Syllabus & Book List for Sci-Fi Newbies

Always want­ed to read sci­ence fic­tion? But nev­er knew where to start? io9, a blog ded­i­cat­ed to futur­ism and sci-fi, has you cov­ered. Today, they pub­lished a handy sci-fi syllabus/reading list “intend­ed to intro­duce the novice stu­dent … to the major themes in the genre, as well as books and authors who are rep­re­sen­ta­tive of dif­fer­ent eras in SF lit (includ­ing the present day).” The io9 read­ing list breaks down a vast body of sci-fi lit­er­a­ture into six use­ful cat­e­gories – 1) Foun­da­tion­al Works/Classics, 2) Utopias and Dystopias, 3) Robots, 4) Aliens, 5) Space Trav­el, and 6)  Sci­ence Fic­tion as Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy. Wells, Love­craft, Hux­ley, Orwell, Dick, Asi­mov, Gib­son, Hein­lein, LeGuin – they’re all on the list.

Relat­ed FYIs: you can find many of HP Love­craft’s writ­ings online here. Thanks Julie for the recent heads up.

Also, you can down­load an audio ver­sion of Hux­ley nar­rat­ing A Brave New World here.