Out of this World Science Fiction Reads

It’s the end of the summer, which means you’ve already gotten through the bibliographies of Zadie Smith, Jodi Picoult, and Faulker. You bought three books off the NYT best sellers list but you’re feeling burnt out on slow, poetic narratives about modern life. You wish you could find something else to read but you hate sci fi. Don’t worry, we've got your back. For the reader who doesn’t like elves, rockets, or the vast blankness of space but who has also grown weary of reading realism, we have cultivated a list of science fiction books to satisfy the cynic, the intellectual, the philosopher, and the very bored on their beach vacations. You know who you are.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin: A deep- dive into the philosophical and pragmatic differences between anarchism, capitalism, and socialism as told through the eyes of an anarchist physicist, Shevek, as he attempts to re-establish contact between his world, the harsh utopia of Annares, and their mother planet, the lush and violent Urras. The contrast between the two worlds is striking, made all the more clear through Shevek’s brilliance and naivety as he tries to navigate a planet foreign enough for his own identity to start to slip away.

Stranger In a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein: A classic in the scifi genre and in American literature, Heinlein explores concepts of ownership, cultural relativity, language, and fanaticism through the journey of Valentine Michael Smith, the first and only human raised on Mars by Martians as he attempts to acclimate to an Earth that looks more and more like ours. Hounded by powerful religious fanatics, politicians, and jealous lovers, Smith reveals the core of Martian philosophy in an attempt to change the course of humanity.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson: Stephenson’s 1999 novel, set in two different time periods, kicks off by following a group of World War II Allied codebreakers along with a set of disillusioned Axis officers. The second thread revolves around the descendents (in part) of the first round of characters who use cryptologic to build a data safe haven to facilitate anonymous banking using e- money and digital gold currency with the ultimate goal of teaching genocide- target populations defensive warfare. In this expansive tour deforce clocking in at over 900 pages, Stephenson explores the history of modern computing and warfare and predicts with almost eerie accuracy the rise of cryptocurrency.

The Player of Games by Iain Banks: Banks has no qualms about showing exactly how devastating a culture without the limits of mortality and technology can be in this strange and epic work. Jurneh Morat Gurgeh is at the top of his game (both literally and figuratively) when he hits a patch of existential ennui and is subsequently blackmailed by an ambitious AI. To stop the revelation of a dark secret, he travels to a planet where a subtle, complex game is used to determine social status and, if one progresses far enough in the game, the emperor of the planet. As Gurgeh advances deeper into the contest, Banks reveals exactly how much of a game politics really are.

Kindred by Octavia Butler: First published in 1979, Octavia Butler’s Kindred draws on the traditions and legacy of slave narratives, with a time travel twist. The novel follows Dana, a young black writer, as she is unwillingly hurtled between her contemporary world and a pre- Civil War plantation. While stuck in a brutal past, Dana encounters her ancestors and is forced to make harsh choices to survive slavery and ensure her return to her own time. Butler’s book is a seminal work of sci fi and general American literature. In many ways, it did the hard work of cracking open a genre that has historically been closed off to diverse voices. Through Dana’s mind bending journey, Butler explores historical memory and the power dynamics of race and gender through the eyes of a thoroughly modern narrator thrust into a time that looks all too similar to her own.