Top 10 Sci-fi Books of All-timeBy William Harris, HowStuffWorks.com
 In 1932, English writer Aldous Huxley published "Brave New World" and foretold a future in which individualism is abhorred, the population is permanently limited and everyone is strung out on a hallucinogen known as soma. Many critics today describe this anti-utopian story as a science-fiction classic. But another 10 years or so would pass before mainstream publishers began embracing sci-fi as a genre. The years before, during and after World War II marked sci-fi's Golden Age and thrust a new generation of writers — Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, Clarke and many others — into the public consciousness. We used that Golden Age as one of several criteria to decide whether a book made it on this list. Sci-fi books published before 1940 didn't make it; those books published after did. We also used the two major science fiction awards — the Hugo and Nebula — as measuring sticks. All our entries received one of the awards; many received both. Next, we organized our winners into five themes central to the genre (close to home, far, far away, alien invasions, near future, and man and machine). Finally, no author could make the list twice. Got that? Let's head to Mars. |
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