Your Favorite Sci-Fi Author's Favorite Sci-Fi Book

In a piece for The Week, Neuromancer author William Gibson offered up six of his favorite books.  Of Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren, he wrote, “Dhalgren is the closest thing science fiction has produced to a genuinely experimental novel. All the action is set in and around a Midwestern city that's vanished into a weird, lawless catastrophe that functions as a sort of black hole. Not for everyone, but if you like it, you never forget it. Dhalgren reads like the Sixties felt.”

More than one bestselling science fiction author listed Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama as a must-read. In a piece for Amazon, Andy Weir (author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary) said, "It’s a genuine classic, an unforgettable story about a group of explorers encountering a giant alien starship. You may think a science-heavy book written during the disco era might not hold up in the modern day, but you’d be wrong."

In an interview, The Three-Body Problem author Liu Cixin said, "Arthur C. Clarke’s works have had a big influence on me. My style was influenced in a big way by 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama. I have said that all my works are poor imitations of Clarke’s works." High praise, considering that Cixin is hugely successful in his own right.

Ray Bradbury wasn't subtle in his praise of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In a series of interviews, Bradbury said, “Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world.”

Unfortunately, the iconic science fantasy series might be best-known at the moment for the somewhat ill-fated 2012 film adaptation, John Carter. However, there's a reason the enduring story is still being told 100 years after Princess of Mars, the first book in the series, first published in 1912.

When reader Kevin Quick reached out to Red Rising author Pierce Brown on Twitter, he asked about book recommendations for new science fiction readers. One of Brown's answers was Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, the 1974 novel that won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards for best novel. A commentary on soldiers' experience during the Vietnam War, The Forever War is often considered a reply to John Scalzi's favorite science fiction book, which is next on this list.

In a Twitter conversation with a reader, John Scalzi credited four stories in particular for the inspiration behind his bestselling Old Man's War. Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers probably comes as no surprise to those who have read both works, and Hyperion by Dan Simmons is a science fiction classic. Some might be surprised, however, at the last two pieces of inspiration: the Half-Life video game series and the Tom Cruise-Meg Ryan romantic comedy, Sleepless in Seattle. 

In a piece for The Week, Scalzi added some of his other favorite science fiction stories, seen below.

It probably comes as no surprise that the author of The Hunger Games enjoys some good dystopian fiction. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly,  Suzanne Collins said, “It’s embarrassing to admit how many times I’ve read [1984].” She also listed other dystopian classics like Lord of the Flies and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. However, you might be surprised to see the number of fantasy titles within Collins's list of favorites, including Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price and The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer.

Martha Wells, perhaps best known for The Murderbot Diaries, offered Tor.com a fantastic list of science fiction stories that she loved as both a child and as an adult. Among the stories that first introduced Wells to science fiction and made her fall in love with the genre were Mirabile by Janet Kagan, a collection of short stories that include genetic mutants like the Lock Moose Monster. She said, "Early favorites that I re-read a lot were Mirabile by Janet Kagan, The Door into Summer by Diane Duane, and A Judgement of Dragons by Phyllis Gotlieb."

However, Wells was quick to recommend several great science fiction works for adults as well, which are added below.