Sci-Fi Spectacular: Recommended Science Fiction Books

1. To tie in with the Science Fiction short story competition, the library is celebrating all things sci-fi. Read on for some recommendations from our in-house experts…

2. Recommended Science fiction… The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles is a brilliant collection of short stories in 1946. The stories are episodic, telling a dystopian future of expeditions to Mars. With the first expedition, a Martian kills the Captain before he can make contact. Then the second expedition is considered to be a hallucination. The third expedition finds the Martians using their telepathy and ability to appear in different forms, with realistic hallucinations to thwart the explorers. But, the fourth expedition finds the population almost wiped out due to a plague of chicken pox brought on by the Earthlings.

3. Recommended Science fiction… A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle Meg Murry and her little brother, Charles Wallace, have been without their scientist father, Mr. Murry, for five years, ever since he discovered a new planet and used the concept known as a tesseract to travel there. Joined by Meg's classmate Calvin O'Keefe and guided by the three mysterious astral travelers known as Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, the children brave a dangerous journey to a planet that possesses all of the evil in the universe.

4. Recommended Science fiction… The Wool Trilogy by Hugh Howey Wool takes place in the world of the silo, a 144-floor underground community of humans, hundreds of years after an unknown event has caused the air above ground to become toxic. Expressing the forbidden desire to go out of the silo is punishable by cleaning. Cleaners wear suits designed by the IT department that allow them to stay alive long enough to clean the cameras that show the outside world to the residents inside. Eventually each cleaner succumbs to the toxic gases and dies…This is a post apocalyptic world and all is not as it seems…

5. Recommended Science fiction… Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) is probably Philip K. Dick's most well-known novel. This is due, in part, to its subsequent adaptation by Ridley Scott into the movie Blade Runner. This novel is without a doubt Dick's most important android work, and arguably one of the most important novels about androids or artificial humans. It looks at what it means to be human, questions reality, and blurs the lines between real and artificial. In this novel the humans become inhuman and the androids become human. The humans question their own humanity and the androids question their artificiality. This book fully explores the robot consciousness its implications. Would robots want their freedom if they became just like humans? Should they have their own rights? Are androids capable of empathy?

6. Recommended Science fiction… The Time Machine by H G Wells Classic science fiction. A group of men, including the narrator, is listening to the Time Traveller discuss his theory that time is the fourth dimension. The Time Traveller produces a miniature time machine and makes it disappear into thin air. The next week, the guests return, to find their host stumble in, looking disheveled and tired. They sit down after dinner, and the Time Traveller begins his story. The Time Traveller had finally finished work on his time machine, and it rocketed him into the future. When the machine stops, in the year 802,701 AD, he finds himself in a paradisiacal world of small humanoid creatures called Eloi. They are frail and peaceful, and give him fruit to eat. He explores the area, but when he returns he finds that his time machine is gone… Available in graphic and prose formats