You’ve just come out of Ikea, you’ve got a brand-new bookcase under your arm, and all you have to do is fill it with good books. (This also works if you leave your post office with a Kindle). And to begin with, you are going to have to fill your science fiction floor, which is not an easy task as the novels of the genre (and its multiple sub-genres) are legions. Don’t worry, Topito’s here. We’ve selected 20 science fiction books you can’t afford to miss. Must-have books, must-read books, as the Americans say. With this, you should have enough to keep your long winter evenings busy.
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1984
If we say “Big Brother” or “thought Police”, you tell us? 1984, of course. (You can also say “BLABLIBLU” but it doesn’t make any sense). Orwell’s novel influenced not only literature but also popular culture as a whole, going far beyond science fiction. Essential.
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Dune
The first volume of the Dune cycle (which will end 20 years later with the Maison des Mères), this novel is a bit of what the Lord Of The Rings is to fantasy. In the universe created by Herbert, humanity controls a large part of the universe through a substance called “Spice” and allows them to multiply their psychic and physical abilities tenfold.
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Foundation
Foundation is a collection of 5 short stories and the first volume of the cycle of the same name. The writer’s goal was to write a historical novel of the future, and that’s what he did. Don’t look for an action book or an initiatory quest, but rather an idea novel. In this first volume, you will follow a scientist exiled to a distant planet to create a total Encyclopedia of human knowledge, all against the backdrop of decadence and the fall of an intergalactic empire.
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Martian Chronicles
This cult book by the American author is a collection of short stories about the arrival of the first human settlers on Mars, their settlement and their departure when a war breaks out on Earth. If Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 does not appear in our ranking, know that it is only to avoid repetition and that it has its place in the library of the perfect science-Fiction.
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The Ender Strategy
You may not know the book, but you must have seen the posters of the movie adaptation released last November. It must be said that the Ender strategy had everything to seduce: in a universe where humanity is waging a total war against extraterrestrials, the reader follows Ender, a gifted child destined to become a soldier and crush space bug.
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The first volume of a “five-volume trilogy”, the galactic travel Guide follows the adventures of the Earthling Arthur Dent who sees his planet destroyed by aliens wishing to build an intergalactic highway. He and his friend Ford Prefect find themselves, in spite of themselves, embarked on an alien spaceship and work themselves out in space thanks to a guide of the rather special backpacker: the guide of the Galactic Traveler.
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Eternal War
An eternal war is a classic of a subgenre of science fiction: military science fiction. It follows the rise in the military hierarchy of a certain William Mandella, the actor of this eternal war (made interminable by a dark history of temporal distortions.
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The time Machine-H. G. Wells
In terms of time travel, you’ll have trouble finding a better Machine than H. G. Wells’. Written in 1895, the novel takes us to the discovery of the Earth in the year 802 701 and to say that it has changed a lot. If you haven’t read this classic throw yourself at it.
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Ubik
As for Bradbury, the presence of Ubik in the classification does not exclude the other works of the writer who is responsible for several major books of SF and anticipation. Ubik is a frightening dive into a society whose narrator (and therefore the reader) is of course not real. Ubik is not a game, and we love it.
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Stars, attention
In the military SF, there is eternal war, and there are stars, stand at attention !. Behind this somewhat old-fashioned title is the Starship Troopers saga, whose more or less animated adaptations you probably know on the big screen. Big guns and giant spiders, that’s the program, a program that was copied many times afterward. Despite some reservations about the anti-communist message and for some of the book’s fascinating stars, attention! Remain one of the best books of SF and a must-read for any self-respecting reader.