The Most Important Science Fiction Books of All Time

By Raymond Lockley

Science fiction as a genre of English literature tends to be relegated to niche status. And yet, sci-fi has influenced significant swathes of popular culture, and some lists of the best selling books of all time list sci-fi books and authors (such as J. R. R. Tolkien) who are readily embraced by SF fans and carried in SF bookstores.

The list below is not a list of my favorite books, but rather a list of the books which seem to me to be the most important or influential (as literature itself, or within or without the field). It is fairly difficult to rank such a breadth of works by importance or influence, so I have copped out and listed them by publication date...

Title Author Publ
A Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne 1864
From the Earth to the Moon Jules Verne 1865
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne 1870
The Time Machine H. G. Wells 1895
The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898
The First Men in the Moon H. G. Wells 1901
Last and First Men W. Olaf Stapledon 1930
Triplanetary E. E. 'Doc' Smith 1934
Out of the Silent Planet C. S. Lewis 1938
I, Robot Isaac Asimov 1950
The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury 1950
Foundation Isaac Asimov 1951
The Man Who Sold The Moon Robert A. Heinlein 1951
The Puppet Masters Robert A. Heinlein 1951
The Sands of Mars Arthur C. Clarke 1951
City Clifford D. Simak 1952
The Space Merchants Frederik Pohl & Cyril M. Kornbluth     1952
Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953
A Canticle for Leibowitz Walter M. Miller, Jr. 1959
Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961
Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961
A Wrinkle in Time Madeleine L'Engle 1962
Dune Frank Herbert 1965
Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes 1966
2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clarke 1968
The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969
Ringworld Larry Niven 1970
Rendezvous with Rama Arthur C. Clarke 1972
The Forever War Joe Haldeman 1974
Inferno Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle 1976
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979
Neuromancer William Gibson 1984
Ender's Game Orson Scott Card 1985
Red Mars Kim Stanley Robinson 1992
Snow Crash Neal Stephenson 1992
Three-Body Problem Cixin Liu 2014

In addition to those, here are a few others works which are not always considered sci-fi, but which are very important as sci-fi influences:

Title Author Publ
Frankenstein (or, A Modern Prometheus) Mary Shelley 1818
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.     Washington Irving     1820
Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932
1984 George Orwell 1949
Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1963
Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1969


To index of lists