"Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke

An advanced alien race arrives at Earth in the 1970's, bringing peace and prosperity to humanity through the promotion of equality and justice, animal rights, and an end to armed conflict. The aliens (referred to as "overlords") are secretive about their purpose and origin, which remains a mystery until the latter part of the novel, where it is revealed that humans are a "chosen" race capable of transcendence into a higher state of being or evolution, and that the overlords are there to witness and provide support to the human race during the transformation, themselves overseen by an even more advanced alien entity, the "overmind".

The story is told through a series of characters spanning approximately 150 years including, Rikki Stormgren, the secretary general of the united nations, George Greggson and Jean Morrel, the parents of the first child to experience transcendence and Jan Rodericks, an adventurous astronomer who stows away on an overlord starship bound for the overlord homeworld and becomes the last human being alive. Generally speaking, Clarke's characters are fairly uninteresting and are really only there to move the larger-scale plot along, i.e. a hypothetical account of advanced aliens visiting Earth in peace. The story starts off pretty slow; I found most of the first half of the novel fairly uninspiring; it didn't seem to go anywhere, except to build up the suspense behind the overlords revelling their physical form, which was a fairly ho-hum revelation. That said, things picked up towards the latter part of the book, where the epic scope makes for very interesting reading. Aspects of the book felt a bit dated, such as Clarke's adamance about gender and racial equality following humanity's enlightenment only to be followed be gender-stereotypical interactions between the characters (i.e. George's affair, Maia (Jan's sister) as the object of desire at the dinner party, Clarke's commentary on marriage and men/women through his characters).

Overall "Childhood's End" was mostly an easy read and nice and short. I'm glad I've read it, at least to have a background knowledge of what is considered one of the best science fiction stories (at least historically).

I found some really cool conceptual art for the novel here.

"Ubik" by Philip K. Dick

"Ubik" is based in a near future world with "half-life", where the dying are placed in a state of suspended animation, and can be "switched-on" to talk to via radio and microphone, until inevitably "worn-out", when they proceed into full-death. Telepaths and pre-cogs (able to predict small distances into the future) are hired to infiltrate organisations and steal secrets; at odds with "prudence" organisation, that hire/rent anti-telepaths and anti-pre-cogs (known as inertials) that nullify the talents of their opponents.

Glen Runciter is the head of one of the largest prudence organisation and is contracted to a job on a Luna base along with eleven of his best inertials and Joe Chip, a non-inertial technician and second in charge of the company. The job is a setup (presumably arranged by business rival Ray Hollis), and an android-bomb explodes in proximity of the group, mortally-wounding Runciter. Joe Chip and the other inertials attempt to save Runciter into a state of half-life, but have difficulty establishing a connection, while aspects of their own reality begin to warp; Glen Runciter appears on live television commercials, one-sided phone calls and on the money they find in their wallets while other objects in the universe such as cigarettes, coffee and electronics decay rapidly or revert into antiquated forms.

After several of the group start to be "killed-off" through a process of rapid decay, it is revealed that in fact Joe Chip and the other inertial died during the explosion and the sole-survivor Glen Runciter has been trying to revive them all into half-life. The mysterious killings are the work of another half-lifer, a young-boy Jory, who resides in the Beloved Brethren Moratorium with the suspended bodies of the group, and invades/devours the half-life souls of other residents. As the other inertials are overwhelmed by Jory, Joe Chip is assisted by the half-life soul of Ella Runciter (Glen's long dead wife, who also resides at the Moratorium) who has leant to resist Jory (and other half-lifers of his kind) through the use of "Ubik", an all-powerful, life restoring force, manifested in several forms one of which is an aerosol spray-can.

Philip K. Dick is really miles ahead of any other sf writer for his imagination and ability to make strangeness and seemingly crazy concepts and ideas into completely convincing, enjoyable parts of the plot. I love the subtle humour of the book; financially-irresponsible Joe Chip and his arguments with his all-talking, all-thinking automatic front door which demands a five-cent tip for every time he uses it. The reality-bending of the book is great; I particularly liked how one of the inertials, Pat Conley has the ability to change events that happened in the past and does so to make herself married to and then not married to Joe Chip. The characters are great, particularly Chip. There is a certain oddity in the dialogue between the characters that ties in so well to the strangeness of the rest of the book. I think Dick did a better job of building tension towards the climax at the end of the book than perhaps in his other books (i.e. Electric Sheep). I really felt like I was choking while reading the entire stair-climbing scene with Joe and Pat.

Negative aspects of the book? Very little to complain about. The only thing I can think of is perhaps that there are some small loose ends in the plot or development of ideas, i.e. why does Pat suddenly get a surname? what is the relevance of Joe's realisation that the faux-1939 reality will be very difficult to live in and the surrounding ideas that are opened up but then never really finished? is this intentional?

Read this novel.

"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

"Fahrenheit 451" is set in a dystopian future where advertising and television aggressively pervade everyday life, people don't vote or question their government, where the USA is in a perpetual state of war with an unspecified superpower, and people's everyday lives are deeply affected by a sense of ambivalence and detachment (in some ways too close to the real state of the present world). Also, books are out-lawed and a special team of "firemen" are tasked with unquestioningly destroying all books on sight (by burning them) and sending book owners/hoarders/readers to gaol. The central protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman who through a series of though-provoking experiences (his acquaintance with Clarisse, a new neighbour who is "different", his wife, Mildred's attempted suicide and the self-immolation of a book-hoarder in her house upon his team's discovery of her illegal collection) questions and challenges the state of his dystopian society. Guy secretly begins to hoard books himself and is eventual exposed by his fire-chief, Beatty, whom Guy murders, beginning a large-scale (and cynically-televised) manhunt for his capture. Guy manages to evade the authorities (with the help of a book-hoarder, Faber) on the eve of the outbreak of a large-scale war that is hinted-at throughout the novel, which destroys Guy's home-city (and the pursuing authorities) hours after Guy escapes into the countryside.

A great book! Really clever and particularly engaging given the all-to-close to home nature of the dystopian future Guy Montag lives in. Guy is a particularly well-written protagonist, and I found it very easy to share his feelings of frustration in the maddening world around him. I thoroughly enjoyed Mildred, who was the embodiment of everything dysfunctional with Guy's society, and Beatty, who was the embodiment of those in power who enforced the status quo (what a brilliant villain!). Bradbury's writing is very accessible, I can see why it's such a popular text in school english. Bradbury does a great job of building up the climax towards the end of the novel during Guy's manhunt, I found I couldn't put the book down from this point on until the end!

It's really very difficult to criticise anything in this book. Definitely a must read.

"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card

Ender Wiggin is a child genius recruited into a program to develop children into starship battle commanders, to fight a war against an alien race, the Formics, otherwise referred to colloquially as the "buggers". The novel follows his experiences at the battle school, where he develops into the star pupil, attracting the jealousy of some of his classmates. He eventually graduates from battle school and is provided final training at command school where he leads a group of his more friendly, talented classmates in battle simulations against the buggers. He completes the final training challenge where it is revealed the "simulations" were in fact real battles fought against the real enemy via remote control, and that the war is over and Ender is responsible for the genocide of the buggers.

On a positive note, the story is generally interesting; the exploration into the psychology of military school training and the art of war is fascinating (I guess I can see why this is a recommended text for the USMC (along with "Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein)). Card's writing style provides a good pace to the novel, keeps the reader engaged and makes the book generally very easy to read. From this perspective I can see why "Ender's Game" has been typically voted the best science fiction novel of all-time for it's popular appeal.

On a negative note the characters are generally nothing special. Ender is uncomfortably likeable at the best of times but generally annoying at the worst (particularly towards the end of the book in his despair after his revelation). Other characters are generally two-dimensional. There are some interesting essays criticising Card's supposed justification for the violent actions of some of his characters (see Elaine Radford's review, "Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman" and John Kessel's essay "Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality"). These focus around the assertion that Card appears to be trying to convince the reader that intentions, and only intentions, rather than actions or consequences, are morally-judgeable.

Overall "Ender's Game" is a very entertaining read, and should be on every sci-fi lovers reading list, if at least for being in-the-know.

"The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. Le Guin

Shevek is a brilliant theoretical physicist from the anarchist planet of Annares who, tiring of the stifling impediments on his progress imposed by the society he lives in, decides to travel to the neighbouring planet of Urras with it's hierarchical and authoritarian society to continue his life's work. On Annares, Shevek found only apathy for his work and struggled against jealous colleagues. On Urras, Shevek discovers a new kind of "freedom" allowing him to fulfil his work but at the cost of him being subject to the political motivations of those in power within his host government of A-Io and the opposing revolutionists within the powerless, lower classes of Urras society. Shevek finds himself embroiled in bloody war and revolution, circumstances which he has trouble comprehending, coming from his anarchist upbringing. Amidst the turmoil, Shevek completes his paradigm-revolutionising work on the "Principle of Simultaneity" sharing the results with both planets, before returning home to face an uncertain future within his society on Annares.

The novel moves back and forward between Shevek's life on Annares, prior to his leaving, and his life on Urras in two chronological threads. Each thread weaves a consistent climax towards the end of the novel; on Annares, the chapters follow Shevek's increasing disillusionment with his anarchist society culminating in his decision to travel to Urras; on Urras, the chapters follow the growing political unrest following his presence on Urras, leading to completion of his work and his return home. Le Guin is an extremely intelligent writer, and creates fantastically believable politics and societies on both worlds. The book does a great job of exploring the complexities of how an anarchist society might function, which I found fascinating. Shevek is a top-notch protagonist; perhaps not as vibrant as other great central characters but I found that his quiet subtleties somehow made it easier to absorb some of the deeper ideas in the book. Takver (Shevek's partner and the mother of his daughter on Annares) is an absolute cracker of a character! It's somewhat sad that good female characters in science fiction are rarer than their male counterparts, particularly in older novels; I wouldn't go as far to say "The Dispossessed" is feminist science fiction as some do (it certainly explores feminist themes), but theres definitely a realistic gender-balance in the portrayal of the characters.

The only negative aspect I could possibly imagine is that the pace of the novel is a little on the pensive side, however, in my slightly biased opinion, I loved this (being a big fan of Kim Stanley Robinson, who I now realise must have had at least some degree of inspiration from Le Guin).

Overall, "The Dispossessed" is highly recommended and has creeped into my favourites list. I'm looking forward to reading more Le Guin; "The Left Hand of Darkness" awaits on the list.

"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess

"A Clockwork Orange" is told from the first-person perspective of anti-hero Alex, a classical music-loving juvenile delinquent living in a crime and social-ill-ridden near future. Alex tells his story in the slang of his generation, Nadsat, making the book difficult to read at first, but very effective as the reader becomes familiar with the terminology. Alex and his gang of Droogs (friends) indulge in a life of drug-taking, bullying, violent assault, fighting with opposing gangs, home invasion and rape, which comes to a halt when Alex is betrayed by jealous gang-member Dim, and caught red-handed during a bungled robbery in which Alex unwittingly kills an elderly woman. Alex is sent to prison where he is selected to take part in an experimental rehabilitation program, the "Ludovico Technique", a form of Pavlovian conditioning which forces Alex to watch ultra-violent films while causing him feelings of pain and sickness. Alex is released back into society and is no longer able to perform violent or sexist acts without a conditioned response of pain. As a side-effect Alex also feels pain when listening to his beloved classical music. Alex is taken in by a seemingly-benevolent, anti-government group who seek to use Alex to further their political agenda, seeking public sympathy for the poor state the Ludovico technique has left him in. Coincidentally, one of the group is a previous home invasion victim of Alex and his Droogs, who gradually recognises Alex through his voice and therefore plots revenge with others in the group by arranging Alex to be locked in a room playing classical music, forcing Alex to jump from a window, killing two-birds with one stone (revenge and political objectives via Alex as a martyr). However, Alex survives his fall and is taken to hospital where the government arranges for treatments which reverse his conditioning, returning him to his original, violent self.

A really good book. The use of first-person perspective in Alex's nadsat is particularly effective in adding colour to the story, and made it really unique and an interesting read. "A Clockwork Orange" is a dark and cynical novel and I really liked it's gritty nature. That said, it's very violent and sometimes difficult to read, particularly Alex's descriptions of his violent acts, both for the act itself and the use of nadsat in it's description which heightens the sense of Alex's sociopathic nature. Therefore not for the faint-hearted.

The version of the book I read is a reprint of the american print, in which the final chapter (present in the british print) has been left out. In this chapter, years have past and Alex reflects on his violent behaviour remorsefully. Apparently Burgess was unhappy about this edit, claiming the alternative ending glorified Alex's behaviour; interestingly it was this print of the book which was most popular. Personally I found the ending somewhat dark, however there was a touch of poetic justice against the system which had sort to remove Alex's free-will to perform violent acts; the novel certainly does not glorify Alex's behaviour but perhaps the futility in state control over the individual.

"Babel-17" by Samuel R. Delany

Set in a far future where humanity is engaged in an interstellar war against "invaders", the novel opens as an alliance military general engages the services of ex-intelligence officer-turned-poet, Rydra Wong, to assist in deciphering an enemy code, referred to as "babel-17", which has been associated with several instances of enemy sabotage. Rydra discovers that the code is in fact a language, unlike anything seen before and from partially deciphering intercepted transmissions, determines the location of the next planned attack. After requisitioning a starship to travel to the next target, Rydra assembles a crew composed of a part-human-part-animal pilot, a menage-a-trois team of navigators, discorporate ghosts, a slug and a ragtag platoon of first-time travellers. Rydra continues to decode the mysterious language and after the assassination of a high-ranking alliance weapons-developer (by his own genetically-engineered spy-bot), the crew of Rydra's ship experience an increasingly dangerous series of acts of sabotage to their own ship, which can only be attributed to somebody in the crew. After one of these acts, the crew is knocked unconscious and the ship set adrift. The crew are rescued when discovered by a band of roaming mercenaries, amongst which Rydra meets "Butcher", a mysterious figure who does not understand the concept of "I", similarly to the lack of the same concept in the language Rydra continues to decode. Eventually, with the help of her crew, Rydra discovers that the language itself is the element of sabotage developed by the enemy; by learning to speak and think babel-17, the structure of the language causes it's interpreter to participate in self-destructive behaviour, and that Rydra was responsible for the acts of sabotage to her ship.

The novel explores the concept of linguistic relativity, that is that the structure of a language affects the way in which the speaker thinks and constructs their world view. The novel considers an extreme form of linguistic relativity which was considered a plausible theory of psychology when the book was written in the 1960s but is now considered less plausible. This was a really interesting aspect of the book; Delany does a good job of exploring this concept without being too heavy-handed and getting in the way of the story.

"Babel-17" is a strange book, and I didn't quite know how to take it. Delany paints a colourful backdrop to the story including discorporate ghost worlds, progressive three person sexual relationships and alternative underground cultures including body manipulation. A lot of this was really interesting but also a lot of it didn't quite hit the mark of plausibility for me (i.e. pregnant women chosen as pilots because they have fast reflexes? .. I'm not so sure). This flavour of bizarre world wasn't exactly my cup of tea (I much prefer the strangeness of authors such as Philip K. Dick), however I think there are a lot of readers out there who would like it, so I would recommend adding it to your list, also because it's short and well-paced.

"Ringworld" by Larry Niven

The story opens with Louis Wu, a 200 year-old earthling living in the year 2850, enjoying his birthday by teleporting his way westerly around the globe from city to city to extend his birthday celebrations. Louis lives in a future where mankind has extended human life indefinitely through the use of "boosterspice", has colonised the surrounding stars and maintains civil relations with a number of other alien races. One of these races, the "Pierson's Puppeteers", have discovered a giant, ancient alien artefact while quietly migrating out of the galaxy (after discovering an astronomical phenomena in the centre of the milky-way that they believe will consume the galaxy in approximately 20,000 years). Nessus, a representative of the Puppeteers, recruits Louis to pilot an exploration mission to the artefact including two other crew members; Teela, an extremely lucky human female and "Speaker-to-animals", a "Kzin" (an large warrior cat-like alien).

The "artefact" is an enormous ribbon-ring structure approximately 600 million miles in circumference and a million miles wide which orbits a home star. Along the entire surface of the ring is a world, facing towards the sun, containing land, water, a bio-sphere and breathable atmosphere. After crash-landing on the surface of the ring (shot down by a meteor-defence system), the four explorers make their way across the ringworld trying to discover its original engineers, the purpose for building it and a way to re-launch their spacecraft home. The explorers encounter ruins and a technologically-regressed civilisation that religiously worships the ring. Eventually, after much exploring and encountering strange phenomena such floating cities and a field of sunflowers that fires laser beams (go figure), the explorers discover a giant mountain that turns out to be a hole punctured through the bottom of the ringworld, left when they crash-landed, and they use this to launch their spacecraft from the ringworld and return home.

Generally speaking, "Ringworld" is really not a great read. There is a lot that doesn't make sense, i.e. the notion of breeding genetically-associated "luck" by the Puppeteers, which was pretty unconvincing. The characters were generally boring; Teela was a horrible two-dimensional cardboard cut-out, and Nessus and Speaker were contradictory and confusing (to be fair, I guess there was perhaps a little bit of charm in their bizarre alien behaviour). That said, if you kind of skip over the ho-hum start of the novel and the sections on the ringworld that get a bit weird (I bring your attention again to laser-shooting sun-flowers), the concept of the ringworld itself is pretty amazing. It is the fascinating and sheer awe-inspiring scale that comes out of the notion of the ringworld itself that is the really interesting bit of the book. If you are a die-hard sf fan with time on your hands then, yes read this book, otherwise probably don't.

The List

What I've collected of the list so far ...

I've always been a bit of fan of science fiction literature since high school and recently I decided that I should familiarise myself with the classics of the genre I haven't yet read. After finding a number of great science fiction review blogs, I decided I would set up my own, the idea being to record my thoughts and impression on the novels as I read them. I've found quite a lot of "top science fiction" lists online and after reading a few I decided to shortlist the ones that appeared frequently and set myself the task of reading them all one-by-one!

The list is composed of both books I've already read, but typically too long ago to remember them well, and those I've never read. Here's my starting list:



"Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
"Tau Zero" by Poul Anderson
"I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
"Foundation" by Isaac Asimov (read)
"The End of Eternity" by Isaac Asimov
"Eon" by Greg Bear (read)
"The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester
"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
"The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
"Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner
"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess
"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card
"The Yiddish Policeman's Union" by Michael Chabon
"Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke
"Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke
"A Fall of Moondust" by Arthur C. Clarke
"2001: A Space Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke
"Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline
"Babel-17" by Samuel R. Delany
"The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick
"Ubik" by Philip K. Dick
"Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" by Philip K. Dick
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick (read)
"A Scanner Darkly" by Philip K. Dick
"Neuromancer" by William Gibson
"The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman
"Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein
"Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein
"Dune" by Frank Herbert
"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
"Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes
"The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. Le Guin
"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
"Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem
"A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller
"The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger
"Ringworld" by Larry Niven
"1984" by George Orwell
"Gateway" by Frederik Pohl
"The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars)" by Kim Stanley Robinson (read)
"The Years of Rice and Salt" by Kim Stanley Robinson (read)
"Air" by Geoff Ryman
"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
"Hyperion" by Dan Simmons
"The Rediscovery of Man" by Cordwainer Smith
"Last and First Men" by Olaf Stapledon
"Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson
"Twenty-thousand Leagues under the Sea" by Jules Verne
"A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge
"Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
"Cat’s Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut
"The Time Machine" by H. G. Wells (read)
"The War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells (read)
"Spin" by Robert Charles Wilson
"The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham (read)
"The Chrysalids" by John Wyndham

Update (04/08/2012): I've added four more titles after a bit more searching ("Neuromancer" by William Gibson, "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley, "Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson and "Twenty-thousand Leagues under the Sea" by Jules Verne).

Fifty-seven titles in total of which I've read eight! Most of the titles were written in the last fifty years with a few, such as "The Time Traveler's Wife", "Air", "Spin", "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" and "Ready Player One", being very recent; I decided to add these five because they have consistently been well-received in other reviews and will perhaps be regarded as classics in future years (I'll see if I agree after I read them!). I will add more to the list as I begin to read.