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These science fiction classics have stood the test of time. They are filled cover to cover with intricate worldbuilding, issue-driven storytelling, and occasionally complex plots. Those looking to peer into science fiction's deepest roots and most influential authors may enjoy titles on this list!
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Dune
Frank Herbert - Thorndike Press; Lrg edition
Format: Book
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Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known... |
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams
Format: Book
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Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work... |
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Foundation, Book 1
Isaac Asimov
Format: Book
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For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future -- to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve... |
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A Wrinkle in Time
Madeleine L'Engle
Format: Book
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Out of this wild night, a strange visitor comes to the Murry house and beckons Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe on a most dangerous and extraordinary adventure—one that will threaten their lives and our universe.
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Frankenstein, or, The modern Prometheus
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Signet
Format: Book
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At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter,... |
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Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card - Tor Science Fiction
Format: Book
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Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy... |
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1984
George Orwell - Signet Classic
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...* Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The... |
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The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood - Houghton Mifflin Company
Format: Book
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Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander... |
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Kindred
Octavia E. Butler - Beacon Press; 25th Anniversary edition
Format: Paperback
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The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California,... |
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The Earth Turned Upside Down
Jules Verne - Hesperus Press
Format: Paperback
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In its first English translation in more than 100 years, a story of a world in which energy shortages lead a group of Americans to devise a radical solution, for their own gain, which puts the whole earth at risk
In one of his best-known books, From the Earth... |
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The War of the Worlds
Herbert George Wells - Penguin
Format: Paperback
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The first modern tale of alien invasion, H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds remains one of the most influential science fiction novels ever published.The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. At first,... |
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The Forever War
Joe W Haldeman - Titan Comics
Format: Paperback
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The legendary novel of extraterrestrial war in an uncaring universe comes to comics, in a stunningly realized vision of Joe Haldeman's Vietnam War parable! The visionary Hugo and Nebula Award-winning SF tale by Joe Haldeman is beautifully realized in full color by the legendary artist... |
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