Sobre ciencia ficcion

Como he comentado varias veces, no soy muy creyente en eso de las listas hechas. Y ya sabes, el que las hace es tan humano y tan subjetivo como tú y como yo. De todas formas, aquí tienes una lista de las cien mejores obras de SF que he encontrado por ahí. David Pringle's 100 Best Science Fiction Novels
David Pringle is a master of science fiction bibliography and criticism. Some find him a bit of a Britophile, but we certainly don't see any harm in that (if true). Here is his list of the 100 best science fiction novels of all time (through about 1984, when Everything Changed anyway). It is a strange list in many ways; there are no Van Vogt books, Asimov's Foundation isn't included, but it is a good list in most aspects. Our angle is that we have many of these books in stock, and you are encouraged to buy them!
1. George Orwell 1984
1949 The complete picture of the world messed up by Authority. The great Dystopia.
2. George R. Stewart Earth Abides
1949 The ur-ecological disaster novel, and more. The Dying Earth, where the Earth dies hard.
3. Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles
1950 Okay, the stories are not really about Mars, but Bradbury's sometimes pastoral and often beautiful tales are the most human in science fiction.
4. Robert Heinlein The Puppet Masters
1951 A great Body Snatchers story, enlivened by Bob's anti-Communist paranoia.
5. John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids
1951 Invading extraterrestrial plants in a world gone blind, except for Two. Tour de force storytelling.
6. Bernard Wolfe Limbo
1952 Masterful tale of a future where men cut off their arms so that they won't make war. Amazing and disturbing book.
7. Alfred Bester The Demolished Man
1953 The first of Bester's masterpieces. Rich guy attempts to get away with murder in a part-telepathic society.
8. Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
1953 Classic tale of an anti-book society where the Firemen burn literature.
9. Arthur C. Clarke Childhood's End
1953 Alien Overlords arrive and bring order to a troubled world. And the humans Dream, and transcend. One of science fiction's most mystical books.
10. Charles L. Harness The Paradox Men
1953 Superior tale of the paradoxes of time travel. Amazing conceptualization.
11. Ward Moore Bring the Jubilee
1953 One of the best alternative world stories, in which the DSouth has won the Civil War.
12. Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth The Space Merchants
1953 Hilarious tale of when the admen rule the world.
13. Cifford D. Simak Ring Around the Sun
1953 Complex story of the economics of a Universe of many parallel worlds, with a bit of McCarthyism satire thrown in.
14. Theodore Sturgeon More Than Human
1953 Misfits and morons come together telepathically to form a greater whole.
15. Hal Clement Mission of Gravity
1954 Hard sci fi story of Earthers on complexly conceived ovoid Big Planet.
16. Edgar Pangborn A Mirror for Observers
1954 Martians are secretly observing Earth, and messing around. A good vs. evil morality story, almost pretentious in its attempt to come to terms with human nature.
17. Isaac Asimov The End of Eternity
1955 Adventures of time traveling Fixer, who smooths the bumps in human history. Then he falls in love with an agent of Change.
18. Leigh Brackett The Long Tomorrow
1955 Two searchers after technology in a Luddite pastoral world that follows a nuclear catastrophe. A Good Science story.
19. William Golding The Inheritors
1955 A reappraisal of our assumptions, portraying Neanderthal society as rich and humane, until destroyed by the murderous Modern Men.
20. Alfred Bester The Stars My Destination
1956 High adventure following a seeker of Vengeance in a Strange New World.
21. John Christopher The Death of Grass
1956 Published in the US as No Blade of Grass. A virus kills all the grasses in the world and most of its food. A grim story.
22. Arthur C. Clarke The City and the Stars
1956 Expansion of Against the Fall of Night. The last city on Earth cowers in isolation from terrible alien Invaders. An Individual goes forth.
23. Robert Heinlein The Door Into Summer
1957 Cat lover attempts to become rich through canny investment and suspended animation, but his plans go awry. So there is time travel and stuff. Not as politically shrill as a lot of Heinlein is.
24. John Wyndham The Midwich Cuckoos
1957 Aliens inseminate an English village, and the Humans must make some hard moral choices.
25. Brain Aldiss Non-Stop
1957 Published in the US as Starship. The mother of all generation starship stories.
26. James Blish A Case of Conscience
1958 Priest/scientist discovers heresy, and it leads to trouble, and an act of genocide.
27. Robert Heinlein Have Spacesuit-Will Travel
1958 Last of Bob's juvenile titles. Guy wins second hand spacesuit, is taken into flying saucer, and has adventures. Many think Heinlein's juvenile titles are his best work.
28. Philip K. Dick Time Out of Joint
1959 Paranoid tale of a guy who is going about his life until he finds out he is the center of a virtual reality environment for predicting missle trajectories.
29. Pat Frank Alas, Babylon
1959 Morally ambiguous tale of the aftermath of a nuclear war. Holocaust as transcendence.
30. Walter M. Miller A Canticle for Liebowitz
1959 Great classic tale of the monks who preserve Knowledge after the nuclear catastrophe, in a world that may be unredeemable.
31. Kurt Vonnegut The Sirens of Titan
1959 Millionaire spaceman flies into a synclastic infundibulum, and has a series of wacky adventures that cannot be adequately summarized; it must be read.
32. Algis Budrys Rogue Moon
1960 Psychological novel about Earthers investigating a deadly alien maze on the Dark Side of the Moon. One of the first really modern, modern sci fi books.
33. Theodore Sturgeon Venus Plus X
1960 Interesting story of a guy who awakes in a post-sexual Somewhere Else.
34. Brian Aldiss Hothouse
1962 Tale of a far, far future Earth that has stopped rotating and is covered by a giant Tree.
35. J.G. Ballard The Drowned World
1962 Masterpiece of the survivors on a world covered by water.
36. Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
1962 Classic dystopian future England and the adventures of a vicious gangleader, and how society deals with him, oh my brothers.
37. Philip K. Dick The Man in the High Castle
1962 Inside out world in which the Axis won WWII, and Americans are the oppressed people under the heel of foreigners.
38. Robert Sheckley Journey Beyond Tomorrow
1963 Amusing story of an innocent Polynesian guy thrown into American society and ultimately triggering Armageddon.
39. Clifford D. Simak Way Station
1963 Meditative tale of an aging Wisconsin hermit, and what happens when his farm becomes a galactic way station.
40. Kurt Vonnegut Cat's Cradle
1963 Great story that mocks everything, and about a dangerous substance called ice-nine.
41. Brian Aldiss Greybeard
1964 In a world where a nuclear disaster has rendered everyone sterile and no more children are born, the youngest man left (over 50) makes the last voyage of discovery.
42. William Burroughs Nova Express
1964 The Nova Police take on the Nova Mob, who want to addict the world. Massively brilliant book.
43. Philip K. Dick Martian Time-Slip
1964 A Mars novel in which Man has conquered space but stayed Everyman.
44. Philip K. Dick The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
1963 Druggy nightmare of a story about duelling hallucinogenics and stuff. Very, very weird, and great.
45. Fritz Leiber The Wanderer
1964 A giant artificial planet arrives during a lunar eclipse and causes gravitational disaster, among other things.
46. Cordwainer Smith Norstrilia
1964-8 The Planet Buyer and The Underpeople combined and posthumously revised. Far, far future wherein are the Underpeople and the Lords of the Instrumentality. Complex, complicated, unique, and great.
47. Philip K. Dick Dr. Bloodmoney
1965 World War III happens, but life goes on in Marin County. A Dickian community forms, and two maniacs try to tear it apart.
48. Frank Herbert Dune
1965 A complexly built World, with a vastly interesting beat-all story of a Chosen One. An incredible book.
49. J.G. Ballard The Crystal World
1965 Another of Ballard's "elemental" novels. In this one, the world is turning to Stone. Amazing imagery.
50. Harry Harrison Make Room! Make Room!
1965 A crime story within a horrifying setting of a massively overpopulated New York. Filmed as Soylent Green.
51. Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon
1966 A story about intelligence enhancement, and its problems.
52. Roger Zelazny The Dream Master
1966 A doctor has a machine to enter people's dreams, then loses control of the process.
53. John Brunner Stand On Zanzibar
1966 An excellent attempt to portray the future world without fantasy. A very ambitious book.
54. Samuel R. Delany Nova
1968 A richly drawn space opera, featuring one of Delany's ubiquitous Kids.
55. ¿Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
1968 Masterful story of Deckard, the bounty hunter tracking down rogue androids. Filmed as Blade Runner.
56. Thomas M. Disch Camp Concentration
1968 In a future world of endless war, secret intelligence enhancing experiments that result in horrible physical side effects.
57. Michael Moorcock The Final Programme
1968 A Jerry Cornelius adventure, with lots of action and Strange Happenings.
58. Keith Roberts Pavane
1968 A fascinating world in which the Catholic Church dominates.
59. Angela Carter Heroes and Villains
1969 A story of a post-nuclear war world and the struggle between civilization and barbarism.
60. Ursula K. Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness
1969 A gender issues tale of an Earthman's journey through a world of hermaphrodites. Giant piece of narrative writing.
61. Bob Shaw The Palace of Eternity
1969 The "poet's world" must go to interstellar war.
62. Norman Spinrad Bug Jack Barron
1969 Hurly-burly tale of a charismatic and powerful media figue and immortality.
63. Poul Anderson Tau Zero
1970 Starship which can't slow down and is approaching the speed of light. Excellent hard sci fi.
64. Robert Silverberg Downward to the Earth
1970 Colonial administrator seeks redemption on pastoral alien planet. Loosely quotes Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
65. Wilson Tucker The Year of the Quiet Sun
1970 Time traveler finds parallels between Biblical apocalyptic manuscript and the end of the United States. Evocative writing.
66. Thomas M. Disch 334
1972 Tour de force storytelling in a nasty future City, technologically advanced but socially bereft.
67. Gene Wolfe The Fifth Head of Cerebrus
1972 Interesting Gothic tale of an exotic space culture, touching on cloning and individuality.
68. Michael Moorcock The Dancers at the End of Time
1972-6 Moorcock's Hero in a far-off furture. Trilogy, comprising An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands, and The End of All Songs.
69. J.G. Ballard Crash
1973 Amazing story of cars and sex. A masterpiece.
70. Mack Reynolds Looking Backwards, From the Year 2000
1973 Interesting re-doing of Bellamy's 1888 classic Looking Backward.
71. Ian Watson The Embedding
1973 Complex, sometimes anthropological first contact story. Lots of issues.
72. Suzy McKee Charnas Walk to the End of the World
1974 Harrowing feminist parable of gender horror. A very tough book.
73. M. John Harrison The Centauri Device
1974 Satirical but action packed story of a nasty future Earth and the loser Spacemen is carrying alien DNA and dealing with space Anarchists and...
74. Ursula K. Le Guin The Dispossessed
1974 People flee to planet's moon and form Utopian society. In the Hanish universe of The Left Hand of Darkness.
75. Christopher Priest Inverted World
1974 Interesting and complex story of a Place where Time and Distance are, well, confused.
76. J.G. Ballard High Rise
1975 Terrific story of a mega-apartment building whose inhabitants become unglued and get in touch with their inner Savage.
77. Barry N. Malzberg Galaxies
1975 Subversive writers writing about writers writing story, deconstructing sci fi while revelling in its eccentricities.
78. Joanna Russ The Female Man
1975 The masterwork of feminist science fiction, told in a gripping multiplex narrative.
79. Bob Shaw Orbitsville
1975 Spacers discover a Dyson Sphere. Sort of a thinking man's Ringworld.
80. Kingsley Amis The Alteration
1976 Tale of a would-be eunich in a world where the Spanish Armada conquered England. Great alternates history story. (See also Keith Roberts' Pavane)
81. Marge Piercy Woman On the Edge of Time
1976 Woman wrongly committed to a mental hospital is haunted by a ghost of the Utopian Future.
82. Frederik Pohl Man Plus
1976 A grimmer than usual story of cyborgs and the cyborged society, as man and machine merge.
83. Algis Budrys Michaelmas
1976 Very interesting story of machine intelligence and a networked world. Ahead of its time.
84. John Varley The Ophiuchi Hotline
1977 A title of Varley's Eight Worlds series. Mankind in the Solar System and aliens communicating. Many interesting facets.
85. Ian Watson Miracle Visitors
1977 A serious look at UFO culture, with a red Thunderbird that flies to the Moon and Back. More serious than it sounds.
86. John Crowley Engine Summer
1979 An often beautiful story of the world After the Big One, told by an storyteller.
87. Thomas M. Disch On Wings of Song
1979 Coming of Age story in a Balkanized future America.
88. Brian Stableford The Walking Shadow
1979 Time jumpers travel to the End of Time, to a world owned by an gigantic idiot vegatable mass. Grim.
89. Kate Wilhelm Juniper Time
1979 More great feminist sci fi, in an America devastated by Drought, and an alien artifact and the damaged Survivor who is the only one who can translate it.
90. Gregory Benford Timescape
1980 Scientists in the Future (well, the late 90's) try to send a warning message to the Past.
91. Damien Broderick The Dreaming Dragons
1980 Wonderfully arcane story of an Australian aborigine who finds an alien artifact in Ayers Rock.
92. Octavia Butler Wild Seed
1980 Prequel to the Patternist books, covering the rise of the telepathically gifted.
93. Russell Hoban Riddley Walker
1980 Great story of a post-nuclear war barbarized England, as the narratot tells the Story of His Life.
94. John Sladek The Roderick Books
1980-3 Often hilarious tale of the life and times of a robot growing up.
95. Gene Wolfe Book of the New Sun
1980-3 Epic rationalized fantasy of the Dying Earth in the far, far distant future. A visionary work.
96. Philip Jose Farmer The Unreasoning Mask
1981 One of the great books of modern sci fi. A sentient ship and crew steal a line to the infant God. Startling cosmology.
97. Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle Oath of Fealty
1981 A less hoakum tale than their usual by these two, in a fascinating arcology society.
98. Michael Bishop No Enemy But Time
1982 Interesting story of a guy who travels back in Time to visit humanity's ancesters.
99. John Calvin Batchelor The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica
1983 Latter day Vikings flee a disentegrating world for the Far South.
100. William Gibson Neuromancer
1984 Either the book that ended sci fi or the book the gave it rebirth. Compelling adventures in the Wired cyberfuture.
Si te he de ser sincera, ni siquiera me la he leído entera y, por supuesto, si me la leyera, seguro que encuentro libros no ya que no me haya leído, sino que no me suene ni el autor.
En cuanto a lo de los premios... pues tampoco les hago mucho caso. De hecho, hay bastantes premios de SF por el mundo.
Yo me he leído todas las revistas de Nueva Dimensión, una revista con cuentos cortos de SF que se publicó en castellano hace bastante tiempo. De lo mejor que hemos visto por España. Ahora supongo que los números son inencontrables. A partir de ahí he ido leyendo más o menos lo que me ha dado la real gana, sin hacer caso de premios ni listas.
Bueno, a fuer de sincera, diré que si me he guiado por algo ha sido por las tapas, según me gustaran o no. Eso y muchas visitas a la biblioteca.
Yo te pondría, por ejemplo, para que fuera leyendo, Bradbury, Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clark, Heinley, Sturgeon, Aldiss, Pohl, Lem... Y por supuesto, y digan lo que digan las listas del mundo mundial, Ursula K. LeGuin.
En cuanto a libros que hablen de cienci y religión en la ciencia ficción, a montones, Lo de la física cuántica... supongo que también, aunque ahora no me acuerde de ninguno.
Una cosa más, pasa del pdf. Por una parte es terrible de leer aunque te lo imprimas. Por otra, y ya lo he comentado otras veces, si te gustan los libros, cómpratelos, y si no puedes, vete a las bibliotecas. Si tú escribes, querrás que te paguen por tu trabajo ¿No? Pues eso. Lo mismo que si eres cocinero, ejecutivo o cualquier otra cosa. Si te dedicas a piratear discos o bajarte libros en pdf, estás asesinando el arte.