculinity not least by making the human the aggressor-alien invader.
7/ Matthew Reilly, The Contest - The first of the 'Kinetic Novels'. Literally non-stop action from beginning to end. It's pace is such that to put the book down is to press the pause button. The book that may bring 'gamers' back to novels.
8/ Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Proof that not all aliens want to subjugate us - some just want us out of the way - nor that they all have vastly greater intellect than us mere humans. Wonderfully funny, strange and at times seemingly incomprehensible this is not the first Science Fiction comedy-novel but it is almost certainly the best.
9/ Fred Hoyle, The Black Cloud - Written very nearly fifty years ago this is still the novel that will have the reader reaching for abacus/slide-rule/calculator/PDA. Everything is logical and therefore so is an cloud that is an alien intelligence. Dark, subtle and enigmatic, the thinking person's 'The Fog'.
10/ Timothy Zahn, The Cobra Trilogy (Cobra, Cobra Strike & Cobra Bargain) - Strictly not a single novel but Cobras Two (1992) is the omnibus edition which permits its/their inclusion. The soldier of the future, surgically improved with skeletal, visual and aural enhancements leads initially to a supersoldier but over time causes the natural body to degrade quicker. This symbiotic relationship is juxtaposed with the very open symbiosis of one of the COBRA enemy.
H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds
John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids
Robert Anson Heinlein, I Will Fear No Evil
Robert Anson Heinlein, The Number of The Beast
Isaac Asimov, I, Robot
Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Matthew Reilly, The Contest
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Fred Hoyle, The Black Cloud
Timothy Zahn, The Cobra Trilogy
What do you think of this selection?
Have you read any of the novels?
I really loved these choices. A mix of the well known and fairly obscure - I definitely going to pick up some of these .
Posted by: Adam | January 23, 2007 at 01:32 PM