{"id":45,"date":"2013-11-05T20:46:23","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T20:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/173.254.109.165\/?p=45"},"modified":"2013-12-31T09:39:05","modified_gmt":"2013-12-31T17:39:05","slug":"science-fiction-essentials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/science-fiction-essentials\/","title":{"rendered":"Sci-Fi That Stands the Test of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sci<\/a><\/p>\n

If I asked you to name ten essential science fiction books<\/strong>, could you? I\u2019m talking about the ten books you\u2019d say a friend HAS to read to know what science fiction\u2019s all about. OK, what about five? Now, what if I told you to subtract any books from that list in which a dragon, Gollum, or a direwolf appears\u2014how many would you have left then? Three? Two? Any?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that dragons absolutely disqualify a book from the science fiction category (Jeffrey Carver\u2019s Star Rigger<\/em><\/a> series comes to mind), but c\u2019mon people, it\u2019s called Fantasy. And by Fantasy, I\u2019m not talking about the odds that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt will appear in the next season of Game of Thrones<\/em>.<\/p>\n

No, I\u2019m talking about Science Fiction. Sci-Fi. The outer space, alien, robot, futuristic, dystopian, post-apocalyptic stuff. The stuff of Asimov<\/a>, Herbert<\/a>, Heinlein<\/a>, and Dick<\/a>. THIS is Science Fiction. And if you\u2019re a fan, then you probably have your list all set and ready to go.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>For me, the quintessential work of science fiction will always be Ray Bradbury\u2019s The Martian Chronicles<\/em><\/a> (many others would say Bradbury\u2019s Fahrenheit 451<\/em> is the rightful owner of this prize). I first read it in high school and I remember Ms. Cohen, my 9th<\/sup> grade English teacher, talking to us about how carefully Bradbury\u2019s sentences were crafted. Of course, it didn\u2019t take any instruction at all to be mesmerized by the strange and wonderful world he\u2019d created on the Red Planet. Not sure if I\u2019ve read any science fiction quite as affecting since.<\/p>\n

\"Do<\/a>Later, after becoming a huge fan of the film Blade Runner<\/em>, I picked up the Philip K. Dick novel it\u2019s based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep<\/em><\/a>?<\/em> Dick\u2019s novel is distinctly more somber than the film, but I think even more effective in laying out its central premise. I heartily recommend this book to fans of the film and to fans of Science Fiction for its ideas and imagery; I would certainly add this to my list of essential Sci-Fi.<\/p>\n

Many other classics come to mind\u2014certainly Isaac Asimov\u2019s Foundation<\/em> trilogy, Frank Herbert\u2019s Dune<\/em><\/a>, and Douglas Adams\u2019 hilarious The Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em><\/a>\u2014all very worthy of consideration on the essential list. I\u2019d add Orwell\u2019s harrowing 1984<\/em> and Alan Moore and David Gibbons\u2019 epic Watchmen<\/em> graphic novel, too. There\u2019s just something very compelling about these visions of our future\u2014with our without superheroes\u2014that get us to think in all new ways. In fact, that\u2019s really what I love most about the whole genre of Science Fiction: the author\u2019s sheer creative power that gets us to reimagine what it means to be human and our potential future.<\/p>\n

So, what about you! What books would you put on your list of essential Sci-Fi? Any without dragons? \ud83d\ude09 Author Orson Scott Card (whose Sci-Fi classic Ender\u2019s Game<\/em> was adapted and just this month released as a feature film) once famously said: \u201cThe difference between science fiction and fantasy\u2026 is simply this: science fiction has rivets and fantasy has trees.\u201d What do you think; is that a fair assessment? Let us know by posting a comment below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I asked you to name ten essential science fiction books, could you? I\u2019m talking about the ten books you\u2019d say a friend HAS to read to know what science fiction\u2019s all about. OK, what about five? Now, what if I told you to subtract any books from that list[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[18,19,17,16,15],"yst_prominent_words":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi.jpg",1000,500,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi-65x65.jpg",65,65,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi-216x108.jpg",216,108,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi.jpg",700,350,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi-700x350.jpg",700,350,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi.jpg",1000,500,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi.jpg",1000,500,false],"wptouch-new-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi.jpg",144,72,false],"featured":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi-980x500.jpg",980,500,true],"featured-small":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi-700x450.jpg",591,380,true],"featured-cat":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi-310x220.jpg",310,220,true],"recent-widget":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi-75x50.jpg",75,50,true],"loop":["https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/112013_Scifi.jpg",65,33,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Zoe Luderitz","author_link":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/author\/zluderitz\/"},"uagb_comment_info":6,"uagb_excerpt":"If I asked you to name ten essential science fiction books, could you? I\u2019m talking about the ten books you\u2019d say a friend HAS to read to know what science fiction\u2019s all about. OK, what about five? Now, what if I told you to subtract any books from that list[…]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}