A Beginner's Guide to Science Fiction/Fantasy

2015 was not a good year for me, book-wise. It turns out, gainful employment is actually is lot of work. Which, really, it shouldn't have been a surprise but it still, you know, sucks. A lot. Mostly because I still buy a lot of books, but don't actually get around to reading them. Like. Ever.

It's a problem.

Luckily, however, even when I'm not reading a lot, I'm still reading more per month than most people read in a year. Which, I mean, it fucks with my sleep cycle a lot, but that's- Who cares about that, is what I'm saying.

So.

This is how we're tackling this problem.

The books have been collected into little sets, starting with the absolutely vital, touching upon the most important, digressing into some of my personal favourites and meandering through a couple of handy collections for when you need a very specific kind of book.

idk it's kind of mess? i make up a lot of words here, mostly because i've been reading vikram seth again. (note: the Capital Letters i forget are because of e. e. cummings)

let me live, guys.

 

These lists are not afraid of recommending you books that are aimed at eight-year-olds, okay? There is Dr. Seuss here, and that is important.

The Bare Minimums:

1. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
2. Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
3. Star Wars (Adapted Screenplay) by George Lucas
4. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
5. Foundation by Isaac Asimov

The Staple Reads:

1. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
2. A Song of Ice and Fire: A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin 
3. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
4. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
5. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

The Quirksome:

1. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
3. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
4. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
5. The Witches by Roald Dahl

The Dystopian Standard:

1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
2. 1984 by George Orwell
3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4. The Giver by Lois Lowry
5. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishigiro

Personal Favourites:

1. The Ellimist Chronicles by K. A. Applegate
2. A Wizard in Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
3. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
4. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
5. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
6. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
7. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
8. Toys by James Patterson

The Modern Classics:

1. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
2. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
3. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
4. Neuromancer by William Gibson
5. The Gunslinger by Stephen King

Non-terrible books aimed at 16-year-olds (and below):

1. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick RIordan
2. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
3. Gone by Michael Grant
4. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
5. The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Just read everything this author has written okay, ALL OF IT IS EXCELLENT:

1. Neil Gaiman, aka my entire religion
2. Rick Riordan
3. Stephen King
4. George Orwell
5. Roald Dahl

Enfin, the last list here, sorted with a weirdly obsessive sort of precision. The order here is how good the book has been so far, and how good I expect it to be. All these books are half-finished, and nearly all of them are scattered throughout my room in varying degrees of unreadness. Books are the full reason I'm broke, not even kidding.

What I'm saying is- the further down this list you go, the more exponentially the level of awesome of the book is. Ready Player One, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is Harry Potter, is like, a 14 right now.

Micro, on the other hand, is a negative 43.

So.

Here goes,

The Unfinished:

1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges
3. The FIre Thief by Terry Deary
4. The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
5. The 5th Wave by Rick Yancy
6. Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves
7. Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett
8. Screwed by Eoin Colfer
9. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
10. Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston

A couple of disclaimers:

A lot of these books are parts of series, in which case I have simply mentioned the first part of the series. In several other cases, I am only partly through the book, but it is popular and old and fucking incredibly brilliant enough that I just chucked it in in the other lists.

Except ASOIAF. I haven't read ASOIAF. I don't plan to either. Sue me, you dickless Crows.

K, you're welcome. I have to go figure out how to (legally) watch Sherlock tonight.