A science fiction primer – suggested reading

Category: Books

Giving a friend a generic suggested reading list for science fiction is like giving someone an encyclopedia and telling them they should read it, because you are sure they’ll find something in there that will interest them. Yes, there may be a subject inside that catches your friend’s attention; however, how long might it take before they actually find it, if they start at A and go all the way through Z? Science fiction is a genre of subgenres, much like the mystery novel, and just because you love mysteries, doesn’t mean you will like everything from Sherlock Holmes to John Grisham.

Let’s tackle the idea systematically, and chronologically, beginning with the 19th Century.

Edgar Allan Poe
Science fiction got its start down the road to acceptance by virtue of the short story, with some people crediting Edgar Allan Poe as the first science fiction writer (even though that is not what he called it), which have been compiled into “The Science Fiction of Edgar Allen Poe.” Poe’s stories focused on the reactions of the characters to their situation or surroundings, either familiar (to them, strange to us) or in which the character is landed without so much as a warning or a life preserver.

Jules Verne
Jules Verne had his “From the Earth to the Moon” (1865) and “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” (1869). Verne was more concerned with portraying fantastic situations and “gee whiz” technology than in developing his characters, and his popularity (and longevity) waned quickly. However, Verne was a visionary in some senses, predicting the creation of rockets capable of carrying people to the moon, and submarines powered by atomic engines, all from observing scientific advances of his day.

H.G. Wells
Herbert George “H.G.” Wells wrote a wonderful series of popular science fiction, including “The Invisible Man,” “The Time Machine” and “War of the Worlds.” Those are the “classics” of science fiction, which any serious science fiction reader should tackle at some point in their reading. Wells wrote about people and how technology changed them, as well as concerned himself with social trends and possible outcomes if technological advance was not measured with some sense of morality.

Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs kicked off the 20th Century for science fiction with his “John Carter of Mars” (AKA “Barsoom”) series, which was more fantasy than science fiction; however, it did have broad appeal for its fantastic images of aliens and scantily clad women. His “Tarzan” series remains broadly popular.

Golden Age of Pulp Fiction
And then came the explosion of science fiction with the creation of the pulp fiction magazine, and Hugo Gernsback, a respected scientist and inventor, the creator of “Popular Mechanics,” brought the world his magazine “Amazing Stories” in the 1920s. At the time, there were few writers of science fiction, but the popularity of the magazine soon drew a wide array of writers, who are now legend in the craft.