An exceptional science-fiction story is more than clever entertainment. It can launch readers into fantastic settings and exciting events while also forcing deeper considerations of reality, possibilities, and looming dangers. The following five science-fiction novels make my shortlist of must-reads for people who love a good story but also appreciate walking away with wonderfully irritating philosophical queries and concerns.
These books are so loaded with timely content that you may find yourself highlighting or underlining every other sentence. For example, while editing my book Damn You, Entropy! 1001 of the Greatest Science Fiction Quotes, I struggled to keep the entries from each of these novels to a reasonable number.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly (1818): Is the Father of Science Fiction a young woman? Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 18, and it was published when she was 20. This 19th-century classic opens doorways into several present-day issues and sparks big questions. Who determines when science goes too far? Is there a line between human and nonhuman? If so, where is it? What does it mean to be a “different kind of human”? What is life, and if we were to create it in a lab, would that make us gods? What would an intelligent outsider, organic or otherwise, think of our crime, poverty, prejudices, and violence?
“For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust and loathing.” ―The Monster in ‘Frankenstein’
The Humans by Matt Haig (2013): Woven into this brilliant and beautiful story of a lonely extraterrestrial far from home is what reads like an interstellar anthropologist’s ethnography of the universe’s weirdest species—humans. There are plenty of heart-wrenching and heartwarming moments to satisfy readers. But there is a consistent tug toward a sharper and more mature perspective on our own humanity, too.
“I was lonely, but at the same time I appreciated other humans a bit more than they appreciated themselves. After all, I knew you could journey for light-years and not come across a single one.” ―The extraterrestrial in ‘The Humans’
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953): Millions of young people are forced to read this novel every school year (except where banned, of course). Perhaps you were one of the quiet rebels who skimmed it half-heartedly in protest of the educational hierarchy’s literary bullying, or maybe you simply found it irrelevant to your life in that time and place. If so, please try again. Published in 1953, Bradbury’s classic tale is packed with important thoughts and warnings for us right now.
Fahrenheit 451 is still under fire, regularly threatened today with being banned, censored, or redacted, and this includes in some “free nations” where authoritarian-wannabes and their illiberal or anti-democratic followers want to control what you read and, thus, what you think. Bradbury’s message that books matter even more when technology threatens to overwhelm us also resonates today as we plunge deeper every day into a new high-speed, high-stakes world of AI-powered manipulation and propaganda.
“Those who don’t build must burn.” ―’Fahrenheit 451′
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895): This extraordinarily imaginative story created the time-travel subgenre of science fiction. Its enduring popularity also helped turn the bizarre notion of moving through time at will into a respectable idea for physicists to investigate. The late Stephen Hawking declared, for example, that even if time travel were impossible, we still would need to understand why we can’t do it. In addition, the story challenges readers to contemplate class, income inequality, war, and humankind’s evolutionary future.
The Time Machine and its numerous literary, film, and television progeny can inspire all of us to think more deeply about the slippery concept of time. Most may believe they understand it, but no one does. Time is the most frequently used noun in the English language. Nonetheless, a coherent and complete definition eludes us.
“Upon that machine,” said the Time Traveler, holding the lamp aloft, “I intend to explore time.” ―’The Time Machine’
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932): Aldous Huxley’s most famous work packs a profound punch to the neocortex for all of us trapped in this current moment of history. Hypnotized by advertising, caged by algorithms, and cajoled into trading time and dignity for shallow highs and superficial comfort, we may be getting very close to the precipice of something like Huxley’s Brave New World. Some might argue that we’re already there.
This book raises many important questions for our time, including this one: Who needs violence and jackbooted thugs if people will do anything you want so long as you sedate them with attractive lies and feel-good nonsense? Published in 1932, Huxley’s story contains or hints at these timely topics: artificial intelligence, excessive use of legal drugs, genetic engineering, trading freedom for comfort, convenience, or security, the power of distraction, and more.
Brave New World will leave you asking many questions and then worrying about your answers. Why read a book when you have so many streaming services? Why do the hard work of creating something when shopping is so much easier? Why start a conversation with a stranger when you can just order a date with an app? Why bother thinking or exploring when a chatbot is waiting to answer all your questions? Thanks to Huxley, we can’t say we weren’t warned.
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” ―’Brave New World’