The History of Science Fiction and Fantasy And Summaries of Great Books to Read

I love science fiction and fantasy and have read thousands of these books during my life. I started by reading sci fi comic books as a child, then graduated to sci fi novels and fantasy. This genre exposed me to science and technology and is probably one of the main reasons I became an engineer.

In recent years I’ve written and published my own science fiction novels which gives me more insight on how to write one of these books from the Author’s perspective.

Although I’ve seen some academic books on the evolution of science fiction I don’t know of any by an avid reader and author on the development of this genre.

I want you the reader to learn about some of the most fascinating stories I’ve read in science fiction and fantasy so you can enjoy them yourselves.

The overall science fiction and fantasy genres have developed lots of sub genres too. We will also cover the common themes of these stories and their evolution.

Finally, there are literally millions of science fiction and fantasy books which have been published so there is no way I can cover even a small fraction of them. Instead I’m focusing on the best novels I’ve read and ones which have become famous as milestones of these genres.

I’ve also reviewed Hugo Award winner novels to see if I had overlooked any Authors. The most important Hugo award winners are also included here.

In general I wanted to include all of my favorite sci fi books from the thousands I’ve read and hope that you will choose to read them too.

For early 20th century authors and later, in each sub chapter on different authors I’ve generally structured them as follows:

• A picture of the Author or their most famous book

• My own comments about the Author and the book or series.

• A summary of the book or series—but not the entire story or you might miss surprises and decide not to read it

• A Biography or Autobiography of the Author