compiled by Zeke Teflon
Since this blog began in July 2013, I’ve reviewed approximately 50 science fiction novels, short story collections, and anthologies, some old, most new. Over the last five years, I’ve also read probably another 200 to 300 sci-fi books and started but not finished probably twice that many. (So many books, so little time. There’s nothing to be gained by finishing a bad novel–there’s no point in throwing good reading time after bad.)
With the holiday season upon us, here are our recommendations for books to give as gifts to that sci-fi fan in your life. I’ve included a number of books that I’ve read but haven’t reviewed. (All of the links go to reviews that have appeared on this blog.)
Highly Recommended Recent Sci-Fi Books
(published within the last decade)
- The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
- Matter, by Iain M. Banks (from Banks’ “Culture” series — all books in it are good reads)
- Surface Detail, by Iain M. Banks
- TVA Baby, by Terry Bisson
- The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow, by Cory Doctorow
- The Night Sessions, by Ken Macleod
- Thirteen, by Richard K. Morgan
- The Lucky Strike, by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Dominion, by C.J. Sansom
- Red Planet Blues, by Robert J. Sawyer
- Fuzzy Nation, by John Scalzi
- Agent to the Stars, by John Scalzi
- He Walked Among Us, by Norman Spinrad
- The Rhesus Chart, by Charles Stross (from Stross’s “Laundry Files” series)
- Glass House, by Charles Stross
- Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge
- The Martian, by Andy Weir
- Solaris Rising 2, Ian Whates, ed.
Highly Recommend Older Sci-Fi Books
(published more than a decade ago, but still in print, or out of print but with plenty of new copies still available on Amazon)
- Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks (second book in Banks’ “Culture” series)
- The Fourth World, by Dennis Danvers
- The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted, by Harry Harrison
- Code of the Lifemaker, by James P. Hogan
- The Immortality Option, by James P. Hogan
- The Stone Canal, by Ken Macleod
- The Cassini Division, by Ken Macleod
- Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan
- Broken Angels, by Richard K. Morgan
- Woken Furies, by Richard K. Morgan
- Revelation Space, by Alastair Reynolds
- Chasm City, by Alastair Reynolds
- Software, by Rudy Rucker (first book in Rucker’s “‘ware” tetralogy — all are very funny)
- The Iron Dream, by Norman Spinrad
- Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson.
- The Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross (first of the “Laundry Files” novels — all are good reads)
- Halting State, by Charles Stross
- Rule 34, by Charles Stross
- Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross
- Iron Sunrise, by Charles Stross
- Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
- Drowning Towers, by George Turner
- Brain Child, by George Turner
- Live from Golgotha, by Gore Vidal
For still more suggestions, see Anarchist Science Fiction: Essential Novels. I’d highly recommend most of the books on it.
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Zeke Teflon is the author of Free Radicals: A Novel of Utopia and Dystopia.
Sharp and Pointed 