I could recommend science fiction books until the cows come home, so for reasons of brevity, I'm going to quickly suggest ten novels no-one should go through life without reading at least once.

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury -

A glimpse of a possible future where the very act of owning a book has been made illegal. Gripping, and somewhat disturbing, especially when you realise that it's not a million miles away from present day society.

Ringworld, by Larry Niven -

The experiences of a ship's crew who discover a ring-shaped world, roughly the size of Earth's orbit around the sun. Niven does two things consistently well in all his books, both of which show up well here. The first is that he can convincingly portray alien characters; they have motives and personalities that are clearly not human. This makes a nice change from the usual Star Trek approach of 'give them some prosthetic makeup and that'll do'. Secondly is his sense of scale. In Ringworld and its sequels, you're dealing with a planet with billions of times the surface area of any planet you can name, and Niven exploits this to the full.

Hyperion, by Dan Simmons -

Almost a series of novelettes, this book deals with the stories of six survivors of the mysterious Shrike, and the ruinous effect it had upon their lives. I read a lot of science fiction, and a lot of it is very good. A few manage to be breathtakingly well written. Simmons definitely falls into this category.

The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K Dick -

Perhaps the definitive alternate Earth story; a disturbingly convincing look at an America where the Axis won World War II.

Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut -

It's Kurt Vonnegut. If this means nothing to you, you really need to read this now...

Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson -

Debatably not even science fiction, but usually classed as such, Stephenson's seminal novel deals with the history and implementation of cryptology, from the Enigma code-breakers up to the modern day.

The Time Machine, by HG Wells -

One of the classics of science fiction, exactly what the title suggests. Well written, easily readable.

The Reality Dysfunction, by Peter F Hamilton -

What starts out as a rather generic space opera takes an unexpected twist approximately halfway through the first book of this trilogy, and becomes something quite, quite different...

Excession, by Iain M Banks -

Again, Banks is an author who it's difficult to recommend one book from, as they are all excellent, but this is the first thing of his I read, and I was hooked. Huge, continent sized sentient starships, constructed orbital worlds not unlike Niven's Ringworld, convincing alien civilisations, and a dark streak of humour underlying it all.

Neuromancer, by William Gibson -

I've reviewed this more fully on Helium, but needless to say, this is the definitive example of the Cyberpunk genre, a multiple award winner, and very easy to get into.

Learn more about this author, Dave Simmons.
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