For readers a little tired of familiar stories, non-English science fiction is one of their best sources for new perspectives, ideas, and stories. From Polish great Stanislaw Lem (in my opinion, the best science fiction writer out there) to newcomers like Ryu Mitsuse from Japan, Ofir Touché Gafla from Israel, Khaled Towfik from Egypt, and Vandana Singh from India, people who have only read English-native science fiction are in for a treat when they broaden their global horizons.
Mary Shelley, Connie Willis, Margaret Atwood, Octavia E. Butler, Madeline L’Engle, Lois McMaster Bujold, Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin, Hiromu Arakawa
While hundreds of women published science fiction stories in the 1950s and earlier, it wasn’t until the 1960s—with its second-wave feminism (the first wave focused on suffrage and legal gender equality) and the sense that science fiction was a literature of ideas—that a large influx of female authors appeared on the scene.
Like many popular terms, “space opera” was coined as an insult. It’s based on “soap opera” (nothing to do with music) and its original meaning was a “hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn.”
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Alien invasions usually involve extraterrestrials arriving at Earth to destroy, enslave, or eat humans. It’s always humans, too—I’ve never read a story where the aliens were bent on destroying all squirrels.
Science fiction writers love sticking people in tiny metal cans and hurling them into environments where everything is trying to kill them, so it’s no surprise that some great SF books take place deep underwater, where exposure to the pressure kills people much faster than exposure to the vacuum of space.
On June 13, 2014, Reddit user sudevsen posed a question to the Books subreddit: What’s the best stand-alone science-fiction book of the last 25 years?
Reddit responded generously, including some titles that were older than 25 years (science fiction readers can be passionate, and if there’s a book you should read, by god they’re going to tell you, to hell with the rules).
sudevsen ended up with over 2,000 answers.
“Best” is a hugely subjective term, and not to be trusted. So here, “Best” means, “a consensus based on dozens of other lists, infused with my own personal bias.”
Sneak preview of forthcoming graphic novel.
Written almost 50 years ago, Dune is the world’s best-selling science fiction novel. As recently as 2012, the readers of Wired magazine voted it the top science fiction novel of all time. Continue reading