I'm a diehard sci-fi (and sci-fi horror) fan--books, films, and series. I don't remember the first sci-fi book I read that got me hooked on the genre. Perhaps it was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle when we were children. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells was another book that fascinated us as children. My parents were good at introducing us to different literary genres. The Andromeda Strain was published in 1969 and I probably read it around 1970 or so. I also read C.S. Lewis' The Space Trilogy when I was a teenager, and This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. To enjoy sci-fi, one must be able to let go of one's own world and enter into new and unknown worlds created by the authors and accept that those worlds may be nothing like one's own. That was never a problem for me. The appeal of sci-fi is likely different for each person, but there are some common elements. Part of the appeal was likely escapist when I was younger; now the appeal is more a fascination with dystopian themes and with other worlds, unknown worlds, the universe, time travel, parallel worlds--in short, fascination with stepping outside of the natural laws and our world (outer and inner) in order to experience other worlds. Judging by the interest in sci-fi, I think we will always be fascinated by the possibility of doing just that. I think man has always looked up at the stars and wondered what was out there. Or looked around at ordinary life and happenings and asked--what if they were different or changed, or completely unlike what we could ever imagine? Man has always been both fascinated by and afraid of the unknown and of the dark. Monsters and aliens may live there, and they may not be friendly to mankind. Even so, I would love to be able to travel through time to other worlds if I could do so via a transporter or through a wormhole, just as long as I could return to the safety of my own world when I wanted. That's asking a lot, but in the sci-fi realm, anything is possible.
- Ray Bradbury--The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451
- Stanislaw Lem--Solaris
- Philip K. Dick--Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
- Michael Crichton--The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, Timeline
- Neil Gaiman--Coraline, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, The Graveyard Book
- John Wyndham--The Day of the Triffids
- C.S. Lewis--The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength)
- H.P. Lovecraft--The Best of H.P. Lovecraft (falls into the horror fiction genre, but many of his stories would qualify as sci-fi horror)
- Isaac Asimov--Fantastic Voyage, The End of Eternity
- David Lindsay--A Voyage to Arcturus
- Aldous Huxley--Brave New World
- George Orwell--1984
- H.G. Wells--The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man
- Ira Levin--This Perfect Day
- Forbidden Planet
- The Blob
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Soylent Green
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Star Wars
- The Man Who Fell to Earth
- Westworld
- Alien
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers
- Aliens
- Blade Runner
- Brazil
- Deep Impact
- Event Horizon
- Jurassic Park
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park
- Men in Black
- Alien3
- Alien Resurrection
- The Day After Tomorrow
- I Am Legend
- WALL-E
- Jurassic Park III
- 28 Days Later
- District 9
- Pitch Black
- Minority Report
- Solaris
- Another Earth
- IO
- Extinction
- I Origins
- Prometheus
- Interstellar
- The Martian
- Oblivion
- Edge of Tomorrow
- Alien: Covenant
- Arrival
- Ex Machina
- A Quiet Place
- Blade Runner 2049
- Jurassic World
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
- Raised By Wolves (HBO series)
