Size / / /

NPR are running a poll to generate a list of the top 100 science fiction and fantasy books; this follows on from polls to find the “best beach books” (2009) and “killer thrillers” (2010), both of which attracted something in the range of 16,000 ballots. They’re using a two-stage process; at the moment they’re asking people to submit lists of five nominees, and the most popular books will apparently progress to the next round. There are some caveats: five nominees per person; no YA (that’s next year’s poll, they say); no horror or – perhaps more controversially – paranormal romance; series count as one nomination as long as they’re by the same author or authors.

In fact, as I read through the criteria again, I note that despite saying best books several times, including in the title of the post, when they mention the final list they say it’s for the “best SF/F novels”; so I may have wasted two of my nominations. Be that as it may, here are the five books I went for:

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (2002): It cannot possibly be almost ten years since I first read Ted Chiang’s stories, because the exacting thoroughness of them lives so vividly in my mind. On any given day my favourite piece might be “Tower of Babel”, or “Seventy-Two Letters”, or “Hell is the Absence of God”; taken as a whole, Stories of Your Life surely has a strong claim to being the best collection of the last decade. (And Chiang news alert: I note with interest that he appears to have finished another story enough to be comfortable reading it in public, and that it sounds like it might be a counterpoint to The Lifecycle of Software Objects.)

China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh (1992): I first read this five years ago for a book group, and wrote up my thoughts here. My appreciation for the novel has only grown in retrospect. I still love the structure – I’m a sucker for novels built out of shorter stories – but it’s the emotional and political texture that’s really lingered, and I don’t really know why I haven’t found the time for all her other novels yet. (Maureen McHugh news: a new short story collection, After the Apocalypse, coming this autumn from Small Beer. I’ve read most of it, I expect, but it will be good to have her recent stories in one place.)

We Who Are About To ... by Joanna Russ (1976): I expect The Female Man to be the one that gets more nominations, and probably to make the final list, but this is the Russ I admire most: uncompromising, and agonisingly eloquent with it. See discussions of the novel by Nic Clarke and L. Timmel Duchamp. (Russ news: when will someone put together a Collected Stories? Are you listening, Library of America? Enough with the Philip K. Dick, honestly.)

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (1996): Perhaps the most personally significant of the five books I picked. In the autumn of 1998 I went to university and joined OUSFG, which entitled me to choose a book for the society to buy and add to their library. I picked The Sparrow, on the strength of its winning the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and found it enormously powerful, to the point where I’ve been a little afraid to revisit it. As a habitual reader of Peter F. Hamilton at that time, it’s also fair to say The Sparrow was a very welcome introduction to a branch of the genre I hadn’t previously encountered. (Mary Doria Russell news: She has a new book out, a Western called Doc, which I liked but didn’t love. Of her post-Sparrow books I like Dreamers of the Day the best.)

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr. (1990): One of the great SF short fiction careers in a single book; ferociously intense, bold work, using the full range of the materials of science fiction. My initial reaction to Tiptree is recorded here, along with an extensive debate about the morality of "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?"; a rather better rundown of the book is available in the form of John Clute’s introduction. (Tiptree news: Shamefully overdue, but we may hope that perhaps Her Smoke Rose Up Forever is at last on its way to seeing print in the UK as a Gollancz Masterwork. Please?)

So those are my picks. What are yours?



Niall Harrison is an independent critic based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He is a former editor of Strange Horizons, and his writing has also appeared in The New York Review of Science FictionFoundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, The Los Angeles Review of Books and others. He has been a judge for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and a Guest of Honor at the 2023 British National Science Fiction Convention. His collection All These Worlds: Reviews and Essays is available from Briardene Books.
Current Issue
18 Mar 2024

Strange Horizons
We are very happy to welcome Dante Luiz as a new fiction editor on the team! Dante is a Ignyte Award winning author, and has been with Strange Horizons working as an Art Director for the past several years. We’re stoked to bring him on to the fiction side and have him bring his wonderful insight and skill to the fiction team.
Day in and day out, the rough waters of the Pacific slam themselves against the protrusion of sandstone the locals refer to as Morro Rock. White streaks of bird shit bleed down the rock, a testament to the rare birds of prey that nest in its pocked face overlooking the bay.
in my defence, juggling biological and artificial, i tripped over my shoelace, and spilled my lungs empty of the innocence that was, before guilt.
the birds, / who carry with them / the many names of the dead
Wednesday: Overlap: The Lives of a Former Time Jumper by N. Joseph Glass 
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Issue 29 Jan 2024
Issue 15 Jan 2024
Issue 8 Jan 2024
Issue 1 Jan 2024
Load More
%d bloggers like this: