In this issue

• Holiday Suggestions
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We often talk with each other about what books we’ve read, so this month we decided to share our list of all-time favorite sci-fi and fantasy books with you. We have similar interests, such as historical fiction, sci-fi grounded in real-world science, realistic characters, and epic fantasy world-building, so there was some overlap. We also learned some things about each other and ourselves. We seem to both gravitate toward classical sci-fi and “Golden Age” authors such as Asimov, Clarke, and Bradbury, and our shared enthusiasm for Neil Gaiman’s works rang out clearly in the fantasy arena. But we each found something new in the other’s picks as well.

This isn’t a “best of sci-fi and fantasy” list; it’s the books that we think of as memorable, influential, and fun. You have probably heard of many of these before, but maybe haven’t read them yet. With the holidays upon us, and good reasons to spend more time at home than ever this year, why not pick a few options from our list, settle in with a hot drink, and fly off to far flung worlds or go on fantastical quests in magical lands for a while? Or order a physical book from our Bookshop.org shop to put under the tree. You might just ignite the love of reading in someone new.

Our Top Ten Science Fiction

Foundation Trilogy

Isaac Asimov

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Using the mathematics of Pyschohistory, Hari Seldon predicts the downfall of Galactic civilization, and how to reboot it. Seldon establishes a Foundation to guide the Galaxy through the dark ages, preserving knowledge for the eventual rennaisance. But there are more layers to Seldon’s plan than anyone knows.

Rendezvous with Rama

Arthur C. Clarke

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A survey craft finds a alien artifact as large a small world as it slingshots around the sun. In a few short weeks they try to learn its secrets before it leaves the solar system forever. In the warmth of the sun, automatic systems awaken to do housekeeping. But where are the builders?

The Martian

Andy Weir

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Mark Watney is stranded on the surface of Mars during a deadly dust storm. He has to use every survival skill and all the science he knows to survive and get word to Earth that he’s out there. But the only rescue ship is months away.

Childhood’s End

Arthur C. Clarke

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Aliens intervene as earth teeters on the brink of nuclear war. They usher in a new age of peace and plenty. But if they are purely benovolent, why won’t they show their faces?

Stranger in a Strange Land

Robert A. Heinlein

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Michael Valentine Smith, raised by Martians, must learn how to be human. In the process, he teaches his family and followers how to be more than human. This classic from the early sixties is still relevant today.

The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury

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When Earthlings venture to Mars, they find wonders and terrors, strange beings, and unimagined dangers. A classic collection of mystical tales of an enigmatic future.

The Mote in God’s Eye

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

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Humanity’s first contact with aliens – three-armed beings bottled up on their world by an accident of cosmic geometry. They’re inventive and charming, and quite possibly dangerous.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Walter Miller

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In a small monastery, 600 years after a nuclear war, the first stirrings of science are felt again. Three related post-apocalyptic stories that touch on the nature of humanity.

Ancillary Justice

Anne Leckie

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Breq is searching an icy world for a missing weapon. She is not sure why she searches or who she is. She feels that she was once something different. Something much larger…

The Engines of God

Jack McDevitt

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Humans have found alien monuments on many planets. All different, all beautiful. And they just might hold the key to our survival.

Our Top Ten Fantasy

American Gods

Neil Gaiman

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Shadow is employed by the mysterious Mr Wednesday after he is released from prison. He tells Shadow that the old gods are gathering, and there is a reckoning coming. Shadow is skeptical, but the pay is good. But strange things keep happening wherever Mr Wednesday goes…

The Lord of the Rings

J R R Tolkien

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The battle for Middle Earth, and how the smallest heroes are often more important than the greatest ones. The trilogy that launched the entire epic fantasy genre. If you’ve only seen the movie, you’ve missed countless referrences to events in Tolkein’s orginal.

Nine Princes in Amber

Roger Zelazny

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Amber is the one true realm, of which all others are shadows. Corwin, Prince of Amber, awakens from a coma in a hospital, and starts on the path the leads back to the throne of Amber. A pack of playing cards that can summon his allies and enemies is his first clue to his destiny.

Lord Valentine’s Castle

Robert Silverberg

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Valentine is a simple man with no past, who takes up with a circus troupe as a juggler. There is another Valentine – the ruler of the land – and their fates are intertwined in mysterious ways. The metaphore of juggling as a meditation permeates this wonderful tale.

I Shall Wear Midnight

Terry Pratchett

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Tiffany Aching is a young witch, learning the tedious, simple tasks that her community depends on. When a shadow falls over the land, Tiffany has strength that even the elder witches do not. Not the first book in the Tiffany Aching series, but the finest of them all.

Mythgo Wood

Robert Holdstock

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Ryope is 10 square miles of woods, yet an almost limitless space inside, and the further one goes, the older it is. George Huxley died exploring here, and now his sons seek its secrets, as ancient creatures of myth and dream escape and roam the hedgerows in the night.

Neverwhere

Neil Gaiman

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Richard Mayhew lived a normal life in London, until he helped a stranger on the street. Now no one can see him, or remember him. He’s entered London Below, a shadow city of everything fantastical, both good and evil.

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman

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As a toddler, Bod fled a gruesome murder in his home, and took refuge in a nearby graveyard. Kindly ghosts have raised him, and taught him about about the world, and some ghostly skills as well. Now he must face his family’s killer.

Twelve Kings in Sharakhai

Bradley P. Beaulieu

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Sharakhai, an ancient desert city, is ruled by twelve immortal, invincible kings. Ceda survives as a gladiator until one night when, forbidden, she ventures into the desert on a holy night. What she learns could change everything. Or destroy her.

Mistborn

Brandon Sanderson

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The ash-covered land has been ruled with an iron hand for a thousand years. Now a band of misfits has rediscovered an ancient alchemy that gives them hope of overthrowing that rule. A heist novel, an epic fantasy, and one of the best magic systems ever invented.