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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Frankenstein<\/strong> 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 \u201cdifferent kind of human\u201d? 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<\/a>, poverty, prejudices, and violence?<\/p>\n \u201cFor 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.\u201d \u2015The Monster in ‘Frankenstein’<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The Humans<\/strong> by Matt Haig (2013): Woven into this brilliant and beautiful story of a lonely<\/a> extraterrestrial far from home is what reads like an interstellar anthropologist\u2019s ethnography of the universe\u2019s weirdest species\u2014humans. 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI 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.\u201d \u2015The extraterrestrial in ‘The Humans’<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Fahrenheit<\/strong> 451<\/strong> 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\u2019s literary bullying<\/a>, or maybe you simply found it irrelevant to your life in that time and place. If so, please try again. Published in 1953, Bradbury\u2019s classic tale is packed with important thoughts and warnings for us right now.<\/p>\n Fahrenheit 451 is still under fire, regularly threatened today with being banned, censored, or redacted, and this includes in some \u201cfree nations\u201d where authoritarian-wannabes and their illiberal or anti-democratic followers want to control what you read and, thus, what you think. Bradbury\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThose who don\u2019t build must burn.\u201d \u2015’Fahrenheit 451′<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The Time Machine<\/strong> 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\u2019t do it. In addition, the story challenges readers to contemplate class, income inequality, war, and humankind\u2019s evolutionary future.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cUpon that machine,\u201d said the Time Traveler, holding the lamp aloft, \u201cI intend to explore time.\u201d \u2015’The Time Machine’<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Brave New World<\/strong> by Aldous Huxley (1932): Aldous Huxley\u2019s most famous work packs a profound punch to the neocortex for all of us trapped in this current moment of history. Hypnotized by advertising<\/a>, 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\u2019s Brave New World. Some might argue that we\u2019re already there.<\/p>\n\n
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