Science Fiction - classically?

[El...]

I've googled and searched and didn't find what I'm looking for yet, but please direct me if I've just missed it!  Is there a booklist in the style of TWEM for science fiction?  

 

I found this wiki page, and it's interesting that they started with Utopia (Thomas More), but it's huge.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_science_fiction 

[Lori D.]

Just an aside, and JMO, but I think it's perfectly fine to enjoy some classics when the student is *ready* for them, regardless of where they "fit" with the chronological timeline, rather than trying to match *everything* up to history. You can make a lot of very interesting comparisons and parallels that way, and have some great discussions. 🙂

Other options are to do Sci-Fi either as it's own unit (even up to a year-long focus on Sci-Fi Lit.), or to blend the classic works of Sci-Fi in with other Modern classics, as the vast majority of classic Sci-Fi was written from 1860s-present day. And only a handful of works are from the 1800s — Sci-Fi really kicked off with the "pulp" fiction magazines and sci-fi short stories from the Golden Age of Sci-Fi (1930s-1960)

In fact, there was so little Sci-Fi written prior to the 20th century, that it was not even thought of as its own stand-alone Literature genre until around 1950. Prior to that, it was considered to be a sub-genre under the Fantasy genre -- which also wasn't really considered its own stand-alone genre until the 19th century, when there were finally enough works to consider it as a stand-alone.

All that said... Are you looking for a list of *classic* works of Sci-Fi to include in your Literature studies? There is a Teaching Company lecture series that covers movements in Sci-Fi and major works in each movement (How Great Science Fiction Works), so that might be a starting point for building a list. There are a number of Sci-Fi fans on this board who could also provide lists of what we feel are classics that you could choose from. 😉  Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Lori D.

[El...]

Hi Lori D!  I was hoping you would see this thread, because I love your posts of lists.  

 

I'm making this list for my own use, first, and then will integrate it into high school for the kids (my oldest is 10, so not there yet).  

 

First, I don't know what I have missed out on!  I've read CS Lewis's Space Trilogy, Dracula, and Frankenstein (a long time ago).  I've read a lot of Orson Scott Card.  I just read The Left Hand of Darkness because of another thread here, and my mind is blown.  I'd never heard of Ursula le Guin.  

 

Second, I really enjoyed reading through TWEM's novels list in order.  It showed me how our popular concept of what it means to live a fulfilling life has evolved over time.  Amazing.  

 

So, I'd like to do something like that with science fiction.  The wiki list is crazy long, and I don't know which ones are amazing and not to be missed.  Maybe I need others' favorites, and then to just put them in order.  

 

I'd love recommendations and any links to others' lists.  I like the link you posted above; I'm pulling authors out of the syllabus now.  

[El...]

Oh, and yes to giving kids books when they are ready for them.  Absolutely. 

[Lori D.]

Here are some past threads with ideas of sci-fi books to consider:

book list idea threads:
"Classic science fiction recs -- Wells, Verne, etc."
"Need suggestions for clean sci-fi books/authors"
"Narrowing down a Sci-Fi list"
"What is your favorite political Sci-Fi type books"
"Dystopian novels"
"Utopian and Dystopian literature"

making a DIY study:
"Dystopian society or sci-fi literature study for middle school?"
"Science Fiction unit"
"Science Fiction"
"Roots of Steampunk literature"
"Anybody know of a Fantasy and Science Fiction literature course?"

book list idea for tweens/younger teens
"Sci-Fi theme for 8th grade literature?"
"Book suggestions for Science Fiction for 12yo"
"Science Fiction recommendations" (for a 13yo girl) -- a number of classics AND casual reading titles
"Science Fiction for a 14yo boy" -- more ideas of titles for just for fun reading

Great Books Sci-Fi and Dystopian lecture series:
Chrysalis Academy has been working through one of those two Great Books courses (How Science Fiction Works, and, Great Utopian and Dystopian Works) -- here's a thread from last spring with some interesting discussion about it, and more book ideas: Great Utopian and Dystopian Works of Literature by the Great Courses. In that thread she links to her Good Books list of Sci-Fi titles and list of Dystopian Lit., so that might be another good list to look at. 😉 And here's a thread with a review: "Great Courses How Science Fiction Works".

Edited November 8, 2019 by Lori D.

[El...]

Wow!  Thank you very much.  

[Lori D.]

On 3/7/2018 at 2:02 AM, elroisees said:

... The wiki list is crazy long, and I don't know which ones are amazing and not to be missed.  Maybe I need others' favorites, and then to just put them in order.  

Just from that Wikipedia list, and TOTALLY JMO, here are titles I would suggest are ones to consider reading, with the titles in [brackets] as optional/lighter fare. I also left off a few classics with more adult content (Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series) that you might want to preview first.

Also, the Wikipedia list misses out on a lot of classic authors/works -- BUT, it does include some key Sci-Fi movies that you'd want to include in a Sci-Fi study.

However, the list ALSO includes some very worthwhile classics that really fall much more into the Fantasy genre (Dragonrider series by Anne McCaffrey) or Speculative Fiction genre (Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes or Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut).

All that said, here are some don't miss and some [supplement] classics from that Wikipedia list, separated by decade:

1800s
1818 - Frankenstein (Shelley)
1860s-1870s - something by Jules Verne
1886 - Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Lewis Stevenson)
[1888 - Looking Backward (Edward Bellamy)]

1890s-1910s - something by HG Wells (War of the Worlds, The Time Machine…)
[1907 - The Iron Heel (Jack London)]
[1912 - Lost World (Arthur Conan Doyle)]
[1910s-1920s - one of the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs]

1920s-1930s
[1924 - We (Yevgeny Zamyatin)]
1932 - Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
[1930s - one of the Lensmen series (E.E. Smith)]
1930s-1940s - space trilogy by C.S. Lewis 

1940s-1950s 
- something by Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers)
- something by Isaac Asimov (I, Robot; Foundation)
- something by Arthur C. Clark
1949 - Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell)

1950s
1950 - The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)
[1951 - The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)]
1953 - Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

1960s-1970s
- something by Phillip K. Dick
1960 - A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller)
1961 - Solaris (Stanislaw Lem)
1965 - Dune (Frank Herbert)
1969 - The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. LeGuin)
[1970 - Ringworld (Larry Niven)]
1978 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

1980s
1985 - The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
1985 - Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
[1989 - Hyperion (Dan Simmons)]

1990s
[1991 - Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton)]
[1992 - Doomsday Book (Connie Willis)]

2000s
2001 - Perdido Street Station (China Mieville) -- preview this
2008 - Anathem (Neal Stephenson)
2008 - Hunger Games (Collins)

These lists contain a lot of all don't-miss Sci-Fi classics (most were written between 1950-1990):
Top 100 Sci-Fi Books and Next 100 Sci-Fi Books
Top 100 Sci-Fi Short Fiction and Next 100 Sci-Fi Short Fiction

And the Golden Age of Science Fiction: Anthology of 50 Classic Short Stories will give you a good feel for Sci-Fi from mostly the 19330s-1960 — although most of the short stories in the anthology are not necessarily "classics" or "must reads". 😉

Edited January 17, 2021 by Lori D.

[El...]

Thanks so much!  To the library....

[Ravin]

Just from that Wikipedia list, and TOTALLY JMO, here are titles I would suggest are ones to consider reading, with the titles in [brackets] as optional/lighter fare. I also left off a few classics with more adult content (Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series) that you might want to preview first.

 

Also, the Wikipedia list misses out on a lot of classic authors/works -- BUT, it does include some key Sci-Fi movies that you'd want to include in a Sci-Fi study.

 

However, the list ALSO includes some very worthwhile classics that really fall much more into the Fantasy genre (Dragonrider series by Anne McCaffrey) or Speculative Fiction genre (Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes or Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut).

 

All that said, here are some don't miss and some [supplement] classics from that Wikipedia list, separated by decade:

 

1818 - Frankenstein (Shelley)

 

1860s-1870s - something by Jules Verne

 

1886 - Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Lewis Stevenson)

[1888 - Looking Backward (Edward Bellamy)]

 

1890s-1900s - something by HG Wells (War of the Worlds, The Time Machine…)

[1907 - The Iron Heel (Jack London)]

 

[1912 - Lost World (Arthur Conan Doyle)]

[1910s-1920s - one of the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs]

 

[1924 - We (Yevgeny Zamyatin)]

 

1932 - Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

[1930s - one of the Lensmen series (E.E. Smith)]

 

1930s-1940s - space trilogy by C.S. Lewis 

 

1940s-1950s 

- something by Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers)

- something by Isaac Asimov (I, Robot; Foundation)

- something by Arthur C. Clark

 

1949 - Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell)

 

1950 - The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)

[1951 - The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)]

1953 - Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

 

1960s-1970s

- something by Phillip K. Dick

 

1960 - A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller)

1961 - Solaris (Stanislaw Lem)

1965 - Dune (Frank Herbert)

1969 - The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. LeGuin)

 

[1970 - Ringworld (Larry Niven)]

1978 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

 

1985 - The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)

1985 - Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)

[1989 - Hyperion (Dan Simmons)]

 

[1991 - Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton)]

[1992 - Doomsday Book (Connie Willis)]

 

2001 - Perdido Street Station (China Mieville) -- preview this

 

 

These lists contain a lot of all don't-miss Sci-Fi classics (most were written between 1950-1990):

Top 100 Sci-Fi Books and Next 100 Sci-Fi Books

Top 100 Sci-Fi Short Fiction and Next 100 Sci-Fi Short Fiction

 

And the Golden Age of Science Fiction: Anthology of 50 Classic Short Stories will give you a good feel for Sci-Fi from mostly the 19330s-1960 — although most of the short stories in the anthology are not necessarily "classics" or "must reads". ;)

 

I get leaving of Xenogenesis, but I would include Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.

And I agree you should have some short fiction in there, rather than all novels. Science fiction really came into its own in the shorter forms.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Ravin

[Lori D.]

On 3/7/2018 at 4:18 PM, Ravin said:

I get leaving of Xenogenesis, but I would include Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.

And I agree you should have some short fiction in there, rather than all novels. Science fiction really came into its own in the shorter forms.

I wasn't familiar with Parable of the Sower, just Xenogenesis, so good to know. 🙂

Yes... I think that Wikipedia article left off a LOT of what I personally would consider to be classic or key sci-fi... A project for another day ;) : build my own list of classic Sci-Fi with a brief note of how it fits in with its times, or what it was commenting on, or why it was so pivotal... 🙂

Edited November 8, 2019 by Lori D.

[ktgrok]

Just wanted to add that some of the best science fiction was written in short story format. You might want to pick up a few collections and sift through them. My favorites are Nightfall by Asimov (there is a novel by the same name, you want the short story...it's much better. The novel is an adaptation by another author) and All Summer in a Day by Bradbury. They'd be good to read one after the other, as both have common themes, but flipped. 

 

But if you did nothing else, make sure to cover Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke.