50 Essential Science Fiction Novels for a Public Library

[Green_Bean]

I knocked Oryx and Crake down a group (take that, Atwood!) and did the same with Perdido Street Station on the basis of being a little too far into fantasy and also I had to cut something. I added in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. With the previous addition of The Space Merchants. I’m back to 50.

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Your list, your rules, but if the focus is supposed to be on books and not on authors, I’d put several of his books–including Andromeda Strain–in SF.

I’m not disputing that he wrote many science fiction novels. The question is only whether any of his novels will go in group 2 of this list.

For what it’s worth, here is how I am conceptualizing the categories right now (subject to change, void if prohibited)

A1 - Must Haves, First Priority (50) [aka acquire all missing titles ASAP]
A2 - Must Haves, Second Priority (50) [aka acquire all missing titles as soon as reasonable]
B - Should Def Have In Collection (100-200) [Acquisition of missing titles is important]
C - Works a Comprehensive SF Collection should Contain [Acquire as good opportunities arise.]
D - Might be nice to have, but not strictly necessary. [Catchall category for items that don’t quite rise to the level of the above categories, but still should be “on the list.” Admittedly, the line between C and D is fuzzy]
E - Stuff I haven’t quite decided what to do with yet.

Most of the items on the list aren’t even in those categories yet. I’d like to at least get through the Bs. I don’t think C or D can really be nailed down, but I’m not worrying too much about them for now.

For all of this, assume I mean “in the library.” I’m disregarding where the items might be shelved. Fixing the shelving issues is a different can of worms. *

@JohnT

Don’t forget this isn’t a list of “essential SF novels” but a list of “essential SF novels that we have to budget for, and if we can get wedge some SF’ novels onto the budgets of the ‘mainstream’ books (like King, Rand, and Crichton), therefore allowing us to have more SF than the original budgeted-for 50, so much the better.”

That’s the way I’ve been understanding the rules…

I’m not sure 100% of what you’re saying here. Could you re-phrase?

• It’s not that certain authors are in reg fiction. It’s that a number of authors are split between sf and regular fiction.

[Boyo_Jim]

@Green_Bean

I knocked Oryx and Crake down a group (take that, Atwood!) and did the same with Perdido Street Station on the basis of being a little too far into fantasy and also I had to cut something. I added in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. With the previous addition of The Space Merchants. I’m back to 50.

I’m not disputing that he wrote many science fiction novels. The question is only whether any of his novels will go in group 2 of this list.

For what it’s worth, here is how I am conceptualizing the categories right now (subject to change, void if prohibited)

A1 - Must Haves, First Priority (50) [aka acquire all missing titles ASAP]
A2 - Must Haves, Second Priority (50) [aka acquire all missing titles as soon as reasonable]
B - Should Def Have In Collection (100-200) [Acquisition of missing titles is important]
C - Works a Comprehensive SF Collection should Contain [Acquire as good opportunities arise.]
D - Might be nice to have, but not strictly necessary. [Catchall category for items that don’t quite rise to the level of the above categories, but still should be “on the list.” Admittedly, the line between C and D is fuzzy]
E - Stuff I haven’t quite decided what to do with yet.

Most of the items on the list aren’t even in those categories yet. I’d like to at least get through the Bs. I don’t think C or D can really be nailed down, but I’m not worrying too much about them for now.

For all of this, assume I mean “in the library.” I’m disregarding where the items might be shelved. Fixing the shelving issues is a different can of worms. *

I’m not sure 100% of what you’re saying here. Could you re-phrase?

• It’s not that certain authors are in reg fiction. It’s that a number of authors are split between sf and regular fiction.

I interpreted it to mean that this list should be sci-fi books by authors you couldn’t fit into any other genre, for a dedicated sc-fi purchasing budget. If there are other sci-fi books you can slip into the library through some general fiction acquisition budget, like most of Crichton and some of King, better to ldo that and spend your limited sci-fi money on others.

[JohnT]

Yeah, sorry, was in a hurry when I typed that… :o

What Boyo said was accurate. For some reason (and this comes from half-assed reading this threads), I thought you were actually going to start a SF section in a small library. Thinking like a finance guy, any “SF” books you can purchase using non-SF earmarked funds is a bonus. Hence, no need to buy Crichton, King, Rand, etc with “SF funds” if they can be bought using “general fiction” funds.

[Malthus]

This one stood out for me:

Chabon, Michael - The Yiddish Policeman’s Union

I love that book, and I know it won science-fiction awards, but I do not think it is really science fiction. More an alt-history detective story.

[Green_Bean]

@JohnT

What Boyo said was accurate. For some reason (and this comes from half-assed reading this threads), I thought you were actually going to start a SF section in a small library. Thinking like a finance guy, any “SF” books you can purchase using non-SF earmarked funds is a bonus. Hence, no need to buy Crichton, King, Rand, etc with “SF funds” if they can be bought using “general fiction” funds.

Ah, I see where you’re coming from.

The impetus for making the list was to help my local public library fill in their science fiction offerings, as in “you need to have these 50. You have 38.* We need to find a way for you to get the remaining 12.” I think it would work just as well as a stocking list for a new library too. If the budgetary concerns that you mention came into play, you’d just subtract whatever the general fiction buyer would get. There’s little rhyme or reason as to what gets put into which section anyway, at least in my library, so which budget heading each book might fall under is just not worth worrying about.

• 38 is an estimate, not the actual number.

[Measure_for_Measure]

I spotted a graphic novel in Group 2: Moore, Alan and Gibbons, Dave - Watchmen. I think it’s a good choice for the token graphic novel and agree with its Group 2 placement. I’m going by the joint criteria of notoriety, influence and quality in that order.

Here are 3 possible alternatives:

Bryan Lee O’Malley: Scott Pilgrim, Book 1
Frank Miller: Daredevil, Born Again
Frank Miller: The Dark Knight Returns
Paul Chadwick: Concrete
I’d place Scott Pilgrim on list C. I’m a little uncomfortable characterizing superhero stuff as science fiction frankly, and I’d be inclined to leave them off all of the lists. I’m not even sure Scott Pilgrim qualifies for that matter.
If we could include anime (we can’t) I’d probably put Neon Genesis Evangelion on one of the lists. Also The Girl Who Leaped Through Time. Both have manga adaptations, but that’s really cheating.

Manga possibilities

Full Metal Alchemist. Note that the author doesn’t hit her stride until Volume 2. Also note that the whole series is 27 volumes. List C recommendation. Except maybe it’s fantasy.
Astro Boy by Tezuka - for list C
Black Jack by Tezuka
Akira
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Parasyte - list C
Chobits

Nausicaa and Akira are densely illustrated: they aren’t the easiest read actually. Parasyte is a little obscure frankly. Osamu Tezuka is considered the godfather of manga and his work had a lot of sci fi or fantasy settings. Then again so does most manga.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Iain M. Banks: Consider Phlebas (not my personal favorte though)

[Precambrianmollusc]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Iain M. Banks: Consider Phlebas (not my personal favorte though)

I agree a Banks book needs to be on this list. Consider Phlebas is my favorite, but probably not the one that needs to be there. I think **Use of Weapons ** is the right one, it covers the whole Culture pretty well and is early enough in his writings of the Culture that not having read Consider Phlebas and Player of Games would not be a big deal. The later ones, whilst not in a series as such , would be better if you had read the earlier ones. Use of Weapons is stand alone. Player of games is somewhat limited in the scope of places and events.

I prefer Consider Phlebas, but probably more because I found it refreshing and different , but he is still trying to work out the culture universe and the writing/pacing is not the tightest.

[Green_Bean]

Consider Phlebas is in the second group.

@Measure_for_Measure

I’d place Scott Pilgrim on list C. I’m a little uncomfortable characterizing superhero stuff as science fiction frankly, and I’d be inclined to leave them off all of the lists.

Are you counting Watchmen as superhero stuff? I don’t know that I really do, even though they sort of are, if that makes sense.

Meanwhile, I stopped by the library to see what was actually there and what section it was in. That info is available through the library website, but I thought I’d do a reality check. Most things were more or less where they were supposed to be.

I mentioned earlier that some authors are split between fiction and science fiction. I found that there were a ton of these and the splits didn’t seem to make much sense. For example, why would The Forever War be in fiction when there was other Haldeman in SF? This makes things much harder to find and also gives an incorrect impression to browsers.

Shelving issues aside, I counted how many of the first 50 they had available to borrow in book form. The answer is 38. That’s worse than I expected, but not completely tragic. Things went downhill fast with the second 50, however. They only had 21 of them. (I checked the second 50 through the catalog only, but from doing the first 50, I have no reason to think it’s not accurate.)

These are the 12 that they didn’t have from the first 50:

Asimov, Isaac - The Caves of Steel
Bester, Alfred - The Stars My Destination
Brin, David - Startide Rising
Clarke, Arthur C. - Childhood’s End
Dick, Philip K. - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Frank, Pat - Alas, Babylon
Heinlein, Robert A. - Starship Troopers
Heinlein, Robert A. - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert A. - The Past Through Tomorrow
Le Guin, Ursula K. - The Dispossessed
Pohl, Frederik - Gateway
Stephenson, Neal - Snow Crash

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Green_Bean

Are you counting Watchmen as superhero stuff? I don’t know that I really do, even though they sort of are, if that makes sense.

Well… Watchmen is technically a superhero comic… but it’s not part of the DC/Marvel conglomerate so I’m giving it a pass. Basically it would be nice to have one graphic novel in the first 2 lists, and Watchmen is a decent candidate.

DC/Marvel has a huge fan-base and for not unrelated reasons I would give it its own genre.
Incidentally I’ll share my manga methodology. This guidebook had a listing/discussion of sci-fi manga: I scanned it and pulled out promising candidates.

[Melbourne]

OK, you’ve got your top 50, and I think it includes the top 10, which is probably as much agreement as we are ever going to get. I think you’ve made a mistake not catagorising more of the books as “just another identical book by the same author, any one will do”, so I’m going say:
Still missing John Wyndham. I’d go for “The Midwich Cuckoos” rather than “The Day of the Triffids” (even though Triffids is more fun), because Midwich (and Chrysalids) is related to an important scientific idea about how the Theory of Evolution could be made to fit observered facts, which had a lot of influence in SF. See also the movies “The village of the Dammed” and “The Dammed”

Also missing “Tom Swift”. Over 100 books, immensely influential, the second series was, for many Americans, the first introduction to SF. I’d go for something like “Tom Swift and His Triphibian Atomicar 1962 (by James Duncan Lawrence)”

And I’m picking “Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison”, even though I don’t remember particularly liking it, because it’s the most famous representative of another important semi-scientific idea – overpopulation.

What I really wish I could remember is an example of the more specific idea that it was the stupid people who were going to outbreed the smart people.

[Boyo_Jim]

@Green_Bean

…
Meanwhile, I stopped by the library to see what was actually there and what section it was in. That info is available through the library website, but I thought I’d do a reality check. Most things were more or less where they were supposed to be.

I mentioned earlier that some authors are split between fiction and science fiction. I found that there were a ton of these and the splits didn’t seem to make much sense. For example, why would The Forever War be in fiction when there was other Haldeman in SF? This makes things much harder to find and also gives an incorrect impression to browsers. …[/spoiler]

I’ve found that in the libraries here, even in different branches of the same city library system. The very same book might be in different sections at different locations, or very similar books by the same author might be in different sections within the same building.

I attribute it to the habits of the individual librarians who choose how to shelve the book. Maybe some look up other works by the same author so they can all be grouped together, and some don’t. There doesn’t seem to be any overarching coordination to reconcile their choices – once it gets put somewhere it stays there unless somebody complains.

[Boulter_s_Canary]

@Melbourne

What I really wish I could remember is an example of the more specific idea that it was the stupid people who were going to outbreed the smart people.

The Marching Morons?

[Green_Bean]

@Measure_for_Measure

Incidentally I’ll share my manga methodology. This guidebook had a listing/discussion of sci-fi manga: I scanned it and pulled out promising candidates.

Do you think that would be appropriate for 12 year olds? I know a couple that would really like it.

@Melbourne

OK, you’ve got your top 50, and I think it includes the top 10, which is probably as much agreement as we are ever going to get. I think you’ve made a mistake not catagorising more of the books as “just another identical book by the same author, any one will do”, so I’m going say:

Which ones would you say are like this?

Still missing John Wyndham. I’d go for “The Midwich Cuckoos” rather than “The Day of the Triffids” (even though Triffids is more fun), because Midwich (and Chrysalids) is related to an important scientific idea about how the Theory of Evolution could be made to fit observered facts, which had a lot of influence in SF. See also the movies “The village of the Dammed” and “The Dammed”

Yes, you’re right. Wyndham should be included in one of the first two lists. I’ll have to ponder which book. I did not realize that Village of the Damned was based on Cuckoos. Never saw it or read the book, but I really should have known regardless. I’ll have to ponder Triffids vs. Cuckoos. Chrysalids was awesome too, but it’s just not a well-known.

Also missing “Tom Swift”. Over 100 books, immensely influential, the second series was, for many Americans, the first introduction to SF. I’d go for something like “Tom Swift and His Triphibian Atomicar 1962 (by James Duncan Lawrence)”

Hm…Tom Swift…will have to think on this one.

And I’m picking “Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison”, even though I don’t remember particularly liking it, because it’s the most famous representative of another important semi-scientific idea – overpopulation.

What I really wish I could remember is an example of the more specific idea that it was the stupid people who were going to outbreed the smart people.

You didn’t like Make Room! Make Room! because it was awful. One of the rare books where the movie is really much better than the book, and considering that the movie was the notoriously awful Soylent Green, that’s really telling you something.

The idea that stupid people might outbreed smart people led to the rise of the eugenics movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There have been a ton of works that have dealt with eugenics in one way or another, but in the science fictional universe, eugenic policies are usually portrayed in a very negative light. Why? Because you know who really liked eugenics? Nazis.

p.s. Soylent Green is…

[spoiler]NAZIS!

(you weren’t expecting that were you?)[/spoiler]

[mbh]

@Melbourne

What I really wish I could remember is an example of the more specific idea that it was the stupid people who were going to outbreed the smart people.

Cyril M. Kornbluth’s “The Little Black Bag”. It’s not the major focus of the story, but it is part of the background. It’s in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One.
I think you should have Robert Sheckley’s Citizen in Space, mainly because it contains the short story “Something for Nothing” (which, in my opinion, teaches a valuable moral lesson, which every human being should read).

[Maserschmidt]

Late player to this game…I have to say that as much as I like Bujold’s Vorkosigan series, it seems like straight space opera to me.

[JohnT]

I’m confused. You say that like it’s a bad thing.

[Gray_Ghost]

Green Bean, if you’re going to have one manga, then, despite the greater popularity of works such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, you really ought to look at Planetes. Very hard sci-fi with a minimum of hand waving (the characters are “garbage collectors” in LEO and near the Moon).

I second the suggestion that your Banks offering be *Use of Weapons *or something other than Consider Phlebas. Not that I dislike Phlebas—I found it interesting—but he gets so much better later on.

FWIW, I loved the Tom Swift books, and my librarian commented on (and chided me for) continually checking them out again and again. Granted, I was 7, but I can blame them a little for my love of sci-fi, and more importantly, for reading.

I love your lists and really appreciate the work you’re putting into this. It gives me some future reading choices, for one.

EDIT: Though I have Charlie Stross’s Accelerando and Glasshouse (but haven’t read them, shame on me), I really like his two sci-novels set in the Eschaton universe, Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise. Doubt they make anything so lofty as the top 100 of all time, but I found them both entertaining, interesting reads. And he even happily answers fan mail, especially at his blog.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Green_Bean

Do you think that would be appropriate for 12 year olds? I know a couple that would really like it.

Borderline. It has a hentai/adult chapter and another on Boys Love (Yaoi). I personally wouldn’t have a problem with a 12 year old reading or flipping through the volume, but giving it as a gift is more complicated. In Japan, manga isn’t exclusively the province of teen boys. There are manga aimed at boys, girls, men and women though readership is overlapping. Topics can include action, cooking, comedy, crime, fantasy, sports, horror, martial arts, robots, ESP, the workday, and romance. Also sci fi.

ETA: Planetes: Just ordered vol I: thanks! But it appears out of print and used copies for Vol 2-4 aren’t cheap.

[Green_Bean]

MtM - Thanks for the info.

@mbh

I think you should have Robert Sheckley’s Citizen in Space, mainly because it contains the short story “Something for Nothing” (which, in my opinion, teaches a valuable moral lesson, which every human being should read).

Well, nothing is on the first two lists just because it’s good. That said, that looks like a great collection, and I’ll make sure to get it on the expanded lists.

Speaking of great, if you look at the Wikipedia page for the book and click on the story titles that have a little padlock icon after them, it will take you directly to a scan of the Galaxy magazine in which it was originally published. How excellent is that? Looking at the stories surrounded by those mid-50s ads and illustrations helps you appreciate the time and context in which they first appeared.

@Maserschmidt

Late player to this game…I have to say that as much as I like Bujold’s Vorkosigan series, it seems like straight space opera to me.

The second list also includes the Lensman and the Honor Harrington series. Space opera is an important and popular subgenre.

@Gray_Ghost

Green Bean, if you’re going to have one manga, then, despite the greater popularity of works such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, you really ought to look at Planetes. Very hard sci-fi with a minimum of hand waving (the characters are “garbage collectors” in LEO and near the Moon).

I’m glad to have a graphic novel on the list, but Watchmen is there on its own merits. Manga is generally outside the scope of these lists.

FWIW, I loved the Tom Swift books, and my librarian commented on (and chided me for) continually checking them out again and again. Granted, I was 7, but I can blame them a little for my love of sci-fi, and more importantly, for reading.

I’m wondering how essential it is to have the old Tom Swift books in the library in 2014. Maybe it is, especially if it would provide younger readers with an entre into reading old-school science fiction. Perhaps there’s an omnibus edition with several included or something.

…and now having looked at the library catalog…They have 4 from the series “Tom Swift, Young Inventor,” published between 2006 and 2008. All are checked out and have circulated a good bit. And Amazon has omnibus editions of the old ones. Cool.

I love your lists and really appreciate the work you’re putting into this. It gives me some future reading choices, for one.

Thanks!

BTW, Charles Stross will be well-represented in the expanded lists. He gets extra super-cool points for making some of his books available for free online.

One of the planned enhancements to the list, which I may or may not ever get around to, is a listing of which ones are available to download for free or very cheaply from non-library sources. (Why on earth are library e-books so complicated and difficult!)

Oh hey, Project Gutenberg has a mobile app! I just downloaded Tom Swift and his Motor Cycle (1910) to my phone. Elapsed time between finding and installing the app and finding and downloading the book - about 30 seconds. Bravo. It’s their own reading format which has fewer functions than Kindle, but looks good enough. You can tap for definitions, Google, etc. at least. It is available in other formats including Kindle on their website, though I don’t know yet whether it’s easy to use.